Television Books

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the making of the movie Pride and Prejudice. It was interesting to go behind the scenes and read about the actors and actresses who were in the movie and looking at the stage sets. When you watch the movie, it is almost like being there. You get really into the characters and the situations that are being displayed in both the book and on screen. I felt like I was back in time and had lived in that era. It is a very good read.

One of my all-time favorite productions, I wanted to know more about the people and places involved in the making of Pride and Prejudice. This book definitely met my expectations and I am happily sharing it with others in my family who also love and appreciate it.

2003's "The Making of Pride and Prejudice" is a peek behind the scenes at the transformation of Jane Austen's classic romance novel into the 1995 BBC television production, a classic in its own right.

Sue Birwhistle and Susie Conklin walk the reader through the entire process, from selling the idea to a reluctant studio, to Andrew Davies' superb adaptation of the novel into six TV episodes, through casting, preproduction, shooting, and finally postproduction. The book is filled with comments from the workers on both sides of the camera, and illustrated with fascinating set photography.

Recreating the 19th Century required extensive research into such mundane matters as period costumes, hairstyles, drapery patterns, furniture, and music and dance. Months of pre-production paid off in an authentic look, at the cost of daily two-hour costume and make-up sessions for the actors and nightly refreshing of sets. Minor challenges included the delicate task of keeping food presentable for the three day shoot of the Netherfield supper party.

Location shooting, even in a country rich with old homes, required patient negotiation with owners over the restoration of house and grounds to a 19th century appearance. The expenses of production required shooting by location vice chronological order; Colin Firth notes his very first scene was Darcy's marriage proposal to Elizabeth.

Casting presented its own challenges for such a popular story. The book shares the concerns of the actors, along with some interesting before and after make-up portraits. A highlight is an extended interview with Colin Firth on the challenges of the role of Mr. Darcy. Jennifer Ehle adds her own comments on the grueling five month shooting schedule, which required her presence on set for all but five days.

"The Making of Pride and Prejudice" will be equally fascinating to dedicated fans of the BBC television version and those interested in the actual details of production. This book is very highly recommended to both audiences.

Loved the actors interviews, the photos and all the back story. To learn that Jennifer Ehle (Lizzy) is blonde and to see her as such without the Lizzy dark-hair wig, was worth the buy in itself!

This book is a must for those who love A&E's version of Pride and Prejudice. It's very informational and gives the reader even a greater appreciation for the work and detail put into this magnificent movie!!

My father-in-law bought this book for my 3 year old daughter and she just loves it! It teaches empathy in such a cute and fun way! When Gerald falls while trying to dance all of the other animals laugh at him and he walks away sad. Gerald however is determined to dance and doesn't give up. Finally he finds his inner music and is a fantastic dancer. All of the other animals come around and can't stop watching him dance. This story is told in such great rhyme it is so much fun. After reading this book I looked up the author and bought an alpahbet book which ended up being equally as fantastic..."K is for Kissing a Cool Kangaroo"

Do you like calm and weird books? If you do then is the book for you. The story Giraffes Can't Dance is about a Giraffe who is very clumsy and can't dance and gets teased a lot by other animals. Then he figures out that there is something called a jungle dance that will happen in a couple of days and all the animals practice some in groups more then two like the baboons and some just two like the lions. So then he practices but it's no help. So then a wise cricket helps him practice. I won't tell you the hole story but I will give you some more details like the setting is the jungle and some of the characters are the Giraffe, the baboons, lions and more animals that you will love. I thought the authors message was that just because someone or something can't do some thing doesn't mean you shouldn't be their friend or bail on them. So if you want to see what happens by the book I am sure you will like it.

My children and I love this book, especially the rhymes and the exuberant, joyful illustrations by Guy Parker-Rees. Gerald is such a wonderful character. The book has already become a classic!

This is a great story about how it's okay for us to be individuals that dance to a different beat. The illustrations are wonderful. Bought the book for our 3-year old son but everyone in the family enjoys reading the story.

I love this book! My mentor read it to her 8th grade class before they went off to high school and i bought it as a parting gift for a friend of mine who just went to college. It has a wonderful message of "dancing to you own beat" or just being yourself, no matter what people think. Seeing that i just had my first child, i will definitely be buying him this book and i will read it to him, even if he is only 3 months old because i don't think anyone is too young to be taught that they deserve individuality.

I bought this for my mom, who lives in Yuma, Arizona and hasn't a lot to do in 110 degree heat in the summer. She loved it, said it was a great, fun read, and that's enough for me.

Listening to this tape, I was surprised by how much of it really had a timeless quality. The book was set back a ways (there's a way to find out exactly when, having to do with a character's age and the print date of a book, but I've forgotten...) and there were clues to the fact that it was not a contemporary novel - the political setting and the level of technology - but the characters really could have been plucked out of any time period. And this made it very enjoyable to listen to because I could picture Mrs. Pollifax and it really was easy to like her and root for her. Though I figured out where the microfilm went about, oh, two tapes into the six, there was enough story around the central mystery to keep me interested. I would definitely recommend it as a wonderful book to listen to (or read, I'm sure). I believe I will try a few of the other Mrs. Pollifax books...

I thought this might be cheesy. It was fantastic! After having loved Ian Fleming, this was a great substitute. I look foward to reading the rest of the series.

Bored and in excellent health for a woman who is retired with nothing more to look forward to than her gardening meetings, Mrs. Pollifax decides that there are only two choices in her life. Take one giant step off the roof of her building in New Brunswick, New Jersey or pursue a dream that she has had since childhood. With the decision made she boards a bus for Langley, Virginia and decides to be a spy for the CIA. Taking place during the cold war, Emily Pollifax is sent to Mexico to retrieve important documents, that doesn't seem difficult until she is forced to outsmart Red Chinese military men with nothing more than a pocketknife and a Christmas tree. This woman could definitely give MacGyver and Forrest Gump a run for their money.

This is the second Mrs. Pollifax book I have now finished and I adore them. The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax is a delight in her adventures and this one is full of thrilling adventures. I am now hooked and will be reading every Mrs. Pollifax book there is. They are thoroughly enjoyable...

This book was interesting. It told of a lot of elements in the Phantom Menace movie like biographies of Anakin, Padme, and Darth Maul. It also went way beyond the movie and talked about things not mentioned in the movie. From shortened biographies on the Jedi Council members to looking inside a battle droid's head, this book has everything any Star Wars fan would ever want. The photography is great and the pictures are labeled showing a lot of the parts of machines and lightsabers. This book is the bomb.

The Star Wars Episode I- The Visual Dictionary is great. It has amazing facts about Star Wars episode I such as all of the members of the Jedi High Council (which I was amazed to find out that there is another one of Yoda's species on it, and her name is Yaddle, and she is young at 477), the species, name, and personalaty of the Trade Fedration leaders, every last detail of a Battle Droid and Droideka, Queen Amidala's dresses and makeup and the reasons she wears them, the sea monsters of Naboo, Gungan warfare, why Jar Jar was banished, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Mace, and Yoda's lightsabers, the Queen's handmaidens, Darth Maul's double-bladed lightsaber and speeder, and much more!

This is a great book and will provide hours of fun for any Star Wars fan (at least, it did (and still does) for me).

This book likewise its similar for the classic Trilogy, is a good buy for a Star Wars Fan. Depicts everything that appears in the movie, except the starships, the only thing I missed, but it is not a major problem.

We have a 4 1/2 year old daughter obsessed with the Star Wars girls (Shaak Ti in particular) and this is good because it tells all about the different charachters, places, vehicles and robots of the movie in easy to understand, yet complete language.

Very good for the little Star Wars fan or anyone who would like to go a little deeper, but not THAT deep.

Bought this book along with Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, also by David Reynolds. The pages are falling out of both books. I've had this problem with a few DK books, even the children's books. The older DK books are more sturdy. I give this item only 3 stars, and only because of the content. A book with missing pages doesn't get 5 stars.

I laughed my head off while reading this book! I was actually sad when it was over! The characters are unique, hilarious, and impossible not to fall in love with. This is a dark comedy full of witty one-liners, zany situations, and a lot of sexual content. This book is not for the faint of heart.

You will laugh out loud, this book is truly hysterical. I am a new Tim Sandlin fan - Sorrow Floats and Social Blunders are just as good. Highly recommended!!

On the positive side this book was sometimes amusing. The story idea of two thirteen-year-old's experimentation with sex and resulting in a pregnant seventh grader was promising though poorly executed. None of the main characters are believable, not the narrator, Sam, not his girlfriend Maurey, and not his mother Lydia. The motivations and thought patterns of the adolescents especially lacked any power to convey belief. This novel should probably have stayed in the form of Mr. Sandlin's puerile fantasies, from which it sprung.

With "Skipped Parts", Tim Sandlin has assembled all the elements needed for a great book. Memorable characters, a good setting, tight pacing, a great plotline and wonderful dialogue.

The main character, Sam, is a thirteen-year-old boy. He puts me in mind of myself at that age, actually. Very prone to dreams and fantasies. He meets a girl, Maurey, also thirteen. Before long, these highly intelligent children are losing their virginities to each other. Not long after that, they discover that, oops, a girl can get pregnant before her first period.

This is the start of a series. I haven't read the other parts yet, but I really liked this one. I also enjoyed Skipped Parts, the movie based on this book, though bizzarrely they changed the kids to fourteen instead of thirteen.

This is a very good, sweet book recommended for pretty much anyone over the age of about eight or nine. Highly enjoyable!

In Sam Callahan, Sandlin creates one of the great characters of recent American literature. Equal parts Walter Mitty and Holden Caulfield, Sam is a hilarious narrator with a truly unique voice. If the book were nothing more than a series of comic misadventures of Sam and his irreverent Southern Belle mother, Lydia as they are transplanted from the good ol' south to rural Wyoming, it would be a great read.

However, Skipped Parts is far more than that. Beyond Sam and Lydia, Sandlin populates GroVont with no end of fascinating characters--almost all multidimensional and colorful--the kind of folks you only find in quirky places like Sicily, Alaska. In this book, its easy to imagine that folks like Dot,Hank Elkrunner and the old guys who populate the local diner have interesting lives and stories outside of the light they shed on the main characters and that they didn't just show up in the scenes to move the plot along. This gives the story an incredible richness.

Beyond that, the book has a heart as big as the Tetons and frequently wears it on its sleeve. Rarely is a book so laugh out loud funny also so poignant and touching. There are moments that are truly noble, truly sad and truly beautiful and its a credit to Sandlin that none of them seem contrived. If you can get past the stuff about precocious 13 teen year olds experimenting with sex, you find a great novel about growing up, dealing with family, redemption and the endless disappointments and possibilities of life. A wonderful, wonderful book.

I have this book since 1984 when Tetsuko Kuroyanagi became a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF. I was in 7th grade at that time. I have read it over 20 times. Every time, I found joyful, happiness, and touching. But I lost it when we moved. I did get an used one. And I have read it over and over again. This book inspired me to study Japaneses. I love it. GREAT BOOK for children and for adult. READ IT if you want to find your childhood and refill your imagination.

Honestly I read this book over 25 years ago and thought that this book has long been discontinued. I guess this proves what a time-tested treasure it is. The author, a TV celebrity in Japan, recalls her childhood and the unorthodox school she went to. Absolutely adoring in the simple story of how a concerned mother tried to do the best for her daughter and how a simple man did his best to give a bright and meaningful future to the few children who comes into his life.

It is the type of book that makes you wish that there were more teachers like him and that you had a teacher like him.

This is one of my all-time favorite books. First published in Japan in 1981, this beautiful book depicting the true story of innocent little Totto-chan, her family, friends, and above all, the innovating educationer she befriends in the years leading up to, and during the first years of WW2, remains a national best seller in Japan to this day. I don't have any children of my own, but if I did, and if Tomoe-Gakuen (the elementary school Totto-chan attends) existed today, I would immediately enroll my children there. Since there is not, I hope I have the good luck of finding somebody like Sosaku Kobayashi to help make my child the happiest and kindest child in the world.

It was due to this book's beauty that then UNICEF Executive Director, James P. Grant persuaded those working at UNICEF to appoint the author, Tetsuko Kuroyanagi (who is Totto-chan grown up), to UNICEF's International Goodwill Ambassador, enabling her to visit and help children in need all over the world.

For people who have read this book and those who have not, I also recommend "Totto-Chan's Children : A Goodwill Journey to the Children of the World" by the same author. It tells the story of Totto-chan grown up, still big-hearted as ever, striving to help children in need. Check it out!

In 1969 I was part of a group of teachers who created a school much like that featured in Toto Chan. We thought we were on the "cutting edge" of educational practices without knowing that a school in Japan had been delivering many of the same holistic, humanistic educational practices over a quarter of a century before. I'm sure many U.S. educators who thought/think they were/are in the vanguard of educational practices would appreciate this beautiful story of a dedicated educator and his students.

I have not read a better book which has made me laugh, cry, love, and ponder over is such a way! This book is awesome and worth much more than 5 stars.

I love this book! Of course, I love EVERY book about Leo! but this one was one of the first ones i bought about 3 or 4 years ago, so it'll always be one of my favorites :-) i recommend it

This book was really fantastic!! I love Leo. He is one of the most beautiful men on Earth. I love him more than any one of you wannabes out there.

this book is exelent! many pics (great ones!!!) and lots of info about his films, his life etc. also well writen with many quotes, his or his co-stars in several films. helps you descover many things about him. generaly great book..!!!! you must buy it!!!

i think the book was great, i learn so many things about leonardo, he seems to be such a wonderful person,very kind hearted,i love his pictures, anyone who is interested in leonardo dicaprio, i recommend this book, it's great.. ..

Although this is a good book for slavering preadolescent female fans who don't understand words more than two syllables in length, the book was unsatisfactory for anyone but the most devoted. Containing quotes, pictures and a short bio, get this one for your daughter only if you want to waste your money.

This is probably one of the few books you are going to find about Badfinger, who are another very essential but overlooked rock band. Sure they had hits, but they got screwed over. The book arrived in great shape and very quickly, so I was completely happy with everything.

I ordered this for my brother's birthday and he loved it! The book arrived in perfect shape. This is one of my brother's favorite bands from 'back in the day'!!! He was very happy with it. Thanks

A wonderful book. I knew very little about this band other than a couple of great songs I heard on the radio in the early 70's. By the time I finished the book I felt like I'd known them all my life. I couldn't help but get emotionally involved in their plight...Highly recommend

The most engrossing band bio I've ever read, and also one of the saddest stories in music. I find it funny that the two biggest debunkers of the author of this book are also two people who haven't read it! The story spans the very beggining, when they were known as the Iveys, to the ASCAP debacle in which Pete Ham and Tom Evans were utterly disrespected in front of an audience for their wonderful accomplishment of having written Without You. No stone is left unturned and unfortuntely some of the people involved should crawl back under theirs but haven't.

Dear Joey and Kathie: You can fool some of the people, but you haven't fooled me. At least Pete doesn't have a grave, or else I'm sure you would have been dancing on it quite happily. Why did you have to be part of the problem?

The "tragic" story of Badfinger couldn't be a better title for this book or this band. So much talent and ability and such bad management and naivete' destroyed not just a band but many lives in the process. I believe every young musician should read this book and learn from their mistakes.

Reading (or more accurately, experiencing) this elegant volume of memorabilia recalls dead ideals, not just of decorous celebrity behavior, but of the quiet conviction of deeds rather than publicized pronouncements from Hollywood's movie stars. This book captures a sense of a life lived in the limelight, but never blinded by it, and conveys an archetypal and emotional journey through a minefield of tempting superficialities, all the way to self-discovery and meaning.

It's moving to see and feel how Audrey Hepburn's roles reflected her best selves at every turn -- resolutely alert, attuned, engaged, yearning, striving, feminine, human -- and be reminded of how a life can really be exemplary, after all.

This is a wonderful collector's item for Audrey Hepburn fans. I opened the box, and, after looking through the pages, had no other words but "wow". There are 34 removable items of memorabilia. These include a partial script from Breakfast at Tiffany's, many letters to and from Ms. Hepburn herself, postcards, pictures, photo albums, tickets of movies and programs of plays she's done, and many many other items.

The book is done in a scrapbook format, and beside all of the removable items, has countless photographs with many of them having never been published or from her friends and family's private collections.

This book could have easily cost over $100, and I thank the ones who have put it together for allowing the fans to be a part of such intimate moments and items.

this is a very cute and amazing book about audrey hepburn.. it is a treasure,must have item.

With nearly thirty films tackled and under her belt, Audrey Hepburn is no doubt a household name, but how many really understood what went on inside of the personal life of Audrey Hepburn?

This stunning compolation of extrodinary copies of documents, family photos, playbills, and ticket stubs is a credit to her name. It shows her eloquence, style, grace, poise, and even some mystique as we get to experience a sliver of her private life, without invading the caverns of her mind.

Although not written from an autobiographical standpoint, it is easy to immerse yourself in her thoughts, because of the personal letters and dictations. Erwin writes about her beautifully, and lets the reader experience her life in the best way possible.

As a fan of Audrey Hepburn's, I read the information about this book and anticipated it's arrival. However, it arrived in a shrink-wrapped package with the corners dented badly. Since it is a type of scrapbook, the corners dramatically took away the beauty and quality of the book. The content of the book includes life-long pictures and memorabilia of Audrey's life and are a good representation of her experiences and choices. And so I would recommend the book without the mishandling.

I have yet to read this book, but it is in good condition.

This book is one of the best autobiographies I've ever read. Not only is it filled with details of Patti's life, it also takes you to the lessons that she's learned from the time when she was a shy little girl, to life as a megastar. This book will truly touch your heart as you cheer on the diva that is Patti LaBelle.

Congratulations, A reflective autobiography with some depth and truth. Before reading Patti's, I read Aretha's, which I ultimately felt like tossing in the middle of the street! Great job! I thought the book was very inviting to the personal side of Patti. I have always admired how forthcoming she has been with the public in relation to her late sisters. This book can truly encourage one to live life, as well as love and appreciate life.
However, there are a few things I would like to clear up, which I found inaccurate or inappropriate. The Jackie Wilson episode I found rather distasteful, particularly since he is not around to defend himself(it was o.k. to slander Al Green). Also, as I had to do with Gladys in her book, I need to clarify a few inaccurate points you raised in your book. In reading your relationship with Atlantic Records in the 1960's, one is left with the impression your group wasn't given a fair shot due to the success of Aretha. Well, that's not totally true, since you were with the label two years before she signed on. It just wasn't your time yet! Now is your time. You sound greater and look more beautiful than ever. You have a wonderful spirit in which people adore you far and near. You are truly a blessing. Wonderful job.

Patty LaBelle is amazing. She has an incredible voice, a career full of ups and downs, and can bring down the house in concert. This book is just another triumph for a lady who deserves all the accolades she receives. With absolute honesty, she reveals so much about her life--from sexual abuse to the fear of dying of cancer like her sisters and good friend--you feel that Ms. LaBelle has given you all that she can. Throughout her life, she has faced a good deal of challenges but has emerged with a positive attitude about life and can still entertain with the best of them. I have seen her in concert 3 times and she blew me away each time. This book does the same. After reading the dismal biography of Aretha Franklin (From the Roots), I realized what a gem this is. If you wanna read a really good book about an incredible entertainer, give this one a go. Its worth every penny!

PATTI takes you on a journey-from the Bluebelles, to LaBelle and through her solo career. She talks about her battles with her self-esteem, record companies, men and THE TRAGIC deaths of sisters. Did you know that NONA had a nervous break down during one the LaBelle concerts-and was taken to the hospital in restraints? WOW! This lead to the break-up of LaBelle! Pick this one up and you'll find out much more.