James Layton

David Pierce

Paolo Cherchi Usai

Catherine A. Surowiec

"Traces the first two decades of the Technicolor Corporation and the development of its two-color motion picture process, using such resources as corporate documents, studio production files, contemporary accounts, and unpublished interviews. Includes annotated filmography of all two-color Technicolor titles produced between 1915 and 1935"--

The Dawn of Technicolor, 1915-1935

?Is there one who understands me?? So wrote James Joyce towards the end of his final work, Finnegans Wake. The question continues to be asked about the author who claimed that he had put so many enigmas into Ulysses that it would ?keep the professors busy for centuries? arguing over what he meant. Studied by thousands of students and with a huge popular following, Joyce is arguably the greatest writer of the twentieth century, but, for many, his books remain an impenetrable mystery. With the help of an engaging commentary, a guide to Joyce?s writing, and a bank of material gleaned from thirty years teaching Joyce in the classroom, David Pierce has produced a book that makes sense of Joyce?s work for today?s reader. He succeeds in presenting Joyce as an author both more straightforward and infinitely more complex than we had perhaps imagined.

Reading Joyce

One day after reading a book about a wilderness adventurer, David Pierce’s fifteen-year-old daughter Chera announced that she wanted to climb a mountain. What David heard behind that wish was a bold declaration: “I’m growing up, Dad–what are you going to do about it?” A few weeks later they bought matching backpacks. Over a three-year period they climbed five mountains and ran in two marathons. Together they suffered sore muscles, bitter cold, sprung knees, shin splints, and broken spirits. But they also reveled in blazing sunsets, glissaded on a glacier, and celebrated numerous victories great and small. And in the process, they built an unshakable father-daughter bond that will withstand the tests of time. As you read this wise, warmhearted, and often hilarious story of a daughter’s (and a father’s) coming of age, you’ll discover ways you too can create strong, loving relationships with the important people in your life, as you make your way through the valleys and over the summits of life together.

What My Daughter Taught Me about the Journey Every Parent Must Make

Don't Let Me Go

This annotated reference provides information on the copyright status of over 20,000 features, short films, television programs, and documentaries. The United States copyright system allows a film to fall into the public domain if a renewal is not filed in the twenty-eighth year after its release. Such public domain films may be used by anyone for free, but finding out which films are or are not still under copyright can be expensive and tedious. This guide alleviates that expense and drudgery by including all motion pictures registered for copyright in the 1950s, as well as 500 that were received after 1959. The book also includes an overview of the copyright system and sample certificates. All renewals of copyrights are noted, allowing readers to clearly see which items are or are not in the public domain.

Motion Picture Copyrights & Renewals, 1950-1959

Don Wooding

Rock Priest

W.B. Yeats: Assessments: 1980-2000

In this absorbing analysis of modern Irish writing, an acknowledged expert considers the hybrid character of modern Irish writing to show how language, culture, and history have been affected by the colonial encounter between Ireland and Britain. Examining the great themes of loss and struggle, David Pierce traces the impact on Irish writing of the Great Famine and cultural nationalism and considers the way the work of Ireland’s two leading writers, W. B.Yeats and James Joyce, complicate and elucidate our view of "the harp and the crown.” The book draws a contrast between the West of Ireland in the 1930s, when the new Irish State enjoyed its first full independent decade, and the North of Ireland in the 1980s, when the spectre of British imperialism threatened the stability of Ireland. Pierce then surveys contemporary Irish writing and reflects on the legacy of the colonial encounter and on the passage to a postmodern or postnationalist Ireland in the work of such crucial living writers as John Banville, Derek Mahon, and John McGahern.

A Cultural History of Modern Irish Writing

Light, Freedom and Song

After an established career as a literary critic, David Pierce turns his attention to the story of his own life. From a working-class upbringing to an education in Catholic boarding schools and seminaries in Sussex and Surrey, and then onto university at Lancaster, his story is both personal and evocative of the changes that Britain underwent from the post-war period until the present. With chapters on his father’s lost Jewish family and his mother’s Irish heritage, this is a memoir that celebrates continuity and difference. Whether as a child witnessing the disappearing house dances in the west of Ireland or commenting on the impact of change and the new, Pierce is a compelling story-teller who lets us into the chosen scene with a mixture of emotional engagement, honesty, and humour. In Pierce’s record of his life, his writing is sensitive, thoughtful and committed. At each stage he digs deep to reflect on what was happening to him, and these reflections ensure that the reading experience is both full and rewarding. Whether he is discussing his earliest memories or a photo of himself as the eleven-year-old boy he once knew, each episode is part of a larger inquiry into the nature of consciousness and how we record and internalise the world. On every page we are invited to reflect with Pierce on what we are reading and on what constitutes the material that comprises a memoir. We accompany the author from a destiny obscure to a prose writer of distinction. The Long Apprenticeship, which contains 28 illustrations, will appeal to fans of biographies and memoirs. It covers the following life experiences:the discovery of oneself as a writerthe process involved in writing a memoir and in the uncovering of memorythe attention to the self within a social historythe effect of a religious upbringing and the recuperation of the self thereafter.Thinking about the purpose of a memoir, David said: ‘A memoir is like an underground stream that comes to the surface. You write for those who have gone before and for posterity as much as for yourself.’

A Writer's Memoir

The Long Apprenticeship

With five Nobel Prize-winners, seven Pulitzer Prize-winners and two Booker Prize-winning novelists, modern Irish writing has contributed something special and permanent to our understanding of the twentieth century. Irish Writing in the Twentieth Century provides a useful, comprehensive and pleasurable introduction to modern Irish literature in a single volume. Organized chronologically by decade, this anthology provides the reader with a unique sense of the development and richness of Irish writing and of the society it reflected. It embraces all forms of writing, not only the major forms of drama, fiction and verse, but such material as travel writing, personal memoirs, journalism, interviews and radio plays, to offer the reader a complete and wonderfully varied sense of Ireland's contribution our literary heritage. David Pierce has selected major literary figures as well as neglected ones, and includes many writers from the Irish diaspora. The range of material is enormous, and ensures that work that is inaccessible or out of print is now easily available. The book is a delightful compilation, including many well known pieces and captivating "discoveries," which anyone interested in literature will long enjoy browsing and dipping into.

A Reader

Irish Writing in the Twentieth Century

"King of Jazz: Paul Whiteman's Technicolor Revue" tells the story of the making, release, and restoration of Universal s 1930 Technicolor musical extravaganza King of Jazz. Authors James Layton and David Pierce have uncovered original artwork, studio production files, behind-the-scenes photographs, personal papers, unpublished interviews, and a host of other previously unseen documentation. The book offers a richly illustrated narrative of the film's production, with broader context on its diverse musical and theatrical influences. The story concludes with an in-depth look at the challenges Universal overcame in restoring the film in 2016. Additionally, the book's appendix provides a comprehensive guide to all of the film's performers, music, alternate versions, and deleted scenes. "King of Jazz" was one of the most ambitious films ever to emerge from Hollywood. Just as movie musicals were being invented in 1929, Universal Pictures brought together Paul Whiteman, leader of the country s top dance orchestra; John Murray Anderson, director of spectacular Broadway revues; a top ensemble of dancers and singers; early Technicolor; and a near unlimited budget. The film s highlights include a dazzling interpretation of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, which Whiteman had introduced to the public in 1924; Walter Lantz's A Fable in Jazz, the first cartoon in Technicolor; and Anderson's grand finale The Melting Pot of Music, a visualization of popular music's many influences and styles. The film is not only a unique document of Anderson's theatrical vision and Whiteman's band at its peak, but also of several of America s leading performers of the late 1920s, including Bing Crosby in his first screen appearance, and the Russell Markert Dancers, who would soon become Radio City Music Hall's famous Rockettes

David Pierce

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