Kay Thompson

Presents a tribute to the Hollywood entertainer-turned-author. Covers her close friendship with Judy Garland, contributions as a celebrity trainer, and creation of the mischievous six-year-old Plaza mascot, Eloise.

Journalist Julie Satow's thrilling, unforgettable history of how one illustrious hotel has defined our understanding of money and glamour, from the Gilded Age to the Go-Go Eighties to today's Billionaire Row. From the moment in 1907 when New York millionaire Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt strode through the Plaza Hotel's revolving doors to become its first guest, to the afternoon in 2007 when a mysterious Russian oligarch paid a record price for the hotel's largest penthouse, the eighteen-story white marble edifice at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 59th Street has radiated wealth and luxury. For some, the hotel evokes images of F. Scott Fitzgerald frolicking in the Pulitzer Fountain, or Eloise, the impish young guest who pours water down the mail chute. But the true stories captured in THE PLAZA also include dark, hidden secrets: the cold-blooded murder perpetrated by the construction workers in charge of building the hotel, how Donald J. Trump came to be the only owner to ever bankrupt the Plaza, and the tale of the disgraced Indian tycoon who ran the hotel from a maximum-security prison cell, 7,000 miles away in Delhi. In this definitive history, award-winning journalist Julie Satow not only pulls back the curtain on Truman Capote's Black and White Ball and The Beatles' first stateside visit-she also follows the money trail. THE PLAZA reveals how a handful of rich, dowager widows were the financial lifeline that saved the hotel during the Great Depression, and how, today, foreign money and anonymous shell companies have transformed iconic guest rooms into condominiums that shield ill-gotten gains-hollowing out parts of the hotel as well as the city around it. THE PLAZA is the account of one vaunted New York City address that has become synonymous with wealth and scandal, opportunity and tragedy. With glamour on the surface and strife behind the scenes, it is the story of how one hotel became a mirror reflecting New York's place at the center of the country's cultural narrative for over a century.

Six-year old Eloise takes a trip to Russia where she stays in the National Hotel and becomes involved with the people who runs the hotel.

Explores the work fo twelve contemporary illustators of children's books and discusses the techniques and features of effective illustration across a variety of styles and media.

An important extra in the book is a survey of Kostelanetz's career and on evaluation of his achievements, contributed by noted radio historian Dick O'Connor. A foreword by Barbara Haws, archivist and historian of the New York Philharmonic, completes this invaluable reference. --Book Jacket.

Scenes from the plays and portraits of leading actors accompany a statistical record of the current season

A collection of beloved authors on beloved writers, including Martin Amis on Saul Bellow, Truman Capote on Willa Cather, and Salman Rushdie on Christopher Hitchens, as featured in Vanity Fair What did Christopher Hitchens think of Dorothy Parker? How did meeting e.e. cummings change the young Susan Cheever? What does Martin Amis have to say about how Saul Bellow’s love life influenced his writing? Vanity Fair has published many of the most interesting writers and thinkers of our time. Collected here for the first time are forty-one essays exploring how writers influence one another and our culture, from James Baldwin to Joan Didion to James Patterson.