Wow! eBook
Nowhere to Go but Up: What Angela Lansbury Can Teach Us about Living a Big Life
Author(s): Lily E. Hirsch (Author)
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
- Publication Date: October 30, 2025
- Language: English
- Print length: 250 pages
- ISBN-10: B0F78GDV44
- ISBN-13: 9798881842444
Book Description
A lively celebration and feminist reevaluation of Angela Lansbury’s career, personal life, and myriad achievements in film, Broadway, and television—and how this icon can inspire us to live bigger and better.
Pop culture writer Lily E. Hirsch weaves the history of the star’s most memorable roles within each chapter while exploring her approach to life, including helping other people, trying new things, tuning out naysayers, judging with empathy, processing death, aging, navigating motherhood, and much more. Discover new insights into Murder, She Wrote thanks to new research materials and interviews with some of the show’s primary players.
Readers will gain a new appreciation of Lansbury’s strength, which she displayed early on after the death of her father in London and emigration during World War II. That strength supported her tremendous talent as she found work in the United States as an actress, first in film and then on Broadway and television. Lansbury would also raise a family and advocate for a healthy lifestyle and positive perspective with her fitness video and book Positive Moves. Along the way, Hirsch provides fun facts, a Lansbury-based personality quiz, a weekly horoscope from the Cabot Cove Gazette, and other entertaining features.
In Mary Poppins Returns, Lansbury sings “Nowhere to Go but Up,” a song with a message that summed up Lansbury’s long career and outlook on life. With Lansbury’s help, that same message might also find a place in our lives.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“This is an extremely readable look at the life of a remarkable woman and performer through the lens of her life and the role she made her own in primetime TV … Never less than entertaining, with pop culture references, life lessons, and left-field content like quizzes and horoscopes.” ―Lou Reviews
“Just like Angela Lansbury, Nowhere to Go but Up is inspiring, full of wisdom, and an absolute delight.” ―Carla Valderrama, author of This Was Hollywood
“A brilliant self-help guide using the wit and wisdom of the indomitable Angela Lansbury and Jessica Fletcher. It’s no mystery why Hirsch wrote this book.” ―Albert Pellecchia, founder of the Instagram fan page Murder, She Wrote Forever (@murdershewrote84)
“This book is filled with history and witty commentary connecting Angela Lansbury to our everyday lives. All will take away an awe of the amazing life and career that Angela Lansbury led as well as lessons from Lansbury’s biography that enrich our lives.” ―Emily Clark, Musical Theatre Historian, Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts, Marymount Manhattan College
“Lily E. Hirsch leads readers through the life and work of the Broadway, film, and TV legend, and along the way, shares intimate memories of her own fandom and the life lessons we can all take away from Lansbury. It’s part biography, part media studies, part self-help, part personal memoir–and entirely a loving celebration of the legacy of one of our greatest and most enduring talents.” ―Gordon Cox, Contributing Theater Editor, Variety; Host of the Stagecraft podcast
“If you love Angela Lansbury, read this ASAP!” ―Seth Rudetsky, SiriusXM Broadway Host
