Most Popular Books by John Wood

‘Your job is to go out there, grab the audience by the balls, and drag them up on stage with you!’ I was flabbergasted. This I understood. A language that I spoke – had spoken most of my life. It was the best acting note I ever got. John Wood grew up in working-class Melbourne; when he failed out of high school, an employment officer told him, ‘You have the mind of an artist and the body of a labourer.’ And so John continued to pursue his acting dreams in amateur theatre, sustaining himself by working jobs as a bricklayer, a railway clerk and even in the same abattoir as his father. When he won a scholarship to NIDA, in Sydney, it moved John into a new and at times baffling world, full of extraordinary characters. It was the start of a decades-long acting career, most famously on shows such as Rafferty’s Rules and Blue Heelers, where his charm made him beloved in households across the country. His popularity was such that he was nominated for a Gold Logie nine times in a row, finally culminating in a win in 2006. How I Clawed My Way to the Middle is a beguiling memoir from one of Australia’s most cherished actors on both stage and screen. Full of humility, warmth and humour, it tells of the ephemeral nature of theatre, the luminous personalities John encountered along the way, and the perilous reality of life as a professional actor in Australia.

"Sweet offers scholars a capacious history of race in the North and a primer for thinking about the relationship between ''cultures'' and identities. . . . Bodies Politic is deeply researched and richly detailed."—William and Mary Quarterly

Too often, photographic historians have given credit to the calotype for establishing our sense and standard of the photographic, when in reality it was the daguerreotype that first taught us how to see photographically, taking us beyond portraiture to a standard for scenic images that is still with us today. Here is the first study of scenic daguerreotypes from around the world and the largest assemblage of them ever to be presented in book form. Contending that L. J. M. Daguerre was at the forefront of the romantic revolution, Wood discusses Daguerre''s work in the context of John Constable, J. M. W. Turner, and Caspar David Friedrich. He also draws parallels between early landscape photography, the poetry of William Wordsworth, and William Gilpin''s notions of the picturesque, which influenced both travel and the way nineteenth-century men and women began to view the landscape around them. Wood''s selection of more than a hundred images presents the best surviving examples of the scenic daguerreotype. They include views of the Acropolis, Egypt, and China, of mountains and Alpine scenery, of Pompeii, Venice, and the temples of Rome, of the California Gold Rush and other American scenes, plus daguerreotypes from Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Martinique, and Brazil.

The four parts of this highly accomplished collection showcase the different facets and wide breadth of John Wood''s poetic talent. Displayed here are his ability to sustain a sequence, his adeptness with lyricism and the short form, and his sensuous feeling for this life and the life of the past. In regard to the latter, Wood begins the book with his poetic account of the amazing life and adventures of the vigorous American utopianist Wilhelm Johannes Hoade. Wood''s account reads like a novel as he weaves a fictional narrative out of lyric poetry, a narrative that is finally convincing and true in spite of its obvious impossibility. The second section, "Homage to Dafydd ap Gwilym, " is a free but artistically faithful translation after some of the medieval Welsh poet''s major poems, arranged in a way to suggest in a natural/supernatural mode his remarkable character and biography. The third part is a group of finely tuned, mostly lyric poems dealing with family, friends, and intellectual concerns; the fourth is a group of contemporary and historical "revelations, " quite striking in scope and variety. All combine to form a dazzling whole.

A wide variety of animals can be found in the rain forest. Through captivating, age-appropriate text, readers learn many interesting facts about these animals and the environment they call home. Vibrant, full-color photographs enhance the reading experience as young readers expand their knowledge of rain forest animals. Why do so many animals live in the rain forest, and what is happening to them as rain forests continue to shrink? These questions and more are answered in accessible ways, through text that supports elementary science curriculum topics, including ecology, adaptations, and biodiversity.

Many children know it’s important to eat foods with vitamins to help them grow big and strong. However, there are so many vitamins that it can be difficult to know what they all do and why each one matters. This innovative volume helps young readers understand the importance of several key vitamins, including vitamin A, vitamin C, and vitamin B12. Colorful photographs show foods in which each type of vitamin can be found, while concise text helps reinforce key nutrition lessons from elementary science curricula.

Modern medicine is such a marvel that it''s hard to imagine how deadly it was to live in the past. Sometimes it was hard to stay alive, especially in the care of an ancient doctor. Readers will learn about deadly diseases such as the many plagues that killed off millions in the Middle Ages. They''ll discover just how little people knew about the spread of illness and its prevention. Historical artwork supports the intriguing, gruesome details, and will make readers thankful they live in the modern world.

Arcot, Wade, and Morey fight for the freedom of their planent and for the safety of the entire solar system.