Provides a personal look at the man behind the writing through an amusing collection of his expressed opinions and thoughts on such topics as such as fellow writers, authors, editors, children's books, humor, and public speakers.

Mark My Words: Mark Twain on Writing

Literature & Fiction

Dawidziak, Mark

TWAIN,MARK

United States

St Martins Pr

Published in 1897, Bram Stoker's Dracula was the last of the nineteenth century's three major horror stories. It followed Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but Stoker's novel had the greater impact on our culture and our nightmares. Count Dracula has been called the king of the vampires, but, in truth, he is the king of all the monsters, and his influence can be seen everywhere today: in everything from the number-obsessed count on sesame street to the vast fandom for Anne Rice's vampire chronicles. He is arguably the most recognized of characters, not the least of which is the iconic performance of Bella Lugosi. With Stoker's novel serving as the backbone, this Bedside, Bathtub &amp; Armchair Companion to the world's most famous vampire considers all aspects of the Dracula phenomenon in often entertaining and unexpected ways-in the Bedside tradition: the book, its author, its psychological and sociological implications, the stage plays, the movies, television versions, the actors, and, of course, the historical Dracula, Vlad the Impaler.

Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair Companion to Dracula: The Essential Guide to the Un-Dead

Humor & Entertainment

Movies

Continuum

Outlines, explains, discusses and comments on episodes of the popular Columbo television series

The Columbo Phile: A Casebook

Television

Mysterious Pr

Discusses the origins, plots, and personnel of the innovative television mystery show which starred Peter Falk as the scruffy Detective Columbo.

Published in 1982, The Barter Theatre Story: Love Made Visible tells the colorful history of a remarkable American cultural institution. Opened by native Virginian Robert Porterfield in 1933, the Barter Theatre offered the people of Abingdon, Virginia, and the surrounding area entertainment and a much-needed escape from their Depression-era working lives. It became the State Theatre of Virginia in 1946 and it is where the likes of Gregory Peck, Ernest Borgnine, Patricia Neal, Ned Beatty, and Hume Cronyn got their starts. Mark Dawidziak, a journalist from New York who spent much of his twenties in Appalachia and grew to admire the theater, tells the improbable story of the Barter Theatre, which remains one of the last year-round professional resident repertory theaters in the country.

The Barter Theatre Story: Love Made Visible

Appalachian Consortium Pr

Can you live your life by what The Twilight Zone has to teach you? Yes, and maybe you should. The proof is in this lighthearted collection of life lessons, ground rules, inspirational thoughts, and stirring reminders found in Rod Serling’s timeless fantasy series. Written by veteran TV critic, Mark Dawidziak, this unauthorized tribute is a celebration of the classic anthology show, but also, on another level, a kind of fifth-dimension self-help book, with each lesson supported by the morality tales told by Serling and his writers.
The notion that “it’s never too late to reinvent yourself” soars through “The Last Flight,’’ in which a World War I flier who goes forward in time and gets the chance to trade cowardice for heroism. A visit from an angel blares out the wisdom of “follow your passion” in “A Passage for Trumpet.” The meaning of “divided we fall” is driven home with dramatic results when neighbors suspect neighbors of being invading aliens in “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” The old maxim about never judging a book by its cover is given a tasty twist when an alien tome is translated in “To Serve Man.”

Everything I Need to Know I Learned in the Twilight Zone: A Fifth-Dimension Guide to Life

Thomas Dunne Books

Now with important life lessons from the Jordan Peele reboot, the earlier TV reboot, and the 1983 movie. Can you live your life by whatThe Twilight Zone has to teach you? Yes, and maybe you should. The proof is in this lighthearted collection of life lessons, ground rules, inspirational thoughts, and stirring reminders found in Rod Serling's timeless fantasy series. The notion that "it's never too late to reinvent yourself" soars through "The Last Flight,'' in which a World War I flier goes forward in time and gets the chance to trade cowardice for heroism. A visit from an angel blares out the wisdom of "follow your passion" in "A Passage for Trumpet." The meaning of "divided we fall" is driven home with dramatic results when neighbors suspect neighbors of being invading aliens in "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street." The old maxim about never judging a book by its cover is given a tasty twist when an alien tome is translated in "To Serve Man." An unauthorized tribute,Everything I Need to Know I Learned in the Twilight Zone, written by veteran TV critic Mark Dawidziak, is a celebration of the classic anthology show; but also, on another level, a kind of fifth-dimension self-help book, with each lesson supported by the morality tales told by Serling and his writers.

Everything I Need to Know I Learned in the Twilight Zone

Griffin

A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe

A Mystery of Mysteries is a brilliant biography of Edgar Allan Poe that examines the renowned author’s life through the prism of his mysterious death and its many possible causes.\nIt is a moment shrouded in horror and mystery. Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7, 1849, at just forty, in a painful, utterly bizarre manner that would not have been out of place in one of his own tales of terror. What was the cause of his untimely death, and what happened to him during the three missing days before he was found, delirious and “in great distress” on the streets of Baltimore, wearing ill-fitting clothes that were not his own?\nMystery and horror. Poe, who remains one of the most iconic of American writers, died under haunting circumstances that reflect the two literary genres he took to new heights. Over the years, there has been a staggering amount of speculation about the cause of death, from rabies and syphilis to suicide, alcoholism, and even murder. But many of these theories are formed on the basis of the caricature we have come to associate with Poe: the gloomy-eyed grandfather of Goth, hunched over a writing desk with a raven perched on one shoulder, drunkenly scribbling his chilling masterpieces. By debunking the myths of how he lived, we come closer to understanding the real Poe―and uncovering the truth behind his mysterious death, as a new theory emerges that could prove the cause of Poe’s death was haunting him all his life.\nIn a compelling dual-timeline narrative alternating between Poe’s increasingly desperate last months and his brief but impactful life, Mark Dawidziak sheds new light on the enigmatic master of macabre.

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

St.Martin's Press

St. Martin's: Griffin

Published in 1982, The Barter Theatre Story: Love Made Visible tells the colorful history of a remarkable American cultural institution. Opened by native Virginian Robert Porterfield in 1933, the Barter Theatre offered the people of Abingdon, Virginia, and the surrounding area entertainment and a much-needed escape from their Depression-era working lives. It became the State Theatre of Virginia in 1946 and it is where the likes of Gregory Peck, Ernest Borgnine, Patricia Neal, Ned Beatty, and Hume Cronyn got their starts. Mark Dawidziak, a journalist from New York who spent much of his twenties in Appalachia and grew to admire the theater, tells the improbable story of the Barter Theatre, which remains one of the last year-round professional resident repertory theaters in the country.

History

Americas

Appalachian State University

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Dawidziak, Mark. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Dawidziak, Mark

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Dawidziak, Mark. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Mark My Words: Mark Twain on Writing

Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair Companion to Dracula: The Essential Guide to the Un-Dead

The Columbo Phile: A Casebook

The Columbo Phile: A Casebook

The Barter Theatre Story: Love Made Visible

Everything I Need to Know I Learned in the Twilight Zone: A Fifth-Dimension Guide to Life

Everything I Need to Know I Learned in the Twilight Zone

A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe

A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe

The Barter Theatre Story: Love Made Visible