The Disaster Artist

"In 2003, an independent film called The room ... made its disastrous debut in Los Angeles. Described by one reviewer as 'like getting stabbed in the head,' the six-million-dollar film earned a grand total of $1800 at the box office and closed after two weeks. Ten years later, The room is an international cult phenomenon ... In [this book], actor Greg Sestero, Tommy's costar and longtime best friend, recounts the film's long, strange journey to infamy, unraveling mysteries for fans ... as well as the question that plagues the uninitiated: how the hell did a movie this awful ever get made?"--

Few authors are as beloved as Shel Silverstein. His inimitable drawings and comic poems have become the bedtime staples of millions of children and their parents, but few readers know much about the man behind that wild-eyed, bearded face peering out from the backs of dust jackets. In A Boy Named Shel, Lisa Rogak tells the full story of a life as antic and adventurous as any of his creations. A man with an incurable case of wanderlust, Shel kept homes on both coasts and many places in between---and enjoyed regular stays in the Playboy Mansion. Everywhere he went he charmed neighbors, made countless friends, and romanced almost as many women with his unstoppable energy and never-ending wit. His boundless creativity brought him fame and fortune---neither of which changed his down-to-earth way of life---and his children's books sold millions of copies. But he was much more than "just" a children's writer. He collaborated with anyone who crossed his path, and found success in a wider range of genres than most artists could ever hope to master. He penned hit songs like "A Boy Named Sue" and "The Unicorn." He drew cartoons for Stars & Stripes and got his big break with Playboy. He wrote experimental plays and collaborated on scripts with David Mamet. With a seemingly unending stream of fresh ideas, he worked compulsively and enthusiastically on a wide array of projects up until his death, in 1999. Drawing on wide-ranging interviews and in-depth research, Rogak gives fans a warm, enlightening portrait of an artist whose imaginative spirit created the poems, songs, and drawings that have touched the lives of so many children---and adults.

In September 2002, Tommy Wiseau produced a film called The Room. He was the Producer, Writer and lead actor of this film. For 14 years, he has claimed to be the Director as well. Nothing could be further from the truth! The events leading up to my writing this book may not be so funny to me personally; but the story itself is hilarious.

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The epic account of the storm on the summit of Mt. Everest that claimed five lives and left countless more—including Krakauer's—in guilt-ridden disarray. "A harrowing tale of the perils of high-altitude climbing, a story of bad luck and worse judgment and of heartbreaking heroism." —PEOPLE A bank of clouds was assembling on the not-so-distant horizon, but journalist-mountaineer Jon Krakauer, standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, saw nothing that "suggested that a murderous storm was bearing down." He was wrong. By writing Into Thin Air, Krakauer may have hoped to exorcise some of his own demons and lay to rest some of the painful questions that still surround the event. He takes great pains to provide a balanced picture of the people and events he witnessed and gives due credit to the tireless and dedicated Sherpas. He also avoids blasting easy targets such as Sandy Pittman, the wealthy socialite who brought an espresso maker along on the expedition. Krakauer's highly personal inquiry into the catastrophe provides a great deal of insight into what went wrong. But for Krakauer himself, further interviews and investigations only lead him to the conclusion that his perceived failures were directly responsible for a fellow climber's death. Clearly, Krakauer remains haunted by the disaster, and although he relates a number of incidents in which he acted selflessly and even heroically, he seems unable to view those instances objectively. In the end, despite his evenhanded and even generous assessment of others' actions, he reserves a full measure of vitriol for himself. This updated trade paperback edition of Into Thin Air includes an extensive new postscript that sheds fascinating light on the acrimonious debate that flared between Krakauer and Everest guide Anatoli Boukreev in the wake of the tragedy. "I have no doubt that Boukreev's intentions were good on summit day," writes Krakauer in the postscript, dated August 1999. "What disturbs me, though, was Boukreev's refusal to acknowledge the possibility that he made even a single poor decision. Never did he indicate that perhaps it wasn't the best choice to climb without gas or go down ahead of his clients." As usual, Krakauer supports his points with dogged research and a good dose of humility. But rather than continue the heated discourse that has raged since Into Thin Air's denouncement of guide Boukreev, Krakauer's tone is conciliatory; he points most of his criticism at G. Weston De Walt, who coauthored The Climb, Boukreev's version of events. And in a touching conclusion, Krakauer recounts his last conversation with the late Boukreev, in which the two weathered climbers agreed to disagree about certain points. Krakauer had great hopes to patch things up with Boukreev, but the Russian later died in an avalanche on another Himalayan peak, Annapurna I. In 1999, Krakauer received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters--a prestigious prize intended "to honor writers of exceptional accomplishment." According to the Academy's citation, "Krakauer combines the tenacity and courage of the finest tradition of investigative journalism with the stylish subtlety and profound insight of the born writer. His account of an ascent of Mount Everest has led to a general reevaluation of climbing and of the commercialization of what was once a romantic, solitary sport; while his account of the life and death of Christopher McCandless, who died of starvation after challenging the Alaskan wilderness, delves even more deeply and disturbingly into the fascination of nature and the devastating effects of its lure on a young and curious mind."

This stunning “dystopian feminist eco-thriller” from an award-winning South Korean author “takes on climate change, sexual assault, greed, and dark tourism” (Ms. Magazine). Welcome to the desert island of Mui, where a paid vacation to paradise is nothing short of a disaster in this “mordantly witty novel [that] reads like a highly literary, ultra–incisive thriller” (Refinery29). Jungle is a cutting–edge travel agency specializing in tourism to destinations devastated by disaster and climate change. And until she found herself at the mercy of a predatory colleague, Yona was one of their top representatives. Now on the verge of losing her job, she’s given a proposition: take a paid “vacation” to the desert island of Mui and pose as a tourist to assess the company’s least profitable holiday. When she uncovers a plan to fabricate an extravagant catastrophe, she must choose: prioritize the callous company to whom she’s dedicated her life, or embrace a fresh start in a powerful new position? An eco–thriller with a fierce feminist sensibility, The Disaster Tourist introduces a fresh new voice to the United States that engages with the global dialogue around climate activism, dark tourism, and the #MeToo movement.

From the best-selling coauthor of The Disaster Artist and “one of America's best and most interesting writers" (Stephen King), a new collection of stories that range from laugh-out-loud funny to disturbingly dark—unflinching portraits of women and men struggling to bridge the gap between art and life A young and ingratiating assistant to a movie star makes a blunder that puts his boss and a major studio at grave risk. A long-married couple hires an escort for a threesome in order to rejuvenate their relationship. An assistant at a prestigious literary journal reconnects with a middle school frenemy and finds that his carefully constructed world of refinement cannot protect him from his past. A Bush administration lawyer wakes up on an abandoned airplane, trapped in a nightmare of his own making. In these and other stories, Tom Bissell vividly renders the complex worlds of characters on the brink of artistic and personal crises—writers, video-game developers, actors, and other creative types who see things slightly differently from the rest of us. With its surreal, poignant, and sometimes squirm-inducing stories, Creative Types is a brilliant new offering from one the most versatile and talented writers working in America today.

In hard-hitting accounts of Auschwitz, Bosnia, Palestine, and Hiroshima’s Ground Zero, comics display a stunning capacity to bear witness to trauma. Investigating how hand-drawn comics has come of age as a serious medium for engaging history, Disaster Drawn explores the ways graphic narratives by diverse artists, including Jacques Callot, Francisco Goya, Keiji Nakazawa, Art Spiegelman, and Joe Sacco, document the disasters of war. Hillary L. Chute traces how comics inherited graphic print traditions and innovations from the seventeenth century and later, pointing out that at every turn new forms of visual-verbal representation have arisen in response to the turmoil of war. Modern nonfiction comics emerged from the shattering experience of World War II, developing in the 1970s with Art Spiegelman’s first “Maus” story about his immigrant family’s survival of Nazi death camps and with Hiroshima survivor Keiji Nakazawa’s inaugural work of “atomic bomb manga,” the comic book Ore Wa Mita (“I Saw It”)—a title that alludes to Goya’s famous Disasters of War etchings. Chute explains how the form of comics—its collection of frames—lends itself to historical narrative. By interlacing multiple temporalities over the space of the page or panel, comics can place pressure on conventional notions of causality. Aggregating and accumulating frames of information, comics calls attention to itself as evidence. Disaster Drawn demonstrates why, even in the era of photography and film, people understand hand-drawn images to be among the most powerful forms of historical witness.

Focusing on one landmark catastrophic event in the history of an emerging modern nation—the Great Kanto Earthquake that devastated Tokyo and surrounding areas in 1923—this fascinating volume examines the history of the visual production of the disaster. The Kanto earthquake triggered cultural responses that ran the gamut from voyeuristic and macabre thrill to the romantic sublime, media spectacle to sacred space, mournful commemoration to emancipatory euphoria, and national solidarity to racist vigilantism and sociopolitical critique. Looking at photography, cinema, painting, postcards, sketching, urban planning, and even scientific visualizations, Weisenfeld demonstrates how visual culture has powerfully mediated the evolving historical understanding of this major national disaster, ultimately enfolding mourning and memory into modernization.

(Applause Books). Oh Hai! The Room: The Definitive Guide is the ultimate key to the biggest pop culture phenomenon of the 21st century, Tommy Wiseau's The Room . Arguably the worst film of all time and certainly one of the most beguiling, the masterpiece of so-bad-it's-good filmmaking has grown since its release in 2003 to become one of the most popular theatrical releases of all time, with an extremely loyal and vocal fan base. Within the book, readers will find everything required to step into The Room for the first time and understand the traditions, characters, and (lack of) logic at play within the ultimate cult film. Favorite customers of the film will also find a dozen red roses as the book takes a look back at the history of the phenomenon, features extensive and in-depth analysis of the film, includes extensive interviews with the cast and crew, and, of course, studies the film's enigmatic and visionary auteur, Tommy Wiseau. This is the first available book guide to The Room . And an added bonus is the graphic design from cult film artist Mute, which will give the book an eye-catching and distinctive look. So get your tuxedo on, grab your football, have your spoons at the ready, and prepare to shout, "You're tearing me apart, Lisa!" for the first or thousandth time, as we enter The Room .

Ed Pusick was a quiet and eccentric man, a bachelor all his life, whose passion was his artwork. After his time in the Navy when an accident disabled his legs for the rest of his life, Ed became a source of many inventive designs as a professional but apparently never took the trouble to seek patents, recognition, nor much gratitude for his work. Ed later drew sketches as an illustrator for an architectural firm in Grand Rapids, where he met a co-worker who encouraged him to begin drawings of Great Lakes shipwrecks. Eds shipwreck art became prolific. He created a series of drawings of the most famous vessels of the Great Lakes shipwreck coasts. Many of these have been published over the years in the Shipwreck Journal, featured on the History Channel, displayed in museums, and used to illustrate history books and other publications. Many of these drawings from Pusick, known as the Master of Disaster, were produced as limited edition prints. Lois Hauck, Eds caregiver during the last years of his life explains, Ed frequently said he would take his secret of drawing angry waves to his grave. And he did. This narrative describes the stories and works that were passed on to Lois.