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The Big Read
The Big Read was a survey on books that was carried out by the BBC in the United Kingdom in 2003, when over three-quarters of a million votes were received from the British public to find the nation's best-loved novel. The year-long survey was the biggest single test of public reading taste to date, and culminated with several programmes hosted by celebrities advocating their favourite books. Purpose The BBC started the Big Read with the goal of finding the "Nation's Best-loved Novel" by way of a viewer vote via the Web, SMS, and telephone. The show attracted controversy for adopting an allegedly Sensationalism, sensationalist approach to literature, but supporters praised it for raising the public awareness of reading. The British public voted originally for any novel that they wished.Book awards: BBC's Big Read - L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The UK includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and most of List of islands of the United Kingdom, the smaller islands within the British Isles, covering . Northern Ireland shares Republic of Ireland–United Kingdom border, a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. It maintains sovereignty over the British Overseas Territories, which are located across various oceans and seas globally. The UK had an estimated population of over 68.2 million people in 2023. The capital and largest city of both England and the UK is London. The cities o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Winnie-the-Pooh (book)
''Winnie-the-Pooh'' is a 1926 children's book by English author A. A. Milne and English illustrator E. H. Shepard. The book is set in the fictional Hundred Acre Wood, with a collection of short stories following the adventures of an anthropomorphic teddy bear, Winnie-the-Pooh, and his friends Christopher Robin, Piglet, Eeyore, Owl, Rabbit, Kanga, and Roo. It is the first of two story collections by Milne about Winnie-the-Pooh, the second being '' The House at Pooh Corner'' (1928). Milne and Shepard collaborated previously for English humour magazine '' Punch'', and in 1924 created '' When We Were Very Young'', a poetry collection. Among the characters in the poetry book was a teddy bear Shepard modelled after his son's toy. Following this, Shepard encouraged Milne to write about his son Christopher Robin Milne's toys, and so they became the inspiration for the characters in ''Winnie-the-Pooh''. The book was published on 14 October 1926, and was both well-received by cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daphne Du Maurier
Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, (; 13 May 1907 – 19 April 1989) was an English novelist, biographer and playwright. Her parents were actor-manager Gerald du Maurier, Sir Gerald du Maurier and his wife, actress Muriel Beaumont. Her grandfather George du Maurier was a writer and cartoonist. Although du Maurier is classed as a romantic novelist, her stories have been described as "moody and resonant" with overtones of the paranormal. Her bestselling works were not at first taken seriously by critics, but they have since earned an enduring reputation for narrative craft. Many have been successfully adapted into films, including the novels ''Rebecca (novel), Rebecca'', ''Frenchman's Creek (novel), Frenchman's Creek'', ''My Cousin Rachel'' and ''Jamaica Inn (novel), Jamaica Inn'', and the short stories "The Birds (story), The Birds" and "Not After Midnight, and Other Stories#"Don't Look Now", Don't Look Now". Du Maurier spent much of her life in Cornwall, where most of her w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rebecca (novel)
''Rebecca'' is a 1938 Gothic literature, Gothic novel by the English author Daphne du Maurier. It depicts an unnamed young woman who impetuously marries a wealthy widower, before discovering that both he and his household are haunted by the memory of his late first wife, the title character. A bestseller which has never gone out of print, ''Rebecca'' sold 2.8 million copies between its publication in 1938 and 1965. It has been adapted numerous times for stage and screen, including a 1939 play by du Maurier herself, the film ''Rebecca (1940 film), Rebecca'' (1940), directed by Alfred Hitchcock, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and the Rebecca (2020 film), 2020 remake directed by Ben Wheatley for Netflix. The story has been adapted as a Rebecca (musical), musical. The novel is remembered especially for the character of Mrs. Danvers, the West Country estate Manderley, and its opening line: "Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again." Plot While working as th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sebastian Faulks
Sebastian Charles Faulks (born 20 April 1953) is a British novelist, journalist and broadcaster. He is best known for his historical novels set in France – '' The Girl at the Lion d'Or'', ''Birdsong'' and '' Charlotte Gray''. He has also published novels with a contemporary setting, most recently '' A Week in December'' (2009) and ''Paris Echo'', (2018) and a James Bond continuation novel, '' Devil May Care'' (2008), as well as a continuation of P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves series, ''Jeeves and the Wedding Bells'' (2013). He was a team captain on BBC Radio 4 literary quiz '' The Write Stuff''. Biography Early life Faulks was born on 20 April 1953 in Donnington, Berkshire, to Peter Faulks and Pamela (née Lawless). His father was a decorated soldier (he won the Military Cross), who later became a solicitor and circuit judge. His brother Edward Faulks, Baron Faulks KC, a barrister, became a Conservative Government Minister in January 2014 in the Ministry of Justice. His uncle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birdsong (novel)
''Birdsong'' is a 1993 war novel and family saga by the English author Sebastian Faulks. It is Faulks's fourth novel. The plot follows two main characters living at different times: the first is Stephen Wraysford, a British soldier on the Battle of Amiens (1918), front line in Amiens during the World War I, First World War, and the second is his granddaughter, Elizabeth Benson, whose 1970s plotline follows her attempts to recover an understanding of Stephen's experience of the war. Faulks developed the novel to bring more public awareness to the experience of war remembered by WWI veterans. Most critics found this effort successful, commenting on how the novel, like many other WWI novels, thematically focuses on how the experience of trauma shapes individual psyches. Similarly, because of the parallel narratives WWI and 1970s Britain, the novel explores historiography, metahistorical questions about how to document and recover narratives about the past. Because of its genre, them ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emily Brontë
Emily Jane Brontë (, commonly ; 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English writer best known for her 1847 novel, ''Wuthering Heights''. She also co-authored a book of poetry with her sisters Charlotte Brontë, Charlotte and Anne Brontë, Anne, entitled ''Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell''. Emily was the fifth of six Brontë family, Brontë siblings, four of whom survived into adulthood. Her mother died when she was three, leaving the children in the care of their aunt, Elizabeth Branwell, and aside from brief intervals at school, she was mostly taught at home by her father, Patrick Brontë, who was the curate of Haworth. She was very close to her siblings, especially her younger sister Anne, and together they wrote little books and journals depicting imaginary worlds. She is described by her sister Charlotte as very shy, but also strong-willed and nonconforming, with a keen love of nature and animals. Some biographers believ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wuthering Heights
''Wuthering Heights'' is the only novel by the English author Emily Brontë, initially published in 1847 under her pen name "Ellis Bell". It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their turbulent relationships with the Earnshaws' foster son, Heathcliff. The novel, influenced by Romanticism and Gothic fiction, is considered a classic of English literature. ''Wuthering Heights'' was accepted by publisher Thomas Newby along with Anne Brontë's '' Agnes Grey'' before the success of their sister Charlotte Brontë's novel ''Jane Eyre'', but they were published later. The first American edition was published in April 1848 by Harper & Brothers of New York. After Emily's death, Charlotte edited a second edition of ''Wuthering Heights'', which was published in 1850. ''Wuthering Heights'' is now widely considered to be one of the greatest novels ever written in English, but contemporaneous reviews were polarise ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller (May 1, 1923 – December 12, 1999) was an American author of novels, short stories, plays, and screenplays. His best-known work is the 1961 novel '' Catch-22'', a satire on war and bureaucracy, whose title has become a synonym for an absurd or contradictory choice. He was nominated in 1972 for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Early life Heller was born on May 1, 1923, in Coney Island in Brooklyn,. the son of poor Jewish parents, Lena and Isaac Donald Heller from Russia. As a teenager, he wrote a story about the Soviet invasion of Finland and sent it to the ''New York Daily News'', which rejected it. After graduating from Abraham Lincoln High School in 1941, Heller spent the next year working as a blacksmith's apprentice, a messenger boy, and a filing clerk. In 1942, at age 19, he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps. Two years later he was sent to the Italian Front, where he flew 60 combat missions as a B-25 bombardier. His unit was the 488th Bombardment Squadron, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catch-22
''Catch-22'' is a satirical war novel by American author Joseph Heller. It was his debut novel. He began writing it in 1953; the novel was first published in 1961. Often cited as one of the most significant novels of the twentieth century, it uses a distinctive non-chronological third-person omniscient narration, describing events from the points of view of different characters. The separate storylines are out of sequence so the timeline develops along with the plot. The novel is set during World War II, from 1942 to 1944. It mainly follows the life of antihero Captain John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier. Most of the events in the book occur while the fictional 256th US Army Air Squadron is based on the island of Pianosa, in the Mediterranean Sea west of the Italian mainland, although it also includes episodes from basic training at Lowry Field in Colorado and Air Corps training at Santa Ana Army Air Base in California. The novel examines the absurdity ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Nicholls (; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855), commonly known as Charlotte Brontë (, commonly ), was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë family, Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels became classics of English literature. She is best known for her novel ''Jane Eyre'', which she published under the male pseudonym Currer Bell. ''Jane Eyre'' went on to become a success in publication, and is widely held in high regard in the gothic fiction genre of literature. Brontë enrolled in school at Roe Head, Mirfield, in January 1831, aged 14 years. She left the year after to teach her sisters, Emily Brontë, Emily and Anne Brontë, Anne, at home, then returned to Roe Head in 1835 as a teacher. In 1839, she undertook the role of governess for the Sidgwick family, but left after a few months. The three sisters attempted to open a school in Haworth but failed to attract pupils. Instead, they turned to writing; they each first publ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jane Eyre
''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first American edition was published in January 1848 by Harper & Brothers of New York. ''Jane Eyre'' is a bildungsroman that follows the experiences of its Jane Eyre (character), eponymous heroine, including her growth to adulthood and her love for Mr Rochester, the brooding master of Thornfield Hall. The novel revolutionised prose fiction, being the first to focus on the moral and spiritual development of its protagonist through an intimate first-person narrative, where actions and events are coloured by a psychological intensity. Charlotte Brontë has been called the "first historian of the private consciousness" and the literary ancestor of writers such as Marcel Proust and James Joyce. The book contains elements of social criticism with a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
