The daughter of Hollywood royalty, Roxanne Granville is used to getting what she wants—even if she has to break the rules. But after a falling-out with her grandfather, a powerful movie mogul, she has to face life on her own for the first time.… Roxanne forges a career unique for women in the 1950s, becoming an agent for hungry young screenwriters. She struggles to be taken seriously by the men who rule Hollywood and who often assume that sexual favors are just a part of doing business. When she sells a script by a blacklisted writer under the name of a willing front man, more exiled writers seek her help. Roxanne wades into a world murky with duplicity and deception, and she can’t afford any more risks. Then she meets Terrence Dexter, a compelling African American journalist unlike anyone she’s ever known. Roxanne again breaks the rules, and is quickly swept up in a passionate relationship with very real dangers that could destroy everything she’s carefully built. Roxanne Granville is a woman who bravely defies convention. She won’t let men make all the rules, and won’t let skin color determine whom she can love. The Great Pretenders is a riveting, emotional novel that resonates in today’s world, and reminds us that some things are worth fighting for.

February 1964: The Beatles step onto the tarmac at JFK International Airport and turn the country on its head. It's the advent of rock and roll's uninterrupted reign, youthful rebellion, and overt teenage sex. It's also the deathblow for the pop music of another generation -- the songs of Pat Boone and Georgia Gibbs -- and all its perky, white-bread conformity. Not two years later, Karen Schoemer is born, and comes of age with rock and roll. While her parents might enjoy the new music, the cultural upheaval passes them by, and they cling to the promises made by the music they loved as teenagers, the sweet, innocent 1950s pop of Patti Page, Frankie Laine, and the like. But having courted and wed against a backdrop of ideals peddled by this music -- finding true love, living happily ever after -- Schoemer's parents, like so many people, are crushed by disappointment when love doesn't deliver what the songs promised. Fifties pop falls quickly off the charts; their marriage eventually falls apart. In Great Pretenders, a lively, provocative blend of memoir and music criticism, former Newsweek pop music critic Karen Schoemer tries to figure out what went so wrong, way back in the hazy past, for her parents' marriage and for the music of their youth. To find the answers, she embarks on a strange, lonely journey in search of some of the brightest stars of the 1950s. Schoemer's search started when, twenty years after her parents' divorce, the new Connie Francis box set appeared on her desk at Newsweek. Now a successful rock critic dispensing post-punk opinions to the hipoisie, she was about to toss aside this relic when she was struck by the cover image of Francis, which bore an uncanny resemblance to her own mother; on a whim, she played one of the CDs. For all their cloying, simplistic sentimentality, songs like "Where the Boys Are" had an undeniable power -- "the sound of every teenage girl in every bedroom on every lonely Saturday going back a thousand years." It was the music of her parents' long-lost adolescence, and much to her surprise, it moved her. Thus Schoemer, arbiter of Gen X cool, found herself falling into the saccharine thrall of 1950s pop music, that pariah of the rock establishment. Even as her colleagues tried to steer her away from the terminally uncool genre, she tracked down seven former pop idols of the late 1950s and early 1960s: Connie Francis, Fabian, Pat Boone, Patti Page, Tommy Sands, Georgia Gibbs, and Frankie Laine. As she became privy to their inner lives and immersed herself in their music, Schoemer revised her own notions about the fifties at the same time that she explored her family's vexed dynamic. The result is a wonderful romp through an unappreciated chapter in music history and, more important, through her own past. Full of humor, insight, and unflinching honesty, Great Pretenders bucks the received wisdom, explores the intersections of our private lives and pop culture, and broadens our understanding of a crucial moment in our history.

This book is illustrated with photographs that punctuate a totally factual but witty and interesting look at this fascinating aspect of show business. In a time period that extends from about the 18th century to today, the author introduces all the greats, from Julian Eltinge to Charlie Pierce, in addition to others like Cary Grant and Bing Crosby who donned a dress only on ocassion when the script demanded it.

Over 100 beautiful photographs, nearly half in color, illustrate the simplicity of the Cistercian monasteries, which rebelled against the contemporary Romanesque style by replacing gargoyles and fantastic beasts with geometric patterns and stylized foliage. Essays on the foundation and principles of the order, architecture and design, the monastic practices, and the history of the order wander among the photographs. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Presents illustrated instructions for constructing costumes from posterboard, paper bags, boxes, and fabric.

It's been eleven years since David Galvin terrorized New York City with a series of gruesome murders. He picked his victim at random and stalked her silently, taking pleasure in a game of pretend until he captured his prey, played out his sick fantasies, and reached his ultimate passion watching her die. Then it was time to choose his next pretty woman.Now Galvin is dying in prison and he's chosen newspaperman Joe Dougherty to hear the shocking story he never revealed. Galvin's deadly game of make-believe was not his alone, but the brainchild of a group of wealthy college friends -- thrill seekers who killed for fun, kept their sickening secret, and went on to live successful, prominent lives. Galvin got caught. But among the rich and powerful, silence still prevails...and someone is still playing the game!