Miss Pettigrew is a down-on-her-luck, middle-aged governess sent by an employment agency to work for a nightclub singer rather than a household of unruly children. Over a period of just 24 hours, her life is changed - forever.

Nobody has been more important in telling Americans why we should love film than Roger Ebert. --Michael Shamberg, Editor and Publisher Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert presents more than 650 full-length critical movie reviews, along with interviews, essays, tributes, film festival reports, and Q and As from Questions for the Movie Answer Man. Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2009 collects more than two years' worth of his engaging film critiques. From Bee Movie to Darfur Now to No Country for Old Men, and from Juno to Persepolis to La Vie en Rose, Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2009 includes every review Ebert has written from January 2006 to June 2008. Also included in the Yearbook, which boasts 65 percent new content, are: * Interviews with newsmakers, such as Juno director Jason Reitman and Jerry Seinfeld, a touching tribute to Deborah Kerr, and an emotional letter of appreciation to Werner Herzog. * Essays on film issues, and tributes to actors and directors who died during the year. * Daily film festival reports from Cannes, Toronto, Sundance, and Telluride. * All-new questions and answers from his Questions for the Movie Answer Man columns.

This collection of essays examines the work of five intermodernist writers. Some were established authors before the First World War and others continued to write after the Second World War, but this book focuses particularly on their writing between 1918 and 1939. Elizabeth von Arnim, Stella Benson, Bradda Field, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Stella Gibbons and Winifred Watson had much in common: they all wrote novels full of comic moments, which often challenged the cultural politics of the interwar period. Drawing on the literary and critical contexts of each novel, the essays here discuss the use of comic structures that enabled the authors to critique the dominant patriarchal structures of their time, and offer an alternative, sometimes subversive, view of the world in which their characters reside. This book contributes to the growing scholarly interest in interwar fiction, focusing principally on novelists who have fallen out of public view. It widens our understanding both of the authors and of the continuing, highly topical debate about interwar women novelists.

Discover over 300 seasonal book recommendations in the ultimate reading list for book lovers everywhere. ----- 'I will be giving this book to everyone I know' - Elizabeth Day 'Francesca Beauman writes about the books she loves with irresistible passion, knowledge and warmth ... This is the best kind of reading celebration' - Rachel Joyce ----- Spanning the dreary, cold days of January to the first flushes of spring and then the blazing August heat, bibliophile Francesca Beauman offers up a wealth of book recommendations. From The Count of Monte Cristo to Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Quartet, each has been selected to chime with a particular time of year and provide a richer reading experience. Beautifully illustrated throughout, this charming guide will delight, inspire and seriously extend your 'To Be Read' list!

Student Book 2 provides guidance and activities, in the context of the Component 01 and Component 02 exam questions, on how to improve reading and writing skills. With the types of texts that students will face in the exams, in-context SPAG support and regular opportunities to monitor progress, this book aims to improve exam performance.

Completely revised and updated to include the most up-to-date selections, this is a bold and bright reference book to the novels and the writers that have excited the world's imagination. This authoritative selection of novels, reviewed by an international team of writers, critics, academics, and journalists, provides a new take on world classics and a reliable guide to what's hot in contemporary fiction. Featuring more than 700 illustrations and photographs, presenting quotes from individual novels and authors, and completely revised for 2012, this is the ideal book for everybody who loves reading.

The High School outsider takes off her glasses, puts on a dress, and becomes the Prom Queen; the dowdy woman has her hair done, buys some chic new clothes and starts to attract the men. Cinderella and Pygmalion stories still provide inspiration for the plots of Hollywood romantic comedies, dramas, and even action films. Their perennial use prompts a series of questions: is, for example, male agency necessary to effect the transformation, or can the woman change herself? Can she ever change him? Most pressingly, what do these images of change and transformation, of improvement and transcendence tell us, the viewers, about what we should be doing? Investigating these questions, this book examines a key but frequently overlooked aspect of film style: the costume. Across all the films discussed, costume and the body it covers becomes the crucial element in the transformation scene, exemplifying the 'before' and 'after' of the successful change. Exploring the fantasies of transcendence and transformation sold through these films and exemplified in the costumes, this book examines "Calamity Jane", "Midnight Cowboy", "Clueless", "The Long Kiss Goodnight", "The Devil Wears Prada", and many other examples from both classic and contemporary Hollywood.

Familiar essays by Sam Pickering, who has written more than thirty books and barrows of articles. When not at his desk, he was in the classroom, the last thirty-five years teaching English at the University of Connecticut.