Powerhouse

The Untold Story of Hollywood’s Creative Artists Agency

Description

An astonishing—and astonishingly entertaining—history of Creative Artists Agency, from the #1 bestselling co-author of Live from New York and Those Guys Have All the Fun 

The movies you watch, the TV shows you adore, the concerts and sporting events you attend—behind the curtain of nearly all of these is an immensely powerful and secretive corporation known as Creative Artists Agency. Started in 1975, when five bright and brash employees of a creaky William Morris office left to open their own, strikingly innovative talent agency, CAA would come to revolutionize the entertainment industry, and over the next several decades its tentacles would spread aggressively throughout the worlds of movies, television, music, advertising, and investment banking.

Powerhouse is the fascinating, no-holds-barred saga of that ascent. Drawing on unprecedented and exclusive access to the men and women who built and battled with CAA, as well as financial information never before made public, author James Andrew Miller spins a tale of boundless ambition, ruthless egomania, ceaseless empire building, drugs, sex, greed, and personal betrayal. It is also a story of prophetic brilliance, magnificent artistry, singular genius, entrepreneurial courage, strategic daring, foxhole brotherhood, and how one firm utterly transformed the entertainment business.

Here are the real Star Wars—complete with a Death Star—told through the voices of those who were there. Packed with scores of stars from movies, television, music, and sports, as well as a tremendously compelling cast of agents, studio executives, network chiefs, league commissioners, private equity partners, tech CEOs, and media tycoons, Powerhouse is itself a Hollywood blockbuster of the most spectacular sort.

Praise

“A chronicle of vaunting ambition, immense wealth and power, and personal betrayal all the more astonishing in a business ostensibly built on loyalty and trust… Even more impressive is Miller’s ability to get nearly everyone involved not only to talk but also to go on the record.” — The New York Times Book Review 

“The year’s hottest Hollywood tell-all.” — New York Daily News 

“Probably the most hotly anticipated book since Julia Phillips’s tell-all You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again.” —Variety 

“Eminently readable and moves at a fast pace thanks to dozens of fascinating celebrity stories.” — Mashable

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Live From New York

The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live as Told by Its Stars, Writers, and Guests

Description

Just in time for the 40th anniversary of Saturday Night Live, a rollickingly updated edition of LIVE FROM NEW YORK with nearly 100 new pages covering the past decade.

When first published to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Saturday Night Live, LIVE FROM NEW YORK was immediately proclaimed the best book ever produced on the landmark and legendary late-night show. In their own words, unfiltered and uncensored, a dazzling galaxy of trail-blazing talents recalled three turbulent decades of on-camera antics and off-camera escapades. Now a fourth decade has passed—and bestselling authors James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales have returned to Studio 8H. Over more than 100 pages of new material, they raucously and revealingly take the SNL story up to the present, adding a constellation of iconic new stars, surprises, and controversies.

Praise

“Constantly entertaining….It’s revealing, it’s funny, it’s mesmerizing.”
—Entertainment Weekly

“A guilty pleasure of the highest order…. Live From New York shines.”
—Lev Grossman, Time

“A sharp-clawed, incisive account of how nearly three decades’ worth of comic talent has emerged from a single television show.”
—Janet Maslin, New York Times

“Tremendous fun.”
—Rob Walker, Newsday

“A patchwork of backbiting, humor, intelligence, backbiting, gossip, backbiting, and backbiting.”
—Newsweek

“Refreshing….Shales and Miller paint a detailed landscape portrait of what has become an American cultural icon, one that will guide any attentive reader to a fuller understanding of comedy, TV, and the culture itself.”
—Steve Johnson, Chicago Tribune

“A perfectly woven memoir….You’ll have as much fun as Wayne and Garth at an Alice Cooper concert.”
—Jennifer Wulff, People

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Those Guys Have All The Fun

Inside the World of ESPN

Description

It began, in 1979, as a mad idea of starting a cable channel to televise local sporting events throughout the state of Connecticut. Today, ESPN is arguably the most successful network in modern television history, spanning eight channels in the Unites States and around the world. But the inside story of its rise has never been fully told—until now.

Drawing upon over 500 interviews with the greatest names in ESPN’s history and an All-Star collection of some of the world’s finest athletes, bestselling authors James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales take us behind the cameras. Now, in their own words, the men and women who made ESPN great reveal the secrets behind its success—as well as the many scandals, rivalries, off-screen battles and triumphs that have accompanied that ascent. From the unknown producers and business visionaries to the most famous faces on television, it’s all here.

Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award

Praise

“Perhaps the most anticipated book in sports media history.”
—Neil Best, Newsday

“A revelation: what goes onto the TV screen turns out to be just the glossy tip of an iceberg of ugly backstage drama. Miller and Shales must be extraordinarily talented interviewers, because their subjects are surprisingly uninhibited and frank and willing to dish and slag….[They are] good at zeroing in on a debacle and getting everybody involved to weigh in…by the end of the book you’re amazed at the disconnect between the chaos behind the scenes and the relatively slick end product.”
—Lev Grossman, Time

“Those Guys Have All the Fun delivers a hell of a narrative…[and] an outstanding work of journalism. Easing interviewees into such comfort that they said what they did on record is an enormous achievement for Miller and Shales.”
—Daniel Roberts, Fortune

“Those who work in the business of sport will devour the book…[readers are] granted the kind of behind-the-scenes access that sports media junkies are rarely given.”
—Richard Deitsch, SportsIllustrated.com

“This treat for sports fans has a cast of characters that is huge and varied.”
—Janet Maslin, New York Times

“Those Guys Have All the Fun is a de rigueur read for sports fans who wonder how a fired hockey announcer used a $9,000 credit card advance to start a broadcasting empire that changed what we think about sports and how we view them.”
—Woody Paige, Denver Post

“Packed with entertaining stories of unpleasant people and awful behavior….[Those Guys Have All the Fun] offers a nuanced look at ESPN, does some top-notch TV-biz reporting on the early days of the cable industry, and offers compelling behind-the-scenes stories…[It is] a serious, impressive, piece of work.”
—Rob Brunner, Entertainment Weekly

“Fascinating and compulsively readable.”
—Tim Marchman, The Wall Street Journal

“A fascinating little-engine-that-could tale of money, power and the early days of cable television.”
—Clint O’Connor, Cleveland Plain Dealer

“As highly anticipated by sports junkies as a Chicago Cubs championship, [Those Guys Have All the Fun] provides painstaking details on how a nutty idea concocted by a father-son team developed into a brand worth more than the NHL, MLB and NBA combined…Shales and Miller manage to create a page-turning document about the ultimate dysfunctional workplace.”
—Neil Justin, Minneapolis Star Tribune

“What a story: larger-than-life personalities, salacious gossip, backstabbing and corporate intrigue set against the backdrop of the rise of cable television as an economic and cultural force….The quotes flow seamlessly, and the voices are fresh and vibrant…The depth and breadth of the interviews make it not only the definitive account of ESPN’s first three decades but one of the best books yet on how cable shaped American culture.”
—Andy Lewis, Hollywood Reporter

“A rollicking glimpse behind the guys and gals who sport around at ESPN, America’s sports church. Amen.”
—Publishers Weekly

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Running In Place

Inside The Senate

Description

Drawing on his experience as aide to former Majority Leader Howard Baker, the author lays open the workings of the U.S. Senate in a chronicle of a typical week on Capitol Hill.

Praise

“This is a lively, knowing, readable—and discouraging—book. If you feel you need to know—and you do—why the Senate has such trouble getting its work done, Jim Miller is your man. No one has written better about the increasing role of Senate staffers.”
—Senator Daniel Patrick Moyhihan

“Jim Miller has shown us the Senate as it really operates. Drawing from his own considerable know-how, he has given us what Lyndon Johnson used to call history with the bark off. It would be hard to imagine any portrait more subtle in its shadings, or so revealing in its details. After this, a lot of civics books may have to be rewritten.”
—Senate Majority Leader Robert J. Dole

“Jim Miller has served the republic well by showing us how even the elite of the Grand Old Senate—the brightest stars in the Congressional firmament—find their glory mixed with ashes, their power as limp as an old shoelace. The new Senate mirrors the new America, and neither can quite understand what has happened. They should read RUNNING IN PLACE.”
—Bill Moyers

“RUNNING IN PLACE provides a vivid and utterly convincing inside look at the modern U.S. Senate, revealing a refuge not of scoundrels but of relative newcomers—headstrong novices whose individual reaches exceed their collective grasp. Miller’s expertly drawn and intimate portraits of Senators and their aides in action help us understand the periodic despair of Senate leaders, who can meet today’s problems and match yesterday’s legends only by coaxing self-discipline and greatness from a Senate in constant danger of dissolving into a welter of competing personalities and conflicting personal agendas. Senators and their aides may resent the frankness of this book, but not if they read it carefully. For by exposing the Senate’s failures and foibles, Miller also shows just how worthy of renewed respect the Senate by its own efforts might easily become.”
—Eric Redman, Author of The Dance of Legislation

“RUNNING IN PLACE is a wonderful book. It manages to shed light on an important political issue—why the U.S. Congress has broken down—without losing its deft, entertaining touch or its observant eye. I learned from it and enjoyed every page.”
—James M. Fallows, Author of Who Runs Congress?

“Jim Miller’s book is an excellent introduction to politics as it actually goes on at the leadership level in the U.S. Senate. The treatments of Senators Baker and Domenici and several influential staff members are deft and interesting. Miller uses the experiences of a well-chosen week of Senate activity to put across the essentials of Senate processes.”
—David Mayhew, Professor of Government, Yale University

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