Hang on, it's a hell of a ride!

From the band that lived by the motto "Anything worth doing was worth overdoing" — Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Tom Hamilton, Brad Whitford, and Joey Kramer — comes a quarter century of rock godhood: the life, the music, the truth, the hell, the lost years, and the raunchy, unsafe sex.

And, of course, the drugs.

But after crashing in a suffocating cloud of cocaine, crystal meth, and heroin, Aerosmith rose up from the ashes to become clean and sober — and reclaim their rightful title as World Champion Rockers. Learn how they did it in a book that is pure Aerosmith unbound: where they came from, what they are now, and what they will always be — a great American band.

For twenty-five years actors have given Simon Annand unprecedented access to photograph them in the intimacy of their dressing-rooms during the 30 minutes before curtain up - 'the half'. This magnificent book offers not only a dazzling gallery of actors - including Anthony Hopkins, Cate Blanchett, Daniel Day Lewis, Judi Dench, John Gielgud, Vanessa Redgrave, Jim Broadbent, Jeremy Irons, Glenda Jackson, Jude Law, Charlotte Rampling, Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, Martin Sheen, Felicity Kendal, Kevin Spacey and Ralph Fiennes - but also a meditation on the mystery of the final stage of an actor's journey.

Based on authorized access to Hitchcock's files and notes, this work creates a portrait of a master at work: building his screenplays from scratch; working on sets and storyboards during pre-production; filming the movies; and putting it all together and adding music in post-production. The book also shows how Hitchcock put together the storyboards for "Lifeboat" and for the crop duster sequence in "North by Northwest." It details his meeting with Tippi Hedren to discuss her character in "The Birds" and how he attended the screen tests for Rebecca's title role. It also takes the reader behind the scenes on the sets of "Strangers on a Train", "Dial M for Murder", and "Foreign Correspondent", and one can read Hitchcock's notes on the story that would become "Shadow of a Doubt."

In the late 1980s, a generation of filmmakers inspired by the directors of the 1970s began to flower outside the studio system. In the following decade, the independent movement bloomed. Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino, and dozens of lesser-known filmmakers began walking away with prizes at Cannes and eventually at the Academy Awards. Many of these directors were discovered at Robert Redford's Sundance film festival and were scooped up by Harvey and Bob Weinstein, whose company, Miramax, laid waste to the competition. In "Down and Dirty Pictures", Peter Biskind tells the story of the filmmakers and the independent distributors who revitalized Hollywood over the past decade. He follows the growth of Sundance from a regional film festival to the premier showcase of independent film that it became, showing how it succeeded almost despite Redford, whose visionary plans were often thwarted by his quixotic personality. He charts the meteoric rise of the controversial Harvey Weinstein, often described as the last mogul who, with his brother, left a trail of carnage in his wake, yet created an Oscar factory that is the envy of the studios. Candid and penetrating, "Down and Dirty Pictures" is a must-read for anyone interested in the film world and where it's headed.

Official screenplay book for the new Focus Features film directed by Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting, My Own Private Idaho), starring Academy Award(r) winner Sean Penn (Mystic River, Dead Man Walking) as gay-rights icon Harvey Milk.

His life changed history. His courage changed lives. In 1977, Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay man to be voted into major public office in America. His victory was not just a victory for gay rights; he forged coalitions across the political spectrum. From senior citizens to union workers, Harvey Milk changed the very nature of what it means to be a fighter for human rights and became, before his untimely death in 1978, a hero for all Americans.

Academy Award(r) winner Sean Penn stars as Harvey Milk, with Emile Hirsch as Cleve Jones, Josh Brolin as Dan White, Diego Luna as Jack Lira, and James Franco as Scott Smith, and under the direction of Academy Award(r) nominee Gus Van Sant, filmed on location in San Francisco, from an original screenplay by Dustin Lance Black.

In addition to the complete screenplay, Milk: The Shooting Script(r) includes:
* an introduction by director Gus Van Sant
* scene notes by Dustin Lance Black
* an exclusive conversation with Lance Black, Gus Van Sant, and activist Cleve Jones, who was mentored by Harvey Milk * a color photo section
* and the complete cast and crew credits.

We need to talk.

Do these words fill you with dread? It's time to hear their promise, and revel in an art that anyone can master. Conversation costs nothing. Let it bring you the world.

In challenging times, great conversationalists have a huge advantage. Why not join them? Get on with others, and you will get on in life. And enjoy it far more.

A communication technology that has been in research and development for thousands of years, conversation not only saves time but also hugely enriches it. This everyday magic is unbeatable for improving your mood, boosting your brain, and enriching friendship. And the qualities of a good conversation are those we want of the people around us, which is why the best conversationalists get dates, win contracts.

Because conversation is not just about how to talk to anyone. It's about connecting, through the host of tools we have for reading and changing minds. About how and why we laugh, how we flirt, how we flatter, and most important of all: how we listen.

Searching for the book of love letters from the Sex in the City movie? This book contains those letters as well as some of the most passionate and romantic poems and love letters ever written. Explore the private longings and passions of the greatest men and women in history. Find yourself in the middle of torrid love affairs, undying devotion, and scandalous betrayal as you uncover long-lost correspondences between lovers. From great Kings and Countesses to War Heroes and Philosophers, spanning a period of five centuries, this collection illustrates that the human desires of sex and love were as powerful then as they are now.

If you cut off a spider’s head, it dies; if you cut off a starfish’s leg it grows a new one, and that leg can grow into an entirely new starfish. Traditional top-down organizations are like spiders, but now starfish organizations are changing the face of business and the world.

What’s the hidden power behind the success of Wikipedia, craigslist, and Skype? What do eBay and General Electric have in common with the abolitionist and women’s rights movements? What fundamental choice put General Motors and Toyota on vastly different paths?

Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom have discovered some unexpected answers, gripping stories, and a tapestry of unlikely connections. The Starfish and the Spider explores what happens when starfish take on spiders and reveals how established companies and institutions, from IBM to Intuit to the U.S. government, are also learning how to incorporate starfish principles to achieve success.

This book is a focused guide to using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for the visual design of web pages. It provides concise coverage of all the essential CSS concepts developers need to learn (such as separating content from presentation, block and inline elements, inheritance and cascade, the box model, typography, etc). It also covers the syntax needed to effectively use CSS with your markup document (for example CSS rules, how to structure a style sheet, linking style sheets to your (X)HTML documents, CSS boxes etc).

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a powerful technology that can be used to add style and structure to your web pages without needing to resort to "hacks" such as HTML table layouts and "spacer images". However, this is not the only advantage over other styling methods. You can specify your CSS styles in a separate file, then apply those styles to every page in your web site. When you want to change a style on your site, you can do it by modifying one style sheet, rather having to update every page. This is only one example of the many advantages CSS brings to your web development work.

Charlotte Brontë's most beloved novel describes the passionate love between the courageous orphan Jane Eyre and the brilliant, brooding, and domineering Rochester.

The loneliness and cruelty of Jane's childhood strengthens her natural independence and spirit, which prove invaluable when she takes a position as a governess at Thornfield Hall. But after she falls in love with her sardonic employer, her discovery of his terrible secret forces her to make a heart-wrenching choice. Ever since its publication in 1847, Jane Eyre has enthralled every kind of reader, from the most critical and cultivated to the youngest and most unabashedly romantic. It lives as one of the great triumphs of storytelling and as a moving and unforgettable portrayal of a woman's quest for self-respect.

For decades, Fred Burton, a key figure in international counterterrorism and domestic spycraft, has secretly been on the front lines in the fight to keep Americans safe around the world. Now, in this hard-hitting memoir, Burton emerges from the shadows to reveal who he is, what he has accomplished, and the threats that lurk unseen except by an experienced, world-wise few.

In the mid-eighties, the idea of defending Americans against terrorism was still new. But a trio of suicide bombings in Beirut–including one that killed 241 marines and forced our exit from Lebanon–had changed the mindset and mission of the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), the arm of the State Department that protects U.S. embassy officials across the globe. Burton, a member of DSS’s tiny but elite Counterterrorism Division, was plunged into a murky world of violent religious extremism spanning the streets of Middle Eastern cities and the informant-filled alleys of American slums. From battling Libyan terrorists and their Palestinian surrogates to having facing down hijackers, hostages, and Hezbollah double agents, Burton found himself on the front lines of America’s first campaign against Terror.

In this globe-trotting account of one counterterrorism agent’s life and career, Burton takes us behind the scenes to reveal how the United States tracked Libya-linked master terrorist Abu Nidal; captured Ramzi Yusef, architect of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; and pursued the assassins of major figures including Yitzhak Rabin, Meir Kahane, and General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the president of Pakistan–classic cases that have sobering new meaning in the treacherous years since 9/11. Here, too, is Burton’s advice on personal safety for today’s most powerful CEOs, gleaned from his experience at Stratfor, the private firm Barron’s calls “the shadow CIA.”

Told in a no-holds-barred, gripping, nuanced style that illuminates a complex and driven man, Ghost is both a riveting read and an illuminating look into the shadows of the most important struggle of our time.

Praise for GHOST
“With spy thriller suspense and the clarity of a police report, former special agent Burton’s State Department saga reads like a brewing-storm prequel to the current war on terror ... Of obvious interest to anyone with an eye on world affairs.... Most striking is the material’s relevance twenty years later; Burton’s clashes with Hezbollah in Beirut and prickly diplomacy with Iran could almost be pulled from present-day newspapers”—Publisher's Weekly

“In many ways, this book reads like a le Carré spy novel: it’s not flashy, not filled with pyrotechnics, not full of chase scenes and derring-do. Rather, it’s the story of a working man whose job involved trying to prevent people from attacking his country. Shorn of ideological rights and wrongs, it’s a fascinating look at what counterterrorism really means on a day-to-day level.” —Booklist

“The world of counterterrorism is like that old jigsaw puzzle in the back of the closet: its many missing pieces and extra parts jumbled in from other puzzles make it almost impossible to assemble. But in Ghost, Fred Burton manages to join together enough pieces to give us a discerning look at that world. This is a story, told in human terms, that will help make sense of the great puzzle of our times.” —Eric L. Haney, author of Inside Delta Force and executive producer of The Unit

“Burton’s memoir of fighting the defensive fight against the burgeoning terrorist threat in the 1980s and beyond is a revealing personal journal of the stress and boredom involved in putting the pieces of the puzzle together to obtain justice. Fred Burton was there, and you will be as well.” —Bobby R. Inman, admiral, United States Navy (retired), former director of National Security Agency and former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency

"This memoir is all at once hard-hitting, well-researched, and an easy read. Organized into thirty-six chapters, with thoughtfully-placed transitions between each, Ghost becomes ones of those books that is easy to put down and return to in a few days." —SmallWars Journal.com

Computers are used in every part of science from ecology to particle physics. This introduction to computer science continually reinforces those ties by using real-world science problems as examples. Anyone who has taken a high school science class will be able to follow along as the book introduces the basics of programming, then goes on to show readers how to work with databases, download data from the web automatically, build graphical interfaces, and most importantly, how to think like a professional programmer. Topics covered include: * Basic elements of programming from arithmetic to loops and if statements. * Using functions and modules to organize programs. * Using lists, sets, and dictionaries to organize data. * Designing algorithms systematically. * Debugging things when they go wrong. * Creating and querying databases. * Building graphical interfaces to make programs easier to use. * Object-oriented programming and programming patterns.