The Entertainment & Celebrities category has 1,571 audiobooks on Listento.it, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 47,373 ratings. The most-rated is Born a Crime.
The Measure of a Man
Summary
Grammy Award Winner, Best Spoken Word Album, 2000 In this luminous memoir, a true American icon looks back on his celebrated life and career. His body of work is arguably the most morally significant in cinematic history, and the power and influence of that work are indicative of the character of the man behind the many storied roles. Sidney Poitier here explores these elements of character and personal values to take his own measure: as a man, as a husband and a father, and as an actor. Poitier credits his parents and his childhood on tiny Cat Island in the Bahamas for equipping him with the unflinching sense of right and wrong and of self-worth that he has never surrendered and that have dramatically shaped his world. Without television, radio, and material distractions to obscure what matters most, he could enjoy the simple things, endure the long commitments, and find true meaning in his life. Poitier was uncompromising as he pursued a personal and public life that would honor his upbringing and the invaluable legacy of his parents. Just a few years after his introduction to indoor plumbing and the automobile, Poitier broke racial barrier after racial barrier to launch a pioneering acting career. Committed to the notion that what one does for a living articulates who one is, Poitier played only forceful and affecting characters who said something positive, useful, and lasting about the human condition. Here is Poitier's own introspective look at what has informed his performances and his life. Poitier explores the nature of sacrifice and commitment, price and humility, rage and forgiveness, and paying the price for artistic integrity. What emerges is a picture of a man in the face of limits - his own and the world's. A triumph of the spirit, The Measure of a Man captures the essential Poitier.
©2000 Sidney Poitier (P)2000 HarperCollins Publishers
The Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek: The First 25 Years
Summary
This is the unauthorized, uncensored, and unbelievable true story behind the making of a pop culture phenomenon. The original Star Trek series debuted in 1966 and has spawned five TV series spin-offs and a dozen feature films, with an upcoming one from Paramount arriving in 2016. The Fifty-Year Mission is a no-holds-barred oral history of five decades of Star Trek, told by the people who were there. Hear from the hundreds of television and film executives, programmers, writers, creators, and cast as they unveil the oftentimes shocking story of Star Trek's ongoing 50-year mission - a mission that has spanned from the classic series to the animated show, the many attempts at a relaunch through the beloved feature films. Make no mistake, this isn't just an audiobook for Star Trek fans. Here is a volume for all fans of pop culture and anyone interested in the nuts and bolts of a television touchstone.
©2016 Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman (P)2016 Macmillan Audio
Live from New York
Summary
Saturday Night Live changed the face of television: it introduced brash new stars, trashed TV taboos, and had an impact on American life, laughter, and politics. Dozens of stars, writers, guest hosts, contributors, and craftsmen recall the backstage stories, behind-the-scenes gossip, feuds, foibles, drugs, sex, struggles, and calamities, including personal details never before revealed. Stars interviewed include Mike Myers, Chris Rock, Bill Murray, Tom Hanks, Adam Sandler, Chevy Chase, Will Ferrell, Dan Aykroyd, Steve Martin, Jon Lovitz, Jane Curtin, Billy Crystal, Martin Short, Dana Carvey, Tina Fey, Jimmy Fallon, Chris Kattan, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Garrett Morris, Molly Shannon, Damon Wayans, Chris Elliott, Julia Sweeney, Norm Macdonald, and Paul Simon - plus writers like Al Franken, Conan O'Brien, Larry David, Rosie Shuster, Jack Handey, Robert Smigel, Don Novello, and others who got their big breaks as part of the SNL team. Live from New York does what no other book about the show has ever done: It lets the people who were there tell the story in their own words, blunt and loving and uncensored.
©2002 Thomas W. Shales and Jimmy the Writer Inc., (P)2002 HighBridge Company
A Tokyo Romance
Summary
A classic memoir of self-invention in a strange land: Ian Buruma's unflinching account of his amazing journey into the heart of Tokyo's underground culture as a young man in the 1970s When Ian Buruma arrived in Tokyo in 1975, Japan was little more than an idea in his mind, a fantasy of a distant land. A sensitive misfit in the world of his upper middle class youth, what he longed for wasn't so much the exotic as the raw, unfiltered humanity he had experienced in Japanese theater performances and films, witnessed in Amsterdam and Paris. One particular theater troupe, directed by a poet of runaways, outsiders, and eccentrics, was especially alluring, more than a little frightening, and completely unforgettable. If Tokyo was anything like his plays, Buruma knew that he had to join the circus as soon as possible. Tokyo was an astonishment. Callow and unformed, Buruma found a feverish and surreal metropolis where nothing was understated and everything shouted for attention - neon lights, crimson lanterns, Japanese pop, advertising jingles, cabarets, and PA systems. He encountered a city in the midst of an economic boom where everything seemed new, aside from the isolated temple or shrine that had survived the firestorms and earthquakes that had leveled the city during the past century. History remained in fragments: the shapes of wounded World War Two veterans in white kimonos, murky old bars that Mishima had cruised in, and the narrow alleys where street girls had once flitted. Buruma's Tokyo, though, was a city engaged in a radical transformation. And through his adventures in the world of avant-garde theater, his encounters with carnival acts, fashion photographers, and moments on set with Akira Kurosawa, Buruma underwent a radical transformation of his own. For an outsider, unattached to the cultural burdens placed on the Japanese, this was a place to be truly free. A Tokyo Romance is a portrait of a young artist and the fantastical city that shaped him. With his signature acuity, Ian Buruma brilliantly captures the historical tensions between East and West, the clash of conflicting cultures, and the dilemma of the gaijin in Japanese society, constantly free yet always on the outside. The result is a timeless story about the desire to transgress boundaries: cultural, artistic, and sexual.
©2018 Ian Buruma (P)2018 Penguin Audio
Play On
Summary
Mick Fleetwood, the drummer and cofounder of the mega-selling band Fleetwood Mac, tells all. In this candid, intimate portrait of a life lived in music, Mick Fleetwood sheds new light on well-known points in his history, including many incredible moments of recording and touring with Fleetwood Mac, as well as personal insights from a man who has been a major player in blues and rock n' roll since his teens. The group Fleetwood Mac has sold over 140 million records worldwide, and they continue to attract a huge following, selling out their biggest arena tour ever in 2013, decades after their debut. Finally, the group's admirers will have a unique portrait of what made Mick and the rest of the group tick in the midst of their massive success and personal trials.
©2014 Mick Fleetwood and Anthony Bozza (P)2014 Hachette Audio
Being John Lennon
Summary
What was it like to be John Lennon? What was it like to be the cast-off child, the clown at school, and the middle-class suburban boy who pretended to be a working-class hero? How did it feel to have one of the most recognisable singing voices in the world, but to dislike it so much he always wanted to disguise it? How must it have felt, when he saw the melodies of his younger songwriting partner praised so highly and his own songs, in his eyes, undervalued? And what was it like to become trapped inside a four-headed deity knowing that it would become increasingly impossible to keep feeding the desires of its worshippers? Being John Lennon is not about the whitewashed Prince of Peace of 'Imagine' legend, because that was only a small part of him. Nor is it about the permanently angry young rebel of the movie Nowhere Boy, or even the ranting Beatles iconoclast of the Rolling Stone interviews. All three of those personae had a degree of truth in them. But the John Lennon depicted in these pages is a much more kaleidoscopic figure, sometimes almost a collision of different characters. He was funny, often very funny. But, above everything, he had 'attitude', his impudent, plain speaking somehow personifying the aspirations of his generation to answer back to authority. Before John Lennon, entertainers and heroes to the young had almost invariably been humble, grateful young men who bestowed on their managers the respect they might have given to their bosses or headmasters. John Lennon didn't do that. With that amused, slightly insolent lilt to his voice, and a two edged joke never far away, he met everyone - grand, authoritarian, super famous, or none of those things - on a level playing field. Rank and status didn't unnerve him. He could, and would, say the unsayable. Perhaps sometimes he shouldn't, and he would excuse himself later by saying, 'Oh, that was only me mouth talking.' Though there were more glamorous rock stars around, even in the Beatles, it was John Lennon's attitude which caught and then defined the moment best. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio on our Desktop Site.
©2018 Ray Connolly (P)2018 Orion Publishing Group
Jeff Gordon
Summary
"I purposely waited until I retired from driving so the book would encompass my entire career," says Jeff Gordon. "People are going to be able to read about me like they've never read about me before." The first-ever authorized biography of Jeff Gordon, the four-time champion racing legend. For over a year, Garner interviewed and observed Gordon at races, at special events, and at home. The book is based on extensive interviews with Gordon as well as in-depth interviews with dozens of family members, friends, competitors, and colleagues, some of whom have never gone on the record before. Jeff speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about his childhood, his much publicized divorce, those he competed against, his family, and life after racing. Gordon's meteoric rise through racing's ranks is a classic American success story. Listeners will find inspiration in Gordon's candid take on his pivotal life episodes. About the author: Five-time New York Times best-selling author Joe Garner has become one of the premiere chroniclers of America's popular culture. With his seminal work, We Interrupt This Broadcast, he took publishing by storm, selling nearly 700,000 copies and hitting the New York Times best-seller list in two consecutive years. He has produced several other best sellers. His most recent New York Times and USA Today best seller is 100 Yards of Glory, about the greatest moments in NFL history, with Bob Costas. Gordon and Garner first worked together in 2006 on the multimedia book Speed, Guts & Glory, about landmark moments in NASCAR history.
©2016 Jeff Gordon (P)2017 Audible, Inc.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Summary
Robbie Stamp, close friend of Douglas Adams and executive producer of the new The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film, discusses Adams' life and legacy, and reveals details about the upcoming film.
Producers: Rick Freeman and Ilya MalinskyEngineer: Craig HutchisonPost-Production Engineer: Gil Hova(P)2005 Audible, Inc.
Best Seat in the House
Summary
For 15 years, Tom Stephen had the unique distinction of being both drummer and manager of the Jeff Healey Band. The dual role was fraught with conflicts of interest. One minute, he was leading the debauched life of a rock musician; the next, he was disciplining the band for the havoc they caused. But few knew or understood Jeff Healey - a national icon and one of the world’s best blues guitarists - better. Funny and loyal, with a luminous mind and staggering talent, Healey was also provincial, stubborn, obnoxious, and antagonistic. This book explores both sides with honesty, clarity, and humor and reveals what life for the band was really like: Jeff challenging ZZ Top to a bowling competition - and winning; Bill Clinton inviting the band to the White House, and enjoying a special audience with Queen Elizabeth II. To say nothing of the legendary guitarist’s interactions with Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Keith Richards, and more.... Tom Stephen was there for it all. He believes that young fans deserve to experience Healey’s brilliance - to understand the complicated man behind those timeless sounds. Best Seat in the House offers an authentic perspective that fans won’t find elsewhere.
©2018 Castle Hill Records Limited and Keith Elliot Greenberg (P)2018 Audible, Inc.
Birth School Metallica Death, Volume 1
Summary
A landmark release, this is the first of a two-volume biography of Metallica, the biggest metal band of all time, told via exclusive interviews with the band and their world. The California quartet has sold more than 100 million albums worldwide, won nine Grammy Awards, and had five consecutive albums hit number one on the US Billboard chart. Theirs is a tale about much more than sales figures and critical acclaim, though, and their journey from scuzzy Los Angeles garages to the world's most storied stadiums has been dramatic and painful. Birth School Metallica Death is the definitive story of the most significant rock band since Led Zeppelin. It's a story about family, community, self-belief, and the pursuit of dreams, which unfolds through firsthand interviews with the band and those closest to it. In this epic saga, deserving of a broad canvas, the first volume details the band's rise to international fame while the second explores the challenges and tensions that accompany such status. Piece by piece, Paul Brannigan and Ian Winwood reveal just how Metallica has stayed ahead of the competition for so many years.
©2013 Paul Brannigan, Ian Winwood (P)2013 Blackstone
People You Follow
Summary
“A journey down the rabbit hole of LA's most subtly toxic industry...funny, brilliant, coy, playful, and wise.” (Lena Dunham, author of Not That Kind of Girl) Musician Hayley Gene Penner tells all in this harrowingly honest memoir. Singer-songwriter Hayley Gene Penner's memoir takes a brutally honest yet humorous look at the dark, intimate truths we spend our lives running from. Like a map of beautiful mistakes, Hayley’s stories of questionable sexual encounters, artistic aspirations, and emotional abuse trace her coming of age in the music industry. Hayley explores all her relationships - from her childhood as the daughter of a celebrity, to the destructive and coercive relationship with her boss, to her encounter with the actor we all know but who mustn’t be named - and brings them together in a series of sharp, touching vignettes. People You Follow straddles the delicate boundary between ethical and unethical behavior, self-protection and self-destruction, power and weakness, giddiness and despair.
©2020 Hayley Gene Penner (P)2020 Audible, Inc.
Here for It
Summary
National Best Seller Read with Jenna Book Club Pick as Featured on Today From the creator of Elle’s “Eric Reads the News", a heartfelt and hilarious memoir-in-essays about growing up seeing the world differently, finding unexpected hope, and experiencing every awkward, extraordinary stumble along the way. “Pop culture-obsessed, Sedaris-level laugh-out-loud funny...[R. Eric Thomas] is one of my favorite writers.” (Lin-Manuel Miranda, Entertainment Weekly) Named One of the 10 Best Books of the Year by Teen Vogue and One of the Best Books of the Year by O: The Oprah Magazine • NPR • Marie Claire • Men’s Health R. Eric Thomas didn’t know he was different until the world told him so. Everywhere he went - whether it was his rich, mostly white, suburban high school, his conservative black church, or his Ivy League college in a big city - he found himself on the outside looking in. In essays by turns hysterical and heartfelt, Thomas reexamines what it means to be an “other” through the lens of his own life experience. He explores the two worlds of his childhood: the barren urban landscape where his parents’ house was an anomalous bright spot and the Eden-like school they sent him to in white suburbia. He writes about struggling to reconcile his Christian identity with his sexuality, the exhaustion of code-switching in college, accidentally getting famous on the internet (for the wrong reason), and the surreal experience of covering the 2016 election for Elle online, and the seismic changes that came thereafter. Ultimately, Thomas seeks the answer to these ever more relevant questions: Is the future worth it? Why do we bother when everything seems to be getting worse? As the world continues to shift in unpredictable ways, Thomas finds the answers to these questions by reenvisioning what “normal” means and in the powerful alchemy that occurs when you at last place yourself at the center of your own story. Here for It will resonate deeply and joyfully with everyone who has ever felt pushed to the margins, struggled with self-acceptance, or wished to shine more brightly in a dark world. Stay here for it- the future may surprise you.
©2020 R. Eric Thomas (P)2020 Random House Audio
The Writing Life
Summary
With color, irony, and sensitivity, Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Dillard illuminates the dedication, absurdity, and daring that is the writer’s life. As it probes and exposes, examines and analyzes, The Writing Life offers deeper insight into one of the most mysterious of professions.
©1989 Annie Dillard (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Rockers & Rollers
Summary
By night, Brian Johnson sings in the biggest rock 'n' roll band on the planet. But by day, AC/DC's charismatic, flat-capped frontman gets to indulge his passion for all things automotive. Cars and rock 'n'roll - they were made for each other. Car racer, car collector, and all-round car enthusiast, Johnson is an incurable, certifiable petrolhead who can't remember a time when four wheels didn't feature as large in his life as music. Starting, as a young boy growing up in Tyneside, with an old steering wheel and his imagination, a lifelong passion took root early. And through cramped teenage fumbles in an old mini and clapped-out, hygienically challenged tour vans, to chauffeur-driven, leather-trimmed limos and a sideline as a successful racing driver, it's been there ever since. By turns, surprising, joyful, poignant, and usually laugh-out-loud funny, Rockers and Rollers is the story of man with an insatiable appetite for life and a glimpse into the extraordinary world of AC/DC, set soon to overtake the Beatles as the biggest-selling band in history. Packed with hair-raising anecdotes and revealing a God-given talent for comic writing on every page, Brian Johnson has written the most unique, entertaining autobiography of the year. And essential reading for car nuts and rock fans. Well that'll be most of us then.... Assistant producer, Ben Jones. Recording engineers, Ben Jones, Sam Navel and George Harris Recorded at Eastcote Studios, London, One Golden Square, London and Panda Productions Recording Studio, Florida. Text and production copyright: Serious Comedy.
©2013 Brian Johnson (P)2013 Serious Comedy
Tragedy Plus Time
Summary
“Inspiring, tragic, and at times heart-rendingly funny.” (People) Unsentimental, unexpectedly funny, and incredibly honest, Tragedy Plus Time is a love letter to every family that has ever felt messy, complicated, or (even momentarily) magnificent. Meet the Magnificent Cayton-Hollands, a trio of brilliant, acerbic teenagers from Denver, Colorado, who were going to change the world. Anna, Adam, and Lydia were taught by their father, a civil rights lawyer, and mother, an investigative journalist, to recognize injustice and have their hearts open to the universe — the good, the bad, the heartbreaking (and, inadvertently, the anxiety-inducing and the obsessive-compulsive disorder-fueling). Adam chose to meet life’s tough breaks and cruel realities with stand-up comedy; his older sister, Anna, chose law; while their youngest sister, Lydia, struggled to find her place in the world. Beautiful and whip-smart, Lydia was witty, extremely sensitive, fiercely stubborn, and always somewhat haunted. She and Adam bonded over comedy from a young age, running skits in their basement and obsessing over episodes of The Simpsons. When Adam sunk into a deep depression in college, it was Lydia who was able to reach him and pull him out. But years later as Adam’s career takes off, Lydia’s own depression overtakes her, and, though he tries, Adam can’t return the favor. When she takes her own life, the family is devastated, and Adam throws himself into his stand-up, drinking, and rage. He struggles with disturbing memories of Lydia’s death and turns to EMDR therapy to treat his post-traumatic stress disorder when he realizes there’s a difference between losing and losing it. Adam Cayton-Holland is a tremendously talented writer and comedian, uniquely poised to take listeners to the edges of comedy and tragedy, brilliance and madness. Tragedy Plus Time is a revelatory, darkly funny, and poignant tribute to a lost sibling that will have you reaching for the phone to call your brother or sister by the end.
©2018 Adam Cayton-Holland (P)2018 Simon & Schuster Audio
Bond on Bond
Summary
The year 2012 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the longest continually running film series in movie history. To celebrate the most renowned 007, Roger Moore, KBE, has written a book that features all the Bond movies, along with a wonderfully witty account of his own involvement in them. From girls to the villains, from the cars to the cocktails, from the gadgets to the locations; this is the ultimate James Bond book, written by the ultimate James Bond.
©2012 Sir Roger Moore (P)2012 W F Howes Ltd
A Broken Hallelujah
Summary
Brings to life a passionate poet-turned-musician and what compels him and his work.Why is it that Leonard Cohen receives the sort of reverence we reserve for a precious few living artists? Why are his songs, three or four decades after their original release, suddenly gracing the charts, blockbuster movie sound tracks, and television singing competitions? And why is it that while most of his contemporaries are either long dead or engaged in uninspired nostalgia tours, Cohen is at the peak of his powers and popularity?These are the questions at the heart of A Broken Hallelujah, a meditation on the singer, his music, and the ideas and beliefs at its core. Granted extraordinary access to Cohen’s personal papers, Liel Leibovitz examines the intricacies of the man whose performing career began with a crippling bout of stage fright, yet who, only a few years later, tamed a rowdy crowd on the Isle of Wight, preventing further violence; the artist who had gone from a successful world tour and a movie star girlfriend to a long residency in a remote Zen retreat; and the rare spiritual seeker for whom the principles of traditional Judaism, the tenets of Zen Buddhism, and the iconography of Christianity all align. The portrait that emerges is that of an artist attuned to notions of justice, lust, longing, loneliness, and redemption, and possessing the sort of voice and vision commonly reserved only for the prophets.More than just an account of Cohen’s life, A Broken Hallelujah is an intimate look at the artist that is as emotionally astute as it is philosophically observant. Delving into the sources and meaning of Cohen’s work, Leibovitz beautifully illuminates what Cohen is telling us and why we listen so intensely.
©2014 Liel Leibovitz (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Solid State
Summary
In Solid State, Kenneth Womack offers the most definitive account of the conception, recording, mixing, and reception of Abbey Road. In February 1969, the Beatles began working on what became their final album together. Abbey Road introduced a number of new techniques and technologies to the Beatles' sound and included "Come Together", "Something", and "Here Comes the Sun", which all emerged as classics. Womack's colorful retelling of how this landmark album was written and recorded is a treat for fans of the Beatles. Solid State takes listeners back to 1969 and into EMI's Abbey Road Studios, which boasted an advanced solid state transistor mixing desk. Womack focuses on the dynamics between John, Paul, George, and Ringo and producer George Martin and his team of engineers, who for the most part set aside the tensions and conflicts that had arisen on previous albums to create a work with an innovative (and among some fans and critics, controversial) studio-bound sound that prominently included the new Moog synthesizer, among other novelties. As Womack shows, Abbey Road was the culmination of the instrumental skills, recording equipment, and artistic vision that the band and George Martin had developed since their early days in the same studio seven years before. A testament to the group's creativity and their producer's ingenuity, Solid State is required listening for all fans of the Beatles and the rock 'n' roll.
©2019 Kenneth Womack (P)2019 Blackstone Publishing
Hank
Summary
After he died in the backseat of a Cadillac at the age of 29, Hank Williams - a frail, flawed man who had become country music's first real star - instantly morphed into its first tragic martyr. Having hit the heights with simple songs of despair, depression, and tainted love, he would, with that outlaw swagger, become in death a template for the rock generation to follow. Six decades later, Mark Ribowsky now weaves together the first fully realized biography of Hank Williams in a generation. Examining his music while also re-creating days and nights choked in booze and desperation, Ribowsky traces the miraculous rise of this music legend - from the dirt roads of rural Alabama to the now-immortal stage of the Grand Ole Opry and finally to a sad, lonely end on New Year's Day 1953. The result is an original work that promises to uncover the real Hank beneath the myths that have long enshrouded his legacy.
©2017 Mark Ribowsky (P)2016 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
A Sick Life
Summary
In addition to the balancing act of juggling an all-consuming music career and her family, TLC's Tionne has struggled with sickle-cell disease since she was a young girl - a debilitating and incurable disease that can render her unable to perform, walk, or even breathe. A Sick Life chronicles Tionne's journey from a childhood spent in and out of the hospital, told she wouldn't live to see 30 or have children, to becoming the superstar musician who is still living out her life's dream of performing. For the first time, Tionne will tell her full life story - the diagnosis, the tumultuous rise to fame, the life in the spotlight, and the hard-fought advocacy work. Through Tionne's tough, funny, tell-it-like-it-is voice, you'll see how the extraordinary singer and advocate found the inner strength, grit, and determination to live her dream - despite her often unpredictable and demanding health issues. She dives deep into never-before-told TLC stories, including accounts of her friendship with Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopes and the tragedy of her death. Tionne's unvarnished discussion of her disease, unending strength, and ability to power through the odds is a story like no other.
©2017 Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins (P)2017 HighBridge, a Division of Recorded Books