From playing a rogue agent in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy to taking on the role of villainous Bane in Batman: The Dark Knight Rises Tom Hardy is well on the way to becoming the finest actor of his generation. His raw talent edginess & ability to utterly inhabit the characters he plays have already prompted comparisons to screen legends such as Marlon Brando & Robert De Niro. With a host of critically acclaimed performances under his belt & the bright lights of Hollywood beckoning Toms star is undoubtedly in the ascendant. Born into an idyllic middle-class life in the suburbs by his teenage years Tom had grown restless & started to rebel. Bad behaviour in the form of alcoholism drug-taking & criminal activity ensued & after a brief stint working as a model fate intervened & he found his way onto an acting course at his local college. Having been plucked from drama school to appear in Band of Brothers by 2003 his addictions had got the better of him & he collapsed in Soho following a drugs binge. Rehabilitation followed as did a rare second chance at hitting the big time. It was Hardys standout performance as Stuart Shorter in BBC TVs Stuart: A Life Backwards & as Britains most notorious prisoner in the film Bronson which really made audiences & critics sit up & take notice. Since then he has earned himself a reputation as a shape-shifting actor with the skill to slip effortlessly in & out of contrasting characters such as Eames in blockbusters Inception & Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. This affectionate & in-depth biography reveals the actor & the life that has shaped him into the star he has become. It explores his wayward youth his drama school years his burnout & his complex route to eventual success. With a host of major films on the horizon in 2012 & beyond his is clearly Hollywoods hottest property
- & the best is yet to come.
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Tom Jones is widely regarded as one of the first & most influential English novels. It is certainly the funniest. Tom Jones the hero of the book is introduced to the reader as the ward of a liberal Somerset squire. Tom is a generous but slightly wild & feckless country boy with a weakness for young women. Misfortune followed by many spirited adventures as he travels to London to seek his fortune teach him a sort of wisdom to go with his essential good-heartedness. ...

Learn how to take the best landscape photographs possible with this spectacular book from world renowned photographer Tom Mackie. With the sophistication of camera equipment today taking a regular photograph is relatively straightforward. But taking a photograph that will have more drama & impact than others requires much greater insight. Rather than simply concentrating on techniques Mackie breaks down all the different sub-genres of landscape photography & examines the challenges & particular processes involved with each specific environment. From the white sand beaches of Aruba to the snow-capped peaks of the Alps each chapter is beautifully illustrated by Mackies best images alongside detailed captions that explain exactly how each image was achieved. ...

Born in a humble weavers cottage in 1821 he more than anyone before or since in large measure made golf what it is today. The record of Tom & his prodigiously gifted son Tommy is astonishing. Between them they won eight of the first twelve Open Championships & are still respectively the oldest & youngest players to have won the Open. Tom relinquished his Open title to 18-yearold Tommy in 1868 taking second place that year
- a family performance unlikely ever to be repeated. Toms 13-stroke victory in 1862 remains the largest winning margin & Tommys four Open Championship wins in succession are unequalled. These exploits are only half the story. Tom was the first golf professional arguably the first to design & build a course (Prestwick) from scratch & his development of the Old Course at St Andrews made it the most famous golfing arena in the world. His life was an extraordinary blend of triumph & tragedy marked by the early death of his son Tommy aged only 24 years. Revered by his contemporaries Tom Morris remains one of the most iconic figures in all sport & his legacy continues to inspire & guide the development of golf today.
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Toms Brando-inspired bikers & leathermen. This is a mixture of multi-panel comics & single panel drawings & paintings starting in the 1940s through the 50s 60s 70s & 80s. In 1953 The Wild One" starring Marlon Brando as Johnny leader of the Black Rebels Motorcycle Club was released worldwide. In 1954 Tom of Finland previously known for his military & blue-collar subjects drew his first civilian motorcyclist dressed in black leather. Coincidence? Hardly. " The Wild One" originally marketed to a female audience with a poster featuring a close-up of Brandos face sans leather cap hair tousled cheeks & pout tinted pink with the tagline " That Streetcar Man has a new Desire!" resonated far more with gay audiences who took Brandos character as a template for the first leatherman. After seeing " The Wild One" Tom never drew men in brown leather again; black leather now dominated his fantasies & his art. Tom adopted Brandos leather Perfecto jacket white t-shirt Levis & high boots as his signature look. It was this same look that Tom selected for Kake his confident ever-horny hero of 26 panel stories. Kake became Toms fearless outgoing alter ego & bikers supplanted military men as his favorite subject. In " Tom of Finland Volume II
- Bikers" we explore Toms fascination with bikers through a mixture of multi-panel comics & single panel drawings & paintings starting in the 1940s before " The Wild One" fixed his taste on black leather through the 50s 60s 70s & 80s. Historic film stills & posters personal photos of Tom sketches & Toms own reference photos make this far more than another Toms Comics retread."
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This is a simplified & shortened retelling of the Mark Twain classic which remains faithful to the original text in the treatment of the story. It follows the mischief-filled antics of Tom Sawyer who is always getting into trouble whether playing pirates on the Mississippi River getting lost in caves or wriggling his way out of punishment. It is perfect for enthusiastic young readers who will be mesmerised by these stories & encouraged to pursue an interest in literature. ...

Take a walk around the Secret Garden. Experience boarding school with A Little Princess. See life through a horse's eyes with Black Beauty. Be enchanted by charming & hot-headed Anne of Green Gables. Carefully retold in clear contemporary language & presented with delightful illustrations these favourite classic stories will capture the heart & imagination of young readers. By retelling the story in a shorter simpler form children will find these books highly engaging & the colour illustrations help with both comprehension & interest level. ...

Tom Sawyer a shrewd & adventurous boy is as much at home in the respectable world of his Aunt Polly as in the self-reliant & parentless world of his friend Huck Finn. The two enjoy a series of adventures accidentally witnessing a murder establishing the innocence of the man wrongly accused as well as being hunted by Injun Joe the true murderer eventually escaping & finding the treasure that Joe had buried. Huckleberry Finn recounts the further adventures of Huck who runs away from a drunken & brutal father & meets up with the escaped slave Jim. They float down the Mississippi on a raft participating in the lives of the characters they meet witnessing corruption moral decay & intellectual impoverishment. Sharing so much in background & character these two stories the best of Twain indisputably belong together in one volume. Though originally written as adventure stories for young people the vivid writing provides a profound commentary on provincial American life in the mid-nineteenth century & the institution of slavery. ...

Plays Three: A Separate Peace"" Teeth"" Another Moon Called Earth"" Neutral Ground"" Professional Foul"" Squaring the Circle" Introduced by the author this third collection of plays written by Tom Stoppard contains his television plays written between 1965 & 1984. They show that Stoppards writing for the small screen is comparable to his more celebrated stage work as the masterly & timely " Professional Foul "demonstrates. In his introduction the author briefly describes how the pieces came to be written & the circumstances of their original production." ...

Dalliance"" Undiscovered Country"" Rough Crossing"" On the Razzle"" The Seagull" This fourth volume of Tom Stoppards work for the stage brings together five of his most celebrated translations & adaptations of plays by Arthur Schnitzler (" Dalliance" & " Undiscovered Country") Ferenc Molnar (" Rough Crossing " a classic farce set aboard an ocean liner) Johann Nestroy (" On the Razzle " a mad chase through Vienna) & Anton Chekhov (" The Seagull " the classic Russian country tale). According to " The Times" of London " Adaptation in Stoppards terms means finding a sympathetic text & using it as a springboard for invention that leaves the original far behind." In adapting these plays--some classics some nearly forgotten--for the modern stage Tom Stoppard has added his own unique elements of dazzling wit & verbal brilliance hilarious parody & cutting satire to create works that stand as exceptional works of theater that do not belong to any one age." ...