“It is now Bill Shatner’s universe---we just live in it.”---New York Daily News After almost sixty years as an actor, William Shatner has become one of the most beloved entertainers in the world. And it seems as if Shatner is everywhere. Winning an Emmy for his role on Boston Legal . Doing commercials for Priceline.com. In the movie theaters. Singing with Ben Folds. He’s sitting next to Jay Leno and Jimmy Kimmel, and he’s practically a regular on Howard Stern’s show. He was recently honored with election to the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. He was a target on a Comedy Central’s Celebrity Roast entitled “The Shat Hits the Fan.” In Up Till Now, Shatner sits down with readers and offers the remarkable, full story of his life and explains how he got to be, well, everywhere. It was the original Star Trek series, and later its films, that made Shatner instantly recognizable, called by name---or at least by Captain Kirk’s name---across the globe. But Shatner neither began nor has ended his career with that role. From the very start, he took his skills as an actor and put them to use wherever he could. He straddled the classic world of the theater and the new world of television, whether stepping in for Christopher Plummer in Shakespeare’s Henry V or staring at “something on the wing” in a classic episode of The Twilight Zone. And since then, he’s gone on to star in numerous successful shows, such as T.J. Hooker, Rescue 911, and most recently Boston Legal. William Shatner has always been willing to take risks for his art. What other actor would star in history’s first---and probably only---all-Esperanto-language film? Who else would share the screen with thousands of tarantulas, release an album called Has Been, or film a racially incendiary film in the Deep South during the height of the civil rights era? And who else would willingly paramotor into a field of waiting fans armed with paintball guns, all waiting for a chance to stun Captain…er, Shatner? In this touching and very funny autobiography, William Shatner reveals the man behind these unforgettable moments, and how he’s become the worldwide star and experienced actor he is today. Adult/High School—Today's teens may know Shatner from his role as Denny Crane in Boston Legal , or as the pitchman for Priceline.com, or as a character in several Brad Paisley music videos. They are probably also aware of his enduring role as Captain James T. Kirk in the Star Trek television show and movies. In this autobiography, he takes a somewhat tongue-in-cheek look at his long acting career, starting with performing in the Montreal Children's Theatre, moving on to the Canadian Rep, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, and, ultimately, just about every television drama that was on the air in the 1950s. Over the years, he clearly learned to laugh at himself, which makes this book an entertaining read as he talks about his career, his four wives, three daughters, horses, love of risk-taking, eternal quest for financial security, and lots of people, famous and otherwise, whom he met along the way. Although the narrative is roughly chronological, Shatner never hesitates to stop in the middle of one story to tell another, or to refer to something that happened much later. There is some repetition-he clearly has favorite stories-but his lighthearted approach makes readers willing to be indulgent of his vagaries and excesses.— Sarah Flowers, Santa Clara County Library, CA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. The Autobiography seems a rather ponderous label for an impish book. On the other hand, maybe it notifies us that this is all Shatner, possessor of one of the most recognizable faces on the planet, intends to give us in the way of a primary source about his life. In any event, this is such an entertaining book, so full of baggy-pants foolery and general lightheartness, that not a word of it should be changed. The personifier of Star Trek’s Captain James T. Kirk, reactionary cop T. J. Hooker, and Boston Legal’s pompous Denny Crane is a terrific storyteller, who confesses to believing that truth in particulars must give way to telling a good tale. While proceeding basically chronologically from his 1930s Montreal childhood to his current home on the West Coast, Shatner makes decade-hopping feints back and forth as the spirit moves him, freely plugs merchandise obtainable through his Web sites, and pretends to use his cell phone now and then. The book comes across as a lightly edited transcript of a torrent of dictation. Shatner waxes somber very infrequently, at greatest length for the account of his alcoholic third wife’s accidental death, for which scandalmongers briefly suggested he might be responsible. The rest is an old-style entertainer’s spiel and delightful “lite” reading. --Ray Olson William Shatner played Captain Kirk of the USS Enterprise on Star Trek from 1966