Tom Santopietro: Considering Doris Day

USA 2008, 388 pp., brochure, € 12.39
Kostenloser Versand ab 20 Euro Bestellwert.
The biggest female box-office attraction in Hollywood history, Doris Day remains unequaled as the only entertainer who has ever triumphed in movies, radio, recordings, and a multi-year weekly TV series. America's favorite girl next door may have projected the kind of wholesome image that led Oscar Levant to quip, »I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin«. Day's acting and singing range (which ran the gamut from musicals to comedy to drama and made her nothing short of a worldwide icon) were underappreciated and effortless. Covering the early Warner Bros. years through Day's triumphs working with artists as varied as Alfred Hitchcock and Bob Fosse, the biographer deconstructs the myth of Day as America's perennial virgin.

Joel Lobenthal: Tallulah!

USA 2008, 577 pp., brochure, € 14.59
Kostenloser Versand ab 20 Euro Bestellwert.
»It's the good girls who keep the diaries. The bad girls never have the time.« - Tallulah Bankhead. In the golden age of American theater, no celestial body shone more dazzlingly than Tallulah Bankhead. Outrageous, outspoken, and totally uninhibited, she was an actress known as much for her offstage vices as for her onstage roles - the cocaine and alcohol, the blistering tirades, and her scandlous affairs with both men and women. Her biographer has captured the private essence of this most public of Broadway stars, the irrepressible diva who enjoyed intimate relationships with the top entertainment luminaries of her day, from Tennessee Williams and Noel Coward to Marlene Dietrich and Billie Holiday. He also details her family life and doomed romances, drawn from scores of interviews, and previously untapped information from Scotland Yard and the FBI.

Alexander Waugh: Fathers and Sons

USA 2008, 473 pp., brochure, € 12.39
Kostenloser Versand ab 20 Euro Bestellwert.
If there is a literary gene, then the Waugh family most certainly has it. In this most unusual biographical memoir, Alexander Waugh exposes the fraught dynamics of love and strife that have produced a succession of successful authors. The first, Arthur, a hopeless Victorian, broke the family tradition of medicine when he won a prize for poetry in 1888. His son, Evelyn, the author of a series of elegant and witty novels, was the disaffected black sheep who wallowed in drink, bisexual dissipation and modern cynicism. In contrast to Arthur's paternal overinvolvement, Evelyn tried hard to avoid his own children's company or, when contact was inescapable, to heap exquisitely refined derision on their heads. Evelyn fathered Auberon, who became one of England's cantankerous, provocative newspaper columnists. Auberon's son Alexander traces that have linked father to son in his family.

Lance Bass: Out of Sync

USA 2008, 196 pp., brochure, € 11.59
Kostenloser Versand ab 20 Euro Bestellwert.
At 16, Lance Bass received a phone call from Justin Timberlake that would change his life forever. Soon after, he left his small-town home in Mississippi, to join an emerging musical group called *NSYNC that was inspiring Beatles-esque mania around the world, becoming the face of the new MTV generation. He's remained in the spotlight ever since, and here he talks about his childhood, his astonishing experiences as a young man and Christian growing up in one of the biggest bands in the world, his shock and frustration at the band's eventual dissolution, and his subsequent career. He also frankly discusses life as a gay man - his first same-sex relationship at 21, his struggle to keep his sexuality hidden from the fans in case it jeopardized the band's success, and the true circumstances that led to his decision to publicly come out at the age of 27.

Marijane Meaker: Meine Jahre mit Pat

Erinnerungen an Patricia Highsmith. Dt. v. Manfred Allié. CH 2008, 325 S., Pb, € 10.18
Kostenloser Versand ab 20 Euro Bestellwert.
Diogenes
Marijane Meaker - selbst Schriftstellerin - war die Lebensgefährtin an der Seite von Patricia Highsmith. Ihre Erinnerungen an die gemeinsame Zeit sind ungeschönt, zeigen, dass das lesbische Zusammensein zweier Künstlerinnen sehr wohl auch schwierig sein konnte. Marijane Meaker verkneift sich jede Form später Rache an der Geliebten, die im Februar 1994 verstarb, lässt sich aber auch nicht zu einer Verklärung hinreißen. Und so erfahren wir durchaus intime Details (sozusagen die Innensicht auf eine lesbische Beziehung) über die Highsmith und das Zusammenleben der beiden: dass die Highsmith z.B. dem Alkohol verfallen war, dass sie Wörterbücher las, um sich zu entspannen, und dass sie ihre Freundin nie in ihre laufenden Projekte einweihte. Auch liest sich dieses Buch wie ein Who's Who der New Yorker Künstler- und Schriftstellerinnenszene.

Andy Claus: Uwe Görke - Mein Leben mit HIV

D 2008, 176 S., Broschur, € 17.37
Kostenloser Versand ab 20 Euro Bestellwert.
Himmelstürmer Verlag
Aktivist Uwe Görke ist seit 15 Jahren HIV-positiv. Die Autorin Andy Claus erzählt seine Geschichte, um anderen Mut zu machen und um über Aids aufzuklären. Für jeden Menschen hat der Tag, an dem er erfährt, dass er HIV-positiv ist, eine ganz besondere, persönliche Bedeutung. Für die wenigsten ist er Anlass, damit offensiv umzugehen und die Öffentlichkeit zu suchen. Die meisten werden von Schuldgefühlen geplagt oder machen sich selbst Vorwürfe. Der Rückzug ins Privatleben, Trennung von Freunden und Familie, verstärkter Alkohol- und Drogenkonsum sind häufig die Folge. Uwe Görke wählte den anderen Weg. Er wird für diejenigen, die sich zuhause verkrochen haben, zum Ansprechpartner. Sie reden mit ihm offen über ihre Situation, ihre Ängste. Er selbst ist der Beweis, dass es auch nach der positiven Diagnose weitergehen kann.

Truman Capote: Die Hunde bellen

Dt. v. Marcus Ingendaay. CH 2008, 907 S., geb., € 30.63
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Europas.
Für Magazine wie »Esquire« und den »New Yorker« verfasste Truman Capote Reportagen und Porträts. Alle Qualitäten, die den Schriftsteller Capote ausmachten, finden sich auch hier: seine Begabung, Melancholie sprachlich glänzend zu erfassen, seine Beobachtungsgabe - gepaart mit einem glühenden Interesse an anderen Menschen - und spritzige, treffende Dialoge. Die hier zusammengestellten Reportagen und Porträts reichen von Reiseskizzen, die er als 22jähriger zu Papier brachte, bis hin zu einem Porträt der lesbischen Schriftstellerin Willa Cather, das er kurz vor seinem Tod fertigstellte. Der Band »Die Hunde bellen« umfasst erstmals in deutscher Sprache das komplette, nicht fiktionale Werk Capotes - darunter befinden sich auch Texte, die damit erstmals in Buchform erscheinen.

Andrea Weiss: In the Shadow of the Magic Mountain

The Erika and Klaus Mann Story. USA 2008, 302 pp., hardbound, € 21.79
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Europas.
Thomas Mann's two eldest children, Erika and Klaus, were empowered by their close bond, they espoused vehemently anti-Nazi views in a Europe swept by fascism and were openly, even defiantly, gay in an age of secrecy and repression. Although their father's fame has unfairly overshadowed their legacy, Erika and Klaus were serious authors, and political visionaries. Their views earned them exile, they had to move eventually to the U.S., where both served as members of the U.S. armed forces during the war. Abroad, they enjoyed a wide circle of famous friends, including André Gide, Christopher Isherwood, Jean Cocteau, and W.H. Auden. But the demands of life in exile, Klaus's heroin addiction, and Erika's new allegiance to their father strained their mutual devotion, and in 1949 Klaus committed suicide.