True tales of celebrity hijinks are served up with an equal measure of Hollywood history, movie-star mayhem, and a frothy mix of forty cocktail recipes. Humphrey Bogart got himself arrested for protecting his drinking buddies, who happened to be a pair of stuffed pandas. Ava Gardner would water-ski to the set of Night of the Iguana holding a towline in one hand and a cocktail in the other. Barely legal Natalie Wood would let Dennis Hopper seduce her if he provided a bathtub full of champagne. Bing Crosby’s ill-mannered antics earned him the nickname “Binge Crosby.” And sweet Mary Pickford stashed liquor in hydrogen peroxide bottles during Prohibition. From the frontier days of silent film up to the wild auteur period of the 1970s, Mark Bailey has pillaged the vaults of Hollywood history and lore to dig up the true—and often surprising—stories of seventy of our most beloved actors, directors, and screenwriters at their most soused. Bite-size biographies are followed by ribald anecdotes and memorable quotes. If a star had a favorite cocktail, the recipe is included. Films with the most outrageous booze-soaked stories, like Apocalypse Now, From Here to Eternity, and The Misfits, are featured, along with the legendary watering holes of the day (and the recipes for their signature drinks). Edward Hemingway’s portraits complete this spirited look at America’s most iconic silver-screen legends. “This book is like being at the best dinner party in the world. And I thought I was the first person to put a bar in my closet. I was clearly born during the wrong era.” —Chelsea Handler

Luke Valenti has never fit into his swaggering family of overbearing loudmouths. Even worse, the world is at war again and Uncle Sam has stamped his draft notice "4-F" - the ultimate rejection - because of a rare eye condition that has left Luke unable to see colors. So instead, he dreams of escaping Brooklyn for the beaches of Montauk. That is, until a stolen prop from The Maltese Falcon pitches him down a reluctant path to Hollywood. Luke is tasked with returning it to Warner Brothers, where Humphrey Bogart is about to embark on the movie that will launch his career into the stratosphere: Casablanca. But the production is chaotic. Bogie is desperately unhappy in his marriage. Ingrid Bergman feels lost and alone. The script is constantly rewritten, and the overbearing director hates that damned song. Nobody thinks this movie will amount to anything-except the guy who sees in black and white. Finally, Luke has found his way in. But studio stuntman Gus O'Farrell wants him out again: Luke has replaced him as the star's stand-in, and Gus is having none of it. Bogie warns Luke to keep his friends close and his enemies closer. It's great advice, but when a chance to reverse his 4-F status presents itself, Luke needs to learn that distinguishing friends from enemies can be a tricky business in a land where artifice blurs reality like murky shadows in a back alley. From the author of the Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels comes a story set against the making of one of the most beloved films of all time-and the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

A "look at the intertwining of alcohol and the underworld--represented by authors of crime both true and fictional and their glamorously disreputable characters, as well as by real life gangsters who built Prohibition-era empires on bootlegged booze. [The book] celebrates the potent potables they imbibed and the watering holes they frequented, including some bars that continue to provide a second home for crime writers"--Amazon.com.

It's 1938 and the exclusive Oriental nightclub in San Francisco's Forbidden City is holding auditions for showgirls. In the dark, scandalous glamour of the club, three girls from very different backgrounds stumble into each other lives. All the girls have secrets. Grace, an American-born Chinese girl, has fled the Midwest and an abusive father. Helen is from a Chinese family which has deep roots in San Francisco's Chinatown. And, as both her friends know, Ruby is Japanese passing as Chinese. Then, in a heartbeat, everything changes. The Japanese attack Pearl Harbor and paranoia, suspicion, and a shocking act of betrayal, threaten to destroy their lives.

Charlotte, a young lawyer living in New York City, decides to escape for the weekend to her family’s lakeside suburban home. She expects to have the vacation home all to herself, but at the last minute she finds out that she will be sharing the property with her annoying stepbrother Cody. They’ve never gotten along and Charlotte doesn’t look forward to spending time with him. But when Cody shows up, it’s clear that he’s matured. They find themselves instantly attracted to each other but unsure how to proceed. Will Charlotte and Cody have the courage to become intimate? Or will the taboo be too much for them to overcome? === Search Terms: stepbrother romance, stepsister romance, stepsibling romance, step-brother romance, step-sister romance

The expanded edition of an essential collection of writings, essays, and interviews from Paul Auster, one of the finest thinkers and stylists in contemporary letters. The celebrated author of The New York Trilogy, The Book of Illusions, and 4 3 2 1 presents here a highly personal collection of essays, prefaces, true stories, autobiographical writings, and collaborations with artists, as well as occasional pieces written for magazines and newspapers, including his "breathtaking memoir" (Financial Times), The Invention of Solitude. Ranging in subject from Sir Walter Raleigh to Kafka, Nathaniel Hawthorne to the high-wire artist Philippe Petit, conceptual artist Sophie Calle to Auster's own typewriter, the World Trade Center catastrophe to his beloved New York City itself, Collected Prose records the passions and insights of a writer who "will be remembered as one of the great writers of our time" (San Francisco Chronicle).