To Vegas and Back


Book Description

TO VEGAS and BACK is Casino meets The Burning Bed, peppered with The Glass Castle. The story begins with a twenty-six-year-old woman living the American dream in the 1960s. She was a homemaker and mother of three in the beautiful suburbs of Philadelphia. At thirty-two she gets a divorce and trades brownies and carpools for pasties and feathers as a Showgirl in Las Vegas. In a nutshell, this woman leaves her husband in 1972 and is swooped up by a rich man who wants to make her a showgirl. He moves her to Vegas and shortly after, he is murdered. Distraught, she is visited by the FBI to learn her deceased friend was a crook and ran a Ponzi scheme. She then meets a Vegas mobster who introduces her into the world of sex, drugs and the underground workings of Vegas casinos. She realizes her dream when she nails an audition and becomes one of the most sought-after showgirls of her time in the Tropicana's famous Les Folies Bergere. Finally, this woman meets a man who wants to marry her and take in her children-a man who nearly destroys them with violence, alcohol and abuse over the course of six years. The author can tell this story firsthand, because this woman is her mother.







Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas


Book Description

This is a reissue of the novel inspired by Hunter S. Thompson's ether-fuelled, savage journey to the heart of the American Dream: We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold... And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas.




A Photo Tour of Las Vegas


Book Description

A lavish coffee-table-format tribute to the attractions of Sin City is organized geographically to cover its downtown, north strip, south strip, and "off the strip" areas, in a full-color photographic tour that is complemented by historical information. Simultaneous.




The Five Roads to Vegas


Book Description

Michael Breggar, the author of the popular and award winning "Auto-Magic" column in the International Brotherhood of Magicians monthly journal "The Linking Ring" brings a dozen of his favorite effects together in this volume. The tricks are sleight-of-hand free but brimming with entertaining possibilities.




Lost in Las Vegas


Book Description

After crashing their spaceship in the Nevada desert, Klatu, Lek, and their sister Ploo go to Las Vegas in search of the one mechanic who can fix it.




Young Las Vegas


Book Description

The Las Vegas we know was conceived -- if anybody really conceived it -- in 1931, when Nevada liberalised its divorce and gambling laws, which would ultimately transform the city into America's playground for grown-ups. It was also the year an unprecedented engineering project began, that would turn the Colorado River from a wild killer stream to a wild reservoir that waters not only California vegetables but also sprawling Las Vegas suburbs. From 1905 to 1931, Las Vegas was still a tiny oasis in a big, dangerous desert. Its isolated people made their own swamp coolers, their own entertainment and sometimes their own whiskey. The author, Joan Burkhardt Whitely, enlisted older Las Vegans to help capture the memories of a Mojave Mayberry where neighbours took care of each other, not merely because no one else would, but because it was their hometown, and they cared.




Back to the Launching Pad


Book Description

Michael Breggar, the award-winning author of "Auto-Magic" (seen monthly in The Linking Ring) is back with another collection of amazing, fun and well-constructed magical pieces. As in his previous best-selling book the "Five Roads to Vegas," some the effects have been previously published, but they have been further refined with more detailed explanations and performance notes. True to the "Auto-Magic" mantra, the routines in this book are professional and practical yet none require sleight of hand. As Michael always stresses, since the performance is the effect, the tricks need to be clever, layered, deceptive and, most of all, entertaining.Michael helps you navigate through each routine with careful descriptions and well-honed patter. However, you can easily adapt each effect to your own style.Contents:Back To The Launching Pad - Michael's addition the "Out of this World" landscape, with a big difference...it's done with the cards face up! Already a favorite of several working pros.ACAAN Opener - An old principle on top of an old U. F. Grant card trick turns it into a funny, yet still amazing Any Card at An Number effect.A Whole Empty Brain - Yet another old card principle that has been redressed and relayered to surprise even the knowledgeable. Two spectators show they are in mental sync by a very fair selection of cards from a shuffled deck. Not only are their cards mates, the rest of the deck suddenly turns blank!Not Just Another Book Test (A.K.A. "The Two-Fingered Book Test") - Michael received an amazing amount of emails on this effect. Finally, a book test that seems organic and makes contextual sense. Or were the emails more about the "AKA" part of the title??!The Dating Game - Playing around with yet another old principle, Michael conjures up a fun effect where famous couples' names are listed on index cards. The cards are then torn in half and fully mixed, thus "separating" the couples. Using random throws of dice, the spectators magically reunite the couples. Usually!Mixed Emojis - based on a Dan Harlan version of a Martin Gardner concept, a fabulous three-phase routine is demonstrated using domino-sized tiles depicting mobile phones with everyone' favorite excuse for not typing complete text messages!Cra-Ker-Jack - Michael invents a ridiculously bizarre and funny new casino game, with rules that change on a whim. The spectators are treated to an amazing routine of card magic where their random decisions find the mates to four selected cards and ultimately produce the four aces.The Price Is Write - From Michael's corporate repertoire, in figuring the "best price" for a silly-looking pen, the spectators write out all different prices on price tags. Through a very fair and random process of elimination, one tag is selected. The price on the tag exactly matches the amount of change in a small envelope, sitting on the table untouched from the beginning.Drawn Conclusion - Michael's favorite trick and frequent closer. From a shuffled deck, a spectator selects a face down card. They place their fingers lightly on top in an effort to read the card through their fingertips. The magician then tries to read the reading and draws the image on a paper. Is it the correct card? Well, sorta.Plus, two essays written in Michael's breezy style with more tips and presentational ideas than you can shake a stick at. If that's your idea of a good time.




Leaving Las Vegas


Book Description

This “brutal and unflinching” novel of fleeting love in Sin City inspired the film starring Nicholas Cage and Elizabeth Shue (Jay McInerney, author of Bright Lights, Big City). John O’Brien’s debut novel, Leaving Las Vegas, is an emotionally wrenching story of a woman who embraces life and a man who rejects it; a powerful tale of hard luck, hard drinking, and a relationship of tenderness and destruction. An avowed alcoholic, Ben drinks away his family, friends, and, finally, his job. With deliberate resolve, he burns the remnants of his life and heads for Las Vegas to end it all in the last great binge of his hopeless life. On the Strip, he picks up Sera, a prostitute, in what might have become another excess in his self-destructive jag. Instead, their chance meeting becomes a respite on the road to oblivion as they form a bond that is as mysterious as it is immutable.




Elvis


Book Description

July 31, 1969 marks an historic milestone in Elvis's career. Bolstered by the runaway success of the '68 Comeback show and energized by productive recording sessions at American Sound Studios, which would spawn such timeless hits as "Suspicious Minds", "In The Ghetto" and "Don't Cry Daddy," Elvis launched his return to live performance at Las Vegas's International Hotel in the summer of 1969. "Elvis: Vegas '69" commemorates the 40th anniversary of Elvis's historic return to live performance. Written by Ken Sharp, the book tells the remarkable story of Elvis's return to the concert stage told through first-hand accounts by those lucky enough to be on hand to witness Elvis's miraculous artistic and creative rebirth. Culling 100 new interviews, the 60,000 word text offers a gripping account of this seminal event told by the people who were there including Priscilla Presley, Elvis's TCB bandmates, the Sweet Inspirations, the Imperials, the Memphis Mafia, celebrities in attendance, International hotel personnel including owner Kirk Kerkorian, hotel President Alex Shoofey, publicity and showroom staff, security, international media and much more. Learn the backstory behind what led to Elvis's triumphant return to live performance. You'll go behind closed doors with Elvis and the band in pre-show rehearsals and revel in the excitement and anticipation of opening night. We'll also exhaustively chronicle the opening show on July 31, 1969 through the eyes of the people that were there, press conference, after show celebration and more. Packed with over 150 stunning full color and B&W images, many culled from the Graceland archives, vintage Vegas/Elvis concert memorabilia, a '69 show index and much more, the book will transport the reader back to the Strip for one of the most electrifying moments in Elvis's monumental career.