Fifteen classic essays: “John Waters’ Tour of L.A.,” “What Ever Happened to Showmanship?,” “Hatchet Piece (101 Things I Hate),” “The Pia Zadora Story,” “Going to Jail,” “Puff Piece (101 Things I Love),” “Why I Love the National Enquirer,” “How To Become Famous,” “Guilty Pleasures,” “Why I Love Christmas,” “How Not To Make a Movie,” “Hail Mary” and “Celebrity Burnout.”

Publisher: Vintage
Paperback: 144 pages

Written in the style of an oral history and often displaying a dreamlike logic, My Last Sigh provides a portal into the mind of cinema’s great master of the subconscious. This volume traces Buñuel’s life from his boyhood in Aragon and schooling in Madrid, to his association with the Surrealists in Paris, the years of the Spanish Civil War, his stint at MOMA’s film department in the 1940s, the Mexican cinema of the 1950s, and his later European masterpieces.
Often taking serendipitous detours to expound on such topics as the perfect martini or the relationship between Mexicans and guns, My Last Sigh recounts an artist’s life lead to the fullest and with no regrets, save one. “I hate to leave while there’s so much going on. It’s like quitting in the middle of a serial. I doubt there was so much curiosity about the world after death in the past, since in those days the world didn’t change quite so rapidly or so much. Frankly, despite my horror of the press, I’d love to rise from the grave every 10 years or so and go buy a few newspapers. Ghostly pale, sliding silently along the wall, my papers under my arm, I’d return to the cemetery and read about all the disasters in the world before falling back to sleep, safe and secure in my tomb.” JAT

Publisher: Vintage
Paperback: 256 pages
Illustrated

“Hit Men is the highly controversial portrait of the pop music industry in all its wild, ruthless glory: the insatiable greed and ambition; the enormous egos; the fierce struggles for profits and power; the vendettas, rivalries, shakedowns and payoffs. Chronicling the evolution of America’s largest music labels from the Tin Pan Alley days to the present day, Dannen examines in depth the often venal, sometimes illegal dealings among the assorted hustlers and kingpins who rule over this multibillion-dollar business.”

Publisher: Vintage
Paperback: 407 pages
Illustrated