Search results for ""author holly"
Little, Brown Book Group Radiance
Severin Unck is the headstrong young daughter of a world famous film director. She has inherited her father's love of the big screen but not his exuberant gothic style of filmmaking. Instead, Severin makes documentaries, artful and passionate and even rather brave - for she is a realist in a fantastic alternate universe, in which Hollywood occupies the moon, Mars is rife with lawless saloons, and the solar system contains all manner of creatures, cults and colonies. For Severin's latest project she leads her crew to the watery planet of Venus to investigate the disappearance of a diving colony there. But something goes wrong during the course of their investigations; and her crew limp home without her. All that remains of Severin are fragments. Can these snippets of scenes and shots, voices and memories, pages and recordings be collected and pieced together to tell the story of her life - and shed light on the mystery of her vanishing? Clever, dreamy, strange and beautifully written - Radiance is a novel about how stories give form to worlds.
£9.99
Pan Macmillan Neighbours: A Powerful Story Of Human Connection From The Billion Copy Bestseller
Neighbours is a novel of friendship, support, trust and love, and what it takes to bring people together, by the world’s favourite storyteller Danielle Steel.Meredith White was one of Hollywood’s most recognizable faces. But a personal tragedy cut her career short and alienated her from her family. For the last fifteen years, Meredith has shut herself away from the world, living in her San Francisco mansion.Then, on a late summer day, a devastating earthquake strikes, plunging the city into chaos. Without hesitation, Meredith invites her now homeless neighbours into her largely undamaged house as the recovery begins.From the respected doctor, to the beautiful young woman whose boyfriend views her as a rich man’s toy, to the brilliant concert pianist in his eighties, each has a story and a closely guarded secret that will slowly be revealed.Strangers become friends and relationships are forged as they support each other through not just the aftermath of the earthquake, but their own personal crises.As Meredith finds herself venturing back into the world she suddenly sees her isolation, her estranged family and even her career in a whole new light. And thanks to the suspicions of one of her new acquaintances, a shocking truth in her own life is exposed . . .
£9.04
Hal Leonard Corporation Action!: Establishing Your Career in Film and Television Production
A life in the movies has been an American dream for a century. Many people dream of becoming Hollywood professionals but either aim too high (by trying to produce their own feature film) or too low (by hanging around restaurants frequented by movie stars) and end up frustrated. Wouldn't it be great if someone who knew what to do someone who had achieved acclaim in the field would walk us through the steps to success? At last here is a book by a seasoned movie and television professional Emmy winner Sandra Gordon that is filled with practical yet highly effective ways to build a career in entertainment. Gordon calls upon her own experience working on the television series PARTY OF FIVE the movie RUDY and many more.ÞÞThere are many books that teach job-seekers how to write resumes or ace interviews but not many books like ACTION! Uniquely designed for individuals who are interested in a career in the entertainment industry whether they are recent college graduates or middle-aged career changers ACTION! takes the formula out of the job-hunting book to the next step telling its readers not only how to write their resumes but where to send them how to keep their jobs once they are hired and how to advance in their career.
£12.99
University of Exeter Press British Cinema and Middlebrow Culture in the Interwar Years
British Cinema and Middlebrow Culture in the Interwar Years offers an understanding of British Cinema between 1928 and 1939 through an analysis of the relationship between the British film industry and other ‘culture industries’ such as the radio, music recording, publishing and early television. This relationship has been seen as a weakness of the British film-making tradition, but Lawrence Napper stages a re-appraisal of that tradition, arguing that it is part of a specific strategy of differentiation from Hollywood cinema, designed to appeal to the ‘middlebrow’ aesthetic of the most rapidly expanding audience of the period—the lower middle class. Lawrence Napper argues that the ‘middlebrow’ reputation for aesthetic conservatism masks an audience and popular culture marked by dynamism. ‘Middlebrow’ texts addressed a British audience on the move, physically (into the new suburbs), socially (as upwardly mobile consumers), economically (employed in new and developing industries, and involved in new modes of living), and culturally (embracing new forms of mass cultural consumption, such as the cinema, the wireless and the best-selling novel). The ability of these audiences to adapt cultures of the past to the media of modern life (through stage or screen adaptations) ensured their negative reputation amongst Modernist commentators and intellectual elites.
£75.00
Little, Brown & Company The Rules of Love & Grammar
Newly jobless, newly single, and suddenly apartmentless, writer Grace Hammond has come unmoored. A grammar whiz who's brilliant at correcting other people's errors, she hasn't yet found quite the right set of rules for fixing her own mistakes.Desperate to escape the city and her trifecta of problems, Grace hits pause and retreats to her Connecticut hometown. What begins as a short visit with her parents quickly becomes a far more meaningful stay, though, as she discovers that the answers to what her future holds might be found by making peace with-and even embracing-the past.As Grace sets out to change her ways and come to terms, finally, with the tragedy that took her older sister's life so many years ago, she rekindles a romance with her high school sweetheart, Peter, now a famous Hollywood director who's filming a movie in town. Sparks also fly at the local bike shop, where Grace's penchant for pointing out what's wrong rattles the owner's ruggedly handsome schoolteacher son, Mitch.Torn between the promise of a glamorous life and the allure of the familiar, Grace must decide what truly matters-and whether it's time for her to throw away the rule book and bravely follow her heart.
£17.09
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Timebends: A Life
'A beautifully structured narrative: tough, very moving, a political testimony of considerable force' - Harold Pinter 'As wise and witty and funny and brave as any of his plays' - Louis Auchincloss 'Wholly admirable' - Anthony Burgess ______________ Arthur Miller's plays have held the world's stages for almost half a century. Among them are Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, and All My Sons, which have been read and performed countless times across the world. His memoir, Timebends, shows that the life of the man is as compelling as his plays. With passion, wit and candour, Miller recalls his childhood in Harlem and Brooklyn in the 1920s and the Depression; his successes and failures in the theatre and in Hollywood; the formation of his political beliefs that, two decades later, brought him into confrontations with the House Committee of Un-American Activities; and his later work on behalf of human rights as the president of PEN International. He writes with astonishing perception and tenderness of Marilyn Monroe, his second wife, as well as the host of famous and infamous characters that have intersected with his adventurous life. Revealing and deeply moving, Timebends is Miller's love letter to the twentieth century: its energy, its humour, its chaos and moral struggles.
£13.49
Amazon Publishing The Hours of You
Can twenty-four hours on an island paradise lead them to an unexpected reunion? When Maggie accepts one last commission before retiring from journalism, she’s given twenty-four hours on a remote tropical island to interview former Hollywood heart-throb Ed Cavanagh. There are just two problems: firstly, Ed doesn’t want anything to do with Maggie’s exclusive, and secondly, he’s the only man who ever broke her heart… It’s a scenario she never expected—to be in paradise with a man she first met as a teenager but has been trying to forget for the past fifteen years. As each precious hour brings back memories of their tangled love story, Maggie is forced to confront the painful twists of fate that kept them apart. Was a different future for them ever possible? Is it still possible now? They’ve both been burned by love in the past, but as the clock ticks down on their time on the island; will this fleeting reunion extinguish the spark between them for good? Or is it one last chance for Maggie and Ed to rekindle that flame to live the love story they always thought possible? This heartwarming and poignant story of forgiveness, hope and love is perfect for fans of Josie Silver, Sally Page and Lucy Diamond.
£9.15
Little, Brown Book Group Bunnyman: A Memoir: The Sunday Times bestseller
The Sunday Times bestsellerGrowing up in Liverpool in the 1960s and '70s, when skinheads, football violence and fear of just about everything was the natural order of things, a young Will Sergeant found the emerging punk scene provided a shimmer of hope amongst a crumbling city still reeling from the destruction of the Second World War. From school-day horrors and mud flinging fun to nights at Liverpool's punk club, Eric's, Sergeant was fuelled by and thrived on music. It was this devotion that led to the birth of the Bunnymen, to the days when he and Ian McCulloch would muck around with reel-to-reel recordings of song ideas in the back parlour of his parents' council estate house, and to finding a community - friends, enemies and many in between - with those who would become post-punk royalty from the likes of Dead or Alive, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and the Teardrop Explodes to name a few. It was an uphill struggle to carve their name in the history of Liverpool music, but Echo and the Bunnymen became iconic, with songs like 'Lips Like Sugar,' 'The Cutter' and 'The Killing Moon'. By turns wry, explicit and profound, Bunnyman reveals what it was really like to be part of one of the most important British bands of the 1980s.
£12.99
St Martin's Press Truly Like Lightning: A Novel
For the past twenty years, Bronson Powers, former star Hollywood stuntman and converted Mormon, has been homesteading deep in the uninhabited desert outside Joshua Tree with his three wives and ten children. Bronson and his wives, Yalulah, Mary, and Jackie, have been raising their family away from the corruption and evils of the modern world. Their insular existence-controversial, difficult, but Edenic-is upended when an ambitious young property developer, Maya Abbadessa, stumbles upon their land. Hoping to make a profit, she crafts a wager with the family that sets in motion a cataclysmic chain of events. Maya, threatening to report the family to social services, convinces them to enroll three of the children in a nearby public school. Bronson and his wives agree that if Maya can prove that the kids do better in town than homeschooled in their desert oasis, they will sell her a piece of their priceless plot of land. Suddenly confronted with all the complications of the twenty-first century that they have tried to keep out, the Powerses must reckon with their way of life as they try to save it. Truly Like Lightning, David Duchovny's fourth novel, is a heartbreaking meditation on family, religion, sex, greed, human nature, and the vanishing beauty of an ancient desert.
£14.99
Transworld Publishers Ltd Betrayal
Tallie Jones is a Hollywood legend. An ambitious and passionate film director, her award-winning productions achieve the rare combination of critical and commercial success. But she has little interest in the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles, instead focusing intently on her work and family.She has close, loving relationships with her daughter, her elderly father and Hunter Lloyd - her co-producer and partner of four years. Completing her trusted circle is Brigitte Parker - Tallie's best friend and devoted personal assistant. They've been friends since film school, and Brigitte's polished glamour and highly organized style provides a perfect balance to Tallie's casual appearance and down-to-earth approach to life.However as Tallie is in the midst of directing her most ambitious film to date, small disturbances start to ripple through her faultlessly ordered world. An audit reveals worrying discrepancies in her financial records, which have always been maintained by her trusted accountant, Victor Carson. Receipts hint at activities of which she has no knowledge. Someone close to Tallie has been steadily helping themselves to enormous amounts of her money. Her once safe world of trusted associates is suddenly shaken to its very core - and Tallie is in shock, trying to figure out who has betrayed her among those she trusts and holds dear...
£12.99
Allen & Unwin Daddy Cool
'Every family has secrets. Ours also has an award-winning biographer. My sister's discoveries astonished me.' Geraldine BrooksWho can ever truly know their parents?He was a glamorous heart-throb, a famous American singer performing in front of Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Clark Gable and other stars at the Academy Awards. In the 1930s, his recording of 'Hawaiian Paradise' outsold those of Bing Crosby and Guy Lombardo. So how did he become an Australian infantryman, fighting alongside and performing for his fellow Diggers in Palestine, Beirut, Egypt and New Guinea? Why did he leave Hollywood and the ritziest hotels in America for a modest Californian bungalow in suburban Sydney? And what caused him to cease his endless drifting from one woman to another, one marriage to another, and settle with the love of his life?She was a strong Aussie woman, a talented radio broadcaster and publicity agent. Why did she take a chance on this reckless vagabond and notorious womaniser?Seeking answers, Darleen Bungey turns her forensic skills on her own family, exploring her father's multi-layered and at times tempestuous life with a truthful eye and loving heart.This is a book about a remarkable man who sparked the originality that manifests itself in the writings of both Darlene Bungey and Geraldine Brooks.
£13.49
The University of Chicago Press Bette Davis Black and White
Bette Davis was not only one of Hollywood’s brightest stars, but also one of its most outspoken advocates on matters of race. In Bette Davis Black and White, Julia A. Stern explores this largely untold facet of Davis’s brilliant career. Bette Davis Black and White analyzes four of Davis’s best-known pictures—Jezebel (1938), The Little Foxes (1941), In This Our Life (1942), and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)—against the history of American race relations. Stern also weaves in memories of her own experiences as a young viewer, coming into racial consciousness watching Davis’s films on television in an all-white suburb of Chicago. Davis’s egalitarian politics and unique collaborations with her Black costars offer Stern a window into midcentury American racial fantasy and the efforts of Black performers to disrupt it. This book incorporates testimony from Davis’s Black contemporaries, including James Baldwin and C. L. R. James, as well as the African American fans who penned letters to Warner Brothers praising Davis’s work. A unique combination of history, star study, and memoir, Bette Davis Black and White allows us to contemplate cross-racial spectatorship in new ways.
£68.40
Dundurn Group Ltd The Vicar's Knickers
Tony Vicar is setting his sights on new (mis)adventures in this laugh-out-loud follow-up to The Liquor Vicar.Tony Vicar, now an internationally known celebrity — due to greatly exaggerated news reports of his nearly miraculous powers — has turned his attention to renovating his recently inherited crumbling old hotel in the wacky town of Tyee Lagoon. It’s a good thing his level-headed girlfriend, Jacquie O, is on board to temper his more outlandish ideas, because the pair plan to turn the hotel’s dumpy old beer parlour into the Vicar’s Knickers — a lavish and beautiful pub.Of course, building a tiny empire is not without challenges, shocks, oppositions, and calamities. Vicar’s celebrity is threatened as he is assailed by Hollywood gossip journalist Richard X. Dick — a cynic determined to undermine Vicar at every turn. On top of that, a surprise that changes everything is unexpectedly left on Vicar and Jacquie O’s doorstep late one night in a heavy blizzard.Vicar feels the pressure mounting and fears he may be cracking. He’s beginning to see and hear things that simply cannot be accounted for. Surrounded by forces both invisible and all too obvious, he must tackle the greatest misadventure of his life: parenthood.
£13.99
Headline Publishing Group This Is What Happy Looks Like
For fans of John Green. A winning combination of humour, heartbreak and romance make this a must read.If fate sent you an email, would you answer?It's June - seventeen-year-old Ellie O'Neill's least favourite time of year. Her tiny hometown is annually invaded by tourists, and this year there's the added inconvenience of a film crew. Even the arrival of Hollywood heartthrob Graham Larkin can't lift her mood.But there is something making Ellie very happy. Ever since an email was accidentally sent to her a few months ago, she's been corresponding with a mysterious stranger, the two of them sharing their hopes and fears. Their developing relationship is not without its secrets though - there's the truth about Ellie's past... and her pen pal's real identity. When they finally meet in person, things are destined to get much more complicated. Can two people, worlds apart but brought together by chance, make it against all the odds?Spanning one fateful summer, Jennifer E. Smith's new novel proves that life - and love - are full of unexpected connections and happy mistakes.
£9.99
The University of Chicago Press Bette Davis Black and White
Bette Davis was not only one of Hollywood’s brightest stars, but also one of its most outspoken advocates on matters of race. In Bette Davis Black and White, Julia A. Stern explores this largely untold facet of Davis’s brilliant career. Bette Davis Black and White analyzes four of Davis’s best-known pictures—Jezebel (1938), The Little Foxes (1941), In This Our Life (1942), and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)—against the history of American race relations. Stern also weaves in memories of her own experiences as a young viewer, coming into racial consciousness watching Davis’s films on television in an all-white suburb of Chicago. Davis’s egalitarian politics and unique collaborations with her Black costars offer Stern a window into midcentury American racial fantasy and the efforts of Black performers to disrupt it. This book incorporates testimony from Davis’s Black contemporaries, including James Baldwin and C. L. R. James, as well as the African American fans who penned letters to Warner Brothers praising Davis’s work. A unique combination of history, star study, and memoir, Bette Davis Black and White allows us to contemplate cross-racial spectatorship in new ways.
£21.79
MAIRDUMONT GmbH & Co. KG California Marco Polo Pocket Travel Guide - with pull out map
Marco Polo Pocket Guide California: the Travel Guide with Insider Tips Explore California with this handy, pocket-sized, authoritative guide, packed with Insider Tips. Discover boutique hotels, authentic restaurants, the state's trendiest places, and get tips on shopping and what to do on a limited budget. There are plenty of ideas for travel with kids, and a summary of all the festivals and events that take place. Let Marco Polo show you all this iconic destination has to offer… California is a dream destination on the Pacific, an extraordinary blend of stunning nature, cool cities and unbelievably friendly people. It is a destination of extremes – the mountains in the northeast are amongst the highest on the continent, Death Valley in the southeast marks the lowest point in the US and the hottest, and the Pacific coast boasts the tallest trees and some of the sequoias in the Sierra Nevada are amongst the oldest on the planet. The Streets of San Francisco, Mickey Mouse, Hollywood, Napa Valley, Yosemite, giant redwoods and golden beaches, the list of California's attractions is endless. You might think you know it already from movies and TV, but the reality is much more colourful, flashy, quirky and above all beautiful. With Marco Polo California you can experience a holiday that mixes hip urban culture with the glamour of celebrity and a real-life road movie with awesome scenery…This is California! Your Marco Polo California Pocket Guide includes: Insider Tips – we show you the hidden gems and little-known secrets that offer a real insight into the region. Discover exquisite local wineries, savour the best Mexican snacks at LA’s Grand Central Market or step back in time at a traditional County Fair. Best of – find the best things to do for free, the best ‘only in’ California experiences, the best things to do if it rains and the best places to relax and spoil yourself. Sightseeing – all the top sights are organised by area so you can easily plan your trip. Discovery Tours – specially tailored tours will get you to the heart of California. From the surfing beaches of Southern California to the wineries in the North, you can experience all of California’s unique character with these personal tours. California in full-colour – Marco Polo Pocket Guide California includes full-colour photos throughout the guide bringing the region to life offering you a real taste of what you can see and enjoy on your trip. Touring App – download any of the Discovery Tours to your smartphone, complete with the detailed route description and map exactly as featured in the guide, free of charge. The maps can be used offline too, so no roaming charges. The perfect navigational tool with distance indicators and landmarks highlighting the correct direction to travel in as well as GPS coordinates along the way. Enjoy stress-free sightseeing and never get lost again! Road Atlas and pull-out map – we’ve included a detailed road atlas and a handy, pull-out map so you can pop the guide in your bag for a full-on sightseeing day or head out with just the map to enjoy your Discovery Tour. A small street map of San Francisco is also included. Trust Marco Polo Pocket Guide California to show you around this iconic state. The comprehensive coverage and unique insights will ensure you experience everything California has to offer and more. The special tips, personal insights and unusual experiences will help you make the most of your trip - just arrive and enjoy.
£8.42
Reaktion Books The Remembered Film
Most books about cinema, whether popular or academic, concentrate on what we might call the inside' of the film: from star performances to narrative structures. The relatively few books about the outside' of films speak mainly of such aspects of production and reception as the organization of the film industry and the sociology of audiences: the Hollywood studio system, for example, or fan clubs. "The Remembered Film" is unique in addressing a previously overlooked aspect of cinema: the isolated fragments of films, iconic images or scenes, that fleetingly cross our perceptions and thoughts in the course of everyday life. Victor Burgin examines a kaleidescope of film fragments drawn from a variety of media, the internet, memory and fantasy. Among these are sequences of such brevity they might almost be stills. Such sequence-images', as Burgin calls them, are neither strictly image' nor image sequence' and have not been considered before by either film or photography theory. He also considers some typical individual experiences sampled' from mainstream cinema. He reflects on such disparate occurrences as the association in memory of fragments from otherwise unrelated films, of the relation of a recollected film image to an architectural setting, or of a feeling marked' by an image remembered from a film. "The Remembered Film" provides a radical new way of thinking about film outside conventional cinema, and in relation to our everyday lives. It will appeal to a wide audience interested in film and media.
£20.88
Pan Macmillan Upside Down: The powerful new story of bold choices and second chances from the billion copy bestseller
Rules are made to be broken . . .Upside Down is a powerful story of unconventional romance, bold choices and second chances, from the billion copy bestseller, Danielle Steel. Oscar-winning actress Ardith Law is a Hollywood icon. A stunning beauty at sixty-two, her star is as bright as ever. Widowed at a young age by a philandering husband, Ardith is in no hurry to marry again. Her daughter, Morgan, a successful cosmetic surgeon, has always blamed her mother for a lonely childhood while Ardith was away on location, and the relationship remains strained despite Ardith’s efforts to strengthen their bond.While Ardith’s long-time partner is away filming in London, Josh Gray, an actor waiting for his big break, is employed as Ardith’s assistant at her Bel Air home. When tragedy strikes he becomes an invaluable support, stirring up conflicting feelings in her for this younger man.In New York, Morgan is swept off her feet by Ben Ryan, one of the country’s most famous TV news reporters. Though more than two decades her senior, she falls headlong for his charm and attention. But, when a blackmail scheme puts his career – and their relationship – on the line, she doesn’t know where to turn.It’s time for Morgan to decide whether she can bury the hurt of the past and forgive, and for Ardith to find a way to follow her heart – because finding true happiness with the right partner has nothing to do with age . . .
£19.80
Hay House UK Ltd The Dalai Lama's Cat
'In the months that followed I watched His Holiness working on a new book... I began to think that perhaps the time had come for me to turn my paws to a book of my own . . . one that tells my own tale . . . How I was rescued from a fate too grisly to contemplate, to become constant companion to a man who is not only one of the world's greatest spiritual leaders and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, but who is also a dab hand with the can opener.'Not so much fly-on-the-wall as cat-on-the-sill, this is the warm-hearted tale of a small kitten rescued from the slums of New Delhi who finds herself in a beautiful sanctuary with sweeping views of the snow-capped Himalayas. In her exotic new home, the Dalai Lama's cat encounters Hollywood stars, Buddhist masters, Ivy-league professors, famous philanthropists, and a host of other people who come visiting His Holiness. Each encounter offers a fresh insight into finding happiness and meaning in the midst of a life of busy-ness and challenge. Drawing us into her world with her adorable but all-too-flawed personality, the Dalai Lama's cat discovers how instead of trying to change the world, changing the way we experience the world is the key to true contentment.Featuring a delightful cast of characters, timeless Buddhist wisdom, and His Holiness's compassion pervading every chapter, The Dalai Lama's Cat is simply enchanting.
£9.99
WW Norton & Co Saint Monkey: A Novel
Fourteen-year-old Audrey Martin, with her Poindexter glasses and her head humming the 3/4 meter of gospel music, knows she’ll never get out of Kentucky—but when her fingers touch the piano keys, the whole church trembles. Her best friend, Caroline, daydreams about Hollywood stardom, but both girls feel destined to languish in a slow-moving stopover town in Montgomery County. That is, until chance intervenes and a booking agent offers Audrey a ticket to join the booming jazz scene in Harlem—an offer she can’t resist, not even for Caroline. And in New York City the music never stops. Audrey flirts with love and takes the stage at the Apollo, with its fast-dancing crowds and blinding lights. But fortunes can turn fast in the city—young talent means tough competition, and for Audrey failure is always one step away. Meanwhile, Caroline sinks into the quiet anguish of a Black woman in a backwards country, where her ambitions and desires only slip further out of reach. Jacinda Townsend’s remarkable first novel is a coming-of-age story made at once gripping and poignant by the wild energy of the Jazz Era and the stark realities of segregation. Marrying musical prose with lyric vernacular, Saint Monkey delivers a stirring portrait of American storytelling and marks the appearance of an auspicious new voice in literary fiction.
£22.99
Ad Lib Publishers Ltd Like No Other Soldier: The Shadowy World of Security, Protection and Surveillance
Like No Other Soldier continues the true story told in Fishers of Men of Rob Lewis’s life after he leaves the Force Research Unit (FRU). Staying on in Northern Ireland as a civilian after years of working on undercover missions against terrorists, Rob eventually gains employment in Bristol, undertaking security work, but things don’t work out and Rob ends up living in a squat. After a job offer from an old colleague, Rob heads to London to work in close-protection security for some of Hollywood’s royalty - Tom Cruise, Liam Neeson, Nicole Kidman and Mel Gibson among them - and later becomes involved in the rescue of some very well-connected people from a dangerous religious cult. Rob’s life seems to be getting back on track. But Rob’s work soon becomes more covert, and he ends up being on the wrong side of a police armed response unit whilst undertaking surveillance tasks, and is later arrested as a suspect when the ‘Stevens Enquiry’ building in Belfast - where detectives investigating the alleged collusion between his old unit and Loyalist paramilitaries are based - is set on fire. As Rob becomes involved in ever more shadowy surveillance and private security operations, he attracts further unwanted police attention, this time from the Serious Organised Crime Agency, and he is charged with fraud, found guilty and sentenced to prison at HMP Wandsworth. Can Rob prove his innocence and reclaim his life?
£9.04
Amazon Publishing Ripped from the Headlines!: The Shocking True Stories Behind the Movies’ Most Memorable Crimes
Bestselling true-crime master Harold Schechter explores the real-life headline-making psychos, serial murderers, thrill-hungry couples, and lady-killers who inspired a century of classic films. The necktie murders in Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy; Chicago’s Jazz Age crime of passion; the fatal hookup in Looking for Mr. Goodbar; the high school horrors committed by the costumed slasher in Scream. These and other cinematic crimes have become part of pop-culture history. And each found inspiration in true events that provided the raw material for our greatest blockbusters, indie art films, black comedies, Hollywood classics, and grindhouse horrors. So what’s the reality behind Psycho, Badlands, The Hills Have Eyes, A Place in the Sun, Arsenic and Old Lace, and Dirty Harry? How did such tabloid-ready killers as Bonnie and Clyde, body snatchers Burke and Hare, Texas sniper Charles Whitman Jr., nurse-slayer Richard Speck, and Leopold and Loeb exert their power on the public imagination and become the stuff of movie lore? In this collection of revelatory essays, true-crime historian Harold Schechter takes a fascinating trip down the crossroads of fact and fiction to reveal the sensational real-life stories that are more shocking, taboo, and fantastic than even the most imaginative screenwriter can dream up.
£9.15
Simon & Schuster Empire of Blue Water: Henry Morgan and the Pirates who Rules the Caribbean Waves
Henry Morgan, a twenty-year-old Welshman, arrived in the New World in 1655, hell-bent on making his fortune. Over the next three decades, his exploits in the Caribbean in the service of the English became legend. His daring attacks on the mighty Spanish Empire on land and sea changed the fates of kings and queens. His victories helped shape the destiny of the New World. Morgan gathered disaffected English and European sailors and soldiers, hard-bitten adventurers, runaway slaves, cutthroats and sociopaths and turned them into the fiercest and most feared army in the Western Hemisphere. Sailing out from the English stronghold of Port Royal, Jamaica, 'the wickedest city in the New World', Morgan and his men terrorised Spanish merchant ships and devastated the cities where great riches in silver, gold, and gems lay waiting to be sent to the King of Spain. His last raid, a daring assault on the fabled city of Panama, helped break Spain's solitary hold on the New World for ever. Awash with bloody battles, political intrigues, and a cast of characters more compelling, bizarre and memorable than any found in a Hollywood swashbuckler, EMPIRE OF BLUE WATER brilliantly re-creates the passions and the violence of the age of exploration and empire. What's more, it chillingly depicts the apocalyptic natural disaster that finally ended the pirates' dominion.
£14.99
Orion Publishing Co The Girl with the Silver Clasp: A sweeping, unputdownable WWI historical novel set in Cornwall
'Absolutely loved it' Heidi Swain on The Ferryman's DaughterWill they find the courage to follow their dreams?St. Ives, 1916.Jess Morgan always hoped to become a celebrated silversmith, but when the men return from war she's forced to return to her job as a seamstress. All she can cling to is the memory of that delicate, unique silver clasp she created for a society bride.Rachel Bellamy served as an ambulance driver on the front line during the Great War but now it's up to her to save the family home and picturesque harbour from her wealthy brother-in-law, before it's too late. Giselle Harding fought her way up from poverty to become a Hollywood movie star. Yet even the most beautiful jewels she owns will never fill replace the man she lost.As the lives of the three women collide, will they be able to overcome their differences and fight together for the dreams they once held so close?Readers are loving THE GIRL WITH THE SILVER CLASP:'A lovely book filled full of hope nostalgia and love' NetGalley Reviewer'Full of highs and lows that pull at your heartstrings, superb!' NetGalley Reviewer'A really nice, feel good story' NetGalley Reviewer'Some of my favourite parts were reading about life in London as well as the growth of the artists in the St. Ives area!' NetGalley Reviewer
£9.04
Vintage Publishing Orson Welles, Volume 3: One-Man Band
In One-Man Band, the third volume in his epic survey of Orson Welles’ life and work, Simon Callow again probes in comprehensive and penetrating detail into one of the most complex artists of the twentieth century, looking closely at the triumphs and failures of an ambitious one-man assault on one medium after another – theatre, radio, film, television, even, at one point, ballet – in each of which his radical and original approach opened up new directions and hitherto unglimpsed possibilities.The book begins with Welles’ self-exile from America, and his realisation that he could only function happily as an independent film-maker, a one-man band; by 1964, he had filmed Othello, which took three years to complete, Mr Arkadin, the biggest conundrum in his output, and his masterpiece Chimes at Midnight, as well as Touch of Evil, his sole return to Hollywood and, like all too many of his films, wrested from his grasp and re-edited. Along the way he made inroads into the fledgling medium of television and a number of stage plays, including Moby-Dick, considered by theatre historians to be one of the seminal productions of the century. Meanwhile, his private life was as dramatic as his professional life. The book shows what it was like to be around Welles, and, with a precision rarely attempted before, what it was like to be him, in which lies the answer to the old riddle: whatever happened to Orson Welles?
£16.99
Little, Brown & Company Watch the Girls
I've been watched all my life. I'm used to being stared at. Observed. Followed.Fame and obsession collide in this darkly twisted novel from an incredible new voice in suspense.SOMEONE IS WATCHINGWashed up teen star Liv Hendricks quit acting after her beloved younger sister inexplicably disappeared following a Hollywood party gone wrong. Liv barely escaped with her life, and her sister was never heard from again. But all this time, someone's been waiting patiently to finish what was started...FOUR MISSING GIRLSNow fifteen years later, broke and desperate, Liv is forced to return to the spotlight. She crowdfunds a webseries in which she'll pose as a real-life private detective--a nod to the show she starred on as a teen. When a mysterious donor challenges her to investigate a series of disappearances outside a town made famous by the horror movies filmed there, Liv has no choice but to accept.FOLLOW THE WHITE WOLFLiv is given a cryptic first clue: Follow the white wolf.And now a darker game is about to begin. Through social media, someone is leaving breadcrumbs to follow. As Liv makes increasingly disturbing discoveries, her show explodes in popularity. A rapt internet audience is eager to watch it all--perhaps even at the cost of Liv's own life...Filled with provocative twists and turns as the line between plot and reality blurs in this inventive tour-de-force from breakout writer Jennifer Wolfe.
£6.29
Meta4Books vzw From Memling to Rubens: The Golden Age of Flanders
Why did Hans Memling paint everything in such minute detail? How did Rubens, in just a few brushstrokes, create special effects that Steven Spielberg would envy? And why was the Southern Netherlands the artistic centre of the world for three centuries? From Memling to Rubens: The Golden Age of Flanders tells the story of Flemish art from the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, as you've never read it before. It's a rollercoaster ride through 300 years of cultural history. Leading the charge are breathtaking masterpieces from the collection of The Phoebus Foundation, unknown gems by the likes of Hans Memling, Quinten Metsys, Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony Van Dyck that plunge you into a world full of folly and sin, fascination and ambition. Along the way you'll bump into dukes and emperors, rich citizens and poor saints, picture galleries like wine cellars, and Antwerp as Hollywood on the Scheldt. This is a stirring tale about the image and its meaning, and the link between culture and society. Above all, it's about us, and about who we are today - as people. Published on the occasion of the exhibition From Memling to Ruben - The Golden Age of Flanders,during Autumn 2020, in the Kadriorg Palace in Tallinn (Estonia).
£49.50
Amazon Publishing The Bennet Women
In this delightfully modern spin on Pride and Prejudice, love is a goal, marriage is a distant option, and self-discovery is a sure thing. Welcome to Bennet House, the only all-women’s dorm at prestigious Longbourn University, home to three close friends who are about to have an eventful year. EJ is an ambitious Black engineering student. Her best friend, Jamie, is a newly out trans woman studying French and theatre. Tessa is a Filipina astronomy major with guy trouble. For them, Bennet House is more than a residence—it’s an oasis of feminism, femininity, and enlightenment. But as great as Longbourn is for academics, EJ knows it can be a wretched place to find love. Yet the fall season is young and brimming with surprising possibilities. Jamie’s prospect is Lee Gregory, son of a Hollywood producer and a gentleman so charming he practically sparkles. That leaves EJ with Lee’s arrogant best friend, Will. For Jamie’s sake, EJ must put up with the disagreeable, distressingly handsome, not quite famous TV actor for as long as she can. What of it? EJ has her eyes on a bigger prize, anyway: launching a spectacular engineering career in the “real world” she’s been hearing so much about. But what happens when all their lives become entwined in ways no one could have predicted—and EJ finds herself drawn to a man who’s not exactly a perfect fit for the future she has planned?
£9.15
Oxford University Press Inc On Streisand: An Opinionated Guide
She said, "I became a singer because I couldn't get work as an actress," but Barbra Streisand not only became both but revolutionized the two professions. Her music transformed the smooth, uninflected style of the Frank Sinatras and Ella Fitzgeralds into an engine of dramatic vocalism in which each song is like a miniature three-act play. And Streisand's films changed forever the ideal of how a movie star chooses roles, going from musicals to dramas to comedies, from period fare to ultra-modern tales, from Funny Girl to The Way We Were to Yentl. mainstream show-business principal to deconstruct an artist On Streisand begins with a broad year-by-year outline of the landmark achievements and a few of her more whimsical escapades, as when Rex Reed apologizes for an oafish interview piece and she responds with "I had more respect for him when he hated me." This is followed by a long essay on how Streisand's idiosyncratic self-realization marks her as a unique national treasure, an artist without limits. Then comes the major part of the book, a work-by-work analysis. This section is broken down into separate chapters, each organized chronologically: the stage shows, then the television shows and concerts, then the movies, and last (because longest) the recordings. Throughout, Mordden follows Streisand's independence, which he sees as her central quality. Throughout all of the chapters on Streisand's shows, concerts, films, and recordings, Mordden illustrates how she was exercising individualistic control of her career from her very first audition, and how the rest of her professional life unfolded from that point. pioneered an intense and even passionate singing style at A book written by an opinionated expert whose prose is consistently full of flair and wit, On Streisand: An Opinionated Guide will appeal to general readers in all aspects of American life that Streisand has touched, from film to television to popular music to stardom. Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra. Further, like Dustin Hoffman and Jack Nicholson she was one of the new wave actors of the 1960s who broke away from the standard models for movie stars. But Streisand has much greater range than others of this kind, as comfortable in musical comedy as in serious drama. Thus, she has moved from the madcap roles of Hello, Dolly! and What's Up, Doc? to the tale of a young woman at war with patriarchal religious fundamentalism (in Yentl) and the insanity hearing of a prostitute who has killed (in self-defense) and whose parents want to put her away to keep her from revealing that her step-father has preyed on her sexually. Further, Streisand has directed three of her films, rare enough for an actor but perhaps especially for a woman. An American Original, Streisand is controversial as well, as all Originals are. Mediocrities may be dull, but they never get bad reviews; Streisand has irritated many a sensibility. As she herself has said, "I'm a liberal, opinionated Jewish feminist-I push a lot of buttons." There is as well the "I'm so wonderful" vanity that has haunted some of her later work, as when she records duets with the rich and famous but isolates herself from them, letting the editing of the tapes bring them together, as if she were an ice princess who might melt upon human contact. Streisand, as her own movie producer, has also been accused of recutting the director's final version to flatter her shots over those of her colleagues. And The Mirror Has Two Faces seems designed to let Streisand direct her own Cinderella tale, not unlike the old Hollywood romances in which the secretary takes off her glasses and the boss cries, "Miss Johnson!...Clarice... Why, you're... you're beautiful!" Nevertheless, Streisand has been, in all, an invigorating artist, not only unique but extraordinary. It would be impossible to imagine what American culture would have been like without her.
£19.49
Rowman & Littlefield Bill Duke: My 40-Year Career on Screen and behind the Camera
While many film fans may not be familiar with Bill Duke’s name, they most certainly recognize his face. Dating back to the 1970s, Duke has appeared in a number of popular films, including Car Wash, American Gigolo, Commando, Predator, and X-Men: The Last Stand. Fewer still might be aware of Duke’s extraordinary accomplishments off-screen—as a talented director, producer, entrepreneur, and humanitarian. Bill Duke: My 40-Year Career on Screen and behind the Camera is the memoir of a Hollywood original. In an industry that rarely embraces artists of color, Duke first achieved success as an actor then turned to directing. After helming episodes of ratings giants Dallas, Falcon Crest, Hill Street Blues, and Miami Vice, Duke progressed to feature films like A Rage in Harlem, Deep Cover, Hoodlum, and Sister Act 2. In this candid autobiography, Duke recalls the loving but stern presence of his mother and father, acting mentors like Olympia Dukakis, and the pitfalls that nearly derailed his career, notably an addiction to drugs. Along the way, readers will encounter familiar names like Danny Glover, Laurence Fishburne, Forest Whitaker, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Whoopi Goldberg. From his Broadway debut in 1971 to the establishment of the Duke Media Foundation, which trains and mentors young filmmakers, Duke has been breaking the rules of what it means to triumph in the entertainment industry. Recalling pivotal moments in his life, Bill Duke: My 40-Year Career on Screen and behind the Camera is the story only Bill Duke could tell.
£17.09
Headline Publishing Group Unstoppable: The Ultimate Biography of Three-Time F1 World Champion Max Verstappen
WATERSTONES' BEST BOOKS OF 2023: SPORTA definitive and intriguing biography of Max Verstappen, Formula 1's superstar, Lewis Hamilton's great rival and the three-time winner of the World Drivers' Championship.No Hollywood scriptwriter could possibly have envisioned the breathless, adrenaline-pumping climax to the 2021 Formula 1 season. On the very last lap of the final race of an unbelievably arduous and controversial season, Red Bull's Max Verstappen nervelessly overtook the seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes to clinch the first place that thrust the young prodigy to the narrowest of victories and to his first World Drivers' title. He followed up by taking the 2022 and 2023 titles as well.Verstappen may only be 26 years of age, but the Dutch motorsport sensation has an incredible record in F1. This young man has already left an indelible mark on the sport. The son of F1 driver Jos, Verstappen junior quickly stepped out of his father's shadow: his youthful charisma, ferocious speed, fearless driving style and refusal to back down mark him out as a true champion. And the phenomenal success of Netflix's Drive to Survive documentary series has elevated his worldwide popularity still further.Widely respected motorsport writer and F1 insider Mark Hughes is perfectly placed to write the most authoritative narrative on Verstappen's incredible rise through the ranks to F1 glory. Hughes' immaculate credentials and first-rate access enable him to generate fresh and fascinating insights, and to paint a fully-rounded and richly-textured portrait of one of the most exciting young sportsmen on the planet.
£19.80
Abrams No One Man Should Have All That Power: How Rasputins Manipulate the World
An exploration of infamous, controversial figures and how they exert control. Amos Barshad has long been fascinated by the powerful. But not by elected officials or natural leaders—he’s interested in their scheming advisors, the dark figures who wield power in the shadows. And, as Barshad shows in No One Man Should Have All That Power, the natural habitat of these manipulators is not only political backrooms. It’s anywhere power dynamics exist—from Hollywood to drug cartels, from recording studios to the NFL. In this wildly entertaining, wide-ranging, and insightful exploration of the phenomenon, Barshad takes readers into the lives of more than a dozen of these notorious figures, starting with Grigori Rasputin. An almost mythical Russian mystic, Rasputin drank, danced, and healed his way into a position of power behind the last of the tsars. But not every one of these figures rose to power through lechery or magical cures. Barshad explores how they got there, how they wielded control, what led to their downfall or staved it off, and what lessons we can take from them, including how to spot Rasputins in the wild. Based on interviews with well-known personalities like Scooter Braun (Justin Bieber’s manager), Alex Guerrero (Tom Brady’s trainer), and Sam Nunberg (Trump’s former aide) and original reporting on figures like Nicaragua’s powerful first lady Rosario Murillo and the Tijuana cartel boss known as “Narcomami,” No One Man Should Have All That Poweris an eye-opening book from an exciting new voice.
£13.53
HarperCollins Focus Greg Williams Photo Breakdowns: The Stories Behind 100 Portraits
Iconic celebrity photographer Greg Williams presents the release of his first book, illuminating the memorable stories and methodology behind the phenomenal photographs of 100 Hollywood stars.Have you ever wondered about the stories behind memorable photographs of some of the most famous people in the world? Why does Joaquin Phoenix look so relaxed eating a sandwich right after winning an Academy Award? Why was Cate Blanchett’s daughter running through her legs in a hotel at Cannes? Greg Williams Photo Breakdowns brings you behind the scenes of over 100 intimate and revealing images shot by one of today’s most in-demand photographers: Greg Williams.Learn the techniques of the master and draw on key tactics and skills Williams has accumulated throughout his extensive career. Whether describing how to frame a shot, leverage the lighting, or understand exposure, Williams emphasizes the importance of using photography as a means to tell stories, especially the stories that you want to tell. With a focus on authenticity, believability, and imperfection, Williams illuminates how he achieves these staggering shots.As the official photographer for the Oscars and a regular contributor to magazines such as Vanity Fair, Williams has unprecedented access to international celebrities, ranging from Brad Pitt and Daniel Craig to Beyoncé, Charlize Theron, and Adam Driver. And, more importantly, his rapport with his subjects results in singular photographs. See some of his favorite moments in Greg Williams Photo Breakdowns, and learn how he captured these incredible moments.
£40.50
World Scientific Publishing Co Pte Ltd Tales From My First 90 Years
Alpha C Chiang, a renowned economist, and Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Connecticut, is best-known for his classic textbook — Fundamental Methods of Mathematical Economics.In this memoirs, he tells the entertaining, scary, embarrassing, glorifying and surreal tales that colored his life.On the academic side, Alpha describes in detail his scholastic journey, including why and how he created one of the most popular books on mathematical methods in economics, as well as the experiences of his teaching career. On the nonacademic side, he describes his ventures into his many hobbies, the spices of his life, including Chinese opera, ballroom dancing, painting and calligraphy, photography, piano, music composition, playwriting, and even magic. Such tales round out the depiction of a colorful life.What's behind his unusual name, Alpha? What schooling disaster tripped him at a young age? What surreal occurrence did he experience at a cliff at age 8? What major miracle changed his family? How did he become a loan shark when he was a graduate student at Columbia University? What Hollywood glamour star mysteriously materialized within inches of him when he was working on a TV show in his student days? How did he conquer a serious phobia and eventually become an acclaimed professor? What motivated his writing of his celebrated book? And what funny, embarrassing, and memorable events occurred in his teaching career?This book is a unique story about a unique life.
£120.00
Columbia University Press Philosophers on Film from Bergson to Badiou: A Critical Reader
Philosophers on Film from Bergson to Badiou is an anthology of writings on cinema and film by many of the major thinkers in continental philosophy. The book presents a selection of fundamental texts, each accompanied by an introduction and exposition by the editor, Christopher Kul-Want, that places the philosophers within a historical and intellectual framework of aesthetic and social thought.Encompassing a range of intellectual traditions—Marxism, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, gender and affect theories—this critical reader features writings by Bergson, Benjamin, Adorno and Horkheimer, Merleau-Ponty, Baudrillard, Irigaray, Lyotard, Deleuze, Kristeva, Agamben, Žižek, Nancy, Cavell, Rancière, Badiou, Stiegler, and Silverman. Many of the texts discuss cinema as a mass medium; others develop phenomenological analyses of particular films. Reflecting upon the potential of films to challenge dominant forms of ideology, the anthology considers the ways in which they can disrupt the clichés of capitalist images and offer radical possibilities for creating new worlds of visceral experience outside the grasp of habitual forms of knowledge and subjectivity. Ranging from the early silent period of cinema through the classics of European and Hollywood cinema to the early twenty-first century, the films discussed offer a vivid sense of these philosophers’ concepts and ideas, casting new light on the history of cinema. This reader is an essential and valuable resource for a wide range of courses in film and philosophy.
£27.00
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Stairways to Heaven: Rebuilding the British Film Industry
What has brought about the transformation of the British film industry over the last few decades, to the beginnings of what is arguably a new golden era? In the mid-1980s the industry was in a parlous state. The number of films produced in the UK was tiny. Cinema attendance had dipped to an all-time low, cinema buildings were in a state of disrepair and home video had yet to flourish. Since then, while many business challenges - especially for independent producers and distributors - remain, the industry overall has developed beyond recognition. In recent years, as British films have won Oscars, Cannes Palms and Venice Golden Lions, releases such as Love Actually, Billy Elliot, Skyfall, Paddington and the Harry Potter series have found enormous commercial as well as critical success. The UK industry has encouraged, and benefitted from, a huge amount of inward investment, much of it from the Hollywood studios, but also from the National Lottery via the UK Film Council and BFI. This book portrays the visionaries and officials who were at the helm as a digital media revolution began to reshape the industry. Through vivid accounts based on first-hand interviews of what was happening behind the scenes, film commentator and critic Geoffrey Macnab provides in-depth analysis of how and why the British film industry has risen like a phoenix from the ashes.
£17.99
Oxford University Press Inc Race, Sexuality, and Gender and the Musical Screen Adaptation: An Oxford Handbook of Musical Theatre Screen Adaptations, Volume 2
Hollywood's conversion to sound in the 1920s created an early peak in the film musical, following the immense success of The Jazz Singer. The opportunity to synchronize moving pictures with a soundtrack suited the musical in particular, since the heightened experience of song and dance drew attention to the novelty of the technological development. Until the near-collapse of the genre in the 1960s, the film musical enjoyed around thirty years of development, as landmarks such as The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, Singin' in the Rain, and Gigi showed the exciting possibilities of putting musicals on the silver screen. The second of three volumes, Race, Sexuality, and Gender and the Musical Screen Adaptation: An Oxford Handbook, traces how the genre of the stage-to-screen musical has evolved, focusing in particular of issues of race, gender and sexuality. Enduringly popular adaptations such as Kiss Me Kate and Pal Joey are considered through the lens of identity, while several chapters consider how different adaptations of the same stage musical reflect shifting historical contexts. Together, the chapters incite lively debates about the process of adapting Broadway for the big screen and provide models for future studies. Volume I: The Politics of the Musical Theatre Screen Adaptation Volume II: Race, Sexuality, and Gender and the Musical Screen Adaptation Volume III: Stars, Studios, and the Musical Theatre Screen Adaptation
£25.30
teNeues Publishing UK Ltd The Cyclades: Greek Island Paradise
The first comprehensive illustrated book on the Cyclades archipelago, which also includes the well-known islands of Santorini, Naxos, Paros and Mykonos. The islands are currently among the trendiest travel destinations in the world. There is no Hollywood or Instagram star who has not been photographed in front of the white cities of the Greek islands. This illustrated book attempts to capture the islands' attitude to life in an undisguised way. In doing so, the volume does not aim at the big tourist hotspots and Instagram shots that can be seen everywhere else, but would like to capture the Greek island world as a whole - with all its discrepancies. Lonely bays and half-ruined towns stand next to the glossy world of the rich and famous who spend the summer on the islands. Highlife in summer next to almost deserted streets in winter. Greek tradition next to modern mass tourism. It is precisely these discrepancies that make the volume so distinctive. In addition, each individual island has its own exciting peculiarities that are worth discovering. The volume also portrays in pictures and text local Greeks who pursue an exciting profession: The last fishermen of the island, the priest of a mountain church on Naxos, the last local beekeeper, etc. Rudi Sebastian has spent many weeks on the islands over several years in all seasons and has followed the soul of the country and its people. He was at least once on every single island of the region, so he attaches importance to completeness. The result is a probably unique collection of images that reflects the island life in all its facets. Text in English and German.
£35.96
Oldcastle Books Ltd The Western
From the very beginnings of cinema in America the Western has been a central genre. The hazardous lives of the settlers, their conflict with Native Americans ('the Indians'), the lawless frontier towns, outlaws and cattle rustlers, all found their way into the new medium of film. Folk heroes and heroines, such as Jesse and Frank James, Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, Calamity Jane and Annie Oakley, were all eagerly seized on by filmmakers. Writers, from the very popular to the very literary, from Zane Grey to Owen Wister and James Fennimore Cooper, were plundered for storylines. The Western became popular worldwide too because it offered escape, adventure, stunning landscapes and romance; also themes that concerned people everywhere including survival, law and order, defence of family, and dreams of a new and better world. David Carter's book, The Western, starts with an introduction to the real American West and its famous historical figures, and traces the development of the genre from popular literature, through the early silent films, the sound era, the Golden Age of classic Westerns, TV and 'spaghetti westerns', to the self-reflexive and revisionist Westerns of recent decades. This book provides a basic work of reference for all the major directors and noteworthy films of the genre. The great Hollywood directors are all here, such as John Ford, Howard Hawks, Raoul Walsh, Michael Curtiz, Sam Peckinpah and Henry Hathaway, and great stars including John Wayne, James Stewart, Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Jane Russell and Clint Eastwood.
£8.99
Globe Pequot Press Chairman at the Board: Recording the Soundtrack of a Generation
Chairman at the Board is an intimate, funny, and absorbing look at the music business by an insider who has recorded a host of the greatest musical artists of the twentieth century. Bill Schnee takes the reader inside the studio—behind the curtain—and through the decades with a cavalcade of famous artists as he helped them to realize their vision. After his high school band was dropped by Decca Records, Schnee began his quest to learn everything he could about making records. Mentored by recording legend Richie Podolor at his American Recording Studio and mastering guru Doug Sax, he immediately began recording the top acts of the day as a freelance engineer/producer in Hollywood. Clive Davis soon hired him to work for CBS where he partnered with famed music producer Richard Perry. Schnee went on to record and/or mix most of Perry's biggest albums of the '70s and '80s, including those by Barbra Streisand, Carly Simon, Ringo Starr, Art Garfunkel, and the Pointer Sisters. With his deft personal touch with musicians, he continued to engineer and produce the likes of Marvin Gaye, Thelma Houston (the Grammy-nominated, direct-to-disc album I've Got the Music in Me), Pablo Cruise, Neil Diamond, Boz Scaggs, the Jacksons, Huey Lewis & the News, Dire Straits, and Whitney Houston. With over 125 gold and platinum records, and two Grammys for Steely Dan's Aja and Gaucho, Schnee has been called a living legend—recognized and respected in the industry as the consummate music man with an incomparable career that he lovingly shares with his readers in humorous detail.
£22.50
Oxford University Press Inc We're Not Here to Entertain: Punk Rock, Ronald Reagan, and the Real Culture War of 1980s America
We remember the 1980s as the era of Ronald Reagan, a conservative decade populated by preppies and yuppies dancing to a soundtrack of electronic synth pop music (the "MTV generation"). But the decade also produced some of the most creative works of punk rock - not just the music of bands like the Minutemen and the Dead Kennedys, but also visual arts, literature, poetry, and film. Kevin Mattson documents what Kurt Cobain once called a "punk rock world." He shows just how widespread the movement became, and how democratic (not at all New York-centric), due to its commitment to Do-It-Yourself (DIY) ethics. Mattson puts this movement into a wider context, telling about a culture war that punks opened up against the sitting president. Reagan's talk about end days and nuclear warfare made kids panic; his tax cuts for the rich and simultaneous slashing of school lunch program funding made punks seethe at his meanness. The anger went deep, since punks saw Reagan as the country's entertainer-in-chief - his career (from radio to Hollywood and television) synched to the very world punks rejected. Through deep archival research, Mattson reignites the heated debates that punk's opposition generated - about everything from "straight edge" ethics to anarchism to the art of dissent. By reconstructing the world of punk, Mattson shows that it was more than just a style of purple hair and torn jeans. And in so doing, he reminds readers of its importance and its challenge to simplistic assumptions about the 1980s as a one-dimensional, conservative epoch.
£23.25
Transworld Publishers Ltd Island of Secrets: Escape to Cuba with this gripping beach read
SHORTLISTED FOR THE CAPITAL CRIME AWARDS MYSTERY BOOK OF THE YEARBeneath the beauty of Havana, she will find a bed of lies...'Transports us to another time and place. I loved it' PRIMA MAGAZINE'Iris is a heroine you'll absolutely root for in this gripping tale of murder, intrigue and romance' RED MAGAZINELondon 1957: Iris Bailey is bored to death of working in the typing pool and living with her parents in Hemel Hempstead. A gifted portraitist with a talent for sketching party guests, she dreams of becoming an artist. So she can't believe her luck when socialite Nell Hardman invites her to Havana to draw at the wedding of her Hollywood director father.Far from home, she quickly realizes the cocktails, tropical scents and azure skies mask a darker reality. As Cuba teeters on the edge of revolution and Iris's heart melts for troubled photographer Joe, she discovers someone in the charismatic Hardman family is hiding a terrible secret. Can she uncover the ugly truth behind the glamour and the dazzle before all their lives are torn apart?______________________________OUTSTANDING PRAISE FOR RACHEL RHYS:'Intoxicating' SANTA MONTEFIORE'Tantalising' DINAH JEFFRIES'Heart-pounding' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING'Transporting' SUNDAY TIMES'A fabulous summer read' DAILY EXPRESSREADERS ADORE RACHEL RHYS:'I absolutely adore Rachel Rhys' books, historical mystery with so much added glitz and glamour''Unputdownable. Wonderful characterization and very well researched''A captivating and fascinating read''Recommended for anyone who loves historical fiction with a bit of mystery and a dash of romance''Oh my goodness, I absolutely adored this book!'
£8.42
Little, Brown Book Group This Will Only Hurt a Little: The New York Times Bestseller
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'Busy is a legit writer with a voice as clear as a bell' Tina Fey 'Funny, refreshingly candid memoir about Hollywood, motherhood and BFFhood' Cosmopolitan'Judy Blume meets Karl Ove Knausgaard meets one brave woman from Arizona' Miranda JulyA memoir by the beloved comedic actress known for her roles on Freaks and Geeks, Dawson's Creek, and Cougartown who has become 'the breakout star on Instagram stories . . . imagine I Love Lucy mixed with a modern lifestyle guru' (New Yorker).Busy Philipps's autobiographical book offers the same unfiltered and candid storytelling that her Instagram followers have come to know and love, from growing up in Scottsdale, Arizona and her painful and painfully funny teen years, to her life as a working actress, mother, and famous best friend.Busy is the rare entertainer whose impressive arsenal of talents as an actress is equally matched by her storytelling ability, sense of humor, and sharp observations about life, love, and motherhood. Her conversational writing reminds us what we love about her on screens large and small. From film to television to Instagram, Busy delightfully showcases her wry humor and her willingness to bare it all.'I've been waiting my whole life to write this book. I'm just so grateful someone asked. Otherwise, what was the point of any of it??''Candid, painful and extremely wryly funny' Stylist'Like most women, famous or not, bad things have happened to Busy Philipps - as well as weird stuff, jawdropping stuff and heartwarming stuff' Refinery29'This Will Only Hurt a Little has stopped me in my tracks completely' Sophie Heawood, Observer
£14.99
Rowman & Littlefield Sally Rand: American Sex Symbol
She would appear in more than thirty films and be named after a Road Atlas by Cecil B Demille. A football play would be named after her. She would appear on To Tell the Truth. She would be arrested six times in one day for indecency. She would be immortalized in the final scene of The Right Stuff, cartoons, popular culture, and live on as the iconic symbol of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1933. She would pave the way for every sex symbol to follow from Marilyn Monroe to Lady Gaga. She would die penniless and in debt. In the end, Sammy Davis Jr. would write her a $10,000 check when she had nothing left. Her name was Sally Rand. Until now, there has not been a biography of Sally Rand. But you can draw a line from her to Lana Turner, Marilyn Monroe, Raquel Welch, Ann Margret, Madonna, and Lady Gaga. She broke the mold in 1933, by proclaiming the female body as something beautiful and taking it out of the strip club with her ethereal fan dance. She was a poor girl from the Ozarks who ran away with a carnival, then joined the circus, and finally made it to Hollywood where Cecil B Demille set her on the road to fame with silent movies. When the talkies came her career collapsed, and she ended up in Chicago, broke, sleeping in alleys. Two ostrich feathers in a second-hand store rescued her from obscurity.
£17.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Speak Well of Me: The Authorised Biography of Sir Ronald Harwood
Sir Ronald Harwood (1934-2020) was one of the most prolific playwrights and screenwriters of his generation. His acclaimed play, The Dresser, has been constantly revived since its premiere in 1980 and has been adapted for both cinema and television, most recently the 2015 BBC production starring Sir Anthony Hopkins and Sir Ian McKellen. Harwood’s other notable film adaptations included Roman Polanski’s haunting depiction of life in the Warsaw Ghetto, The Pianist (2002), Baz Luhrmann’s frontier epic, Australia (2008), and Dustin Hoffman’s poignant celebration of old age, Quartet (2012). His many awards included an Oscar for The Pianist and a BAFTA for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007). Speak Well of Me turns the focus onto Harwood himself. Based on extensive interviews with the playwright during his final years, the biography recounts Harwood’s gradual transformation from lacklustre South African schoolboy to doyen of theatreland and Hollywood. While dissecting each of his major works, the book candidly explores Harwood’s friendships with the likes of Harold Pinter, J. B. Priestley, André Previn, Sir Donald Wolfit (who inspired The Dresser) and, most controversially, Roman Polanski. The result is a biography as gripping and morally complex as one of Harwood’s own dramas. This new paperback edition includes memoirs and assessments of Harwood by Gyles Brandreth, Sir Tom Courtenay, Lady Antonia Fraser, Frederic Raphael, Sir Antony Sher and the playwright’s oldest friend, Gerald Masters.
£22.00
Simon & Schuster Ltd Shoemaker: The Untold Story of the British Family Firm that Became a Global Brand
The remarkable story of how Joe Foster developed Reebok into one of the world's most famous sports brands, having started from a small factory in Bolton. Since the late 19th century, the Foster family had been hand-making running shoes, supplying the likes of Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams - later immortalised in the film Chariots of Fire - as well as providing boots to most Football League clubs. But a family feud between Foster's father and uncle about the direction of their business led to Joe and his brother Jeff setting up a new company, inspired by the success of Adidas and Puma, and so Reebok was born. At first, money was so short that Joe and his wife had to live in their rundown factory, while the machinery that made the shoes was placed around the edge of the floor, because it was so weak it could have collapsed if they'd been positioned in the middle. But, from this inauspicious start, a major new player in the sports equipment field began to emerge, inspired by Joe's marketing vision. By the 1980s, Reebok had become a global phenomenon, when they were the first to latch onto the potential of the aerobics craze inspired by Jane Fonda. Soon, Reeboks were being seen on Hollywood red carpets and even in the film Aliens, where Sigourney Weaver wore a pair of Reebok Alien Stompers. Like the international bestseller Shoe Dog, by Nike's Phil Knight, Shoemaker is a powerful tale of triumph against all the odds, revealing the challenges and sacrifices that go into creating a world-beating brand; it is also the story of how a small local business can transform itself, with the right products and the right vision, into something much, much bigger.
£9.99
Simon & Schuster Ltd 24 Hours
Award-winning writer Richard Williams tells the remarkable story of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, one of the world's most iconic motorsports events, which celebrates its centenary in 2023. The event was created by a group of Frenchmen in 1923 and remains uniquely compelling to spectators, to the major motor manufacturers who continue to see it as an opportunity for priceless publicity, as well as to drivers hoping to add their names to its distinguished roll of honour. Between the wars, those manufacturers included Bugatti, Bentley and Alfa Romeo. Subsequently, Ferrari, Jaguar, Mercedes, Aston Martin, Ford, Porsche, Audi and Toyota have all been serial winners, guaranteeing the continuation of ferocious inter-marque rivalry. Over the decades the race acquired a rich folklore, including stories of leaking petrol tanks being sealed with chewing gum, one competitor making his last pit-stop for a fill-up and a glass of champagne, or the woman who drove her MG through the night wearing a fur coat. Competitors have included princes, debutantes, drug smugglers and a Nazi spy. Leading Hollywood film-makers lured to the romance of the race include Steve McQueen, who conceived and starred in Le Mans in 1971, and James Mangold, who made Le Mans ’66 in 2019. But in 1955 it had also been the scene of the greatest tragedy ever to befall motor racing, when 82 people were killed by a competing car, an accident that for a while threatened the sport’s entire future. From the Bentley Boys of the 1920s, through record-breaking multiple winners Jacky Ickx and Tom Kristensen to modern stars such as Allan McNish, 24 Hours celebrates the skill, courage and technical brilliance of the men and women who gave the race its worldwide renown.
£18.00
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Tom Waits' Swordfishtrombones
Two entwined narratives run through the creation of "Swordfishtrombones" and form the backbone of this book. As the 1970s ended, Waits felt increasingly constrained and trapped by his persona and career. Bitter and desperately unhappy, he moved to New York in 1979 to change his life. It wasn't working. But at his low point, he got the phone call that changed everything: Francis Ford Coppola asked Tom to write the score for "One From the Heart". Waits moved back to Los Angeles to work at Zoetrope's Hollywood studio for the next eighteen months. He cleaned up, disciplined himself as a songwriter and musician, collaborated closely with Coppola and met a script analyst named Kathleen Brennan - his "only true love".They married within two months at the Always and Forever Yours Wedding Chapel at 2am. "Swordfishtrombones" was the first thing Waits recorded after his marriage, and it was at Kathleen's urging that he made a record that conceded exactly nothing to his record label, or the critics, or his fans. There aren't many love stories where the happy ending sounds like a paint can tumbling in an empty cement mixer!Kathleen Brennan was sorely disappointed by Tom's record collection. She forced him out of his comfortable jazzbo pocket to take in foreign film scores, German theatre and Asian percussion. These two stories of a man creating that elusive American second act, and also finding the perfect collaborator in his wife give this book a natural forward drive."Thirty-Three and a Third" is a series of short books about critically acclaimed and much-loved albums of the past 40 years. By turns obsessive, passionate, creative and informed, the books in this series demonstrate many different ways of writing about music.
£9.99