Billy, a young man with a dreary life, spends most of his time daydreaming about a land where he is a hero. A number of minor indiscretions causes Billy to lie in order to avoid the penalties. As these events start catching up with him, he finds himself telling bigger lies to cover his tracks. Finally, when his life is a total mess, and nobody believes a word he says, an opportunity to just run away and leave it all behind presents itself. Billy has a difficult decision to make...

The classic comedy of a 50s youth trapped inside a Walter Mitty fantasy-world, published as a Penguin Essential for the first time. Keith Waterhouse's Billy Liar was published in 1959, and captures brilliantly the claustrophobic atmosphere of a small town. It tells the story of Billy Fisher, a Yorkshire teenager unable to stop lying - especially to his three girlfriends. Trapped by his boring job and working-class parents, Billy finds that his only happiness lies in grand plans for his future and fantastical day-dreams of the fictional country Ambrosia.

Jane Austen is one of the most widely-read novelists in the English language, and one of very few pre-Victorian writers to have a large popular following. This book situates Austen in the literary and historical context of her time, and combines critical introductions to each of her six major novels with an exploration of key themes of her work.

Looks at the life and career of the British motion picture director of such films as "Midnight Cowboy" and "Marathon Man."

It's a war story that is told every time the career of Billy Bishop is discussed: On June 2, 1917, the young pilot single-handedly took out a German airfield in an early morning raid at the height of the Great War. For this, he was awarded the Victoria Cross, and a place in Canadian history. And yet, the attack never happened. In this explosive new biography, Brereton Greehous exposes the myth of Billy Bishop. While his bravery never comes into question (Bishop was as courageous as any of the men who risked their lives in those early warplanes) his credibility as a storyteller does. From exaggerations and half-truths to flat-out lies, stories of Bishop's legendary exploits contain as much fiction as they do fact. Greenhous reveals many startling truths: he presents evidence that some of the medals Bishop wore late in his career were unearned, uncovers a number of examples of Bishop embellishing or inventing combat stories, and, most significantly, shows that the only account of the ace's raid on the German airfield came from Bishop himself. Even official German records of casualties fail to corroborate the Canadian's claims. The Making of Billy Bishop is a book certain to stir up controversy. Twenty years ago, a documentary film questioning Bishop's credentials as a hero was considered so blasphemous that a senate investigation was launched in an attempt to restore the pilot's name. Now, Greenhous's research vindicates the claims of the filmmakers, and re-ignites an argument once thought settled.

Michael Lewis’s instant classic may be “the most influential book on sports ever written” (People), but “you need know absolutely nothing about baseball to appreciate the wit, snap, economy and incisiveness of [Lewis’s] thoughts about it” (Janet Maslin, New York Times). One of GQ's 50 Best Books of Literary Journalism of the 21st Century Just before the 2002 season opens, the Oakland Athletics must relinquish its three most prominent (and expensive) players and is written off by just about everyone—but then comes roaring back to challenge the American League record for consecutive wins. How did one of the poorest teams in baseball win so many games? In a quest to discover the answer, Michael Lewis delivers not only “the single most influential baseball book ever” (Rob Neyer, Slate) but also what “may be the best book ever written on business” (Weekly Standard). Lewis first looks to all the logical places—the front offices of major league teams, the coaches, the minds of brilliant players—but discovers the real jackpot is a cache of numbers?numbers!?collected over the years by a strange brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts: software engineers, statisticians, Wall Street analysts, lawyers, and physics professors. What these numbers prove is that the traditional yardsticks of success for players and teams are fatally flawed. Even the box score misleads us by ignoring the crucial importance of the humble base-on-balls. This information had been around for years, and nobody inside Major League Baseball paid it any mind. And then came Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics. He paid attention to those numbers?with the second-lowest payroll in baseball at his disposal he had to?to conduct an astonishing experiment in finding and fielding a team that nobody else wanted. In a narrative full of fabulous characters and brilliant excursions into the unexpected, Michael Lewis shows us how and why the new baseball knowledge works. He also sets up a sly and hilarious morality tale: Big Money, like Goliath, is always supposed to win . . . how can we not cheer for David?

The city, with its manifold distractions and violence, its invitation to intoxication and dream, had long served to represent the experience of modernity in works of art at the time John Schlesinger made his acclaimed urban documentary ‘Terminus’ in 1961. To be a reader of the city was to be a reader of modern life, and Schlesinger was a discriminating, at times relentless, reader of the city throughout his career, especially in his three greatest films, ‘Midnight Cowboy’, ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ and ‘The Day of the Locust’, set in New York, London and Los Angeles, respectively. His character-driven stories, evocation of the significance of the everyday, and insistence on ambiguities of situation and motive – all qualities he was known for – point to literary influences that reach back to the nineteenth century and earlier. ‘The Films of John Schlesinger’ is not only the first book to fully acknowledge those influences, but also the first book to explicate the power of his art to capture the modern, urban experiences of becoming an adult in an atmosphere that relentlessly promotes fantasies of success and wealth; of coming to terms with one’s national identity in the context of international politics; and of attempting to transform the past, both personal and cultural, into a viable present.

Ed Clayton is a liar. It started when his dad went to prison and now he can’t seem to stop. When his younger brother, Sam, goes missing one day, nobody believes Ed when he says he can’t remember what happened. He’s used to going without, but living without his brother is impossible. With the police and press asking questions and friends turning against the family, Ed is left trying to find Sam with only the help of his new neighbour, Fallon. When the two stumble on a secret that even Ed could never have imagined, it’s up to the liar to uncover the truth . . . A sensitive and engaging fourth novel about brotherhood, hardship and being yourself from the multi-award-winning author, Kim Slater.

From the slapstick shenanigans of Hepburn and Grant in Bringing Up Baby to the sexy repartee of Shakespeare in Love, romantic comedies have delighted filmgoers -- and challenged screenwriters -- since Hollywood's Golden Age. Whether you're a first time screenwriter, or an intermediate marooned in the rewriting process, this thoroughly charming and insightful guide to the basics of crafting a winning script will take you step by step from "cute meet" all the way to "joyous defeat." You'll learn the screenwriting secrets behind some of the funniest scenes ever written; how to create characters and dialogue that set the sparks flying; why some bedroom scenes sizzle and others fall flat; and much more. Writing the Romantic Comedy features case studies drawn from beloved romantic comedies such as When Harry Met Sally, Annie Hall, Tootsie, and The Lady Eve, as well as field-tested writing exercises guaranteed to short-circuit potential mistakes and ensure inspiration.