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BOOK
The Unofficial Guide Walt Disney World 2010 (Unofficial Guides)
Bob Sehlinger
$10.80

About this product:

• In 2008, combined Walt Disney World Resort© theme park attendance reached over 51 million, with the Magic Kingdom alone drawing over 17 million visitors. (Orlando Convention and Visitor Bureau)
• Despite signifcant downturns in the economy, Disney theme parks have maintained attendance rates and made gains in attendance at some parks.
• Walt Disney World Resort theme parks are rated best in the world. earning high marks for things outside of the traditional theme park experience. Epcot's International Food & Wine Festival, which takes place for six weeks every fall and showcases food from twenty-five countries, was rated by Forbes Traveler as one of the Best U.S. Food and Wine Festivals.

BOOK
How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood
William J. Mann
$100.00

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Product Description
In the 60s, Elizabeth Taylor's affair with the married Richard Burton knocked John Glenn's orbit of the moon off front pages nationwide. Yet, despite all the gossip, the larger-than-life personality and influence of this very human woman has never been captured. William Mann, praised by Gore Vidal, Patricia Bosworth, and Gerald Clarke for Kate, uses untapped sources and conversations to show how she ignited the sexual revolution with her on-and off-screen passions, helped kick down the studio system by taking control of her own career, and practically invented the big business of celebrity star-making. With unputdownable storytelling he tells the full truth without losing Taylor's magic, daring, or wit.

Readers will feel they are sitting next to Taylor as she rises at MGM, survives a marriage engineered for publicity, feuds with Hedda Hopper and Mr. Mayer, wins Oscars, endures tragedy, juggles Eddie Fisher, Richard Burton and her country's conservative values. But it is the private Elizabeth that will surprise--a woman of heart and loyalty, who defends underdogs, a savvy professional whose anger at the studio's treatment of her led to a lifelong battle against that very system. All the Elizabeth's are here, finally reconciled and seen against the exciting years of her greatest spirit, beauty, and influence. Swathed in mink, staring us down with her lavender eyes, disposing of husbands but keeping the diamonds, here is Elizabeth Taylor as she was meant to be, leading her epic life on her own terms, playing the game of supreme stardom at which she remains, to this day, unmatched.

A Q&A with William J. Mann, Author of How to Be a Movie Star

Q: There have been more books on Elizabeth Taylor than just about any other star in Hollywood. Why do we need another one?

A: As entertaining as some of those books have been, none has really explored how she did it--how she created the culture of celebrity that we have today. Elizabeth Taylor really invented the modern enterprise of fame. Everyone from Madonna to Britney to Miley Cyrus is taking a page from her book.

Q: How were you able to chart this phenomenon?

A: It's helpful to understand how Hollywood works. Publicists and press agents would like us to think everything is spontaneous and real. Hey, those two stars making a movie together just happened to fall in love on the set! That it also provides a publicity bonanza is completely separate. There was no coordination, no manipulation. At least that's what they'd like us to think.

Q: Was that true for Taylor then? Were her legendary romances all manufactured for how they'd play in the press?

A: Not at all. Elizabeth was and is a passionate, independent woman. She always believed in what she was doing. For example, I chronicle the frantic press coverage and feverish public interest in her first marriage, when she was just 18, to Nicky Hilton--who, incidentally, was Paris Hilton's granduncle. As a romantic teenager, Elizabeth was gung-ho about making the marriage work--no matter that MGM was stage-managing the whole thing. They pushed this innocent girl into a marriage that turned out to be abusive and traumatic for her all so they could publicize a film, Father of the Bride, which was timed to come out at the same time. So Elizabeth was a movie bride at the same time as she was a real-life bride, but real life had far more dire consequences.

Q: So that must have been an early lesson for her in star-making, albeit a very difficult one.

A: Certainly she learned early on how the game was played. But what's wonderful about Elizabeth is that she never became jaded or cynical or dishonest. In fact, I think she's one of the most authentic stars ever to come out of Hollywood. She never lied to the public the way other stars did. But previous biographies have limited their approach to simply chronicling her passionate heart--without taking into account how these romances and marriages and scandals actually benefited her career. She really did fall in love with Eddie Fisher and Richard Burton while they were married to other women. But that didn't mean she and those around her didn't understand just how advantageous the headlines could be for Elizabeth.

Q: But it's always been said that the scandals with Fisher and Burton threatened to end her career, that the studios worried the public would turn its back on such a "scarlet woman."

A: That's just the spin. That's what they had to say. It was the old conventional wisdom. But Elizabeth is actually a very important figure in terms of celebrity culture. More than anyone else, she bridges the divide between Old Hollywood and New Hollywood. Old Hollywood, represented by the studios and conservative columnists like Hedda Hopper, expected the scandals to destroy Elizabeth. Indeed, they did their best to make sure she was penalized. But Elizabeth, who was being advised by a new breed of canny publicists and agents, knew that in this emerging Hollywood, there really was no such thing anymore as bad publicity.

Q: She was pretty damn famous, wasn't she? Far more famous than anything we have today, like Britney and Paris and the rest?

A: Absolutely. Especially in the 1950s and 1960s, when everything she did made headlines. Husbands, romances, movies, health crises, diamonds. John Glenn was making his historic orbit of the Earth but many newspapers still went with the Taylor-Burton scandal in Rome as their top story.

Q: And this then became the norm for celebrity culture? It changed the concept of "news."

A: Exactly. In the past, serious publications wouldn't lower themselves to cover movie stars. But suddenly there were editorials about Elizabeth Taylor all across the country. She was an enormous cultural influence. She showed that one could still be famous outside of the old studio structure by engaging her own team of personal managers and press agents. As a child and teenaged star, she learned all those valuable lessons at MGM. Then she took what she had learned and made it work for her on her own. And turned out to be an even bigger star outside the studio than she was before.

Q: Was she a better actress or a better movie star?

A: I think Elizabeth would acknowledge that she excelled more often as "movie star" than she did as "actress." But she could really be damn good at times. Here's something that sets her apart from these modern-day stars who, whether they know it or not, are following her playbook. Elizabeth understood that fame is an exchange with the public. For every headline there needed to be a good movie. You had to give something back. She never simply coasted on her fame. Instead, she turned in some truly outstanding performances in A Place in the Sun, Giant, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf--there are others, but those are her four best, in my opinion.

Q: She's known for so many health crises. There was the time she almost died in London and the whole world watched and waited for news. How true was all that?

A: Everything's true with Elizabeth. Whether or not she was as critical as she and those around her claimed, there's no doubting the sincerity of the experience for her. But even still, that shouldn't discount just how brilliant she and her publicists were in using that experience to her advantage. A year before, in the wake of the Fisher scandal, she had been tarred as Hollywood's home-wrecker. Now she was hailed as Lazarus back from the grave. In the book, I document the fascinating process of how this particular episode played out in the press and then climaxed with her winning her first Academy Award. It's a perfect illustration of the book's title:How to Be a Movie Star.

Q: So you're saying that Elizabeth Taylor was far more shrewd than we've been led to believe.

A: Absolutely. Far, far more shrewd. You know, "smart" has never been the first word that comes to mind when we think of Elizabeth Taylor. Glamorous, beautiful, alluring, sure. But in fact she was perhaps the smartest of all the old stars in knowing how to both maintain her fame and preserve a real private life as well. She didn't sacrifice personal happiness on the altar of fame, as so many others did. She had both.

Q: Would modern-day Hollywood exist without Elizabeth Taylor?

A: Well, it sure would look a heck of lot different. Elizabeth was the first female star to demand a million dollars a picture and a percent of the grosses. The deals she struck in the early 1960s really changed the financial structure of Hollywood. When she heard not long ago that Julia Roberts was getting something like twenty million a picture, she just smiled and said, "I started it." I think it's a perfect irony that a woman who so loathed the old studio system helped create the business model that replaced it.

Q: What else do you reveal about Elizabeth that we never knew before?

A: There's considerable new information on her mother, a fascinating woman in her own right, as well about as Mike Todd, Elizabeth's third husband who really set her on the road to the kind of extraordinary fame she eventually enjoyed. There are some important re-considerations on how she met and married Todd, and the same with Eddie Fisher, and then Richard Burton. It's so important to understand these people's lives in context with everyone else that was happening around them, and I attempt to do that here with Elizabeth, to not have her life read like pages from some old Photoplay magazine.

Q: But to do that, you need fresh sources. Did you find new sources writing the book?

A: I was fortunate to get many people close to Elizabeth to speak with me, both on and off the record. I was also able to get my hands on important documents that had never been used before or severely under-utilized. A journal kept by the producer of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf allowed me to get an inside, up-close view of the making of that picture. George Stevens' personal papers recreated the intimate day-to-day production of Giant and A Place in the Sun. Then there were Hedda Hopper's private letters and Mike Todd's FBI files and records from the MGM legal department and depositions Elizabeth gave in the lawsuit Fox brought against her. You really have dig out this new stuff or else you end up relying on old newspaper clippings, which are recycled by every biographer.

BOOK
Hollywood Moon: A Novel
Joseph Wambaugh
$14.57

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There's a saying at Hollywood station that the full moon brings out the beast--rather than the best--in the precinct's citizens. One moonlit night, LAPD veteran Dana Vaughn and "Hollywood" Nate Weiss, a struggling-actor-turned cop, get a call about a young man who's been attacking women. Meanwhile, two surfer cops known as Flotsam and Jetsam keep bumping into an odd, suspicious duo--a smooth-talking player in dreads and a crazy-eyed, tattooed biker. No one suspects that all three dubious characters might be involved in something bigger, more high-tech, and much more illegal. After a dizzying series of twists, turns, and chases, the cops will find they've stumbled upon a complex web of crime where even the criminals can't be sure who's conning whom.

Wambaugh once again masterfully gets inside the hearts and minds of the cops whose jobs have them constantly on the brink of danger. By turns heart-wrenching, exhilarating, and laugh-out-loud funny, Hollywood Moon is his most thrilling and deeply affecting ride yet through the singular streets of LA.

BOOK
Going Rogue: An American Life
Sarah Palin
$28.49

About this product:

One year ago, Sarah Palin burst onto the national political stage like a comet. Yet even now, few Americans know who this remarkable woman really is.

On September 3, 2008 Alaska Governor and vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin delivered a speech at the Republican National Convention that electrified the nation and instantly made her one of the most recognizable women in the world.

As chief executive of America's largest state, she had built a record as a reformer who cast aside politics-as-usual and pushed through changes other politicians only talked about: Energy independence. Ethics reform. And the biggest private sector infrastructure project in U.S. history. And while revitalizing public school funding and ensuring the state met its responsibilities to seniors and Alaska Native populations, Palin also beat the political "good ol' boys club" at their own game and brought Big Oil to heel.

Like her GOP running mate, John McCain, Palin wasn't a packaged and over-produced candidate. She was a Main Street American woman: a working mom, wife of a blue collar union man, and mother of five children, the eldest of whom was serving his country in a yearlong deployment in Iraq and the youngest, an infant with special needs. Palin's hometown story touched a populist nerve, rallying hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans to the GOP ticket.

But as the campaign unfolded, Palin became a lightning rod for both praise and criticism. Supporters called her "refreshing" and "honest," a kitchen-table public servant they felt would fight for their interests. Opponents derided her as a wide-eyed Pollyanna unprepared for national leadership. But none of them knew the real Sarah Palin.

In this eagerly anticipated memoir, Palin paints an intimate portrait of growing up in the wilds of Alaska; meeting her lifelong love; her decision to enter politics; the importance of faith and family; and the unique joys and trials of life as a high-profile working mother. She also opens up for the first time about the 2008 presidential race, providing a rare, mom's-eye view of high-stakes national politics—from patriots dedicated to "Country First" to slick politicos bent on winning at any cost.

Going Rogue traces one ordinary citizen's extraordinary journey and imparts Palin's vision of a way forward for America and her unfailing hope in the greatest nation on earth.

BOOK
Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government
Kevin Balfe
$11.75

About this product:

It happens to all of us: You're minding your own business, when some idiot informs you that guns are evil, the Prius will save the planet, or the rich have to finally start paying their fair share of taxes.

Just go away! you think to yourself -- but they only become more obnoxious. Your heart rate quickens. You start to sweat. You can't get away. Your only hope is...

Glenn Beck, author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers An Inconvenient Book and Glenn Beck's Common Sense, has stumbled upon the secret formula to winning arguments against people with big mouths but small minds: knowing the facts.

The next time your Idiot Friends tell you how gun control prevents gun violence, you'll tell them all about England's handgun ban (see page 53). When they tell you that we should copy the UK's health-care system, you'll recount the horrifying facts you read on page 244. And the next time an idiot tells you that vegetable prices will skyrocket without illegal workers, you'll stop saying "no, they won't" and you'll start saying, "actually, eliminating all illegal labor will cause us to spend just $8 a year more on produce." (See page 139.)

Idiots can't be identified through voting records, they can be found only by looking for people who hide behind stereotypes, embrace partisanship, and believe that bumper sticker slogans are a substitute for common sense. If you know someone who fits the bill, then Arguing with Idiots will help you silence them once and for all with the ultimate weapon: the truth.

BOOK
The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to The Sports Guy
Bill Simmons
$12.25

About this product:
There is only one writer on the planet who possesses enough basketball knowledge and passion to write the definitive book on the NBA.* Bill Simmons, the from-the-womb hoops addict known to millions as ESPN.com’s Sports Guy, is that writer. And The Book of Basketball is that book.

Nowhere in the roundball universe will you find another single volume that covers as much in such depth as this wildly opinionated and thoroughly entertaining look at the past, present, and future of pro basketball.

From the age-old question of who actually won the rivalry between Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain to the one about which team was truly the best of all time, Simmons opens–and then closes, once and for all–every major pro basketball debate. Then he takes it further by completely reevaluating not only how NBA Hall of Fame inductees should be chosen but how the institution must be reshaped from the ground up, the result being the Pyramid: Simmons’s one-of-a-kind, five-level shrine to the ninety-six greatest players in the history of pro basketball. And ultimately he takes fans to the heart of it all, as he uses a conversation with one NBA great to uncover that coveted thing: The Secret of Basketball.

Comprehensive, authoritative, controversial, hilarious, and impossible to put down (even for Celtic-haters), The Book of Basketball offers every hardwood fan a courtside seat beside the game’s finest, funniest, and fiercest chronicler.



* More to the point, he’s the only one crazy enough to try to pull it off.