Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley

Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley

by Lawrence Sutin

Aleister Crowley was a blustery coward, an arrogant, misogynistic racist with fascist leanings, and a callous user, as often threatened by his sexuality as he claimed to be liberated by it. But he was also a groundbreaking poet and an iconoclastic visionary whose literary and cultural legacies extend far beyond the limits of his reputation. This controversial individual, a frightening mixture of egomania and... (more)

Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

by Chuck Klosterman

For 6,557 miles, Chuck Klosterman thought about dying. He drove a rental car from New York to Rhode Island to Georgia to Mississippi to Iowa to Minneapolis to Fargo to Seattle, and he chased death and rock 'n' roll all the way. Within the span of twenty-one days, Chuck had three relationships end -- one by choice, one by chance, and one by exhaustion. He snorted cocaine in a graveyard. He walked a half-mile... (more)

All I Need to Know about Filmmaking I Learned from the Toxic Avenger

All I Need to Know about Filmmaking I Learned from the Toxic Avenger

by Lloyd Kaufman

Imagine Roger Corman and John Waters crossed with Howard Stern--and you'll have an idea of the demented genius behind Troma studios, one of the oldest (and most successful) independent film studios in the world. Lloyd Kaufman's spirited, outrageous, no-holds-barred look at low-budget, guerilla filmmaking is truly an inspiration to young filmmakers, a delight for movie buffs, and an absolute must for Toxic Avenger... (more)

That Furball Puppy and Me

by Carol Wallace

Here I am, a self-respecting kitten just trying to survive in a rat-eat-cat world, when the humans in my life start acting crazy. Something about the kids, and grandkids, coming to visit for Christmas. I would have run away had I known what that meant! Mama accusing me of tearing up the presents. Noisy voices and grabby little hands. I tell you, it's a dog's world. Bite my tongue! If the grandkids are bad,... (more)

My Son Divine

by Frances Milstead

This remarkable biography-written by Divine's mother, Frances Milstead, with Kevin Heffernan and Steve Yeager, the award-winning filmmakers whose documentary film on John Waters won the Filmmakers Trophy at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival-reveals a never-before-seen side of the internationally renowned actor and drag performer. Following him as he grows from angelic choirboy to troubled teen to flamboyant adult,... (more)

The Day Christ Died

by Jim Bishop

"This is a book about the most dramatic day in the history of the world, the day on which Jesus of Nazareth died. It opens at 6 P.M. -- the beginning of the Hebrew day -- with Jesus and ten of the apostles coming through the pass between the Mount of Olives and the Mount of Offense en route to Jerusalem and the Last Supper. It closes at 4 P.M. the following afternoon, when Jesus was taken down from the cross. . .... (more)

How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime

How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime

by Roger Corman

"A splendidly instructive and entertaining contribution to film history and a quick lesson on the efficient showstring style of filmmaking by a maverick genius of innovation and exploitation. . . . Corman teaches, as well as delights".--"Choice". 39 photos.

White Dog

by Romain Gary

Both a personal memoir and a French novelist's encounter with American reality, White Dog is an unforgettable portrait of racism and hypocrisy. Set in the tumultuous Los Angeles of 1968, Romain Gary's story begins when a German shepherd strays into his life: "He was watching me, his head cocked to one side, with that unbearable intensity of dogs in the pound waiting for a rescuer." A lost police canine, this... (more)

Leni Riefenstahl

by Leni Riefenstahl

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year. One of the century's most remarkable and controversial women, Leni Riefenstahl is an artist of the first order. Dancer, actor, and photographer, she is best known as the director of Triumph of the Will , a film of a Nazi Party rally and Olympia , the classic account of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It is for these works of cinematic propaganda that Riefenstahl is... (more)

The Seven Addictions and Five Professions of Anita Berber: Weimar Berlin's Priestess of Depravity

The Seven Addictions and Five Professions of Anita Berber: Weimar Berlin's Priestess of Depravity

by Mel Gordon

The Seven Addictions and Five Professions of Anita Berber is the first contemporary biography of a notorious actor/dancer/poet/playwright who scandalized sex-obsessed Weimar Berlin during the 1920s. In an era where everything was permitted, Anita Berber's celebrations of "Depravity, Horror and Ecstasy" were condemned and censored. She often haunted Weimar Berlin's hotel lobbies, nightclubs and casinos,... (more)

Hanussen: Hitler's Jewish Clairvoyant

by Mel Gordon

Erik Jan Hanussen made a name for himself as Europe’s most audacious and controversial soothsayer. Billing himself as “The Man Who Knows All,” he performed in cabarets and music halls, attracting the attention of everyone from Sigmund Freud and Thomas Mann to Marlene Dietrich and Peter Lorre. His exceptional paranormal abilities — along with his stage specialty of hypnotizing women to orgasm — garnered ardent... (more)

Panzram A Journal of Murder

A detailed memoir and self-analysis by a mass murderer. Panzram was born in 1891 on a Minnesota farm and died in 1930 on the gallows at the U.S.Penitentiary, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Imprisoned for most of his life from the age of twelve and brutally punished, Panzram's keen insight into the arbitrary cruelty of his fellow human being is graphically illustrated with a litany of prison abuses, as well as the... (more)

King Edward II: Edward of Caernarfon His Life, His Reign, and Its Aftermath 1284-1330

King Edward II: Edward of Caernarfon His Life, His Reign, and Its Aftermath 1284-1330

by Roy Martin Haines

Edward of Caernarfon is best known today for his disastrous military defeat in 1314 at Bannockburn, where his English army was defeated by a vastly inferior Scottish force led by Robert the Bruce, leading to Scottish Independence. This catastrophe was one of many in a disastrous career marked by indolence, vengefulness, vacillation in relationships with France, deranged policies at home, and constitutional... (more)

Altered States: The Autobiography of Ken RussellKen Russell

Altered States: The Autobiography of Ken Russell

by Ken Russell

The controversial British filmmaker ( Women in Love ; The Devils ) takes an extravagant stream-of-consciousness trip through his life, swinging between present and past so rapidly that readers may occasionally lose their footing. Russell, now 64, describes problems on his film sets, the frequent periods when he has seemed to be persona non grata in the movie business, and his two marriages; also provided are... (more)

Hitler's Priestess: Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth and Neo-Nazism

Hitler's Priestess: Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth and Neo-Nazism

by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke

"<A> superb study. . . . Goodrick-Clarke has done a service to sanity, even if the gullible will go on swallowing <Devi's> recycled poison rather than his antidote." --Times Literary Supplement "An excellent, thought-provoking volume. . . . We may readily accept that Devi was a revolting creature. But it is as well that we realise that such demons in human form existed and still do exist." ... (more)

Provolone in the Casket: Memoirs of a Mortician

Provolone in the Casket: Memoirs of a Mortician

by Frank Montimurro, Wileliam F. Higbie

Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

by Steve Martin

The Emmy and Grammy Award-winner's candid, spectacularly amusing memoir of his years in stand-up In the mid-seventies, Steve Martin exploded onto the comedy scene. By 1978 he was the biggest concert draw in the history of stand-up. In 1981 he quit forever. Born Standing Up is, in his own words, the story of "why I did stand-up and why I walked away." At age ten Martin started his career at Disneyland, selling... (more)

Elizabeth Blackburn and the Story of Telomeres: Deciphering the Ends of DNA

Elizabeth Blackburn and the Story of Telomeres: Deciphering the Ends of DNA

by Catherine Brady

Molecular biologist Elizabeth Blackburn—one of Time magazine’s 100 “Most Influential People in the World” in 2007—made headlines in 2004 when she was dismissed from the President's Council on Bioethics after objecting to the council's call for a moratorium on stem cell research and protesting the suppression of relevant scientific evidence in its final report. But it is Blackburn's groundbreaking work on... (more)

Citizen Cohn The Life and Times of Roy CohnNicholas von Hoffman

Citizen Cohn The Life and Times of Roy Cohn

by Nicholas von Hoffman

In Heaven Everything is Fine: The Unsolved Life of Peter Ivers and the Lost History of New Wave Theatre

In Heaven Everything is Fine: The Unsolved Life of Peter Ivers and the Lost History of New Wave Theatre

by Josh Frank

On March 3, 1983, Peter Ivers was found bludgeoned to death in his loft in downtown Los Angeles, ending a short-lived but essential pop cultural moment that has been all but lost to history. For the two years leading up to his murder, Ivers had hosted the underground but increasingly popular LA-based music and sketch-comedy cable show New Wave Theatre . The late '70s through early '80s was an explosive time for... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: biography and autobiography

by Lawrence Sutin

by Chuck Klosterman

by Lloyd Kaufman

by Carol Wallace

by Frances Milstead

by Jim Bishop

by Roger Corman

by Romain Gary

by Leni Riefenstahl

by Mel Gordon

by Mel Gordon

by Roy Martin Haines

by Ken Russell

by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke

by Frank Montimurro, Wileliam F. Higbie

by Steve Martin

by Catherine Brady

by Nicholas von Hoffman

by Josh Frank