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Book reviews for "Harvey,_Jonathan" sorted by average review score:

Beautiful Thing
Published in Paperback by Dramatist's Play Service (1999)
Author: Jonathan Harvey
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Great Companion to DVD
This is the actual script from the original stage play. It is VERY helpful in sorting through some of the SE London accents and slang in the movie. There are scenes and dialogue that are not in the movie that give further background to the story and character development. A GREAT love story. A MUST READ.

5 times in 4 days
I received this video for Christmas and have fallen for it deeply. I've watched 'Beautiful Thing' every day -- I can't get enough of it. The story is honest, down-to-earth and very, very funny. Jamie and Ste will steal your heart!

what a beautiful thing
I first found this film in local library and fell in love with it. It is a simple and honest love story, I laughed and I cried all the way through it, I have also performed in the play as the main character Jamie.


Beautiful Thing: A Screenplay
Published in Paperback by Methuen Publishing, Ltd (1996)
Author: Jonathan Harvey
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BEAUTIFUL THING, CHANGED THE WAY TO SEE THE LIFE.
I BELIEVE, THAT BEAUTIFUL THING IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FILM OF GAY GENRE THAT I'D HAS SEE, IS A FRESH FILM, THAT TELL US A STORY VERY COMMON IN OUR SOCIETY. I ALWAYS BELIEVED THAT THE HOMOSEXUALITY WAS SOMETHING BAD, BUT WITH THIS FILM I CHANGED MY POSITION IN FRONT THIS CONCEPT. THE ACTORS SCOTT NEAL AND GLEN BERRY BETWEEN OTHERS MAKED AN ESPECTACULAR ROLL AND CONGRATULATIONS TO THE SCREENWRITER AND THE DIRECTOR, THE SCREENPLAY IS VERY GRATEFUL.

They Made Their Own Kind Of Music
For a change, we have here a most outstanding gay story which doesn't mention AIDS every three paragraphs - in fact, I believe it only comes up once. What a relief! It's the most moving love story, where those who fall in love just happen to be two boys. This really has to be read to be believed - no review could do it justice, so my advice to you is simply to get hold of a copy! You will also fall in love - with Jamie & Ste, Leah, her Mum and Sandra - Jamie's Mum. You will laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time. A modern masterpiece. Some further advice to you, when you've finished reading, find a Mama Cass/The Mamas And The Papas CD and lap up the atmosphere. You'll notice how many songs could have been written especially for "Beautiful Thing". By the way, Mama Cass didn't die choking on a sandwich - she had a heart attack.

Beautiful Thing : A Screenplay by Jonathan Harvey
It is about two school boys who fall in love.

A long hot summer on a housing estate in South London. James is bunking off school, whilst his Mother Sandra juggles job promotion and her relationship with hippy-dippy boyfriend Tony.

Next door lives Sassy Leah, who spends her day listening to Mama Cass records. In the same block, Jamie's class mate Steve, although sporty and popular at school, Is bullied by his drunken father. One day Steve, seeks refuge in Sandra's flat and ends up sleeping head to toe with Jamie...

Author says "The only images I really had of gay people when I was growing up were those public boys in cricket jumpers taking each other punting on the river, or the working class boys who got kicked out and ended up working as rent boys. This play in which somebody can be working class and still have their sexuality accepted. That was my agenda. It's not about what you get up to after lights out, it's about falling in love."

The feel good book of the summer film 96

We love the book and the film

gayteens.org


Babies (The Royal Court Writers)
Published in Paperback by Methuen Drama (1995)
Author: Jonathan Harvey
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books at bedtime
J Harvey is more talented than words can describe. This isn't his best work ("Beautiful Thing" is) but comes a close second.


Rupert Street Lonely Hearts Club & Boom Bang-A-Bang (Methuen Modern Plays)
Published in Paperback by Methuen Publishing, Ltd (1996)
Author: Jonathan Harvey
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boom bang a bang became " belgium one point "
after the reading of boom bang a bang, I immediatly took the rights on this play, and try to translate it in french. But for a great translation, we change the words and keep the story intact, it became " belgium one point " who will now it's third years of running, don't miss it , whatever if you gay or not, just hope you'll enjoy as me ( I'm playing roy and I'm the director) and then discover the original text


The Usborne Complete Soccer School (Soccer School)
Published in Paperback by Usborne Pub Ltd (2001)
Authors: Gill Harvey, Richard Dungworth, Jonathan Miller, and Clive Gifford
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Excellent for Players & Coaches, Teaches High-Level Skills
I have the hardback edition, published in the U.S. in 1999, but the content is the same as this paperback edition.

The book start with individual skills, with the first chapter on ball control covering receiving, turning, shielding, and dribbling moves. The book has many, many, excellent annotated pictures illustrating each skill. For most skills, the book diagrams a suggested skill-builder drill, which can either be done by players working on their own ("soccer homework"), or as part of a practice led by a coach.

After the Ball Control Chapter, the book also covers Passing and Shooting, Dead Ball Skills, Defending, Attacking, Tactics, Goalkeeping, and Training and Fitness.

The passing and shooting section has helpful diagrams of where on the ball to strike, and where on the foot, and has enough detail to answer most questions players or coaches would have about the details of how a particular skill should be done.

In the tactics area, and throughout the book, there are also many diagrams and color artwork pictures illustrating player positioning and movement in a way that makes the tactics clear.

I have many soccer coaching books, but this one is the one I go to when I want authoritative information and refresher on key points for teaching a particular skill. I've used many of the drills in my practices, and they have always gone well.

The book has excellent information, and realistic and helpful step-by-step action pictures that demonstrate skills.

The only real criticism I have is that sometimes I need more steps in the action pictures, particularly some of the dribbling moves, to see how the player got from A to C, and I feel like step B is missing.

Now my two daughters (12 and 14) play with an elite club team that wins 2-5 state championships a year (out of 8 girls age groups) and I recognize so many of the key components of that program being effectively taught in this book. This book is tremendously sound in terms of both the skills and terminology it teaches, and the highly effective way it presents and teaches them.

If you are a coach looking for an effective organization of skills and tactics to teach, or a player, especially one without access to expert, state-of-the art soccer skills training, I highly recommend this book. Because a picture is worth a thousand words, and this book is loaded with well-thought out pictures, artwork, and diagrams, players as young as 10, perhaps younger in special cases, could read the material and get very good use out of it. This book is simply excellent, and highly recommended for any soccer player and coach who wants to improve by learning and mastering the details of the skills and tactics needed to become a high-level soccer player.


Hushabye Mountain
Published in Paperback by Methuen Publishing, Ltd (2000)
Author: Jonathan Harvey
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Sadness and Loss
Harvey's meditation on the sadness and loss of the AIDS crisis, this is a series of dreams and scenes that work in splendid dramatic fashion. The title "Hushabye Mountain" was the title of the haunting Sherman brothers song from "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang." This is carefully crafted play that deserved much attention and makes for good reading.

Jonathan Harvey's finest play
A funny, warm and genuinely moving play which deals with loss and how it affects relationships. The play, easily Harvey's most theatrical, deals essentially with Danny, a recently deceased 30 year old Liverpudlian, and his relationships with his brother, his best friend and his lover; and their relationship to one another. The story is told through a mix of fantastical heaven sequences, flash backs and current scenes; and features the usual array of larger than life camp characters, including Julie Andrews ("a chambermaid with exquisite diction") and Beryl (who is also "Judy Garland - Keeper of the Stars). In short this play should appeal to anyone interest in modern drama, but likes a more romantic, sentimental, not to mention slightly camp, viewpoint


In Quest of Spirit: Thoughts on Music (Ernest Bloch Lectures)
Published in Hardcover by University of California Press (1999)
Author: Jonathan Harvey
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Quite good...if you like this sort of thing...
If you already know and appreciate Jonathan Harvey's music, you will almost certainly get a great deal out of this book. He gives very specific and revealing explanations of how some of his works came to be and what he has tried to achieve.

If you don't know his music, but are drawn here by the general topic of music and spirituality, you need to know what sort of book this is, and what sort of music is on the CD. The book is more of a sketch than a thoroughly worked out study of this topic. Excluding the musical examples and footnotes, it is only about 88 pages long, and it covers a great many topics, so it can hardly be expected to do more than briefly scratch the surface of each of these topics. But in briefly scratching the surface, he does offer provocative hints at ideas that the reader can then research or think through in greater detail. These little hints at ideas are often very good--he has interesting insights into Wagner and Mahler, for example, and other 'traditional' composers...it's not all Stockhausen and IRCAM. But they are never more than just hints at ideas, except when he is talking about his own music, when he does get into more detail. This reads something like a journal of an artist...today I jot down this thought, tomorrow a different thought.

The music on the CD is Harvey and other examples of what some have called, accurately I think, 'difficult listening.' This is avant-garde stuff, and make no mistake. I'm afraid that I am something of a philistine in this area, and sometimes I like the descriptions of the music more than the music itself. But that might change if I heard the pieces in their full development rather than these excerpts. At any rate, including a CD with the book was a wonderful thing to do. Since the CD consists of brief musical excerpts, it resembles the book in 'hinting at' musical ideas, and that's what it's intended to do.

Having expressed my reservations, let me just add that Harvey comes across in this book as an astute listener and thinker, and he doesn't hide behind jargon or ambiguous language. There is a lot of candor in his discussion of his own work, and considerable insight in the nuggets of ideas that are sprinkled on every page. It's just that it's up to the reader to take these nuggets and develop them on your own.

An articulate purveyor of the spirit world in music
Sometimes we need reminding that the nature of music has deep roots in a spirituality,even if for now that is an undefined one. Think of any composers and you will find some inner being at work, some compelling spectre, an illdefined, undefined entity which demands the pen to continue making music,commanding it. Harvey here is a seminal figure which unites both these worlds, and has a grasp of the realms which interbreed, the spirit the abstract with the tangible, music,sounds and silences. This work is also pedagogical,like a lecture, Harvey brings us by steps through his work, and others, Stockhausen makes an entrance.Slowly then we begin to understand his own music, as well as those undefined particles on experiencing music,yet feel something has escaped us. Harvey defines many functional areas,sadly to say know very little, like spectralism. A means of defining the inner presence of harmonies, the particles which constitute a sound. This thinking emanates from IRCAM, the multi-million dollar institute in Paris, where Harvey has worked since the early Eighties. Spectralism has indeed become a fashionable movement in the cloistered parts of the new music scene in Europe.But for us it is indeed wonderful when a creator is able to reflect on their work, and with an affinity of articulation for it. Here Harvey runs through the concepts which animates his work and fosters this unity with the spirit. The concept of stasis seems to be an ubiquitous one from the bleak world of repetitive minimalism,now dead, to the music Harvey engages. Might I add World Music seems a frequent and powerful player here with Western composers, the use of alternate tuning,Asian instruments, and newly made ones as well have engaged a great dialogue between East and West. Stasis is simply like a drone in a simplified form, but there are other more sophisticate ways of maintaining a non-movement. I believe this non-movement is what engages the mind to reflection, quiets it in some circles. There is also a Compact Disc which accompanies the lecture, with musical excerpts.


Your Key to Sports Success : How Understanding Your Brain Type Will Enhance Your Athletic Ability
Published in Paperback by Brain Type Institute (1997)
Authors: Jonathan P. Niednagel, Harvey Marco, and David Niednagel
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Brain Tying as Pseudoscience
Although Mr. Niednagel wants us to believe that the product he is pitching, Brain Typing, is scientifically based, it is really nothing more than just another weary entry from the productive and fertile field of pseudoscience. He uses anecdotes and testimonials to pitch his product with absolutely zero controlled studies that even hint at its effectiveness. The irony of using athletes to promote his product is the common knowledge of athletic superstition.

He has every right to sell a product that relies on the expectations, dreams, and wishes of the buyer. This is what American commerce is all about. But, pleeeese!! Don't try to tell us it has any relationship to real science.

Mixing athletics with the brain
Overall this was a well thought out book. Its the only book I know of that deals with personality theory from an athletic perspective. The main reason why I don't give it five stars is because there are pages and pages on some types such as ISTP (claimed to have the most innate athletic ability) and hardly anything on others (ISFJ, INFJ, INTP). The book is unlikely to be inspiring to aspiring athletes of such types since there isn't a whole large repetoire of sports or role models listed.

Brain Typing
This is a fascinating book. Jonathan attempts to tie physiology to principles that have been discussed for years as being psychological. It can be liberating to know that people are not being difficult, but they are the way they are because of their "hard wiring" which causes them to see the world differently. One problem is the self testing for brain typing. It can be tricky to pick the correct type even when you've been as honest as you can with the questions. It can also influence your expectations for children's development. This is a seminal work that needs to be developed further by the scientific community.


Cold Light
Published in Audio CD by ISIS Audio (2002)
Authors: John Harvey and Jonathan Oliver
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Another solid one
Another solid entry in the Charlie Resnick series, this one mostly about the search for a missing woman after a New Year's party. The mystery is a little less tricky than others in the series, and instead is a little more interesting in the personal realm.


Guiding Star
Published in Paperback by Methuen Publishing, Ltd (15 July, 2000)
Author: Jonathan Harvey
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Family Values
Harvey leaves the "Beautiful Thing" territory for a different, utterly British, take on family values. The focus is mixed as in "Babies". As in all Harvey plays, there is a flood of great dialogue. Harvey is one of the best playwrights around.


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