Download or read book Mr Wilder and Me written by Jonathan Coe and published by Europa Editions. This book was released on 2023-08-22 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE "Outstanding."--Alex Harvey, Los Angeles Review of Books "Captivating...A delight."--Malcolm Forbes, Washington Examiner "A really warm and wonderful and fun and happy book."--NPR's All Sides with Ann Fischer "Beautifully written and filled with compassion, humor and an abundance of knowledge about old Hollywood, Mr. Wilder and Me sheds light on lives that aren't perfect but still well lived."--Bookpage A naive young woman called Calista finds herself working for the famed Hollywood director Billy Wilder, about whom she knows almost nothing. While Calista is thrilled with her new adventure, Wilder himself is living with the realization that his star may be on the wane. In a novel that is at once a tender coming-of-age story and an intimate portrait of one of cinema's most intriguing figures, Jonathan Coe turns his gaze on the nature of time and fame, of family and the treacherous lure of nostalgia. "In its own quiet way, the novel is as odd as the movie it describes: part Hollywood biopic, part Holocaust memoir, part middle-class domestic drama."--Benjamin Markovits, The New York Times Book Review "Life-affirming, genuinely affecting, sublime, Mr. Wilder and Me is a joy to read."--Now Toronto

Download or read book Conversations with Wilder written by Cameron Crowe and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The renowned director talks to Cameron Crowe about 30 years at the very heart of Hollywood. Wilder's distinct voice provides a fascinating insider's view of the film industry past and present.

Download or read book Something to Remember You By written by Gene Wilder and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2013-04-09 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of Kiss Me Like a Stranger and My French Whore, comes this romantic, dramatic fiction set during World War II. Beloved actor and author Gene Wilder's newest novella, SOMETHING TO REMEMBER YOU BY, begins on Christmas, 1944. In a foxhole in Bastogne, Belgium, the innocent yet charmingly clever protagonist, Corporal Tom Cole, is injured. Wilder moves the action to a romantic wartime London with dimly lit blackout-compliant restaurants and mad dashes to the Tube station at the sound of the air raid sirens where Cole convalesces and falls in love for the first time. But is the mysterious Danish girl he meets at the Shepherdess Café on the up and up? Cole is a cellist back home in the States, and Anna says she's a monitor at the War Office, scanning radio waves for incoming German planes. But is she? When Cole goes to the War Office one day to surprise his new lover, she's nowhere to be found. Wilder's story takes Cole on a quest for the woman he loves but no longer trusts, and ultimately parachutes him, a newly minted intelligence officer, behind enemy lines into a concentration camp to save her life and discover the truth.

Download or read book The Rotters Club written by Jonathan Coe and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Birmingham, England, c. 1973: industrial strikes, bad pop music, corrosive class warfare, adolescent angst, IRA bombings. Four friends: a class clown who stoops very low for a laugh; a confused artist enthralled by guitar rock; an earnest radical with socialist leanings; and a quiet dreamer obsessed with poetry, God, and the prettiest girl in school. As the world appears to self-destruct around them, they hold together to navigate the choppy waters of a decidedly ambiguous decade.

Download or read book What Is This Thing Called Love written by Gene Wilder and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-03-30 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The actor and novelist answers this eternal question twelve ways, in stories that explore our most complicated emotion This is a winning collection from an author writing on his favorite topic: love. Each emotionally involving story illuminates a different kind of love: star-crossed, intense, needy, eternal, unrequited, even comical. Gene Wilder's protagonists will be instantly recognizable to his fans: men and women who stumble into relationships that can fulfill them or knock them out cold. Which one it will be depends, often, on the smallest of gestures or reactions. What Is This Thing Called Love includes the stories: • "In Love for the First Time," about a lover so shy and studious that he's a "funny duck" who has to be led by the hand by his equally inexperienced girlfriend • "About Being in Love," featuring coarse but charming Buddy Silverman, who yearns for connection but looks for it in exactly the wrong kind of woman • "The Woman in the Red Hat," who shows a writer who has only explored love in his books what the real thing feels like.

Download or read book On Sunset Boulevard written by Ed Sikov and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2017-06-14 with total page 675 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On Sunset Boulevard, originally published in 1998, describes the life of acclaimed filmmaker Billy Wilder (1906-2002), director of such classics as Sunset Boulevard, The Lost Weekend, The Seven Year Itch, and Sabrina. This definitive biography takes the reader on a fast-paced journey from Billy Wilder's birth outside of Krakow in 1906 to Vienna, where he grew up, to Berlin, where he moved as a young man while establishing himself as a journalist and screenwriter, and triumphantly to Hollywood, where he became as successful a director as there ever was. Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot, and The Apartment"Wilder's cinematic legacy is unparalleled. Not only did he direct these classics and twenty-one other films, he co-wrote all of his own screenplays. Volatile, cynical, hilarious, and driven, Wilder arrived in Hollywood an all-but-penniless refugee who spoke no English. Ten years later he was calling his own shots, and he stayed on top of the game for the next three decades. Wilder battled with Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, Bing Crosby, and Peter Sellers; kept close friendships with William Holden, Audrey Hepburn, Jack Lemmon, and Walter Matthau; amassed a personal fortune by way of blockbuster films and shrewd investments in art (including Picassos, Klees, and Mir's); and won Oscars--yet Wilder, ever conscious of his thick accent, always felt the sting of being an outsider. On Sunset Boulevard traces the course of a turbulent but fabulous life, both behind the scenes and on the scene, from Viennese cafes and Berlin dance halls in the twenties to the Hollywood soundstages of the forties and the on-location shoots of the fifties and sixties. Crammed with Wilder's own caustic wit, On Sunset Boulevard reels out the story of one of cinema's most brilliant and prolific talents.

Download or read book Number 11 written by Jonathan Coe and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2017-01-24 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning in the early years of this century, Number 11 follows two friends, Alison and Rachel, as they come of age. As the narrative progresses from the aftermath of the Iraq War to the present day, its scope broadens to include others who are variously connected to these two girls: Alison’s mother, a has-been singer, competes on a grisly reality TV show; Rachel’s university mentor finally confronts her late husband’s obsessive search for a German film he saw as a child; a young police constable investigates the seemingly unrelated deaths of two stand-up comedians; and a giant spider lurks in the darkness beneath one of London’s most staggeringly expensive neighborhoods. Combining his signature humor, psychological insight and social commentary, Jonathan Coe holds up a disquieting, unforgiving mirror in which to reflect a world where the systems are broken and everyone can—and perhaps must—name his or her own price.

Download or read book Kiss Me Like A Stranger written by Gene Wilder and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this personal book from the star of many beloved and classic film comedies -- from The Producers to Young Frankenstein, Blazing saddles to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory -- Gene Wilder writes about a side of his life the public hasn't seen on the screen. Kiss Me Like a Stranger is not an autobiography in the usual sense of the word, and it's certainly not another celebrity "tell-all." Instead, Wilder has chosen to write about resonant moments in his life, events that led him to an understanding of the art of acting, and -- more important -- to an understanding of how to give love to and receive love from a woman. Wilder writes compellingly about the creative process on stage and screen, and divulges moments from life on the sets of some of the most iconic movies of our time. In this book, he talks about everything from his experiences in psychoanalysis to why he got into acting and later comedy (his first goal was to be a Shakespearean actor), and how a Midwestern childhood with a sick mother changed him. Wilder explains why he became an actor and writer, and about the funny, wonderful movies he made with Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Richard Pryor, and Harrison Ford, among many others. He candidly reveals his failures in love, and writes about the overwhelming experience of marrying comedienne Gilda Radner, as well as what finally had to happen for him to make a true and lasting commitment to another woman. A thoughtful, revealing, and winsome book about life, love, and the creative process, the New York Times bestseller Kiss Me Like A Stranger is one actor's life in his own words.

Download or read book Theophilus North written by Thornton Wilder and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-04-09 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An extremely entertaining array of American life in a bygone era.” — New Yorker The last of Thornton Wilder’s works published during his lifetime, Theophilus North is part autobiographical and part the imagined adventures of Wilder’s twin brother who died at birth. This edition features an updated afterword from Wilder’s nephew, Tappan Wilder, with illuminating material about the novelist, story and setting. Setting out to see the world in the summer of 1926, Theophilus North gets as far as Newport, Rhode Island, before his car breaks down. To support himself, Theophilus takes jobs in the elegant mansions along Ocean Drive, just as Wilder himself did in the same decade. Soon the young man finds himself playing the roles of tutor, tennis coach, spy, confidant, lover, friend and enemy as he becomes entangled in adventure and intrigue in Newport’s fabulous addresses, as well as in its local boarding houses, restaurants, dives and military barracks. Narrated by the elderly North from a distance of fifty years, Theophilus North is a fascinating commentary on youth and education from the vantage point of age, and deftly displays Wilder’s trademark wit juxtaposed with his lively and timeless ruminations on what really matters, at the end of the day, about life, love, and work.

Download or read book Farther and Wilder written by Blake Bailey and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-12-03 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Jackson’s novel The Lost Weekend—the story of five disastrous days in the life of an alcoholic—was published in 1944 to triumphant success. Although he tried to escape its legacy, Jackson is often remembered only as the author of this thinly veiled autobiography. In Farther & Wilder, the award-winning biographer of Richard Yates and John Cheever goes deeper, exploring Jackson’s life—from growing up in the scandal-plagued village of Newark, New York, to a career in Hollywood and friendships with everyone from Judy Garland and Billy Wilder to Thomas Mann and Mary McCarthy. This is the fascinating biography of a writer whose life and work encapsulated what it meant to be an addict and a closeted homosexual in mid-century America, and who was far ahead of his time in bringing these forbidden subjects into the popular discourse.

Download or read book Billy Wilder on Assignment written by Billy Wilder and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-10-25 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year, chosen by Tom Stoppard "A revelation."—Marc Weingarten, Washington Post Acclaimed film director Billy Wilder’s early writings—brilliantly translated into English for the first time Before Billy Wilder became the screenwriter and director of iconic films like Sunset Boulevard and Some Like It Hot, he worked as a freelance reporter, first in Vienna and then in Weimar Berlin. Billy Wilder on Assignment brings together more than fifty articles, translated into English for the first time, that Wilder (then known as "Billie") published in magazines and newspapers between September 1925 and November 1930. From a humorous account of Wilder's stint as a hired dancing companion in a posh Berlin hotel and his dispatches from the international film scene, to his astute profiles of writers, performers, and political figures, the collection offers fresh insights into the creative mind of one of Hollywood’s most revered writer-directors. Wilder’s early writings—a heady mix of cultural essays, interviews, and reviews—contain the same sparkling wit and intelligence as his later Hollywood screenplays, while also casting light into the dark corners of Vienna and Berlin between the wars. Wilder covered everything: big-city sensations, jazz performances, film and theater openings, dance, photography, and all manner of mass entertainment. And he wrote about the most colorful figures of the day, including Charlie Chaplin, Cornelius Vanderbilt, the Prince of Wales, actor Adolphe Menjou, director Erich von Stroheim, and the Tiller Girls dance troupe. Film historian Noah Isenberg's introduction and commentary place Wilder’s pieces—brilliantly translated by Shelley Frisch—in historical and biographical context, and rare photos capture Wilder and his circle during these formative years. Filled with rich reportage and personal musings, Billy Wilder on Assignment showcases the burgeoning voice of a young journalist who would go on to become a great auteur.

Download or read book Ebony and Ivy written by Craig Steven Wilder and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-09-02 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading African-American historian of race in America exposes the uncomfortable truths about race, slavery and the American academy, revealing that our leading universities, dependent on human bondage, became breeding grounds for the racist ideas that sustained it.

Download or read book Make Me Wilder written by Serena Bell and published by Jelsba Media Group. This book was released on 2021-05-20 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: She’s a city girl. I’m a mountain man. This shouldn’t work. So why can’t I stay away? Gabe: I promised my dad I’d take care of the Wilder family adventure business, including my rowdy co-workers, AKA my brothers. Now the business is in trouble. Rush Creek has become a spa-and-wedding destination, and the new tourists aren’t interested in getting dirty—at least not in the woods. Then Lucy comes to town, all blond hair and silky blouses and spike heels. It’s her job to give Wilder Adventures a makeover. If she gets her way, Wilder Adventures will become Wilder Romantic Adventures. Lucy hates small towns, getting messy, and anything involving the woods or the water—which pretty much makes her Not My Type. That doesn’t explain why when I see her, I can’t look away. Why when I touch her, I can’t stop. And why, even though I know no one can talk a city girl into small town life, I’m still trying. She’s driving me wild. All I can do is make her wilder. “Serena Bell always delivers on fine writing and sexy characters. And, wow, fans of True North should know that her new series is right up your alley!” —Sarina Bowen, USA Today bestselling author of the True North Series “Absolutely loved the story! ♥” —@Bookstley on Instagram “Stayed up so late to read this book last night but it was sooooo worth it.” —@torlynnreads on Instagram ★★★★★ “Absolutely love this book!” —Goodreads reviewer ★★★★★ “This book sizzles right from the start! I lost track of how many times I genuinely laughed out loud.” —Goodreads reviewer ★★★★★ “Humor, steam, and a whole lot of heart.” —Misty, Reds Romance Reviews ★★★★★ “Wow! There aren’t words to describe how this book made me feel.” —Goodreads reviewer ★★★★★ “Funny, romantic and wonderful characters!” —Goodreads reviewer ★★★★★ “I really, really love this book! Just the right amount of humor, angst and sex with a perfect HEA.” —NetGalley reviewer Keywords: enemies to lovers, small town, alpha hero, band of brothers, fish out of water, opposites attract, outdoor adventure, steamy, fun, funny, romantic comedy, steamy contemporary, laugh out loud, found family, friends and family, steamy romance, contemporary romance, romance series, small town romance

Download or read book Something Wilder written by Christina Lauren and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-05-17 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The “reigning romance queens” (PopSugar) and New York Times bestselling authors of The Soulmate Equation and The Unhoneymooners present a charming and laugh-out-loud funny novel filled with adventure, treasure, and, of course, love. Growing up the daughter of notorious treasure hunter and absentee father Duke Wilder left Lily without much patience for the profession…or much money in the bank. But Lily is resourceful, and now uses Duke’s coveted hand-drawn maps to guide tourists on fake treasure hunts through the red rock canyons of Utah. It pays the bills but doesn’t leave enough to fulfill her dream of buying back the beloved ranch her father sold years ago, and definitely not enough to deal with the sight of the man she once loved walking back into her life with a motley crew of friends ready to hit the trails. Frankly, Lily would like to take him out into the wilderness and leave him there. Leo Grady knew mirages were a thing in the desert, but they’d barely left civilization when the silhouette of his greatest regret comes into focus in the flickering light of the campfire. Ready to leave the past behind him, Leo wants nothing more than to reconnect with his first and only love. Unfortunately, Lily Wilder is all business, drawing a clear line in the sand: it’s never going to happen. But when the trip goes horribly and hilariously wrong, the group wonders if maybe the legend of the hidden treasure wasn’t a gimmick after all. There’s a chance to right the wrongs—of Duke’s past and their own—but only if Leo and Lily can confront their history and work together. Alone under the stars in the isolated and dangerous mazes of the Canyonlands, Leo and Lily must decide whether they’ll risk their lives and hearts on the treasure hunt of a lifetime. This page-turning adventure full of second chances, complicated relationships, and the breathtaking beauty of the American Southwest will take you on one wild ride.

Download or read book The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim written by Jonathan Coe and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-03-08 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maxwell Sim can’t seem to make a single meaningful connection. His absent father was always more interested in poetry; he maintains an e-mail correspondence with his estranged wife, though under a false identity; his incomprehensible teenage daughter prefers her BlackBerry to his conversation; and his best friend since childhood is refusing to return his calls. He has seventy-four friends on Facebook, but nobody to talk to. In an attempt to stir himself out of this horrible rut, Max quits his job as a customer liaison at the local department store and accepts a strange business proposition that falls in his lap by chance: he’s hired to drive a Prius full of toothbrushes to the remote Shetland Islands, part of a misguided promotional campaign for a dental-hygiene company intent on illustrating the slogan “We Reach Furthest.” But Max’s trip doesn’t go as planned, as he’s unable to resist making a series of impromptu visits to important figures from his past who live en route. After a string of cruelly enlightening and intensely awkward misadventures, he finds himself falling in love with the soothing voice of his GPS system (“Emma”) and obsessively identifying with a sailor who perpetrated a notorious hoax and subsequently lost his mind. Eventually Max begins to wonder if perhaps it’s a severe lack of self-knowledge that’s hampering his ability to form actual relationships. A humane satire and modern-day picaresque, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim is a gently comic and rollickingly entertaining novel about the paradoxical difficulties of making genuine attachments in a world of advanced communications technology and rampant social networking.

Download or read book Like a Fiery Elephant written by Jonathan Coe and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-03-07 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his heyday, during the 1960s and early 1970s, B. S. Johnson was one of the best-known young novelists in Britain. A passionate advocate for the avant-garde in both literature and film, he became famous -- not to say notorious -- both for his forthright views on the future of the novel and for his idiosyncratic ways of putting them into practice. But in November 1973 Johnson's lifelong depression got the better of him, and he was found dead at his north London home. He had taken his own life at the age of forty. Jonathan Coe's biography is based upon unique access to the vast collection of papers Johnson left behind after his death, and upon dozens of interviews with those who knew him best. As unconventional in form as one of its subject's own novels, it paints a remarkable picture -- sometimes hilarious, often overwhelmingly sad -- of a tortured personality; a man whose writing tragically failed to keep at bay the demons that pursued him.

Download or read book 9th 13th written by Jonathan Coe and published by Penguin Hardcover. This book was released on 2005 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In May 2005 Penguin will publish 70 unique titles to celebrate the company's 70th birthday. The titles in the Pocket Penguins series are emblematic of the renowned breadth of quality of the Penguin list and will hark back to Penguin founder Allen Lane's vision of good books for all'. was assured. There followed a string of widely acclaimed novels that together chart the changing social fabric of Britain over the last thirty years. 9th and 13th brings together several uncollected pieces of fiction and non-fiction, some of which never before published in the UK, from the master of comedy and pathos.