La La Land

Part noir, part thriller, part love story. Bakersfield is a dusty, quiet town, close enough to Hollywood to fill its citizens with the dreams that flicker in the darkness of the movie theatre. Teresa, an aspiring singer, meets Dan Watson, the most desirable young man in town. But when a legendary director arrives, local gossip about Teresa and Dan gives way to speculation about his ground-breaking film of madness and murder.

Nothing screams aspiration, decadence and dreams like The Great Gatsby. Generally considered to be F. Scott Fitzgerald's finest novel, this is a consummate summary of the 'roaring twenties' and a devastating expose of the "Jazz Age".

Singing your hearts out and attaining your dreams. How did the stars of the 60s and 70s do just that? Richard Goldstein, a young music critic at that time, followed some of the biggest musicians as well as rising stars to track the landscape and music culture at that time. Another Little Piece of My Heart is an intimate memoir of the writer as a young man, as well as a deeply moving, unparalleled document of rock and revolution in America.

Who are some of the jazz greats? Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Billy Holiday to say the last . Hear Me Talkin' to Ya is a marvellous piece of history writing that traces the birth, growth, and changes in jazz over the years. You'll get an inside look into the genre with hundreds of personal interviews, letters, tapes, and articles.

This novel features Bukowski's semi-autobiographical character Henry Chinaski -- an alcoholic, womanizing misanthrope who eventually finds some small success as a screenwriter. Granted this ain't no jazz story, but the rags to riches, nobody to somebody sort of life in Hollywood.... that is the goal for all the dreamers, isn't it?

How do you get to know a genre intimately? By immersing yourself in it. Howard Reich has reported on jazz for the Chicago Tribune for almost four decades, and in this time he has met musicians both celebrated and obscure. Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Lena Horne, and Ella Fitzgerald, to profiles of the early masters like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Billie Holiday, this book illustrates Reich’s deep understanding of the performances, recordings, and cultural legacies of these jazz masters.

But the study of jazz doesn't stop in at Chicago. Reich goes to places even like Cuba to discover the music’s originators, great singers, game changers, and regional influencers.

In this masterful work of cultural history, the legendary Otto Friedrich tells the story of Hollywood's heyday and decline in a vivid narrative featuring an all-star cast of the actors, writers, musicians, composers, producers, directors, racketeers, labor leaders, journalists, and politicians who played major parts in the movie capital during the turbulent decade from World War II to the Korean War.