false 418576 0 0 2571731 0807234729 9780807234723 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2571731.The_Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner_and_Other_Great_Poems 0.0 0 The Rime are considered by many to be his greatest work. The terrifying space of the open sea, the storms & whirlpools of an unknown ocean, the hot equatorial seas swarming with monsters, the ice of Antarctica, more — are all rendered in a powerful manner. Full text & 38 plates.]]> 11525 3.91 3614 211 418576 3.29 35 21 1817 4934898 0679421629 9780679421627 20 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4934898.In_Spite_of_Myself_A_Memoir 3.33 33 A rollicking, rich portrait of a life. And what a life! By one of today’s greatest living actors.

He was born a Canadian on a Friday the thirteenth in 1929—the year of the Crash. His boyhood was one of privilege: an ancestor was a Governor General; his great-grandfather Sir John Abbott was Canada’s third prime minister and owned railroads. There were steam yachts, mansions, and a life of Victorian gentility and somewhat cluttered splendor.

Plummer tells how “this young bilingual wastrel, incurably romantic, spoiled rotten, tore himself away from the ski slopes to break into the big bad world of theatre, not from the streets up but from an Edwardian living room down,” and writes of his early acting days as an eighteen-year-old playing the lead in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, directed by the legendary Komisarjevsky of Moscow’s Imperial Theatre.

We see his glorious New York of the fifties, where life began at midnight, with the likes of Arthur Miller, Carson McCullers, Tennessee Williams, and Paddy Chayefsky, and how Plummer’s own Broadway world developed and swept him along through the last Golden Age the American Theatre would ever remember . . . how the sublime Ruth Chatterton (“she might have been created by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis”) introduced him to the right people in New York . . . how Miss Eva Le Gallienne gave Plummer his Broadway debut at twenty-five in The Starcross Story (“It opened and closed in one night! One solitary night! But what a night!”). He writes about Miss Katherine Cornell (the last stage star to travel by private train), who, with her husband, Guthrie McClintic, added to what experience Plummer had the necessary gloss, spit, and polish to take him to the next level. Guthrie bundled Plummer off to Paris for a production of Medea, opposite Dame Judith Anderson (“a little Tasmanian devil . . . who with one look could turn an audience to stone”).

Plummer writes about the great producers with whom he worked—Kermit Bloomgarden, Robert Whitehead, and Roger Stevens—about Lillian Hellman, Leonard Bernstein, Elia Kazan (“If you weren’t careful, this chameleon of chameleons might change into you, wear your skin, steal your soul”), and the miracle that was the new Stratford Festival in Canada, where Plummer blossomed in the classics under the extraordinary Tyrone Guthrie. He writes about his (too brief) encounters with his favorite geniuses, Orson Welles and Jonathan Miller. He writes about his lifelong friendships with Raymond Massey and the wild Kate Reid, and with that fugitive from the Navy, “that reprobate and staunch drinking buddy, the true reincarnation of Eugene O’Neill, whose blood was mixed with firewater,” Jason Robards, Jr.

Plummer writes about his affairs and his marriages, and about his daughter, Amanda, who “despite her slim looks and tiny bones could raise tempests, guaranteed to loosen the foundation of any theatre in which she chose to rage.”

We see him becoming a leading actor for Peter Hall’s Royal Shakespeare Theatre, with a company of young talented players, each destined for stardom—Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave, Peter O’Toole, et al., collectively the future of the English stage. The old guard was brilliantly represented by Dames Edith Evans and Peggy Ashcroft and Sir John Gielgud. Plummer, the only fugitive from the New World, played Richard III, Benedick, and Henry II in Becket.

He writes about his film career: The Sound of Music (affectionately dubbed “S&M”) . . . Inside Daisy Clover, which brought him together with the beautiful Natalie Wood . . . John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King (Plummer was Rudyard Kipling). He tells the story of accepting Sir Laurence Olivier’s invitation to join the National Theatre Company, playing in Amphytron directed by Olivier himself (“a great actor but lousy director”), and writes about falling deeply in love with and eventually marrying a young actress and dancer, Elaine Taylor—to this day, his “one true strength.”

Seamlessly written, with stories that make us laugh out loud and that make real the fascinating, complex, exuberant adventure that is the actor’s (at least this actor’s) life.

]]> 418576 3.29 35 21 2008 6021556 0694502960 9780694502967 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6021556.Around_the_World_in_80_Days 3.00 1 418576 3.29 35 21 696805 3.62 28743 1851 1977 2876614 0807234451 9780807234457 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2876614.Goodbye_Mr_Chips 0.0 0


There is not  another book, with the possible exception of  Dickens's A Christmas Carol, that has  quite the same hold on readers' affections. James  Hilton wrote Goodbye, Mr. Chips in loving memory  of his schoolmaster father and in tribute to his  profession. Over the years it has won an enduring  place in world literature and made untold millions  of people smile--with a catch in the throat.]]> 418576 3.29 35 21 1987 3661043 1550462741 9781550462746 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3661043.Stratford 0.0 0 The perfect book for residents, expatriates, tourists and theatre patrons. Includes nearby Perth County communities, including Shakespeare, St. Mary's, and Sebringville.

(20070328)]]> 418576 3.29 35 21 1998 6021554 1558734325 9781558734326 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6021554.Madeline 0.0 0 418576 3.29 35 21 1990 6021555 0860510662 9780860510666 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6021555.Hundred_Different_Lives 0.0 0 281863 4.00 1 1 418576 3.29 35 21 1979 7181041 0236350002832 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7181041-e-t-a-hoffmann-tchaikovsky-nutcracker-michael-tilson-thomas 0.0 0 Performed by Philharmonia Orchestra Conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas (2 CD Set)
Cd-1
1.Christmas Eve
2.The Presents
3.Marie's Favorite
4.Strange Happenings
5.The Battle
6.Marie's Illness
7.The Story of The Hard Nut
8.The Story of The Hard Nut,Continued (Beginning)
Cd-2
1.The Story of The Hard Nut,Continued (Conclusion)
2.The Story of The Hard Nut,Concluded
3.Uncle and Nephew
4.Victory
5.The Land of the Dolls
6.The Capital
7.Conclusion]]> 652129 3.69 16 0 4489 4.41 52478 3007 418576 3.29 35 21 1985