If your best friends deepest secret was a deep, internal struggle between good and evil, could you keep that secret from everyone for decades? Elizabeth has done just that for her friend Woody. She knows of his pastabout his drunk and abusive mother. She knows Woody was raised to subdue all emotion into numbness. He wants to be normal, but he fears he may become a serial killeror that someone else will discover his secret. Woody finds a place to express his bloodlust in the US Navy, during the early years of the Vietnam conflict. Once back to civilian life, though, he has trouble adjusting to the idea that murder is no longer his duty; outside the military, murder is a crime. He still longs for revenge on his childhood torturers, but he knows that by hunting them, by killing them, he will be just like them. Through these internal battles, Elizabeth is always there, keeping the truth of Woodys past and present fantasies a secret. Together, they share details of their own personal defects and romantic relationships. Their friendship keeps Woody from becoming a monster, but how long will Elizabeth be able to calm Woodys demons without awakening some of her own?

The Journal of Woody Peska: Dog from Beyond the Grave is the coming of age story about a grown-ass man; his half-hearted attempts at romance; a search for undeserved redemption; and the exploration of a paranoid, closed-minded, myopic world. Woody Peska doesn't want anything but to be left alone. Much to his dismay, however, people care about him and attempt to thrust him into happiness. As Woody struggles to cope with the people around him and adapt to the lives they lead, he fails to connect with anybody and he learns nothing. Frankly, he's kind of a dick. It's your basic love story.

In this first biography of Woody Allen in over a decade, David Evanier discusses key movies, plays and prose as well as Allen's personal life. Evanier tackles the themes that Allen has spent a lifetime sorting through in art: morality, sexuality, Judaism, the eternal struggle of head and heart. Woody will be the definitive word on a major American talent as he begins his ninth decade, and his sixth decade of making movies.

The timely, passionate, and humanely political work of America's greatest folk singer and songwriter is presented through his own words and art – curated by Woody's daughter – in this essential self-portrait, including never-before published lyrics and personal writing, and testimony from contemporary writers and musicians on his powerful relevance today. Woody Guthrie and his passionate social politics are as crucial today as they have ever been. A powerful voice for justice, and the author of more than 3,000 songs (including "This Land is Your Land"), he was also a poet, painter, illustrator, novelist, journal keeper, and profuse letter writer. Curated by his daughter Nora and award-winning music historian Robert Santelli, this fresh, intimate, and beautifully designed book thematically reveals Woody's story through his own personal writings, lyrics, and artwork, urgently bringing his voice to life. Featuring never-before-published lyrics to some of his greatest songs, personal diary entries, doodles, quips and jokes, and piercing insights on his politics and justice, this is an undeniable and important celebration of Woody's vibrant life's work. Created to be enjoyed by all – those interested in folk music or those interested in Woody's thoughts on Life in all its aspects, from Politics and Spirituality, to Love and Family – this book reflects Bob Dylan's thoughts on Woody Guthrie; "You can listen to his songs and learn how to live." ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL SONGWRITERS IN AMERICAN MUSIC HISTORY: Woody Guthrie has had a profound impact on American musicians, writers, politicians (and the everyman who found solace and kinship in Guthrie's writings and political beliefs), who have been shaped by his music and activism – namely the great founding father of songwriting himself, Bob Dylan, for whom he was a mentor. Others who have named Guthrie as a major influence include Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash, Pete Seeger, John Mellencamp, Billy Bragg, Joe Strummer, and Jerry Garcia, just to name a few. RARE ARCHIVAL MATERIAL: This is Woody's life told primarily in his own words, with never-before published handwritten lyrics, artwork, journals, and much more. WORDS OF WISDOM RELEVANT TODAY: Woody Guthrie's lyrics and writings carry pointed relevance to our world today – he wrote powerfully about economic inequality, immigration reform, fascism, war, corruption from capitalism gone wild, patriotism, and environmentalism – not to mention spirituality of all kinds, love, and family. EXCLUSIVE CONTRIBUTORS: Includes new writing about Woody and his music by Chuck D., Ani DiFranco, Douglas Brinkley, Jeff Daniels, Arlo Guthrie, and Rosanne Cash. Perfect for: • Music lovers • Musicians and artists • Political activists and historians • Fans of Americana

For too long, the films of Woody Allen have been interpreted as expressions of deconstructionism, nihilism, and postmodern angst. In this pathbreaking new book, Mary P. Nichols challenges this, arguing that Allen's work, from Play It Again, Sam to Deconstructing Harry, is actually an attempt to explore and reconcile the tension between art and life. As witty and complex as its subject, Reconstructing Woody shows that Allen is immensely concerned with human ethics, goodness, and virtue.

This revised and updated edition gathers interviews and profiles covering the entire forty-five-year span of Woody Allen's career as a filmmaker, including detailed discussions of his most popular as well as his most critically acclaimed works. The present collection is a complete update of the volume that first appeared in 2006. In the years since, Allen has continued making movies, including Midnight in Paris and the Oscar-winning Blue Jasmine. While many interviews from the original edition have been retained in the present volume, nine new entries extend the coverage of Allen's directorial career through 2015. In addition, there is a new, in-depth interview from the period covered in the first edition. Most of the interviews included in the original volume first appeared in such widely known publications and venues as the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time, the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and Playboy. A number of smaller and lesser-known venues are also represented, especially in the new volume. Several interviews from non-American sources add an international perspective on Allen's work. Materials for the new volume include pieces focusing primarily on Allen's films as well as broader profiles and interviews that also concentrate on his literary talent. Perhaps Stephen Mamber best describes Allen's distinctiveness, especially early in his career: “Woody Allen is not the best new American comedy director or the best comedy writer or the best comedy actor, he's simply the finest combination of all three.”

Bruce Kimmel has managed to eke out a career in one form of show business or another for over forty years. A successful Grammy-nominated record producer, Kimmel began his show business journey as an actor, in a time when being a young up-and-coming thespian was fun, thrilling, and when anything seemed possible. It was a different world for a young actor in the 1970s, and Kimmel's journey is paved with laughs, tears, success, and an amazing cast of players. At twenty-seven, he wrote, co-directed, and starred in a film that would become a major cult success, the First Nudie Musical. He did TV pilots, guest shots, series, plays. He met and worked with incredible people. It was the kind of time we will never see again. And then things changed. The nature of the business changed. And the path to dealing with those changes—getting older, trying to survive in an ever increasingly negative and cutthroat world—becomes a story of reinvention and rebirth. Through it all, Kimmel tells his tale with wit, candor, affection, and self-effacing honesty. Enjoy being the fly on the wall as Kimmel hangs out with Elsa Lanchester, Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy; goes to Groucho's house and plays the piano for him; works with Shirley Jones, David Cassidy, Susan Dey on the Partridge Family. We observe his long friendship with Cindy Williams, watch as he works with screen legends Patricia Neal, Jean Simmons, Leslie Nielsen, Patrick Macnee, Bud Cort, and Geraldine Fitzgerald, and as he hangs out with Hugh Hefner at the Playboy mansion., Bruce Kimmel's showbiz tales are loaded with laughs, wide-eyed wonder, and heart.

'A really great book.' Bruce Springsteen With a foreword by Billy Bragg. The classic biography of the hugely influential American folk singer who inspired a generation of songwriters, including Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan. Few artists have captured the American experience of their time as wholly as folk legend Woody Guthrie. Singer, songwriter and political activist, Guthrie drew a lifetime of inspiration from his roots on the Oklahoma frontier in the years before the Great Depression. His music -- scathingly funny songs and poignant folk ballads -- made heard the unsung life of field hands, migrant workers, and union organisers, and showed it worthy of tribute. Though his career was tragically cut short by the onset of a degenerative disease that ravaged his mind and body, the legacy of his life and music had already made him an American cultural icon, and has resounded with every generation of musician and music lover since. In this definitive biography, renowned journalist Joe Klein creates an unforgettable portrait of a man as gifted, restless and complicated as the American landscape he came from.

Mention Woody Guthrie, and people who know the name are likely to think of the “Okie Bard,” dust storms behind him, riding a boxcar or walking a red-dirt road, a battered guitar strapped to his back. But unlock Guthrie from the confines of rural folk and Hollywood mythology, as Will Kaufman does here, and you’ll find an abstract painter and sculptor who wrote about atomic energy and Ingrid Bergman and developed advanced theories of dialectical materialism and human engineering—in short, a folk singer who was deeply engaged with the art, ideas, and issues of his time. Guthrie may have been born in the Oklahoma hills, but his most productive years were spent in the metropolitan centers of Los Angeles and New York. Machines and their physics were among his favorite metaphors, fast cars were his passion, and airplanes and even flying saucers were his frequent subjects. His career-long immersion in radio, recording, and film inspired trenchant observations concerning mass media and communication, and he contributed to modern art as a prolific abstract painter, graphic artist, and sculptor. This book explores how, through multiple artistic forms, Guthrie thought and felt about the scientific method, atomic power, and war technology, as well as the shifting dynamics of gender and race. Drawing on previously unpublished archival sources, Kaufman brings to the fore what Guthrie’s insistently folksy popular image obscures: the essays, visual art, letters, verse, fiction, and voluminous notebook entries that reveal his profoundly modern sensibilities. Woody Guthrie emerges from these pages as a figure whose immense artistic output reflects the nation’s conflicted engagement with modernity. Capturing the breathtaking social and technological changes that took place during his extraordinarily productive career, Woody Guthrie’s Modern World Blues offers a unique and much-needed new perspective on a musical icon.