Karaoke and Cold Lazarus


Book Description

Cold Lazarus is set 400 years in the future. Feeld's cryogenically preserved head is being commercially exploited. An American media tycoon realizes the astronomical ratings potential of a TV show in which the 'real' twentieth-century story of Daniel Feeld's life, via his chemically induced memories, can be fed to millions of viewers.




Life at the Limits


Book Description

We are fascinated by the seemingly impossible places in which organisms can live. There are frogs that freeze solid, worms that dry out and bacteria that survive temperatures over 100 ̊C. What seems extreme to us is, however, not extreme to these organisms. In this captivating account, the reader is taken on a tour of extreme environments, and shown the remarkable abilities of organisms to survive a range of extreme conditions, such as high and low temperatures and desiccation. This book considers how organisms survive major stresses and what extreme organisms can tell us about the origin of life and the possibilities of extraterrestrial life. These organisms have an extreme biology, which involves many aspects of their physiology, ecology and evolution.




Blackstar Theory


Book Description

Blackstar Theory takes a close look at David Bowie's ambitious last works: his surprise 'comeback' project The Next Day (2013), the off-Broadway musical Lazarus (2015) and the album that preceded the artist's death in 2016 by two days, Blackstar. The book explores the swirl of themes that orbit and entangle these projects from a starting point in musical analysis and features new interviews with key collaborators from the period: producer Tony Visconti, graphic designer Jonathan Barnbrook, musical director Henry Hey, saxophonist Donny McCaslin and assistant sound engineer Erin Tonkon. These works tackle the biggest of ideas: identity, creativity, chaos, transience and immortality. They enact a process of individuation for the Bowie meta-persona and invite us to consider what happens when a star dies. In our universe, dying stars do not disappear - they transform into new stellar objects, remnants and gravitational forces. The radical potential of the Blackstar is demonstrated in the rock star supernova that creates a singularity resulting in cultural iconicity. It is how a man approaching his own death can create art that illuminates the immortal potential of all matter in the known universe.




Seeing the Blossom


Book Description

Contains the interview between Dennis Potter and Melvyn Bragg conducted on 5 April 1994 on Channel 4 television. Potter knew he had only a few weeks to live so the discussion is of great poignancy and power. Their conversation records Potter's honest dissection of his life and work. This book also contains Potter's celebrated James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 1993 and an earlier BBC2 television interview.




Potter on Potter


Book Description

If one writer embodies the unique character of British television drama, it is Dennis Potter. Pennies from Heaven and The Singing Detective amply demonstrate how far he has pushed the frontiers of television drama. In the course of this book, British television's pre-eminent playwright - latterly a novelist and film-maker - talks with passionate erudition, disarming candour and acerbic wit about the early influences that shaped him and led to his pioneering use of non-naturalism to his self-reflexive subversion of film and TV cliches, his controversial approach to sex, politics, religion and the double-edged puritanism of the English condition. The book presents a remarkable portrait of a man for whom writing is, first and foremost, a vocation.




Venom


Book Description

Toxic creatures can be found almost anywhere—in the woods, in the desert, in your own backyard . . . even in your room! Some, such as poison dart frogs and puffer fish, have poisonous skin or other organs. Others are venomous—they have stingers, spines, or fangs to injects their toxins. You know some of them already: black widow spiders, killer bees, rattlesnakes, stingrays, and scorpions. There are lots of other toxic species, too. Just take a look inside . . . if you dare! "Sharp, full-color photos loaded with icky details are sure to catch readers' eyes and hold their interest."—School Library Journal "For biology reports or for students interested in the subject, this book will be a winner."—VOYA




I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die


Book Description

A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you. You just want a way out. But there’s hope. In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better. Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.




Talk of Drama


Book Description

Interviewes with British television writers




The Ice Queen


Book Description

Nele Neuhaus's The Ice Queen is a character- and plot-driven mystery about revenge, power, and long-forgotten and covered up secrets from a time in German history that still affects the present. The body of 92-year-old Jossi Goldberg, Holocaust survivor and American citizen, is found shot to death execution-style in his house near Frankfurt. A five-digit number is scrawled in blood at the murder scene. The autopsy reveals an old and unsuccessfully covered tattoo on the corpse's arm—a blood type marker once used by Hitler's SS. Pia Kirchhoff and Oliver Bodenstein are faced with a riddle. Was the old man not Jewish after all? Who was he, really? Two more, similar murders happen—one of a wheelchair-bound old lady in a nursing home, and one of a man with a cellar filled with Nazi paraphernalia—and slowly the connections between the victims becomes evident: All of them were lifelong friends with Vera von Kaltensee, baroness, well-respected philanthropist, and head of an old, rich family that she rules with an iron fist. Pia and Oliver follow the trail, which leads them all the way back to the end of World War II and the area of Poland that then belonged to East Prussia. No one is who they claim to be, and things only begin to make sense when the two investigators realize what the bloody number stands for, and uncover an old diary and an eyewitness who is finally willing to come forward.




The Singing Detective


Book Description

The narrative counterpoints life in a hospital ward of a writer crippled by a horrific skin disease with the plot of his atmosperic thriller to the point where fantasy and reality seem to change places.