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Best Entertainment Industry

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration
From one of the co-founders of Pixar Animation Studios—the Academy Award–winning studio behind Coco, Inside Out, and Toy Story —comes an incisive book about creativity in business and leadership for readers of Daniel Pink, Tom Peters, and Chip and Dan Heath. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Huffington Post • Financial Times • Success • Inc. • Library Journal “[ Creativity, Inc. ]. just might be the most thoughtful management book ever.”— Fast Company Creativity, Inc. is a book for managers who want to lead their employees to new heights, a manual for anyone who strives for originality, and the first-ever, all-access trip into the nerve center of Pixar Animation—into the meetings, postmortems, and “Braintrust” sessions where some of the most successful films in history are made. It is, at heart, a book about how to build a creative culture—but it is also, as Pixar co-founder and president Ed Catmull writes, “an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible.”. Praise for Creativity, Inc. “Over more than thirty years, Ed Catmull has developed methods to root out and destroy the barriers to creativity, to marry creativity to the pursuit of excellence, and, most impressive, to sustain a culture of disciplined creativity during setbacks and success.” —Jim Collins, co-author of Built to Last and author of Good to Great “Too often, we seek to keep the status quo working. Any reader of Creativity, Inc., Catmull’s new book on the art of running creative companies, will have to agree. Catmull, president of both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation, has written what just might be the most thoughtful management book ever.” — Fast Company “It’s one thing to be creative; it’s entirely another—and much more rare—to build a great and creative culture. Over more than thirty years, Ed Catmull has developed methods to root out and destroy the barriers to creativity, to marry creativity to the pursuit of excellence, and, most impressive, to sustain a culture of disciplined creativity during setbacks and success. Catmull’s book is quickly becoming the latest bible for the show business crowd.” —The New York Times “The most practical and deep book ever written by a practitioner on the topic of innovation.” —Prof. [Catmull] uses Pixar’s triumphs and near-disasters to outline a system for managing people in creative businesses—one in which candid criticism is delivered sensitively, while individuality and autonomy are not strangled by a robotic corporate culture.” — Financial Times “A wonderful new book . An immensely readable and rewarding book that will challenge and inspire readers to make their workplaces hotbeds of creativity.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Punctuated with surprising tales of how the company’s films were developed and the company’s financial struggles, Catmull shares insights about harnessing talent, creating teams, protecting the creative process, candid communications, organizational structures, alignment, and the importance of storytelling. [ Creativity, Inc. ] will delight and inspire creative individuals and their managers, as well as anyone who wants to work ‘in an environment that fosters creativity and problem solving.’” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) “For anyone managing anything, and particularly those trying to manage creative teams, Catmull is like a kind, smart godfather guiding us toward managing wisely, without losing our souls, and in a way that works toward greatness. What Ed Catmull shares instead is his astute experience that creativity isn’t strictly a well of ideas, but an alchemy of people. In Creativity, Inc. Ed reveals, with commonsense specificity and honesty, examples of how not to get in your own way and how to realize a creative coalescence of art, business, and innovation.” —George Lucas “This is the best book ever written on what it takes to build a creative organization.
Reviews
"Managers, as well as anyone who wants to better understand how companies work and what elements are necessary to make and keep them successful, will appreciate Catmull’s insight on leadership, nurturing creative environment, and protecting it from invisible threats. After reading the book, I constantly find myself quoting the concepts and examples described there when talking to my husband or friends about their jobs or my own and discussing what works, what doesn’t, and why."
"This book has radically altered all of my pre-existing views about what it means to be creative, to strive for quality, to lead a team, and to be passionate and persevere in the face of obstacles."
"Ed shared several amusing experiences creating these magnificent movies to illustrate management concepts."
"Mr. Catmull presents an impressive analysis of how corporate culture can negatively impact creativity, even when corporate leaders proclaim their support for creativity and truly believe they are doing everything they can to foster and support it."
"Whether you're just a Pixar fan, or you're looking for ways to improve your company, you can't go wrong with this book."
"It tells of how the company was formed and the various challenges and changes along the way as well as how the people in charge are constantly attempting to maintain Pixar as a separate entity from Disney after being purchased by the latter while fixing Disney's animation studios and making Disney a world class entity itself."
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All You Need to Know About the Music Business: Ninth Edition
“The industry bible” ( Los Angeles Times ), now updated, essential for anyone in the music business—musicians, songwriters, lawyers, agents, promoters, publishers, executives, and managers—trying to navigate the rapid transformation of the industry. Now if you’re reading this and trying to decide whether the music business will disappear and if you’d be better off putting the price of this book into your stamp collection, there actually is a beautiful weather forecast. As we’ll discuss, streaming has the potential to make the music business bigger than it’s ever been in history. People who never would have gone into a record store are listening to streams, and the numbers are growing fast. As these new ways to exploit music take hold, you might wonder how artists get paid. And at no extra charge (if you act RIGHT NOW), there’s an update of what’s happening with traditional music business deals—recording, songwriting, merchandising, touring, and so forth.
Reviews
"I'll definitely refer back to it as my journey continues, but no matter your "stage" or "status" in the industry, do yourself a favor and read this book!"
"You dont buy this book... YOU dont take your craft seriously."
"Amazing book."
"This has become my bible for working in the music industry and has allowed me to have a clear understanding of the industry for running my record label."
"Great book to learn the ropes, it should be a must have if your in the music world."
"Bought it for my godson and he loved it."
"Great book, well worth the reading, from novice to expert, you will get something of value out of this book."
"It's a very good book for those interested in hearing a bit of the nitty gritty that goes on in our wonderful but hectic world of music (behind the scenes)."
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Best Performing Arts Industry

Eat Like Walt: The Wonderful World of Disney Food
By 1934, four years before his first feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be released, Mickey Mouse had made him famous enough to have a recipe published in Better Homes & Gardens magazine. From humble beginnings to becoming one of the most famous men on the planet, Walt was more of an everyman than a pampered celebrity when it came to eating. In no particular order I like traveling the world, Broadway musicals, consorting with race horse persons, cooking for family and friends, reading, fitness, soul searching and wine. When I am not adventuring, I live in Sonoma County, which according to Luther Burbank is "...the chosen spot of all this earth as far as Nature is concerned."
Reviews
"My husband wanted this book."
"Great book!"
"I only just received my copy of this remarkable book a few hours ago and i'm already checking my list, ready to stock up for Chrismas presents! Just as we gather around our meals and share the goings-on of our day, this book allows us to do the same and draws us closer to being adopted into Walt's family. When you finish you may feel as I did, that I had been privy to some pretty special moments in the Disney history heretofore just touched on in other works."
"It's also a very aesthetically-pleasing physical volume: a good size, so that its many images are reproduced at a comfortable scale, and with handsome little borders around the pages that evoke the middle of the last century."
"My wife and I are huge Disneyland fans, and in part it’s because of the culture of food – from the nostalgic (Monte Cristo) to the delightful (Dole Whip) to the delicious (Corndog), we always enjoy our time eating in the park. Marcy takes us on a journey that not only demonstrates how integral food was to the idea of Disneyland from Day One, but showcases the insight Walt had about how people ate (and gives us a wonderful glimpse into his own eating habits)."
"Lots of history, and information, but very little in the way of park recipies."
"I can see the appeal that this book would have for the ultra-Disney enthusiast, but this is an absolute mish-mash of a book that left me confused and disappointed. Way at the back of the book there is a map of Disneyland which should have been way up front, because the general organizational structure of the book goes land by land through Disneyland and if you've never been there (I've been to Disneyworld many, many times but never Disneyland) many of the references about things like boundaries will not make much sense. The book also fails as a history."
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Best Puppets & Puppetry

Jim Henson: The Biography
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BOOKPAGE For the first time ever—a comprehensive biography of one of the twentieth century’s most innovative creative artists: the incomparable, irreplaceable Jim Henson. He was a gentle dreamer whose genial bearded visage was recognized around the world, but most people got to know him only through the iconic characters born of his fertile imagination: Kermit the Frog, Bert and Ernie, Miss Piggy, Big Bird. An uncommonly intimate portrait, Jim Henson captures all the facets of this American original: the master craftsman who revolutionized the presentation of puppets on television, the savvy businessman whose dealmaking prowess won him a reputation as “the new Walt Disney,” and the creative team leader whose collaborative ethos earned him the undying loyalty of everyone who worked for him. An up-close look at the charmed life of a legend, Jim Henson gives the full measure to a man whose joyful genius transcended age, language, geography, and culture—and continues to beguile audiences worldwide. For the most part, the bulk of the research for this biography was conducted the old-fashioned way: sitting in an archive—in this case, The Jim Henson Company archives in Long Island City, New York—and turning over documents one at a time. I read through Jim’s private diaries, examined handwritten notes—sometimes just scraps of paper with ideas for a character name or a slapdash drawing of a new Muppet—pored through business papers and receipts, and poked through innumerable TV scripts and film proposals, many of which never made it any further than Jim’s carefully typed notes. For the first time, you’ll read about many of these projects, and learn how hard Jim worked to bring programs like The Muppet Show to television. I also had the pleasure of interviewing all five Henson children and his widow, Jane—who passed away earlier this year—as well as countless colleagues, friends, and collaborators. I think you’ll find he’s pretty much exactly as you want him to be: genuinely kind, dazzlingly inspirational, immensely talented and—as Frank Oz said—“delightfully imperfect.” Not bad for a kid from the swamps of Mississippi.
Reviews
"It was a perspective-altering vacation in Europe (where puppetry is taken VERY seriously and regarded as art) that Jim came to realize that the work he was already doing was something of value, and worth pursuing. Professionally speaking, we learn of Jim's tendency as the years went by to fall in love with technology and build projects around it without putting enough thought into actual substance. Numerous members of Henson's staff, who otherwise spend the text speaking of him in glowing terms, bluntly admit that they strongly disliked "The Dark Crystal" and "Labyrinth," blaming the problems with both productions on Jim's preoccupation with new technology developed for the films."
"He was extraordinarily creative and driven, with a sort of innate inner strength and conviction, and compassion, excitement and faith in his fellows and the world."
"It's a really well written and researched book on Jim Henson's work and it was a joy to read."
"Heyborne not only makes this biography interesting by his comfortable, natural narrating style, he also give "voice" to Jim Henson, as much of the book quotes Henson from interviews held throughout his life."
"He was, while not a saint, a very wonderful man in every respect... and it was heartening to find that his creatures are a strong reflect ton of his fabulous talent, and more importantly, his humanity."
"Thank you Mr. Jones."
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Best Video & Electronic Games

Wimpy Steve Book 1: Trapped in Minecraft! (An Unofficial Minecraft Diary Book) (Minecraft Diary: Wimpy Steve)
Previously published as Diary of a Wimpy Steve: Trapped in Minecraft! (Book 1) takes you on a hilarious Minecraft adventure in which Wimpy Steve (a complete newbie) records his experiences while trapped INSIDE the Minecraft game! With charming illustrations and creative storytelling, Wimpy Steve: Trapped in Minecraft! Kids ages 5-12 (even reluctant readers) can't wait to "dig in" to these Minecraft adventures! Minecraft is a registered trademark of, and owned by, Mojang AB, and its respective owners, which do not approve, endorse, sponsor, or authorize this book.
Reviews
"I like these books zdfgsegrgbggbdreythftdfvdkfonelfivndlfnlekfefoivndfvnjvmcjfgkv."
"Lol LoL LoL LoL !!!!"
"I love this book its combines to of my favorite things."
"THIS IS THE BEST BOOK EVER IN ALL SPACE. TIME!!!!"
"I really liked this book."
"Awesome book sure to make your child laugh."
"I really like this book because it is about adventure very very very very very very very very awesome By matt."
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Best Sports Industry

The Cubs Way: The Zen of Building the Best Team in Baseball and Breaking the Curse
The New York Times Bestseller With inside access and reporting, Sports Illustrated senior baseball writer and FOX Sports analyst Tom Verducci reveals how Theo Epstein and Joe Maddon built, led, and inspired the Chicago Cubs team that broke the longest championship drought in sports, chronicling their epic journey to become World Series champions. Tom Verducci, twice named National Sportswriter of the Year and co-writer of The Yankee Years with Joe Torre, will have full access to team president Theo Epstein, manager Joe Maddon, and the players to tell the story of the Cubs' transformation from perennial underachievers to the best team in baseball. Those dual qualities make him the perfect guy to not only capture the experience of what the Cubs at long last achieved, but to explain the thinking and planning that led to last Fall's crescendo of emotions.” —Bob Costas. "Verducci, a longtime baseball writer for Sports Illustrated, is perhaps the perfect scribe to tell this definitive tale, a generational talent who can talk numbers and remain awed at the game’s beauties. “In Mr. Verducci’s entertaining book, he notes that the ‘construction of a championship team is granular’ and the ‘final picture is a Seurat painting’ with ‘many tiny dots of color’ and ‘millions of reasons and thousands of cascading events.’ He’s right: The artistic brush containing the power of positivity helped make the Chicago Cubs winners once more.” — The Washington Times.
Reviews
"But it is a beautiful story about good people, and for any baseball fan, a well-written dive into the best baseball story of the last century."
"While Tom Verducci’s The Cubs Way reads more like an eventual 108 year victory lap for long suffering Chicago Cubs fans, I think baseball fans in general can take a lot from the story of the 2016 Chicago Cubs."
"All in all this book will answer your Cubs questions and you have to admire this team even if your team is in the Natonal League Central...this is baseball...Theo Epstein has got to be one of the more interesting Baseball Executives ever as he's hall of fame bound already...he broke not 1 but 2 curses which amazes me...when he took over the Cubs i knew they'd improve but i didn't think they'd win a world series in only his 5th season at the helm...so impressive stuff and i'm not a Cubs fan per se but i like what they did with the team."
"The natural flow of the season, the various characters and the quest for a championship, coupled with a look at the vast remake that Theo Epstein and Tom Ricketts undertook make this a highly memorable baseball book. Added to this is Joe Maddon, the whiz on the bench who takes a team of young talent and some veterans to a place that many Cubs fans have dreamed of for over a century -. a championship."
"Congratulations to Mr. Verducci for this truly outstanding insight, into baseball in general... and, of course, the Chicago Cubs’ once-in-a-lifetime rise to the top after a century of ineptness and sorrow for their fervent and loyal fans."
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Best Park & Recreation Industry

The National Parks: America's Best Idea
In this evocative and lavishly illustrated narrative, Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan delve into the history of the park idea, from the first sighting by white men in 1851 of the valley that would become Yosemite and the creation of the world’s first national park at Yellowstone in 1872, through the most recent. additions to a system that now encompasses nearly four hundred sites and 84 million acres. If Ken Burns’s upcoming documentary film on America’s National Parks is as good as the book laying open before me, he has another huge winner. The result is almost elegiac, producing the same kind of goose bumps that Burns created in his early work on the Brooklyn Bridge and the Civil War . Namely, as Burns puts it in the introduction, “for the first time in human history, land--great sections of our natural landscape--was set aside, not for kings or noblemen or the very rich, but for everyone, for all time.” As Wallace Stegner once observed, and the book’s subtitle echoes, this may have been “America’s best idea.” Burns links the idea to Jefferson’s magic words in the Declaration of Independence (i.e. “We hold these truths...”), our quasi-sacred text on human freedom, which takes on an almost spiritual resonance amidst the vistas of Yosemite or Yellowstone. Dayton Duncan , Burns's longtime colleague, has provided most of the text, which is designed to cast a spell that matches the wonder of the stunning illustrations.
Reviews
"This book is full of breathtaking images, making it the perfect coffee table book for anyone who enjoys exploring our beautiful country and its national parks."
"Great photos and historical commentary."
"Beautiful book with gorgeous pictures!"
"We were given this book as a gift and are now getting it to give to a family member as a gift."
"This presentation is more than 5 stars !!!"
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