“Starring human flies, daredevil aviators, bridge jumpers, and lion tamers, The Thrill Makers is a great read, as evocative as it is theoretically savvy, and convincingly argued. Culling telling details from a host of long-overlooked sources, Jacob Smith’s account of sensational, high-risk public performance from the Victorian age to the 1930s unearths and illuminates the interwoven histories of public spectacle, masculinity, the motion picture industry, new forms of celebrity, and the expanding American metropolis.”—Greg Waller, Department of Communication and Culture, Indiana University. “The Thrill Makers is an historical tour-de-force that illuminates the origins of risk-taking performance in American entertainment, and shows how its practitioners were gradually marginalized as invisible stunt doubles during the rise of the motion picture industry. Smith’s analysis of the lion tamer, the human fly, and the airplane wing-walker—as well as the many others who thrilled audiences before and during the advent of cinema—inspires us to reconsider the nature of media spectacle, masculinity, performance, celebrity, and labor at the turn of the last century. Impeccably researched, this book is a captivating read that re-frames the emergence of cinema in the context of its relationship to other forms of modern entertainment.”—Barbara Klinger, author of Beyond the Multiplex: Cinema, New Technologies, and the Home.

“Starring human flies, daredevil aviators, bridge jumpers, and lion tamers, The Thrill Makers is a great read, as evocative as it is theoretically savvy, and convincingly argued. Culling telling details from a host of long-overlooked sources, Jacob Smith’s account of sensational, high-risk public performance from the Victorian age to the 1930s unearths and illuminates the interwoven histories of public spectacle, masculinity, the motion picture industry, new forms of celebrity, and the expanding American metropolis.”—Greg Waller, Department of Communication and Culture, Indiana University. “The Thrill Makers is an historical tour-de-force that illuminates the origins of risk-taking performance in American entertainment, and shows how its practitioners were gradually marginalized as invisible stunt doubles during the rise of the motion picture industry. Smith’s analysis of the lion tamer, the human fly, and the airplane wing-walker—as well as the many others who thrilled audiences before and during the advent of cinema—inspires us to reconsider the nature of media spectacle, masculinity, performance, celebrity, and labor at the turn of the last century. Impeccably researched, this book is a captivating read that re-frames the emergence of cinema in the context of its relationship to other forms of modern entertainment.”—Barbara Klinger, author of Beyond the Multiplex: Cinema, New Technologies, and the Home.

King Alfred is perhaps best remembered for allowing cakes to become burnt, but he did something far more significant and of lasting value. He used ten commandments, given to the Jewish people centuries before, as the foundation of English law. He instinctively knew they contained the recipe for a safe and successful society. The secret they all contain is respect. Respect for God first, for his uniqueness, his nature, his name, his special day; then respect for each other, our families, life itself, marriage, property and reputation. Churches have urged members to memorise the Ten Commandments, along with the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed, often putting all three up on the wall as summaries of the Christian faith and life, as well as using them in worship. But how can principles laid down so long ago and so far away be relevant to contemporary society? Well, as one New Testament translator (J B Phillips) puts it: ‘By the straight edge of God’s law we find out how crooked we are.’ Only after this discovery are we ready to consider the gospel of Jesus.

"An Atlantic senior editor presents an investigation into the lucrative quality of popularity in the 21st century to share economic insights into what makes ideas, productions and products successful, "--NoveList.

Mark Harris took you out to the ballgame in his Henry Wiggen novels, The Southpaw, Bang the Drum Slowly, A Ticket for a Seamstitch, and It Looked Like For Ever. In The Tale Maker, he takes you to college. Rimrose was well-read, smart, and strong. As the editor of the campus Sentinel, he was perfectly placed to observe how a university worked, and ideally inclined to expose its ethical weaknesses. Supported by his parents, he could concentrate on things that mattered: his writing, his wife-to-be, and his friends and enemies—including the warped Kakapick, who serves Rimrose lastingly as model and prototype of the literary scoundrel. Rimrose—Tale Maker of the title—turns from journalism to fiction-writing, kept alive by his wife’s practical and ingenious devotion to selling his stories, even those he has tossed in the trash. As he grows older and begets children, he worries about income and faces stultifying choices: managing his father’s small-town newspaper or playing politics in university service.