Tawdry Tales and Confessions from Horror's Boy Next Door


Book Description

In the last 40 years, actor, director and former effects artist William Butler has easily lived three lifetimes. From his early beginnings creating super-8 horror shorts and working the circus midway to a blissful existence as a producer-director living in the Hollywood hills, he's seen it all, gained it all and... lost it all. Tawdry Tales chronicles the jaw-dropping, sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking life of an industrious young artist who started out with an unflinching determination to work in film and who somehow became "Horror's Boy Next Door", appearing in dozens of movies alongside the genres most legendary villains, including Jason Vorheees from Friday the 13th, Leatherface from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre the George Romero's zombies from Night of the Living Dead. Butler chalks it all up to having a face you just want to hit with a butcher knife. Butler lovingly has transcribed 35 years-worth of journals he kept into one fascinating and heartfelt memoir that follows his story around the world as he worked with and in some cases lived with some of Hollywood's most beloved and "colorful" personalities including Viggo Mortensen, Leslie Jordan, Tom Sizemore and the legendary Prince. Butler's TELL-ALL contains: - Foreword written by Executive Producer of The Walking Dead, Greg Nicotero. - Shocking, never before revealed antics from the set of Friday the13th VII, Leatherface Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3, Tom Savini's Night of the Living Dead, Ghoulies 2 and many more. - The true story of how the sequels Return of the Living Dead 4 and 5 went so horribly wrong. - The raw ugly truth of what it's really like to be a director of small movies for big companies. - Unfiltered tales from his 35 years of production with Charles Band - Hilarious stories of Butler's working experience with Prince, Madonna, Donald Plesance, Tom Sizemore, Viggo Mortensen, Klaus Kinski, Greg Nicotero, Stuart Gordon, Yvonne DeCarlo. - Scandalous and hilarious tales from his five years spent as actor Leslie Jordan's roommate. - Dozens of never before seen behind the scenes photos.




Confessions of a Late-night Talk-show Host


Book Description

CONFESSIONS OF A LATE-NIGHT TALK-SHOW HOST is written by the host of THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW. It is a double whammy of satire, irreverently told in Garry Shandling's inimitable style which deftly weaves together fact and fiction. This is an exclusive up-close-and-personal inspection of what makes Larry Sanders tick: his loves, his addictions, his friends and his enemies. This will be the Hollywood tell-all to end all Hollywood tell-alls; indeed, Larry Sanders might never be able to eat lunch in that town again!




Rats Saw God


Book Description

Steve details his descent from bright star to burnout in this newly repackaged edition of the definitive, highly acclaimed novel from the creator of Veronica Mars and Party Down. Houston, sophomore year: Steve is on top of the world. He and his friends are the talk of the school. He’s in love with a terrific girl. He can even deal with “the astronaut”—a world-famous hero who happens to be his father. San Diego, senior year: Steve is bummed out, drugged out, flunking out. A no-nonsense counselor says he can graduate if he writes a 100-page paper. So Steve starts writing, and as the paper becomes more and more personal, he reveals how a National Merit Scholar has become an under-achieving stoner. And in telling how he got to where he is, Steve discovers how to get to where he wants to be.




We Need to Talk About Kevin


Book Description

The inspiration for the film starring Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly, this resonant story of a mother’s unsettling quest to understand her teenage son’s deadly violence, her own ambivalence toward motherhood, and the explosive link between them remains terrifyingly prescient. Eva never really wanted to be a mother. And certainly not the mother of a boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much–adored teacher in a school shooting two days before his sixteenth birthday. Neither nature nor nurture exclusively shapes a child's character. But Eva was always uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood. Did her internalized dislike for her own son shape him into the killer he’s become? How much is her fault? Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with Kevin’s horrific rampage, all in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklin. A piercing, unforgettable, and penetrating exploration of violence and responsibility, a book that the Boston Globe describes as “impossible to put down,” is a stunning examination of how tragedy affects a town, a marriage, and a family.




A Rumor of War


Book Description

Originally published: New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977.




The Man Who Loved Children


Book Description

“This crazy, gorgeous family novel” written at the end of the Great Depression “is one of the great literary achievements of the twentieth century” (Jonathan Franzen, The New York Times). First published in 1940, The Man Who Loved Children was rediscovered in 1965 thanks to the poet Randall Jarrell’s eloquent introduction (included in this ebook edition), which compares Christina Stead to Leo Tolstoy. Today, it stands as a masterpiece of dysfunctional family life. In a country crippled by the Great Depression, Sam and Henny Pollit have too much—too much contempt for one another, too many children, too much strain under endless obligation. Flush with ego and chilling charisma, Sam torments and manipulates his children in an esoteric world of his own imagining. Henny looks on desperately, all too aware of the madness at the root of her husband’s behavior. And Louie, the damaged, precocious adolescent girl at the center of their clashes, is the “ugly duckling” whose struggle will transfix contemporary readers. Named one of the best novels of the twentieth century by Newsweek, Stead’s semiautobiographical work reads like a Depression-era The Glass Castle. In the New York Times, Jonathan Franzen wrote of this classic, “I carry it in my head the way I carry childhood memories; the scenes are of such precise horror and comedy that I feel I didn’t read the book so much as live it.”




Without a Prayer


Book Description

The horrifying true story of a fatal encounter inside the secluded Word of Life Christian Church, a parish-turned-cult in upstate New York. Teenager Lucas Leonard made shocking admissions in front of the altar—he’d practiced witchcraft and conspired to murder his parents, among other horrific crimes. The confessions earned him a brutal beating by a gang of angry church members, including his parents and sister. Lucas arrived at the hospital dead, awakening the sleepy community of Chadwicks, New York, to the horror that had been lurking next door. Nine members of Lucas’ church would eventually find themselves facing murder-related charges. But how did they get to that point? And what made Lucas confess? The full story has never been told—until now. Emmy-nominated journalist Susan Ashline delves deep into the Leonard family history, the darkness within the Word of Life Christian Church, and what led Lucas, his family, and his community to that fateful night.




Under the Big Black Sun


Book Description

Under the Big Black Sun explores the nascent Los Angeles punk rock movement and its evolution to hardcore punk as it's never been told before. John Doe of the legendary band X and co-author Tom DeSavia have woven together an enthralling story of the legendary West Coast scene from 1977-1982 by enlisting the voices of people who were there. The book shares chapter-length tales from the authors along with personal essays from famous (and infamous) players in the scene. Through interstitial commentary, John Doe "narrates" this journey through the land of film noir sunshine, Hollywood back alleys, and suburban sprawl. Illustrated with 50 rare photos, this is the story of the art that was born under the big black sun.




Black Forest Village Stories


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The Hampdenshire Wonder


Book Description