#Martin Freeman Biography
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from my bookshelf
Pytheas of Massalia was a Greek geographer, explorer and astronomer from the ancient Greek colony of Massalia — modern-day Marseille, France. In the late 4th century BC, he voyaged from there to northwestern Europe, but his detailed account of it, On The Ocean, survives only in fragments, quoted — and disputed — by later authors such as Strabo, Pliny and Diodorus of Sicily. The Extraordinary Voyage Of Pytheas the Greek by the noted British historian of ancient maritime Europe, Barry Cunliffe, attempts to draw out the reality of what was an extraordinary sea journey, from the Western Mediterranean north along the Atlantic coast of Europe to the British Isles, then even further north, to the near-mythic land of Thule. Cunliffe makes a strong case for Pytheas being “the first European explorer”, while identifying the most likely locations of Thule, sought so avidly by 19th and early 20th century adventurers and artists.
James Hamilton-Paterson’s Seven-Tenths: The Sea And Its Thresholds, published in 1992, more than two thousand years after Pytheas’s On The Ocean, is an ambitious, expressive exploration of the vast aqueous wilderness that covers three-quarters of our planet by a writer of remarkable literary accomplishment (he was one of Martin Amis’s professors at Oxford). Plumbing humanity’s complex, multi-faceted relationship with the sea, Hamilton-Paterson writes vivid, meditative passages about, well, everything — fishing, piracy, oceanography, cartography, exploration, ecology, the ritual of a burial at sea, poetry, and even his own experiences living for extended periods on a small island in the Philippines.
Tom Neale’s autobiography, An Island To Oneself: Six Years On A Desert Island, describes an altogether smaller, more solitary world: the island of Anchorage, part of the Suwarrow Atoll in the South Pacific. Born in New Zealand in 1902, Neale spent most of his life in Oceania: after leaving the Royal New Zealand Navy, he worked for decades aboard inter-island trading vessels and in various temporary jobs ashore before his first glimpse of his desert island home. He moved to Anchorage in 1952 and over three different periods, lived in hermitic solitude for 16 years, with rare visits from yachtsmen, island traders, and journalists. Among the last was Noel Barber, a close friend of my late father: he gave my father a copy of Neale’s book, in Rome, shortly after it was published in 1966 (I still have it). Neale was taken off his beloved island in 1977 and died not long after of stomach cancer.
The Starship And The Canoe by Kenneth Brower, published in 1978, is an unlikely dual biography of a father and son that draws intriguing parallels between the ambitious ideas of renowned British theoretical physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson — who, in the early 1970s explored concepts for interstellar travel, settlements on comets, and nuclear rockets that might propel mankind to the outer reaches of the universe — and his wayward son, George, who lived in a self-built tree house 30 metres up a Douglas fir overlooking the Strait Of Georgia, in British Columbia and devised large canoes based on Aleut baidarkas in which to paddle north to the wild, uninhabited littoral of southern Alaska. Brower’s descriptions of long passages with the younger Dyson in the cold, sometimes fierce tidal waters between Vancouver Island and the Canadian mainland are gripping and I have read them again and again. It is, unarguably, my favourite book.
The late, New Zealand-born doctor and sailor, David Lewis, is not as widely known as he was half a century ago, even by avid readers of sea stories, but from his earliest memoirs in the 1960s — of his participation in the first-ever singlehanded trans-Atlantic race (The Ship That would Not Sail Due West), and of incident-prone voyages to far-flung coasts with his young family (Dreamers of the Day, Daughters of the Wind, and Children Of Three Oceans) — to his practical, first-hand studies of instrument-less ocean navigation among South Pacific islanders, (We, The Navigators and The Voyaging Stars) in the 1970s, Dr. Lewis was not only the late 20th century’s most remarkable and intelligent writer on the sea and small-boat voyaging but also one of its most adventurous. My favourite of his several books: Ice Bird, published in 1972, an account of a gruelling, almost fatal voyage from Sydney, Australia, in an ill-prepared, steel, 32-foot yacht to achieve the first singlehanded circumnavigation of Antarctica.
It’s said that spending time anywhere with Lorenzo Ricciardi, late ex-husband of Italian photographer Mirella Ricciardi, was an adventure. A film-maker and former senior advertising executive, once described by a British writer as “a penniless Neapolitan count”, he gambled at roulette to raise enough money to buy an Arab dhow, which, in the 1970s, with little seafaring experience and plenty of mishaps, he sailed from Dubai to the Arabian Gulf, and from there down the Arabian to coast of Africa, where the dhow was shipwrecked among the Comoros Islands. The Voyage Of The Mir El Ah is Lorenzo’s picaresque account (illustrated by Mirella’s photographs). Astoundingly, several years later, Lorenzo and Mirella Ricciardi completed an even more dangerous, 6,000-kilometre voyage across Equatorial Africa in an open boat — and another book, African Rainbow: Across Africa By Boat.
Italian madmen aside, it used to be that you could rely on surfers for poor impulse control and reckless adventures, on the water and off. Back in the late 1990s, Allan Weisbecker sold his home, loaded his dog and a quiver of surfboards onto a truck, and drove south from the Mexican border into Central America to figure out what had happened to an old surfing buddy — in between checking out a few breaks along the way. In Search Of Captain Zero: A Surfer's Road Trip Beyond The End Of The Road is a memoir of a two-year road-trip that reads like a dope-fuelled fiction but feels more real than William Finnegan’s somewhat high-brow (and more successful) Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life.
Which brings me to Dana and Ginger Lamb. In 1933, these newly-weds would certainly have been looked at askance by most of their middle-American peers when they announced that they weren’t ready yet to settle down and instead built a 16-foot hybrid canoe-sailboat and set of on what would turn out to be a 16,000-mile, three year journey down the Pacific coasts of Mexico, Guatemala, Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica to the Panama Canal. Dana’s 415-page book, Enchanted Vagabonds, published in 1938, was an unexpected New York Times best-seller and today is more exciting to read than the ungainly, yawn-inducing books produced by so many, more commercially-minded, 21st century adventurers.
First published in Sirene, No. 17, Italy, 2023.
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[BERLIN 2023] SÉLECTION
La Berlinale débute ce jeudi et se déroulera jusqu’au dimanche 26 février. Rendez-vous à partir de jeudi sur notre page dédiée pour suivre en direct notre couverture de cette édition !
COMPÉTITION
Films datés :
08/03 : ‘Music’ d’Angela Schanelec
12/04 : ‘Suzume’ de Makoto Shinkai
19/04 : ‘Sur l’Adamant’ de Nicolas Philibert
03/05 : ‘Disco Boy’ de Giacomo Abbruzzese
06/09 : ‘Le Ciel Rouge’ de Christian Petzold
06/09 : ‘Le Grand Chariot’ de Phillipe Garrel
11/10 : ‘Mal Viver’ de João Canijo
13/12 : ‘The Survival of Kindness’ de Rolf de Heer
13/12 : ‘Nos vies d’avant’ de Celine Song
14/02/24 : ‘20 000 espèces d’abeilles’ d’Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren
Films non datés :
‘Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything’ d’Emily Atef
‘Manodrome’ de John Trengove
‘Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert’ de Margarethe Von Trotta
‘BlackBerry’ de Matt Johnson
‘Till the End of the Night’ de Christoph Hochhäusler
‘The Shadowless Tower’ de Zhang Lu
‘Limbo’ d’Ivan Sen
‘Art College 1994’ de Liu Jian
‘Tótem’ de Lila Avilés
ENCOUNTERS
Films datés :
11/10 : ‘Viver Mal’ de João Canijo
17/04/24 : ‘White Plastic Sky’ de Tibor Bánóczki et Sarolta Szabó
Films non datés :
‘In Water’ de Hong Sang-soo
‘Orlando, ma biographie politique’ de Paul B. Preciado
‘The Adults’ de Dustin Guy Defa
‘The Echo’ de Tatiana Huezo
‘The Klezmer Project’ de Leandro Koch et Paloma Schachmann
‘Here’ de Bas Devos
‘In the Blind Spot’ d’Ayse Polat
‘The Cage Is Looking for a Bird’ de Malinka Mustaeva
‘Mon pire ennemi’ de Mehran Tamadon
‘Family Time’ de Tia Kuovo
‘The Walls of Bergamo’ de Stefano Savona
‘Samsara’ de Lois Patiño
‘Eastern Front’ de Vitaly Mansky et Yevhen Titarenko
‘Absence’ de Wu Lang
PANORAMA
Films datés :
28/06 : ‘Passages’ d’Ira Sachs
28/06 : ‘La Sirène’ de Spidah Farsi
05/07 : ‘Au cimetière de la pellicule’ de Thierno Souleymane Diallo
16/08 : ‘La Bête dans la jungle’ de Patric Chiha
23/08 : ‘Reality’ de Tina Satter
20/09 : ‘Silver Haze’ de Sacha Polak (DVD)
18/10 : ‘A l’intérieur’ de Vasilis Katsoupis
25/10 : ‘Sisi & I’ de Frauke Finsterwalder
29/11 : ‘Kokomo City’ de D. Smith
Films non datés :
‘Perpetrator’ de Jennifer Reeder
‘Adversaire’ de Milad Alami
‘After’ d’Anthony Lapia
‘All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White’ de Babatunde Apalowo
‘Al Murhagoon’ d’Amr Gamal
‘Ambush’ de Chhatrapal Ninawe
‘And, Towards Happy Alleys’ de Sreemoyee Singh
‘El Castillo’ de Martin Benchimoi
‘Do You Love Me?’ de Tonia Noyabrova
‘Drifter’ de Hannes Hirsch
‘The Eternal Memory’ de Maite Alberdi
‘Femme’ de Sam H. Freeman et Ng Choon Pin
‘Green Night’ de Han Shuai
‘Hello Darkness’ de Soda Jerk
‘Heroic’ de David Zonana
‘Joan Baez I Am a Noise’ de Karen O’Connor, Miri Navasky et Maeve O’Boyle
‘Matria’ d’Álvaro Gago
‘Property’ de Daniel Bandeira
‘Sages-femmes’ de Léa Fehner
‘Sira’ d’Apolline Traoré
‘Stams’ de Bernhard Braunstein
‘Stille Liv’ de Malene Choi
‘Transfarina’ de Joris Lachaise
‘The Teachers’ de Loungeİlker Çatak
‘Under the Sky of Damascus’ de Heba Khaled, Talal Derki et Ali Wajeeh
BERLIN SPECIALS
Films datés :
31/03 : ‘Kill Bok-soon’ de Byun Sung-hyun (Netflix)
07/04 : ‘Du tennis à la prison : l’histoire de Boris Becker Pt. 1’ d’Alex Gibney (AppleTV+)
07/06 : ‘Dernière nuit à Milan’ d’Andrea Di Stefano
26/07 : ‘La Main’ de Danny Philippou et Michael Philippou
Films non datés :
‘Infinity Pool’ de Brandon Cronenberg
‘Laggiù qualcuno mi ama’ de Mario Martone
‘She Came to Me’ de Rebecca Miller
‘Superpower’ de Sean Penn et Aaron Kaufman
‘Golda’ de Guy Nattiv
‘Kiss the Future’ de Nenad Cicin-Sain
‘Loriots große Trickfilmrevue’ de Peter Geyer et Loriot
‘#Manhole’ de Kazuyoshi Kumakiri
‘Ming On’ de Soi Cheang
‘Seneca’ de Robert Schwentke
‘Sonne und Beton’ de David Wnendt
‘Der vermessene Mensch’ de Lars Kraume
A&B
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Who Is Angelyne?
The lady known as Angelyne originally showed up in a band in the last part of the 1970s in Los Angeles. She Angelyne Biography joined her beau's band, Baby Blue, as a vocalist, playing in L.A. clubs. However, the TV series plays with what could conceivably have ended up separating both the band and Angelyne and her sweetheart, clarifying that Angelyne and others associated with this story might see things in an unexpected way. It closes with Angelyne going through plastic medical procedure to improve her bosoms and change her face into that of the lady the vast majority are know about at this point.
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From that point the series investigates how Angelyne had the option to get bulletins of her picture put around the city. Many have pondered who bankrolled the bulletins, and the series dives into her relationship with Hugo Maisnik, a wedded more seasoned man whom she worked with (and who turned into her chief) to make the boards a reality. "Achievement is a high better than any medication, and frankly, I got sort of dependent on the consideration. I turned into a board addict," she said in a 2019 meeting. At a certain point there were in excess of 200 boards across the city with her picture on them. Alongside delivering two collections, Angelyne fiddled with acting and craftsmanship — however from the second those announcements hit Los Angeles, her everyday occupation was being popular.
The Making of the Series
To become Angelyne, Rossum wore three-pound counterfeit bosoms, contact focal points, weighty cosmetics, and a blonde hairpiece, once in a while going through four to five hours in the cosmetics seat every day. "The genuineness of the person was testing. The body is weighty, yet it needs to feel light and bubbly," expressed Rossum in a new meeting with The Hollywood Reporter.
Briefly maybe Angelyne would be engaged with the series, marking on as a leader maker in the wake of meeting with Rossum. "So eager to have the option to share that the encapsulation of LA itself, the first Queen of the Universe, is the chief maker of our show!" Rossum posted on Instagram in February of 2020 close by a photograph of herself with the symbol and her pink Corvette.
Yet, it turned out unrealistic. Eventually, Angelyne was paid for her life privileges however chose to move away from the venture. She doesn't get an E.P. credit, as indicated by The Hollywood Reporter.
In the series, Alex Karpovsky stars as Jeff Glasner, the writer character in view of The Hollywood Reporter's Gary Baum, who composed the 2017 article. Hamish Linklater plays Rick Krause, the leader of the Angelyne group of followers who develops close with her, and Martin Freeman plays Harold Wallach, a person in light of Maisnik.
The True Angelyne
Until The Hollywood Reporter's article penniless open the genuine story, Angelyne had for the most part professed to be a lone youngster from a Midwestern state — that is, the point at which she was ready to discuss her past by any means. Yet, Baum's story uncovered that she was brought into the world in Poland with the name Renee Tami Goldberg and was the girl of Holocaust survivors who moved to Los Angeles when she was youthful.
In both reality and the TV series, Angelyne has not affirmed the subtleties of Baum's story and has generally avoided inquiries concerning it. "At the point when I became well known, a many individuals simply needed to be essential for it, so they'll say anything," she said in light of the article. She appears not entirely set in stone to stay a secret, in spite of what others might expect to gain from both that 2017 article and this new series.
The makers of Angelyne, as far as concerns them, embrace the persona that Angelyne has made as the first powerhouse. "We don't actually consider it a biopic. We nearly feel like it's a show about the disappointment of biopics and how it's basically impossible that we could take care of business," showrunner Allison Miller told Variety. The show toys with this concept of what may be valid and the amount of Angelyne's story is created through her own effort. Eventually, we might in all likelihood never have a deep understanding of how Angelyne turned into the lady she is today, and the show appears to be sufficiently content to investigate that thought. In any case, it'll in any case be a tomfoolery ride in one bright pink Corvette.
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Uma Repórter em Apuros (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot), 2016
#uma repórter em apuros#whiskey tango foxtrot#tina fey#margot robbie#martin freeman#comédia#comedy#drama#biografía#biography#filmes#movie#2016#glenn ficarra#john requa#kim baker
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Hi, can I ask for some tips on typing (whether it's about MBTI, enneagram or instinctual variant) when watching celebrities interview? I want to practice a little
To be honest, I don't type celebrities off of interviews so much as I read about them, absorb quotes from them, observe their interaction style, and gather information from biographies about them, so I'm not sure I can offer much insight in terms of "what to look for" in video interviews -- I suppose you could look for the stances, as a place to start with their Enneagram types
Withdrawn -- doesn't seem overly connected to the interviewer, but separate, and may emphasize their separation (9 being pleasant but a bit ethereal; 4 being picky and correcting / steering things; 5 being detached, distant, and analytical or observant)
Assertive -- steering the conversation, taking charge of the interview, and being dominant in how they manage the flow of energy (7 being outrageous or funny; 8 being dominant and focused, or staying in control or challenging the interviewer; 3 being likable, adaptive, and seeming to sense what the audience wants from them and playing to it)
Dependent -- moving 'toward' the interviewer, being able to connect, but presenting different forms of energy; the 1 gives off firm boundaries but a sort of stiffness in their presentation (formality, but it's soft); 2s are bubbly, good-natured, and eager to connect and be liked, appealing to the audience while managing their image; 6s are good-natured, use humor to poke fun at themselves, and give an 'everyman' sense of presentation (please like me, I'm harmless).
MBTI-wise, that's harder to grasp unless you focus on what they like to talk about and draw attention to; most of the so-called NFJ celebs actually talk about sensory activities and interests, rather than pulling into abstractions. That's where you need to look at their career -- to compare someone like Cate Blanchett (NFJ) who is careful to manage her career for the long term (avoiding being typecast or playing the same sort of role twice in a row), which hints at Ni even though she says no one can ever clearly see their future; vs someone who lives in the present and takes whatever is at hand. You can sometimes sense a function by the absence of an obvious alternative function -- Ian McKellen, another INFJ, isn't particularly Ni in his interviews, but he is exceedingly warm and likable, very Fe in his presentation, and has an obvious 'lack of' Si when he talks.
I mostly look for Fe > Fi (warmth and others-focus in interviews; pulling things back to the person you are talking to and connecting, vs being distant and more "me-based"), the perceiving functions are harder to spot in interviews unless they are giving off strong Ne vibes (chaotic thoughts, easily bouncing around and changing conversations, going with the flow of things). Lower Fe is also easy to spot sometimes because it's charming but somewhat blunt and not always socially appropriate (like Martin Freeman flipping off people as Bilbo Baggins, or Benedict Cumberbatch steamrolling his costars and taking up all the air space in their coed interviews; he is not an INFJ, he is an ESTP :P).
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31 Hollywood Icons Who Served in the U.S. Military
On this Memorial Day, millions of Americans across the country are honoring our military heroes, observing, and reflected on those who made the ultimate sacrifice. This list highlights some of the actors, directors, singers, producers, and entertainers who’ve served in the U.S. military.
From Hollywood’s earliest days, artists have served in the U.S. armed forces. Some had broader experiences than others in service to the country And many Hollywood greats served in World War II.
Jimmy Stewart
James Stewart not only joined the US Air Force in 1941, he ended his service in 1968 as a Brigadier General in the USAF Reserves. Stewart’s service was not for show, either. He flew many bombing missions over Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe.
Kirk Douglas
The famed movie tough guy joined the US Navy in 1941 and served as a communications officer in anti-submarine warfare. He received a medical discharge thanks to war injuries in 1944.
Clark Gable
Though he was already a veritable old man in soldier years, Gable joined the U.S. Army Air Corp at 43 and few five combat missions as an observer-gunner. Gable joined after his wife, Carol Lombard, died in a plane crash while flying home after a tour to promote war bonds.
Audie Murphy
Maj. Audie Murphy went into the Army as a private and won many battle field promotions. He is one of the most widely decorated actors in Hollywood history. He is the only actor/celebrity to be awarded the Congressional Medal Of Honor. In addition, he was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars, a Legion of Merit with Combat V, and two Bronze Stars with Combat V. He also received several foreign awards were especially impressive. He received the French Forrager, Legion of Honor, and Croix de Guerre with Palm and Silver Star, and the Belgian Croix de Guerre 1940 with Palm.
Other stars of the era who served include Jason Robards (Navy 1941), Paul Newman (Navy, 1943), and Mel Brooks (Army, 1944). Then there was singer and dancer Josephine Baker who was a secret collaborator with the French Resistance to the Nazi invaders and was even awarded the Croix de Guerre as a spy for her work to defeat the Nazis. Several others served in the forces of their native nations including David Niven (Royal Army), Sir Alec Guinness (Royal Navy), and Audrey Hepburn (Dutch Resistance), and Star TrekActor James Doohan (Royal Canadian Army). Doohan was part of the D-Day invasion forces, was wounded six times losing a finger in the process, and later joined the Canadian Air Force as a pilot.
Ronald Reagan
Our 40th president, Ronald Reagan, was already a star when he joined the war effort. He served in the Army Air Force during World War II, enlisting in the Army Enlisted Reserve on 29 April 1937 and ordered to active duty on April 19, 1942. Because of his eyesight, he was not assigned to an air crew and instead helped make over 400 training films for the Army Air Force.
Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier, the first black American to win an Academy Award, enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II in November of 1943. He served as a physiotherapist for almost a year, even though he lied about his age, as he was only 16 when he joined.
B.B. King
B.B. King, one of the greatest blues guitarists, was inducted into the U.S. Army in 1944, but was quickly released back into civilian life following boot camp because the government deemed his original profession — a tractor-trailer driver — to be vital to the war economy.
Hugh Hefner
Later to be known as the swinger editor of Playboy Magazine, Hugh Hefner joined the U.S. Army in 1944 after graduating high school. Hef didn’t see any acton, though, and was discharged in 1946 after serving as an Amy newspaperman and infantry clerk.
Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett, the legendary “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” crooner, was drafted during World War II in 1944 and assigned to the 63rd Infantry Division, or “Blood and Fire” division, fighting in France and Germany. Being a “replacement” was not an easy job as the war was winding down in Europe. About half these soldiers died in the months after basic training in 1944 and the end of the war in Europe in Sept. of 1945.
After the big war, many others continued the tradition, of course.
Gene Hackman
The actor, who won an Academy Award for Best Actor in The French Connection, enlisted in the Marine Corps the year after World War Two ended in1946. He lied about his age to get accepted, as he was only 16 when he enlisted.
Willie Nelson
The Always On My Mind singer volunteered for the U.S. Army in 1950. However, he only served nine months and was given a medical discharge due to severe back problems.
Johnny Cash
Johnny “The Man In Black” Cash enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1950. After basic training at Lackland Air Force Base and technical training at Brooks Air Force Base, both in San Antonio, Texas, he was assigned to the 12th Radio Squadron Mobile of the U.S. Air Force Security Service at Landsberg, West Germany. He mustered out in 1954.
Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood was drafted in 1951 for service during the Korean War. Eastwood saw no action, though, and spent his service at Ft. Ord in California, where he was appointed as a lifeguard and projectionist of training films.
David Janssen
Perhaps best known as the man on the lam in the 60s TV series, The Fugitive, Janssen didn’t escape the U.S. Army having served from 1952 to 1954 at Fort Ord, California. He saw no action during the Korean War as he served in the entertainment division during his two-year stint.
Martin Milner
Like his army pals Clint Eastwood and David Janssen, Adam 12 star Martin Milner served a two-year stint in the Army and was based at Fort Ord, California. Also like his buddies Eastwood and Janssen, there he worked in the entertainment sector. He mustered out in 1954 and went right into TV and film work in Hollywood.
Robert Duvall
Robert Duvall enlisted in the U.S. Army after graduating from Principia College in 1953. Duvall has disputed early biographies that claimed he fought during the Korean War, though. He has joked that he “barely qualified” with his M-1 rifle in basic training. He served two years, and never got past the rank of private first class.
Leonard Nimoy
Later to become famous as Star Trek’s half human, half alien Mr Spock, Leonard Nimoy enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve at Fort McPherson, Georgia. He served for 18 months between 1953 and 1955. Nimoy also worked in the Army’s Special Services narrating plays and performing in training films.
James Earl Jones
The voice of Star Wars villain Darth Vader, a man who has been referred to as “one of the greatest actors in American history,” served in the Army during the Korean War, rising to the rank of first lieutenant. Jones missed the war, though, as he started his service in 1953 just as the war was coming to a close.
Alan Alda
Best known for playing an Army surgeon in the TV series M.A.S.H., Alda did serve in the actual military when he volunteered after finishing his studies at Fordham University. He served as a gunnery officer during a six-month tour of duty in the Korean War.
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman turned down a scholarship for acting and instead joined the Air Force in which he served from 1955 to 1959. He served as a radar technician and mustered out as an Airman 1st Class. Freeman has said that he enjoyed his service experience until, that is, he was being scouted to be trained as a jet pilot. He said the reality that war means killing dawned on him at that time and he began to look for the exit door to get back to life as an actor.
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley’s drafting in 1957 was huge news and the media followed him throughout his years of service. Elvis honorably served his term and mustered out as a sergeant in 1960.
Chuck Norris
Famed martial artist Chuck Norris joined the U.S. Air Force in 1958 and served his full term, being discharged in 1962. He was ultimately assigned to Osan Air Base in South Korea where he began to develop his signature martial arts style, Chun Kuk Do.
Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix had a bit less gratifying service having been forced into the Army or face jail time for car theft in 1961. He served only one year before being discharged for an ankle injury. Some researchers suggest that the injury was just the Army’s excuse to be rid of the troublesome rocker.
John Fogerty
Singer-songwriter John Fogerty joined up in 1966 when his draft number neared. He signed up for the United States Army Reserve as a supply clerk. However, he was switched to active duty for six months, anyway, but saw no service under fire. He was discharged honorably in 1968.
Tom Selleck
Tom Selleck was already an actor when he was drafted during the Vietnam War in 1967. He served six years in the the 160th infantry regiment of the California National Guard.
Oliver Stone
The famed director of Platoon served during the Vietnam War from 1967 to 1968 and was wounded twice. He earned the The Bronze Star with V’device and a Purple Heart with one Oak Leaf Cluster.
Pat Sajak
Pat Sajak volunteered for the U.S. Army in 1968. While he saw no battlefield action in Vietnam, Sajak did serve as an Army Radio disc jockey and ended up in country, anyway, when he was assigned to host a radio program on Armed Force Radio broadcasting in Saigon.
R. Lee Ernmey
Everyone knows R. Lee Ermey as the intense drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket, but some may not know that he served in the Marines for a decade, was a real Drill Instructor, and saw service in Vietnam in 1968. He started out as a Repair Shop Mechanic and went on to earn the Good Conduct Medal (x2); the National Defense Service Medal; the Vietnam Service Medal with Bronze Star; the Vietnam Campaign Medal with Device; the Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Palm Unit; Meritorious Unit; the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal; and a Meritorious Unit Citation.
Ice-T
Musician, songwriter, and rapper Tracy Lauren Marrow — better known in the music scene as Ice-T and also for his long-running starring role on TV’s Law & Order SVU — joined the U.S. Army in 1979 after graduating high school. He served the 25th Infantry Division for four years.
Drew Carey
TV funny man and game show host Drew Carey served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves starting in 1980. He was honorably discharged in 1986 and he says that he adopted the Marines crew cut and horn-rimmed glasses as his trademark look due to his service.
Adam Driver
Adam Driver, who found fame as Kylo Ren in the Star Wars series, joined the U.S. Marines shortly after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. He was briefly assigned to the Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, before being medically discharged due to an injury.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.
EntertainmentNational SecurityMemorial Day
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I now this is old news and EVERYONE and their mother (in the community) talked about the book but did you read it? What do you think and what do you think about Omid? Especially lately, since the book came up I feel he stop pretending to be... professional? Sorry if you already talked about this and I just missed it😌
Ok so yes, I have read it and I am in the process of writing up my notes into a post (it was going to be one post but I wrote, like, 3000 words of notes on the prologue so we’re going chapter by chapter baby!)
I’ll leave the “what do you think” part until then but I’ll answer the “what do you think about Omid” part here. I don’t particularly like any royal reporters - I trust some of them more than others (Roya has always had fairly reliable information but that doesn’t mean I’d trust anything they’d write without checking) but I don’t have a “favourite” or think any of them are massively competent journalists. I know Omid’s been around a lot longer than people think and I think when Meghan came on the scene, he placed himself firmly in her camp (not as a leak, but as a supporter) and this gave him a lot of “fame” he hadn’t previously had. He’s no worse than any other royal reporter (and he’s far less prejudiced than some of them) but...
He’s a bad journalist. His articles (and FF for that matter) are so sugary sweet I start to feel physically sick reading them. There’s nothing to his work. Even FF, which could have pulled out and pulled apart the racism in the press and linked it to the conservative nature of a monarchy, refused to point a finger at anyone. It pulled together stories we’d already heard, with other information that was either invented or leaked, and told us nothing. I fully believe he does have a source in the Sussex camp, whether the Sussexes are aware of it or not, and he has essentially built his career on being their “mouthpiece”.
I also don’t think he can call himself a “royal reporter”, especially as, recently, he hasn’t reported on the work of any royals. There’s nothing wrong with covering only Harry and Meghan, but he needs to admit that’s what he’s doing. He’s clearly close to, or at least trusted, by the Sussexes (he was one of the journalists invited to Meghan’s last engagement) so he should use that to cover them, and people like them.
Finding Freedom wasn’t massively professional and I still can’t get over how much he violates the privacy of the people whose privacy he is fighting for. Despite that, it’s not a bad book and certainly is no worse than any other royal biography; they are all sickly sweet, with little new to add to the conversation.
A good example of my problem with Omid is the time he tweeted about William’s work with male suicide, and followed up the tweet with something like “now let’s focus on what matters... SmartWorks”. 0% of me thinks Omid genuinely finds SmartWorks more important than male suicide but it shows the lack of understanding of his job, his lack of proofreading his writing (there are so many grammar mistakes in FF), and his inability to focus on anyone and anything that isn’t one of the Sussexes.
TL;DR I don’t like Omid and I think he’s a poor excuse for a writer and journalist. I think he’s got to where he is by using the Sussexes for fame. I think he hits out at people who are easy targets (Kate, rather than William, Charles or the Queen; and royal staff or courtiers, who lack the resources to defend themselves). I think he calls for privacy and then violates it (think of all the “new information” that came from FF). I also condemn anyone who makes comments on his race or sexuality. I don’t like Martin Freeman either, I don’t expect people to start going after him.
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hi! i hope i'm not bothering you but do you have any recs for biographies/documentaries on ancient rome?
Don’t worry, you’re not bothering me at all! I love to talk about the romans lmao
This is going to focus heavily on the late republic and early empire (mostly julio-claudians) because that’s what I’m interested in and I don’t feel comfortable enough to give recs for other periods of time. Hope you find them sufficient, though!
Non-fiction books:
Kicking off with the Punic Wars, Adrian Goldsworthy has a huge, detailed but still readable work on it, The Punic Wars. It has a heavy focus on the military aspect of things, so expect lots of battles, but you can still see some of the personality of the main players shine through it. My favorite part is actually the one that talks about the socio-economic impact the wars had on roman society, because it helps to explain all the shit that is about to happen.
Mike Duncan, best known for his podcast The History of Rome (highly recommended by the people who listen to it, but I don’t have patience for podcasts lol) has his The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic. Covers the Gracchi brothers, the Social War in Italy and the careers and later conflict of Marius and Sulla. Good stuff! I especially like his analysis of the neverending conflict between the more conservative forces of the Senate and the natural changes that needed to happen with the empire growing.
Starting with the biographies now, I’m not really interested in Julius Caesar, but him being such a big figure, I find it hard not to include something about him. The two biographies I see mentioned more often are Philip Freeman’s Julius Caeasar and Adrian Goldsworthy’s Caesar: Life of a Colossus. Haven’t read either but I guess they are good.
Anthony Everitt is really really readable. I think that Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome’s Greatest Politician is a must read, not only because I love Cicero (though I do lol) but because Cicero had such a long career and interacted with pretty much all the great men of his age (him being a great man himself) and many minor ones too (yes I’m talking about the loml Marcus Caelius Rufus) so you get a pretty complete portrayal of the fall of the Republic. Other than this, his biography on Augustus, Augustus: The Life of Rome’s First Emperor, is, alongside with Adrian Goldsworthy’s Augustus: First Emperor of Rome, the most important work about the first emperor.
Prepare for trouble and make it double! Although “minor” historical figures when compared to Caesar or Cicero or Augustus, siblings Clodius Pulcher and Clodia Metelli are major historical figures in my heart dsdfghgfdsfg their biographies also give a great insight on the day to day politics of the republic, the fascinating private lives and loves of these people, and, Clodius in particular, the eternal dispute between Senate and People. So, Clodia Metelli: The Tribune’s Sister by Marilyn B. Skinner and The Patrician Tribune: Publius Clodius Pulcher by W. Jeffrey Tatum.
Cleopatra isn’t a roman, but I’ll be damned if I make a list without mentioning my girl. Cleopatra has many good works written about her, of those I recommend Michael Grant, Joyce A. Tyldesley and Duane W. Roller the best, although Stacy Schiff is probably the most famous. However, since this is a list about Ancient Rome, I will go with a double biography of Cleopatra and Mark Antony: Cleopatra and Antony: Power, Love, and Politics in the Ancient World by Diana Preston. Also, if you’re interested in Cleopatra, @queenvictorias put together a really good and complete list of works here.
For imperial biographies, other than the already mentioned works about Augustus, I wholeheartedly recommend Anthony A. Barrett’s work, who has biographies on a number of julio-claudians: Livia: First Lady of Imperial Rome, Caligula: The Corruption of Power and Agrippina: Sex, Power, and Politics in the Early Empire. He has really good analysis, with plausible explanations of what is truth and what is slander in their lives. Among these three, he pretty much covers the entire julio-claudian period.
Now, leaving the biographies for a bit, I think these two works are great to see the relationship Rome had with the rest of the empire. Cleopatra’s Daughter and Other Royal Women of the Augustan Era by Duane W. Roller talks about many royal women from the early empire, including Cleopatra’s daughter Cleopatra Selene and Herod the Great’s sister Salome, and the relationships they had with the roman elite. Interesting read. Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations by Martin Goodman is a huuuuuge work about Rome’s relationship with Jerusalem and the jewish in general, leading up to the wars between them.
To finish the read, H.H. Scullard’s From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 BC to AD 68 not only is a classic read, but it covers pretty much the entire period I brough here.
Other than these, I recommend reading the work by the ancient historians like Plutarch, Suetonius, Livy, Sallust, etc. They have sooo much detail, even if we can’t take everything they say seriously.
Documentaries:
Eight Days That Made Rome: Bettany Hughes leads us through eight days (and the context surrounding them) that “shaped” roman history. They include Hannibal, Spartacus, Julius Caesar, Augustus, Nero (and Agrippina!!), among others.
Ancient Rome: Rise and Fall of an Empire: has a lot in common with the previous one in terms of events covered, but has some particular favorites of mine, like the Jewish-Roman War and Tiberius Gracchus.
Barbarians Rising: Rome seen through the eyes of the conquered, including the most famous ones, Hannibal, Spartacus, Boudica and Attila, among others.
Hannibal: Rome’s Worst Nightmare: MUST WATCH because it has Alexander Siddig as Hannibal. Sexy Hannibal.
The Destiny of Rome: covers the Battle of Philippi and Battle of Actium and everything that lead to them and has one of my favorite versions of Antony and Cleopatra.
Netflix Roman Empire: can’t in good conscience recommend this one for the historical accuracy, but it’s fun and sexy, even if batshit insane sometimes, and covers the lives and reigns of Commodus, Caesar and Caligula.
#helenstroy#if you're wondering why the hell this is so big: i'm recovering from a surgery and can't do s h i t#so this distracted me for an entire hour
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The Most Famous History Quotes from Presidents, Artists and Inventors and More
If you love history you will love these quotes curated by the Oldreads review team from some of the most famous politicians, artists and inventors in history.
History is a pack of lies we play on the dead. Voltaire
Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. Abraham Lincoln
Thank you for coming. We’re gonna make some history together today. Steve Jobs
The man who has no sense of history, is like a man who has no ears or eyes. Adolf Hitler
Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular. Aristotle
We learn from history that we don’t learn from history! Desmond Tutu
The Revolution introduced me to art, and in turn, art introduced me to the Revolution! Albert Einstein
History is merely gossip. Oscar Wilde
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King Jr
We are not makers of history. We are made by history. Martin Luther King Jr
Condemn me, it does not matter, history will absolve me. Fidel Castro
History shows that there are no invincible armies. Joseph Stalin
After making a mistake or suffering a misfortune, the man of genius always gets back on his feet. Napoleon Bonaparte
Soldiers, if there is one among you who wants to kill his general, his Emperor, here I am. Napoleon Bonaparte
History is a people’s memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals. Malcolm X
Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose. Theodore Roosevelt
When I was a child my mother said to me, ‘If you become a soldier, you’ll be a general. If you become a monk, you’ll be the Pope.’ Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso. Pablo Picasso
I won’t predict anything historic. But nothing is impossible. Michael Phelps
Black history is American history. Morgan Freeman
I don’t believe in accidents. There are only encounters in history. Pablo Picasso
There is properly no history; only biography. Ralph Waldo Emerson
To me, this is about preserving history and making it available to everyone. Sergey Brin
Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes. Voltaire
For plenty more history eBooks and podcasts, check out Oldreads.
#books#ebooks#oldreads review#oldreads reviews#Famous#Quotes#History#Presidents#politicians#artists#citizens
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Sammy Davis, Jr.
Samuel George Davis Jr. (December 8, 1925 – May 16, 1990) was an American singer, musician, dancer, actor, vaudevillian, comedian, and activist known for his impressions of actors, musicians, and other celebrities. At age three, Davis began his career in vaudeville with his father Sammy Davis Sr. and the Will Mastin Trio, which toured nationally. After military service, he returned to the trio and became an overnight sensation following a nightclub performance at Ciro's (in West Hollywood) after the 1951 Academy Awards. With the trio, he became a recording artist. In 1954, at the age of 29, he lost his left eye in a car accident. Several years later, he converted to Judaism, finding commonalities between the oppression experienced by African-American and Jewish communities.
After a starring role on Broadway in Mr Wonderful (1956), he returned to the stage in 1964's Golden Boy. Davis's film career began as a child in 1933. In 1960, he appeared in the Rat Pack film Ocean's 11. In 1966, he had his own TV variety show, titled The Sammy Davis Jr. Show. While Davis's career slowed in the late 1960s, his biggest hit, "The Candy Man", reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in June 1972, and he became a star in Las Vegas, earning him the nickname "Mister Show Business".
Davis had a complex relationship with the black community and drew criticism after publicly supporting President Richard Nixon in 1972. One day on a golf course with Jack Benny, he was asked what his handicap was. "Handicap?" he asked. "Talk about handicap. I'm a one-eyed Negro who's Jewish." This was to become a signature comment, recounted in his autobiography and in many articles.
After reuniting with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin in 1987, Davis toured with them and Liza Minnelli internationally, before his death in 1990. He died in debt to the Internal Revenue Service, and his estate was the subject of legal battles after the death of his wife. Davis was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy Award for his television performances. He was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 1987, and in 2001, he was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Early life
Davis was born on December 8, 1925, in the Harlem section of Manhattan in New York City, the son of African-American entertainer and stage performer Sammy Davis Sr. (1900–1988) and Cuban American tap dancer and stage performer Elvera Sanchez (1905–2000). In the 2003 biography In Black and White, author Wil Haygood wrote that Davis's mother was born in New York City to Afro-Cuban parents. Davis's parents were vaudeville dancers. As an infant, he was reared by his paternal grandmother. When he was three years old, his parents separated. His father, not wanting to lose custody of his son, took him on tour.
Davis learned to dance from his father and his "uncle" Will Mastin. Davis joined the act as a child and they became the Will Mastin Trio. Throughout his career, Davis included the Will Mastin Trio in his billing. Mastin and his father shielded him from racism, such as by explaining race-based snubs as jealousy. However, when Davis served in the United States Army during World War II, he was confronted by strong prejudice. He later said: "Overnight the world looked different. It wasn't one color any more. I could see the protection I'd gotten all my life from my father and Will. I appreciated their loving hope that I'd never need to know about prejudice and hate, but they were wrong. It was as if I'd walked through a swinging door for 18 years, a door which they had always secretly held open." At age seven, Davis played the title role in the film Rufus Jones for President, in which he sang and danced with Ethel Waters. He lived for several years in Boston's South End, and reminisced years later about "hoofing and singing" at Izzy Ort's Bar & Grille.
Military service
During World War II, Davis was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943 aged 18. He was frequently abused by white soldiers from the South and later recounted that "I must have had a knockdown, drag-out fight every two days." His nose was broken numerous times and permanently flattened. At one point he was offered a beer laced with urine.
He was reassigned to the Army's Special Services branch, which put on performances for troops. At one show he found himself performing in front of soldiers who had previously racially abused him. Davis, who earned the American Campaign Medal and World War II Victory Medal, was discharged in 1945 with the rank of private. He later said, "My talent was the weapon, the power, the way for me to fight. It was the one way I might hope to affect a man's thinking."
Career
After his discharge, Davis rejoined the family dance act, which played at clubs around Portland, Oregon. He also recorded blues songs for Capitol Records in 1949, under the pseudonyms Shorty Muggins and Charlie Green.
On March 23, 1951, the Will Mastin Trio appeared at Ciro's as the opening act for headliner Janis Paige. They were to perform for only 20 minutes but the reaction from the celebrity-filled crowd was so enthusiastic, especially when Davis launched into his impressions, that they performed for nearly an hour, and Paige insisted the order of the show be flipped. Davis began to achieve success on his own and was singled out for praise by critics, releasing several albums.
In 1953, Davis was offered his own television show on ABC, Three for the Road — with the Will Mastin Trio. The network spent $20,000 filming the pilot which presented African Americans as struggling musicians, not slapstick comedy or the stereotypical mammy roles of the time. The cast included Frances Davis who was the first black ballerina to perform for the Paris Opera, actresses Ruth Attaway and Jane White, and Federick O'Neal who founded the American Negro Theater. The network couldn't get a sponsor, so the show was dropped.
In 1954, Davis was hired to sing the title song for the Universal Pictures film Six Bridges to Cross. In 1956, he starred in the Broadway musical Mr. Wonderful.
In 1958, Davis was hired to crown the winner of the Miss Cavalcade of Jazz beauty contest for the famed fourteenth Cavalcade of Jazz concert produced by Leon Hefflin Sr. held at the Shrine Auditorium on August 3. The other headliners were Little Willie John, Sam Cooke, Ernie Freeman, and Bo Rhambo. The event featured the top four prominent disc jockey of Los Angeles.
In 1959, Davis became a member of the Rat Pack, led by his friend Frank Sinatra, which included fellow performers Dean Martin, Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford, a brother-in-law of John F. Kennedy. Initially, Sinatra called the gathering "the Clan", but Davis voiced his opposition, saying that it reminded people of the Ku Klux Klan. Sinatra renamed the group "the Summit". One long night of poker that went on into the early morning saw the men drunken and disheveled. As Angie Dickinson approached the group, she said, "You all look like a pack of rats." The nickname caught on, and they were called the Rat Pack, the name of its earlier incarnation led by Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, who originally made the remark of the "pack of rats" about the group around her husband Bogart.
The group around Sinatra made several movies together, including Ocean's 11 (1960), Sergeants 3 (1962), and Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), and they performed onstage together in Las Vegas.In 1964, Davis was the first African American to sing at the Copacabana night club in New York.
Davis was a headliner at The Frontier Casino in Las Vegas, but, due to Jim Crow practices in Las Vegas, he was required (as were all black performers in the 1950s) to lodge in a rooming house on the west side of the city, instead of in the hotels as his white colleagues did. No dressing rooms were provided for black performers, and they had to wait outside by the swimming pool between acts. Davis and other black artists could entertain but could not stay at the hotels where they performed, gamble in the casinos, or dine or drink in the hotel restaurants and bars. Davis later refused to work at places which practiced racial segregation.
Canada provided opportunities for performers like Davis unable to break the color barrier in U.S. broadcast television, and in 1959, he starred in his own TV special Sammy's Parade on the Canadian network CBC It was a breakthrough event for the performer, as in the United States in the 1950s, corporate sponsors largely controlled the screen: "Black people [were] not portrayed very well on television, if at all," according to Jason King of the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music.
In 1964, Davis was starring in Golden Boy at night and shooting his own New York-based afternoon talk show during the day. When he could get a day off from the theater, he recorded songs in the studio, performed at charity events in Chicago, Miami, or Las Vegas, or appeared on television variety specials in Los Angeles. Davis felt he was cheating his family of his company, but he said he was incapable of standing still.
Although he was still popular in Las Vegas, he saw his musical career decline by the late 1960s. He had a No. 11 hit (No. 1 on the Easy Listening singles chart) with "I've Gotta Be Me" in 1969. He signed with Motown to update his sound and appeal to young people. His deal to have his own label with the company fell through. He had an unexpected No. 1 hit with "The Candy Man" with MGM Records in 1972. He did not particularly care for the song and was chagrined that he had become known for it, but Davis made the most of his opportunity and revitalized his career.
Although he enjoyed no more Top 40 hits, he did enjoy popularity with his 1976 performance of the theme song from the Baretta television series, "Baretta's Theme (Keep Your Eye on the Sparrow)" (1975–1978), which was released as a single (20th Century Records). He appeared on the television shows The Rifleman, I Dream of Jeannie, All in the Family (during which he famously kisses Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor) on the cheek), and Charlie's Angels (with his wife, Altovise Davis). He appeared in Japanese commercials for Suntory whisky in the 1970s.
On December 11, 1967, NBC broadcast a musical-variety special featuring Nancy Sinatra, daughter of Frank Sinatra, titled Movin' with Nancy. In addition to the Emmy Award-winning musical performances, the show is notable for Nancy Sinatra and Davis greeting each other with a kiss, one of the first black-white kisses in US television.
Davis had a friendship with Elvis Presley in the late 1960s, as they both were top-draw acts in Vegas at the same time. Davis was in many ways just as reclusive during his hotel gigs as Elvis was, holding parties mainly in his penthouse suite which Elvis occasionally attended. Davis sang a version of Presley's song "In the Ghetto" and made a cameo appearance in Presley's concert film Elvis: That's the Way It Is. One year later, he made a cameo appearance in the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, but the scene was cut. In Japan, Davis appeared in television commercials for coffee, and in the United States he joined Sinatra and Martin in a radio commercial for a Chicago car dealership.
On May 27–28, 1973, Davis hosted (with Monty Hall) the first annual, 20-hour Highway Safety Foundation telethon. Guests included Muhammad Ali, Paul Anka, Jack Barry, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Ray Charles, Dick Clark, Roy Clark, Howard Cosell, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Joe Franklin, Cliff Gorman, Richie Havens, Danny Kaye, Jerry Lewis, Hal Linden, Rich Little, Butterfly McQueen, Minnie Pearl, Boots Randolph, Tex Ritter, Phil Rizzuto, The Rockettes, Nipsey Russell, Sally Struthers, Mel Tillis, Ben Vereen, and Lawrence Welk. It was a financial disaster. The total amount of pledges was $1.2 million. Actual pledges received were $525,000.
Davis was a huge fan of daytime television, particularly the soap operas produced by the American Broadcasting Company. He made a cameo appearance on General Hospital and had a recurring role as Chip Warren on One Life to Live, for which he received a 1980 Daytime Emmy Award nomination. He was also a game show fan, appearing on Family Feud in 1979 and Tattletales with his wife Altovise in the 1970s.
After his bout with cirrhosis due to years of drinking, Davis announced his sponsorship of the Sammy Davis Jr. National Liver Institute in Newark, New Jersey in 1985. In 1988, Davis was billed to tour with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, but Sinatra and Martin had a falling out. Liza Minnelli replaced Dean on the tour dubbed as ''The Ultimate Event.'' During the tour in 1989, Davis was diagnosed with throat cancer; his treatments prevented him from performing.
Personal life
Accident and conversion
Davis nearly died in an automobile accident on November 19, 1954, in San Bernardino, California, as he was making a return trip from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. During the previous year, he had started a friendship with comedian and host Eddie Cantor, who had given him a mezuzah. Instead of putting it by his door as a traditional blessing, Davis wore it around his neck for good luck. The only time he forgot it was the night of the accident. The accident occurred at a fork in U.S. Route 66 at Cajon Boulevard and Kendall Drive. Davis lost his left eye to the bullet-shaped horn button (a standard feature in 1954 and 1955 Cadillacs) as a result. His friend, actor Jeff Chandler, said he would give one of his own eyes if it would keep Davis from total blindness. Davis wore an eye patch for at least six months following the accident. He was featured with the patch on the cover of his debut album and appeared on What's My Line? wearing the patch. Later, he was fitted for a glass eye, which he wore for the rest of his life.
Eddie Cantor talked to Davis in the hospital about the similarities between the Jewish and black cultures. Davis, who was born to a Catholic mother and Baptist father, began studying the history of Jews. He converted to Judaism several years later in 1961. One passage from his readings (from the book A History of the Jews by Abram L. Sachar), describing the endurance of the Jewish people, interested him in particular: "The Jews would not die. Three millennia of prophetic teaching had given them an unwavering spirit of resignation and had created in them a will to live which no disaster could crush." The accident marked a turning point in Davis's career, taking him from a well-known entertainer to a national celebrity.
Marriages
In 1957, Davis was involved with actress Kim Novak, who was under contract with Columbia Pictures. Because Novak was white, Harry Cohn, the president of Columbia, gave in to his worries that racist backlash against the relationship could hurt the studio. There are several accounts of what happened, but they agree that Davis was threatened by organized crime figures close to Cohn. According to one account, Cohn called racketeer John Roselli, who was told to inform Davis that he must stop seeing Novak. To try to scare Davis, Roselli had him kidnapped for a few hours. Another account relates that the threat was conveyed to Davis's father by mobster Mickey Cohen. Davis was threatened with the loss of his other eye or a broken leg if he did not marry a black woman within two days. Davis sought the protection of Chicago mobster Sam Giancana, who said that he could protect him in Chicago and Las Vegas but not California.
Davis briefly married black dancer Loray White in 1958 to protect himself from mob violence; Davis had previously dated White, who was 23, twice divorced and had a six-year-old child. He paid her a lump sum, $10,000 or $25,000, to engage in a marriage on the condition that it would be dissolved before the end of the year. Davis became inebriated at the wedding and attempted to strangle White en route to their wedding suite. Checking on him later, Silber found Davis with a gun to his head. Davis despairingly said to Silber, "Why won't they let me live my life?" The couple never lived together, and commenced divorce proceedings in September 1958. The divorce was granted in April 1959.
In 1960, there was another racially charged public controversy when Davis married white, Swedish-born actress May Britt in a ceremony officiated by Rabbi William M. Kramer at Temple Israel of Hollywood. While interracial marriage had been legal in California since 1948, anti-miscegenation laws in the United States still stood in 23 states, and a 1958 opinion poll had found that only 4 percent of Americans supported marriage between black and white spouses. Davis received racist hate mail while starring in the Broadway adaptation of Golden Boy during 1964–1966, in which his character is in a relationship with a white woman, paralleling his own interracial relationship. At the time Davis appeared in the musical, although New York had no laws against it, debate about interracial marriage was still ongoing in America as Loving v. Virginia was being fought. It was only in 1967, after the musical had closed, that anti-miscegenation laws in all states were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States.
Davis's daughter Tracey Davis revealed in a 2014 book that this marriage also resulted in President Kennedy refusing to allow Davis to perform at his Inauguration. The snub was confirmed by director Sam Pollard, who revealed in a 2017 American Masters documentary that Davis's invitation to perform at his inauguration was abruptly canceled on the night of his inaugural party.
Davis and Britt had one daughter, Tracey, and adopted two sons, Mark and Jeff. Davis performed almost continuously and spent little time with his wife. They divorced in 1968, after Davis admitted to having had an affair with singer Lola Falana. After his marriage imploded, Davis turned to alcohol and "found solace in drugs, particularly cocaine and amyl nitrite, and experimented briefly with Satanism and pornography."
In 1968, Davis started dating Altovise Gore, a dancer in Golden Boy. They were married on May 11, 1970, by the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Kathy McKee replaced Gore in Davis's nightclub act. They adopted a son, Manny, in 1989. Davis and Gore remained married until his death in 1990.
Hobbies
Davis was an avid photographer who enjoyed shooting pictures of family and acquaintances. His body of work was detailed in a 2007 book by Burt Boyar titled Photo by Sammy Davis, Jr. "Jerry [Lewis] gave me my first important camera, my first 35 millimeter, during the Ciro's period, early '50s," Boyar quotes Davis. "And he hooked me." Davis used a medium format camera later on to capture images. Boyar reports that Davis had said, "Nobody interrupts a man taking a picture to ask ... 'What's that nigger doin' here?'" His catalog includes rare photos of his father dancing onstage as part of the Will Mastin Trio and intimate snapshots of close friends Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, James Dean, Nat "King" Cole, and Marilyn Monroe. His political affiliations also were represented, in his images of Robert Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. His most revealing work comes in photographs of wife May Britt and their three children, Tracey, Jeff and Mark.
Davis was an enthusiastic shooter and gun owner. He participated in fast-draw competitions. Johnny Cash recalled that Davis was said to be capable of drawing and firing a Colt Single Action Army revolver in less than a quarter of a second. Davis was skilled at fast and fancy gunspinning and appeared on television variety shows showing off this skill. He also demonstrated gunspinning to Mark on The Rifleman in "Two Ounces of Tin." He appeared in Western films and as a guest star on several television Westerns.
Political beliefs
Davis was a registered Democrat and supported John F. Kennedy's 1960 election campaign as well as Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 campaign. John F. Kennedy would later refuse to allow Davis to perform at his inauguration on account of his marriage with the white actress May Britt. Nancy Sinatra revealed in her 1986 book Frank Sinatra: My Father how Kennedy had planned to snub Davis as plans for his wedding to Britt were unfolding. He went on to become a close friend of President Richard Nixon and publicly endorsed him at the 1972 Republican National Convention. Davis also made a USO tour to South Vietnam at Nixon's request.
In February 1972, during the later stages of the Vietnam War, Davis went to Vietnam to observe military drug abuse rehabilitation programs and talk to and entertain the troops. He did this as a representative from President Nixon's Special Action Office For Drug Abuse Prevention. He performed shows for up to 15,000 troops; after one two-hour performance he reportedly said "I've never been so tired and felt so good in my life." The U.S. Army made a documentary about Davis's time in Vietnam performing for troops on behalf of Nixon's drug treatment program.
Nixon invited Davis and his wife, Altovise, to sleep in the White House in 1973, the first time African-Americans were invited to do so. The Davises spent the night in the Lincoln Bedroom. Davis later said he regretted supporting Nixon, accusing Nixon of making promises on civil rights that he did not keep. Davis was a long-time donor to the Reverend Jesse Jackson's Operation PUSH organization.
Illness and death
In August 1989, Davis began to develop symptoms—a tickle in his throat and an inability to taste food. Doctors found a cancerous tumor in Davis's throat. He had often smoked four packs of cigarettes a day as an adult. When told that surgery (laryngectomy) offered him the best chance of survival, Davis replied he would rather keep his voice than have a part of his throat removed; he was initially treated with a combination of chemotherapy and radiation. His larynx was later removed when his cancer recurred. He was released from the hospital on March 13, 1990.
Davis died of complications from throat cancer two months later at his home in Beverly Hills, California, on May 16, 1990, aged 64. He was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. On May 18, 1990, two days after his death, the neon lights of the Las Vegas Strip were darkened for ten minutes as a tribute.
Estate
Davis left a bulk of his estate, estimated at $4 million, to his widow Altovise Davis, but he owed the IRS $5.2 million which due to interest and penalties had increased to over $7 million. His widow Altovise Davis became liable for his debt because she had cosigned his tax returns. She was forced to auction his personal possessions and real estate. Some of his friends in the industry, including Quincy Jones, Joey Bishop, Ed Asner, Jayne Meadows and Steve Allen, participated in a fundraising concert at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. Altovise Davis and the IRS reached a settlement in 1997. After she died in 2009, their son Manny was named executor of the estate and majority rights holder of his intellectual property.
Legacy
On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Davis among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
Portrayals
In an episode of Charlie's Angels, Davis had a dual role, playing both himself and as a Sammy Davis Jr. impersonator who is kidnapped by mistake. (In a comic relief scene the impersonator beats up a candy machine which does not give him his candy, a spoof of Davis's song "The Candy Man".)
Comedian Jim Carrey has portrayed Davis on stage, in the 1983 film Copper Mountain, and in a stand-up routine.
On Saturday Night Live, Davis has been portrayed by Garrett Morris, Eddie Murphy, Billy Crystal and Tim Meadows.
Davis was portrayed on the popular sketch comedy show In Living Color by Tommy Davidson, notably a parody of the film Ghost, in which the ghost of Davis enlists the help of Whoopi Goldberg to communicate with his wife.
David Raynr portrayed Davis in the 1992 miniseries Sinatra, a television film about the life of Frank Sinatra.
In the comedy film Wayne's World 2 (1993), Tim Meadows portrays Davis in the dream sequence with Michael A. Nickles as Jim Morrison.
In the sitcom Malcolm & Eddie (1996), Eddie Sherman (played by comedian Eddie Griffin) impersonates Davis in the episode "Sh-Boing-Boing" to help his partner Malcolm McGee (played by Malcolm-Jamal Warner) reconcile his grandparents' relationship.
Davis was portrayed by Don Cheadle in the HBO film The Rat Pack, a 1998 television film about the group of entertainers. Cheadle won a Golden Globe Award for his performance.
He was portrayed by Paul Sharma in the 2003 West End production Rat Pack Confidential.
Davis was portrayed in 2008 by Keith Powell in an episode of 30 Rock titled "Subway Hero."
In September 2009, the musical Sammy: Once in a Lifetime premiered at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego with book, music, and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse, and additional songs by Bricusse and Anthony Newley. The title role was played by Tony Award nominee Obba Babatundé.
Comedian Billy Crystal has portrayed Davis on "Saturday Night Live," in his stand-up routines, and at the 2012 Oscars.
Actor Phaldut Sharma created the comedy web-series I Gotta Be Me (2015), following a frustrated soap star as he performs as Sammy in a Rat Pack tribute show.
In January 2017, Davis's estate joined a production team led by Lionel Richie, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, and Mike Menchel to make a movie based on Davis's life and show-biz career.
Honors and awards
Shortly before his death in 1990, ABC aired the TV special Sammy Davis, Jr. 60th Anniversary Celebration. An all-star cast, including Michael Jackson, Eddie Murphy, Diahann Carroll, Clint Eastwood, and Ella Fitzgerald, paid tribute to Davis. The show was nominated for six Primetime Emmy Awards, winning Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy.
Grammy AwardsEmmy AwardsOther honors
Discography
Filmography
Stage
Mr. Wonderful (1957), musical
Golden Boy (1964), musical – Tony Nomination for Best Actor in a Musical
Sammy (1974), special performance featuring Davis with the Nicholas Brothers
Stop the World – I Want to Get Off (1978) musical revival
Television
General Electric Theater – "The Patsy" (1960) Season 8 Episode 21
Lawman – episode Blue Boss and Willie Shay" (1961)
The Dick Powell Show – episode "The Legend" (1962)
Hennesey – episode "Tight Quarters" (1962)
The Rifleman – 2 episodes "Two Ounces of Tin (#4.21)" (February 19, 1962) and "The Most Amazing Man (#5.9)" (November 27, 1962)
77 Sunset Strip – episode "The Gang's All Here" (1962)
Ben Casey – episode "Allie" (1963)
The Patty Duke Show – episode "Will the Real Sammy Davis Please Hang Up?" (1965)
The Sammy Davis Jr. Show – Host (January 7, 1966)
Alice In Wonderland or What's a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This? (March 30, 1966)
The Wild Wild West – episode "The Night of the Returning Dead" (October 14, 1966)
Batman – "The Clock King's Crazy Crimes" (1966)
I Dream of Jeannie – episode "The Greatest Entertainer in the World" (1967)
Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In – Here Comes The Judge skit (1968–70, 1971, 1973)
The Mod Squad – three episodes: "Keep the Faith Baby" (1969), "Survival House" (1970), and "The Song of Willie" (1970)
The Beverly Hillbillies – episode Manhattan Hillbilies (1969)
The Name of the Game – episode "I Love You, Billy Baker" (1970)
Here's Lucy (1970)
All in the Family – episode "Sammy's Visit" (1972)
Chico and the Man – episode "Sammy Stops In" (1975)
The Carol Burnett Show (1975)
Sammy and Company – host/performer (1975-1977)
Charlie's Angels – episode "Sammy Davis, Jr. Kidnap Caper" (1977)
Sanford (TV series) – episodes "Dinner and George's" (cameo) and "The Benefit" (1980)
Archie Bunker's Place – episode "The Return of Sammy" (1980)
General Hospital – episode Benefit for Sports Center (1982)
Channel Seven Perth's Telethon (1983)
The Jeffersons – episode "What Makes Sammy Run?" (1984)
Fantasy Island – episode "Mr. Bojangles and the Dancer/Deuces are Wild" (1984)
Gimme a Break! – episode "The Lookalike" (1985)
Alice in Wonderland (1985 film)
Hunter – episode "Ring of Honor" (1989)
The Cosby Show – episode "No Way, Baby" (1989)
Sammy Davis, Jr. 60th Anniversary Celebration (1990) – 2½ hour all star TV special
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Jerry Lewis. No comedian since Charles Chaplin has been so loved and so reviled. He is America’s Dark Prince of Comedy--brilliant, bitter, passionate and deeply conflicted. A man of many demons, his cockiness conceals a labyrinth of doubts and self-destructive impulses. An American original whom Americans have never quite come to terms with, he also happens to be one of the greatest filmmakers of the latter half of the 20th century. And for this he deserves an Academy Award.
It’s not surprising that he’s never even been nominated for one. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has a tradition of snubbing comedians. The list of those whose movies failed to win a single Oscar is appallingly long and distinguished: Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Harry Langdon, Mabel Normand, the Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields, Abbott and Costello, Bob Hope, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, to name a few. The academy finally gave Keaton an honorary Oscar in 1960, and one to Stan Laurel in 1961 (after Lewis lobbied passionately on his behalf), and even one to Charlie Chaplin in 1972, bringing the once-demonized “un-American” director back to Hollywood after 20 years of exile in Europe.
Now it’s time to honor Jerry Lewis.
Lewis was a superstar in the 1950s and early ‘60s, the I Like Ike era of “The Organization Man,” when a Wonder Bread corporate monoculture force-fed an entire generation a bland diet of conformity. In a time of crew cuts and bouffant hairdos, of TV dinners, suburban tract houses, gleaming new supermarkets and the homogenized nuclear family paradigm set forth by “Father Knows Best” and “Leave It to Beaver,” Lewis’ archetypal character, “the Kid,” served as an escape valve--a personification of the American id, cavorting across TV and movie screens, acting on the anarchistic impulses his audiences felt obliged to repress.
“We used to hang out on street corners, and guys would do Jerry Lewis imitations,” says Philip Kaufman, director of “The Right Stuff” and “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” who came of age in the 1950s. “The way that Jerry Lewis walked, that staggering, uncoordinated adolescent walk--you could feel the American youth culture being born. . . . Lewis and Elvis had this primordial American energy.”
Lewis gradually filled his comic archetype with nuances and complexities, so that it continued to resonate on deeper and yet deeper levels. He did this by becoming what he calls “a total filmmaker,” as Chaplin and Keaton had been. When Lewis began appearing in movies in 1949, he set about learning the technical intricacies of every aspect of production. “After about a year and a half I was able to load a BNC [35mm Mitchell] camera and do anything on the set that any technician did--maybe not with the quality of a man who’s done it for 25 years, but if he got sick, I could do it,” Lewis told me in an interview in December 2003. “I know depth of field like you know your wife’s first name. . . . I therefore proceeded to own every union card in the picture business.” Along the way, he also managed to invent the video assist, which allowed him to instantly replay scenes he’d just shot--now standard equipment on most Hollywood sets.
Once he’d mastered the filmmaking process, Lewis dared to declare his independence from the studio system. He wrote, directed and starred in a series of features that he also co-financed with his own money. “I mortgaged my house a couple of times, sold two cars, I remember that!” Lewis told me. In exchange for putting up half or sometimes the entire budgets of the films he directed, he got 50% or more of the profits and a level of creative autonomy that no screen comedian had commanded since Chaplin. “I had final cut on everything,” he said.
“I would love to have achieved the level of independence that he had,” Kaufman says. “The opposite is Orson Welles. He’s a half a generation before Jerry Lewis, but he gets destroyed because he can’t control the films.”
The movies Lewis directed--including “The Bellboy” (1960), “The Ladies Man” (1961), “The Errand Boy” (1961), “The Nutty Professor” (1963) and “The Patsy” (1964)--were bizarre stream-of-consciousness concoctions packed with brilliant pantomime set pieces and surreal comic nightmare sequences, moving Rorschach inkblots that reflected Lewis’ deeply conflicted psyche. “They were not regular Hollywood films,” says director Martin Scorsese. “There were no stories. No plots. They were very dreamlike, going from one free association to the next, almost like the later Luis Bunuel pictures, like ‘The Phantom of Liberty,’ which was a dream within a dream within a dream. You know you’re in the hands of a master; you just let him take you along. His films were almost avant-garde.”
Like Buster Keaton, Scorsese says, Lewis had an uncanny ability to pour his subconscious onto a movie screen, creating phantasmagoric visions permeated with disturbing psychological undertones. Unlike Keaton, Lewis often worked in color. He urged his cinematographer, W. Wallace Kelley, to pump huge amounts of light onto his sets until the comic book hues popped off the screen. “Lewis’ use of color has influenced many filmmakers, [such as] the way David Lynch uses color, and Pedro Almodovar,” Scorsese says.
In the mid-'60s, European critics--the French, most famously, or infamously, depending on your point of view--embraced Lewis as a genius, an heir to Chaplin and Keaton. Chagrined American critics sputtered outrage. They saw Lewis as a vulgarian, a pretentious, sentimental egomaniac who was a tad less subtle than the Three Stooges, and a lot less funny. And those were the good reviews. “Mr. Lewis is a frenetic performer,” wrote Eugene Archer of the New York Times, “but he lacks a point . . . a rubber-limbed robot making faces in a void.” Harriet Van Horne of the World Telegram wrote of a Lewis performance, “you flinch from the soulless vulgarity of his spastic twitches and low-class leers.” In his 1968 book “The American Cinema,” Andrew Sarris demeaned not only Lewis, but also his fans. “Lewis appeals to unsophisticated audiences in the sticks and to ungenteel audiences in the urban slums,” Sarris wrote. “He is bigger on 42nd Street, for example, than anyplace else in the city.”
Lewis seemed to scuttle any chance that American intellectuals would change their minds by taking the fight to the enemy. He wrote nasty letters to reviewers and denounced them on television and radio. He said they were “caustic, rude, unkind and sinister. . . . They’re burying the business they’re paid by.” And in his most infamous salvo, blasted in a 1981 Los Angeles Times interview, he called them “whores.”
But beneath his belligerence one sensed the man had been deeply wounded. In a telling passage in his landmark 1971 book about moviemaking, “The Total Film-maker,” Lewis confessed: “I cannot sit at certain tables at the Directors Guild because I make what some people consider is a ‘hokey’ product. John Frankenheimer waves and hopes that no one else sees his hand, simply because I film pratfalls and spritz water and throw pies.”
In countless magazine profiles and biographies, Lewis has been vividly portrayed as a tantrum-throwing egomaniac. But there is another side. I’ve talked with many people who worked with Lewis over the years--including his longtime collaborators, writer Bill Richmond and comedienne Kathleen Freeman--who told me stories of his private acts of extraordinary kindness and generosity. Peter Bogdanovich tells of how Lewis befriended him when he was a poor, young aspiring filmmaker--lending him a car, allowing him to screen movies at Paramount and charge the cost to Lewis’ production company. “He’s been a good friend to me for more than 40 years,” Bogdanovich says. When I first interviewed Lewis a year ago, I found him to be a perceptive, articulate but deeply divided man who oscillated during the course of our one-hour conversation from laughter to anger to tears. His ability to infuse his movies with these seething emotions gave them their strange emotional charge, and helped make them audacious and poetic works of art.
In “The Bellboy” and “The Errand Boy,” Lewis’ Kid finds himself wandering through sprawling corporate complexes: the ultramodern curvilinear interiors of Miami Beach’s Fontainebleau hotel, and the cavernous soundstages and maze-like streets and corridors of a movie studio. He desperately tries to mesh with the gears of the industrial combine, but his inability to function with the automaton efficiency of his co-workers inevitably causes catastrophe. “There’s a sense in which he’s a modern man, a universal figure confronted with modernity, with bosses and difficult jobs, and especially with a fast pace that’s difficult to keep up with,” says Henry Sheehan, critic for KPCC-FM and KCET.
There are haunting moments that evoke the lonely yearnings of the alienated in America’s increasingly institutionalized society, such as the brilliant pantomimes in which the Kid conducts an imaginary orchestra or imagines himself to be a movie mogul holding forth in a deserted boardroom. Or the scene where the Kid is assigned the Sisyphean task of setting up more than 1,000 chairs in an auditorium the size of a football field. Lewis films from one wide angle, holding the shot as the Kid recedes farther and farther into the great hollow hall. “When he started directing his own pictures there was a powerful visual sense,” Scorsese says. “It was almost as if the films were drawn by hand--animated. Something was very arresting about the way Lewis designed his scenes and shot them, the way he focused the eye of the audience.”
In the middle of “The Bellboy,” the Kid is ordered to help with the luggage of an arriving celebrity: Jerry Lewis, the movie star. Lewis the star arrives in a limousine with a huge retinue of yes-men and sycophants. “That kind of thing was refreshing and brilliant,” Scorsese says. “It opened the audience’s mind. What is the reality? We know we’re watching a film. We know it’s directed by him. We know he’s in control. Then he shows up as a film star within the movie! It plays with your sense of what reality is and what cinema is--and also what celebrity is.” In a culture obsessed with celebrity, Lewis shows us that a star is as objectified as a Playboy centerfold, and his existence at the top of the ladder every bit as lonely as that of the Kid at the bottom. The entourage of Jerry Lewis the movie star laughs at his every remark. When he tearfully reveals that a beloved aunt just died, the crowd howls with unhinged hilarity. “Nothing like a laugh!” someone screams.
In “The Ladies Man,” the Kid serves as a gofer in a boarding house full of young women. Lewis built the entire mansion--four stories tall, including a stairway and working elevator--on two soundstages at Paramount, with the fourth wall of every room cut away, like a giant dollhouse, so the camera could swoop on a crane from room to room, each of which was pre-lighted and wired for sound. It was another groundbreaking technical innovation, and a fantastic dreamscape through which Lewis’ imagination ran wild. In one spectacular crane shot, Lewis pulls back to show the entire dollhouse. “That shot is so striking,” Scorsese says. “In a funny way, it had something to do with the way I did a shot in ‘Gangs of New York’ in the beginning of the film, showing the [multileveled] hell of the old brewery
Scorsese found more inspiration in Lewis’ masterpiece, “The Nutty Professor,” in the famous sequence that occurs after Professor Kelp has transformed himself into the incandescent lounge lizard Buddy Love. At first we do not see Love. Instead we see the world through his eyes. In an intricately choreographed tracking shot, Love walks through the street toward the Purple Pit nightclub and various passersby react with astonishment to his high-voltage charisma. “I use that as an example of the kind of point-of-view shots that I use,” Scorsese says. In “Gangs of New York,” he told his assistant director, Joseph Reidy, that he wanted to choreograph a similar point-of-view shot in the scene where Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio) places a rabbit pelt on a Five Points fence as a declaration of war. “I am constantly referring back to Lewis’ work,” Scorsese says.
Lewis explored the polarities of his personality--the lonely kid he had been in his youth and still felt himself to be, and the polished persona he presented on television and in live performances--not only in “The Bellboy,” but also in “Cinderfella” (directed by Frank Tashlin and produced by Lewis) and “The Errand Boy.” This theme reached its full and most complex expression in “The Nutty Professor.” The movie is an extended investigation of Lewis the public performer, and his insecure inner self. But more than a movie star’s exercise in self-absorption, it is a meditation on the American model of masculinity. Lewis acknowledges its pathology even as he admits that he cannot free himself of his aspiration to embody it. In the climax of the movie, Buddy Love transforms back into Professor Kelp before a stunned crowd of college students. Kelp makes a heartfelt speech about the fallacy of trying to create a false personality to please others and the need for self-acceptance, and there’s not a dry eye in the house. But in the film’s denouement, as Kelp leaves for his wedding with heartthrob Stella (Stella Stevens), the director reveals that she has stuffed two bottles of Kelp’s magic tonic in the pockets of her jeans--an admission that there’s a dark, erotic power to Love’s aggressive posturing that Americans find irresistible, despite whatever lip service they may pay to the values of sensitivity and brains.
“Lewis’ sense of burlesque is a strange type of comedy because it’s full of anxiety,” says director Barbet Schroeder (“Barfly,” “Single White Female”). “It’s a tragic vision that makes you laugh. . . . And all that is completely personal and completely extraordinary. He took burlesque comedy one step further, like any great artist, to a very freaky, disturbing modern tone.”
In 1977, someone at an American Film Institute seminar asked Lewis why his films hadn’t been rediscovered, as those of other great comics had been. “They wait until you die,” he snapped. Until recently, it looked as if Lewis might be right. During the last decade, a series of serious health problems--bouts of meningitis and pulmonary fibrosis--forced him to cancel live engagements and spend long stretches in the hospital. But last year, Lewis bounced back. He returned home from the hospital, and in the fall he released sparkling wide-screen DVD transfers of 10 movies from his golden period, complete with outtakes and commentary tracks.
And the damnedest thing happened. They got good reviews. The New York Times published not one but two rave notices. In the second one, Dave Kehr wrote: “Is it finally time to stop with the French-love-him jokes and acknowledge that Jerry Lewis is one of the great American filmmakers?” Kehr noted that the DVDs “reveal both the fierce creativity of his comic performances and the extreme formal sophistication of his direction. The centerpiece is the 1963 ‘The Nutty Professor’ . . . a study in split personality that both anticipates Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 ‘Persona’ and surpasses it in psychological acuity. It’s also a lot funnier.”
In December 2004, the Library of Congress concluded that “The Nutty Professor” is a movie of lasting cultural significance, worthy of preservation, and added it to the National Film Registry. Then in January, Lewis received a career achievement award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. The explanation for this turnaround is simple: As older critics retired, a new generation replaced them. They had come of age in the 1950s and ‘60s and had spent the better part of their youth in the dark, watching Jerry Lewis and laughing till they just about wet their pants. “For me, personally, the impact of watching ‘The Nutty Professor’ as a boy in a drive-in in the Valley was huge,” says Robert Koehler, who writes for Variety. “It was the first time I had felt a weird sense of terror, horror and comedy all in one fell swoop. I’d never felt that before in a movie. There was something going on here besides just another Hollywood comedy. There was a sense of wild theatrics. I was only 7 years old at the time; I couldn’t even put my finger on it, but it so absolutely impressed my young mind.”
As they grew older, like Morty S. Tashman in “The Errand Boy,” these young fans made their way to Hollywood to become part of show business. Their film school professors and older critics had told them Lewis was vulgar and tasteless, but they went back and watched the movies and didn’t believe it. “I always thought he was funny, from the first time I came to him, at 9 years old,” says Henry Sheehan, president of the L.A. critics association. “Once I grew older and learned something about composition and the mechanics of gags, I was full of admiration for him. I think my experience is pretty common for people my age.”
For years a growing number of Lewis supporters had been urging the association to give the comedian the career achievement award. This year the membership suddenly agreed. “It was pretty widely supported,” Koehler says. “In the past there have been complaints. The first year I was in the group, his name was brought up and some people were openly contemptuous. I heard none of that this time. I don’t know why. I think it’s the test of time.”
As the night of the awards ceremony approached, a question loomed: How would Lewis react? Would he be able to drop the contentious attitude he’d held against his old adversaries for more than half a century? When I talked with him shortly after the award had been announced, he seemed to be struggling for his equilibrium. “I don’t really know how I’m going to deal with it,” he admitted, then murmured something about handling it with grace. But when he talked with other journalists, some of the old fighting verbiage crept into his remarks. He told Larry King the award was “the best revenge I’ve ever had.” And to a reporter from the Los Angeles Daily News, he said, “Jesus Christ, is that retribution or not?”
Finally, the moment came. Peter Bogdanovich presented the plaque. Lewis stepped to the podium. His eyes passed over the crowd. “Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I am delighted to be the recipient of this award. . . . What took so goddamned long?” The room exploded with laughter. Lewis segued smoothly into his Vegas act and did about 10 minutes that had the critics, filmmakers and stars doubled over and gasping for air.
Then he stopped, his voice growing serious. “I would feel somewhat remiss if I didn’t show you something that I believe brought me here tonight,” he said. Film rolled, and on the screen behind him appeared a 35-year-old Jerry Lewis doing the famous Chairman of the Board pantomime from “The Errand Boy,” his gesticulations and mugging timed to the tempo of Count Basie’s “Blues in Hoss’ Flat.” It was much more than funny. It was at once melancholy, poetic and exhilarating. When it was over, the room rose in a howling, hooting standing ovation. The only one of the night.
Now it’s the academy’s turn to step up. A few months ago, Bogdanovich wrote a letter to its president, Frank Pierson, suggesting that Lewis be given an Oscar. I hope the Academy doesn’t take too long. The hour is late. Another great clown and groundbreaking filmmaker, too long ignored, deserves to be honored by his peers.
JL’s yahrzeit
The once and future King of Comedy 👑
#rip#jerry lewis#the once and future king of comedy#yahrzeit#LA Times#david weddle#jerry lewis deserves an oscar#king of comedy#quote
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Please welcome Wyatt Arkwright, a 43 year old architect. Originally from Battersea, he moved to Atlanta to pursue his architecture career and has flourished as one of the primary designers in a building company for re-designing abandoned and foreclosed lots to be used for resources, recreation centers, rehabilitation crisis zones, and more. Wyatt has lived in Atlanta for 4 years, is a frazzled recluse, and is open for connections!
Under the line is his full biography!
TW: PTSD, homophobia, bigotry/violence.
character info –
Name: Wyatt Arkwright
Faceclaim: Martin Freeman
Age: 45
Pronouns: He/Him
Hometown: Battersea, England
Time lived in Atlanta: 4 years
Occupation: Architect
Character Quote: “Tongue-tied and oh so squeamish. You never fell in love- Did you get what you deserved?”
biography –
Wyatt was born into the world under a strict and privileged family. His father was a politician in England and his mother, a dedicated housewife. He had two other siblings who did as they were told- and he (normally) did so as well. The Arkwrights were well off, wealthy, but vain. Expected to adhere to ridiculous measures of propriety, attending events with his father as a poster child. He was never cut out for it, often finding himself talking too much, getting into interesting debates even as a child, or somehow ‘embarrassing’ his father.
He tried to keep his own emotions under the surface. He was the man of the house, with two younger sisters who both were expected to be proper young ladies. And Wyatt was expected to act as a typical young man. But as he got older, he found his thoughts turning to other men. Knowing the dangerous game he was playing, he hid it as best he could. But his mother ratted him out, finding a few magazines under his bed. His parents were crushed and disgusted, and they spent weeks with him grounded, trying to figure out what to do with him. Where to put him. He was only 15 when he was shipped off to begin talk with a ‘therapist’. What was explained to Wyatt as essentially a ‘camp for helping him become a man’ turned into an absolute nightmare.
While Wyatt never goes into detail about his time there, his parents knew what they were signing up their child for. Intense self-hatred, group conversations every day pushing and repressing and trying to delete a major part of him, and other violent measures. Abuse, shouting, beating, and more. Wyatt was there for over a year, and when he displayed rebellion against his parents upon returning, he was sent back.
Needless to say, Wyatt left his family the second he turned 18. He moved out, in with a friend, and worked food service jobs while he attended University. Resulting from his time in the center, he had problems coming up. Headaches, extended fatigue, problems standing for long periods of time. Going to a doctor years later, he would find out that some of the methods of long-term ‘correction’ were in fact, incredibly corrupt. Thanks to Wyatt and others, the center was actually shut down in the early 2000′s for their corrupt practices. Wyatt has tried to lead a normal life since- he began to study architecture and found himself working as an apprentice for a long time, before beginning his own design firm, which he moved to the US after wanting a new start. He has lived a solitary life, afraid of getting close to anyone. But around his early 30s, Wyatt started experimenting with his sexuality again after repressing it for years. Now he lives in Atlanta, in his own design firm with his own team of employees and contractors.
personality –
Wyatt is an easily frazzled but friendly man. He’s always tried to see the good in people and assume positive intent when he speaks to others. While he can be a bit timid and shy at first, he’s actually a very witty and intelligent man when he has time to breathe and let his guard down. Despite that, he does have trouble getting close to others and trusting them. He’s cut all ties with his mother and father and has a lot of trauma relating to family and his old home, and even thinking of things like high school. This can manifest in sudden anger or dread and anxiety issues. Wyatt tries to remain positive and is a creative and brilliant man, but he’s a bit of a recluse because of his past.
#reposting this as well!#wyatt's bio!#same thing just. hes 43 now and hes . andrew scott now#:)#wyattbio#bio
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This is related to Tom only indirectly. Michael Billington of the Guardian (yep, that guy who gave 4 star to RADA Hamlet) gave 5 to Pinter 7 (Martin Freeman is in it). This one is directed by JL. He gave all other plays of Pinter at Pinter 4 stars and he is the author of Pinter biography (authorized). I believe he has a v good understanding of Pinter. I am not a Pinter fan but I am curious how JL direct Betrayal. Must be an interesting job for Tom to play backward, to work with JL.
He seems to have been quite pleased with the season so far. Let’s hope his Betrayal review is as good. Especially because of his connection with Pinter himself.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/feb/07/pinter-seven-review-dumb-waiter-danny-dyer-martin-freeman-a-slight-ache-jamie-lloyd
And yes, this will be an interesting role for Tom, not least because he plays a (relatively) contemporary adult.
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A Congressman works with his equally conniving wife to exact revenge on the people who betrayed him.
Stars: Kevin Spacey, Michel Gill, Robin Wright, Kate Mara
Votes: 416.835
7.
The Haunting of Hill House
(2018– )
50 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
8,8 Rate
Flashing between past and present, a fractured family confronts haunting memories of their old home and the terrifying events that drove them from it.
Stars: Michiel Huisman, Carla Gugino, Henry Thomas, Elizabeth Reaser
Votes: 84.587
8.
Peaky Blinders
(2013– )
60 min | Crime, Drama
8,8 Rate
A gangster family epic set in 1919 Birmingham, England; centered on a gang who sew razor blades in the peaks of their caps, and their fierce boss Tommy Shelby.
Stars: Helen McCrory, Cillian Murphy, Paul Anderson, Sophie Rundle
Votes: 164.225
9.
Narcos
(2015–2017)
49 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
8,8 7
A chronicled look at the criminal exploits of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, as well as the many other drug kingpins who plagued the country through the years.
Stars: Pedro Pascal, Wagner Moura, Boyd Holbrook, Alberto Ammann
Votes: 273.239
10.
Daredevil
(2015–2018)
54 min | Action, Crime, Drama
8,7 Rate
A blind lawyer by day, vigilante by night. Matt Murdock fights the crime of New York as Daredevil.
Stars: Charlie Cox, Vincent D'Onofrio, Deborah Ann Woll, Elden Henson
Votes: 314.323
11.
Dexter
(2006–2013)
53 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
8,7 Rate
By day, mild-mannered Dexter is a blood-spatter analyst for the Miami police. But at night, he is a serial killer who only targets other murderers.
Stars: Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Carpenter, David Zayas, James Remar
Votes: 582.566
12.
Vikingler
(2013– )
44 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
8,6 Rate
Vikings transports us to the brutal and mysterious world of Ragnar Lothbrok, a Viking warrior and farmer who yearns to explore - and raid - the distant shores across the ocean.
Stars: Gustaf Skarsgård, Katheryn Winnick, Alexander Ludwig, Travis Fimmel
Votes: 313.556
13.
Suits
(2011– )
44 min | Comedy, Drama
8,6 Rate
On the run from a drug deal gone bad, Mike Ross, a brilliant college dropout, finds himself a job working with Harvey Specter, one of New York City's best lawyers.
Stars: Gabriel Macht, Patrick J. Adams, Meghan Markle, Sarah Rafferty
Votes: 314.575
14.
La casa de papel
(2017– )
15+ | 70 min | Action, Crime, Mystery
8,6 Rate
A group of very peculiar robbers assault the Factory of Moneda and Timbre to carry out the most perfect robbery in the history of Spain and take home 2.4 billion euros.
Stars: Úrsula Corberó, Itziar Ituño, Álvaro Morte, Alba Flores
Votes: 104.577
15.
The Punisher
(2017– )
53 min | Action, Adventure, Crime
8,6 Rate
After the murder of his family, Marine veteran Frank Castle becomes the vigilante known as "The Punisher," with only one goal in mind: to avenge them.
Stars: Jon Bernthal, Amber Rose Revah, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Ben Barnes
Votes: 118.094
16.
Mindhunter
(2017– )
60 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
8,6 Rate
Set in the late 1970s, two FBI agents are tasked with interviewing serial killers to solve open cases.
Stars: Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, Anna Torv, Hannah Gross
Votes: 104.505
17.
Dark
(2017– )
60 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
8,6 Rate
A family saga with a supernatural twist, set in a German town, where the disappearance of two young children exposes the relationships among four families.
Stars: Oliver Masucci, Karoline Eichhorn, Jördis Triebel, Louis Hofmann
Votes: 87.320
18.
Line of Duty
(2012– )
60 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
8,6 Rate
DS Steve Arnott is transferred to the police anti-corruption unit after the death of a man in a mistaken shooting during a counter-terrorist operation.
Stars: Martin Compston, Vicky McClure, Adrian Dunbar, Craig Parkinson
Votes: 14.922
19.
Luther
(2010–2019)
60 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
8,5 Rate
DCI John Luther is a near-genius murder detective whose brilliant mind can't always save him from the dangerous violence of his passions.
Stars: Idris Elba, Dermot Crowley, Michael Smiley, Warren Brown
Votes: 95.648
20.
Happy Valley
(2014– )
58 min | Crime, Drama
8,5 Rate
Catherine Cawood is the sergeant on duty when flustered and nervous accountant Kevin Weatherill comes into her West Yorkshire station to report a crime.
Stars: Sarah Lancashire, Siobhan Finneran, Shane Zaza, Charlie Murphy
Votes: 25.355
21.
Ozark
(2017– )
60 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
8,4 Rate
A financial adviser drags his family from Chicago to the Missouri Ozarks, where he must launder $500 million in five years to appease a drug boss.
Stars: Jason Bateman, Laura Linney, Julia Garner, Sofia Hublitz
Votes: 92.715
22.
The Expanse
(2015– )
60 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
8,4 Rate
A police detective in the asteroid belt, the first officer of an interplanetary ice freighter and an earth-bound United Nations executive slowly discover a vast conspiracy that threatens the Earth's rebellious colony on the asteroid belt.
Stars: Steven Strait, Cas Anvar, Dominique Tipper, Wes Chatham
Votes: 62.249
23.
The Last Kingdom
(2015– )
60 min | Action, Drama, History
8,3 Rate
The year is 872, and many of the separate kingdoms of what we now know as England have fallen to the invading Danes, leaving the great kingdom of Wessex standing alone and defiant under the... See full summary »
Stars: Alexander Dreymon, Ian Hart, David Dawson, Eliza Butterworth
Votes: 44.430
24.
Hakan: Muhafiz
(2018– )
15+ | 40 min | Action, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
8,3 7
Given mystical powers by a talismanic keepsake, a young man embarks on a quest to fight shadowy forces and solve a mystery from his past.
Stars: Çagatay Ulusoy, Ayça Aysin Turan, Hazar Ergüçlü, Okan Yalabik
Votes: 8.569
25.
Broadchurch
(2013–2017)
48 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
8,3 Rate
The murder of a young boy in a small coastal town brings a media frenzy, which threatens to tear the community apart.
Stars: David Tennant, Olivia Colman, Jodie Whittaker, Andrew Buchan
Votes: 68.712
26.
Bodyguard
(2018– )
60 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
8,2 Rate
A contemporary thriller featuring the Royalty and Specialist Protection Branch of London's Metropolitan Police Service.
Stars: Richard Madden, Sophie Rundle, Vincent Franklin, Ash Tandon
Votes: 38.592
27.
Manhunt: Unabomber
(2017– )
60 min | Crime, Drama
8,2 Rate
An in-depth look at how an FBI profiler helped track down the terrorist Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber.
Stars: Sam Worthington, Jeremy Bobb, Ben Weber, Chris Noth
Votes: 30.959
28.
The Blacklist
(2013– )
43 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
8,1 Rate
A new FBI profiler, Elizabeth Keen, has her entire life uprooted when a mysterious criminal, Raymond Reddington, who has eluded capture for decades, turns himself in and insists on speaking only to her.
Stars: James Spader, Megan Boone, Diego Klattenhoff, Ryan Eggold
Votes: 147.930
29.
Jessica Jones
(2015– )
56 min | Action, Crime, Drama
8,1 Rate
Following the tragic end of her brief superhero career, Jessica Jones tries to rebuild her life as a private investigator, dealing with cases involving people with remarkable abilities in New York City.
Stars: Krysten Ritter, Rachael Taylor, Eka Darville, Carrie-Anne Moss
Votes: 165.189
30.
River
(2015)
60 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
8,1 Rate
John River is a brilliant police inspector whose genius lies side-by-side with the fragility of his mind. He is a man haunted by the murder victims whose cases he must lay to rest.
Stars: Stellan Skarsgård, Nicola Walker, Lesley Manville, Eddie Marsan
Votes: 14.985
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Do I Have That Book Challenge
This looked fun & @thereadingchallengechallenge put an open tag on their post soooo here I am
1. Do you have a book with deckled edges?
Definitely one because my copy of Z that I just finished has them (though I did just have to google to make sure I knew what deckled edges made lol)
2. Do you have a book with three or more people on the cover?
The Last Summer of the Garrett Girls and Covert Affairs, and probably some of my other beach books lol
3. Do you have a book based on another fictional story?
Several! I have some good fairy tale retellings, including Birdboy by Rafe Martin, The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale, & sort of Fairest by Gail Levine (I remember it uses some of snow white’s story but it wasn’t a straight up retelling)
anyway if you’ve got fairy tail retelling recs hmu
4. Do you have a book with a title ten letters long?
Utah Blaine! One of my westerns by Louis L’Amour and thankfully close to the top of my book list so I didn’t have to look far for my answer lol
5. Do you have a book with a title that starts and ends with the same letter?
Where are you now? by Mary Higgins Clark
6. Do you have a mass market paperback book?
Absolutely, and probably a lot actually, but they’re all at home on my shelves so I don’t have a title at my fingertips
7. Do you have a book written by an author using a pen name?
All of the Secret Series by Pseudonymous Bosch
8. Do you have a book with a character’s name in the title?
The Spellbook of Listen Taylor by Jaclyn Moriarty
9. Do you have a book with 2 maps in it?
My Alexander the Great biography by Philip Freeman has several maps
10. Do you have a book that was turned into a TV show?
Kind of cheating because I haven’t read them yet but I do have a few of The Series of Unfortunate Events books
11. Do you have a book written by someone who is originally famous for something else? (celebrity/athlete/politician/tv personality)
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green!
12. Do you have a book with a clock on the cover?
The Clockwork Three by Matthew Kirby
13. Do you have a poetry book?
Yeah, a few! I’ve got three of the pocket poetry books, one of romance poems, one of the American west, and one of various classics
14. Do you have a book with an award stamp on it?
Holes by Louis Sachar, I’m pretty sure it’s a newbery medal
15. Do you have a book written by an author with the same initials as you?
I have a few Mary Hahn books (ignoring the middle initial because I couldn’t find someone with MEH)
16. Do you have a book of short stories?
One called Wicked Women that I really enjoyed (and maybe bought because it was recommended by a cute girl at the bookstore? feel free to drag me lol)
17. Do you have a book that is between 500-510 pages long?
Prey by Michael Crichton! Wow that was difficult (it doesn’t help that the Dark Tower books, the longest books that popped into my head, skipped right from like three hundred pages to like eight hundred pages lmao)
18. Do you have a book that was turned into a movie?
… I do have the first Percy Jackson book which was technically made into a movie... & I also have Paper Towns and the Fault in Our Stars by John Green
19. Do you have a graphic novel?
I actually don’t, I never got into graphic novels
20. Do you have a book written by two or more authors?
How to Be Bad by E.L. Lockhart, Sarah Mlynowski, & Lauren Myracle!
This was fun, go team! Tagging whoever wants to do this since that’s how I got to do it lol
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Historical reading list
Hello, world. A while ago I made a list of history books to read that would take me chronologically from the Big Bang up to the present. I did it on a Word document and haven’t had time to compile the list on Goodreads, but I wanted to post it here as a stopgap for anyone interested. There’s a penchant towards my own heritage, which comes through the United States and Mormonism, with, for instance, at least one biography on every American President (through Obama). But I tried to be broad because as I read these I want to gain a broad understanding not just of history but of different global cultures today; hence so many titles dealing with religion or mythology in general. There’s a smattering of fiction thrown in there where it fits historically, like The Iliad, Divine Comedy, or Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and I have other reading lists dealing with topics like art, music, religion (outside of history, like books about Buddhism or Joseph Campbell essays), and contemporary work in natural sciences/conservation/mass extinction, so by and large books relating to those things don’t appear here, but I still hope it’s useful.
1. A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking
2. The First Three Minutes, Steven Weinberg
3. Lives of the Planets: A Natural History of the Solar System, Richard Corfield
4. From Dust to Life: The Origin and Evolution of Our Solar System, John Chambers & Jacqueline Mitton
5. Plate Tectonics, Stephen M. Tomecek
6. On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin (1859)
7. The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins
8. Prehistoric Life: The Definitive Visual History of Life on Earth, Dorling-Kindersley
9. Prehistoric Life: Evolution and the Fossil Record, Lieberman and Kaesler
10. Life: An Unauthorized Biography (newest edition), Richard Fortey
11. The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions, Peter Brannen
12. When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time, Michael Benton
13. Trilobite!, Richard Fortey
14. Squid Empire: The Rise and Fall of the Cephalopods, Danna Staaf
15. Pterosaurs: Natural History, Evolution, Anatomy, Mark Witton
16. Dinosaurs: A Concise Natural History, David E. Fastovsky & David B. Weishampel
17. The Complete Dinosaur (second edition), M.K. Brett-Surman
18. Tyrannosaurus Rex: The Tyrant King, ed. Peter Larson and Kenneth Carpenter
19. Oceans of Kansas: A Natural History of the Western Interior Sea, Michael J. Everhart
20. The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, Steve Brusatte
21. All Yesterdays: Unique and Speculative Views of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals, John Conway
22. Flying Dinosaurs: How Fearsome Reptiles Became Birds, John Pickrell
23. Feathered Dinosaurs: The Origin of Birds, John Long and Peter Schouten
24. The Origin and Evolution of Mammals, T.S. Kemp
25. Beasts of Eden: Walking Whales, Dawn Horses, and Other Enigmas of Mammal Evolution, David Rains Wallace
26. After the Dinosaurs: The Age of Mammals, Donald R. Prothero
27. Walking with Beasts: A Prehistoric Safari, Tim Haines
28. Cenozoic Mammals of Africa, Lars Werdelin and William Joseph Sanders
29. The Ice Age: A Very Short Introduction, Jamie Woodward
30. Prehistoric America: A Journey through the Ice Age and Beyond, Miles Barton
31. Twilight of the Mammoths: Ice Age Extinctions and the Rewilding of America, Paul S. Martin and Harry W. Greene
32. The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin (1871)
33. Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins, Ian Tattersall
34. Lone Survivors: How We Came to Be the Only Humans on Earth, Chris Stringer
35. How to Think Like a Neanderthal, Thomas Wynn & Frederick Coolidge
36. The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain, Terrence W. Deacon
37. The Lost Civilizations of the Stone Age, Richard Rudgley
38. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari
39. The Dancing Universe: From Creation Myths to the Big Bang, Marcelo Gleiser
40. Primal Myths: Creation Myths Around the World, Barbara Sproul
41. A History of World Agriculture: From the Neolithic Age to the Current Crisis, Marcel Mazoyer
42. Across Atlantic Ice: The Origin of America’s Clovis Culture, Dennis Stanford & Bruce Bradley
43. Ancient Near East: A Very Short Introduction, Amanda H. Podany
44. The Epic of Gilgamesh (2100 BC)
45. Abraham: The First Historical Biography, David Rosenberg
46. A History of Ancient Egypt, Marc Van De Mieroop
47. Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many, Erik Hornung
48. The Search for God in Ancient Egypt, Jan Assmann
49. The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day, tr. Raymond Faulkner
50. The Mind of Egypt: History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs, Jan Assmann
51. The Family Haggadah
52. The Iliad, Homer (ca. 1180 BC)
53. The Odyssey, Homer (Fagle translation)
54. 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed, Eric Cline
55. Transformations of Myth through Time, Joseph Campbell
56. The Spirit of Zoroastrianism, Prods Oktor Skjaervo
57. In Search of Zarathustra: Across Iran and Central Asia to Find the World’s First Prophet, Paul Kriwaczek
58. Isaiah: Prophet, Seer, and Poet, Victor Ludlow (700 BC)
59. Rereading Job, Michael Austin (600 BC)
60. How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now, James L. Kugel
61. The Cambridge Companion to the Bible
62. Illuminating Humor of the Bible, Steve Walker
63. The Mother of the Lord, vol. 1: The Lady in the Temple, Margaret Barker
64. The Holy Bible, New International Version
65. The Art of War, Sun Tzu (500 BC)
66. The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome, Susan Wise Bauer
67. The Maya, Michael Coe & Stephen Houston (newest edition)
68. Blood and Mistletoe: The History of the Druids in Britain, Ronald Hutton
69. Celtic Myths and Legends, Peter Berresford Ellis
70. Celtic Gods and Heroes, Marie-Louise Sjoestedt
71. Did God Have a Wife?: Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel, William Dever
72. The Oxford History of Greece and the Hellenistic World, John Boardman
73. D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths
74. Mythology, Edith Hamilton
75. Bulfinch’s Mythology
76. The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, Roberto Calasso
77. Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions, H.R. Ellis Davidson
78. Early Irish Myths and Sagas, Jeffrey Gantz
79. From Sphinx to Christ: An Occult History, Edouard Schure
80. Buddha (Penguin Lives Biographies), Karen Armstrong
81. Buddhacarita, Asvaghosa (ca. 500 BC)
82. Buddhist Scriptures (ca. 500 BC)
83. Ramayana (ca. 500 BC)
84. Mahabharata (ca 400 BC)
85. Ka: Stories of the Mind and Gods of India, Roberto Calasso
86. Tao Te Ching (ca 400 BC)
87. The Zhuangzi (446-221 BC)
88. Old Myths and New Approaches: Interpreting Ancient Religious Sites in Southeast Asia, Alexandra Haendel
89. The Rise of Athens: The Story of the World’s Greatest Civilization, Anthony Everitt
90. Democracy: A Life, Paul Cartledge (ca. 450 BC)
91. Histories, Herodotus (440 BC)
92. History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides (410 BC)
93. Meno, Plato (380 BC)94. The Republic, Plato (380 BC)
95. The Symposium, Plato (370 BC)
96. The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle (350 BC)
97. On the Soul (De Anima), Aristotle (350 BC)
98. Poetics, Aristotle (335 BC)
99. Alexander the Great, Philip Freeman (ca 330 BC)
100. Letters (to Herodotus, Pythocles, & Menoeceus), Epicurus (ca. 200 BC)
101. Analects of Confucius (ca 200 BC)
102. Dhammapada (a Buddhist text) (200 BC)
103. The Lotus Sutra (ca 100 BC)
104. Why Buddhism is True, Robert Wright
105. Cicero: Selected Works (Penguin Classics), Marcus Tullius Cicero (ca 63 BC)
106. Caesar: Life of a Colossus, Adrian Goldsworthy
107. The Conquest of Gaul, Julius Caesar (ca 50 BC)
108. The Aeneid, Virgil (19 BC)
109. Search, Ponder, and Pray: A Guide to the Gospels, Julie M. Smith
110. Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, Reza Aslan
111. How Jesus Became God, Bart Ehrman
112. A History of the Devil, Gerald Messadie
113. Metamorphoses, Ovid (8 AD)
114. The New Complete Works of Josephus, Josephus
115. A New History of Early Christianity, Charles Freeman
116. The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels
117. The Nag Hammadi Scriptures: The Revised and Updated Translation of Sacred Gnostic Texts Complete in One Volume, ed. Marvin Meyer
118. A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Karen Armstrong
119. Money Changes Everything: How Finance Made Civilization Possible, William Goetzmann
120. The Twelve Caesars, Suetonius (Penguin Classics tr. James Rives) (ca 140 AD)
121. Meditations, Marcus Aurelius (180 AD)
122. The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, Peter Heather
123. Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, Peter Brown
124. The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World, Bart Ehrman
125. The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World, Catherine Nixey
126. A History of Christianity, Diarmaid MacCulloch
127. Everyman’s Talmud (ca. 200)
128. Confessions, St. Augustine (397)
129. The Illustrated World Encyclopedia of Saints
130. The Silk Road in World History, Xinru Liu
131. Attila: The Barbarian King Who Challenged Rome, John Man (400s)
132. The Consolation of Philosophy, Ancius Boethius (524)
133. One Thousand and One Nights (ca 600)
134. The Civilization of the Middle Ages: A Completely Revised and Expanded Edition of Medieval History, Norman F. Cantor
135. Romance of the Grail: The Magic and Mystery of Arthurian Myth, Joseph Campbell ed. Evans Lansing Smith
136. Le Morte d’Arthur, Thomas Malory (1485)
137. The Making of the Middle Ages, R.W. Southern
138. Medieval Bodies: Life, Death and Art in the Middle Ages, Jack Hartnell
139. The Age of the Vikings, Anders Winroth
140. The Sea Wolves: A History of the Vikings, Lars Brownworth
141. The Viking Spirit: An Introduction to Norse Mythology and Religion, Daniel McCoy
142. Gods and Myths of Northern Europe, H.R. Elllis Davidson
143. Norwegian Folklore, Zinken Hopp
144. Holy Misogyny: Why Sex and Gender Conflicts in the Early Church Still Matter, April DeConick
145. Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes, Tamim Ansary (610…)
146. Islam: A Short History, Karen Armstrong
147. The Holy Qur’an
148. Mohammed and Charlemagne, Henri Pirenne (700s)
149. Beowulf (Heaney translation) (by 900s)
150. A History of the English Speaking Peoples, vol. 1: The Birth of Britain, Winston Churchill
151. The Tale of Genji, Lady Murasaki Shikibu (1000s)
152. The Sagas of Icelanders (1000)
153. Eleanor of Aquitaine: By the Wrath of God, Queen of England, Alison Weir (1100s)
154. Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales, ed. Stephen Knight & Thomas Ohlgren
155. Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography, Stephen Thomas Knight
156. Book of Divine Works, Hildegard von Bingen (1163)
157. The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition, C.S. Lewis
158. Money: The Unauthorized Biography: From Coinage to Cryptocurrencies, Felix Martin
159.Genghis Khan: Life, Death, and Resurrection, John Man (ca. 1200)
160. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
161. The Secret History of the Mongol Queens, Jack Weatherford
162. Kublai Khan: The Mongol King Who Remade China, John Man
163. St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis of Assisi, ed. G.K. Chesterton (1200s)
164. St. Francis of Assisi, Omer Englebert
165. The Poetic Edda (1200s)
166. The Prose Edda, Snorri Sturluson (1200s)
167. The Saga of the Volsungs, Jesse L. Byock (late 1200s)
168. The Travels of Marco Polo, Marco Polo (1200s)
169. Revelations of Divine Love, Julian of Norwich (1300s)
170. Outlaws of the Marsh, Shi Nai’an (1300s)
171. Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Luo Guanzhong (1300s)
172. Robert the Bruce: King of Scots, Ronald McNair Scott (early 1300s)
173. The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri (1320)
174. A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, Barbara Tuchman
175. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared M. Diamond
176. Marriage: A History, Stephanie Coontz
177. The Future of Marriage, David Blankenhorn
178. The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer (1400)
179. The Civilizing Process, Norbert Elias
180. The Samurai: A Military History, Stephen Turnbull
181. 1421: The Year China Discovered America, Gavin Menzies
182. The Hundred Years War: The English in France 1337-1453, Desmond Seward
183. Joan of Arc: In Her Own Words (early 1400s)
184. History of Creativity in the Arts, Science, and Technology: Pre-1500, Brent Strong
185. The Illustrated History of the Sikhs, Khushwant Singh (late 1400s)
186. The Aztec, Man and Tribe (1400s-1521)
187. The Aztecs, Michael E. Smith
188. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, Charles Mann
189. 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, Charles Mann
190. Conquistador Voices, Volume 1, Kevin H. Siepel
191. Conquistador Voices, Volume 2, Kevin H. Siepel
192. In the Hands of the Great Spirit, John Page
193. Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance, Lisa Jardine
194. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, Jacob Burckhardt
195. The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall, Christopher Hibbert
196. The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli (1513)
197. Leonardo da Vinci, Walter Isaacson
198. Utopia, Thomas More (1516)
199. She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth, Helen Castor
200. The Reformation: A History, Diarmaid MacCulloch
201. Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World, Eric Metaxas
202. The Discoverers: A History of Man’s Search to Know His World and Himself, Daniel J. Boorstin
203. Michel de Montaigne: The Complete Essays (Penguin Classics), ed. M.A. Screech
204. Spice: The History of a Temptation, Jack Turner
205. The Age of Exploration: From Christopher Columbus to Ferdinand Magellan, Kenneth Pletcher
206. Journey to the West, Wu Cheng’en (1500s)
207. How Paris Became Paris: The Invention of the Modern City, Joan DeJean
208. A History of the English Speaking Peoples, vol. 2: The New World, Winston Churchill
209. The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870, Hugh Thomas
210. The Life of Elizabeth I, Alison Weir
211. The Faerie Queen, Edmund Spenser (1590)
212. The Lodger Shakespeare: His Life on Silver Street, Charles Nicholl
213. A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599, James Shapiro
214. London: The Biography, Peter Ackroyd
215. Galileo: Watcher of the Skies, David Wootton
216. Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War, Nathaniel Philbrick (1620)
217. Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America, David Hackett Fischer
218. Art and Commerce in the Dutch Golden Age, Michael North
219. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, Edwin G. Burrows & Mike Wallace
220. The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy, Peter H. Wilson
221. Coming of Age in the Milky Way, Timothy Ferris
222. The Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes (1651)
223. Ethics, Benedict de Spinoza (1665)
224. The Scourge of Demons: Possession, Lust, and Witchcraft in a 17th-century Italian Convent, Jeffrey Watt
225. The Great Fire of London, Neil Hanson (1666)
226. Paradise Lost (1667)
227. The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678)
228. The Diary of Samuel Pepys (Modern Library Classics), Samuel Pepys ed. Richard Le Gallienne (late 1600s)
229. The Scientific Revolution, Stephen Shapin
230. The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution, David Wootton
231. Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton, Richard Westfall (1642-1726)
232. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
233. Ways of Knowing: A New History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, John Pickstone
234. Two Treatises on Government, John Locke (1689)
235. The Penguin Book of Witches (1692)
236. In the Devil’s Snare, Mary Beth Norton (1692)
237. Memoirs of Duc de Saint-Simon, 1691-1709: Presented to the King, Duc de Saint-Simon
238. Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift (1726) (and A Modest Proposal)
239. The Major Works (Oxford World’s Classics), Alexander Pope (early 1700s)
240. China: A History, John Keay
241. The Dream of the Red Chamber, Cao Xueqin (1700s)
242. Strange Tales from the Liaozhai Studio vol. 1 (1740)
243. Strange Tales from the Liaozhai Studio vol. 2
244. Strange Tales from the Liaozhai Studio vol. 3
245. The Story of Music: From Babylon to the Beatles, Howard Goodall
246. Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician, Christoph Wolff (early 1700s)
247. A History of the English Speaking Peoples, vol. 3: The Age of Revolution, Winston Churchill
248. The Rise and Fall of the British Empire, Lawrence James
249. The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith (1759)
250. Candide, Voltaire (1759)
251. Treasury of North American Folk Tales, Catherine Peck
252. Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766, Fred Anderson
253. Benjamin Franklin, Edmund S. Morgan
254. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
255. Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman, Robert Massie
256. A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn
257. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith (1776)
258. Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius, Sylvia Nasar
259. Common Sense, Thomas Paine (1776)
260. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, Bernard Bailyn
261. The Radicalism of the American Revolution, Gordon S. Wood
262. 1776, David McCullough
263. The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson
264. History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution, Mercy Otis Warren
265. Washington’s Crossing, David Hackett Fischer
266. George Washington, A Life, Willard Sterne Randall
267. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, Gordon S. Wood
268. Washington: A Life, Ron Chernow
269. The Grand Idea: George Washington’s Potomac and the Race to the West, Joel Achenbach
270. His Excellency: George Washington, Joseph J. Ellis
271. James Wilson: Founding Father, 1742-1798, Charles Page Smith
272. The Constitution and Bill of Rights, James Madison
273. The Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1788)
274. The First Congress: How James Madison, George Washington, and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government, Fergus Bordewich
275. Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution, Jack Rakove
276. Constitutional Law: Principles and Policies, Erwin Chemerinsky
277. That’s Not What They Meant, Michael Austin
278. The Second Amendment: A Biography, Michael Waldman
279. That’s Not What They Meant About Guns, Michael Austin
280. Taming the Electoral College, Robert Bennett
281. Why the Electoral College is Bad for America, George C. Edwards
282. Faust, Goethe (1790)
283. The Ancien Regime and the Revolution, Alexis de Tocqueville
284. Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, Simon Schama
285. The Rights of Man, Thomas Paine (1791)
286. A Vindication of the Rights of Women, Mary Wollstonecraft (1792)
287. A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
288. A History of Japan: Revised Edition, R.H.P. Mason
289. John Adams, David McCullough
290. Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams, Joseph J. Ellis
291. The Scramble for Africa, Thomas Pakenham
292. Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow
293. Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years, Michael Newton
294. Alexander Hamilton: Writings (plus Farmer Refuted, Washington’s farewell address, & the Reynolds Pamphlet)
295. The Age of Reason, Thomas Paine (1804)
296. Jefferson and His Time, Dumas Malone
297. Thomas Jefferson, Willard Sterne Randall
298. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, Jon Meacham
299. American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, Joseph J. Ellis
300. Most Blessed of the Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination, Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter Onuf
301. Slavery and the Founders: Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson, Paul Finkelman
302. The Founding Foodies: How Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin Revolutionized American Cuisine, Dave DeWitt
303. The Journals of Lewis and Clark, Lewis and Clark (1806)
304. The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World, Andrea Wulf
305. A History of the English Speaking Peoples, vol. 4: The Great Democracies, Winston Churchill
306. The Cambridge Illustrated History of France, Colin Jones
307. France, a History: From Gaul to De Gaulle, John Julius Norwich
308. Napoleon: A Life, Andrew Roberts
309. The Brothers Grimm (1812)
310. James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic, Jack Rakove
311. James Madison: A Biography, Ralph Ketchem
312. The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies, Alan Taylor
313. The Naval War of 1812, Theodore Roosevelt
314. Bolivar: American Liberator, Marie Arana (ca. 1810s)
315. The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation’s Call to Greatness, Harlow Giles Unger
316. The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth-Century America, Jay Sexton
317. The English and their History, Robert Tombs
318. An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins, Grant Palmer
319. Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, D. Michael Quinn
320. Standing Apart: Mormon Historical Consciousness and the Concept of Apostasy, Miranda Wilcox & John Young
321. Nation Builder: John Quincy Adams and the Grand Strategy of the Republic, Charles Edel
322. John Quincy Adams: American Visionary, Fred Kaplan
323. John Quincy Adams, Robert V. Remini
324. Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, Richard Bushman
325. Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery
326. By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion, Terryl Givens
327. Understanding the Book of Mormon, Grant Hardy
328. The Book of Mormon: Revised Authorized Version
329. The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, D. Michael Quinn
330. Banishing the Cross: The Emergence of a Mormon Taboo, Michael G. Reed
331. This Is My Doctrine: The Development of Mormon Theology, Charles Harrell
332. The Refiner’s Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, John L. Brooke
333. A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints vol. 1, B.H. Roberts
334. Garibaldi: Invention of a Hero, Lucy Riall (1834 revolt)
335. Road to the Sea, Florence Dorsey
336. Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times, H.W. Brands
337. American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, Jon Meacham
338. Jacksonland, Steve Inskeep
339. Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville (1835)
340. Martin Van Buren: The Romantic Age of American Politics, John Niven
341. The Voyage of the Beagle, Charles Darwin (1839)
342. Incarnations: A History of India in Fifty Lives, Sunil Khilnani
343. Old Tippecanoe: William Henry Harrison and His Times, Freeman Cleaves
344. John Tyler: Champion of the Old South, Oliver P. Chitwood
345. Self-Reliance and Other Essays, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1841)
346. Fear and Trembling, Soren Kierkegaard (1843)
347. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845)
348. Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Margaret Fuller (1845)
349. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, Daniel Walker Howe
350. Nightfall at Nauvoo, Samuel W. Taylor
351. A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints vol. 2, B.H. Roberts
352. Journey to Zion: Voices from the Mormon Trail, Carol Cornwall Madsen
353. 111 Days to Zion, Hal Knight
354. The Gathering of Zion, Wallace Stegner
355. A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints vol. 3, B.H. Roberts
356. The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants on the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-60, John D. Unruh
357. So Far from God: The U.S. War with Mexico, 1846-1848, John S. D. Eisenhower
358. The Oregon Trail, Francis Parkman (1849)
359. The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream, H.W. Brands
360. Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau (1849)
361. The American Transcendentalists
362. The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America (James Polk), Walter Borneman
363. Fire and Blood: A History of Mexico, T.R. Fehrenbach
364. Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest, K. Jack Bauer
365. The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War, Andrew Delbanco
366. Millard Fillmore: Biography of a President, Robert J. Rayback
367. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)
368. Walden, Henry David Thoreau (1854)
369. Franklin Pierce, Michael Holt
370. President James Buchanan: A Biography, Philip S. Klein
371. Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism, Terryl Givens
372. A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints vol. 4, B.H. Roberts
373. American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857, Sally Denton
374. America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink, Kenneth Stampp
375. The West Indies and the Spanish Main, Anthony Trollope (1860)
376. Charles Darwin: The Power of Place, Janet Browne
377. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, James McPherson
378. Centennial History of the Civil War, vol. 1: The Coming Fury, Bruce Catton
379. Centennial History of the Civil War, vol. 2: Terrible Swift Sword, Bruce Catton
380. Centennial History of the Civil War, vol. 3: Never Call Retreat, Bruce Catton
381. Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer, Fred Kaplan
382. The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln through his Words, Ronald White
383. The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln
384. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, Doris Kearns Goodwin
385. Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South, Stephanie McCurry
386. The South vs. the South: How Anti-Confederate Southerners Shaped the Course of the Civil War, William Freehling
387. Andersen’s Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Andersen
388. Matthew Brady’s Illustrated History of the Civil War
389. With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Oates
390. A Short History of Canada (6th ed), Desmond Morton
391. Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years, Carl Sandburg
392. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, Drew Gilpin Faust
393. Abraham Lincoln, Lord Charnwood
394. Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China, Jung Chang
395. Andrew Johnson, Annette Gordon-Reed
396. Biographical Supplement and Index, Harriet Sigerman
397. Mormon Sisters: Women in Early Utah, Claudia Bushman
398. Development of LDS Temple Worship, Devery Anderson
399. The Memoirs of Hector Berlioz
400. Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet, John C. Turner
401. Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900, Leonard Arrington
402. A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints vol. 5, B.H. Roberts
403. Grant, Ron Chernow
404. Grant: A Biography, William S. McFeeley
405. American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant, Ronald C. White
406. Complete Personal Memoirs, Ulysses S. Grant
407. Capital (Das Kapital), Karl Marx (first edition 1867, third 1894)
408. The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America, Louis Menand
409. Black Reconstruction, W.E.B. Du Bois
410. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, updated edition, Eric Foner
411. A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration, Steven Hahn
412. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Dee Brown
413. Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America, T.J. Stiles
414. Rutherford B. Hayes, Hans Trefousse
415. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche
416. Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, Friedrich Nietzsche
417. Assassination Vacation (James Garfield), Sarah Vowell
418. Destiny of the Republic (James Garfield), Candice Millard
419. Gentleman Boss: The Life of Chester Alan Arthur, Thomas C. Reeves
420. King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa, Adam Hochschild
421. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Walter Rodney
422. More Wives Than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840-1910, Kathryn M. Daynes
423. The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy, Carol Lynn Pearson
424. Selected Writings, José Martí (Penguin Classics)
425. Dawn of the Belle Epoque, Mary McAuliffe
426. Grover Cleveland: A Study in Character, Henry F. Graff
427. Manning Clark’s History of Australia: Abridged from the Six-Volume Classic, Manning Clark
428. The Making of Modern Ireland, 1603-1923, J.C. Beckett
429. Benjamin Harrison, Charles W. Calhoun
430. How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York, Jacob Riis (1890)
431. Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919, Mike Wallace
432. The History of Spain, Peter Pierson
433. Presidency of William McKinley, Lewis L. Gould
434. The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois
435. Theodore Rex, Edmund Morris
436. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Edmund Morris
437. Mornings on Horseback (Theodore Roosevelt), David McCullough
438. Marie Curie: A Life, Susan Quinn
439. The Shame of the Cities, Lincoln Steffens (1904)
440. Albert Einstein: A Biography, Albrecht Folsing
441. Relativity: The Special and General Theory, Albert Einstein (1905)
442. The Jungle, Upton Sinclair (1906)
443. The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism, Doris Kearns Goodwin
444. The Life & Times of William Howard Taft, Harry F. Pringle
445. The Power and Independence of the Federal Reserve, Peter Conti-Brown
446. Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism, Bhu Srinivasan
447. The War that Ended Peace: The Road to 1914, Margaret MacMillan
448. July 1914: Countdown to War, Sean McMeekin
449. The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman
450. A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918, G.J. Meyer
451. Pandemic 1918: Eyewitness Accounts from the Greatest Medical Holocaust in Modern History, Catharine Arnold
452. Woodrow Wilson: A Biography, John Milton Cooper
453. Women and the Vote: A World History, Jad Adams
454. Rise Up Women!: The Remarkable Lives of the Suffragettes, Diane Atkinson
455. The Shadow of Blooming Grove: Warren G. Harding in His Times, Francis Russell
456. A History of Russia (new edition w Mark Steinberg), Nicholas V. Riasanovsky
457. The Flight of the Romanovs: A Family Saga, John Curtis Perry and Constantine V. Pleshakov
458. Ten Days that Shook the World, John Reed
459. Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo,” Zora Neale Hurston
460. Coolidge: An American Enigma, Robert Sobel
461. Anything Goes: A Biography of the Roaring Twenties, Lucy Moore
462. Herbert Hoover, William Leuchtenburg
463. A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints vol. 6, B.H. Roberts
464. Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World, Liaquat Ahamed
465. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, David Kennedy
466. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Walker Evans and James Agee
467. Black Elk Speaks, Black Elk
468. Franklin D. Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom, Conrad Black
469. FDR, Jean Edward Smith
470. The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life and Legacy of Frances Perkins, Kirstin Downey
471. Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, Jonathan Alte
472. Eleanor Roosevelt: Vol. 1, The Early Years, 1884-1933, Blanche Wiesen Cook
473. Eleanor Roosevelt: Vol. 2, The Defining Years, 1933-1938, Blanche Wiesen Cook
474. Eleanor Roosevelt: Vol. 3, The War Years and After, 1939-1962, Blanche Wiesen Cook
475. No Ordinary Time (FDR), Doris Kearns Goodwin
476. Alan Turing: The Enigma, Andrew Hodges
477. The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, Andrew Roberts
478. Bloodlands, Timothy Snyder
479. Leningrad, Anna Reid
480. A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary
481. Churchill: Walking with Destiny, Andrew Roberts
482. Memoirs of the Second World War, Winston Churchill
483. The Destruction of the European Jews, Raul Hilberg
484. The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank
485. Night, Elie Wiesel
486. Hiroshima, John Hersey
487. Nuremberg Trials: The Nazis and Their Crimes Against Humanity, Paul Roland
488. Truman, David McCullough
489. Gandhi: An Autobiography, Mahatma Gandhi
490. The Life of Mahatma Gandhi, Louis Fischer
491. The Arabs: A History, Eugene Rogan
492. Mao: The Unknown Story, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday
493. Inside Red China, Helen Foster Snow
494. Red Star Over China, Edgar Snow
495. The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War, David Halberstam
496. An American Childhood, Annie Dillard
497. Eisenhower in War and Peace, Jean Edward Smith
498. The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, James D. Watson (1953)
499. Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, Brenda Maddox
500. Mississippi Trial, 1955, Chris Crowe
501. Sake & Satori: Asian Journals, Joseph Campbell
502. A Concise History of Germany, Mary Fulbrook
503. The Mormon Hierarchy: Wealth and Corporate Power, D. Michael Quinn
504. Lost Legacy: The Mormon Office of Presiding Patriarch, Irene Bates
505. The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan (1963)
506. A Thousand Days (JFK), Arthur M. Schlesinger
507. An Unfinished Life (JFK), Robert Dallek
508. A History of Modern Africa: 1800 to the Present, 2nd ed., Richard J. Reid
509. The Years of Lyndon Johnson, vol. 1: The Path to Power, Robert Caro
510. The Years of Lyndon Johnson, vol. 2: Means of Ascent, Robert Caro
511. The Years of Lyndon Johnson, vol. 3: Master of the Senate, Robert Caro
512. The Years of Lyndon Johnson, vol. 4: The Passage of Power, Robert Caro
513. The Years of Lyndon Johnson, vol. 5: untitled/unreleased, Robert Caro
514. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63, Taylor Branch
515. Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963-65, Taylor Branch
516. At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68, Taylor Branch
517. The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X & Alex Haley
518. The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin
519. Lakota Woman, Mary Crow Dog
520. The Bomb: A New History, Stephen Younger
521. This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age, William Burrows
522. A History of the Modern Middle East, 5th ed., William Cleveland
523. Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi, Katherine Frank
524. Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam, Fredrik Logevall
525. The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam
526. Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam, Gordon Goldstein
527. To Destroy You Is No Loss: The Odyssey of a Cambodian Family, JoAn D. Criddle
528. All the President’s Men, Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward
529. Nixonland, Richard Perlstein
530. The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics, Bruce Schulman
531. Gerald R. Ford, Douglas Brinkley
532. Pedestals and Podiums: Utah Women, Religious Authority, and Equal Rights, Martha Bradley
533. Petals of Blood, Nugi wa Thiong’o (1977 Kenyan novel)
534. Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela
535. Spear of the Nation: South Africa’s Liberation Army, Janet Cherry
536. Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa, Antjie Krog
537. Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter, Randall Balmer
538. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, Robert A. Caro
539. President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime, Lou Cannon
540. 1983: The World at the Brink, Taylor Downing
541. A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End, Peter Kenez
542. Lost Lives (the Troubles), David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeley, and Chris Thornton
543. Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America, Juan Gonzalez
544. As Texas Goes: How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda, Gail Collins
545. Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush, Jon Meacham
546. First in His Class (Bill Clinton), David Maraniss
547. Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, Gore Vidal (2002)
548. Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 11, 2001, Steve Coll
549. Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Peter Baker
550. Monument Wars: Washington, D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape, Kirk Savage
551. The Formations of Modernity, Stuart Hall & Bram Gieben
552. Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress – and a Plan to Stop It, Lawrence Lessig (he wrote a sequel, same title with “2.0” in 2015)
553. All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis, Bethany McLean
554. Back to Work, Bill Clinton
555. Beyond Outrage: What Has Gone Wrong with our Economy and our Democracy and How to Fix It, Robert Reich
556. A Governor’s Story, Jennifer Granholm
557. Life, Inc.: How Corporatism Conquered the World and How We Can Take It Back, Douglas Rushkoff
558. Dreams from my Father, Barack Obama
559. Barack Obama: The Story, David Maraniss
560. The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama, David Remnick
561. Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President (Obama), Ron Suskind
562. Obama’s Wars, Bob Woodward
563. Hard Choices: A Memoir, Hillary Clinton
564. The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama
565. The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency, Chris Whipple
566. Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
567. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present, David Treuer
568. DNA: The Story of the Genetic Revolution, James D. Watson
569. Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China, Evan Osnos
570. Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age, Larry Bartels
571. The Post-American World: Release 2.0, Fareed Zakaria
572. What Happened, Hillary Clinton
573. THE NOT YET WRITTEN DEFINITIVE ACCOUNT OF THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S SCANDALS
574. How Democracies Die, Steve Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt
575. The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, Jon Meacham
576. America: The Farewell Tour, Chris Hedges
577. A Call to Action, Jimmy Carter
578. I Am Malala, Malala Yousafzai
579. A Path Appears, Nicholas Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn
580. The History of Creativity in the Arts, Science, and Technology: 1500-Present, Brent Strong
581. Brief Answers to the Big Questions, Stephen Hawking
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