1841, Shanghai. Deux jeunes Juifs bagdadis, partis de rien, deviennent seigneurs de l’opium et défient les puissantes compagnies britanniques.

A lively, conversational textbook dedicated to the art of acting from a master teacher. Act: The Modern Actor's Handbook is the result of 30 years of one of North America's most renowned acting teachers teaching some of the world's most talented screen actors. This is a full tour through the concepts at the heart of Rotenberg's techniques: states of being, primaries and secondaries, images that you elaborate up or distill down, modifiers, actions and beats, and more. Although his methods loosely draw on the great acting teachers like Hagen and Meisner back to Stanislavski, he teaches new techniques suited to the best of today's screen actors. This is a major new work in the actor's library and will be pulled off the shelf time and again to find that key into a scene, to prepare for an audition, or to find that right technique to make the art come alive again.

The second book in the 'Shanghai Tetralogy' is City Rising: The Bend in the River: On the Hua Shan (the Holy Mountain) 250 years before Christ, the most powerful man in the world, the First Emperor bequeaths a talisman - a narwhal tusk with carvings depicting the growth of Shanghai for the next 2500 years - to his three trusted followers: the Bodyguard, his favourite Courtesan, and his Head Confucian. The warning from the First Emperor before he commits suicide is to watch for the White Ships on Water and so the progeny of the three who are entrusted with the Tusk do. Then, in 1841 they arrive - British Men of War ships. And opium. City Rising: The Bend in the River tells the story of two destitute Baghdadi Jews who become opium lords, their battles against the powerful British opium companies, and the boys' eventual love of the City at the Bend in the River - Shanghai.

Book 3 in the acclaimed `Shanghai Tetralogy.' Two prophecies are put forward; one proceeds, the other is fulfilled, and a city at the Bend in the River grows. A sprawling historical epic spanning 200 years, City Rising: The End of the Garden tells the story of two destitute Baghdadi Jews who become opium lords, their battles against the powerful British opium companies, and the boys' eventual love of the City at the Bend in the River - Shanghai.