Richard E. Grant

‘You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, especially if you’re in the book like I am’ – Steve Martin‘An exceptionally vivid and penetrating insight into Hollywood film-making’ ObserverThe star-studded, hilarious memoir from Richard E. Grant revealing life behind the camera. When, in the summer of 1986, Richard E. Grant was cast as the lead in Withnail and I, his whole world shifted and he was set firmly on the path to international stardom. With Nails is his outrageous, irreverent and brutally funny account of that time and the years afterwards, of his self-doubt and anxiety on the route to Hollywood, and of all the extraordinary, mad, brilliant people in the film business. From drinking himself incoherent so he could film Withnail and I to a night spent in Paris's red light district with a world-famous couple, to working with Hollywood's biggest actors and directors, Richard E. Grant - always eloquent, always honest - has documented, in his own inimitable style, what it is to become a film star. A rare classic, there is no book quite like it. Now part of the Picador Collection.

Academy Award-nominated actor Richard E. Grant's "genuine and compelling" (The New York Times), "moving and entertaining" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) memoir about finding happiness in even the darkest of days. Richard E. Grant emigrated from Swaziland to London in 1982, with dreams of making it as an actor. Unexpectedly, he met and fell in love with a renowned dialect coach Joan Washington. Their relationship and marriage, navigating the highs and lows of Hollywood, parenthood, and loss, lasted almost forty years. When Joan died in 2021, her final challenge to him was to find a "pocketful of happiness in every day." This honest and frequently hilarious memoir is written in honor of that challenge--Richard has faithfully kept a diary since childhood, and in these entries, he shares raw details of everything he has experienced: both the pain of losing his beloved wife and the excitement of their life together, from the role that transformed his life overnight in Withnail and I to his thrilling Oscar Award nomination thirty years later for Can You Ever Forgive Me?. In "one of the bravest, strongest, funniest memoirs I've ever read" (Bonnie Garmus, New York Times bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry), A Pocketful of Happiness is a powerful, funny, and moving celebration of life's unexpected joys.

Ylistys rakkaudelle ja elämänilolle. Synkän surun keskeltäkin on mahdollista löytää kourallinen onnea. Sen palkittu näyttelijä Richard E. Grant oivalsi, kun hänen vaimonsa menehtyi syöpään. Richard E. Grant muutti Swazimaasta Lontooseen 1980-luvun alussa tähtäimessään näyttelijänura. Siellä hän kohtasi elämänsä rakkauden, yli kymmenen vuotta itseään vanhemman ääntämisvalmentajansa. Kohusuhteelle alalla tunnettuun Joan Washingtoniin ei aikanaan povattu pitkää ikää. Heidän lähes 40 yhteiseen vuoteensa mahtui niin Hollywoodin parrasvaloja, vanhemmuuden iloa kuin raskaita menetyksiäkin. Kun Joan oli kuolemassa syöpään syksyllä 2021, hänen viimeinen toiveensa miehelleen oli, että tämä oppisi löytämään kourallisen onnea jokaisesta päivästä. Muistelmissaan näyttelijätähti kertoo uransa ylä- ja alamäistä huumorilla ja itseään säästelemättä. Mutta ennen kaikkea hän kertoo Joanin ja hänen rakkaustarinan koskettavasti aina ensikohtaamisesta Joanin viimeiseen hengenvetoon. Richard E. Grant (s. 1957) on englantilais-swazimaalainen näyttelijä, käsikirjoittaja ja ohjaaja. Hän on esiintynyt uransa aikana yli 80 elokuvassa ja televisio-ohjelmassa. Hänen ensimmäinen elokuvaroolinsa oli pääosa kulttimaineeseen nousseessa mustassa komediassa Onnen kiertolaiset (1987). Grant sai Oscar-ehdokkuuden sivuosastaan elokuvassa Voitko ikinä antaa anteeksi? (2018). Hänet tunnetaan myös muun muassa rooleistaan elokuvissa Spice World ja Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker sekä televisiosarjoissa Game of Thrones ja Downton Abbey.

Academy Award-nominated actor Richard E. Grant's "genuine and compelling" (The New York Times), "moving and entertaining" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) memoir about finding happiness in even the darkest of days. Richard E. Grant emigrated from Swaziland to London in 1982, with dreams of making it as an actor. Unexpectedly, he met and fell in love with a renowned dialect coach Joan Washington. Their relationship and marriage, navigating the highs and lows of Hollywood, parenthood, and loss, lasted almost forty years. When Joan died in 2021, her final challenge to him was to find a "pocketful of happiness in every day." This honest and frequently hilarious memoir is written in honor of that challenge--Richard has faithfully kept a diary since childhood, and in these entries, he shares raw details of everything he has experienced: both the pain of losing his beloved wife and the excitement of their life together, from the role that transformed his life overnight in Withnail and I to his thrilling Oscar Award nomination thirty years later for Can You Ever Forgive Me?. In "one of the bravest, strongest, funniest memoirs I've ever read" (Bonnie Garmus, New York Times bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry), A Pocketful of Happiness is a powerful, funny, and moving celebration of life's unexpected joys.

A gorgeously candid account of acting and show business. And an intimate and heartfelt story of love, loss and a life spent together. It is an honour to be invited in on these diaries. I cannot remember being so moved by a book Dolly Alderton Fascinating, funny and heart wrenchingDame Julie WaltersAn emotional rollercoaster - profoundly moving and wonderfully entertaining. A brilliant memoir about living, loving and losing Bernardine Evaristo Richard E. Grant emigrated from Swaziland to London in 1982, with dreams of making it as an actor, when he unexpectedly met and fell in love with renowned dialect coach Joan Washington. Their relationship and marriage, navigating the highs and lows of Hollywood, parenthood and loss, lasted almost forty years. When Joan died in 2021, her final challenge to him was to find ';a pocketful of happiness in every day'. This honest and frequently hilarious memoir is written in honour of that challenge Richard has faithfully kept a diary since childhood, and in these entries he shares in raw detail everything he has experienced : both the pain of losing his beloved wife, and the excitement of their life together, from the role that transformed his life overnight in WithnailI to his thrilling Oscar nomination thirty years later for Can You Ever Forgive Me? Told with candour in Richard's utterly unique style, A Pocketful of Happiness is a powerful, funny and moving celebration of life's unexpected joys.

An intimate and uplifting memoir by Richard E. Grant.

London, 1936. Gordon Comstock has declared war on the money god; and Gordon is losing the war. Nearly 30 and "rather moth-eaten already," a poet whose one small book of verse has fallen "flatter than any pancake," Gordon has given up a "good" job and gone to work in a bookshop at half his former salary. Always broke, but too proud to accept charity, he rarely sees his few friends and cannot get the virginal Rosemary to bed because (or so he believes), "If you have no money ... women won't love you." On the windowsill of Gordon's shabby rooming-house room is a sickly but unkillable aspidistra--a plant he abhors as the banner of the sort of "mingy, lower-middle-class decency" he is fleeing in his downward flight. In Keep the Aspidistra Flying, George Orwell has created a darkly compassionate satire to which anyone who has ever been oppressed by the lack of brass, or by the need to make it, will all too easily relate. He etches the ugly insanity of what Gordon calls "the money-world" in unflinching detail, but the satire has a second edge, too, and Gordon himself is scarcely heroic. In the course of his misadventures, we become grindingly aware that his radical solution to the problem of the money-world is no solution at all--that in his desperate reaction against a monstrous system, he has become something of a monster himself. Orwell keeps both of his edges sharp to the very end--a "happy" ending that poses tough questions about just how happy it really is. That the book itself is not sour, but constantly fresh and frequently funny, is the result of Orwell's steady, unsentimental attention to the telling detail; his dry, quiet humor; his fascination with both the follies and the excellences of his characters; and his courageous refusal to embrace the comforts of any easy answer.

The Sunday Times Gardening Book of the Year 2019 In Scent Magic, a book which is at once romantic and extremely practical, plantswoman, designer and garden-maker extraordinaire Isabel Bannerman immerses the reader in the luscious smells of the fragrant garden through a warmly written account of her year's gardening; and combines this with an encyclopaedic reference work of the best aromatic plants to grow throughout the seasons. Whether evoking the freshly baked sponge smell emanating from wisteria, describing 'Stanwell Perpetual' as "the kind of rose that would taste of apricot and raspberries swirled together", or championing the magic of the Himalayan cowslip, "scented profoundly and deliciously like the dark vault of a Damascus spice merchant'" the glorious poetry of her descriptions is here joined with personal memories and a lifetime's experience of gardening and plant cultivation.

With an introduction by Steve MartinTwo pages into the script and an ache has developed in my gonads - I am both laughing out loud and agonized by the fact that the Withnail part is such a corker that not in a billion bank holidays will they ever seriously consider me. When, in the summer of 1986, Richard E. Grant was cast as the lead in Withnail and I, his whole world shifted and he was set firmly on the path to international stardom. With Nails is his outrageous, irreverent and brutally funny account of that time and the years afterwards, of his self-doubt and anxiety on the route to Hollywood, and of all the extraordinary, mad, brilliant people in the film business. From drinking himself incoherent so he could film Withnail and I to a night spent in Paris's red light district with a world-famous couple, to working with Hollywood's biggest actors and directors, Richard E. Grant - always eloquent, always honest - has documented, in his own inimitable style, what it is to become a film star. A rare classic, there is no book quite like it.