There's so much more to Ray's on-screen tough-guy image, and his path to the top has been anything but plain sailing. He was every inch the rebel in his youth and was even a London schoolboy boxing champion; but he always had an affinity for acting. Deciding to pursue his dream through drama school, he soon found himself an outsider and was expelled. But he managed to blag his way into an audition for what would prove to be his big break -- his cocky, aggressive boxer's gait making him perfect for the lead in Alan Clarke's Scum. Going on to both small -- and big-screen success, as well as in the theatre, Ray really cemented his place in the pantheon of British acting greats with his breathtaking performance in Nil By Mouth, which earned him a BAFTA nomination. His subsequent roles in the likes of Sexy Beast, The War Zone and Last Orders, won him plaudits and continued his tradition of portraying tough, uncompromising men. But every tough guy has a heart, and Ray has tempered these roles with those in more light-hearted, romantic comedies such as Fanny and Elvis and There's Only One Jimmy Grimble. With roles in Indiana Jones 4, Beowulf (with Angelina Jolie) and London Boulevard, and with such great British telefilms as Henry VIII, Sweeny Todd and Vincent under his belt, Ray Winstone continues to go from strength to strength. From the humble East End to the glitz of the BAFTAs, Ray Winstone is now regarded as one of the foremost actors of his generation and the ultimate screen hard man. In this insightful biography, we see the man behind the tough, unflinching on-screen exterior.

Ray Winstone's amazing talent for bringing out the humanity buried inside his often brutal screen characters - violent offender in 'Scum', wife-beater in 'Nil by mouth', retired blagger in 'Sexy beast' - has made him one of the most charismatic actors of his generation. But how do these uncompromising and often haunting performances square with his off-duty reputation as the ultimate salt-of-the-earth diamond geezer? The answer lies in the East End of his youth: the home of gangsters, bank robbers, Bobby Moore, and family and friends who looked out for each other ...

Kathy Burke's first play is a gritty, darkly funny look at attitudes to homosexuality in the 1950s, a portrait of repressed sexuality and alcoholism - and an homage to the great masters of British theatre, Wilde, Coward, Pinter and Orton.

Nigel Goodall has written more than a dozen books, including the best-selling Winona Ryder (Blake, 1998), nominated for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction in 1999. He was a production associate for Channel 4's The Real Winona Ryder. His other books include Elton John: A Visual Documentary, an illustrated Rolling Stones book and the bestseller Kylie Naked: A Biography (Ebury,2002, with Jenny Stanley-Clarke). He writes for magazines and contributes to various album, video and television projects. Nigel is divorced with two children.

Jump, Rocky, Jump tells the remarkable story of Britain's most famous stuntman, Rocky Taylor, who fell into stunt work and landed on his feet. Whether downstairs or up gantries, burning like stubble or as a stunt double for Hollywood royalty, Rocky Taylor has been falling ever since. But he hits the ground running every time, screen-punching famous faces and treating audiences worldwide to near-death experiences - only one of which, thanks to an infamous director, became all too horribly real. Now readers have a chance to jump with Rocky and keep up, if they can, with the motorbike skids and the martial arts, the car-rolls and the swashbuckling, past and present. Whether your interest is professional or light-hearted, Rocky Taylor's life in film, TV and charity work will inform and entertain you as only an insider's eye can: showing you how stunts should be done and what hits the fan when they aren't.

The ancient world. A young girl, Ila, is found, injured after a violent raid. She is taken in by Noah and his family and grows up strong and happy - she even finds love with her soulmate, Shem, Noah's son. But when devastation comes to the world in the form of a huge flood, Ila and her new family are responsible for saving not only themselves but all life on earth. Against all odds they set off in the Ark, but all is not as it seems... As events unfold, Ila has to find the power within her to help Noah in his epic quest, and ultimately save humanity.

"His books are all action, unfolding with a laconic efficiency that would make his killers proud."—The Economist Martin Terrier is a hired killer who wants out of the game—so he can settle down and marry his childhood sweetheart. After all, that's why he took up this profession! But "the company" won't let him go: they have other plans. Once again, the gunman must assume the prone firing position. A tour de force, this violent tale shatters as many illusions about life and politics as it does bodies. Jean-Patrick Manchette subjects his characters and the reader alike to a fierce exercise in style. This tightly plotted, corrosive parody of "the success story" is widely considered to be Manchette's masterpiece, and was named a New York Times "Notable Book." The Prone Gunman is a classic of modern noir. "For Manchette and the generation of writers who followed him, the crime novel is no mere entertainment, but a means to strip bare the failures of society, ripping through veils of appearance, deceit, and manipulation to the greed and violence that are the society's true engines."—Boston Globe "There's not a superfluous word or overdone effect . . . one of the last cool, compact and shockingly original crime novels Manchette left as his legacy to modern noir fiction."—New York Times "For the first time readers can experience in English translation the masterful thriller considered Manchette's finest, proof positive that the French knew what they were talking about when they labeled this sort of novel 'noir'."—Publishers Weekly "This superbly muscular translation of the late French mystery writer Jean-Patrick Manchette's most celebrated work, The Prone Gunman, is the third volume issued [by] City Lights Noir. The series may prove to be the most needed contribution to contemporary fiction by any publisher in a good long while."—The San Francisco Chronicle Jean-Patrick Manchette was a French crime novelist credited with reinventing and reinvigorating the genre. He wrote ten short novels in the 1970s and early 80s, and is widely recognized as the foremost French crime fiction author of that time. His stories are violent, existentialist explorations of the human condition and French society. Jazz saxophonist and screenwriter, Manchette was also a left-wing activist influenced as much by the writings of the Situationist International as by Dashiell Hammett. Jean-Patrick Manchette's Three to Kill as well as the movie tie-in The Gunman are also published by City Lights Publishers.

"Dusk. On the edge of a forest. Early autumn 1918. An eight-man tank crew wait to go into battle. The events of one night in the heart of the forest, at the heart of the Great War"--Back cover.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE PEN/FAULKNER AWARD • The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Pastoral delivers “a master novelist's haunting parable about our troubled modern moment" (The Wall Street Journal). It is 1998, the year in which America is whipped into a frenzy of prurience by the impeachment of a president, and in a small New England town, an aging classics professor, Coleman Silk, is forced to retire when his colleagues decree that he is a racist. The charge is a lie, but the real truth about Silk would have astonished even his most virulent accuser. Coleman Silk has a secret, one which has been kept for fifty years from his wife, his four children, his colleagues, and his friends, including the writer Nathan Zuckerman. It is Zuckerman who stumbles upon Silk's secret and sets out to reconstruct the unknown biography of this eminent, upright man, esteemed as an educator for nearly all his life, and to understand how this ingeniously contrived life came unraveled. And to understand also how Silk's astonishing private history is, in the words of The Wall Street Journal, "magnificently" interwoven with "the larger public history of modern America."

THE STORY: Stephen runs a restaurant and has a weekly poker game in the basement. He enjoys playing for big money, and it's not unusual for the waiters to lose their paychecks, or more, each week. One of the waiters, Mugsy, wants to start a restaur