Search results for ""author kenneth womack""

The first full-length biography of Mal Evans, the Beatles’ beloved roadie, assistant, confidant and friend A towering figure in horn-rimmed glasses, Malcolm ‘Mal’ Evans was an invaluable member of the Beatles’ inner circle. Serving as their long-time roadie, personal assistant and protector, he was a sometime lyricist, occasional performer and regular fixer at the height of the group’s fame and beyond. But Mal’s dedication to his beloved ‘boys’ and his own desire for stardom took its toll, leading to the dissolution of his marriage and his untimely death in January 1976. Until now, Mal’s extraordinary life has remained shrouded in mystery. Drawing on hundreds of exclusive interviews and with full access to Mal’s unpublished archives – including his personal diaries, manuscripts and memorabilia – renowned Beatles scholar Kenneth Womack paints the first complete portrait of this complicated figure at the heart of the Beatles’ story. Living the Beatles Legend is a fascinating but ultimately tragic tale about life at the edges of superstardom.

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On April 19, 1995, a truck bomb exploded just outside of Oklahoma City's Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people. Within a matter of hours, the FBI launched the largest manhunt in U.S. history, identifying the suspects as Timothy James McVeigh and John Doe No. 2, a stocky twentysomething with a distinctive tattoo on his left arm. Eventually the FBI retracted the elusive mystery man as a bombing suspect altogether, proclaiming that McVeigh had acted alone and that John Doe No. 2 was the byproduct of unreliable eyewitness testimony in the wake of the attack. Womack recreates the events that led up to this fateful day from the perspective of John Doe No. 2—or JD, as he is referred to in the book. With his ironic and curiously detached persona, JD narrates—from a second-person point of view—his secret life with McVeigh, Terry Nichols, and others in America's militia culture as McVeigh and JD crisscross the Midwest in McVeigh's beloved Chevy Geo Spectrum. John Doe No. 2 and the Dreamland Motel is the tragicomic account of McVeigh's last desperate months of freedom as he prepared to unleash one of the deadliest acts of domestic terrorism in the nation's history. Womack's novel traces one man's downward spiral toward the act of evil that will brand his name in infamy and another's desperate hope to save his friend's soul before it's too late.

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John Lennon, 1980: The Final Days in the Life of Beatle John tells the story of the legendary musician’s incredible last year. For Lennon, 1980 had begun as a ceaseless shopping spree in which he and wife Yoko Ono fell into the doldrums of purchasing blue-chip real estate and indulging their every whim. But for John, that pivotal year would climax in several moments of creative triumph as he rediscovered his artistic self in dramatic fashion, only to be cut down by an assassin’s bullets on Monday, December 8th, 1980, in the prime of a new life that was only just beginning to blossom.

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**MiCannes Award Music Book of the Year**The first full-length biography of Mal Evans, the Beatles' beloved roadie, assistant, confidant and friendA towering figure in horn-rimmed glasses, Malcolm Mal' Evans was an invaluable member of the Beatles' inner circle. Serving as their long-time roadie, personal assistant and protector, he was a sometime lyricist, occasional performer and regular fixer at the height of the group's fame and beyond.But Mal's dedication to his beloved boys' and his own desire for stardom took its toll, leading to the dissolution of his marriage and his untimely death in January 1976.Until now, Mal's extraordinary life has remained shrouded in mystery. Drawing on hundreds of exclusive interviews and with full access to Mal's unpublished archives including his personal diaries, manuscripts and memorabilia renowned Beatles scholar Kenneth Womack paints the first complete portrait of this complicated figure at the heart of the Beatles' story.Living the Beatles Leg

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Acclaimed Beatles historian Kenneth Womack offers the most definitive account yet of the writing, recording, mixing, and reception of Abbey Road. In February 1969, the Beatles began working on what became their final album together. Abbey Road introduced a number of new techniques and technologies to the Beatles' sound, and included "Come Together," "Something," and "Here Comes the Sun," which all emerged as classics. Womack's colorful retelling of how this landmark album was written and recorded is a treat for fans of the Beatles. Solid State takes readers back to 1969 and into EMI's Abbey Road Studio, which boasted an advanced solid state transistor mixing desk. Womack focuses on the dynamics between John, Paul, George, Ringo, and producer George Martin and his team of engineers, who set aside (for the most part) the tensions and conflicts that had arisen on previous albums to create a work with an innovative (and, among some fans and critics, controversial) studio-bound sound that prominently included the new Moog synthesizer, among other novelties. As Womack shows, Abbey Road was the culmination of the instrumental skills, recording equipment, and artistic vision that the band and George Martin had developed since their early days in the same studio seven years earlier. A testament to the group's creativity and their producer's ingenuity, Solid State is required reading for all fans of the Beatles and the history of rock 'n' roll.

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One of the most important works of twentieth-century British literature, The Good Soldier addresses the lives and interrelationships between two couples: one American, one British. A tragicomic novel of manners, in which John Dowell narrates the disintegration of both his own and another marriage, the work’s depiction of passion and intrigue offers an ironic reading of Edwardian-era values.The Broadview edition features the text of the first edition of the novel published by John Lane and The Bodley Head in 1915. It also includes: other writings by Ford Madox Ford (“On Heaven,” excerpts from Henry James: A Critical Study, “On Impressionism,” and “Techniques”); contemporary reviews; and Ezra Pound’s obituary of Ford Madox Ford.

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2017 Seymour Medal from the Society for American Baseball Research2016 Pete Delohery Award for Best Sports Book from Shelf Unbound When it opened in 1965, the Houston Astrodome, nicknamed the Eighth Wonder of the World, captured the attention of an entire nation, bringing pride to the city and enhancing its reputation nationwide. It was a Texas-sized vision of the future, an unthinkable feat of engineering with premium luxury suites, theater-style seating, and the first animated scoreboard. Yet there were memorable problems such as outfielders’ inability to see fly balls and failed attempts to grow natural grass—which ultimately led to the development of AstroTurf. The Astrodome nonetheless changed the way people viewed sports, putting casual fans at the forefront of a user-experience approach that soon became the standard in all American sports.The Eighth Wonder of the World tears back the facade and details the Astrodome’s role in transforming Houston as a city while also chronicling the building’s storied fifty years in existence and the ongoing debate about its preservation.

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2017 Seymour Medal from the Society for American Baseball Research2016 Pete Delohery Award for Best Sports Book from Shelf Unbound When it opened in 1965, the Houston Astrodome, nicknamed the Eighth Wonder of the World, captured the attention of an entire nation, bringing pride to the city and enhancing its reputation nationwide. It was a Texas-sized vision of the future, an unthinkable feat of engineering with premium luxury suites, theater-style seating, and the first animated scoreboard. Yet there were memorable problems such as outfielders’ inability to see fly balls and failed attempts to grow natural grass—which ultimately led to the development of AstroTurf. The Astrodome nonetheless changed the way people viewed sports, putting casual fans at the forefront of a user-experience approach that soon became the standard in all American sports.The Eighth Wonder of the World tears back the facade and details the Astrodome’s role in transforming Houston as a city while also chronicling the building’s storied fifty years in existence and the ongoing debate about its preservation.

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