What do Chanel, Sherlock Holmes, Salvador Dali, and the world’s richest heiress have in common? …they were all part of the Mdivani entourage. The creation of mass media in the 1920s paved the way for five siblings to become a global lifestyle celebrity. Though professional successes adorned them, scandal reigned supreme. As they married their way into the echelons of Hollywood, American and European high society, a moniker “The Marrying Mdivanis” was born. Always dramatic and often heart-breaking, this is a whirlwind epic spanning four continents, eleven weddings, seven divorces and five spectacular deaths with millions in play. The Mdivani Saga is an astonishing biographical account of one of the 20th century's most captivating families. The story follows five siblings born to a Georgian general and his socialite wife, once stirring intrigue at the Russian Imperial court. This riches-to-rags-and-back-again story follows the changing fortunes of the Mdivanis as they barely escaped a revolution with just a few dollars. Within a decade, the Mdivani had turned these dollars into millions when they became the epicentre of the international jet-set —until their dazzling world began to unravel.

A life of glamour and tragedy, set against the watershed cultural and political movements of twentieth-century Europe. "Toto" Koopman (1908–1991) is a new addition to the set of iconoclastic women whose biographies intrigue and inspire modern-day readers. Like her contemporaries Lee Miller or Vita Sackville-West, Toto lived with an independent spirit more typical of the men of her generation, moving in the worlds of fashion, society, art, and politics with an insouciant ease that would stir both admiration and envy even today. Sphinxlike and tantalizing, Toto conducted her life as a game, driven by audacity and style. Jean-Noël Liaut chases his enigmatic subject through the many roles and lives she inhabited, both happy and tragic. Though her beauty, charisma, and taste for the extraordinary made her an exuberant fixture of Paris fashion and café society, her intelligence and steely sense of self drove her toward bigger things, culminating in espionage during WWII, for which she was imprisoned by the Nazis in Ravensbruck. After the horrors of the camp, she found solace in Erica Brausen, the German art dealer who launched the career of Francis Bacon, and the two women lived out their lives together surrounded by cultural luminaries like Edmonde Charles-Roux and Luchino Visconti. But even in her later decades, Toto remained impossible for anyone to possess. The Many Lives of Miss K explores the allure of a freethinking and courageous woman who, fiercely protective of her independence, was sought after by so many but ultimately known by very few.

Femme fatale Pola Negri (1897-1987) was one of the great stars of the silent film era, an actress whose personal story of hardships and successes, loves and tragedies is more compelling than most Hollywood dramas. Yet today she is largely overlooked, her name tarnished by myths and scandals. Taking a fresh look at her life and career, this book debunks the myths and gossip, presenting a candid portrait of one of the silent screen's most sensational leading ladies. Rare photographs are included, along with in-depth discussions of her films.

A fascinating look at the real Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, the designer who forever revolutionized the way women look. She was a free spirit, brilliant business woman, and beauty who never found reciprocated love. Madsen, with authority, delves into this fashion doyenne’s business and private lives to reveal one woman’s extraordinary progress: from orphan to millinery shopkeeper, from lodestar of feminine style to a very rich woman with a closet full of dark secrets.

At twenty-one Barbara Woolworth Hutton inherited a personal fortune worth nearly one billion dollars today--yet she died with only $3,500 in the bank. Here is the riveting story from the $12 million miniseries starring Farrah Fawcett.

Class-tested and coherent, this textbook teaches classical and web information retrieval, including web search and the related areas of text classification and text clustering from basic concepts. It gives an up-to-date treatment of all aspects of the design and implementation of systems for gathering, indexing, and searching documents; methods for evaluating systems; and an introduction to the use of machine learning methods on text collections. All the important ideas are explained using examples and figures, making it perfect for introductory courses in information retrieval for advanced undergraduates and graduate students in computer science. Based on feedback from extensive classroom experience, the book has been carefully structured in order to make teaching more natural and effective. Slides and additional exercises (with solutions for lecturers) are also available through the book's supporting website to help course instructors prepare their lectures.