Table of Contents

I. The Beginning

II. The Known

III. The Unknown

IV. The Unexpected

V. The Game of Venery: First Move 

People, Places and Things
Professions
Home and Family
Daily Life
High Life
Low Life
Romance and Raunch
Medicine and Health
Academe
Science and Technology
Sports
Games and Recreation
Music
Stage
Screen
Arts and Letters
Religion
Politics and Law
Journalism
Business and Finance
Travel
Cops and Robbers
The Armed Services
Zoology
Cases in Point
Afterword

VI. The Game of Venery: Second Move

Index

About the Author

James Lipton was the creator, executive producer, writer, and host of Inside the Actors Studio, which has been seen in eighty-nine million homes in America and in 125 countries and has received fourteen Emmy nominations. He was the author of the novel Mirrors, which he then adapted and produced for the screen, and of the American literary perennial An Exaltation of Larks, and has written the book and lyrics of two Broadway musicals. He was a vice president of the Actors Studio and the founder and dean emeritus of the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University, he received three honorary PhDs, France’s Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and has been awarded the Lifetime Achievement Emmy by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Reviews

“I am madly in love with collective nouns! They make language so colorful and ticklish. . . . [An Exaltation of Larks] possess[es] an embarrassment of riches (wink wink!).”
—Lupita Nyong’o, The New York Times

“James Lipton has performed all speakers of English a great service. If there were an English Academy, he would surely deserve election.”
—Raymond Sokolov, Newsweek

“A great, great gift book . . . that you will end up keeping for yourself.”
—Neil Simon

“A clap of hands, a chorus of approval, a hint of envy.”
—Larry Gelbart