Tom Bissell Livres

In 2003, an independent film called The Room - starring and written, produced, directed by a mysteriously wealthy social misfit of indeterminate age and origin named Tommy Wiseau - made its disastrous debut in Los Angeles. Described by one reviewer as "like getting stabbed in the head," the six-million-dollar film earned a grand total of $1800 at the box office and closed after two weeks. Ten years later, The Room is an international cult phenomenon. Thousands of fans wait in line for hours to attend screenings complete with costumes, audience rituals, merchandising, and thousands of plastic spoons. This book recounts the film's long, strange journey to infamy, unraveling mysteries for fans, also giving a portrait of a mysterious man who got past every road block in the Hollywood system to achieve success on his own terms

Peter, Matthew, Thomas, John :Who were these men and what was their relationship to Jesus? Tom Bissell gives us rich and deeply informed answers to those ancient questions.Written with warmth, humour, and a rare acumen, Apostle is a brilliant and exhaustive synthesis of travel writing, centuries of biblical history, and a deep lifelong relationship with Christianity. Bissell explores not just who these renowned and pious men were (and weren't), but how their identities have taken shape over two millennia.Bissell, in his search for this elusive set of truths, has traveled the world, visiting holy sites from Rome and Jerusalem to Turkey, India, and Kyrgyzstan, and he captures vividly the rich diversity of Christianity's global reach. Apostle is an unusual, erudite, and hilarious book, an intoxicating combination of religious, intellectual, and personal adventure.

Through a personal lens, a veteran shares his Vietnam War experiences, including a near-fatal injury, while his son, Tom Bissell, intertwines these stories with broader historical context and ongoing debates about the war. This narrative combines elements of history, memoir, and travelogue, offering insights into the war's lasting effects on personal and cultural levels. It also delves into the profound relationship between fathers and sons, making it a poignant exploration of their bond amidst the backdrop of a tumultuous era.

The narrative follows Tom Bissell's journey to Uzbekistan, where he initially served as a Peace Corps volunteer. Despite a brief stay due to illness, he becomes captivated by the country. Five years later, he returns to investigate the environmental impact of Soviet irrigation on the Aral Sea, accompanied by a lively translator named Rustam. Their adventurous trek leads them into precarious encounters with Uzbek police as they navigate the region's challenges and explore its haunting beauty.

Focusing on the early development of Christianity, the narrative explores the diverse interpretations of Jesus's ministry and the resulting schisms that shaped the faith. Tom Bissell undertakes a pilgrimage to the tombs of the apostles, traversing multiple countries including Israel, Turkey, and India. His journey reveals the enigmatic lives of the apostles and how their legacies have evolved over two thousand years, highlighting the complexities of the world's largest religion.

A personal assessment of the author's addiction to video games explores his favorites, their roles as modern forms of popular art, and their habit-forming appeal while considering how he has neglected his professional and social responsibilities in favorof gaming activities.

Stephen King praises Tom Bissell as a captivating American writer in the introduction to a collection of 17 stories centered around the theme of fear and turbulence associated with flying. The anthology features a variety of authors, each contributing their unique take on the unsettling experiences that can occur in the skies. Through these tales, readers are invited to explore the psychological and emotional aspects of flight, making it a compelling read for both aviation enthusiasts and those intrigued by the darker side of travel.

"In 1960, the Aral Sea was the size of Lake Michigan: a huge body of water in the deserts of central Asia. By 1996, when Tom Bissell arrived in Uzbekistan as a naive Peace Corps volunteer, disastrous Soviet irrigation policies had shrunk the sea to a third its size. Bissell lasted only a few months before complications forced him to return home." "Five years later, Bissell convinces a magazine to send him to Central Asia to investigate the Aral Sea's destruction. There he joins forces with a high-spirited young Uzbek named Rustam, and together they make their often wild way through the ancient cities - Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara - of this fascinating but often misunderstood part of the world. Slipping more than once through the clutches of the Uzbek police, who suspect them of crimes ranging from Christian evangelism to heroin smuggling, the two young men develop an unlikely friendship as they journey to the shores of the devastated sea." "Along the way, Bissell provides a history of the Uzbeks, recounting their region's long, violent subjugation by despots such as Jenghiz Khan and Joseph Stalin. He conjures the people of Uzbekistan with depth and empathy, and he captures their contemporary struggles to cope with Islamist terrorism, the legacy of totalitarianism, and the profound environmental and human damage wrought by the sea's disappearance."--Jacket.

In April 1975, as Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese Army, former Marine officer John Bissell was glued to his television, racked with anguish and horror as his country abandoned a cause for which so many of his friends had died. This book is his son Tom's reckoning with the Vietnam War and its impact on his father, his country, and Vietnam itself. Bissell also explores the many debates about the war, and shows how the war has continued to influence American views on foreign policy more than thirty years later. At the heart of the book is John and Tom Bissell's journey back to Vietnam. As they travel the country and talk to Vietnamese veterans, we relive the war as John Bissell experienced it, visit the site of his near-fatal wounding, and hear him explain how Vietnam shaped him and so many of his generation.--From publisher description.

Somewhere in the not-so-distant future the residents of Ennet House, a Boston halfway house for recovering addicts, and students at the nearby Enfield Tennis Academy are ensnared in the search for the master copy of INFINITE JEST, a movie said to be so dangerously entertaining its viewers become entranced and expire in a state of catatonic bliss . . . 'Wallace's exuberance and intellectual impishness are a delight, and he has deep things to say about the hollowness of contemporary American pleasure . . . sentences and whole pages are marvels of cosmic concentration . . . Wallace is a superb comedian of culture' James Wood, GUARDIAN