Lost In Hollywood

When Ginger Carlson's aunt finds herself in financial trouble, Ginger's entire family and her best friend head to Hollywood to help find the missing money.

Ginger is on a mission to find her family’s missing fortune in glamorous Hollywood in this M!X novel from the author of Lost in London, Lost in Paris, Lost in Rome, and Lost in Ireland (formerly titled Lucky Me). Thirteen-year-old Ginger Carlson feels like she is the only normal one in her family. Her father is an inventor who sells his gadgets online, Mom is obsessed with classic movies, and her brother Grant thinks he is from outer space. Luckily, Ginger has a totally normal BFF, Payton, and they have big plans for the future—they plan to become doctors and open a practice together in a big city. But first, they’re partnering on the state Science Olympics where they’re sure to take home the gold for their eighth grade class with their model of the brain. The Olympics training is interrupted when the Carlson family gets an urgent call that their eccentric Aunt Betty, a former actress who lives in Hollywood, is in serious trouble. The bank is going to take her house unless she can give them the money she owes. The Carlsons head to LA to sort things out for Aunt Betty, along with Payton, who tags along for the West Coast adventure. In a moment alone with the girls, Aunt Betty tells them what’s really going on. Because she didn’t trust banks, Aunt Betty stashed her money in a secret hiding place. Only problem—it’s so secret, she can’t remember where that hiding place is! That’s what she’s been doing all around town—looking for her fortune. Can Ginger and Payton help find the money—and give Aunt Betty the Hollywood ending that she deserves?

A rich trip into a vanished place and time, Lost Hollywood tells the story of the world's most image-conscious city through the fantastical places and people who once held center stage. From Marion Davies' extraordinary Santa Monica playpen Ocean House, known as "Xanadu by the Sea," to America's first luxe housing development, Whitley Heights, and its now-iconic Mediterranean architecture, long gone building projects are brought back to vivid life. This delicious and engrossing book also unearths fresh details on classic institutions from the Hollywood Canteen to the Garden of Allah, from the Brown Derby and the Cocoanut Grove to the legendary Pickfair. Lost Hollywood resurrects a colorful and evocative era in the history of the movies and will delight and inform even the most knowledgeable film buff.

A profile of the late film star River Phoenix chronicles his high-pressure childhood, personal endeavors for environmental causes, rejection of his heartthrob image, and tragic death due to a drug overdose. Reprint.

Find yourself in the midst of a heated battle over a sitcom laugh track. Learn to get away with spectacular crimes. Get lost with the reindeer people in the mountains of Mongolia. In Lost in Mongolia a collection of Tad Friend's most original, witty, and wide-ranging articles and essays from The New Yorker, Esquire, and Outside we are taken on a cultural tour of global proportions. Friend reports from the entertainment mecca of Hollywood on topics that range from the life and death of River Phoenix to the widespread plagiarism of movie ideas, to why celebrity profiles are always dreadful. He critiques the larger American culture with articles such as White Trash Nation, In Praise of Middlebrow, and a brief rumination on what it means when your girlfriend steals and wears your favorite shirt. Readers will also journey to foreign lands and American outposts, as Friend goes on the trail of the Marcos dynasty in the Philippines, is harassed in Morocco, and digs up buried treasure in Sun Valley. Lost in Mongolia is a one-of-a-kind collection from a refreshingly candid and well-traveled journalist.

THE FIRST AND ONLY BOOK ON ONE OF THE WORLD’S BIGGEST SELLING BANDS Spewed forth from the loins of mid-1990s southern California, System of a Down have evolved from a cult band whose demo tapes swapped hands voraciously on the metal underground to one of the world’s biggest acts. Relentless early gigging spread a word-of-mouth hype around them that soon created major label interest and the gold-selling eponymous debut album. Despite their ultra-hard music and dark undertones, SOAD have always managed to break out of the underground. Show-stealing support slots with Ozzy Osbourne and Slayer propelled the band to new heights, but it was their second album, the seminal Toxicity, that turned SOAD from an underground phenomenon into a mainstream smash. After the release of their globally acclaimed hit album Mezmerize, SOAD had shifted in excess of 25 million albums. With exclusive new interviews with the band and major players involved in their story; Ben Myers’ book will be the first and the definitive account of this remarkable band.

In this second edition of American Politics in Hollywood Film, Ian Scott takes up his analysis of political content and ideology through movies and contends that American culture and the institutional process continues to be portrayed, debated and influen

After breaking a chain letter, can superstitious Megan find a way to turn her luck around? Meghan McGlinchey is the most superstitious girl in her family—and probably in the entire state of Delaware. When she receives a chain letter from a stranger in Ireland, Meghan immediately passes it on, taking only a tiny shortcut in the directions. But after a disastrous day, made complete by losing the election for class president and embarrassing herself in front of the entire school, Meghan realizes that tiny shortcut was a big mistake. Thankfully, her family was already headed to Ireland on spring break, and Meghan makes it her mission to find the original sender and break her extremely unlucky streak. With the help of an eccentric cast of characters—and one very cute Irish boy—can Meghan figure out a way to stop her bad luck? Or is she cursed forever?