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World Book Club
''World Book Club'' is a radio programme on the BBC World Service. Each edition of the programme, which is broadcast on the first Saturday of the month with repeats into the following Monday, features a famous author discussing one of his or her books, often the most well-known one, with the public. Since the programme began in 2002 it has been presented by Harriett Gilbert . History ''World Book Club'' features a famous writer who answers questions submitted by the public about one of his or her books. It is usually recorded in front of a live audience. Listeners around the world can submit questions before the recording. The programme was launched at the Edinburgh Festival in 2002. The first book featured was ''Lake Wobegon Days'' by Garrison Keillor. Until November 2008 it was a half-hour programme broadcast on the last Tuesday of each month in the slot of '' The Word'', a defunct book programme whose remit was absorbed within the output of '' The Strand'', the BBC World S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colm Toibin
Colm is a male given name of Irish origin. Colm can be pronounced "Collum" or "Kullum". It is not an Irish version of Colin, but like Callum and Malcolm derives from a Gaelic variation on ''columba'', the Latin word for 'dove'. People * Colm Brogan (1902–1977), Scottish writer *Colm Byrne (born 1971), Irish playwright *Colm Collins, Gaelic football manager * Colm Condon (1921–2008), Irish lawyer *Colm Connolly (born 1942), Irish broadcaster and author * Colm Cooper (born 1983), Irish Gaelic football player *Colm Coyle (born 1963), Irish Gaelic football player and manager *Colm Feore (born 1958), American-born Canadian actor *Colm Hilliard (1936–2002), Irish politician * Colm Imbert (born 1957), Trinidad and Tobago politician *Colm Magner (born 1961), Canadian actor * Colm Mangan (born 1942), Irish general *Colm Meaney (born 1953), Irish actor * Colm Mulcahy (born 1958), Irish mathematician, academic, columnist and author * Colm Ó Cíosóig (born 1964), Irish drummer *Col ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bernhard Schlink
Bernhard Schlink (; born 6 July 1944) is a German lawyer, academic, and novelist. He is best known for his novel '' The Reader'', which was first published in 1995 and became an international bestseller. He won the 2014 Park Kyong-ni Prize. Early life He was born in Großdornberg, near Bielefeld, to a German father ( Edmund Schlink) and a Swiss mother, the youngest of four children. His mother, Irmgard, had been a theology student of his father, whom she married in 1938. (Edmund Schlink's first wife had died in 1936.) Bernhard's father had been a seminary professor and pastor in the anti-Nazi Confessing Church. In 1946, he became a professor of dogmatic and ecumenical theology at Heidelberg University, where he would serve until his retirement in 1971. Over the course of four decades, Edmund Schlink became one of the most famous and influential Lutheran theologians in the world and a key participant in the modern Ecumenical Movement. Bernhard Schlink was brought up in Heidelberg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eat The Rich (book)
''Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics'' is a 1998 book by P. J. O'Rourke which explains economics in a humorous way. Its chapters include ''Good Capitalism'' (United States), ''Bad Capitalism'' (Albania), ''Good socialism'' (Sweden), ''Bad socialism'' (Cuba), and an intermission on "Economics 101", teaching facts that your economics professor didn't tell you, including the "ten less basic rules of economics". Subsequent chapters are on ''How to make everything out of nothing'' (Hong Kong), ''How to make nothing out of everything'' (Tanzania), ''How (or how not) to reform (maybe) an economy (if there is one)'' (Russia) and ''Eat the rich'', the last an encomium to capitalism. O'Rourke uses wit and an entire lack of mathematics (except in rare glances for parody) to claim that economics is something we all do every day, and only economists seem to find it difficult. He states, for example, that he has read ''The Wealth of Nations'' without finding any mathematics in it at all. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soldiers Of Salamina
''Soldiers of Salamis'' (Spanish: ''Soldados de Salamina'') is a novel about the Spanish Civil War published in 2001 by Spanish author Javier Cercas. The book was acclaimed by critics in Spain and was top of the best-seller book list there for many months. A film adaptation '' Soldados de Salamina'' was released in 2003. The English translation by Anne McLean won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for 2004. Book The book's title is a metaphorical allusion to the famous Battle of Salamis in which the Athenian fleet defeated the Persians. It is composed in a mixture of fact and fiction, which is something of a speciality of the author.Cercas to some extent revisited the "faction" genre in '' The Anatomy of a Moment'', which is more of a non-fiction work. ''Soldiers of Salamis'' has sometimes been viewed in the context of a national debate in the first decade of the twenty-first century about how the Spanish Civil War should be commemorated. The year 2000 saw the foundation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Javier Cercas
Javier Cercas Mena (born 1962 in Ibahernando) is a Spanish writer and professor of Spanish literature at the University of Girona, Spain. He was born in Ibahernando, Cáceres, Spain. He is a frequent contributor to the Catalan edition of '' El País'' and the Sunday supplement. He worked for two years at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the United States. He is one of a group of well-known Spanish novelists, which includes Julio Llamazares, Andrés Trapiello, and Jesus Ferrero, who have published fiction in the vein of "historical memory", focusing on the Spanish Civil War and the Francoist State. ''Soldiers of Salamis'' (translated by Anne McLean) won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2004, and McLean's translations of his novels ''The Speed of Light'' and ''Outlaws'' were shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award in 2008 and 2016 respectively. In 2014–15, he was the Weidenfeld Visiting Professor of European Comparative Literatur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Redbreast
''The Redbreast'' ( no, Rødstrupe, 2000) is a crime novel by Norwegian writer Jo Nesbø, the third in the Harry Hole series (although the first in the series to be available in English). A large part of the book is laid at the time of the Second World War – specifically, the Siege of Leningrad, wartime Vienna and the Bombing of Hamburg – making ''The Redbreast'' a war novel as well as a crime novel. The book touches deeply on the still highly sensitive issue of Norwegian Collaboration with the Nazis and specifically the voluntary recruitment of Norwegians to the Waffen SS. The novel was voted Best Norwegian Crime Novel ever. Upon translation into English, by Don Bartlett, the novel was shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Duncan Lawrie International Dagger. Synopsis During the Siege of Leningrad of World War II, a small group of Norwegian Waffen-SS volunteers are manning trenches just a short distance from the western lines. One of their number, Daniel Gudes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jo Nesbø
Jo Nesbø (; born Jon Nesbø; 29 March 1960) is a Norwegian writer, musician, economist, and former football player and reporter. More than 3 million copies of his novels had been sold in Norway as of March 2014; his work has been translated into over 50 languages, and by 2021 had sold some 50 million copies worldwide, making him the most successful Norwegian author of all time. Siegel, Lee (5 May 2014).Pure Evil: Jo Nesbø and the rise of Scandinavian crime fiction. ''The New Yorker''. Retrieved 1 December 2019. "Nesbø's Harry Hole novels have sold twenty-three million copies, in forty languages." Known primarily for his crime novels featuring Inspector Harry Hole, Nesbø is also the main vocalist and songwriter for the Norwegian rock band Di Derre. In 2007 he released his first children's book, ''Doktor Proktors Prompepulver'' (English translation: '' Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder''). The 2011 film '' Headhunters'' is based on Nesbø's novel ''Hodejegerne (The Headhunt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Winter Queen (novel)
''The Winter Queen'' ( Russian: Азазель, Azazel) is the first novel from the Erast Fandorin series of historical detective novels, written by Russian author Boris Akunin. It was subtitled ''конспирологический детектив'' ("conspiracy mystery"). Plot summary The novel opens on 13 May 1876 with a university student, Pyotr Kokorin, committing suicide in the public park in front of a beautiful young noblewoman, Elizaveta von Evert-Kolokoltseva. His will leaves his large fortune to the newly opened Moscow chapter of Astair House, an international network of schools for orphan boys founded by an English noblewoman, Lady Astair. The apparently open-and-shut suicide case falls to inexperienced 20-year-old detective Erast Fandorin. He interviews Elizaveta, and immediately falls in love with her. Further investigation reveals that Kokorin was playing Russian roulette (called "American roulette" in the novel) with another university student, Akhtyrtsev. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boris Akunin
Boris Akunin (russian: Борис Акунин) is the pen name of Grigori Chkhartishvili (russian: Григорий Шалвович Чхартишвили, Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvili; ka, გრიგორი ჩხარტიშვილი, born 20 May 1956), a Russian-Georgian writer. He is best known as writer of detective and historical fiction. He is also an essayist and literary translator. Grigory Chkhartishvili has also written under pen names Anatoly Brusnikin, Anna Borisova, and Akunin-Chkhartishvili. His characters include Erast Fandorin, Nicholas Fandorin and Sister Pelagia. Life and career Chkhartishvili was born in Zestaponi to a Georgian father and a Jewish mother and lived in Moscow from 1958 until 2014. Since then he has lived between Britain, France and Spain. Influenced by Japanese Kabuki theatre, he joined the historical-philological branch of the Institute of Asian and African Countries of Moscow State University as an expert on Japan. He w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Place Of Execution
''A Place of Execution'' is a crime novel by Val McDermid, first published in 1999. The novel won the ''Los Angeles Times'' Book Prize, the 2001 Dilys Award, was shortlisted for both the Gold Dagger and the Edgar Award, and was chosen by ''The New York Times'' as one of the most notable books of the year. Plot The novel has two parallel storylines; the first, set in 1963, follows Detective Inspector George Bennett, who attempts to locate a missing girl in Derbyshire. The second, set in the present day, follows journalist Catherine Heathcote, whose plans to publish a story of the investigation are derailed when Bennett inexplicably stops cooperating and she attempts to find out why. Television adaption The novel was adapted for TV by Patrick Harbinson and was made into a 3-part TV drama shown on ITV 1 (1st episode screened 22 Sept 08). It was produced in the UK by Coastal Productions in collaboration with ITV ITV from 22 September to 6 October 2008. The series was nominated fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Val McDermid
Valarie "Val" McDermid, (born 4 June 1955) is a Scottish crime writer, best known for a series of novels featuring clinical psychologist Dr. Tony Hill in a grim sub-genre that McDermid and others have identified as Tartan Noir. Biography McDermid comes from a working-class family in Fife. She studied English at St Hilda's College, Oxford, where she was the first student to be admitted from a Scottish state school. After graduation she became a journalist and began her literary career as a dramatist. Her first success as a novelist, ''Report for Murder: The First Lindsay Gordon Mystery'' occurred in 1987. McDermid was inducted into the prestigious Detection Club in 2000, and won the CWA Diamond Dagger for her lifetime contribution to crime writing in the English language in 2010. She was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Sunderland in 2011. She is co-founder of the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival and the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
