The Fan Who Knew Too Much

The Fan Who Knew Too Much

Author: Anthony Heilbut

Publisher: Knopf

Published: 2012-06-19

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 0307958477

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A dazzling exploration of American culture—from high pop to highbrow—by acclaimed music authority, cultural historian, and biographer Anthony Heilbut, author of the now classic The Gospel Sound (“Definitive” —Rolling Stone), Exiled in Paradise, and Thomas Mann (“Electric”—Harold Brodkey). In The Fan Who Knew Too Much, Heilbut writes about art and obsession, from country blues singers and male sopranos to European intellectuals and the originators of radio soap opera—figures transfixed and transformed who helped to change the American cultural landscape. Heilbut writes about Aretha Franklin, the longest-lasting female star of our time, who changed performing for women of all races. He writes about Aretha’s evolution as a singer and performer (she came out of the tradition of Mahalia Jackson); before Aretha, there were only two blues-singing gospel women—Dinah Washington, who told it like it was, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who specialized, like Aretha, in ambivalence, erotic gospel, and holy blues. We see the influence of Aretha’s father, C. L. Franklin, famous pastor of Detroit’s New Bethel Baptist Church. Franklin’s albums preached a theology of liberation and racial pride that sold millions and helped prepare the way for Martin Luther King Jr. Reverend Franklin was considered royalty and, Heilbut writes, it was inevitable that his daughter would become the Queen of Soul. In “The Children and Their Secret Closet,” Heilbut writes about gays in the Pentecostal church, the black church’s rock and shield for more than a hundred years, its true heroes, and among its most faithful members and vivid celebrants. And he explores, as well, the influential role of gays in the white Pentecostal church. In “Somebody Else’s Paradise,” Heilbut writes about the German exiles who fled Hitler—Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Marlene Dietrich, and others—and their long reach into the world of American science, art, politics, and literature. He contemplates the continued relevance of the émigré Joseph Roth, a Galician Jew, who died an impoverished alcoholic and is now considered the peer of Kafka and Thomas Mann. And in “Brave Tomorrows for Bachelor’s Children,” Heilbut explores the evolution of the soap opera. He writes about the form itself and how it catered to social outcasts and have-nots; the writers insisting its values were traditional, conservative; their critics seeing soap operas as the secret saboteurs of traditional marriage—the women as castrating wives; their husbands as emasculated men. Heilbut writes that soaps went beyond melodrama, deep into the perverse and the surreal, domesticating Freud and making sibling rivalry, transference, and Oedipal and Electra complexes the stuff of daily life. And he writes of the “daytime serial’s unwed mother,” Irna Phillips, a Chicago wannabe actress (a Margaret Hamilton of the shtetl) who created radio’s most seminal soap operas—Today’s Children, The Road of Life among them—and for television, As the World Turns, Guiding Light, etc., and who became known as the “queen of the soaps.” Hers, Heilbut writes, was the proud perspective of someone who didn’t fit anywhere, the stray no one loved. The Fan Who Knew Too Much is a revelatory look at some of our American icons and iconic institutions, high, low, and exalted.


The Fan Who Knew Too Much

The Fan Who Knew Too Much

Author: Anthony Heilbut

Publisher: Knopf

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 037540080X

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An exploration of American culture celebrates subjects ranging from the birth of the soap opera and the obsessiveness of modern fandom to the outing of gay church members and the influence of German exiles.


The Fan Who Knew Too Much

The Fan Who Knew Too Much

Author: Nev Fountain

Publisher: Titan Books (US, CA)

Published: 2024-07-23

Total Pages: 461

ISBN-13: 1803365560

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Launching a new series, a podcaster and cult science fiction superfan stages a documentary to solve her friend’s murder, and a 40-year-old disappearance, in this riotous and fiendishly twisty mystery. Perfect for fans of classic TV such as Doctor Who and Star Trek, wobbly cardboard sets and spandex costumes, and sharp-witted amateur detective crime such as Richard Osman, J. M. Hall and Andrew Cartmel. Kit Pelham is a professional fan, interviewer, host of the podcast The First Cult is the Deepest, and occasional obituary writer. Except this time the obituary is for her friend, maverick podcaster Wolf Tyler, who has been murdered in his shed during a live broadcast, moments before revealing a huge secret about the cult TV show Vixens from the Void. Kit and her group of friends and fellow superfans soon realise Wolf had discovered something about the disappearance of Lily Sparkes, an extra on Vixens from the Void, back in 1986. And it was a secret worth killing for... To find justice for their friend, and much more importantly, new trivia about their favourite TV show, the gang decide to put together a “Then and Now” Blu-Ray documentary that will reunite the original cast and crew. Armed with only a shoestring budget, an occasionally soggy drone, action figures (in the original packaging) and encyclopaedic knowledge of 1980s sci-fi TV, they have just four days to discover Wolf’s secret, and solve his murder.


The Girl Who Knew Too Much

The Girl Who Knew Too Much

Author: Amanda Quick

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2017-05-09

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 0698193628

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In 1930s California, glamour and seduction spawn a multitude of sins in this New York Times bestseller from the author of Tightrope. At the exclusive Burning Cove Hotel on the coast of California, rookie reporter Irene Glasson finds herself staring down at a beautiful actress at the bottom of a pool.... The dead woman had something Irene wanted: a red-hot secret about an up-and-coming leading man—a scoop that may have gotten her killed. As Irene searches for the truth about the drowning, she’s drawn to a master of deception. Once a world-famous magician whose career was mysteriously cut short, Oliver Ward is now the owner of the Burning Cove Hotel. He can’t let scandal threaten his livelihood, even if it means trusting Irene, a woman who seems to have appeared in Los Angeles out of nowhere four months ago. With Oliver’s help, Irene soon learns that the glamorous paradise of Burning Cove hides dark and dangerous secrets. And that the past—always just out of sight—could drag them both under....


The Boy Who Knew Too Much

The Boy Who Knew Too Much

Author: Cathy Byrd

Publisher: Hay House, Inc

Published: 2017-03-21

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1401952747

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The compelling and heartwarming story of a young baseball prodigy who began sharing vivid memories of being famed American baseball player Lou Gehrig. At the tender age of two, baseball prodigy Christian Haupt began sharing vivid memories of being a baseball player in the 1920s and '30s. From riding cross-country on trains, to his fierce rivalry with Babe Ruth, Christian described historical facts about the life of American hero and baseball legend Lou Gehrig that he could not have possibly known at the time. Distraught by her son's uncanny revelations, Christian's mother, Cathy, embarked on a sacred journey of discovery that would shake her beliefs to the core and forever change her views on life and death. In this compelling and heartwarming memoir, Cathy Byrd shares her remarkable experiences, the lessons she learned as she searched to find answers to this great mystery, and a story of healing in the lives of these intertwined souls. The Boy Who Knew Too Much will inspire even the greatest skeptics to consider the possibility that love never dies.


The Gospel Sound

The Gospel Sound

Author: Anthony Heilbut

Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation

Published: 1985

Total Pages: 463

ISBN-13: 0879100346

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Spotlights the careers of the gospel singers who have made a distinctive contribution to the world of music


The Shortstop Who Knew Too Much

The Shortstop Who Knew Too Much

Author: Dan Gutman

Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 99

ISBN-13: 9780590137607

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Knocked out by a pitch, eleven-year-old shortstop Jake wakes up to discover he has developed ESP and wonders how ethical it is for him to be using his powers to guide his team to victory. Original.


Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock

Author: Michael Wood

Publisher:

Published: 2018-03-20

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781477801345

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Widely regarded as the greatest filmmaker of the twentieth century, Alfred Hitchcock had a gift for creating suspense and a shrewd knowledge of human psychology. His film career, spanning more than half a century, is studded with classics from The 39 Steps to Psycho, North by Northwest to Vertigo (which in 2012 unseated Citizen Kane as the best movie of all time according to Sight and Sound). A master of intricate storytelling, Hitchcock was one of the first directors whose films belonged to both popular culture and high art. By the end of his life, he had gone from being the overweight son of a greengrocer in a London suburb to Hollywood's reigning director, whose cameo roles in his own films were one of their most anticipated features, and whose profile was recognized by millions (thanks to the television show Alfred Hitchcock Presents). Michael Wood describes this journey with the wit and erudition that are the trademarks of his work, showcasing his singular ability to detect hidden patterns within apparently disparate forms. Whether he is writing about Henry James or Hollywood in the 1920s, he is alert to the fundamental truth lurking behind the stated meaning. In Hitchcock, Wood has found his ideal subject--an artist for whom explicit statement was anathema, who made conventional plot a hiding place rather than a source of revelation.


The Dog Who Knew Too Much

The Dog Who Knew Too Much

Author: Spencer Quinn

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2011-09-29

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 0857208519

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In THE DOG WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, Chet and Bernie attend a P.I. convention to try and make some new (and hopefully lucrative) connections. It's the sort of thing Bernie hates, but he's got to do something to get his business back on track. The head of a big international security company seems impressed with The Little Detective Agency and hires them for what appears to be an easy and well-paid assignment. Things take an unexpected turn and all sorts of trouble ensues. Tensions are further strained when a stray puppy who looks an awful lot like Chet turns up. So does Dylan McKnight, Suzie Sanchez's former boyfriend. With Chet and Bernie both dealing with affairs of the heart at the same time they are facing an unexpectedly tricky case, it's a good thing that our two intrepid investigators are looking out for each other-as they always do.


The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer (Great Discoveries)

The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer (Great Discoveries)

Author: David Leavitt

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2006-11-17

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 0393346579

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A "skillful and literate" (New York Times Book Review) biography of the persecuted genius who helped create the modern computer. To solve one of the great mathematical problems of his day, Alan Turing proposed an imaginary computer. Then, attempting to break a Nazi code during World War II, he successfully designed and built one, thus ensuring the Allied victory. Turing became a champion of artificial intelligence, but his work was cut short. As an openly gay man at a time when homosexuality was illegal in England, he was convicted and forced to undergo a humiliating "treatment" that may have led to his suicide. With a novelist's sensitivity, David Leavitt portrays Turing in all his humanity—his eccentricities, his brilliance, his fatal candor—and elegantly explains his work and its implications.