Filled with revelations about the origins and making of American Graffiti, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Return of the Jedi, this only full-length biography of filmmaker and cinematic visionary George Lucas has been updated with a substantial new chapter that discusses the revamped Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition, the Star Wars prequels, the filming of the first installment, and the controversial ways in which Lucas's approach and success continue to alter the landscape of the film industry.

    With a career that began in the late 1950s, Joan kept mementos over the course of her entire working life, and Joan Rivers Confidential is a compilation of never-before-seen personal archives. Assembled by her daughter Melissa with Scott Currie, the book contains scripts and monologues, letters from famous friends, exchanges with fans, rare photographs, as well as classic and never-before-heard jokes—many simply scribbled on everything from hotel stationery to airplane boarding passes. Touching on subjects from her 50 years in show business (The Tonight Show, Las Vegas, Elizabeth Taylor, Heidi Abromowitz, the red carpet, and Fashion Police), this is a revelatory and humor-filled insider look at the popular, multitalented comedian.

                 His trailblazing television program, The Dick Van Dyke Show (produced by Carl Reiner, who has written the foreword to this memoir), was one of the most popular sitcoms of the 1960s and introduced another major television star, Mary Tyler Moore. But Dick Van Dyke was also an enormously engaging movie star whose films, including Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, have been discovered by a new generation of fans and are as beloved today as they were when they first appeared. Who doesn’t know the word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?             A colorful, loving, richly detailed look at the decades of a multilayered life, My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business, will enthrall every generation of reader, from baby-boomers who recall when Rob Petrie became a household name, to all those still enchanted by Bert’s “Chim Chim Cher-ee.” This is a lively, heartwarming memoir of a performer who still thinks of himself as a “simple song-and-dance man,” but who is, in every sense of the word, a classic entertainer.From the Hardcover edition.

    In between watching his TiVo, he manages to make and release Clerks II, relate the story of his partner-in-crime Jason Mewes’ heroin addiction, get a tattoo, serve on a jury... and get caught stealing donuts from Burt ReynoldsThrown in are his views on the perils of strip clubs, the drawback of threesomes, the pain of anal fissures, his love-affair with Star Wars and so much more! Adults Only!

    Burt Reynolds has been a Hollywood leading man for six decades, known for his legendary performances, sex-symbol status, and storied Hollywood romances. In his long career of stardom, during which he was number one at the box office for five years in a row, Reynolds has seen it all. But Enough About Me will tell his story through the people he’s encountered on his amazing journey. In his words, he plans to “call out the assholes,” try to make amends for “being the asshole myself on too many occasions,” and pay homage to the many heroes he has come to love and respect. Beginning with Reynolds’s adolescence as a notable football player and the devastating car accident that ended his sports career, But Enough About Me takes readers from the Broadway stages where Reynolds got his start to his subsequent rise to fame. From Oscar nominations, to the spread in Cosmopolitan magazine that remains a notorious pop-cultural touchstone to this day, to the financial decisions that took him from rich to poor and back again, Reynolds shares the wisdom that has come from his many highs and lows. He is also ready, now more than ever, to dish. Reynolds famously romanced Dinah Shore, Sally Field, and Loni Anderson, to name only the top few; batted eyes at Bette Davis, Greta Garbo, Goldie Hawn, Farrah Fawcett, Marilyn Monroe, Candice Bergen, and so many more; went a few rounds (or more) with the likes of Donald Trump and Helen Gurley Brown; and rubbed elbows with Jon Voight, Clark Gable, Clint Eastwood, Frank Sinatra, Orson Welles, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, and Johnny Carson, among many others. Through it all, Reynolds reflects on his personal pitfalls and recoveries and refocuses his attention on his legacy as a father and an acting teacher, leaving readers with a classic from one of Hollywood’s most enduring and treasured stars.

    David Tennant's foreword caps this warm, witty memoir — a fitting tribute to a woman who will be sadly missed by legions of fans. When Elisabeth Sladen first appeared as plucky journalist Sarah Jane Smith in 1973 Doctor Who story "The Time Warrior," little did she know the character would become one of the most enduring and fondly remembered in the series' history. Here she shares the story of her years as Sarah Jane—traversing time and space alongside classic Doctors Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, while a generation of children were terrified but transfixed as their heroine found herself menaced by Daleks, dinosaurs, Cybermen, man-eating alien flora, Egyptian mummies, extras in Bubble Wrap, and even the Loch Ness Monster. By the time she quit the TARDIS in 1976, making front page news, Elisabeth had become one of the most familiar faces of a TV golden age. But that wasn't the end of Sarah Jane. Elisabeth discusses the many times she has reprised her role—anniversary specials, a 1981 spin-off pilot with robotic sidekick K-9, and radio plays. She discusses touring the weird, wide, and wonderful world of Doctor Who fandom. And lastly, she shares details of Sarah Jane's most recent incarnation—when TV wunderkind Russell T. Davies approached her to come back again, this time to a Doctor Who backed by lavish budgets and garlanded with critical plaudits, how could she possibly say no? Funny, ridiculous, insightful, and entertaining, hers is the story of another girl, another planet, completed just months before she died.

    This is an exploration of her relationship with the literary form we have come to know as "science fiction,” a relationship that has been lifelong, stretching from her days as a child reader in the 1940s, through her time as a graduate student at Harvard, where she worked on the Victorian ancestor of the form, and continuing as a writer and reviewer.  This book brings together her three heretofore unpublished Ellmann Lectures from 2010: "Flying Rabbits," which begins with Atwood's early  rabbit superhero creations, and goes on to speculate about masks, capes, weakling alter egos, and Things with Wings; "Burning Bushes," which follows her into Victorian otherlands and beyond; and "Dire Cartographies," which investigates Utopias and Dystopias.  In Other Worlds also includes some of Atwood's key reviews and thoughts about the form. Among those writers discussed are Marge Piercy, Rider Haggard, Ursula Le Guin, Ishiguro, Bryher, Huxley, and Jonathan Swift. She elucidates the differences (as she sees them) between "science fiction" proper, and "speculative fiction," as well as between "sword and sorcery/fantasy" and "slipstream fiction." For all readers who have loved The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake, and The Year of the Flood, In Other Worlds is a must.  From the Hardcover edition.

    Although it didn't factor into the stereotype, it also included science fiction.Strange Stars tells the story of how incredibly well read artists--David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, and many more--brought Sci Fi's cosmic flare to their lyrics, sounds, and styles, and changed pop music forever.

    For fans, this book is a unique insight into an area of the show's history that has previously been shrouded in mystery. For those with a wider interest in the creative processes of television drama, it is a fascinating account of the individual's creative vision at odds with the machinery of broadcasting. It features a foreword by the Seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy.

    The X-Files Fall 1996 season premiere had the highest rating Fox Television has ever achieved for a dramatic series. The show won five 1996 Ernmy awards for special effects, outstanding writing, and best guest acbacks, and continues to garner new fans with each episode. HarperPrism is the only official publisher of The X-Files, and this season, we present three brand-new additions to satisfy the voracious appetite of the millions of fans.The facts behind the fiction are even more disturbing than the menace and mystery depicted in The X-Files episodes. Here are the actual accounts of UFO sightings, alien encounters, government cover-ups, psychic crime solving, faith healing, spontaneous combustion, reincarnation, and hauntings from which the show's writers draw their material for sbacksy lines. This in-depth, photo-tilled guide--complete with interviews from the show's cast, crew, and writers, as well as astonishing revelations from the world's leading investigabackss, scientists and officials--tells the terrifying sbacksy behind our real life encounters with The X-Files.

    Third-degree burns covered 35% of her body, and the prognosis wasn't good. But she survived. Burned and scarred, the impact stayed with her and became an obstacle she was determined to overcome. Feeling like a misfit led to her love of horror. While her sisters played with Barbie dolls, Cassandra built model kits of Frankenstein and Dracula, and idolized Vincent Price.Due to a complicated relationship with her mother, Cassandra left home at 14, and by age 17 she was performing at the famed Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas. Run-ins with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., and Tom Jones helped her grow up fast. Then a chance encounter with her idol Elvis Presley, changed the course of her life forever, and led her to Europe where she worked in film and traveled Italy as lead singer of an Italian pop band. She eventually made her way to Los Angeles, where she joined the famed comedy improv group, The Groundlings, and worked alongside Phil Hartman and Paul "Pee-wee" Reubens, honing her comedic skills.Nearing age 30, a struggling actress considered past her prime, she auditioned at local LA channel KHJ as hostess for the late night vintage horror movies. Cassandra improvised, made the role her own, and got the job on the spot. Yours Cruelly, Elvira is an unforgettably wild memoir. Cassandra doesn't shy away from revealing exactly who she is and how she overcame seemingly insurmountable odds. Always original and sometimes outrageous, her story is loaded with twists, travails, revelry, and downright shocking experiences. It is the candid, often funny, and sometimes heart-breaking tale of a Midwest farm girl's long strange trip to become the world's sexiest, sassiest Halloween icon.

    He’s climbed all the way to head of production at newly merged Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and is determined to transform Leo the Lion into an icon of the most successful studio in town.The harder he works, the higher he soars. But at what cost? The more he achieves, the closer he risks flying into oblivion. A frail and faulty heart shudders inside this chest that blazes with ambition. Thalberg knows that his charmed life at the top of the Hollywood heap is a dangerous tightrope walk: each day—each breath, even—could be his last. Shooting for success means risking his health, friendships, everything. Yet, against all odds, the man no one thought would survive into adulthood almost single-handedly ushers in a new era of filmmaking.This is Hollywood at its most daring and opulent—the Sunset Strip, premieres at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, stars like Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford—and Irving is at the center of it all.From the author of the Hollywood’s Garden of Allah novels comes a mesmerizing true-life story of the man behind Golden Age mythmaking: Irving Thalberg, the prince of Tinseltown.Martin Turnbull's Hollywood’s Garden of Allah novels have been optioned for the screen by film & television producer, Tabrez Noorani.

    The joy that I have felt from chronicling these tales is not unlike listening back to a song that I've recorded and can't wait to share with the world, or reading a primitive journal entry from a stained notebook, or even hearing my voice bounce between the Kiss posters on my wall as a child. This certainly doesn't mean that I'm quitting my day job, but it does give me a place to shed a little light on what it's like to be a kid from Springfield, Virginia, walking through life while living out the crazy dreams I had as young musician. From hitting the road with Scream at 18 years old, to my time in Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, jamming with Iggy Pop or playing at the Academy Awards or dancing with AC/DC and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, drumming for Tom Petty or meeting Sir Paul McCartney at Royal Albert Hall, bedtime stories with Joan Jett or a chance meeting with Little Richard, to flying halfway around the world for one epic night with my daughters…the list goes on. I look forward to focusing the lens through which I see these memories a little sharper for you with much excitement.

    Now de Lancie and Peter David, the bestselling author of such acclaimed novels as Q-in-Law and Q-Squared, have joined forces to send Q on an unforgettable cosmic odyssey, told from the mischievous trickster's own unique point of view. The Maelstrom, a metaphysical whirlpool of apocalyptic proportions, is pulling all of reality into its maw, devouring the totality of time and space while bringing together people and places from throughout the universe. The Q Continuum pronounces that the end of everything has come, but Q refuses to meekly accept the end of all he has known. Defying the judgment of the Continuum, he sets out to derail doomsday—at whatever the cost. Q has been everywhere and done everything, but now he's in for a cosmic thrill ride beyond even his own astonishingly unlimited imagination. Old friends and adversaries wait in unexpected places, transcendent hazards abound, and the multiverse's most unlikely savior encounters wonders and dangers enough to render Q himself speechless. Almost. Can even Q, reluctantly assisted by Jean Luc Picard, prevent the Universe as We Know It from literally going down the drain? I, Q is a wild and witty voyage through the secret soul of creation—as only Q can tell it!

    Starfleet has just been founded and the Enterprise has just been built, and is sent on its first mission. The mission takes the Enterprise into the heart of hostile Romulan territory, where cosmopolitical machinations and advanced weapons technology will decide the fate of a hundred innocent worlds.