Jay Leno

The definitive illustrated history of the exotic sports cars and supercars of McLaren Automotive. Foreword by Jay Leno When the McLaren Formula 1 team set up McLaren Cars and launched the revolutionary, iconic F1 road car in 1992, it turned the supercar world upside down. McLaren wouldn’t make another road car itself until it formed McLaren Automotive in 2010. It was set up with the vision not just to rival the established companies in the sports and supercar marketplace, but to disrupt and to constantly innovate in its pursuit of performance. In this expansive 320-page volume, renowned automotive journalist Kyle Fortune compiles nearly 500 images along with countless interviews and expert insight to showcase all of McLaren's supercars to date. Highlights for readers include: • How upstart company McLaren Automotive applied Formula 1 engineering expertise, innovation, and radical thinking to create cars that quickly became benchmarks for performance, ride, and handling against long-established supercar manufacturers such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Porsche. • Unparalleled insight from the designers, engineers, aerodynamicists, and test drivers who create McLaren Automotive’s cars, with modern, independent insight from test drives by automotive journalists and the author • Detailed technical insight, background stories, and data to the creation, development, and manufacture of all of McLaren Automotive’s sensational cars, with the text supported by comprehensive data tables and illustrated by images from a team of world-renowned automotive photographers This book contains incredible insight and detail from access to McLaren’s press archives, as well as interviews with countless key people within the company. The first and only book dedicated entirely to McLaren’s incredible road cars, this is the complete history of a fascinating automotive brand that’s challenged the establishment.

Drive Time, Sea Time, and Air Time comprise the first horological lifestyle trilogy to survey high-performing timepieces through the lenses of the cars, ships, and planes that inspired them. With curated new watches to reflect ever-more sophisticated time-pieces and horological expertise, this deluxe third edition of Drive Time is a modern, distinctive update to the series. Housed in a handsome slipcase, Drive Time Deluxe Edition focuses on the iconic racing chronographs of the mid-twentieth century, such as the Rolex Daytona, Omega Speedmaster, and TAG Heuer Carrera and Monaco, through current timepieces from Chopard Mille Miglia, Breitling by Bentley, Porsche Design, and IWC Mercedes-Benz AMG collections. In celebrating two great twentieth-century inventions the mass-produced automobile and the wristwatch Drive Time is perfect for lovers of timepieces, cars, and deluxe style.

Chicago's Motor Row earned a spot in the National Register of Historic Places by pioneering a new way to market an invention that was remaking America--the automobile. From approximately 1905 to 1936, well over 100 makes of car were offered by dealers in the 28-acre district. Motor Row started when Henry Ford, the best known name in automobile manufacturing, opened one of his first dealerships outside Detroit on South Michigan Avenue near the homes of Chicago's most affluent citizens. Others followed with sales and service buildings designed by the nation's foremost architects, often side by side, inviting buyers to check out the models on display behind plate glass windows. Shoppers flocked to the automotive smorgasbord. Although the auto dealers have left, most of these architectural jewels remain.

A humorous and instructive book on overcoming your fears, increasing your confidence, and having more success in both sales and career satisfaction. As an ADHD child with dyslexia, Tom Stern felt unable to live up to the great expectations set by his very successful grandfather and father; as a result, he suffered from extreme anxiety. Over time, he developed a methodology that increased his confidence and enabled him to achieve success in the entertainment industry, later founding an executive search firm that has sustained excellence for more than a quarter century. It is Tom’s goal to help others achieve success in sales and realize their dreams by overcoming their fears as well. Fear Less, Sell More uses a fictional story, humor, and a conversational approach to making friends with fear. Drawing from Tom’s circuitous career, he shares his unique insights into the psychology behind selling that can bolster the success of any sales professional.

Featured in the New York Times 2017 "Holiday Gift Guide for Hardcover Fans" Get an insider's oral history of the World's most iconic comedy club, featuring exclusive interviews with today's most hilarious stars recalling their time on stage (and off) at the Improv. In 1963, 30-year-old Budd Friedman—who had recently quit his job as a Boston advertising executive and returned to New York to become a theatrical producer—opened a coffee house for Broadway performers called the Improvisation. Later shortened to the Improv, its first seedy West 44th Street location initially attracted the likes of Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli, Albert Finney, and Jason Robards, as well as a couple of then-unknowns named Dustin Hoffman and Bette Midler. While it drew near-capacity crowds almost from day one, it wasn't until comedians began dropping by to try out new material that the Improv truly hit its stride. The club became the first venue to present live stand-up in a continuous format, and in the process reinvented the art form and created the template for all other comedy clubs that followed. From the microphone to the iconic brick wall, the Improv has been the launching pad for practically every major name in American comedy over the last five-plus decades. Now, in The Improv, Friedman, along with a Who's Who of his most famous alumni—including Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, Jimmy Fallon, Larry David, Billy Crystal, Lily Tomlin, Judd Apatow, Al Franken, Paul Reiser, Howie Mandel, Bob Saget, Drew Carey, and many more—tell it like it was in the first-ever oral history of how this game-changing comedy club came to be. The Improv gives readers an exclusive look at what really happened onstage and off-mic at one of America's most venerable institutions.

"The Opposite" wasn't just the classic Seinfeld episode in which George Costanza followed the opposite of his instincts to land success. The method behind the madness has been championed in industries worldwide and even likened to the rise of Trump. The award-winning writer who helped Costanza win, and first pondered "the opposite" in his own life, identifies traces of it in the legends he mined for anecdotes before the cameras rolled at his first high-profile Hollywood job on which he also became a recurring performer, and in numerous stops along his unique road of comedy writing and performing twists and turns, as the only scribe associated with Cheers, Seinfeld and 3rd Rock From the Sun. (Multiple episodes and staff)For a Tinseltown backstage pass, lessons from film and television icons, in-the-trenches comedy writing and performing strategies, Seinfeld episodes that could have been, talk show, sitcom and single panel cartoon development, and pitching the decision makers (or doing the opposite of playing their game) you'll want to keep...Banging My Head Against the Wall

A 2017 Michigan Notable Book After World War II, the American automobile industry was reeling. Having spent years building tanks and airplanes for the army, the car companies would need years more to retool their production to meet the demands of the American public, for whom they had not made any cars since 1942. And then in stepped Preston Tucker. This salesman extraordinaire from Ypsilanti, Michigan, had built race cars before the war, and had designed prototypes for the military during it. Now, gathering a group of brilliant automotive designers, engineers, and promoters, he announced the creation of a revolutionary new car: the Tucker '48, the first car in almost a decade to be built fresh from the ground up. Tucker's car would include ingenious advances in design and engineering that other car companies could not match. With a rear engine, rear-wheel drive, a safety-glass windshielf that would pop out in case of an accident, a padded dashboard, independent suspension, and automatic transmission, it would be more attractive and aerodynamic—and safer—than any other car on the road. But as the public eagerly awaited Tucker's car of tomorrow, powerful forces in Washington were trying to bring him down. An SEC commissioner with close ties to Detroit's Big Three automakers deliberately leaked information about an investigation the agency was conducting, suggesting that Tucker was bilking investors with a massive fraud scheme. Headlines accused him a perpetrating a hoax and claimed that his cars weren't real and his factory was a sham. In fact, the Tucker '48 sedan was genuine, and everyone who saw it was impressed by what this upstart carmaker had achieved. But the SEC's investigation had compounded the company's financial problems and management conflicts, and a superior product was not enough to keep Tucker's dream afloat. Here, Steve Lehto tackles the story of Tucker's amazing rise and tragic fall, relying on a huge trove of documents that has been used by no other writer to date. It is the first comprehensive, authoritative account of Tucker's magnificent car and his battles with the government. And in this book, Lehto finally answers the questions automobile aficionados have wondered about for decades: Exactly how and why was the production of such an innovative car killed?

Featured in the New York Times 2017 "Holiday Gift Guide for Hardcover Fans" Get an insider's oral history of the World's most iconic comedy club, featuring exclusive interviews with today's most hilarious stars recalling their time on stage (and off) at the Improv. In 1963, 30-year-old Budd Friedman—who had recently quit his job as a Boston advertising executive and returned to New York to become a theatrical producer—opened a coffee house for Broadway performers called the Improvisation. Later shortened to the Improv, its first seedy West 44th Street location initially attracted the likes of Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli, Albert Finney, and Jason Robards, as well as a couple of then-unknowns named Dustin Hoffman and Bette Midler. While it drew near-capacity crowds almost from day one, it wasn't until comedians began dropping by to try out new material that the Improv truly hit its stride. The club became the first venue to present live stand-up in a continuous format, and in the process reinvented the art form and created the template for all other comedy clubs that followed. From the microphone to the iconic brick wall, the Improv has been the launching pad for practically every major name in American comedy over the last five-plus decades. Now, in The Improv, Friedman, along with a Who's Who of his most famous alumni—including Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, Jimmy Fallon, Larry David, Billy Crystal, Lily Tomlin, Judd Apatow, Al Franken, Paul Reiser, Howie Mandel, Bob Saget, Drew Carey, and many more—tell it like it was in the first-ever oral history of how this game-changing comedy club came to be. The Improv gives readers an exclusive look at what really happened onstage and off-mic at one of America's most venerable institutions.

"It was always a pleasure to appear on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Jay and his long-time producer Dave Berg would welcome me to the Green Room, and these moments before the show gave us a chance to laugh. Jay and Dave brought a great spirit and a lot of dignity to late-night television."-Mrs. Laura Bush, former First Lady of the United StatesExperience the wacky antics and ground-breaking appearances of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno from a backstage perspective. Gain an insider's view of how Leno changed the face of late-night, inviting not just actors but also journalists and politicos to the show. What happens behind the scenes is sometimes even more revealing than what happens in front of the camera. Serious and shocking, author Dave Berg proves that these memorable moments can still surprise and entertain.Called "the best booker in the business" by Bill O'Reilly, Berg delivered a vast array of high-profile guests, including Barack Obama as the first sitting president to ever appear on a late-night program. Berg tells what really happened during the show's most legendary moments-Hugh Grant's mea culpa, the live Boston show with an inebriated Cheers cast, Jerry Seinfeld's appearance with John F. Kennedy Jr., and Arnold Schwarzenegger's surprise political announcement.

"Fascinating." —Vanity Fair "A delightful history." —Wall Street Journal In 1964, Chrysler gave the world a glimpse of the future. The automaker built a fleet of turbine cars—automobiles with jet engines—and lent them out to members of the public. The fleet logged over a million miles; the exercise was a raging success. These turbine engines would run on any flammable liquid—diesel, heating oil, kerosene, tequila, even Chanel No. 5. If the cars had been mass produced, today we might have cars that do not require petroleum-derived fuels. The engine was also much simpler than the piston engine—it contained far fewer moving parts and required much less maintenance. The cars had no radiators or fan belts and never needed oil changes.Yet Chrysler crushed and burned most of the cars two years later; the jet car’s brief glory was over. Where did it all go wrong? Steve Lehto has interviewed all the surviving members of the turbine car program, from the metallurgist who created the exotic metals for the interior of the engine to the test driver who drove it at Chrysler’s proving grounds for days on end. Lehto takes these firsthand accounts and weaves them into a fascinating story about the coolest car Detroit has ever produced.

"If you have ever turned on the TV after the 11 o'clock news and laughed, you owe Steve Allen a debt of gratitude." That's how Entertainment Weekly described Steve Allen's enormous contribution to American popular culture in a tribute to the legendary entertainer after his death on October 30, 2000. Steve Allen created the Tonight show — America's longest running entertainment show and most successful late-night TV show. In so doing he led the way for other American icons: Johnny Carson, Jack Paar, David Letterman, and Jay Leno. The formula we all now take for granted did not exist before Allen: the desk, the opening monologue, breezy chats with celebrities, wacky stunts, comedy sketches, cameras roaming down the hall and outside the theater, off-the-cuff interviews with passers-by, and ad-lib banter with the studio audience. It's all great fun and it's all due to the incredibly witty, incurably silly, musically gifted, and ever-likeable Steve Allen. Based on exclusive interviews, Ben Alba has produced this wonderful history of the first Tonight show, complete with terrific photos from the show and revealing insights from over 30 entertainment legends who knew and worked with Steve Allen — including Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner, Jonathan Winters, Don Knotts, Louis Nye, Tom Poston, Bill Dana, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, Andy Williams, Tim Conway, the Smothers Brothers, Diahann Carroll, Eartha Kitt, Bill Dana, and Doc Severinsen. In addition, Jay Leno, David Letterman, Bill Maher, Bob Costas, and other TV veterans reflect on Allen's contributions. Starting with Allen's early career in radio, Alba shows how the young radio talent developed many of the elements that would soon light up late-night television. He then highlights Allen's many innovations that made the Tonight show so appealing and enduring: the single-guest and single theme shows, road shows and live segments from across the country, Broadway shows visiting Tonight, creating a forum for jazz artistry and a groundbreaking showcase for African-American talent, musical tributes, and the use of the studio audience as a comedy goldmine. Alba has created an invaluable, entertaining, and revealing behind-the-scenes look at the birth of an American television institution and its brilliant inventor, whose influence continues to make America stay awake and laugh —night after night.