John Leguizamo Recommended Books

A groundbreaking study that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans in 1492.Traditionally, Americans learned in school that the ancestors of the people who inhabited the Western Hemisphere at the time of Columbus’s landing had crossed the Bering Strait twelve thousand years ago; existed mainly in small, nomadic bands; and lived so lightly on the land that the Americas was, for all practical purposes, still a vast wilderness. But as Charles C. Mann now makes clear, archaeologists and anthropologists have spent the last thirty years proving these and many other long-held assumptions wrong.In a book that startles and persuades, Mann reveals how a new generation of researchers equipped with novel scientific techniques came to previously unheard-of conclusions. Among them:• In 1491 there were probably more people living in the Americas than in Europe.• Certain cities–such as Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital–were far greater in population than any contemporary European city. Furthermore, Tenochtitlán, unlike any capital in Europe at that time, had running water, beautiful botanical gardens, and immaculately clean streets.• The earliest cities in the Western Hemisphere were thriving before the Egyptians built the great pyramids.• Pre-Columbian Indians in Mexico developed corn by a breeding process so sophisticated that the journal Science recently described it as “man’s first, and perhaps the greatest, feat of genetic engineering.”• Amazonian Indians learned how to farm the rain forest without destroying it–a process scientists are studying today in the hope of regaining this lost knowledge.• Native Americans transformed their land so completely that Europeans arrived in a hemisphere already massively “landscaped” by human beings.Mann sheds clarifying light on the methods used to arrive at these new visions of the pre-Columbian Americas and how they have affected our understanding of our history and our thinking about the environment. His book is an exciting and learned account of scientific inquiry and revelation.

Legendary actress and teacher Uta Hagen knew that an actor's finest work was often achieved for love rather than for money. She lived this philosophy alongside her husband, Herbert Berghof, at HB Studio, their acting school in New York. It was there that they created a workplace and spiritual home for actors such as Robert DeNiro, Jack Lemmon, Anne Bancroft, and Bette Midler.Respect for Acting is Hagen's blueprint for the actor, her design for "enlightened stage acting." This classic book has helped generations of actors hone their craft, and its advice is as useful now as it was when it was first published. Hagen draws on her own struggle with the techniques of acting as well as her decades of teaching experience to break down the areas in which actors can work and search for realities in themselves that serve the character and the play. This approach helps actors to be specific in their actions in order to communicate an artistic statement. Hagen's instructions and examples also guide the aspiring actor through practical problems such as "How do I talk to the audience?" and "How do I stay fresh in a long run?"Part One, "The Actor," deals with the actor's concept of him or herself, as well as techniques that set an actor in motion physically, verbally, and emotionally.Part Two, "The Object Exercises," offers specific and detailed work for the actor, covering a broad range of problems and circumstances, from making an entrance to using the Fourth Wall.Part Three, "The Play and the Role," covers how to approach the play and identify with the character the actor will undertake. It also shares practical thoughts and answers the questions young actors ask most.Uta Hagen's influence endures in many of today's most compelling stage and screen performances. Informative and inspiring, Respect for Acting will bring her timeless techniques to actors and audiences for years to come.

This book, written in collaboration with Dennis Longwell, follows an acting class of eight men and eight women for fifteen months, beginning with the most rudimentary exercises and ending with affecting and polished scenes from contemporary American plays. Throughout these pages Meisner is delight--always empathizing with his students and urging them onward, provoking emotion, laughter, and growing technical mastery from his charges. With an introduction by Sydney Pollack, director of "Out of Africa" and "Tootsie," who worked with Meisner for five years."This book should be read by anyone who wants to act or even appreciate what acting involves. Like Meisner's way of teaching, it is the straight goods."--Arthur Miller"If there is a key to good acting, this one is it, above all others. Actors, young and not so young, will find inspiration and excitement in this book."--Gregory Peck

Stella Adler was one of the 20th Century's greatest figures. She is arguably the most important teacher of acting in American history. Over her long career, both in New York and Hollywood, she offered her vast acting knowledge to generations of actors, including Marlon Brando, Warren Beatty, and Robert De Niro. The great voice finally ended in the early Nineties, but her decades of experience and teaching have been brilliantly caught and encapsulated by Howard Kissel in the twenty-two lessons in this book.

Since its U.S. debut almost fifty years ago, this brilliant text has set a new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America. It is also an outstanding political economy, a social and cultural narrative of the highest quality, and perhaps the finest description of primitive capital accumulation since Marx.Rather than chronology, geography, or political successions, Eduardo Galeano has organized the various facets of Latin American history according to the patterns of five centuries of exploitation. Thus he is concerned with gold and silver, cacao and cotton, rubber and coffee, fruit, hides and wool, petroleum, iron, nickel, manganese, copper, aluminum ore, nitrates, and tin. These are the veins which he traces through the body of the entire continent, up to the Rio Grande and throughout the Caribbean, and all the way to their open ends where they empty into the coffers of wealth in the United States and Europe.Weaving fact and imagery into a rich tapestry, Galeano fuses scientific analysis with the passions of a plundered and suffering people. An immense gathering of materials is framed with a vigorous style that never falters in its command of themes. All readers interested in great historical, economic, political, and social writing will find a singular analytical achievement, and an overwhelming narrative that makes history speak, unforgettably.This classic is now further honored by Isabel Allende’s inspiring introduction. Universally recognized as one of the most important writers of our time, Allende once again contributes her talents to literature, to political principles, and to enlightenment.

A collection of 125 acting exercises that are based on journal excerpts and dialogues from Mr. Morris' classes. Foreword by Jack Nicholson.

“The definitive source book on acting.”— Los Angeles Times Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Paul Newman, Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Hopper, Robert DeNiro, Marilyn Monroe, and Joanne Woodward—these are only a few of the many actors training in “Method” acting by the great and legendary Lee Strasberg. This revolutionary theory of acting—developed by Stanislavski and continued by Strasberg—has been a major influence on the art of acting in our time. During his last decade, Strasberg devoted himself to a work that would explain once and for all what The Method was and how it worked, as well as telling the story of its development and of the people involved with it. The result is a masterpiece of wisdom and guidance for anyone involved with the theater in any way. “A must for young actors—for old ones, too, for that matter.”— Paul Newman “An exploration of the creative process that will reward all who are interested in the nature of inspiration.”— Library Journal “An important cultural document.”— Booklist

Stanislavski's simple exercises fire the imagination, and help readers not only discover their own conception of reality but how to reproduce it as well.

"A wonderful, splendid book--a book that should be ready by every American, student or otherwise, who wants to understand his country, its true history, and its hope for the future." --Howard FastWith a new introduction by Anthony Arnove, this edition of the classic national bestseller chronicles American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official narrative taught in schools—with its emphasis on great men in high places—to focus on the street, the home and the workplace.Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History of the United States is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of—and in the words of—America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country's greatest battles—the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women's rights, racial equality—were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance.Covering Christopher Columbus's arrival through President Clinton's first term, A People's History of the United States features insightful analysis of the most important events in our history.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A deeply engaging history of how European settlements in the post-Colombian Americas shaped the world—from the highly acclaimed author of 1491 . • "Fascinating...Lively...A convincing explanation of why our world is the way it is." — The New York Times Book ReviewPresenting the latest research by biologists, anthropologists, archaeologists, and historians, Mann shows how the post-Columbian network of ecological and economic exchange fostered the rise of Europe, devastated imperial China, convulsed Africa, and for two centuries made Mexico City—where Asia, Europe, and the new frontier of the Americas dynamically interacted—the center of the world. In this history, Mann uncovers the germ of today's fiercest political disputes, from immigration to trade policy to culture wars. In 1493 , Mann has again given readers an eye-opening scientific interpretation of our past, unequaled in its authority and fascination.