Famous

The new exchange student means serious competition for Lauren and her friends—because at Canterwood Crest, only one rider can be at the top. Rankings on Canterwood’s intermediate team are falling into place—in Lauren’s favor. Then blond, beautiful foreign exchange student Carina arrives. The new girl puts on a million-watt smile, but it doesn’t dazzle LT. Carina is out to show Canterwood students just how riders from her home country of Sweden take the arena. And with a local show on the horizon, Carina’s especially ready to impress—which means Lauren and her friends better be especially ready to represent, because Carina’s in place to steal the spotlight.

Ed McClanahan's hilarious classic introduces us to writers and revolutionaries, hippies and honkies, gurus and go-go girls, barkeeps and barflies, as well as Carlos Toadvine, aka Little Enis, the All-American Left-Handed Upside-down Guitar Player, among the characters he has encountered in thirty peripatetic years of wandering the fringes of the academic and literary worlds from his native Kentucky to the West Coast (where his compatriots included Ken Kesey and Tom Wolfe) and back again.

Whether Inspiring, Incomprehensible, insightful, bleak, or absurd, last words can be spoken by the living as well as the dying. Among the dying, last words are truly final, as was the case with Dylan Thomas, who uttered "I've just had eighteen straight whiskeys. I think that's the record." Famous Last Words records the parting shots of dozens of folks no longer with us, from those dead for political reasons to those who themselves decided to end it all. And it records the words of those who went on with their lives after uttering a memorable farewell but whose reputation was made by their words, often to their lasting frustration, such as the infamous Richard Milhous Nixon: "You won't have me to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference." Famous Last Words also preserves the last words of those inhabiting the world of fiction, whether in a book, on the stage, in a movie or on TV. Blanche DuBois's "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers" ranks right alongside Charles Foster Kane's "Rosebud" and Sidney Carton's "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done. . . ." The mutterings of the imagined are always floating around in our culture's consciousness, kicking lustily. Author Alan Bisbort consulted unimpeachable sources and original texts in compiling this compendium of 140 choice good-byes. But not only the farewells capture our attention: Bisbort's concise, witty, and informative text adds revealing context to the quoted words. Famous Last Words is fascinating, illuminating, and immensely rewarding. Reading through the pages may reveal some unifying impulse behind all those bye-byes; if so, you have truly stumbled uponthe meaning of life.

Foster McFee dreams of having her own cooking show like her idol, celebrity chef Sonny Kroll. Macon Dillard's goal is to be a documentary filmmaker. Foster's mother Rayka longs to be a headliner instead of a back-up singer. And Miss Charleena plans a triumphant return to Hollywood. Everyone has a dream, but nobody is even close to famous in the little town of Culpepper. Until some unexpected events shake the town and its inhabitants-and put their big ambitions to the test. Full of humor, unforgettable characters, surprises, and lots and lots of heart, this is Joan Bauer at her most engaging.

This fresh, smart novel in the guise of a celebrity memoir probes the inner life of a mega-famous pop star Honestly, what amazes me the most with a lot of the people I meet is that they think they’re so big. They think, ultimately, that the universe revolves around them. And I’m beginning to think that it’s only when you live a life like mine—it’s only when you’re in a position where you don’t even really own yourself, when you can’t even really say that you’re a citizen of any particular country—that you realize that we’re all just tiny pieces of cosmic dust floating through the void until we disappear forever and we’re never heard from again. So begins the life story of our uber famous twenty-two year old narrator. A teen idol since he was twelve, when a video of him singing went viral, his star has only risen since. Now, haunted by the suicide of his manager-father, unsettled by the very different paths he and his teenage love (and girl pop-star counterpart) “Mandy” have taken, and increasingly aware that he has signed on to something he has little control over, he begins to parse the divide that separates him from the “normal people” of the world. Sneakily philosophical, earnest and funny, Justin Kuritzkes's Famous People is a rollicking, unforgettable look at the clash between fame and the human condition.

I build levers to move objects that appear to be immovable.Alexei Drovosek represents the next evolution of human: no heart, immunity to cancer, and the uncanny ability to survive in conditions that would kill normal men. As an orphan growing up in post-Soviet Russia, Alexei was taken in by the state and trained as its most vicious and effective killer. But eventually the Russian Federal Security Service's best-trained assassin did the most dangerous thing of all: he turned on his handlers, went rogue, and disappeared.In the bleak, high-tech near future, Alexei has resurfaced in a secret compound on the outskirts of Los Angeles, a city where autonomous-drive vehicles race along the highways and independent city-states operate with materialistic impunity. In the center of it all is the soaring headquarters of Pearl Knight Industries, an international mega-corporation that keeps war machines and cultural capitalism running in every country and on every continent on the planet. As a principal proponent of the 31st Amendment to the United States constitution, which legalized the transfer of suffrage from citizens to corporations, Pearl Knight has power that is truly above the law.Alexei lives a clandestine existence where his closest companions are his personal AI, Emma, and a group of orphans he has spent years amassing and training. But Alexei isn't fostering these children as a favor to the state; he's raising them with the hope that they will destroy it. As he moves each child into play in the world's highest-stakes game of chess that spans decades and continents, Alexei fights to destroy the plutocratic control of those in power and restore what matters to him most: democracy and freedom.

Johanna Morrigan (aka Dolly Wilde) has it all: she is nineteen, lives in her own flat in London, and writes for the coolest music magazine in Britain. Her star is rising, just not quickly enough for her liking. Then John Kite, Johanna’s unrequited love, has an album go to number one. Suddenly John exists on another plane of reality: that of the Famouses, a world of rabid fans and VIP access. Johanna lacks the traditional trappings of fame (famous parents, mind-scorching hotness, exotic sandals, etc.), so she does the only thing a self-respecting Lady Sex Adventurer can do. She starts a magazine column critiquing the lives and follies of the Famouses around her. But as Johanna skyrockets to fame herself, she begins to realize that with celebrity comes sacrifice, and hers may mean giving up the one person she was determined to keep. For anyone who has been a girl or known one, who has admired fame or judged it, How to Be Famous is a big-hearted, hilarious tale of fame and fortune—and all that they entail.

SUCCESSFUL MEN AND WOMEN SHARE THEIR INSIGHTFUL ADVICE ON HOW TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN LIFE. How do you become successful in life ? The answer, was offered by people who already accomplished their goals and dreams. More than 200 distinguished men and women, from movie actors to astronauts, from baseball players to business men and women, from singers to politicians shared their advice with the authors of this book. In our research on "What is success ?" and "How to be successful in life ?" We found, there are common threads to achieving both. Within the pages of this book are practical strategies and wisdom for improving your life. If practiced can turn someone's failure to victory, a life of despair to a life of hope and opportunity. This book is in essence a guidebook for anybody who want to be successful in whatever they do. Even a quick read of few pages can turn your life around. Also point your ambitions in the right direction. When you start reading it you will not want to stop.