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1996 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1996. Events *July 8 – Harper Lee's ''To Kill a Mockingbird'', Mark Twain's ''Huckleberry Finn'' and 30 other books are struck from an English reading list in Lindale, Texas, as they "conflict with the values of the community." *July 11 – As requested by Nelson Mandela, Benjamin Zephaniah hosts the President's Two Nations Concert at London's Royal Albert Hall. *October 3 – The first performance is held in New York of Eve Ensler's episodic feminist play ''The Vagina Monologues''. *''unknown dates'' **In the UK, the first Orange Prize for Fiction for female novelists goes to Helen Dunmore for '' A Spell of Winter''. **Peter O'Donnell publishes ''Cobra Trap'', a final volume featuring Modesty Blaise. The first appeared in 1965. **Margaret Mitchell's lost first novella, ''Lost Laysen'', is published, 80 years after it was written. **Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's ''Romance Writings'', including her nov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
July 8
Events Pre-1600 * 1099 – Some 15,000 starving Christian soldiers begin the siege of Jerusalem by marching in a religious procession around the city as its Muslim defenders watch. * 1283 – Roger of Lauria, commanding the Aragonese fleet, defeats an Angevin fleet sent to put down a rebellion on Malta. * 1497 – Vasco da Gama sets sail on the first direct European voyage to India. * 1579 – Our Lady of Kazan, a holy icon of the Russian Orthodox Church, is discovered underground in the city of Kazan, Tatarstan. 1601–1900 * 1663 – Charles II of England grants John Clarke a Royal charter to Rhode Island. * 1709 – Peter I of Russia defeats Charles XII of Sweden at the Battle of Poltava, thus effectively ending Sweden's status as a major power in Europe. * 1716 – The Battle of Dynekilen forces Sweden to abandon its invasion of Norway. *1730 – An estimated magnitude 8.7 earthquake causes a tsunami that damages more than of Chile's coa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cobra Trap
''Cobra Trap'' is the title of a short story collection by Peter O'Donnell featuring his action/adventure heroine Modesty Blaise. The book was published in 1996, and is the thirteenth, and final book in the ''Modesty Blaise'' series which began in 1965. ''Cobra Trap'' was released 11 years after the previous book in the series, '' Dead Man's Handle''. It was the final book to be written by O'Donnell before his death in 2010. Contents The stories featured in the collection are "Bellman", "The Dark Angels", "Old Alex", "The Girl With the Black Balloon" and "Cobra Trap". "Bellman" is an adaptation of the 1968 comic strip serial "The Killing Ground".O'Donnell, Peter, Introduction to "The Killing Ground" in ''Modesty Blaise: The Black Pearl'' (Titan Books, December 2004), np All five stories take place at different times in the life of Modesty Blaise. The first, "Bellman", begins with a flashback to when Modesty is 20 years old. In "The Dark Angels" Modesty is in her late 20s, in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Every Man For Himself (novel)
''Every Man for Himself'' is a 1996 novel by Beryl Bainbridge about the 1912 RMS ''Titanic'' disaster. The novel won the 1996 Whitbread Prize, and was a nominee of the Booker Prize. Fantastic Fiction. It also won the 1997 Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Europe and South Asia). Plot synopsis The novel is narrated by 22-year-old Morgan, a rich young American orphan who is a relation of banker |
Beryl Bainbridge
Dame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge (21 November 1932 – 2 July 2010) was an English writer from Liverpool. She was primarily known for her works of psychological fiction, often macabre tales set among the English working class. Bainbridge won the Whitbread Awards prize for best novel in 1977 and 1996; she was nominated five times for the Booker Prize. She was described in 2007 by Charlotte Higgins as "a national treasure". In 2008, ''The Times'' named Bainbridge on their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". Biography Early life Beryl Bainbridge was born in Allerton, Liverpool and brought up in nearby Formby. Her parents were Richard Bainbridge and Winifred Baines. Although she gave her date of birth in ''Who's Who'' and elsewhere as 21 November 1934, she was born in 1932 and her birth was registered in the first quarter of 1933. When German former prisoner of war Harry Arno Franz wrote to her in November 1947, he mentioned her 15th birthday. She enjoyed writin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alias Grace
''Alias Grace'' is a historical fiction novel by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. First published in 1996 by McClelland & Stewart, it won the Canadian Giller Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The story fictionalizes the notorious 1843 murders of Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery in Canada West. Two servants of the Kinnear household, Grace Marks and James McDermott, were convicted of the crime. McDermott was hanged and Marks was sentenced to life imprisonment. Although the novel is based on factual events, Atwood constructs a narrative with a fictional doctor, Simon Jordan, who researches the case. While Jordan is ostensibly conducting research into criminal behaviour, he slowly becomes personally involved in the Marks story and seeks to reconcile his perception of the mild-mannered woman he sees with the murder of which she has been convicted. Atwood first encountered the story of Marks in ''Life in the Clearings Versus the Bush'' by Susanna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of non-fiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight children's books, and two graphic novels, and a number of small press editions of both poetry and fiction. Atwood has won numerous awards and honors for her writing, including two Booker Prizes, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Governor General's Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, Princess of Asturias Awards, and the National Book Critics and PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Awards. A number of her works have been adapted for film and television. Atwood's works encompass a variety of themes including gender and identity, religion and myth, the power of language, climate change, and "power politics". Many of her poems are inspired by myths and fairy tales which interested her from a very early age. Oates, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Fourth Estate (novel)
''The Fourth Estate'' is a 1996 novel by Jeffrey Archer. It chronicles the lives of two media barons, Richard Armstrong and Keith Townsend, from their starkly contrasting childhoods to their ultimate battle to build the world's biggest media empire. The book is based on two real life media barons – Robert Maxwell and Rupert Murdoch,Hugo Barnacl"Maxwell vs Murdoch – the untold story" ''The Independent'', 11 May 1996 who fought to control the newspaper market in Britain. (Murdoch had bought '' The Sun'' and '' News of the World'' and later Times Newspapers Ltd and Maxwell bought the ''Daily Mirror'' and the other newspapers in its group.). The concept of the fourth estate is in essence the press as a watchdog on other powerful institutions or " estates", the original three estates in England and later the United Kingdom being the Lords Spiritual (of the Church of England), the Lords Temporal, and the commons. The fourth estate is charged with keeping an honest watch on activi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jeffrey Archer
Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare (born 15 April 1940) is an English novelist, life peer, convicted criminal, and former politician. Before becoming an author, Archer was a Member of Parliament (1969–1974), but did not seek re-election after a financial scandal that left him almost bankrupt. Archer revived his fortunes as a novelist. His 1979 novel ''Kane and Abel'' remains one of the best-selling books in the world, with an estimated 34 million copies sold worldwide. Overall his books have sold more than 320 million copies worldwide. Archer became deputy chairman of the Conservative Party (1985–86), before resigning after a newspaper accused him of paying money to a prostitute. In 1987, he won a court case and was awarded large damages because of this claim. He was made a life peer in 1992 and subsequently became Conservative candidate to be the first elected Mayor of London. He resigned his candidacy in 1999 after it emerged that he had lied in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Novel Of Politics
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English grammar, " a", and its variant " an", are indefinite articles. History The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguish it fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joe Klein
Joe Klein (born September 7, 1946) is an American political commentator and author. He is best known for his work as a columnist for ''Time'' magazine and his novel ''Primary Colors'', an anonymously written roman à clef portraying Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign. Klein is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is a former Guggenheim Fellow. In April 2006 he published ''Politics Lost'', a book on what he calls the "pollster–consultant industrial complex." He has also written articles and book reviews for ''The New Republic'', ''The New York Times'', ''The Washington Post'', ''Life'', and ''Rolling Stone''. Early life and career Klein was born in Rockaway Beach, Queens, the son of Miram (née Warshauer) and John Klein, a printer. His maternal grandfather was professional musician Frank Warshauer. He has referred to his heritage as Jewish. Klein graduated from the Hackley School and the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in American civilizat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anonymity
Anonymity describes situations where the acting person's identity is unknown. Some writers have argued that namelessness, though technically correct, does not capture what is more centrally at stake in contexts of anonymity. The important idea here is that a person be non-identifiable, unreachable, or untrackable. Anonymity is seen as a technique, or a way of realizing, a certain other values, such as privacy, or liberty. Over the past few years, anonymity tools used on the dark web by criminals and malicious users have drastically altered the ability of law enforcement to use conventional surveillance techniques. An important example for anonymity being not only protected, but enforced by law is the vote in free elections. In many other situations (like conversation between strangers, buying some product or service in a shop), anonymity is traditionally accepted as natural. There are also various situations in which a person might choose to withhold their identity. Acts of cha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (née Pierrepont; 15 May 168921 August 1762) was an English aristocrat, writer, and poet. Born in 1689, Lady Mary spent her early life in England. In 1712, Lady Mary married Edward Wortley Montagu, who later served as the British ambassador to the Sublime Porte. Lady Mary joined her husband in the Ottoman excursion, where she was to spend the next two years of her life. During her time there, Lady Mary wrote extensively on her experience as a woman in Ottoman Istanbul. After her return to England, Lady Mary devoted her attention to the upbringing of her family before dying of cancer in 1762. Lady Mary is today chiefly remembered for her letters, particularly her ''Turkish Embassy Letters'' describing her travels to the Ottoman Empire, as wife to the British ambassador to Turkey, which Billie Melman describes as "the very first example of a secular work by a woman about the Muslim Orient".Melman, Billie. ''Women's Orients: English Women and the Middle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
