The Silver Linings Playbook

Author: Matthew Quick
Publisher: Sarah Crichton Books
ISBN: 142996023X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 302

Book Description
A New York Times bestseller, The Silver Linings Playbook was adapted into the Oscar-winning movie starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. It tells the riotous and poignant story of how one man regains his memory and comes to terms with the magnitude of his wife's betrayal. During the years he spends in a neural health facility, Pat Peoples formulates a theory about silver linings: he believes his life is a movie produced by God, his mission is to become physically fit and emotionally supportive, and his happy ending will be the return of his estranged wife, Nikki. When Pat goes to live with his parents, everything seems changed: no one will talk to him about Nikki; his old friends are saddled with families; the Philadelphia Eagles keep losing, making his father moody; and his new therapist seems to be recommending adultery as a form of therapy. When Pat meets the tragically widowed and clinically depressed Tiffany, she offers to act as a liaison between him and his wife, if only he will give up watching football, agree to perform in this year's Dance Away Depression competition, and promise not to tell anyone about their "contract." All the while, Pat keeps searching for his silver lining. In this brilliantly written debut novel, Matthew Quick takes us inside Pat's mind, deftly showing us the world from his distorted yet endearing perspective. The result is a touching and funny story that helps us look at both depression and love in a wonderfully refreshing way.

The Good Luck Of Right Now

Author: Matthew Quick
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 1443425877
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 182

Book Description
For almost four decades, Bartholomew Neil has done nothing but live with his mom. When she begins calling him Richard—for reasons unknown—and then dies, Bartholomew is woefully unprepared.” A clue comes in the form of a “Free Tibet” letter he finds in his mother’s underwear drawer, and so Bartholomew awkwardly starts his new life, writing Richard Gere a series of highly intimate fan letters. Jung’s theory of synchronicity, the mystery of women, the Dalai Lama’s teachings, alien abduction, cat telepathy and the Catholic Church are all explored in depth by Bartholomew’s epistles—but mostly the letters outline one man’s heartbreakingly earnest attempt to assemble a family of his own. A struggling priest, a “girlbrarian,” her foul-mouthed brother and Richard Gere (well, sort of) join the quest. In a rented Ford Focus, they travel to Canada in search of Bartholomew’s biological father and end up finding so much more.

Together We Will Go

Author: J. Michael Straczynski
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 198214260X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
The Breakfast Club meets The Silver Linings Playbook in this powerful, provocative, and heartfelt novel about twelve endearing strangers who come together to make the most of their final days, from New York Times bestselling and award-winning author J. Michael Straczynski. Mark Antonelli, a failed young writer looking down the barrel at thirty, is planning a cross-country road trip. He buys a beat-up old tour bus. He hires a young army vet to drive it. He puts out an ad for others to join him along the way. But this will be a road trip like no other: His passengers are all fellow disheartened souls who have decided that this will be their final journey—upon arrival in San Francisco, they will find a cliff with an amazing view of the ocean at sunset, hit the gas, and drive out of this world. The unlikely companions include a young woman with a chronic pain sensory disorder and another who was relentlessly bullied at school for her size; a bipolar, party-loving neo-hippie; a gentle coder with a literal hole in his heart and blue skin; and a poet dreaming of a better world beyond this one. We get to know them through access to their texts, emails, voicemails, and the daily journal entries they write as the price of admission for this trip. By turns tragic, funny, quirky, charming, and deeply moving, Together We Will Go explores the decisions that brings these characters together, and the relationships that grow between them, with some discovering love and affection for the first time. But as they cross state lines and complications to the initial plan arise, it becomes clear that this is a novel as much about the will to live as the choice to end it. The final, unforgettable moments as they hurtle toward the decisions awaiting them will be remembered for a lifetime.

Girl from the North Country

Author: Conor McPherson
Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
ISBN: 1559368829
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 95

Book Description
“The idea is inspired and the treatment piercingly beautiful . . . Two formidable artists have shown respect for the integrity of each other’s work here and the result is magnificent.” —Independent “Bob Dylan’s back catalogue is used to glorious effect in Conor McPherson’s astonishing cross-section of hope and stoic suffering . . . It is the constant dialogue between the drama and the songs that makes this show exceptional.” —Guardian “Beguiling and soulful and quietly, exquisitely, heartbreaking. A very special piece of theatre.” —Evening Standard “A populous, otherworldly play that combines the hard grit of the Great Depression with something numinous and mysterious.” —Telegraph Duluth, Minnesota. 1934. A community living on a knife-edge. Lost and lonely people huddle together in the local guesthouse. The owner, Nick, owes more money than he can ever repay, his wife Elizabeth is losing her mind, and their daughter Marianne is carrying a child no one will account for. So when a preacher selling bibles and a boxer looking for a comeback turn up in the middle of the night, things spiral beyond the point of no return . . . In Girl from the North Country, Conor McPherson beautifully weaves the iconic songbook of Bob Dylan into a show full of hope, heartbreak and soul. It premiered at the Old Vic, London, in July 2017, in a production directed by the author. Conor McPherson is an award-winning Irish playwright. His best-known works include The Weir (Royal Court; winner of the 1999 Olivier Award for Best New Play), Dublin Carol (Atlantic Theater Company) and The Seafarer (National Theatre). Bob Dylan, born in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1941, is one of the most important songwriters of our time. Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. He released his thirty-ninth studio album, Triplicate, in April 2017, and continues to tour worldwide.

Aloha Also Means Goodbye

Author: Jessica Rosenberg
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781937818784
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Book Description
Jo is finally having the wedding of her dreams but on her arrival in Hawaii, she discovers that her old boyfriend is at the resort. He's with his two children--both named after her, kindling painful memories. The guests are flying in for a wedding in paradise and her girlfriends rally around her, but will Jo's past derail her dreams?

Pitch Perfect

Author: Mickey Rapkin
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9781592403769
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
Chronicles the competition between three contending groups for the Collegiate A Cappella championship, evaluating how their achievements reflect a rising surge in the music form's popularity, as well as the diversity that has shaped its expression.

Swimming with Bridgeport Girls

Author: Anthony Tambakis
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451684916
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
If a Richard Russo protagonist went on a bender in Vegas, the result would be something like Swimming with Bridgeport Girls: an uproarious romp about a lovesick gambler and his against-all-odds quest to win back his ex-wife. Ray Parisi is in trouble. Fired from his anchor job at ESPN after one too many public humiliations, he is holed up in a motel and in desperate need of a break. His ex-wife is shacking up with another guy in his old house, a Cambodian bookie wants to kill him, and he’s wanted by the New York State Police. A few days before the Fourth of July, he unexpectedly receives an inheritance from his long-lost father, and it seems like all of his problems might be solved. Determined to get his life back together, Ray hatches an imaginative but highly suspect plan to win back his wife, dashing from Connecticut to Las Vegas to Memphis in an attempt to secure his future before the past runs him down. The cast of characters he meets along the way is as loveable as it is absolutely insane. Sure to please fans of sophisticated romantic comedies like Seating Arrangements and Silver Linings Playbook, Swimming with Bridgeport Girls is a hilarious, heart-wrenching, and unexpectedly powerful tale about one man’s mission to—against all odds—finally get it right.

Art of the Film: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Author: Dermot Power
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062684787
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 530

Book Description
An in-depth, fully illustrated look at the art and artists behind the awe-inspiring world of J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Led by Academy Award®–winning production designer Stuart Craig, a number of art departments were responsible for creating the unforgettable characters, locations and beasts from the 2016 fantasy film that expanded on the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. In this beautifully illustrated volume, Dermot Power—a concept artist on the film—takes you on a magical journey through a design process every bit as wonderful as that encountered by Newt Scamander: from the earliest gatherings of the artists, designers and filmmakers to the magical time of the film’s production. Bursting with hundreds of production paintings, concept sketches, storyboards, blueprints and matte paintings, and filled with unique insights about the filmmaking journey from Stuart Craig and the artists themselves, this superb book presents a visual feast for readers, and will welcome fans of Harry Potter films into the world of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Sorta Like a Rock Star

Author: Matthew Quick
Publisher: Little Brown
ISBN: 9780316167475
Category : JUVENILE FICTION
Languages : en
Pages : 171

Book Description
With a unique and irresistible voice, debut YA author Quick creates a beautifully beaten-up world of love, friendship, and hard-earned hope, in which a young girl focuses on bettering the lives of her oddball circle of friends.

David O. Russell

Author: Holly Willis
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496818229
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 239

Book Description
David O. Russell (b. 1958) boasts a diverse body of work as a writer and director, spanning multiple genres and featuring radically differing aesthetic styles. While his early work comically explored taboo subjects with unerring directness, he has also investigated politics with explosive satire. In his most recent films, including American Hustle and Silver Linings Playbook, Russell examines characters and situations that are at once everyday and also extraordinary. Whatever the project, Russell is driven to explore the idiosyncrasies that make each character human, and he extends that curiosity to explore what makes each actor unique. His attentiveness to his cast members has earned him the label of "actor's director," due in no small part to the many nominations and awards earned by a long list of Hollywood stars in his movies. Russell has also become one of our era's most interesting formal stylists as he adopts a visual design appropriate to each of his film's thematic concerns. The result may be a color palette resembling the washed-out pages of a newspaper achieved by manipulating the film stock for Three Kings or the tumultuous opening of The Fighter when an audacious, roving camera plunges viewers straight into the story from the very first shots of the film. Rather than building a signature style, Russell has instead tested the varied possibilities of cinematic expression. This career-spanning volume features conversations with scholars and journalists as well as filmmakers. Speaking to directors like Alexander Payne and Spike Jonze, Russell contextualizes each of his films, offers an intimate account of his evolving writing and directing process, and opens his life to reveal how a remarkable body of work has come to be.