The Most Beautiful Girl In The World

Sarah Banet-Weiser complicates the standard feminist take on beauty pageants in this intriguing look at a hotly contested but enduringly popular American ritual. She focuses on the Miss America pageant in particular, considering its claim to be an accurate representation of the diversity of contemporary American women. Exploring the cultural constructions and legitimations that go on during the long process of the pageant, Banet-Weiser depicts the beauty pageant stage as a place where concerns about national identity, cultural hopes and desires, and anxieties about race and gender are crystallized and condensed. The beauty pageant, she convincingly demonstrates, is a profoundly political arena deserving of serious study. Drawing on cultural criticism, ethnographic research, and interviews with pageant participants and officials, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World illustrates how contestants invent and reinvent themselves while articulating the female body as a national body. Banet-Weiser finds that most pageants are characterized by the ambivalence of contemporary "liberal" feminism, which encourages individual achievement, self-determination, and civic responsibility, while simultaneously promoting very conventional notions of beauty. The book explores the many different aspects of the Miss America pageant, including the swimsuit, the interview, and the talent competitions. It also takes a closer look at some extraordinary Miss Americas, such as Bess Myerson, the first Jewish Miss America; Vanessa Williams, the first African American Miss America; and Heather Whitestone, the first Miss America with a disability.

"The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" is a coming-of-age story about Christopher Showers. Christopher leaves his backwoods Georgia home and moves to San Francisco. That's where his adventure begins. His journey is enlightening, romantic, comical and sexy. He meets a cast of characters and new friends who open his eyes to the new world of being a man - on his own and far from home. Most importantly, he meets Serena Davenport. The two 24-year olds fall in love, and Chris tells anyone who'll listen that Serena is the most beautiful girl in the world. But he soon realizes true love is hard to find, hard to hold, and that things are not always as they seem.

A beautiful and compelling story of a young girl's struggle to escape a town trapped by conformity and a family on the verge of dissolution

"The most compelling, resonating novel I've read in years... A breathtakingly beautiful, yet heart-wrenchingly aching story that, despite its cruelty and humanity, uplifts the reader." - Omaha World-Herald NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER It is 1968. Lynnie, a young white woman with a developmental disability, and Homan, an African American deaf man, are locked away in an institution, the School for the Incurable and Feebleminded, and have been left to languish, forgotten. Deeply in love, they escape, and find refuge in the farmhouse of Martha, a retired schoolteacher and widow. But the couple is not alone-Lynnie has just given birth to a baby girl. When the authorities catch up to them that same night, Homan escapes into the darkness, and Lynnie is caught. But before she is forced back into the institution, she whispers two words to Martha: "Hide her." And so begins the 40-year epic journey of Lynnie, Homan, Martha, and baby Julia-lives divided by seemingly insurmountable obstacles, yet drawn together by a secret pact and extraordinary love.

Ellis Amburn's magnificent biography of the Academy Award®-winning actress and legendary beauty captures the unparalleled Elizabeth in all her tragedy and splendor—her tumultuous loves, her doomed affections, her shocking excesses, her courage, and her inimitable style. Filled with stunning revelations about the men in her life—Burton, Clift, Hilton, Dean, Fisher—it is a glorious celebration of the turbulent life of a brilliant star that none in Hollywood or heaven could ever outshine.

The first biography on the wonderful and weird fashion icon Cara Delevingne is living the dream. She is the girl who landed on her feet in the fickle world of fashion and she s here to stay. As the face of DKNY, Burberry, and Chanel, Cara's startling blue eyes, framed by trademark bushy eyebrows, gaze down from billboards across the world. But she s not just a pretty face; cutting an edgy swathe through the celeb party scene, Cara s quirky character and frequent controversial antics are pure box-office. She has even been given a DJ slot on her own radio station in Rockstar s record-breaking videogame, "Grand Theft Auto V."This is the first biography on the British beauty, and Abi Smith reveals Cara s life behind the lens."

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER At the one-year anniversary of his death, legendary musician Prince's first wife shares a uniquely intimate, candid, and revelatory look inside the personal and professional life of one of the world's most beloved icons. In The Most Beautiful, a title inspired by the hit song Prince wrote about their legendary love story, Mayte Garcia for the first time shares the deeply personal story of their relationship and offers a singular perspective on the music icon and their world together: from their unconventional meeting backstage at a concert (and the long-distance romance that followed), to their fairy-tale wedding (and their groundbreaking artistic partnership), to the devastating losses that ultimately dissolved their romantic relationship for good. Throughout it all, they shared a bond more intimate than any other in Prince's life. No one else can tell this story or can provide a deeper, more nuanced portrait of Prince--both the famously private man and the pioneering, beloved artist--than Mayte, his partner during some of the most pivotal personal and professional years of his career. The Most Beautiful is a book that will be returned to for decades, as Prince's music lives on with generations to come.

A six-year-old peasant girl is lost and searches for her mother. The story proves an old Russian proverb: We do not love people because they are beautiful, but they seem beautiful to us because we love them.