After a century of reinvention and, frequently, reinterpretation, Western movies continue to contribute to the cultural understanding of the United States. And Western archetypes remain as important emblems of the American experience, relating a complex and coded narrative about heroism and morality, masculinity and femininity, westward expansion and technological progress, and assimilation and settlement. In this collection of new essays, 21 contributors from around the globe examine the "cowboy cool" iconography of film and television Westerns--from bounty hunters in buckskin jackets to denizens of seedy saloons and lonely deserts, from Cecil B. DeMille and John Ford to Steve McQueen and Budd Boetticher, Jr.

Featuring rare, outstanding additional content, Clint Eastwood: Icon is the definitive collection of film art and material representing Clint Eastwood’s legendary career as seen through the original iconic artwork. Clint Eastwood is a nameless vigilante, a vengeful detective, a bare-knuckle boxer, a Secret Service agent, and countless other definitive screen archetypes now embedded in our shared pop-culture consciousness. However you define him, Clint Eastwood has a powerful and extremely recognizable image that exists as something beyond the narratives of his films. Featuring a wealth of additional content, this new edition of Clint Eastwood: Icon presents an unprecedented collection of film art and rare material surrounding the legendary actor. This comprehensive trove gathers together poster art, lobby cards, standees, Italian Spaghetti Western Premier posters, studio ads, and esoteric film memorabilia from around the world. From his early roles as the nameless gunslinger in Sergio Leone’s spaghetti Westerns, to the vigilante films of the 1970s and 1980s, through his directorial roles and latest releases, Clint Eastwood: Icon captures the powerful presence that turned Eastwood into the definitive American hero.

In Westerns, women transmit complicated cultural coding about the nature of westward expansionism, heroism, family life, manliness and American femininity. As the genre changes and matures, depictions of women have transitioned from traditional to more modern roles. Frontier Feminine charts these significant shifts in the Western's transmission of gender values and expectations and aims to expand the critical arena in which Western film is situated by acknowledging the importance of women in this genre.

To launch our new line of LIFE books celebrating legendary figures in our world, who better than Clint Eastwood? He is an icon among icons, a titanic figure in movie history still going strong at age 82. The recent dustup over his "Halftime in America" ad during the Super Bowl only confirms how large Eastwood looms in the American imagination: He is a Will Rogers or John Wayne walking among us. Clinton Eastwood Jr. was born in San Francisco, and nothing about him might have presaged his future except for rugged good looks. Those alone were enough to get him a supporting role in the TV series "Rawhide" in 1959. LIFE magazine was a weekly chronicler of Hollywood at the time, and we have been on the Eastwood case ever since: the spaghetti westerns (A Fistful of Dollars, etc.); the Dirty Harry movies; the directorial efforts, beginning with Play Misty for Me and right up through Unforgiven, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby and Gran Torino; even the sideline jobs-his love of jazz piano and his career as a composer; his nonpartisan mayoralty of his chosen California town, Carmel-by-the-Sea. LIFE has visited Eastwood at home and even played golf with him on his own course overlooking the Pacific, and this will be an up-close-and-personal look at a man who is, perhaps as much as any American, too often seen as mere symbol. LIFE's new book series, ICONS, will present the famous in a way that allows our readers to know these people-often in a way they had never known them before.

Gypsum LaZelle had nearly given up. She’d already watched her two older siblings experience the transition—the sudden, debilitating process that turned them from ordinary children into mages, gifted spellcasters like their beautiful mother. Perhaps she was a late bloomer, she thought until her younger siblings came into their powers as well. Now, at twenty, Gypsum fears that she must accept her fate: a mundane life without magic. She can live with being ordinary, an outsider. After all, someone in the family had to take after her father…But one day, alone at home wither family away, Gypsum falls terribly ill. And when the symptoms pass, something has changed. Something she’s dreamed of for such a long time—and suddenly, isn’t ready for at all. “One of the most original and important writers of fantasy working in America today.”—The New York Review of Science Fiction

This collection convenes diverse analyses of David Lynch's newly conceived, dreamlike neo-noir representations of the American West, a first in studies of regionalism and indigeneity in his films. Twelve essays and three interviews address Lynch's image of the American West and its impact on the genre. Fans and scholars of David Lynch's work will find a study of his interpretations of the West as place and myth, spanning from his first feature film, Eraserhead (1977), through the third season of Twin Peaks in 2017. Symbols of the West in Lynch's work can be as obvious as an Odessa, Texas street sign or as subtle as the visual themes rooted in indigenous artistry. Explorations of cowboy masculinity, violence, modern frontier narratives and representations of indigeneity are all included in this collection.

It’s tablet time! Get acquainted with the latest iPadOS and devices, the easy way Up a creek without an iPaddle? Dummies has got you covered, with iPad & iPad Pro 2022-2023 For Dummies. This is your stay-afloat guide to the latest version of iPadOS and all the new features of Apple’s leading tablet. We offer a step-by-step guide to iPad maintenance, operation, and personalization, so you can figure out your new device quickly and spend your time doing the fun stuff. Photos, videos, apps, productivity, communication, maps, and beyond—plus a host of new features that we’ll introduce you to, right in this book. Get acquainted with the basics of using and customizing your iPad or iPad Pro Discover the new and exciting changes that come with the latest iPadOS release Get the most out of your iPad by mastering the top apps and productivity tricks Learn how to ease the transition from computers to tablets, at home or at work For personal projects or in business settings, the iPad is the tablet of choice, and Dummies is here to show you why. Grab this full-color guide and get iPaddling!

A fascinating novel of art theft, family intrigue, and an ancient religious artifact that possesses untold power When Matthew Spear, a young curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, meets the lovely Ana Kessler, an art dealer who has inherited an impressive group of pieces, he discovers a prize: the collection includes the Holy Mother of Katarini—a sacred icon long thought destroyed. But while Matthew recognizes the Icon’s value as a work of art, he also discovers that it may carry a far greater significance. Soon Matthew discovers that he has a strange and more personal connection to the Icon—one that thrusts him into a Byzantine web of death and deception. All involved believe the Icon to be a source of fantastic and inexplicable power, and all were somehow connected to the events that transpired during World War II. As he experiences the peculiar resonance of Icon, Matthew begins to see that the only way out of his entanglement is to discover what really happened in the past. Before he walks into the harrowing situation that will decide who lives and who dies, Matthew will be forced to re-examine virtually every aspect of his life—the loyalties within his family, his feelings for Ana, and even the question of his own faith. In a stunning debut that spans more than half a century and two continents, The Icon asks us to reach into the very heart of all our questions about faith, power, and love.

A controversial masterpiece resurfaces in Budapest. A ballerina's headless corpse is found beneath the boardwalk at Brighton Beach. And New York's Russian mob is about to collide with the equally ruthless art world... Maddy Blume, an ambitious young art buyer for a Manhattan hedge fund, is desperate to track down a priceless painting by Marcel Duchamp, the most influential artist of the twentieth century. The discovery of a woman’s decapitated body thrusts criminal investigator Alan Powell into a search for the same painting, with its enigmatic image of a headless nude. And a Russian thief and assassin known as the Scythian must steal the painting to save his reputation – and his life. The murderous race is on. And in the lead is an insidious secret society intent on reclaiming the painting for reasons of its own – and by any means necessary….

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the master of the novel of international intrigue comes a riveting new book as timely and unsettling as tomorrow's headlines. It is summer 1999 in Russia, a country on the threshold of anarchy. An interim president sits powerless in Moscow as his nation is wracked by famine and inflation, crime and corruption, and seething hordes of the unemployed roam the streets. For the West, Russia is a basket case. But for Igor Komarov, one-time army sergeant who has risen to leadership of the right-wing UPF party, the chaos is made to order. As he waits in the wings for the presidential election of January 2000, his striking voice rings out over the airwaves offering the roiling masses hope at last—not only for law, order, and prosperity, but for restoring the lost greatness of their land. Who is this man with the golden tongue who is so quickly becoming the promise of a Russia reborn? A document stolen from party headquarters and smuggled to Washington and London sends nightmare chills through those who remember the past, for this Black Manifesto is pure Mein Kampf in a country with frightening parallels to the Germany of the Weimar Republic. Officially the West can do nothing, but in secret a group of elder statesmen sends the only person who can expose the truth about Komarov into the heart of the inferno. Jason Monk, ex-CIA and "the best damn agent-runner we ever had," had sworn he would never return to Moscow, but one name changes his mind. Colonel Anatoli Grishin, the KGB officer who tortured and murdered four of Monk's agents after they had been betrayed by Aldrich Ames, is now Komarov's head of security. Monk has a dual mission: to stop Komarov, whatever it takes, and to prepare the way for an icon worthy of the Russian people. But he has a personal mission as well: to settle the final score with Grishin. To do this he must stay alive--and the forces allied against him are ruthless, the time frighteningly short. . . . Praise for Icon “Vintage Forsyth, intricate, exact and gripping.”—The New York Times Book Review “Another strong performance by a writer who knows exactly what he's about, and who here catalyzes narrative with another memorable protagonist, the stealthy and daring Monk.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “One of his best works for a long time, which provides an all-too-real look at a chilling new millennium.”—The Sunday Times, London