This fresh, smart novel in the guise of a celebrity memoir probes the inner life of a mega-famous pop star Honestly, what amazes me the most with a lot of the people I meet is that they think they’re so big. They think, ultimately, that the universe revolves around them. And I’m beginning to think that it’s only when you live a life like mine—it’s only when you’re in a position where you don’t even really own yourself, when you can’t even really say that you’re a citizen of any particular country—that you realize that we’re all just tiny pieces of cosmic dust floating through the void until we disappear forever and we’re never heard from again. So begins the life story of our uber famous twenty-two year old narrator. A teen idol since he was twelve, when a video of him singing went viral, his star has only risen since. Now, haunted by the suicide of his manager-father, unsettled by the very different paths he and his teenage love (and girl pop-star counterpart) “Mandy” have taken, and increasingly aware that he has signed on to something he has little control over, he begins to parse the divide that separates him from the “normal people” of the world. Sneakily philosophical, earnest and funny, Justin Kuritzkes's Famous People is a rollicking, unforgettable look at the clash between fame and the human condition.

Fin-de-siecle Vienna was a special place at a special time, a city in which the decadent abandon of the era commingled with dark forebodings of the coming century. The artistic and intellectual ferment of the Austrian capital was extraordinary: Sigmund Freud, Gustav Mahler, Arthur Schnitzler, Theodor Herzl, Gustave Klimt, and Ludwig Wittgenstein were but a few of the figures who lived and worked there. And, in September 1897, into the very midst of this heady milieu, came America's most famous citizen, Mark Twain. Although most of Twain's biographers have mentioned his Viennese sojourn (occasioned by his daughter Clara's musical studies), it has remained an unexplored hiatus in his career. Partly because of impressions created by Twain himself, the twenty months he spent in Vienna are often dismissed as uneventful and unproductive. In "Our Famous Guest" Carl Dolmetsch shows the truth to be otherwise. Upon his arrival Twain found all the doors of the celebrity-mad city, from its literary cafe's to its aristocratic salons, flung wide open to him. The aging writer imbibed freely of Vienna's atmosphere, and the result was a final, astonishing surge of creativity. Among the thirty works that came, either whole or in part, from Twain's Austrian visit were the Socratic dialogue What Is Man?, the "Early Days" section of his Autobiography, Book I of Christian Science, the classic short story "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg," the polemical essay "Concerning the Jews," and, most important, a major portion of the manuscript cluster known as The Mysterious Stranger. As Dolmetsch notes, conventional wisdom about Twain attributes the "bitter pessimism" of these late writings to such factors as his personal bereavements and financial reversals. Rejecting this view as grossly oversimplified, Dolmetsch argues that the transformation in Twain's outlook and writing style owe much to the cultural currents he encountered abroad, above all in Vienna. He suggests that Twain was especially responsive to a peculiarly Viennese blend of nihilism and hedonism and to the "impressionistic" style favored by its writers. In locating these influences, Dolmetsch portrays a Mark Twain far more cosmopolitan and urbane than previous biographical studies have allowed. Through meticulous research in Viennese newspaper reports as well as in Twain's own journals and writings, Dolmetsch reconstructs the writer's visit in breathtaking detail. The narrative sparkles with accounts of Twain's shrewd manipulation of the Viennese press, his involvements in the city's musical and theatrical life, the attacks he endured from anti-Semitic journalists, and even his futile attempts to obtain marketing rights to two inventions by a Polish engineer. In one particularly intriguing chapter Dolmetsch ponders the riddle of Twain's association with Freud (who was then virtually unknown outside of Vienna) and their congruent fascination with the relationship between dreams and "reality." An invaluable addition to Twain scholarship, "Our Famous Guest" is equally compelling for the glimpse it offers of a vanished world.

Foreword by Michael D. Eisner. All organisations drive towards the same goal - how best to serve their customers. Walt Disney World has always enjoyed a reputation as a company that set the benchmark for outstanding business practices. Now, for the first time, one critical element of the method behind the magic is revealed: that of quality service. Here, their proven principles and processes are fully outlined, to help your organisation focus its vision and assemble its infrastructure to deliver exceptional customer service.

This volume is a guide to the people who matter. It contains the stories of 1000 women and men whose lives have influenced the course of history. Learn about the famous and the infamous - leaders from Genghis Khan to Bill Clinton.

Ed McClanahan's hilarious classic introduces us to writers and revolutionaries, hippies and honkies, gurus and go-go girls, barkeeps and barflies, as well as Carlos Toadvine, aka Little Enis, the All-American Left-Handed Upside-down Guitar Player, among the characters he has encountered in thirty peripatetic years of wandering the fringes of the academic and literary worlds from his native Kentucky to the West Coast (where his compatriots included Ken Kesey and Tom Wolfe) and back again.

You can go after the job you want…and get it! You can take the job you have…and improve it! You can take any situation you’re in…and make it work for you! Since its release in 1936, How to Win Friends and Influence People has sold more than 30 million copies. Dale Carnegie’s first book is a timeless bestseller, packed with rock-solid advice that has carried thousands of now famous people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives. As relevant as ever before, Dale Carnegie’s principles endure, and will help you achieve your maximum potential in the complex and competitive modern age. Learn the six ways to make people like you, the twelve ways to win people to your way of thinking, and the nine ways to change people without arousing resentment.

We have all heard of famous people like Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, Cleopatra, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and William Shakespeare. But what do we know about their childhoods? Play a game and guess which celebrity is hidden on each spread. Clues from their childhood will help you to discover them! There are twenty-five celebrities waiting for you to uncover them. Rulers, inventors, scientists, musicians, and many others lead you through their childhoods and show you what life was like back then, what they liked to play with, and what their interests were--but they will keep their names to themselves. Each character gives hints to help you figure out who they are. Then lift the flap and find out whether you guessed correctly.

A survey of the unforgettable career of legendary adman George Lois.

Despite the differences between children around the world, there are similarities that join us together, such as pain, joy, and love. Inside they are the same.