An intimate memoir of the late British actor Terence Rigby by notable screenwriter and close friend, Juliet Ace. "I simply regard him as one of the best actors in Britain." The Guardian theatre critic Michael Billington "This book should be read by anyone who likes the theatre." Director and actor Peter Eyre. In a post card, Rigby wrote to Juliet: "Have you made much headway with the scandalizing version of my biography? I've certainly started on yours." But as director and critic Ned Chaillet notes in his foreword, "Juliet Ace has written much more than a 'scandalizing' life of the wonderfully memorable and professionally esteemed actor that was Terence Rigby " He was one of Harold Pinter's favourite actors - memorably creating Joey in The Homecoming and Briggs in No Man's Land - and Terence Rigby's television work ranged from the dog-handler Sergeant Snow in the police series Softly Softly to the rough-hewn spy Roy Bland in the great Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with Alec Guinness. His performance as the newly created character Albert the Horse in Alan Bennett's version of The Wind in the Willows at the Royal National Theatre was widely praised and gave voice to Rigby's deadpan humour in his native Brummie accent. But this very public and exuberant actor retained a deeply private life, a mystery even to the agent who served him throughout most of his career. In her biographical memoir of Terence Rigby the dramatist Juliet Ace offers a rare glimpse into his private world while exploring his work and artistic process. It is a picture of an actor's life that is at once intimate and professionally revealing, ranging from the privacy of repeated encounters over Juliet's kitchen table to the memories of his contemporaries and colleagues, ranging from Peter Hall and Michael Gambon to fellow students from his RADA days, spiced by Rigby's own notes and letters. "Terence Rigby would be astonished by the sight of himself, I think ... His shade, and his memory, have been fortunate in their chronicler. [Rigby's] almost threatening contradictions speak throughout the whole narrative - no wonder he got on so well with Pinter - but always in a strange harmony with his lovable qualities. As an account of the complexities that can beset an acting life, it's unparalleled, I think. And the way that the bones of the book are allowed to show through, in the progress of its compilation, seems absolutely right. Surely it is destined to be a 'real' book, rather than a virtual book. The sheer solidity of Rigby requires hard covers." Critic and broadcaster Russell Davies.

The “beautifully written” (The New York Times) autobiography of Michael Nesmith, from his star-making role on The Monkees and his invention of the music video to his critical contributions to movies, comedy, and the world of virtual reality “Reads like the chronicle of a relentless seeker.”—Los Angeles Times Michael Nesmith’s eclectic, electric life spanned his star-making role on The Monkees, his invention of the music video, and his critical contributions to movies, comedy, and the world of virtual reality. But above all, his is a seeker’s story, a pilgrimage in search of a set of principles to live by. That search took Nesmith from a childhood in Dallas to the set of The Monkees in Los Angeles to the heart of swinging London with John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix. This funny, thoughtful, self-aware book is a window into an unexpected life, inflected at every turn by the surprising candor and absurdist humor of an American original.

An Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and the OAPEN library. 2009 was the bicentenary of the birth of the English writer, translator, critic and amateur artist Elizabeth Rigby, Lady Eastlake (1809-1893). Bringing together a comprehensive collection of her surviving correspondence, the Letters of Elizabeth Rigby, Lady Eastlake reveals significant new material about this extraordinary figure in Victorian society. The scope of Lady Eastlake’s writing is wide and interdisciplinary, which recommends her as a significant figure in Victorian culture, giving rise to revelations about the ways in which different cultural activities were linked. Lady Eastlake lived for extended periods of time abroad in Germany and Estonia, and wrote an early work about her impressions of the Baltic, her subsequent writing took the form of reviews for the periodical press, including reviews of Jane Eyre, Vanity Fair, Ruskin, Coleridge, and Madame de Stael. She also wrote on women’s subjects, including articles on the education of women. However, the great proportions of her publications are art-related reviews: she wrote one of earliest critical texts on photography and produced several essays on artists. The lively correspondence of Lady Eastlake not only contributes to a more holistic understanding of nineteenth-century culture, it also shows how a well connected woman could play an important role in the Victorian art world.

A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK • INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A contemporary literary classic and "an accomplished psychological thriller ... absolutely chilling" (Village Voice), from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Goldfinch. Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries. But their search for the transcendent leads them down a dangerous path, beyond human constructs of morality. “A remarkably powerful novel [and] a ferociously well-paced entertainment.... Forceful, cerebral, and impeccably controlled.” —The New York Times

The Castle of Llyr by Lloyd Alexander, Book Three in The Chronicles of Prydain Princess Eilonwy hates to leave her friend Taran, Assistant Pig-Keeper, and her beloved home, Caer Dallben. Why does she have to go to the Isle of Mona to train as a proper lady when she's already a princess? But Eilonwy soon faces much more than the ordeal of becoming a dignified young maiden, for she possesses magical powers sought by the evil enchantress Queen Achren. When Eilonwy is put under a deep spell, Taran and his companions set out on a dangerous quest to rescue her. Yet how can a lowly Assistant Pig-Keeper hope to stand against the most evil enchantress in all of Prydain?

“In Syzygy, Beauty, T Fleischmann re-imagines the essay, creating a spare little book that reads like a collection of prose poems.” (David Ulin, Los Angeles Times) In Syzygy, Beauty, T Fleischmann builds an essay of prose blocks, weaving together observations on art, the narrator’s construction of a house, and a direct address to a lover. Playing with scale and repetition, we are kept off-center, and therefore always looking, as the speaker leads us through an intimate relationship that is complicated and deepened by multiple partners, gender transitions, and itinerancy. “A complex, tightly wound (and wounded) cri de coeur that is simultaneously accessible and intensely, cryptically personal.” —Minneapolis Star-Tribune “T Fleischmann’s Syzygy, Beauty shimmers with confidence as it tours the surreal chaos of gender, art, and desire . . . I hail its weirdness, its ‘armpit frankess,’ its indelible portrait of occulted relation, and above all, its impeccable music.” —Maggie Nelson, author of The Argonauts “This distinctive debut traces ‘the past made alight by impact’ through a diverse set of sources: film and carpentry analogies; interior monologues; references to artists Méret Oppenheim, Man Ray, Grayson Perry, and Louise Bourgeois; gnostic texts; and personal, yet ambiguous, disclosures.” —ForeWord Reviews “At its most basic, this unusual and engaging book describes the ins-and-outs of an unorthodox love affair, but it also functions as a sustained exploration of the ambiguities of love, gender, intimacy, and aesthetic possibilities.” —Publishers Weekly

Nothing should come between best friends, not even boys. ESPECIALLY not boys. Natalie and Brooke have had each other's backs forever. Natalie is the quiet one, college bound and happy to stay home and watch old movies. Brooke is the movie--the life of every party, the girl everyone wants to be. Then it happens--one crazy night that Natalie can't remember and Brooke's boyfriend, Aiden, can't forget. Suddenly there's a question mark in Natalie and Brooke's friendship that tests everything they thought they knew about each other and has both girls discovering what true friendship really means.