Without sparing the embarrassing details, Balbirer chronicles the two decades she spent as a struggling actress in the trenches of show business. From the searing purist tutelage of David Mamet at NYU Drama School ("In show business, women who are lucky enough to find employment are asked to do only two things in every role they ever play: take your shirt off and cry") to her bizarre 1 AM Saturday Night Live audition for Lorne Michael, Balbirer recounts her sometimes disappointing, sometimes painful, and always bizarre adventures. Among the stories in Take Your Shirt Off and Cry is "Friendly Fire," which is about Nancy's friendship and eventual falling out with a good friend who went on to become a huge star with a top-rated sitcom. Fame may not have knocked on her door, but it certainly slept on her couch. Take your Shirt Off and Cry is an utterly engaging, deeply personal, and absurdly comic memoir from a one-of-a-kind talent.

'Every day, thousands of women enter acting classes where most of them will receive some variation on the Stanislavsky-based training that has now been taught in the U.S. for nearly ninety years. Yet relatively little feminist consideration has been given to the experience of the student actress: What happens to women in Method actor training?' An Actress Prepares is the first book to interrogate Method acting from a specifically feminist perspective. Rose Malague addresses "the Method" not only with much-needed critical distance, but also the crucial insider's view of a trained actor. Case studies examine the preeminent American teachers who popularized and transformed elements of Stanislavsky’s System within the U.S.—Strasberg, Adler, Meisner, and Hagen— by analyzing and comparing their related but distinctly different approaches. This book confronts the sexism that still exists in actor training and exposes the gender biases embedded within the Method itself. Its in-depth examination of these Stanislavskian techniques seeks to reclaim Method acting from its patriarchal practices and to empower women who act. 'I've been waiting for someone to write this book for years: a thorough-going analysis and reconsideration of American approaches to Stanislavsky from a feminist perspective ... lively, intelligent, and engaging.' – Phillip Zarrilli, University of Exeter 'Theatre people of any gender will be transformed by Rose Malague’s eye-opening study An Actress Prepares... This book will be useful to all scholars and practitioners determined to make gender equity central to how they hone their craft and their thinking.' – Jill Dolan, Princeton University

A firsthand, personal view of a family on the front lines of war in Israel “An outstanding work . . . powerfully and movingly written.”—Jerusalem Post WINNER OF THE “BOOKS FOR A BETTER LIFE” AWARD In the summer of 1998, Daniel Gordis and his family moved to Israel from Los Angeles. They planned to be there for a year, but a few months into their stay, Daniel and his wife decided to remain in Jerusalem permanently, confident that their children would be among the first generation of Israelis to grow up in peace. Immediately after arriving in Israel, Daniel had started sending out e-mails about his life to friends and family abroad. These missives—passionate, thoughtful, beautifully written, and informative—began reaching a much broader readership than he’d ever envisioned, eventually being excerpted in The New York Times Magazine to much acclaim. An edited and finely crafted collection of Daniel’s original e-mails, If a Place Can Make You Cry is a first-person, immediate account of Israel’s post-Oslo meltdown that cuts through the rhetoric and stridency of most dispatches from that country or from the international media. Above all, If a Place Can Make You Cry tells the story of a family that must cope with the sudden realization that they took their children from a serene and secure neighborhood in Los Angeles to an Israel not at peace but mired in war. This is the chronicle of a loss of innocence—the innocence of Daniel and his wife, and of their children. Ultimately, through Daniel’s eyes, Israel, with all its beauty, madness, violence, and history, comes to life in a way we’ve never quite seen before.

Life is a cycle of death from one generation to the next. From day one we all have equal opportunities in life. As a young man who made some wrong choices at an early age and those choices will follow him all through the rest of his life. While trying not to become a statistic of the hood, but growing up in a society of poverty without a father can have a major effect on how your life turns out. Being raised around pimps, drug dealers, and wine-os their habits are bound to rub off on you. There are two roads in life: the road to destruction and the road to success; its totally up to you which one you will choose in life. You have to play the hand you were dealt, but you must play it to win. Sometimes things may not go as planned. You must never mix business with pleasure and loyalty and trust are everything. By know means ever should you let a woman come between you and your homies. Always stay true to yourself and know that snitches get stitches. If you ever get to the point that the money makes you instead of you making the money... GAME OVER! Written by: Frederick Williams aka Kwunt Dedicated to: Letha Williams

In a candid and uplifting memoir, international swimming star Beard reveals the truth about coming of age in the Olympic spotlight, the demons she battled along the way, and her newfound happiness.

As The Giving Tree turns fifty, this timeless classic is available for the first time ever in ebook format. This digital edition allows young readers and lifelong fans to continue the legacy and love of a classic that will now reach an even wider audience. "Once there was a tree...and she loved a little boy." So begins a story of unforgettable perception, beautifully written and illustrated by the gifted and versatile Shel Silverstein. This moving parable for all ages offers a touching interpretation of the gift of giving and a serene acceptance of another's capacity to love in return. Every day the boy would come to the tree to eat her apples, swing from her branches, or slide down her trunk...and the tree was happy. But as the boy grew older he began to want more from the tree, and the tree gave and gave and gave. This is a tender story, touched with sadness, aglow with consolation. Shel Silverstein's incomparable career as a bestselling children's book author and illustrator began with Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back. He is also the creator of picture books including A Giraffe and a Half, Who Wants a Cheap Rhinoceros?, The Missing Piece, The Missing Piece Meets the Big O, and the perennial favorite The Giving Tree, and of classic poetry collections such as Where the Sidewalk Ends, A Light in the Attic, Falling Up, Every Thing On It, Don't Bump the Glump!, and Runny Babbit. And don't miss the other Shel Silverstein ebooks, Where the Sidewalk Ends and A Light in the Attic!