When tragedy strikes, Rachel is separated from her brother Sam and sent to a Jewish orphanage where Dr. Mildred Solomon is conducting medical research. Subjected to X-ray treatments that leave her disfigured, Rachel suffers years of cruel harassment from the other orphans. But when she turns fifteen, she runs away to Colorado hoping to find the brother she lost and discovers a family she never knew she had.Though Rachel believes she’s shut out her painful childhood memories, years later she is confronted with her dark past when she becomes a nurse at Manhattan’s Old Hebrews Home and her patient is none other than the elderly, cancer-stricken Dr. Solomon. Rachel becomes obsessed with making Dr. Solomon acknowledge, and pay for, her wrongdoing. But each passing hour Rachel spends with the old doctor reveal to Rachel the complexities of her own nature. She realizes that a person’s fate—to be one who inflicts harm or one who heals—is not always set in stone.Lush in historical detail, rich in atmosphere and based on true events, Orphan #8 is a powerful, affecting novel of the unexpected choices we are compelled to make that can shape our destinies.

    "So?""So no one wants you here. Why don't you go back where you came from?"I can't go back, I wanted to say. That was the thing about living in a group home. There was nowhere for me to go but forward.Brent Hartinger's second novel, a portrait of a subculture of teenagers that many people would like to forget, is as powerful and provocative as his first book, Geography Club.

    He recounts how the studio system rose out of the ashes of Thomas Edisons trust to create the handful of companies that have dominated global screens and imaginations for more than 100 years. Throughout, he reveals that the elements we take to be a natural part of the Hollywood experience--stars, genre-driven storytelling, blockbuster franchises, etc.--are really the product of cultural, political, and commercial forces. In many ways, Hollywood has remained the same for over a century. It has always been a global industry based in the U.S., and its storytelling has always unfolded across media, adapting plays, book, and comics and spinning off product tie-ins, television series, and social media campaigns. But major events have also continually remade Hollywood. The studios have weathered wars, disruptive new technologies, and competition by adopting a strategy of risk management and assimilation. This book explores the challenges of new technologies, including sound, home video, and computer graphics. And it examines Hollywoods responses to World War II, independent film movements, and regulations imposed by Washington. Hollywood: A Very Short Introduction is filled with discussions of well-known movies, stars, and directors, encapsulating the past century of research on Hollywood while adding many original insights and stories. It is the perfect introduction for readers who want to better understand the history and functioning of our screen-saturated world. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

    Michael O'Sullivan is a deeply religious family man who works as an Irish mob family's chief enforcer. But after his elder son witnesses one of his father's hits, the godfather orders the death of O'Sullivan's entire family. Barely surviving an encounter that takes his wife and younger son, O'Sullivan and his remaining child embark on a dark and violent mission of retribution against his former boss. Featuring accurate portrayals of Al Capone, Frank Nitti and Eliot Ness, this book offers a poignant look at the relationship between a morally-conflicted father and his adolescent son who both fears and worships him.

    Sweeping all major theater awards, including the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for drama, as well as four 1996 Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Book, and Best Score for a Musical, Rent captures the heart and spirit of a generation, refleting it onstage through the emotion of its stirring words and music, and the energy of its young cast. Now, for the first time, Rent comes to life on the page -- through vivid color photographs, the full libretto, and an utterly compelling behind-the-scenes oral history of the show's creation. Here is the exclusive and absolutely complete companion to Rent, told in the voices of the extraordinary talent behind its success: the actors, the director, the producers, and the librettist and composer himself, Jonathan Larson, whose sudden death, on the eve of the first performance, has made Rent's life-affirming message all the more poignant.

    She is fierce and merciless with her staff, expecting the same tireless dedication from her peers as she does from herself. Driven by her recent failures, Alex struggles to put her troubled past behind her. With the annual influx of new residents to the hospital, the she meets one of her new charges, Regina Kingston, a bright, young, promising doctor. Before long, Regina finds herself irresistibly drawn to the enigmatic physician despite the woman's fiery personality and maligned reputation. As professional differences come to light and personalities clash, Alex and Regina both struggle to overcome their own demons. It is within each other that they will find the strength to overcome their darkest moments, surviving to live and love again.

    Chad Morgan's job has put her life on the line more times that she can count. Getting close to the client is expected; getting too close could be deadly for Chad. Reagan Reynolds wants the top job at Reynolds Holdings and knows how to play the game like "the boys". She's not above using her beauty and body as currency to get what she wants. Shocked to find out someone wants her dead, Reagan isn't thrilled at the prospect of needing protection as she tries to convince the board she's the right woman for a man's job. How far will a killer go to get what they want? Secrets and deception twist the rules of the game as a killer closes in. How far will Chad go to protect her beautiful, but challenging client?

    This huge, 544 page full colour volume is simply one of the most lavish books ever produced for a TV show, and is presented in a foil-stamped leather-effect binding. Plus, as an exclusive bonus for this edition, a pocket at the back of the book contains 9 frameable photo prints of the cast, featuring rare and previously unseen images, and a facsimile of one of the prop banknotes used in the show.

    Young drifter Buck, part Nasoni Indian, catches up to them on a roundup. After proving himself an expert sharpshooter, rider and roper, Buck celebrates his initiation to the group by luring one of their number, Red, into his bedroll. But Buck is really after Les, sandy-haired and significantly endowed.

    But when eleven-year-old Scot's mother suddenly dies, the couple is determined to make good on a wine-soaked promise made years before. They hang a tire swing in the back yard and call the neighborhood school to arrange enrollment. Scot arrives just in time to start fifth grade—with a pair of lacy white socks in his duffel bag. With wry dialogue, frothy characters, and an offbeat plot, Michael Downing's mastery reaches new heights of brilliance in Breakfast with Scot.About the Author:Michael Downing is the author of the novels Perfect Agreement, Mother of God, and A Narrow Time. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

    This beautifully designed and illustrated book tells the story largely through the eyes of an unknown English patient whose mind is awash with a life's worth of secrets and passions after his plane is shot down near the beginning of World War Two.

    Laurie Nielsen is so overworked and overstressed that she's forced to take a vacation—on one of her companies' kid-centric cruise ships. It's a slow torture, but she eventually makes the best of it and gets off the boat in St. Maarten. There, Laurie meets and insultsKaatje Hoogaboom, a woman who has very little of Laurie's work obsession. But they still manage to hit it off—to her great surprise.Once Laurie returns home they stay in touch, getting to know each other via phone calls and e-mails. But Laurie isn't an ideal girlfriend. Work is at the top of her priority list and toppling it might be more than Kaatje is able, or even willing to do.Kaatje and Laurie both have to do a lot of soul searching; what do each of them want and need, and how far is each willing to compromise? They're both strong-minded women who've adjusted to being single. The adjustment to being coupled can be just as, if not more, trying.

    It's also made him very rich. Now, at age 53, he regrets devoting his youth to capitalism over hedonism. Alas he can't turn back time;but according to a self-styled "fusion witch" named Francesca, he can trade places with a willing participant. He just has to find a hot young stud ready to make the switch. Enter Corey Szaslo, 26, a jaded party boy whose life of sex, drugs, and barhopping has left him with no education, no career, no assets, and no prospects. Jumping into the skin of a retired millionaire seems a fair way out of this predicament, even if it means doubling his age and adding five inches to his waistline.Faster than you can say, "Be careful what you wish for," Jack and Corey are living each other's lives to the fullest. But their successfully swapped lives soon begin to come apart at the seams. And when Jack's former lover comes back, begging "Jack" for another chance, all bets are off, driving both Jack and Corey into unsuspecting competition--and resulting in a climax that takes each of them farther beyond their essential selves than they ever dreamed they'd go.

    A new volume which includes the original screenplay, with its copious director's notes, and the narrative - this has followed on from a previously undiscovered manuscript by Steinbeck being found in the UCLA Research Library - the narrative treatment of the story on which he based his screenplay.

    The then father of four and Sydney Harbour Bridge rigger from Granville did it as a dare, but when the network's switchboard lit up, he was invited back. So popular was he with viewers, Hogan became a regular on Mike Willesee's A Current Affair. The rest, as they say, is history. In collaboration with his business partner and best friend John Cornell (who played his sidekick, Strop), he went on to become Australia's favourite TV comedian. His hugely popular comedy shows and appearances in unforgettable and ground-breaking ads for cigarettes, beer and tourism, came to personify Australia and Australians here and overseas, helping to change the perception of who we are as people and as a nation.Then, in 1986, Crocodile Dundee, the movie he conceived, co-wrote and starred in, became an international smash, grossing more than a billion dollars in today's money and earning its star an Oscar nomination. Despite the fact Hoges claimed to be 'retired', many more movies followed, including Crocodile Dundee II, Lightning Jack, Almost an Angel and Charlie & Boots. But even as his star rose ever higher, he always expected someone to grab him by the arm and say, 'What are you doing here? You're just a bloody rigger!'The Tap Dancing Knife Thrower is a funny and candid account of the astonishing life of 'one lucky bastard', as Hoges describes himself. Full of countless stories never previously shared and told in the comedian's inimitable, funny and self-deprecating style, The Tap Dancing Knife Thrower is Paul Hogan's story told his way - 'without the boring bits'.