Anthony Holden

"Following...their anthology, Poems That Make Grown Men Cry, father-and-son team Anthony and Ben Holden, working with Amnesty International, have asked the same revealing question of 100 remarkable women. What poem has moved you to tears? The poems chosen range from the eighth century to today, from Rumi and Shakespeare to Sylvia Plath, W.H. Auden to Carol Ann Duffy, Pablo Neruda and Derek Walcott to Imtiaz Dharker and Warsan Shire. Their themes range from love and loss, through mortality and mystery, war and peace, to the beauty and variety of nature."--

"Hollywood superstar; Oscar-winning director; greatest stage actor of the twentieth century. The era abounded in great actors - Gielgud, Richardson, Guinness, Burton, O'Toole - but none could challenge Laurence Olivier's range and power. By the 1940s he had achieved international stardom. His affair with Vivien Leigh led to a marriage as glamorous and as tragic as any in Hollywood history. He was as accomplished a director as he was a leading man: his three Shakespearian adaptations are among the most memorable ever filmed. And yet, at the height of his fame, he accepted what was no more than an administrator's wage to become the founding Director of the National Theatre. In 2013 the theatre celebrates its fiftieth anniversary; without Olivier's leadership it would never have achieved the status that it enjoys today. Off-stage, Olivier was the most extravagant of characters: generous, yet almost insanely jealous of those few contemporaries whom he deemed to be his rivals; charming but with a ferocious temper. With access to more than fifty hours of candid, unpublished interviews, Philip Ziegler ensures that Olivier's true character - at its most undisguised - shines through as never before." --Publisher's description.

Simple hype? Is that really all there is behind the Oscar? Just a lot of propaganda, a frenzied ritual of self-promotion, a debasement of character and culture - and for what? A shiny statuette of a naked and featureless little man? Well, yes, maybe "hype" is a major part of the whole affair, but "simple"...? Not by a long shot. Every year, on the last Monday in March, the reigning royalty of the movie business dress up in their finest feathers - sometimes literally - to. attend the ceremony sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. At that ceremony, years of struggle and study and sacrifice and hard work - capped by weeks of intense campaigning, awesome in-fighting, blatant self-aggrandizement, and shameless displays of naked desire - are rewarded. The Academy Awards! As Anthony Holden explains at the start of Behind the Oscar, his fascinating and devilish look at this perennial affair, "However rich and famous movie. stars may become, however admired and envied by audiences and colleagues alike, their cup will not actually run over until their name emerges from one of [the] envelopes, and they can sob their way through an Oscar acceptance speech. [The] winners will bask in the glow of apparent immortality - the highest honor even Hollywood can confer - as well a boosting their fantastical fees. For those already in possession of most that this world can offer, it is a consummation. devoutly to be wished - and a wish they will go to any lengths to consummate." Historically, the Academy Awards, first presented in 1927, were an offshoot of an effort by the then-powerful Hollywood studios to defeat the unions that threatened to cut into their considerable profits. At first the Awards were self-congratulatory, back-slapping affairs, dinner parties at which actors and actresses who had kept their noses clean and whose movies had made money were rewarded. for their work. Quickly, however, these annual rites assumed a life of their own, growing over the years to the self-congratulatory, back-slapping colossus that today fascinates millions and millions of people the world over. Behind the Oscar is the story of these awards and how they grew, and, in a way, it's the story of Hollywood itself. Spanning the entire history of the Awards (including the 1991 Academy Awards) and reviewing the famous winners and losers (e.g., Katharine Hepburn, Charlie Chaplin), and the not-so-famous people (Luise Rainer, winner of back-to-back Oscars for Best Actress) whose lives have been touched by Oscar magic, Anthony Holden cleverly guides the reader through the ins and outs, the complex, confounding machinations that make up Oscar's history. Complete with a multitude of award lists, dozens of photos, and enough behind-the-scenes gossip to satisfy even the most jaded, Behind the Oscar is the best. written, most enlightening, and easily the most entertaining look ever at Hollywood at its best and worst. To paraphrase Sally Field upon winning her second Oscar: "You'll like it, you'll really like it!"

Charles, Prince of Wales, turns fifty on November 14, 1998. Since the tragic death of Princes Diana, his public and private lives have been in more turmoil than ever. Britain's leading authority on the prince is Anthony Holden, who has written two previous biographies of Charles. His third book presents a divorced prince, now a widower, facing a stark choice: his children, the love of his life or the throne - or, by trying to have all three, playing a dangerous long-term game that could threaten the future of the monarchy itself. Holden traces the seeds of Charles's adult character in his childhood and youth but does not flinch from criticism in recounting how Charles reached his current dilemma as a single parent in love with a woman he may never be able to marry. Though Diana's death has created a wave of public sympathy for him - which may yet see him a popular king - can the private Charles ever find happiness without the help and support of the woman he loves?

In the years since Anthony Holden wrote his classic memoir Big Deal, the poker world has changed beyond recognition. When Holden played in the 1988 World Series of Poker there were 167 starters competing for a prize of $270,000. Since then, poker has become the world's largest single-competitor sport -- at the 2006 World Series there were almost 9,000 players and a first prize of $12 million, the richest in any sport. What happened in the years between Big Deal and Bigger Deal could never have been predicted: the Internet and television sparked a worldwide explosion in the popularity of poker, one that shows no sign of abating. In Bigger Deal, Holden is your guide to the world of the "new" poker -- to the players who dominate the modern game and the personalities behind the multibillion-dollar business it has become -- as he tries once again to win the world title.

Glamour. Duty. Tragedy: The Woman Behind the Princess. Sarah Bradford delivers an authoritative and explosive study of the greatest icon of the twentieth century: Diana.After more than a decade interviewing those closest to the Princess and her select circle, Sarah Bradford exposes the real Diana: the blighted childhood, the old-fashioned courtship which saw her capture the Prince of Wales, the damage caused by the spectre of Camilla Parker Bowles, through to the collapse of the royal marriage and Diana's final and complicated year as single woman.Diana paints an honest portrait of a woman riddled with contradictions and whose vulnerability and unique empathy with the suffering made her one of the most extraordinary figures of the modern age.

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