It's a truth both astounding and powerful in its simplicity, and Maxwell skillfully builds a window through which readers of all ages can observe its emergence as they watch his protagonist's seemingly pitiful day unfold.How to Hold a Cockroach is Maxwell's delightful and moving love letter to humankind. A quick, compelling read, it is indeed a book for those who are free and don't know it. . . yet.

    It was on this fateful day that "Monty Python's Flying Circus" debuted. From the Dead Parrot skit to the Lumberjack Song, The Attila the Hun Show to the Cheese Shop routine, the Pythons set a standard for irreverent, obnoxious, nonsensical comedy never before seen.

    One was a Prince, one was a Count, and the third was a commoner with an Italian name, who four years earlier had been the subject of one of John Singer Sargent’s greatest portraits. The commoner was Samuel Pozzi, society doctor, pioneer gynaecologist and free-thinker – a rational and scientific man with a famously complicated private life.Pozzi's life played out against the backdrop of the Parisian Belle Epoque. The beautiful age of glamour and pleasure more often showed its ugly side: hysterical, narcissistic, decadent and violent, a time of rampant prejudice and blood-and-soil nativism, with more parallels to our own age than we might imagine.The Man in the Red Coat is at once a fresh and original portrait of the Belle Epoque – its heroes and villains, its writers, artists and thinkers – and a life of a man ahead of his time. Witty, surprising and deeply researched, the new book from Julian Barnes illuminates the fruitful and longstanding exchange of ideas between Britain and France, and makes a compelling case for keeping that exchange alive.

    Even the most predictable of us sometimes defy expectations. Other times life plays tricks on us. We find ourselves characters in a farce. As an award-winning actor and comic writer, Rebecca Front has always been fascinated by life's little quirks. Impossible Things Before Breakfast is a collection of true stories about surprising turns of events, bizarre misunderstandings and improbable life lessons. We learn, among other things, how to prepare for a role as a villainous 'she-mountain' when you're five-foot-four, why beach holidays require military-precision planning, and the joys of wearing a cape. Combining elegant writing, wry humour and genuine insight, this brilliant new collection is about lifting the lid on ordinary life and feasting on the impossible.

    Find out how designer Paloma Picasso, cosmetics producer Anita Roddick, Madonna, Oprah Winfrey and Hanae Mori achieved their success.

    Though he died at the young age of fifty-seven more than half a century ago, his influence among actors and filmmakers, and his enduring appeal for film lovers around the world, remains as strong as ever. What is it about Bogart, with his unconventional looks and noticeable speech impediment, that has captured our collective imagination for so long? In this definitive biography, Stefan Kanfer answers that question, along the way illuminating the private man Bogart was and shining the spotlight on some of the greatest performances ever captured on celluloid.Bogart fell into show business almost by accident and worked for nearly twenty years before becoming the star we know today. Born into a life of wealth and privilege in turn-of-the-century New York, Bogart was a troublemaker throughout his youth, getting kicked out of prep school and running away to join the navy at the age of nineteen. After a short, undistinguished stint at sea, Bogart spent his early twenties drifting aimlessly from one ill-fitting career to another, until, through a childhood friend, he got his first theater job. Working first as a stagehand and then, reluctantly, as a bit-part player, Bogart cut his teeth in one forgettable role after another. But it was here he began to develop a work ethic; deciding that there were “two kinds of men: professionals and bums,” Bogart, for the first time in his life, wanted to be the former.After the Crash of ’29, Bogart headed west to try his luck in Hollywood. That luck was scarce, and he slogged through more than thirty B-movie roles before his drinking buddy John Huston wrote him a part that would change everything; with High Sierra, Bogart finally broke through at the age of forty—being a pro had paid off. What followed was a string of movies we have come to know as the most beloved classics of American cinema: The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, The Big Sleep, The African Queen . . . the list goes on and on. Kanfer appraises each of the films with an unfailing critical eye, weaving in lively accounts of behind-the-scenes fun and friendships, including, of course, the great love story of Bogart and Bacall. What emerges in these pages is the portrait of a great Hollywood life, and the final word on why there can only ever be one Bogie.

    To clear my way, I must be allowed to ask some plain questions, and the answers will probably appear as unequivocal as the axioms on which reasoning is built; though, when entangled with various motives of action, they are formally contradicted, either by the words or conduct of men.In what does man's pre-eminence over the brute creation consist?The answer is as clear as that a half is less than the whole; inReason.

    

    Seven years later, that promise is broken, and the Maasai must choose between war with a powerful enemy and a perilous trek to the land allocated them by the government. Ole Sadera has risen from village scapegoat to leadership of his people. Now, they look to him for answers, while he struggles with betrayal and rapid change - and his desire for another man's wife. British administrator George Coll arrives in East Africa to face impossible choices of his own. How can he do the job he has been given and stay silent? And how can he ask the woman he loves to share an uncertain future? The Maasai gather to make their historic decision...and an Empire holds its breath.

    Published in its entirety for the first time and illustrated, The Complete Fawlty Towers will appeal to the millions of fans who have suffered through endless PBS fundraisers waiting for the next episode -- and anyone who has survived a package holiday tour. Fawlty Towers is the hotel of every traveler's nightmare. Basil Fawlty -- ill-tempered, henpecked, and conniving -- tries in vain to be master of his house under the disapproving and ever-watchful eye of his wife, Sybil. The hotel offers service by Manuel, the incompetent Spanish waiter whose feeble grasp of English makes for hilarious misunderstandings, and Polly, the unflappable chambermaid who is Fawlty Towers' only sane employee. Meals are scorched in the kitchen while adulterers consort upstairs and chaos reigns all around. For countless fans, Fawlty Towers is the best-loved bad hotel in the world, and with publication of The Complete Fawlty Towers they will all have a chance to relive its outrageous awfulness.

    Kevin Murphy made it his obsession, and he did it for you.Mr. Murphy, known to legions of fans as Tom Servo on the legendary TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000, went to the movies every day for a year. That's every single day, people. For a whole fricken' year. And not only did he endure, he prevailed -- for this is the hilarious, poignant, fascinating journal of his adventures: the first book about the movies from the audience's point of view.Kevin went to the multiplex, sure. But he didn't stop there. He found the world's smallest commercial movie theater. Another one made completely of ice. Checked out flicks in a tin-roofed hut in the South Pacific. Tooled across the desert from drive-in to drive-in in a groovy convertible. Lived for a week solely on theater food. Took six different women to the same date movie. Dressed up as a nun for the Sing-Along Sound of Music in London. Sneaked into the Cannes and Sundance film festivals. Smuggled an entire Thanksgiving dinner into a movie theater. And saw hundreds of films, from the Arctic Circle to the Equator, from the sublime to the unspeakable. Come along on a joyous global celebration of the cinema with a man on a mission -- to spend A Year at the Movies.

    Few are so angelically androgynous and masculine in the same breath. From teen hearth-throb to an accomplished actor who has worked with art house directors such as Emir Kusturica, Terry Gilliam, Roman Polanski, Jim Jarmusch, and John Waters, Depp has built himself wildly successful and unconventional career. Movie Icons is a series of photo books that feature the most famous personalities in the history of cinema. These 192-page books are visual biographies of the stars.

    From the co-creator of the landmark television series Twin Peaks comes a novel that deepens the mysteries of that iconic town in ways that not only enrich the original series but readies fans for the upcoming Showtime episodes.

    But the famous and infamous have been thrilling, titillating, and outraging us for much longer than we might realise. Whether it was the scandalous Lord Byron, whose poetry sent female fans into an erotic frenzy; or the cheetah-owning, coffin-sleeping, one-legged French actress Sarah Bernhardt, who launched a violent feud with her former best friend; or Edmund Kean, the dazzling Shakespearean actor whose monstrous ego and terrible alcoholism saw him nearly murdered by his own audience - the list of stars whose careers burned bright before the Age of Television is extensive and thrillingly varied.Celebrities could be heroes or villains; warriors or murderers; brilliant talents, or fraudsters with a flair for fibbing; trendsetters, wilful provocateurs, or tragic victims marketed as freaks of nature. Some craved fame while others had it forced upon them. A few found fame as small children, some had to wait decades to get their break. But uniting them all is the shared origin point: since the early 1700s, celebrity has been one of the most emphatic driving forces in popular culture; it is a lurid cousin to Ancient Greek ideas of glorious and notorious reputation, and its emergence helped to shape public attitudes to ethics, national identity, religious faith, wealth, sexuality, and gender roles.In this ambitious history, that spans the Bronze Age to the coming of Hollywood's Golden Age, Greg Jenner assembles a vibrant cast of over 125 actors, singers, dancers, sportspeople, freaks, demigods, ruffians, and more, in search of celebrity's historical roots. He reveals why celebrity burst into life in the early eighteenth century, how it differs to ancient ideas of fame, the techniques through which it was acquired, how it was maintained, the effect it had on public tastes, and the psychological burden stardom could place on those in the glaring limelight. DEAD FAMOUS is a surprising, funny, and fascinating exploration of both a bygone age and how we came to inhabit our modern, fame obsessed society.

    A sixteen year veteran and second-generation cop, Schaffer possesses a keen insight into what it takes to successfully uphold the law and not lose your mind in the process. Equal parts biography and instructional guide, Way of the Warrior focuses on the core of the individual officer: the warrior spirit.Whether you're a grunt working The Street or a white shirt who'd need a GPS to find it, this guide is designed to help you reconnect with why you took the oath to serve and protect. Behind the badge and the gun lies the heart of a warrior. Unleash your inner hero.One of the most authentic Law Enforcement Kindle books available, this essay on the modern warrior society of police officers is part-biography, part-instructional guide as to what it means to protect and serve the public, at any cost. It employs Law Enforcement leadership principals, Law Enforcement tactics and methods of Law Enforcement intelligence, but focuses on the core of the individual officer: the warrior spirit.For anyone interested in real Law Enforcement police stories, whether they are grunts in the field or in positions of police leadership. Behind the badge and the gun lies the heart of a warrior. Unleash your inner hero.