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Book The Star of Kazan

Download or read book The Star of Kazan written by Eva Ibbotson and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-09-04 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eva Ibbotson's hugely entertaining The Star of Kazan is a timeless classic for readers young and old. In 1896, in a pilgrim church in the Alps, an abandoned baby girl is found by a cook and a housemaid. They take her home, and Annika grows up in the servants' quarters of a house belonging to three eccentric Viennese professors. She is happy there, but dreams of the day when her real mother will come to find her. And sure enough, one day a glamorous stranger arrives at the door. After years of guilt and searching, Annika's mother has come to claim her daughter, who is in fact a Prussian aristocrat whose true home is a great castle. But at crumbling, spooky Spittal, Annika discovers that all is not as it seems in the lives of her new-found family . . .

Book The Dragonfly Pool

Download or read book The Dragonfly Pool written by Eva Ibbotson and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-09-04 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Blending history and tragedy with an irresistible wit and verve.' – The Times The Dragonfly Pool by Eva Ibbotson is an exciting story of friendship and determination during the Second World War, from the award-winning author of Journey to the River Sea and The Star of Kazan. Illustrated with a gorgeous updated cover by Katie Hickey. Tally Hamilton is furious to hear she is being sent from London to a horrid, stuffy boarding school in the countryside. And all because of the stupid war. But Delderton Hall is a far more interesting place than Tally ever imagined, and an exciting school trip to the beautiful and luscious kingdom of Bergania whisks Tally into an unexpected adventure . . . Will she be able to save her new friend, Prince Karil, from terrible danger before it's too late?

Book Kazan on Directing

Download or read book Kazan on Directing written by Elia Kazan and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-01-12 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Elia Kazan was the twentieth century’s most celebrated director of both stage and screen, and this monumental, revelatory book shows us the master at work. Kazan’s list of Broadway and Hollywood successes—A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, On the Waterfront, to name a few—is a testament to his profound impact on the art of directing. This remarkable book, drawn from his notebooks, letters, interviews, and autobiography, reveals Kazan’s method: how he uncovered the “spine,” or core, of each script; how he analyzed each piece in terms of his own experience; and how he determined the specifics of his production. And in the final section, “The Pleasures of Directing”—written during Kazan’s final years—he becomes a wise old pro offering advice and insight for budding artists, writers, actors, and directors.

Book Elia Kazan

    Book Details:
  • Author : Richard Schickel
  • Publisher : Harper Collins
  • Release : 2011-08-02
  • ISBN : 0062031538
  • Pages : 562 pages

Download or read book Elia Kazan written by Richard Schickel and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-08-02 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few figures in film and theater history tower like Elia Kazan. Born in 1909 to Greek parents in Istanbul, Turkey, he arrived in America with incomparable vision and drive, and by the 1950s he was the most important and influential director in the nation, simultaneously dominating both theater and film. His productions of A Streetcar Named Desire and Death of a Salesman reshaped the values of the stage. His films -- most notably On the Waterfront -- brought a new realism and a new intensity of performance to the movies. Kazan's career spanned times of enormous change in his adopted country, and his work affiliated him with many of America's great artistic moments and figures, from New York City's Group Theatre of the 1930s to the rebellious forefront of 1950s Hollywood; from Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy to Marlon Brando and James Dean. Ebullient and secretive, bold and self-doubting, beloved yet reviled for "naming names" before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Kazan was an individual as complex and fascinating as any he directed. He has long deserved a biography as shrewd and sympathetic as this one. In the electrifying Elia Kazan, noted film historian and critic Richard Schickel illuminates much more than a single astonishing life and life's work: He pays discerning tribute to the power of theater and film, and casts a new light on six crucial decades of American history.

Book The Secret of Platform 13

Download or read book The Secret of Platform 13 written by Eva Ibbotson and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-09-04 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Under Platform 13 at King's Cross Station there is a secret door that leads to a magical island . . . It appears only once every nine years. And when it opens, four mysterious figures step into the streets of London. A wizard, an ogre, a fey and a young hag have come to find the prince of their kingdom, stolen as a baby nine years before. But the prince has become a horrible rich boy called Raymond Trottle, who doesn't understand magic and is determined not to be rescued. Shortlisted for the Smarties Prize, The Secret of Platform 13 is an exciting magical adventure from Eva Ibbotson, the award-winning author of Journey to the River Sea. 'This kind of fun will never fail to delight' Philip Pullman

Book THE ANATOLIAN

    Book Details:
  • Author : Elia Kazan
  • Publisher : Knopf
  • Release : 2012-05-02
  • ISBN : 0307807304
  • Pages : 703 pages

Download or read book THE ANATOLIAN written by Elia Kazan and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2012-05-02 with total page 703 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his powerful new novel, Elia Kazan takes up the life of the young Greek from Anatolia whose early years he chronicled in his first and highly acclaimed novel, America America, giving us the story of a man caught between two worlds and fighting to make a place for himself within them. We enter the story of 1909. Stavros Topouzoglou—Joe Arness to his American friends—is meeting the freighter that has brought his family to America. This day marks the culmination of a lifetime of responsibility. Steeled by his harsh life, proud and resourceful, he has nonetheless been governed by the age-old rules of filial duty: putting aside his own needs and desires, he obediently took on the fulfillment of his father’s dream of safety and salvation for their family. For a decade he has worked to bring his family to America—an America that has hypnotized and motivated him with its promise of money and power and privilege. But as the family disembarks there is one person missing: his father is dead. Suddenly, Stavros is caught between two powerful and opposing influences. On one side is his family: seven brothers and sisters and his mother look to him for guidance, strength, and support, drawing him back into the ways and tenets of the “old” country. On the other side, the bright-seeming, golden possibilities of the “new” world of America, possibilities that Stavros has only glimpsed from afar, but that he has determined to attain. Stavros is not prepared for this clash of cultures, nor for the emotional turmoil it produces in him. He has always believed that through sheer will and energy he could achieve anything, but now even his ferocious, unswerving drive cannot sustain him. And so we see him dutifully assume the patriarchal position in the family, only to witness the foundation of family devotion, respect, and love broken down by the terrifying yet heady exigencies of this new life. We see Stavros passionately drawn to Althea Perry, imagining her to be a key to his acceptance into the society he yearns for, but finding instead that she is a constant reminder of the obstacles he must continually face and the sacrifices of pride he must be prepared to make. We see Stavros slowly ingratiating himself with Fernand Sarrafian—the man he most admires, the man with the kind of power Stavros wants for himself—only to learn that Sarrafian’s power is tainted with greed, deceit, and an almost total lack of humaneness. We see how often Stavros must invoke the words his father said to him as a boy: “If you don’t allow yourself to feel it, the shame does not exist.” We see him confronted by his brother—just returned from fighting for a Greater Greece—whose words to Stavros reverberate with both love and accusation: “I’m thinking of you at night. What you were once, what you are now . . . When we first came here, I was so proud of you . . . Now all you care about is how to make money.” And it is these words that finally force Stavros to acknowledge the devastating impurities in his dream of an American life, to see how completely he’s lost himself in his blind attempt to attain that dream. And he is compelled to devise a plan by which he can redeem not only himself, his family, and the memory of his father, but also—even if only in the smallest measure—the love for his homeland that he begins to feel with renewed fervor and empassioned dedication. In the story of Stavros, Elia Kazan not only gives us a vividly wrought picture of one man’s struggle to understand his dreams, but he reveals, as well, what it has meant for the immigrant to confront America, and, more importantly, what it has meant for him to confront himself in this seductive, yet often inimical, culture.

Book One Dog and His Boy

Download or read book One Dog and His Boy written by Eva Ibbotson and published by Scholastic UK. This book was released on 2011-07-07 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All Hal ever wanted was a dog - but a dog would damage the expensive carpets in his parents' glamorous home, and they refuse to consider one. That's until they discover Easy Pets, a dog-rental agency. Fleck the terrier arrives on Hal's birthday, and Hal is overjoyed. But when Hal discovers to his horror that his dog is to be returned, he runs away... along with a bunch of pedigree hounds, all joyfully escaping from Easy Pets! Soon Hal and his dogs - including Otto the wise St Bernard, and the fierce and excitable Pekinese Li-Chee - are being chased across the country by ruthless pursuers. Helped by a travelling circus and some orphanage children, can they race to freedom? Written in the timeless tradition of 101 Dalmations, this is a tail-wagging grand adventure that every dog-lover will adore. Praise for Eva Ibbotson: "Readers of classic children's fiction will be familiar with the bliss that steals over one when a new Eva Ibbotson novel is published." Amanda Craig, The Times "Eva Ibbotson weaves a magic like no other. Once enchanted, always enchanted." Michael Morpurgo "This kind of fun will never fail to delight." Philip Pullman

Book After the Blast

    Book Details:
  • Author : Zoe Kazan
  • Publisher : Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
  • Release : 2019-11-05
  • ISBN : 0822238519
  • Pages : 84 pages

Download or read book After the Blast written by Zoe Kazan and published by Dramatists Play Service, Inc.. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Generations ago, humans retreated deep underground after an environmental disaster ruined the world above. Nature is now simulated through brain-implanted chips, and fertility is regulated to keep the surviving population in balance. Anna and Oliver want to have a baby, and their options are running out.

Book Which Witch

    Book Details:
  • Author : Eva Ibbotson
  • Publisher : Pan Macmillan
  • Release : 2008-09-04
  • ISBN : 0330477757
  • Pages : 170 pages

Download or read book Which Witch written by Eva Ibbotson and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-09-04 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Which Witch? is a brilliantly witty tale of magic and marriage by Eva Ibbotson, shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. 'Find me a witch!' cried Arriman the Awful, feared Wizard of the North. Arriman has decided to marry. His wife must be a witch of the darkest powers – but which witch will she be? To find the most fiendish, he holds a spell-casting competition. Glamorous Madame Olympia performs the terrifying Symphony of Death and conjures up a thousand plague-bearing rats. The magic of gentle Belladonna, the white witch, goes hopelessly wrong. She produces perfumed flowers instead of snakes. And bats roost in her golden hair instead of becoming blood-sucking vampires. Poor Belladonna longs to be an evil enchantress – but how? 'This kind of fun will never fail to delight' - Philip Pullman.

Book A Company of Swans

    Book Details:
  • Author : Eva Ibbotson
  • Publisher : Pan Macmillan
  • Release : 2008-09-04
  • ISBN : 0230737889
  • Pages : 343 pages

Download or read book A Company of Swans written by Eva Ibbotson and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-09-04 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Company of Swans is a sweeping tale of romance, freedom and the beauty of dance from award-winning author, Eva Ibbotson, with a new introduction by Joanna Nadin. Weekly ballet classes are Harriet Morton's only escape from her intolerably dull life. So when she is chosen to join a corps de ballet which is setting off on a tour of the Amazon, she leaps at the chance to run away for good. Performing in the grand opera houses is everything Harriet dreamed of, and falling in love with an aristocratic exile makes her new life complete. Swept away by it all, she is unaware that her father and intended fiancé have begun to track her down . . . 'I have binged on Eva Ibbotson . . . her elegantly written, witty and well-observed fables' Nigella Lawson, The Times Rediscover Eva Ibbotson, award-winning author of Journey to the River Sea, in her sweeping historical romances, including The Morning Gift, A Song For Summer and The Secret Countess, originally published as A Countess Below Stairs, Magic Flutes, originally published as The Reluctant Heiress, Madensky Square and A Company of Swans.

Book A Countess Below Stairs

Download or read book A Countess Below Stairs written by Eva Ibbotson and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the Russian Revolution turns her world upside down, Anna, a young Russian countess, has no choice but to flee to England. Penniless, Anna hides her aristocratic background and takes a job as a servant in the household of the esteemed Westerholme family. Anna is overwhelmed by her new duties, and her instant attraction to Rupert, the handsome Earl of Westerholme. To make matters worse, Rupert appears to be falling for her, too. Anna finds it increasingly difficult to keep her secrets from unraveling; and then there's the small matter of Rupert's fiancée.

Book The Ogre of Oglefort

Download or read book The Ogre of Oglefort written by Eva Ibbotson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-08-18 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ivo the orphan, together with the Hag of Dribble, Ulf the Troll, and Brian the Wizard, sets out to save Princess Mirella from the dreaded Ogre of Oglefort. But when the rescuers arrive at the castle, they are shocked to find that the princess doesn't want to be saved; she wants the ogre to turn her into a bird so she can escape an arranged marriage. And the Ogre isn't nearly the fearsome creature he once was--in fact, he's rather depressed. Now the rescuers have a new goal: save Princess Mirella from her tyrannical royal family and help restore the Ogre and his castle to the fearsome (but fun) paradise it used to be.

Book Samurai Banner of Furin Kazan

Download or read book Samurai Banner of Furin Kazan written by Yasushi Inoue and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2011-12-20 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Samurai Banner of Furin Kazan presents an accurate portrait of this era in Japanese history. Originally published in Japanese in 1959, this classic novel by Yasushi Inoue takes place during the Japanese Warring Era (1467-1573)--a time when a fractured Japan was ruled by three powerful young warlords: Takeda Shingen, Iwagawa Yoshimoto and Hojo Ujiyasu. The story focuses on Takeda Shingen and his one-eyed, crippled strategist, Yamamoto Kansuke. The brilliant strategies of Kansuke, inspired by his passion for war and his admiration for his enemies' war tactics, are beautifully expressed throughout this book. Takeda Shingen--a proud and confident warlord--wants to expand his territory. When he retains the ambitious and mysterious Yamamoto Kansuke--a masterless, unheralded samurai--as his war strategist, he discovers a bold and cunning collaborator. Kansuke's talents at diplomacy and his prescient understanding of war strategy leads Shingen's clan to great success, a path which leads the pair to Princess Yuu. When Kansuke discovers her among the ruins of a castle he has just captured, she is about to commit ritual suicide, jigaki. Kansuke falls under her spell--and convinces her to live to carry on her family's lineage. The conflicting ambitions of Shingen, Kansuke, and Princess Yuu are at the heart of this complex and intensely dramatic story. Each of the three needs the others in order to attain their goals. In the end, the lines between who is using whom are blurred beyond understanding. Though there's some doubt as to whether Kansuke really existed, the historical narrative and depictions of daily life present a unique and engaging look at the end of the feudal era in Japan.

Book Madensky Square

    Book Details:
  • Author : Eva Ibbotson
  • Publisher : Pan Macmillan
  • Release : 2011-12-16
  • ISBN : 1447214382
  • Pages : 269 pages

Download or read book Madensky Square written by Eva Ibbotson and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2011-12-16 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A whip-smart observation of the passions and tragedies behind daily life, Eva Ibbotson's Madensky Square is a classic snapshot of Viennese life before WWI, with a new introduction from Laura Wood. Susanna Weber's dress shop stands in the picturesque Madensky Square, a quiet little world of its own, nestled in the heart of glittering pre-war Vienna. As the winter of 1910 unfurls into spring, Susanna starts a journal about life in the Square, about the buildings and their colourful inhabitants. There's Frau Schumacher, with six daughters and a baby on the way, Professor Starsky and his menagerie of sickly reptiles, an aging bookseller, a teenaged Anarchist, and little Sigi – an orphaned child prodigy forced to play the piano all day, every day. And then there's her dear friend Alice, the only person who has noticed the heartbreak that hides beneath Susanna's brisk kindness and brilliant talent . . . Discover more of Eva Ibbotson's sweeping historical romances in Magic Flutes, The Morning Gift, The Secret Countess, A Song for Summer and A Company of Swans, all with brand new introductions.

Book Elia Kazan  A Life

Download or read book Elia Kazan A Life written by Elia Kazan and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2011-10-16 with total page 1387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ONE OF THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER'S 100 GREATEST FILM BOOKS OF ALL TIME • In this amazing autobiography, Kazan at seventy-eight brings us the undiluted telling of his story—and revelation of himself—all the passion, vitality, and truth, the almost outrageous honesty, that have made him so formidable a stage director (A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, All My Sons, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Tea and Sympathy), film director (On the Waterfront, East of Eden, Gentleman’s Agreement, Splendor in the Grass, Baby Doll, The Last Tycoon, A Face in the Crowd), and novelist (the number-one best-seller The Arrangement.) “This is the best autobiography I’ve read by a prominent American in I don’t know how many years. It is endlessly absorbing and I believe this is because it concerns a man who is looking to find a coherent philosophy that will be tough enough to contain all that is ugly in his person and his experience, yet shall prove sufficiently compassionate to give honest judgment on himself and others. Somehow, the author brings this off. Elia Kazan: A Life has that candor of confession which is possible only when the deepest wounds have healed and honesty can achieve what honesty so rarely arrives at—a rich and hearty flavor. By such means, a famous director has written a book that offers the kind of human wealth we find in a major novel.” —Norman Mailer Kazan gives us his sense of himself as an outsider (a Greek rug merchant’s son born in Turkey, an immigrant’s son raised in New York and educated at Williams College). He takes us into the almost accidental sojourn at the Yale Drama School that triggered his commitment to theatre, and his edgy, exciting apprenticeship with the new and astonishing Group Theatre, as stagehand and stage manager—and as actor (Waiting for Lefty, Golden Boy) . . . his first nervous and then successful attempts at directing for theatre and movies (The Skin of Our Teeth, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn) . . . his return to New York to co-found the Actors Studio (and his long and ambivalent relationship with Lee Strasberg) . . . his emergence as premier director on both coasts. With his director’s eye for the telling scene, Kazan shares the joys and complications of production, his unique insights on acting, directing, and producing. He makes us feel the close presence of the actors, producers, and writers he’s worked with—James Dean, Marlon Brando, Tennessee Williams, Vivien Leigh, Tallulah Bankhead, Sam Spiegel, Darryl Zanuck, Harold Clurman, Arthur Miller, Budd Schulberg, James Baldwin, Clifford Odets, and John Steinbeck among them. He gives us a frank and affectionate portrait of Marilyn Monroe. He talks with startling candor about himself as husband and—in the years where he obsessively sought adventure outside marriage—as lover. For the first time, he discusses his Communist Party years and his wrenching decision in 1952 to be a cooperative witness before HUAC. He writes about his birth as a writer. The pace and organic drama of his narrative, his grasp of the life and politics of Broadway and Hollywood, the keenness with which he observes the men and women and worlds around him, and, above all, the honest with which he pursues and captures his own essence, make this one of the most fascinating autobiographies of our time.

Book A Song for Summer

    Book Details:
  • Author : Eva Ibbotson
  • Publisher : Pan Macmillan
  • Release : 2008-09-04
  • ISBN : 033047734X
  • Pages : 433 pages

Download or read book A Song for Summer written by Eva Ibbotson and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-09-04 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set against the backdrop of gathering war, A Song for Summer is an unforgettable love story from master storyteller Eva Ibbotson, with an introduction from Ella Risbridger. When Ellen Carr abandons grey, dreary London to become housekeeper at an experimental school in Austria, she soon knows she's found her calling. Swept into an idyllic world of mountains, music, eccentric teachers and wayward children, Ellen brings order and joy to all around her. But it's the handsome, mysterious gardener, Marek, who intrigues her – Marek, who has a dangerous secret. As Hitler's troops march across Europe, Ellen finds she has promises to keep, even if it means sacrificing her future happiness . . . 'I have binged on Eva Ibbotson . . . her elegantly written, witty and well-observed fables' Nigella Lawson, The Times

Book    Keep    Em in the East

Download or read book Keep Em in the East written by Richard Koszarski and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-20 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The year 1955 was a watershed one for New York’s film industry: Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront took home eight Oscars, and, more quietly, Stanley Kubrick released the low-budget classic Killer’s Kiss. A wave of films that changed how American movies were made soon followed, led by directors such as Sidney Lumet, William Friedkin, Francis Ford Coppola, and Martin Scorsese. Yet this resurgence could not have occurred without a deeply rooted tradition of local film production. Richard Koszarski chronicles the compelling and often surprising origins of New York’s postwar film renaissance, looking beyond such classics as Naked City, Kiss of Death, and Portrait of Jennie. He examines the social, cultural, and economic forces that shaped New York filmmaking, from city politics to union regulations, and shows how decades of low-budget independent production taught local filmmakers how to capture the city’s grit, liveliness, and allure. He reveals the importance of “race films”—all-Black productions intended for segregated African American audiences—that not only helped keep the film business afloat but also nurtured a core group of writers, directors, designers, and technicians. Detailed production histories of On the Waterfront and Killer’s Kiss—films that appear here in a completely new light—illustrate the distinctive characteristics of New York cinema. Drawing on a vast array of research—including studio libraries, censorship records, union archives, and interviews with participants—“Keep ’Em in the East” rewrites a crucial chapter in the history of American cinema.