We were supposed to run away after graduation. When she didn't show at our meeting place, I got brave and went after her. It was a mistake. I left bloodied and bruised. I had no choice but to walk away. Years passed. I traveled, settled halfway around the world, made enough money that I didn't have to look back. But I never got over her. Then, out of the blue, she calls. And, what she asks for, the favor that she wants? I never thought I'd be willing to take a life. But the truth is, and always has been: I'd do anything for her.

When it was released in 1955, the film Rebel Without a Cause had a revolutionary impact on moviemaking and youth culture, virtually giving birth to our concept of the American teenager. For the first time, Live Fast, Die Young tells the complete story of the explosive making of Rebel, a film that has rocked every generation since its release. Set against a backdrop of the Atomic Age and an old Hollywood studio system on the verge of collapse, it vividly evokes the cataclysmic, immensely influential meeting of four of Hollywood's most passionate artists. When James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, and director Nicholas Ray converged, each was at a crucial point in his or her career. The young actors were grappling with fame, their burgeoning sexuality, and increasingly reckless behavior. As Ray engaged his cast in physical melees and psychosexual seductions of startling intensity, the on- and off-set relationships between his ambitious young actors ignited, sending a shock wave through the film. Through interviews with the surviving members of the cast and crew and firsthand access to both personal and studio archives, Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel reveal Rebel's true drama -- the director's affair with sixteen-year-old Wood, his tempestuous "spiritual marriage" with Dean, and his role in awakening the latent homosexuality of Mineo, who would become the first gay teenager to appear on film. Complete with thirty photographs, including ten never-before-seen photos by famed Dean photographer Dennis Stock, Live Fast, Die Young tells the absorbing inside story of an unforgettable and absolutely essential American film -- a story that is, in many ways, as provocative as the film itself.

The extraordinary life—the first—of the legendary, undercelebrated Hollywood director known in his day as “Wild Bill” (and he was!) Wellman, whose eighty-two movies (six of them uncredited), many of them iconic; many of them sharp, cold, brutal; others poetic, moving; all of them a lesson in close-up art, ranged from adventure and gangster pictures to comedies, aviation, romances, westerns, and searing social dramas. Among his iconic pictures: the pioneering World War I epic Wings (winner of the first Academy Award for best picture), Public Enemy (the toughest gangster picture of them all), Nothing Sacred, the original A Star Is Born, Beggars of Life, The Call of the Wild, The Ox-Bow Incident, Battleground, The High and the Mighty... David O. Selznick called him “one of the motion pictures’ greatest craftsmen.” Robert Redford described him as “feisty, independent, self-taught, and self-made. He stood his ground and fought his battles for artistic integrity, never wavering, always clear in his film sense.” Wellman directed Hollywood’s biggest stars for three decades, including Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, John Wayne, Lauren Bacall, and Clint Eastwood. It was said he directed “like a general trying to break out of a beachhead.” He made pictures with such noted producers as Darryl F. Zanuck, Nunnally Johnson, Jesse Lasky, and David O. Selznick. Here is a revealing, boisterous portrait of the handsome, tough-talking, hard-drinking, uncompromising maverick (he called himself a “crazy bastard”)—juvenile delinquent; professional ice-hockey player as a kid; World War I flying ace at twenty-one in the Lafayette Flying Corps (the Lafayette Escadrille), crashing more than six planes (“We only had four instruments, none of which worked. And no parachutes . . . Greatest goddamn acrobatics you ever saw in your life”)—whose own life story was more adventurous and more unpredictable than anything in the movies. Wellman was a wing-walking stunt pilot in barnstorming air shows, recipient of the Croix de Guerre with two Gold Palm Leaves and five United States citations; a bad actor but good studio messenger at Goldwyn Pictures who worked his way up from assistant cutter; married to five women, among them Marjorie Crawford, aviatrix and polo player; silent picture star Helene Chadwick; and Dorothy Coonan, Busby Berkeley dancer, actress, and mother of his seven children. Irene Mayer Selznick, daughter of Louis B. Mayer, called Wellman “a terror, a shoot-up-the-town fellow, trying to be a great big masculine I-don’t-know-what. David had a real weakness for him. I didn’t share it.” Yet she believed enough in Wellman’s vision and cowritten script about Hollywood to persuade her husband to produce A Star Is Born, which Wellman directed. After he took over directing Tarzan Escapes at MGM, Wellman went to Louis B. Mayer and asked to make another Tarzan picture on his own. “What are you talking about? It’s beneath your dignity,” said Mayer. “To hell with that,” said Wellman, “I haven’t got any dignity.” Now William Wellman, Jr., drawing on his father’s unpublished letters, diaries, and unfinished memoir, gives us the first full portrait of the man—boy, flyer, husband, father, director, artist. Here is a portrait of a profoundly American spirit and visionary, a man’s man who was able to put into cinematic storytelling the most subtle and fulsome of feeling, a man feared, respected, and loved.

Wild about Weeds is the must-have guide for modern gardeners that explains how to tame and nurture the most challenging of plants. Not all weeds are ugly uncontrollable brutes. Yes, they can be difficult and intimidating, but by learning how to grow weeds in unexpected ways you will become a better gardener with a more interesting garden. This book profiles over 50 weeds and shows you surprising ways to grow them, no matter what your garden type: from borders to boxes, sunny to shady, poor soil to rich, tropical to formal, Japanese-style to prairies. With interviews, tips and advice from celebrated gardeners, learn how to let weeds flourish without taking control. Gardening Book of the Year 2019 - The Times Best Gardening Reads of 2019 - Daily Mail Best Gardening Books of the Year - Gardens Illustrated Top Garden Books of 2019 - The English Garden "This well-argued advocacy for rebel plants shows why we should all be growing a few in our gardens." Gardens Illustrated "In this excellent guide, garden designer Wallington rehabilitates the lowly weed...Wallington's humor ("part of me - the rebellious, weed-like part! - likes weeds purely because people tell me not to") and passion for his subject shine through on every page. This new spin on an old subject will encourage both new and seasoned gardeners to look at what's already growing in their garden (and what could be) with fresh eyes." Publishers Weekly "A lovely, practical gardening book that celebrates the beauty and ecological value of the gorgeous plants that we have been silly enough to overlook. Gardens with native 'weeds' are quintessentially English, tangled and tousled, and self-deprecating. Yet they burst with life, for these are plants that have evolved alongside our pollinators such as bees, and other insects that offer themselves to birds. Wild about Weeds sensibly distinguishes between the under-appreciated plants that conjure life into our gardens, and those potentially invasive species that are undesirable for good reason." Jonathan Drori CBE, author of Around the World in 80 Trees

As soon as I saw him, it was war. I thought at first it would be between me and him. Cade was cold and hard and didn't want anything to do with the headmaster's daughter. I was off-limits. He didn't need that kind of trouble. I didn't need that kind of trouble, either. And since I did my best to avoid any kind of trouble, that should have been the end of it. But when I saw him, he also saw me. All of me. The lonely parts. The dark parts. The secret parts. He became my ally. I lost the battle with myself and fell in love despite the risk. But the war isn't over for either of us. Not as long as my father is alive.

Actor turned business mogul, Reed Dixon is dripping with good looks and a bad attitude. He’s the star of every woman’s fantasy. Demanding and dangerously sexy, he delivers an Oscar-worthy performance in their beds every night. Closed off and quick to anger, his aggressive attitude disguises the pain of losing the only person who made him whole. Tragedy has left him reeling and only now is he finding his footing, centering himself in the safest place, his work. When he talks, people listen. Until he meets Reagan, an intriguing beauty for whom the world’s gone silent. Are the walls around his heart too thick to sense when someone wants in? Will he push her away or will he fall for her in sweet surrender? Sweet Surrender is a steamy, grumpy-boss age-gap romance with a sweet twist.

One of America's most intriguing show business luminaries and true rebels, Dennis Hopper's amazing life was a roller coaster series of triumphs and failures. Always intent on proving his genius and leaving a legacy, the Emmy winning and Oscar-nominated Hopper acted in more than 115 movies and four TV series, directed seven films, and passionately pursued an artist's life as a photographer and creator and collector of modern art, embracing the work of artists like Warhol and Lichtenstein before the label "pop art" was even coined. Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel explores Hopper's life from his lonely childhood in Kansas, where he became determined to win the affection of others by becoming a great artist, to his often drug-fueled days and nights in Hollywood and his spiritual home in Taos, New Mexico.