Amazon.com
She was the Madonna of her time, parlaying a modest talent into international celebrity with a carefully cultivated, outsized personality and an unerring instinct for just how outrageous to be without alienating her audience. Mae West (1893-1980) crafted the persona that made her the biggest movie star of the early 1930s during her vaudeville and Broadway apprenticeship. Those formative years are the subject of this absorbing cultural biography, which closes in 1938 when Paramount dropped her contract. A generous sampling of West one-liners adds sparkle to the text.
Book Description
First time in paperback: A dazzling biography of one of our most flamboyant stars and "a truly mighty woman"
-Boston Globe
Emily Worth Leider combines newly uncovered archival material, fine writing, and a rich appreciation of West's unique blend of comedy and "come-hither" appeal to shape this enormously engrossing biography and portrait of an era. She gives us not just Mae West the bawdy icon, but also the driven performer who honed her act on the vaudeville circuit, wrote her own material to get a decent part, and never stopped battling the censors-who provided some of her best publicity but who eventually struck a blow for prudery from which her career would never recover.
"Leider meticulously re-creates the world that created West, a world she bent to her own ambitions....Mae's sashay across the screen will henceforth seem as much an achievement as it has always seemed a delicious inevitability."
-Steven Bach, author of Marlene Dietrich
Customer Reviews:
Boring portrayal of an exciting woman.......2002-04-04
Way too much attention to "social history" and "cultural commentary" and not enough information on Mae West. It was if the author felt she had to use every bit of historical background she had found - little of which served to move the book forward. I did not feel I got to know Mae West nearly as well as I did the times she was living in - which was not what I wanted from a Mae West biography.
ZZZZZzzzzzzzz.......2002-01-04
I love Mae West but this book bombed. It is informative but so much that it's boring. I never finished it. It has some great photos and if you're doing a term paper on her it's wonderful.
One of the best of recent years.......2001-09-04
This book is one of the most well researched of any Mae West bios in recent years. GREAT photos, and fascinating reading, it uncovers things even the most die-hard fans of Mae West wouldn't know! It delves into the phyche and influences that went into creating Mae West as we came to know her. A highly recommended book.
Barely scratches the surface.........2000-07-15
This book gives a sketchy account of her childhood and dwells on the characters she played rather than who she was. I would have preferred more insight to her personal life since that is what made Mae West so interesting.
An easy book to put down.
Mae West: Real to Reel.......2000-07-13
Emily Wortis Leider has written a biography of Mae West that is more than a rehash of her films and a retelling of her famous lines. Leider writes well and entertainingly and has researched her subject conscientiously. The result is a clearer picture of who Mae West was as a person and how she "became" the character that became her. Leider states her intention early and clearly. While her bio does cover West's entire life, her films and her efforts to remain an icon, Leider is more interested in how the little girl from Brooklyn became a musical soubrette, a vaudeville star, a playwright and stellar star of stage and screen. Along the way we get revealing glimpses into the show business of the early 20th century, America's social attitudes and the personal rebellions that would emerge into movements. Highly recommmeded.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Video Age International, published by TV Trade Media, Inc. on June 1, 1998. The length of the article is 1220 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Becoming Mae West. (book reviews)
Author: Eliza Gallo
Publication:
Video Age International (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 1, 1998
Publisher: TV Trade Media, Inc.
Volume: v18
Issue: n5
Page: p8(1)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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Becoming Mae West
Manufacturer: Da Capo Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GVK4Y0 |
Book Description
A colorful repertory of popular-style piano pieces in the easy-to-intermediate grades. Includes The Saints Boogie, Sunrise Serenade, and Maple Leaf Rag.
Customer Reviews:
perfect for the intermediate level player.......2002-08-02
A teacher gave this book to me as a child. Now, many years later, I've started playing again and I STILL love this book. The pieces are difficult enough to be interesting, with some sophisticated sounds, yet there are enough downright easy arrangements (3-4 in the beginning of the book) that you shouldn't get too frustrated. This is not a beginning, learning-to-play book, but you don't need to have any background in the blues. My biggest complaint is that most songs do not have the words, even when I know they exist. Some songs have words, and all songs have chords listed. I only recently looked at the back of the book and realized that there are many more in the Joy series. I've tried a few, and so far they are all interesting and right at my level. Also note that there is a Joy of Boogie and Blues, Book 2.
good,but could be improved.......2001-08-21
Good book for beginners-intermediate learners.To be a very good one it lacks,however,a CD with the songs recorded.A reference to the speed in the metronome would also be helpful.
Trying out Boogie and the Blues.......2001-01-27
This 64-page book is an excellent supplement to someone learning to play piano and wanting some interesting variety in the tunes they learn. There are 27 songs included in the popular idioms of Jazz, Ragtime, Rock, and, of course, Boogie and Blues. As a teenager, I played the accordion, and then later, I learned to play the electronic organ. Recently I purchased a portable keyboard and wanted to become more agile at two-handed piano playing. This book fit in perfectly with my program of study. For example, two early songs in the book, the Aunt Rhody Boogie and the Boll Weevil Boogie, include a distinctive, but easily playable, boogie accompaniment to a jazzy rendition of these classic folk tunes.
About half of the tunes are original compositions or arrangements by Denis Agay, the editor of this book, but you will also find such classics as Sunrise Serenade (Franke Carle), Maple Leaf Rag (Scott Joplin), and China Jumps (Thomas "Fats" Walker). For those with older eyes, the music is clearly printed and easy to read and most of the arrangements can be played without worrying about turning the page in the middle of the song.
Beginning to intermediate piano players should be able to master any of the tunes in this book and will be able to add some very delightful and pleasing arrangements to their repertoire.
Product Description
INTERESTING PIANO SOLOS IN THE EASY TO MEDIUM GRADES. SONGS INCLUDE BLUES NO. 1; DEEP BLUE SEA BOOGIE; COTTON MILL BLUES; HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN; WORRIED MAN BLUES; SWINGIN' MOLLY AND OTHERS.
Book Description
Redefining Hostile Takeover
·Evolution and Revolution walkthrough for every mission
·Key strategies for defeating arena opponents
·Crucial Versus mode battle tips
·Inventory chart with exhaustive details and renders for every part
·Hidden parts and unlockables revealed!
Customer Reviews:
Great game guide........2007-02-02
I'm not much of a gamer, but I like this series of game guides to help me out. Enjoy!
Amazon.com
Rosabeth Moss Kanter will convince you that the goal of winning is not losing two times in a row. In her view, success and failure are not events, they are self-fulfilling tendencies. "Confidence is the sweet spot between arrogance and despair--consisting of positive expectations for favorable outcomes." says Kanter, a Harvard Business School Professor and author of The Change Masters.
She applies the literature of cognitive psychology (dissonance, explanatory models, learned optimism) to explore the winning and losing streaks of a diverse lineup including the BBC, Gillette, Verizon, Continental Airlines, the Chicago Cubs, and Target. The result is a brilliant anatomy lesson of the big decisions and the small gestures that build and restore confidence.
Three cornerstones are clearly detailed: "Accountability," the actions that involve facing facts without humiliation; "Collaboration," the rituals of respect that create teamwork, and "Initiative/Innovation," the "kaleidoscope thinking" that unlocks energy and creativity. A standout chapter describes how Nelson Mandela created a culture of confidence in South Africa. Some readers may wish for more strategies about positive habits of mind in individuals. Others will search for a quick fix. Instead, Moss Kanter's in-depth examples and ideas about resilient organizations will become required reading. They add up to a persuasive and informed optimism. --Barbara Mackoff
Book Description
From the locker room to the living room to the boardroom—how winners become winners . . . and stay that way.
Is success simply a matter of money and talent? Or is there another reason why some people and organizations always land on their feet, while others, equally talented, stumble again and again?
There’s a fundamental principle at work–confidence–that makes the difference between winning and losing in any competition, be it a high school basketball game or a high-stakes business situation. In Confidence, Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter shows why organizations of all types may be brimming with talent but not be winners. Based on her extraordinary investigation of success and failure in companies such as Continental Airlines and Verizon and sports teams such as the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles, as well as the arenas of education, health care, and politics, Kanter explores a new theory and practice of success and provides people in leadership positions with a prescriptive program for maintaining a winning streak or turning around a downward spiral.
Packed with brilliant, practical ideas, Confidence provides fresh thinking about success in all facets of life—from the factors that can make or break corporations and governments to the keys for successful relationships in the workplace or at home.
Customer Reviews:
A life explained.......2007-09-19
This book is about me, you, my company, you company and our countries. Rosabeth details with exact science why we experience highs and unfortunately the lows. What you will learn is how to stop the lows from continuing, pulling them round and start back on an upward path. I loved this book because of the frank and direct way the author tells her stories and research. Anyone that has ever experienced emotions on both sides of the scale ought to read this for an explanation why they happened and how you can stop them ever happening again. A great book!
Gary May
Author: SELLING: Powerful New Strategies for Sales Success
Great concept! Wish it had been a better read........2007-04-24
I'm torn in this review... LOVED the high points and the premise - intriguing and powerful... the concepts are tought provoking and the illustrations on point. In between the strong points are redundant, nauseating passages that preach the obvious, as if trying to create a sense of framework, but doing it unnecessarily. Reads like long winded Tom Peters. A shorter book without those passages would have been much better. It's worth reading for the good parts. Darn, wish she'd had a tougher editor and better writing because the concept has the potential for 5 stars.
The Dynamics of Success .......2007-03-23
With the recent surge in books about presidential politics, national intelligence failures, international terrorism, the testimonies of present and past military heroes, and Iraq, it is refreshing to read a book that is enormously informative and has no political agenda. "CONFIDENCE: HOW WINNING STREAKS AND LOSING STREAKS BEGIN & END" analyzes the underlying mechanics, often self-imposed, which cause a company or sports franchise to spiral down into the Inferno of the "Circle of Doom."
"CONFIDENCE: HOW WINNING STREAKS AND LOSING STREAKS BEGIN & END" by Rosabeth Moss Kanter is a fascinating look at how companies, sports franchises, banks and governments rise and fall or struggle against repetitive patterns of losing.
Whether you are a baseball fan or not, most people were captivated by the dramatic unfolding story of the Chicago Cubs during last year's 2003 pennant race. You may remember it. The Chicago Cubs were up 3 games to the Florida Marlins 2 games in the National Championship. Late in the game, a fly ball out to left field drifts into foul territory, a long-time Cubs fan wearing a hat and headphones reaches out over the railing to catch a major league baseball. At the same moment, the left-fielder Moises Alou drifts over, straddles the wall, and leaps up to make the catch. The fan inadvertently knocks the ball out of Moises Alou's glove. Instead of two outs in the 8th and a probable trip to the World Series, the breaking of a "demon curse" and the end losing streak that spans decades, Luis Castillo walks to first base. That moment begins the Florida Marlin offensive. The Chicago Cubs lose, and turn the fan Steve Banter into a pariah. Author Rosabeth Moss Kanter states that there was something else far deeper in the losing mentality of the Chicago Cubs. You don't throw off decades of losing in one season. It is a long struggle that takes time and the correct approach.
This brief incident encapsulated universal understandings and feelings which people have for their own plights, i.e. breaking out of bad luck cycles, being labeled a continual underdog, losing no matter what you try to do and how hard you work, or struggling to regain any semblance of financial control and mirrored reward over your life. It is universal, compassionate and instinctive. At a human and emotional level, this is what "CONFIDENCE: HOW WINNING STREAKS AND LOSING STREAKS BEGIN & END" by Rosabeth Moss Kanter is about. Though the book presents the emotional and financial, even desperate, needs that people and their teams have for winning, whether corporate or sports, whether public or private, whether new or old, it spells out how losing deteriorates the human spirit and will, and more importantly what you can do to change your loss and regain your dignity and your confidence. CONFIDENCE is about far more than just anecdotal stories about success and failure.
Rosabeth M. Kanter is an Ernest L. Arbuckle professor of business administration at Harvard University. Author of 16 books, she specializes in strategy, innovation, and leadership for change. She has been hired by major international corporations and governments for her organizational expertise. She is a senior adviser to IBM's award-winning Reinventing Education initiative. Between the years 1989 to 1992, she also served as Editor of the Harvard Business Review. Professor Rosabeth Kanter has received 21 honorary doctoral degrees and was ranked in the 100 most important women in America and the 50 most powerful women in the world.
In her book "CONFIDENCE: HOW WINNING STREAKS AND LOSING STREAKS BEGIN & END", Professor Kanter examines in detail the collective strategies and behaviors of a myriad of corporations and sports franchises. The author traveled around the world to interview the leaders of great companies, and observe the companies at their basic levels in action. With the discipline of a gifted surgeon who discovers, analyzes, and excises a cancerous tumor from a body, she presents in strategies of great leaders, who turn around powerful failing corporations. She outlines and highlights the universal operatives which lead companies and teams into a spiraling out-of-control spins into the realm which she calls the "Circle of Doom." She explains why certain intervention techniques worked to not only save a losing company, but also to make it thrive as a winner. At the root of each company and team, confidence is made or broken.
If you are a college student studying business administration, a charismatic CEO forged by years of discipline and hard work, an aspiring sole-proprietor of a small graphics or telecommunications company, the athletic director or coach of a college football, basketball or soccer team, or merely a weekend couch-potato watching every play of his Philadelphia Eagles hoping that, since their turnaround, this is the year that they win the Super Bowl, then this book is for you.
In a chapter called "The First Stone: Facing Facts and Reinforcing Responsibility," Professor Kanter traces the history of the Gillette Corporation, a global company whose name is a household word in over 200 countries, bitut Gillette took a financial plunge in the early 1980's, "a near-death experience." It recovers at the end of the decade to significant profits and regained pride, only a few years later to slip again into another downward spiral. However, Kanter explains how with a team mindset, Gillette opened communications and dialogue, national and international managers admitted and took responsibility for their problems, and simultaneously developed an innovative shaving system called Venus, as well as the marketing and advertising other products and companies. Gillette turned around.
In this revealing and informative book, Kanter tells story after story detailing the dynamics of diverse groups, lessons in the struggles of life. Nelson Mandela, of Jeffrey Lurie, who bought a losing Philadelphia Eagle franchise, signed Donovan McNabb against even the mayor of Philadelphia's protests. Kanter discusses the building of the NovaCare Complex, the investment in the players by showing confidence in them. Kanter subtitles one part of the Philadelphia Eagles story as: "Culture Change: A Long Road to Success."
Great companies have great vision. Great leaders have great vision. "CONFIDENCE: HOW WINNING STREAKS AND LOSING STREAKS BEGIN & END" gives you an inside look at the dreams and visions, the courage and work, the strategies, the failures and disappointments, and the most importantly and on a basic level how we lose, how we win, and how to reverse a losing streak. It does not matter if you are interested in business, in government systems, in sports teams, in the arts, in public or private education, or your major concern over the day-to-day downward struggles you experience in your family, "CONFIDENCE: HOW WINNING STREAKS AND LOSING STREAKS BEGIN & END" is worth your time and your money.
John M. Weiskopf
author, "THE ASCENDANCY"
[...]
"patience" --needed to read this book from begin to end.......2006-12-28
I had great expectations of this book as it started out OK. But soon (within a couple chapters) I realized that the author had run out of new things to say. While there are some non-fiction authors that can captivate and entertain an audience with a single concept (ie... Gladwell w/"Tipping Point/Blink"), this author's writing style seems unusually laborious and repetitive -- languishing in incomprehensible detail. Sad to say, but I think I would have been better off just reading a synopsis of this book.
A professorial look at the key components of confidence.......2006-11-06
Why do winning streaks and losing streaks continue in sports, business, politics, education and even in individual personal lives? The answer, according to Harvard University business administration professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, is "not in our stars, but in ourselves." Winners have, and losers lack, a distinct, learnable, positive attitude toward the future, which Kanter boldly sums up in a word: confidence. Drawing on more than 300 interviews with top coaches, business people and other leaders, and using data from two surveys of more than 1,200 companies, Kanter illustrates the keys to confidence with case studies of various organizations, especially some win-from-behind sports teams. While many pearls are hidden at the bottom of her text, be prepared to dive through a murky sea of verbiage to find them. Nevertheless, we recommend it confidently to those who want a (mostly) painless refresher on managerial basics, especially morale building.
Book Description
From the boardroom to the locker room to the living room—how winners become winners . . . and stay that way.
Is success simply a matter of money and talent? Or is there another reason why some people and organizations always land on their feet, while others, equally talented, stumble again and again?
There’s a fundamental principle at work—the vital but previously unexamined factor called confidence—that permits unexpected people to achieve high levels of performance through routines that activate talent. Confidence explains:
• Why the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team continues its winning ways even though recent teams lack the talent of their predecessors
• Why some companies are always positively perceived by employees, customers, Wall Street analysts, and the media while others are under a perpetual cloud
• How a company like Gillette or a team like the Chicago Cubs ends a losing streak and breaks out of a circle of doom
• The lessons a politician such as Nelson Mandela, who resisted the temptation to take revenge after being released from prison and assuming power, offers for leaders in both advanced democracies and trouble spots like the Middle East
From the simplest ball games to the most complicated business and political situations, the common element in winning is a basic truth about people: They rise to the occasion when leaders help them gain the confidence to do it.
Confidence is the new theory and practice of success, explaining why success and failure are not mere episodes but self-perpetuating trajectories. Rosabeth Moss Kanter shows why organizations of all types may be brimming with talent but not be winners, and provides people in leadership positions with a practical program for either maintaining a winning streak or turning around a downward spiral.
Confidence is based on an extraordinary investigation of success and failure in companies such as Continental Airlines, Seagate, and Verizon and sports teams such as the University of North Carolina women’s soccer team, New England Patriots, and Philadelphia Eagles, as well as schools, health care, and politics.
Packed with brilliant, practical ideas such as “powerlessness corrupts” and the “timidity of mediocrity,”
Confidence provides fresh thinking for perpetuating winning streaks and ending losing streaks in all facets of life—from the factors that can make or break corporations and governments to the keys for successful relationships in the workplace or at home.
From the Hardcover edition.
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Confidence: How Winning and Losing Streaks Begin and End (Unabridged on 11 CDs)
Manufacturer: Books On Tape
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD
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ASIN: 1415903247 |
Product Description
Why do the Yankees always seem to win and the Red Sox fade? Why do companies such as Dell and Gillette never seem to lose their halo? What lessons does Nelson Mandela offer leaders in trouble spots like the Middle East. From sports to business and the most complicated political situations, a common element, a truth, persists: people succeed when leaders give them the confidence to do so. In CONFIDENCE, Kanter, a former editor of "Harvard Business Review" and an advisor to prominent corporations and community organizations, such as IBM and the Girl Scouts, offers a new theory and practice of success in which winning and losing are not mere episodes but self-perpetuating trajectories. She demonstrates why organizations of all types may be brimming with talent but not winners, and why character, perseverance, and a winning tradition count more than money and superstars.
Books:
- Behold the Beauty of the Lord
- Black Film As a Signifying Practice: Cinema, Narration and the African American Aesthetic Tradition
- Blues Brothers: Private
- Bond Girls are Forever: The Women of James Bond
- Cagney
- Cine Mexicano: Poster Art from the Golden Age/Carteles de la Epoca de Oro 1936-1956
- Company of Heroes Official Strategy Guide (Official Strategy Guides (Bradygames))
- Crafting Short Screenplays That Connect, Second Edition
- Creativity Rules: a Writer's Workbook
- Cuban Cinema (Cultural Studies of the Americas, 14)
Books Index
Books Home
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- Accounting Desk Book for Manufacturing Companies
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- Canada Geese and Apple Chatney: stories
When I'm Bad, I'm Better: Mae West, Sex, and American Entertainment
Mae West: An Icon in Black and White
Three Plays by Mae West: Sex, The Drag and Pleasure Man
Mae West - The Glamour Collection (Go West Young Man/ Goin' To Town/ I'm No Angel/ My Little Chickadee/ Night After Night)
Mae West: It Ain't No Sin
