Film Life

Jenna Fischer's Hollywood journey began at the age of 22 when she moved to Los Angeles from her hometown of St. Louis. She was determined, confident, and ready to work hard. So, what could go wrong? Uh, basically everything. The path to being a professional actor was so much more vast and competitive than she’d imagined. It would be eight long years before she landed her iconic role on The Office, nearly a decade of frustration, rejection, and doubt. If only she’d had a handbook for the aspiring actor. Or, better yet, someone to show her the way. Jenna wants to be that person for you.

In this first-ever translation of Lu Yao’s Life, we meet Gao Jialin, a stubborn, idealistic, and ambitious young man from a small country village whose life is upended when corrupt local politics cost him his beloved job as a schoolteacher, prompting him to reject rural life and try to make it in the big city. Against the vivid, gritty backdrop of 1980s China, Lu Yao traces the proud and passionate Gao Jialin’s difficult path to professional, romantic, and personal fulfillment - or at least hard-won acceptance.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER A Most Anticipated Book of 2025: Town & Country Harper’s Bazaar W Magazine Bustle LitHub Women’s Wear Daily The first comprehensive biography of Jane Birkin—actress, singer, and legendary style icon—and her profound cultural impact, from the...

It was James Agee who christened Buster Keaton “The Great Stone Face.” Keaton’s face, Agee wrote, "ranked almost with Lincoln’s as an early American archetype; it was haunting, handsome, almost beautiful, yet it was also irreducibly funny. Keaton was the only major comedian who kept sentiment almost entirely out of his work and . . . he brought pure physical comedy to its greatest heights.”

Strikingly glamorous and famously inscrutable, Greta Garbo managed, in 16 short years, to infiltrate America’s subconscious; her decision to suddenly end her film career at the age of 36 only made her more irresistible. Garbo appeared in only 24 movies, yet her impact on the world was rivaled only by Marilyn Monroe. She was a phenomenon, a Sphinx, a myth, but also a Swedish peasant girl, uneducated, naïve, and always on her guard. Acclaimed critic and editor Robert Gottlieb attempts to capture the ever-elusive essence of Garbo through the eyes of others.

Supernatural, a three-time People's Choice Award winner and Tumblr's 2015 Most Reblogged "Live Action TV", has made a name for itself by supporting and encouraging its fans to "always keep fighting", and a memorable line from early in the show's run, "Family don't end with blood", became an inspiring mantra for many who found community in the fandom. In 25 powerful chapters written by Supernatural's actors and fans, Family Don't End with Blood: Cast and Fans On How Supernatural Has Changed Lives examines the far reach of the show's impact for more than a decade.

Nineteen-year-old Greg Sestero met Tommy Wiseau at an acting school in San Francisco. Wiseau's scenes were rivetingly wrong, yet Sestero, hypnotized by such uninhibited acting, thought, "I have to do a scene with this guy." That impulse changed both of their lives. The Disaster Artist is Greg Sestero's laugh-out-loud funny account of how Tommy Wiseau defied every law of artistry, business, and friendship to make "the Citizen Kane of bad movies" ( Entertainment Weekly), which is now an international phenomenon.

Jon Landau, the Academy Award–winning film producer behind Titanic, Avatar, Alita: Battle Angel, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, and Dick Tracy, knew two things well: how to tell an unforgettable story, and how to find solutions. So, when he found himself confronting his fate, a diagnosis of improbable odds, he began to problem solve, ensuring that everything he learned behind the camera would live on after he was gone.

From the lead singer of the band Great Big Sea comes a lyrical and captivating musical memoir about growing up in the tiny fishing village of Petty Harbour, Newfoundland, and then taking to the world stage. Singer-songwriter and front man of the great Canadian band Great Big Sea, Alan...

Hansel and Gretel walk out of their own story and into eight other classic Grimm (and Grimm-inspired) fairy tales. An irreverent, witty narrator leads us through encounters with witches, warlocks, dragons, and the devil himself. As the siblings roam a forest brimming with menacing foes, they learn the true story behind the famous tales, as well as how to take charge of their destinies and create their own happily ever after. Because once upon a time, fairy tales were awesome.

Has your child lived before? In this fascinating, controversial, and groundbreaking book, Carol Bowman reveals overwhelming evidence of past-life memories in children. Not only are such experiences real, they are far more common than most people realize. Bowman’s extraordinary investigation was sparked when her young son, Chase, described his own past-life death on a Civil War battlefield - an account so accurate it was authenticated by an expert historian. Even more astonishing, Chase’s chronic eczema and phobia of loud noises disappeared after he had recalled the memory.

The holiday film A Christmas Story, first released in 1983, has become a bona fide Christmas perennial, gaining in stature and fame with each succeeding year. Its affectionate, wacky, and wryly realistic portrayal of an American family's typical Christmas joys and travails in small-town Depression-era Indiana has entered our imagination and our hearts with a force equal to It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street.

In this elegant and compelling biography, best-selling writer Shawn Levy writes of these many De Niros - the characters and the man - seeking to understand the evolution of an actor who once dove deeply into his roles as if to hide his inner nature, and who now seemingly avoids acting challenges, taking roles which make few apparent demands on his overwhelming talent.

Megan Rapinoe, Olympic gold medalist and two-time Women's World Cup champion, reveals for the first time her life both on and off the field. Guided by her personal journey into social justice, brimming with humor, humanity, and joy, she urges all of us to ask ourselves, What will you do with your one life?

In December 2016, the world was shaken by the sudden deaths of Carrie Fisher and her mother Debbie Reynolds, two unspeakable losses. The stunned public turned for solace to Debbie’s only remaining child, Todd Fisher. The son of "America’s Sweethearts" Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, Todd grew up amid the glamorous wealth and pretense of Hollywood. Thanks to his mother, Todd remained down to earth, his own man, but always close to his cherished mom, and to his sister through her meteoric rise to stardom and her struggle with demons that never diminished her humor, talent, or spirit.

In these essays, TV’s Frank Conniff focuses on twenty-five of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 films he found and riffed with his fellow MST3K writers and cast mates. It tells the story of how a comedian who was lucky enough to work on beloved Peabody Award winning TV show was transformed into a comedian who was lucky enough to work on a beloved Peabody Award winning TV show. It’s a story that will stay with you for the rest of your life, if you happen to die just as you finish listening to the book.

Though she has shunned the media spotlight, Academy Award-winning actress Tatum O'Neal at last goes on the record to tell her story - a tale of personal turmoil and ultimate triumph that is part Hollywood tell-all, part Greek tragedy, and part Shakespearean drama.

John Wayne projected dignity, integrity, and strength in all his films, even when his characters were flawed, and whatever character he played was always prepared to confront injustice in his own way. More than thirty years after his death, he remains the standard by which male stars are judged and an actor whose morally unambiguous films continue to attract sizeable audiences.

John Singleton became a living legend at just 24 years old when he earned Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Boyz N the Hood, the sleeper hit of the summer of 1991 and one of the decade’s most important films. Though he wasn’t victorious on Oscar night, it didn’t detract from his achievements.

Author Edward White explores the Hitchcock phenomenon - what defines it, how it was invented, what it reveals about the man at its core, and how its legacy continues to shape our cultural world. Illuminating different aspects of Hitchcock's life and work, the book's 12 chapters reveal something fundamental about the man he was and the mythological creature he has become, presenting not just the life Hitchcock lived, but also the various versions of himself that he projected and those projected on his behalf.