Joseph Brooker Popular Books
Joseph Brooker Biography & Facts
Joseph Brooks, born Joseph Kaplan (March 11, 1938 – May 22, 2011), was an American composer, director, producer, and screenwriter. He was a prolific writer of advertising jingles and wrote the hit songs "My Ship Is Comin' In", "If Ever I See You Again", and "You Light Up My Life", the last for the hit film of the same name that he also wrote, directed, and produced. In his later years he became the subject of an investigation after being accused of a series of casting-couch rapes. He was indicted in 2009, but killed himself on May 22, 2011, before his trial. Early life and singing career Brooks was born Joseph Kaplan on March 11, 1938 in Manhattan, and grew up in Manhattan and Lawrence, Long Island, New York. In later interviews, he claimed to have started playing piano at age 3 and writing plays at age 5, following his parents' divorce. As a child, he also developed a stutter that, according to his production partner Robert K. Lifton, would disappear when Brooks sang or acted. He later attended five different colleges, including Juilliard, but did not graduate from any. In the late 1950s, Brooks pursued a career as a singer-songwriter, adopting the name "Joey Brooks" (later changed to "Joe Brooks" or "Joseph Brooks") He released several records on the Canadian-American label as "Joey Brooks", and on Decca as "Joey Brooks and the Baroque Folk". When his singing career failed, he drifted into advertising and occasional songwriting work, although he sporadically released several more records throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Advertising, film and stage career In the 1960s, Brooks composed advertising jingles for clients including Pepsi ("You've Got a Lot to Live") and Maxwell House ("Good to the Last Drop Feeling"). He received numerous Clio Awards for his work, as well as a People's Choice Award. Credited as "Joey Brooks", he also wrote the song "My Ship Is Comin' In", a Top Ten UK hit in 1966 for the Walker Brothers. In the 1970s, Brooks, who had become wealthy from his advertising work (at one point claiming to have 150 commercials on the air), began composing for films. He wrote music for the American release of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970), Marjoe (1972), and The Lords of Flatbush (1974) in which he was also an investor. He wrote "Blue Balloon (The Hourglass Song)" which was sung by Robby Benson as the theme song for the film Jeremy (1973), and further claimed to have written, cast and directed most of Jeremy, although Arthur Barron was the sole writer and director of record. Brooks' claim was recognized by New York Times film critic Roger Greenspun, who wrote that "it seems fair to suggest that, in whatever proportion, both men were involved in the authorship of the film." Brooks next developed his own film project, You Light Up My Life, which he wrote, produced, directed and scored on a budget of approximately $1 million. The romantic drama about an aspiring singer, starring Didi Conn, became a box office success despite poor reviews. The title song Brooks composed for the film was an even bigger success; a cover version by Debby Boone reached #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart and held the top position for 10 consecutive weeks, at that time tied for the longest Number One reign in the chart's history. With sales of over five million copies, the song ultimately became the biggest hit of the 1970s, and earned Brooks a Grammy Award for Song of the Year, an Academy Award for Best Original Song, a Golden Globe Award and an American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) award. Brooks attempted to follow up his success with a similar romantic drama, If Ever I See You Again (1978), for which Brooks not only co-wrote, produced, directed and scored, but also played the leading role (a successful composer of TV commercial jingles, much like himself in real life), despite having no significant prior acting experience. Although the title song became a moderate hit for Roberta Flack, peaking at #24 on the Hot 100 chart, the movie received sharply negative reviews and was a box-office bomb. Brooks was subsequently involved in several other films, including directing and scoring Invitation to the Wedding (1983) in which Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud appeared, and co-producing Eddie and the Cruisers (1983) (which Brooks did not score). In the late 1990s, he and his then-wife Christina Bone began developing a film entitled Sara's Life Before It Became a Movie, which was never released. Brooks also worked on stage productions, composing and writing for the 1989 West End musical adaptation of Metropolis and writing, directing and producing the Broadway musical In My Life (2005), a love story about a female Village Voice personals editor with obsessive-compulsive disorder and a musician with Tourette's syndrome who are brought together by a jingle-singing God. Robert Simonson later wrote in Brooks' Playbill obituary that In My Life was "generally regarded as one of the strangest shows ever to have graced a Broadway stage." When In My Life was panned by critics including Ben Brantley of The New York Times, who called it "jaw-dropping moments of whimsy run amok", Brooks spent $1.5 million on ads saying that the critics were wrong. Many sources have described Brooks as an egomaniac. His career was curtailed in 2008 by a stroke. Sexual assault indictment In June 2009, Brooks was arrested on charges of raping or sexually assaulting eleven women lured to his East Side apartment from 2005 to 2008. His female assistant, Shawni Lucier, was charged with helping him. "She picked the victims, set up travel arrangements and reassured them,” said Lisa Friel, chief of the district attorney's sex crimes unit. At times, she said, Ms. Lucier also reassured mothers worried about sending their daughters alone to New York on flights paid for by Mr. Brooks. And, she said, Ms. Lucier was sometimes present in the apartment when the women arrived, but left before the assaults. At least four of the women accused him of sexual assault. He allegedly lured the women to his apartment to audition for movie roles. According to Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, the women responded to a notice that Brooks had posted on Craigslist seeking attractive women to star in movie roles, and flew to New York from Pacific Coast states or Florida, usually at Brooks' expense. He was indicted on June 23, 2009. He was to be tried in the state Supreme Court for Manhattan (a trial-level court) on 91 counts of rape, sexual abuse, criminal sexual act, assault, and other charges. In December 2009, prosecutors indicated that they would ask the grand jury to consider adding even more charges, in part because "additional victims" had come forward. However, Brooks committed suicide on May 22, 2011, before he could be tried. Three days after Brooks' death, Shawni Lucier pleaded guilty to ten counts of criminal facilitation. P.... Discover the Joseph Brooker popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Joseph Brooker books.
Best Seller Joseph Brooker Books of 2024
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Think and Grow Rich
Greg Habstritt & Napoleon HillThink and Grow Rich is one of the most popular success book of alltime, having sold more than 60 million copies since it was first published more than 70...
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Eternal
W.J. MayShe will fight for what is hers. When the king is murdered, Katerina, his only daughter, must flee for her life. She finds herself on a strange and dangerous path. Alone for the fi...
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You Are Kind
Michael GordonA little kindness goes a long way. How can you help encourage your kids to be kind from a young age? Teach kindness to preschoolers Acts of kindness can be fun, easy, and make a ...
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How to Choose a Guy in 10 Days
Lila MonroeThe only thing more hilarious than the movies is… real life?! Fall in love with the sizzling grumpysunshine romantic comedy perfect for fans of Sophie Kinsella and Ali Hazlewood! ...
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Noxious
Lexy TimmsStop setting yourself on fire to keep someone else warm. Brady and Levi have been together since high school, since before he became famous and started thinking only about himself....
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Escape, A New Life
David J AntocciTo save herself, she had to lose everything. Trapped in a tropical paradise with no memory of how she got there, Abby is thrust into a fight for her life. Hunted by a madman, and c...
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Masters of Restraint
Ines JohnsonMy new boss is good at giving orders. But his latest demand is NSFW. Especially when his two business partners want in on our deal. My new boss My boss’s boss Their investor &#...
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All Fired Up
Kathryn ShayCaptain Jarek Zenko, a war veteran and firefighter, meets Lacey Roth at a bar one night. They don’t share their real identities, even when they retreat to a hotel. When they meet t...
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Christmas in Sweetbriar Cove
Melody GraceCelebrate the holidays in Sweetbriar Cove with this festive romance collection, containing two sizzling smalltown holiday stories perfect for fans of Tessa Bailey, Sophie Kinsella...
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Death at Hazel House
Betty Rowlands‘Riveting, can't put it down! I love this story… a wonderfully twisted tale of a crime that has more twists than I thought possible... fantastic.’ Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars ...
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Enemies With Benefits
Roxie NoirI don’t love him. I don’t even like him. I just want him. Eli Loveless was my nemesis from the first day of kindergarten until we graduated high school. Everything I did, he had to...
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Bewitching a Highlander
Roma CordonDefying all for the love of a bewitching lass. Breena MacRae, a healer from Skye with a touch of witchery in her blood, embarks on a dangerous search for her missing father. She ar...
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The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
L. Frank BaumAn Apple Books Classic edition. You’ve seen the iconic 1939 movie, but do you know about the talking field mice, the Winkies, and the Witch of the North that appear in the original...
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The Odyssey
HomerAn Apple Books Classic edition. Homer’s eighthcentury epic poem is a companion to The Iliad . It tells the story of Odysseus, who journeys by ship for 10 years after the Trojan War...
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Assisting the Bosshole
Kristin MacQueenNo hot water? Check Missed the train? Check Broke my heel? Check Dropped my coffee? Check My first day of my new job can’t possibly go worse, right? Wrong. When I meet Parker Scott...
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Hot Off the Press
Lexy Timms"This is what really happened… reported by a free press, for a free people…" Wes Shaw leads a secret double life. As the secret owner of a billion dollar newspap...
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Meditations
Emperor of Rome Marcus AureliusMeditations is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor 161–180 CE, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy.
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Dream Psychology
Sigmund FreudAn Apple Books Classic edition. Written by the founding father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud’s 1899 book is the definitive text on learning to interpret dreams. Freud’s groundbr...
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A Christmas Carol
Charles DickensAn Apple Books Classic edition. It’s Christmas Eve in Victorian England. While some families don’t know where their next meal will come from, Ebenezer Scrooge sits in his large hom...
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The Art of War
Sun TzuAn Apple Books Classic edition. It’s believed that Sun Tzu wrote this Chinese military primer during the 5th century BChundreds of years before the Bible. The book’s 13 chapters ex...
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Silenced Girls
Roger Stelljes“ Wow wow wow!  Grips you in a choke hold and  does not let go … Oozes suspense and  bonechilling twists and turns .  Astonishing … One of those...
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The Target
Lexy TimmsWhen you seek revenge be sure to dig two graves… Revenge was the only thing I had going for me. It kept me awake at night and drove me into desperate situations in dive bars across...
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Wuthering Heights
Emily BrontëAn Apple Books Classic edition. If you’ve only ever seen Wuthering Heights on screen, you may have an image of Catherine and Heathcliff as the ultimate starcrossed lovers. But that...
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Holy Bible
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SaintsThe 2013 edition of the Holy Bible contains all of the study aids contained in the 1979 edition and includes revisions to the study aids, several new photos, updated maps, and adju...
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The Cupcake Cottage
Jean OramNHL player Maverick Blades could fall in love with anyone... But he had to fall for a woman who falls under the Bro Code as untouchablehis best friend’s beautiful ex, DaisyMae Ray....
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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Arthur Conan DoyleAn Apple Books Classic You get not one, not two, but 25 gripping mysteries in Arthur Conan Doyle’s first of five collections of Sherlock Holmes short stories. Follow the brilliant ...
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The Honeymoon Homicide
J. R. Mathis & Susan MathisEnjoy this SmallTown Murder Mystery Featuring A Unique Sleuthing Couple I'm Father Tom Greer, a Catholic Priest in a smalltown parish who never expected this . . . When I came...
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Awaken Me
Jenna JacobHe was more than a ghost haunting my dreams…he was real. By day, I’m Julianna Garrett …a prim, proper accountant. By night, I’m tormented by dreams of an alpha, ambereyed Adonis wh...
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Becoming Lady Dalton
Carrie LomaxA dance of desire and deceit... In the glittering world of London's ton, Mrs. Viola Cartwright revels in her newfound freedom as a lady of leisureuntil a series of jewel theft...
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Once Upon A One-Night Stand
Zoey LockeAt first sight, there was electrifying chemistry.  So why not go for it? After all, Lynx Grove, the city's most eligible bachelor, wants to claim her, at least for th...
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Dark Psychology and Manipulation
Margaret MorrisonTHE MENTAL MANIPULATOR WILL NO LONGER KEEP SECRETS FROM YOU! Are you fed up with the wool being pulled over your eyes?Are you prepared to stand up to those who believe they can man...
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The Great Gatsby
F. Scott FitzgeraldAn Apple Books Classics edition. The Roaring Twenties are in full effect in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s riveting classic. Manabouttown Jay Gatsby seems to have it all, including loads of...
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Nothing to Hide
Scarlett FinnPrize of a lifetime: travel the world with a celebrity billionaire. Come to LA with us, Roxie… It will be so much fun! We have tickets for a latenight talk show! What could possibl...
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The Next Girl
Carla KovachIF YOU ONLY READ ONE BOOK THIS YEAR, MAKE IT THE NEXT GIRL... You thought he’d come to save you. You were wrong. ‘ Absolutely the best thriller I’ve read this year! ’ Goodreads Rev...
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Whiskey Girl
Melissa BelleThey'll do anything for each other…except commit. Logan Wild isn’t just the hottest broncriding cowboy in Texas. He’s also my best friendwith benefits. And that’s all we’ll ev...
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Never Enough
Lexy TimmsBe good enough never is... Anthony Accardi is a man on a mission: make his father's watch company a success while bringing in millions of dollars. To do that, he needs an assi...
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Man In The Water
Jon HillAn attempted murder. A missing spouse. And an international conspiracy that could change the world. Jack Green has always been skeptical of socalled facts. Though he's forced ...
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Teach Me
Cassandra DeanFrom awardwinning author Cassandra Dean comes a tale where lessons of pleasure between a curious, sunshine widow and a dissolute, grumpy earl leads to passion and allconsuming love...
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A Bookshop to Die For
M.P. BlackDitching her fiancé at the altar, Alice Hartford bolts to her childhood hometown to reconnect with the last, happy remnant of her past: her mom's old bookstore. But the bookst...
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My Paper Heart
Magan VernonOne piece of paper can change everything After my parents received the letter I failed out of college, they didn't ask questions. They just sent me to work for my great aunt i...
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Tempting the King
Jessa YorkAn escaped Mafia Queen, hiding from her past. A Mafia King who wants to claim her… Giselle They think I'm lostbut I know better. I can never be found. The path I've creat...
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Inception of Gold
Lexy TimmsThings are not as bad as they seem. They are worse. Being the personal assistant to a narcissistic actress who just happens to own the key to my family's undoing isn't ex...
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The Three Little Pigs
Mark LeskyClassic fairy tales, legends and folk stories in short version without violence retold with lovely illustrations in simple language. Perfect for reading aloud to small chi...
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Teased by Fire
Molly O'HareFrom USA Today bestselling author Molly O’Hare comes an enemiestolovers, older brother’s best friend, romantic comedy with a curvy, antisocial, supernaturalobsessed, allyearround h...
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Little Women
Louisa May AlcottAn Apple Books Classic edition. Meet the Marches! Louisa May Alcott’s classic introduces us to four unforgettable sisters: beautiful Meg, tomboyish Jo, delicate Beth, and Amy, the ...
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The Four Loves
C. S. LewisThe Four Loves summarizes four kinds of human loveaffection, friendship, erotic love, and the love of God. Masterful without being magisterial, this book's wise, gentle, candi...
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Finding Cinderella
Colleen Hoover#1 New York Times bestselling author of It Starts with Us and It Ends With Us writes a free novella about the search for happily ever after. A chance encounter in the dark leads ei...
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A Green Kind of Witch
Sierra CrossCinderella crossed with Mean Girls.   That's what Hazel's daily existence feels like. Born to a family of elegant yet shallow Beige Witches, seventeen y...
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Always Yours
Claire RayeSome things are just meant to be... Ellen Somerville and Will McIntyre met by accident and under unusual circumstances. Getting sprayed by a skunk in a parking lot wouldn’t normall...
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The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel HawthorneAn Apple Books Classic edition. Hester Prynne lives in infamy. After committing adultery and bearing a child with a man whose name she refuses to divulge, the heroine of Nathaniel ...