(Applause Books). In Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die , readers take an evocative journey with author Keith Elliot Greenberg as he pieces together the puzzle of James Dean's final day and its everlasting impact. Greenberg travels to Dean's hometown to talk with folks who knew the star, and all the way to the California roads that underlay the tires of the actor's infamous Porsche Spyder. Taking the story back and forth in time, Greenberg gives insight into what drove Dean to live on the edge the early loss of his mother, his relentless drive to explore for the sake of his craft. Dean once said, "Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." He lived to experience, and the one love that compared to his love of acting was his love of racing cars. Greenberg puts the event in historical context, reflecting on the world Dean lived in at the time, an era after World War II, the end of the Korean War, the advent of rock and roll, with the sixties coming down the pike. The star's too-soon departure froze him as a symbol of American Cool, and as proven by the 20,000 people who return to Dean's grave each year to pay homage, a major influence on youth culture for myriad generations. With fresh interviews with insiders, riveting storytelling, and acute attention to details from vehicle specs to Dean's stops along the way (including for an ominous speeding ticket) to how the news reached the world Greenberg delivers a thoughtful look at this historical moment.

In Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die, readers take an evocative journey with author Keith Elliot Greenberg as he pieces together the puzzle of James Dean's final day and its everlasting impact. Greenberg travels to Dean's hometown to talk with folks who knew the star, and all the way to the California roads that underlay the tires of the actor's infamous Porsche Spyder. Taking the story back and forth in time, Greenberg gives insight into what drove Dean to live on the edge – the early loss of his mother, his relentless drive to explore for the sake of his craft. Dean once said, “Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today.” He lived to experience, and the one love that compared to his love of acting was his love of racing cars. Greenberg puts the event in historical context, reflecting on the world Dean lived in at the time, an era after World War II, the end of the Korean War, the advent of rock and roll, with the sixties coming down the pike. The star's too-soon departure froze him as a symbol of American Cool, and as proven by the 20 000 people who return to Dean's grave each year to pay homage, a major influence on youth culture for myriad generations. With fresh interviews with insiders, riveting storytelling, and acute attention to details – from vehicle specs to Dean's stops along the way (including for an ominous speeding ticket) to how the news reached the world – Greenberg delivers a thoughtful look at this historical moment.

TOO FAST TO LIVE TOO YOUNG TO DIE: JAMES DEAN'S FINAL HOURS

With extensive research, this account of the Hollywood star and his legion of fans offers “the best narrative yet of Dean’s final ten hours” (San Francisco Examiner). Just before sunset on September 20, 1955, James Byron Dean’s Porsche 550 Spyder collided with Donald Gene Turnupseed’s Ford Tudor on California Highway 46. At age twenty-four, America’s newest screen idol was dead. But what really happened? Drawing on original documents, including the coroner’s inquest and other previously unpublished material, author Warren Newton Beath provides a painstakingly accurate reconstruction of Dean’s final hours and tragic death. In addition, Beath explores Dean’s life and his enduring status as a cultural icon, including Elvis Presley’s worship of him; Hitchcock’s use of Highway 46 in the famous crop-dusting scene in North by Northwest; death threats against Giant director George Stevens if he dared excise a single frame of Deans’ final performance; and many more fascinating facts about the enigmatic screen legend. Beath’s definitive account concludes with a memorable portrait of the James Dean cult, a strangely moving record of his posthumous life in the hearts of his adoring fans.

A larger-than-life narrative of the making of the classic film, marking the rise of America as a superpower, the ascent of Hollywood celebrity, and the flowering of Texas culture as mythology. Featuring James Dean, Rock Hudson, and Elizabeth Taylor, Giant is an epic film of fame and materialism, based around the discovery of oil at Spindletop and the establishment of the King Ranch of south Texas. Isolating his star cast in the wilds of West Texas, director George Stevens brought together a volatile mix of egos, insecurities, sexual proclivities, and talent. Stevens knew he was overwhelmed with Hudson’s promiscuity, Taylor’s high diva-dom, and Dean’s egotistical eccentricity. Yet he coaxed performances out of them that made cinematic history, winning Stevens the Academy Award for Best Director and garnering nine other nominations, including a nomination for Best Actor for James Dean, who died before the film was finished. In this compelling and impeccably researched narrative history of the making of the film, Don Graham chronicles the stories of Stevens, whose trauma in World War II intensified his ambition to make films that would tell the story of America; Edna Ferber, a considerable literary celebrity, who meets her match in the imposing Robert Kleberg, proprietor of the vast King Ranch; and Glenn McCarthy, an American oil tycoon; and Errol Flynn lookalike with a taste for Hollywood. Drawing on archival sources Graham’s Giant is a comprehensive depiction of the film’s production showing readers how reality became fiction and fiction became cinema.

Still reeling from his wife's recent miscarriage, Moe Prager is bullied into taking the case of an up-and-coming politico whose career has stalled over the suspicious disappearance of a young woman. It's been almost two years since Moira Heaton, State Senator Steven Brightman's intern, vanished on Thanksgiving Eve 1981. In spite of Brightman's best efforts to clear his name, he has been tried and convicted in the press. As a reluctant Moe peels away the layers of the case, he discovers the tragic circumstances of Moira Heaton's disappearance are buried deep in the past and that there is another more heinous crime at the heart of it all. Will the ugly truth set Brightman free or will it bury all the players beneath the crumbling artiface of corruption, murder, and hate?