Esquire the Meaning of Life


Book Description

A stunning collection of candid interviews with 64 actors, directors, musicians, economists, politicians and other leaders. Every one of the impressive figures profiled here offers insights that reveal the humanity behind the famous face and the dramatic portraits that accompany each interview.




Esquire-- the Meaning of Life


Book Description

Excerpts from the magazine's "What I've Learned" columns features intimate discussions with such individuals as Yogi Berra, Robert De Niro, and Jack Nicholson, and shares their life philosophies and photographic portraits.




Esquire What Ive Learned O/P


Book Description

From Esquire's popular "What I've Learned" column comes a stunning, all-new collection of candid interviews with 65 actors, athletes, directors, musicians, writers, comedians, politicians, and other legendary figures. Every one of the impressive figures profiled here offers insights that reveal the humanity behind the famous face. The lessons these larger-than-life personalities convey are funny, inspirational, very down-to-earth--and always captivating. The profiles include: 50 Cent, Tim Allen, Woody Allen, André 3000, Kevin Bacon, Tony Bennett, Joe Biden, David Blaine, Albert Brooks, James L. Brooks, Jim Brown, James Lee Burke, Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton, George H. W. Bush (with Barbara Bush), Michael Caine, Chevy Chase, Chris Christie, Francis Ford Coppola, Kevin Costner, Willem Dafoe, Charlie Daniels, Ted Danson, Robert DeNiro, Bruce Dern, Danny DeVito, Robert Duvall, Art Garfunkel, Ricky Gervais, Phillip Glass, Elliott Gould, Kelsey Grammer, Robert Haas, Jim Harrison, Kevin Hart, Ethan Hawke, Jesse Jackson, Samuel L. Jackson, Joan Jett, Larry King, Padma Lakshmi, Jerry Lee Lewis, Lyle Lovett, James Meredith, Helen Mirren, Keith Olbermann, Gary Oldman, Yoko Ono, Mary-Louise Parker, Pelé, Sean Penn, Robert Redford, Lionel Richie, Amy Schumer, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Slash, Aaron Sorkin, Harry Dean Stanton, Sting, Donald Sutherland, Jeffrey Tambor, Christopher Walken, Sigourney Weaver, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, and Thom Yorke.




Esquire Presents: What It Feels Like


Book Description

Have you ever wondered what it feels like: to be stuck in a tornado? “[It] is exactly the feel of a freight train approaching—that low, ever-louder howl and the shuddering ground.” to participate in an orgy? “And all the while, the thought that keeps going through your mind (and through the cab ride home, and into breakfast the next day): ‘I’m at an orgy! I’m at an orgy!’” to have a severe stutter? “The thing is, there’s a disconnect thing between my mind and my tongue. My mind’s processing a thousand words a minute, and the tongue is only squeezing out ten or twelve.” to be a mob hitman? “It’s nerve-racking. Don’t let anyone tell you any different. Anybody who’s any good at this is concentrating with every nerve in their body, trying to get it done right and trying not to get caught.” to be 105 years old? “I was born in 1897 and I’ve seen a lot in the world. I’ve seen everything there is to see. You look back and tell yourself, ‘What have I been doing all these years?’” If these tidbits whet your appetite for real, first-person accounts of some of life’s most exhilarating, harrowing, or downright strange experiences, then you’ll be sucked in by Esquire Presents: What It Feels Like. Collected by the ever-curious editors of Esquire magazine, here are more than fifty gripping tales—straight from the mouths of the people who’ve lived them.




The Accidental Life


Book Description

An Amazon Best Book of 2016 A celebration of the writing and editing life, as well as a look behind the scenes at some of the most influential magazines in America (and the writers who made them what they are). You might not know Terry McDonell, but you certainly know his work. Among the magazines he has top-edited: Outside, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and Sports Illustrated. In this revealing memoir, McDonell talks about what really happens when editors and writers work with deadlines ticking (or drinks on the bar). His stories about the people and personalities he’s known are both heartbreaking and bitingly funny—playing “acid golf” with Hunter S. Thompson, practicing brinksmanship with David Carr and Steve Jobs, working the European fashion scene with Liz Tilberis, pitching TV pilots with Richard Price. Here, too, is an expert’s practical advice on how to recruit—and keep—high-profile talent; what makes a compelling lede; how to grow online traffic that translates into dollars; and how, in whatever format, on whatever platform, a good editor really works, and what it takes to write well. Taking us from the raucous days of New Journalism to today’s digital landscape, McDonell argues that the need for clear storytelling from trustworthy news sources has never been stronger. Says Jeffrey Eugenides: “Every time I run into Terry, I think how great it would be to have dinner with him. Hear about the writers he's known and edited over the years, what the magazine business was like back then, how it's changed and where it's going, inside info about Edward Abbey, Jim Harrison, Annie Proulx, old New York, and the Swimsuit issue. That dinner is this book.”




A Confederacy of Dunces


Book Description

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize “A masterwork . . . the novel astonishes with its inventiveness . . . it is nothing less than a grand comic fugue.”—The New York Times Book Review A Confederacy of Dunces is an American comic masterpiece. John Kennedy Toole's hero, one Ignatius J. Reilly, is "huge, obese, fractious, fastidious, a latter-day Gargantua, a Don Quixote of the French Quarter. His story bursts with wholly original characters, denizens of New Orleans' lower depths, incredibly true-to-life dialogue, and the zaniest series of high and low comic adventures" (Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times).




The Meaning of Life


Book Description

An anthology of personal insights and perceptions on the meaning of life. The book contains contributions from such diverse figures as the Dalai Lama, Julie Walters, John Harvey-Jones, Ranulph Fiennes, John Gielgud and Mother Theresa. The royalties from this book will go to the British Red Cross.




Esquire


Book Description




Death by Living


Book Description

Each of us is in the middle of a story. In this astoundingly unique book, bestselling author N.D. Wilson reminds us that to truly live we must recognize that we are dying. Cause of death: life. Death by Living is a poetic exploration of faith, futility, and the incredible joy of this mortal life. N.D. Wilson recounts stories from his life in poetic prose, giving perspective on the life we're given by God. Death by Living explores the topics of family, grappling with the death of loved ones, and how to live with intention to get the most out of our time on Earth. Wilson encourages us to live hard and die grateful, and to see Christ in every pair of eyes. To write a past we won’t regret. All of us must pause and breathe. See the past, see life as the fruit of providence and thousands of personal narratives. We did not choose where to set our feet in time, but we choose where to set them next. We stand in the now. God says create. Live. Choose. Shape the past. Etch your life in stone, and what you make will be forever. In Death by Living, you will: Experience life with renewed wonder Recognize mundane moments as opportunities Learn to live hard and die grateful Recognize death as a gift instead of something to be feared At once inspiring, humorous, and unbelievably moving, this a book that you will read again and again, finding fresh perspective each time you open it.




Infinite Country


Book Description

A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK and INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE 2021 NEW AMERICAN VOICES AWARD, LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL, A 2022 DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE FINALIST, AND A NATIONAL ENDOWMENT OF THE ARTS “BIG READS” SELECTION “A profound, beautiful novel.” —People * “Poignant.” —BuzzFeed * “A breathtaking story of the unimaginable prices paid for a better life.” —Esquire This “heartbreaking portrait of a family dealing with the realities of migration and separation” (Time) is “a sweeping love story and tragic drama [and] an authentic vision of what the American Dream looks like in a nationalistic country” (Elle). I often wonder if we are living the wrong life in the wrong country. Talia is being held at a correctional facility for adolescent girls in the forested mountains of Colombia after committing an impulsive act of violence that may or may not have been warranted. She urgently needs to get out and get back home to Bogotá, where her father and a plane ticket to the United States are waiting for her. If she misses her flight, she might also miss her chance to finally be reunited with her family. How this family came to occupy two different countries, two different worlds, comes into focus like twists of a kaleidoscope. We see Talia’s parents, Mauro and Elena, fall in love in a market stall as teenagers against a backdrop of civil war and social unrest. We see them leave Bogotá with their firstborn, Karina, in pursuit of safety and opportunity in the United States on a temporary visa, and we see the births of two more children, Nando and Talia, on American soil. We witness the decisions and indecisions that lead to Mauro’s deportation and the family’s splintering—the costs they’ve all been living with ever since. Award-winning, internationally acclaimed author Patricia Engel, herself a dual citizen and the daughter of Colombian immigrants, gives voice to all five family members as they navigate the particulars of their respective circumstances. Rich with Bogotá urban life, steeped in Andean myth, and tense with the daily reality of the undocumented in America, Infinite Country “is as much an all-American story as it is a global one” (Booklist, starred review).