Hundreds of ideas on how to make a party special and appropriate to the occasion cover when to send out the invitations, how to make a guest list, how to create a theme, and much more.

Designed to help in planning a baby shower, including location, theme, invitations, decorations, menus, games, etc.

"Shikar" pits Grady Brickhouse, sheriff of Hartesville, Georgia, against a fearsome opponent--a full-grown Bengal tiger that has somehow found its way to his jurisdiction.

“An under-read and engaging show-biz memoir.” –The New Yorker "If I had a talent for anything, it was a talent for knowing who was talented." Mike Medavoy is a Hollywood rarity: a studio executive who, though never far from controversy, has remained well loved and respected through four decades of moviemaking. What further sets him apart is his role in bringing to the screen some of the most acclaimed Oscar-winning films of our time: Apocalypse Now, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus, The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, and Sleepless in Seattle are just some of the projects he green-lighted at United Artists, Orion, TriStar, his own Phoenix Pictures. "The ultimate lose-lose situation for a studio executive: to wind up with a commercial bomb and a bad movie." Of course, there are the box office disasters, and the films, as Medavoy says, "for which I should be shot." They, too, have a place in his fascinating memoir -- a pull-no-punches account of financial and political maneuvering, and of working with the industry's brightest star power, including Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Kevin Costner, Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Sharon Stone, Michael Douglas, Meg Ryan, and countless others. "Putting together the elements of a film is a succession of best guesses." Medavoy speaks out on how movie studio buyouts have stymied the creative process and brought an end to the "hands-off" golden age of filmmaking. An eyewitness to Hollywood history in the making, he gives a powerful and poignant view of the past and future of a world he knows intimately.

From journalist Peter Ames Carlin, Sonic Boom captures the rollicking story of the most successful record label in the history of popular music, Warner Bros. Records, and the remarkable secret to its meteoric rise. The roster of Warner Brothers Records and its subsidiary labels reads like the roster of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, James Taylor, Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, Prince, Van Halen, Madonna, Tom Petty, R.E.M., Red Hot Chili Peppers, and dozens of others. But the most compelling figures in the Warner Bros. story are the sagacious Mo Ostin and the unlikely crew of hippies, eccentrics, and enlightened execs. Ostin and his staff transformed an out-of-touch company, revolutionized the industry, and, within just a few years, created the most successful record label in the history of the American music industry. How did they do it? One day in 1967, the newly tapped label president Mo Ostin called his team together to share his grand strategy: he told them to stop trying to make hit records/ "Let’s just make good records and turn those into hits.” With that, Ostin ushered in a counterintuitive model that matched the counterculture. His offbeat crew recruited outsider artists and gave them free rein, while rejecting out-of-date methods of advertising, promotion, and distribution. And even as they set new standards for in-house weirdness, the upstarts’ experiments and innovations paid off, to the tune of hundreds of legendary hit albums. Warner Bros Records conquered the music business by focusing on the music rather than the business. Their story is as raucous as it is inspiring—pure entertainment that also maps a route to that holy grail: love and money. Includes black-and-white photographs

"Desperately affecting." —The New York Times “Generous and epic...takes us through generations of a singular family, whose loves and losses also tell us a story about America itself." —Eliot Schrefer, National Book Award finalist, author of Endangered Justin Deabler's Lone Stars follows the arc of four generations of a Texan family in a changing America. Julian Warner, a father at last, wrestles with a question his husband posed: what will you tell our son about the people you came from, now that they're gone? Finding the answers takes Julian back in time to Eisenhower's immigration border raids, an epistolary love affair during the Vietnam War, crumbling marriages, queer migrations to Cambridge and New York, up to the disorienting polarization of Obama's second term. And in these answers lies a hope: that by uncloseting ourselves—as immigrants, smart women, gay people—we find power in empathy.

The multiple award-winning fantasy author of The Fionavar Tapestry brings his extraordinary imagination to a tale of mythic figures in contemporary times... Ned Marriner is in France with his father, a celebrated photographer shooting the Saint-Sauveur Cathedral of Aix-en-Provence. While exploring the cathedral, Ned meets Kate, an American exchange student with a deep knowledge of the area’s history. But even Kate is at a loss when she and Ned surprise a scar-faced stranger, wearing a leather jacket and carrying a knife. “I think you ought to go now,” he tells them. “You have blundered into a corner of a very old story...” In this ancient place, where the borders between the living and the long-dead are thin, Ned and his family are about to be drawn into a haunted story, as mythic figures from conflicts of long ago erupt into the present, changing—and claiming—lives.

"We all know the difference between how we are when life is sweet for us -- easy, open, generous, and connected with other people -- and how we are when we feel guarded, defensive, on edge, suspicious, or vindictive. Why do we get trapped in negative emotions when it's clear that life is so much fuller and richer when we are free of them? Bonds That Make Us Free is a groundbreaking book that suggests the remedy for our troubling emotions by addressing their root causes. You'll learn how we betray ourselves by failing to act toward others as we know we should -- and how we can interrupt the unproductive cycle and restore the sweetness in our relationships."--Publisher's description.

For the first time in print, comes the revolutionary acting technique from the premiere acting coach of our era. Not a copy of the old masters, The Warner Loughlin Technique empowers the actor to create rich, nuanced and unique characters. Discover the technique used to help create some of the most remarkable performances of our time from actors such as Amy Adams, Ryan Reynolds, Kyra Sedgwick and countless other Oscar, Emmy, Golden Globe, Tony and Grammy nominees and winners. Loughlin debunks the myth of the tortured actor and guides you step by step through her groundbreaking technique revealing powerful ways to unlock your creativity in a psychologically safe way. Her insight into life and art is remarkable. The Warner Loughlin Technique changes the way acting will be taught for generations to come. Find out more at warnerloughlin.com. "I was able to find my voice, and to find tears and to find levels, because I was able to have a safe place to go, that I could come back from. With your technique, in character prep, when I visit a character's life, her past and create an event good or tragic - that belongs to her. I don't take ownership of that pain with me. I don't take it on as my own...So this allows me not to be scared to go there, which allows me freedom as an actress to do anything, because I don't own it. It belongs to my character."-Amy Adams "Working with Warner was a revelation. I doubted that I could ever work without "observing" and judging every moment. I will be forever grateful [to Warner] for helping me get back to the joy of living in the spontaneous truth of every scene."-Kyra Sedgwick "I've been working with Warner Loughlin for years. Not only has she helped me become a better actor, but she's also helped me truly enjoy this work in ways I never imagined."-Ryan Reynolds "Before I started working with Warner on the technique, I felt like acting was just something that I could some days do, and some days not do. It was only through doing deep emotion with detail on each of the characters I got, that I could act everyday how I wanted to, because I ended up knowing the character inside and out. The thoughts are no longer my own, but the characters', so I don't have to work as hard during the scenes. Now being on set and being the character is fun and never feels pushed. I love the technique and it has helped me immensely."-Sosie Bacon "I met Warner over 10 years ago. She has coached me through comedy, drama, and even life! She has not only given me tools to be better at my job, but tools to be 100% confident through the process."-Emma Roberts "Warner's Technique has become part of my creative process... It's simply the most intuitive way for me to find a character's base human emotion. Warner worked with us on Disney's Frozen for many months and helped us create truthful characters... I've never felt so comfortable animating a character before and I think the sophistication in the performance in the film speaks for itself."-Lino DiSalvo, Head of Animation for Disney's Frozen