This intimate portrait by his former personal assistant and confidante reveals the man behind the legendary filmmaker--for the first time. Stanley Kubrick, the director of a string of timeless movies from Lolita and Dr. Strangelove to A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Full Metal Jacket, and others, has always been depicted by the media as the Howard Hughes of filmmakers, a weird artist obsessed with his work and privacy to the point of madness. But who was he really? Emilio D'Alessandro lets us see. A former Formula Ford driver who was a minicab chauffeur in London during the Swinging Sixties, he took a job driving a giant phallus through the city that became his introduction to the director. Honest, reliable, and ready to take on any task, Emilio found his way into Kubrick's neurotic, obsessive heart. He became his personal assistant, his right-hand man and confidant, working for him from A Clockwork Orange until Kubrick's death in 1999. Emilio was the silent guy in the room when the script for The Shining was discussed. He still has the coat Jack Nicholson used in the movie. He was an extra on the set of Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick's last movie. He knew all the actors and producers Kubrick worked with; he observed firsthand Kubrick's working methods down to the smallest detail. Making no claim of expertise in cinematography but with plenty of anecdotes, he offers a completely fresh perspective on the artist and a warm, affecting portrait of a generous, kind, caring man who was a perfectionist in work and life. The paperback edition has a new foreword by Matthew Modine, who is featured in the book and starred as Private Joker in Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket.

Sean Mason is thirty seven, divorced and cynical. If you wanted to be charitable to him, you would describe him as a craggy six foot one, if you wanted to put the boot in then he has seen his best days and they have not been kind to him. The DEA may be salvation. The chance to get over a failed marriage, to find a place where he might be able to rediscover the part of him that used to care. Nicky Jenkins is a lost loner in the troubled downtown area of Washington. Simon Parkinson is the standard bearer of the Tory frontbench. "The Pipeline" is what draws these players together into a game which will cost at least one of them his life. Based in downtown Washington Mason becomes the key to an international crime empire which crosses the Atlantic and which re-opens wounds long since healed. The pipeline has been running for eight months. No interruptions, no delays. Eight months uninterrupted flow of grade-one, top of the range heroin straight into the heart of the industrial North East. copyright Simon Marsh .

"By turns absurd, sophisticated, bawdy, tender, precise and sprawling, The Pistol Tree Poems captures the intellectual intimacy and infectious spontaneity of poetic collaboration at its white-hot best. There's brilliance and ingenuity on display in every poem here-a searching co-intelligence shot through with moments of emotional intensity." (Nathan Thompson)

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR... Charlotte's wish comes true and her destiny changes forever, as she goes on a quest to release herself from an evil spell. Travelling an epic journey puts new, sometimes amusing allies at her side; but she is under constant threat by an array of demonic characters. A most evil witch searches for eight missing stone hearts for her master the Dark Lord. Death is Charlotte's constant companion; and knowing if she should reach her destination, she will be involved in a battle to end all battles; the battle at Octagon.