The Pocket Essentials is a series of small, A6 sized books on various subjects. The publisher is also known as Pocket Essentials. Each book is written by a different author. The books have been credited with being full of rare information, though there are no pictures.
Heywood "Woody" Allen is an American director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades. He began his career as a comedy writer in the 1950s, writing jokes and scripts for television and publishing several books of short humor pieces. In the early 1960s, Allen began performing as a stand-up comedian, emphasizing monologues rather than traditional jokes. As a comedian, he developed the persona of an insecure, intellectual, fretful nebbish, which he maintains is quite different from his real-life personality. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Allen fourth on a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians, while a UK survey ranked Allen as the third-greatest comedian.
Dame Elizabeth Jane Campion is a New Zealand screenwriter, producer, and director. Campion is the second of five women ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and is the first—and thus far, only—female filmmaker in history to receive the Palme d'Or, which she received for directing the acclaimed film The Piano (1993), for which she also won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Chan Kong-sang, known professionally as Jackie Chan, is a Hong Kong martial artist, actor, film director, producer, stuntman, and singer. He is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts, which he typically performs himself, in the cinematic world. He has trained in wushu or kungfu and hapkido, and has been acting since the 1960s, appearing in over 150 films.
Blaxploitation or blacksploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s. The films, though receiving backlash for stereotypical characters, are among the first in which black characters and communities are the heroes and subjects of film and television, rather than sidekicks or villains or victims of brutality. The genre's inception coincides with the rethinking of race relations in the 1970s.
A horror film is a film that seeks to elicit fear. Initially inspired by literature from authors like Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and Mary Shelley, horror has existed as a film genre for more than a century. The macabre and the supernatural are frequent themes. Horror may also overlap with the fantasy, supernatural fiction, and thriller genres.
A slasher film is a film in the subgenre of horror films involving a violent psychopath stalking and murdering a group of people, usually by use of bladed tools. Although the term "slasher" is often used informally as a generic term for any horror film involving murder, film analysts cite an established set of characteristics which set these films apart from other subgenres, such as splatter films and psychological horror films.
Laurel and Hardy were a comedy duo act during the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema. The team was composed of Englishman Stan Laurel (1890–1965) and American Oliver Hardy (1892–1957). They became well known during the late 1920s to the mid-1940s for their slapstick comedy, with Laurel playing the clumsy and childlike friend of the pompous bully Hardy. The duo's signature tune is known variously as "The Cuckoo Song", "Ku-Ku", or "The Dance of the Cuckoos". It was played over the opening credits of their films and has become as emblematic of the duo as their bowler hats.
Terrence Stephen McQueen was an American actor.
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, model, and singer. Famous for playing comic "blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and was emblematic of the era's attitudes towards sexuality. Although she was a top-billed actress for only a decade, her films grossed $200 million by the time of her unexpected death in 1962. More than half a century later, she continues to be a major popular culture icon.
Jethro Tull are a British rock band formed in Blackpool, Lancashire, in 1967. Initially playing blues rock, the band later developed their sound to incorporate elements of hard and folk rock to forge a progressive rock signature. The band is led by vocalist/flautist/guitarist Ian Anderson, and has featured a revolving door of lineups through the years including significant members such as guitarists Mick Abrahams and Martin Barre, keyboardist John Evan, drummers Clive Bunker, Barriemore Barlow, and Doane Perry, and bassists Glenn Cornick, Jeffrey Hammond, John Glascock, and Dave Pegg.
Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech" featuring advanced technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cybernetics, juxtaposed with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order.
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, was an English writer. She is known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around her fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Christie also wrote the world's longest-running play, a murder mystery, The Mousetrap, and, under the pen name Mary Westmacott, six romances. In 1971 she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her contribution to literature.
Sir Terence David John Pratchett was an English author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his Discworld series of 41 novels.
Feminism is a range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve political, economic, personal, and social equality of sexes. This includes seeking to establish educational and professional opportunities for women that are equal to those for men.
Psychoanalysis is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques related to the study of the unconscious mind, which together form a method of treatment for mental-health disorders. The discipline was established in the early 1890s by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud and stemmed partly from the clinical work of Josef Breuer and others. Psychoanalysis was later developed in different directions, mostly by students of Freud such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav Jung, and by neo-Freudians such as Erich Fromm, Karen Horney and Harry Stack Sullivan. Freud retained the term psychoanalysis for his own school of thought.
Bisexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior toward both males and females, or romantic or sexual attraction to people of any sex or gender identity; this latter aspect is sometimes alternatively termed pansexuality.
Star Wars is a 1977 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. It is the first film in the original Star Wars trilogy and the beginning of the Star Wars franchise. Starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, David Prowse, James Earl Jones, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, and Peter Mayhew, the film focuses on the Rebel Alliance, led by Princess Leia (Fisher), and its attempt to destroy the Galactic Empire's space station, the Death Star.
A paperback, also known as a softcover or softback, is a type of book characterized by a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with glue rather than stitches or staples. In contrast, hardcover or hardback books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth. The pages on the inside are made of paper.
The Clone Wars, occasionally referred to in the singular as the Clone War, are conflicts in the Star Wars franchise by George Lucas. Though mentioned briefly in the first Star Wars film (1977), the conflicts themselves are not depicted until Attack of the Clones (2002) and Revenge of the Sith (2005). The Clone Wars are also the setting for three eponymous projects: a 2D animated cartoon (2003–2005), a CGI film (2008), and a 3D CGI series (2008–2014). They have featured in numerous Star Wars books and games.
Hikaru Kato Sulu is a fictional character in the Star Trek media franchise. Originally known simply as "Sulu", he was portrayed by George Takei in the original Star Trek series. Sulu also appears in the animated Star Trek series, the first six Star Trek movies, one episode of Star Trek: Voyager, and in numerous books, comics, and video games. Sulu's first name, "Hikaru", appeared in a 1981 novel well over a decade after the original series had ended. John Cho assumed the role of the character in both the 2009 film Star Trek and its sequels, Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond.
William Joseph Mosconi was an American professional pool player from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Between the years of 1941 and 1957, he won the World Straight Pool Championship an unmatched fifteen times. For most of the 20th century, his name was essentially synonymous with pool in North America – he was nicknamed "Mr. Pocket Billiards" – and he was among the first Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame inductees. Mosconi pioneered and regularly employed numerous trick shots, set many records, and helped to popularize pool as a national recreation activity.
Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books.
Conn Iggulden is a British author who writes historical fiction, most notably the Emperor series and Conqueror series. He also co-authored The Dangerous Book for Boys along with his brother Hal Iggulden. In 2007, Iggulden became the first person to top the UK fiction and non-fiction charts at the same time.
Jonathan Rosenbaum is an American film critic. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for the Chicago Reader from 1987 until 2008, when he retired at the age of 65. He has published and edited numerous books and has contributed to some of the world's most notable film publications, including Cahiers du cinéma and Film Comment.
Christoph von Wangenheim was a German fashion photographer of the late 1960s through the early 1980s.
Christie Golden is an American author. She has written nearly fifty novels and several short stories in fantasy, horror and science fiction.
Mary Blair was an American artist, animator, and designer. She was prominent in producing art and animation for The Walt Disney Company, drawing concept art for such films as Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Song of the South and Cinderella. Blair also created character designs for enduring attractions such as Disneyland's It's a Small World, the fiesta scene in El Rio del Tiempo in the Mexico pavilion in Epcot's World Showcase, and an enormous mosaic inside Disney's Contemporary Resort. Several of her illustrated children's books from the 1950s remain in print, such as I Can Fly by Ruth Krauss. Blair was inducted into the group of Disney Legends in 1991.
Pratap Chatterjee is an Indian/Sri Lankan investigative journalist and progressive author. He is a British citizen and grew up in India, although he lived in California for many years. He serves as the executive director of CorpWatch, an Oakland-based corporate accountability organisation. He also works for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London. He writes regularly for The Guardian and serves on the board of Amnesty International USA and of the Corporate Europe Observatory
Vulcan's Hammer is a 1960 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was released originally as an Ace Double. This has been considered to be the final outing of Dick's 1950s style pulp science fiction writing, before his better-received work such as the Hugo Award-winning Man in the High Castle, published a year later.
Andrew M. Butler is a British academic who teaches film, media and cultural studies at Canterbury Christ Church University. He is a former editor of Vector, the Critical Journal of the British Science Fiction Association and was membership secretary of the Science Fiction Foundation. He is a former Arthur C. Clarke Award judge and is now a member of the Serendip Foundation which administers the award.
Maximiliaan of Egmont (1509–1548) was Count of Buren and Leerdam, and Stadtholder of Friesland from 1540 until 1548. He was the son of Floris van Egmont whom he succeeded as count after his father's death in 1539.
The Avengers are a fictional superhero team created by Marvel Comics that appear in comic books. Aside from comics, the Avengers appear in various forms of media such as in novels, television shows, movies, videogames and stage shows.
James Clarke is an author of books about cinema as well as a film and video producer.
Gallery Publishing Group is a general interest publisher and a division of Simon & Schuster that was formed in October to 2012 to house a number of imprints including Gallery Books, Pocket Books and Scout Press. The main imprint is Gallery Books.
Undercover, also known as Undercover: How to Operate Behind Enemy Lines and How to Operate Behind Enemy Lines, is a 1943 Office of Strategic Services training film, directed by and featuring John Ford. It was edited by Ford's longtime collaborator Robert Parrish.