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J. G. Ballard
James Graham Ballard (15 November 193019 April 2009) was an English novelist, short story writer, satirist, and essayist known for provocative works of fiction which explored the relations between human psychology, technology, sex, and mass media. He first became associated with the New Wave of science fiction for post-apocalyptic novels such as ''The Drowned World'' (1962), but later courted controversy for works such as the experimental short story collection ''The Atrocity Exhibition'' (1970), which included the 1968 story "Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan", and the novel ''Crash'' (1973), a story about a renegade group of car crash fetishists. In 1984, Ballard won broader recognition for his war novel ''Empire of the Sun'', a semi-autobiographical account of a young British boy's experiences in Shanghai during Japanese occupation; the story was adapted into a 1987 film directed by Steven Spielberg. The author's journey from youth to mid-age would be chronicled, with ficti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kensal Green Cemetery
Kensal Green Cemetery is a cemetery in the Kensal Green area of Queens Park in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, England. Inspired by Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, it was founded by the barrister George Frederick Carden.The Founding of Kensal Green Cemetery Accessed 7 February 2014 The cemetery opened in 1833 and comprises of grounds, including two conservation areas, adjoining a canal. The cemetery is home to at least 33 species of bird and other wildlife. This distinctive cemetery has memorials ranging from large s housing the rich and famous to many distinctive smaller graves and includes special areas dedicated to the very young. It has three ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miracles Of Life
''Miracles of Life'' is an autobiography written by British writer J. G. Ballard and published in 2008. Overview The book describes Ballard's childhood and early teenage years in Shanghai in the 1930s and the early 1940s, when the city is ravaged by the Second Sino-Japanese War in the Battle of Shanghai and World War II. After the happy years spent with his well-to-do family in the Shanghai International Settlement, Ballard experiences the horrors of war and then the deprivations of an internment camp, Lunghua, where he is imprisoned with his parents, his sister, and hundreds of other British, Belgian, Dutch and American nationals. After being liberated by the Americans in 1945, James "returns" to England with his mother and sister, but the return to a country which he has never known, being born in Shanghai, is made difficult by the dismal atmosphere of post-war Britain and the difficulty of integrating into British society. After beginning medical studies at a prestigious Cam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Kindness Of Women
''The Kindness of Women'' is a 1991 novel by British author J. G. Ballard, a sequel to his 1984 novel ''Empire of the Sun''. ''The Kindness of Women'' drew on the author's boyhood in Shanghai during World War II, presenting a lightly fictionalized treatment of Ballard's life from Shanghai through to adulthood in England, culminating with an account of the making of Steven Spielberg's 1987 film ''Empire of the Sun''. A non-fiction account of the same experiences can be found in Ballard's autobiography, ''Miracles of Life''. It was first published in the UK by HarperCollins and in the U.S. by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Plot introduction ''The Kindness of Women'' is semi-autobiographical, and discusses Jim's departure from China, where he had been born and had been interned, to visit England, other parts of Europe and the United States. Jim is obsessed with two themes throughout the book: sex and death. The numerous sexual encounters are described in clinical and cold terms. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spielberg is the recipient of various accolades, including three Academy Awards, a Kennedy Center honor, a Cecil B. DeMille Award, and an AFI Life Achievement Award. Seven of his films been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. He moved to California and studied film in college. After directing several episodes for television including ''Night Gallery'' and '' Columbo'', he directed the television film ''Duel'' (1971) which gained acclaim from critics and audiences. He made his directorial film debut with ''The Sugarland Express'' (1974), and became a household name with the 1975 summer blockbuster ''Jaws''. He then directed box office succe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Empire Of The Sun (film)
''Empire of the Sun'' is a 1987 American epic coming-of-age war film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Tom Stoppard, based on J. G. Ballard's semi-autobiographical 1984 novel of the same name. The film tells the story of Jamie "Jim" Graham (Christian Bale), a young boy who goes from living with his wealthy British family in Shanghai to becoming a prisoner of war in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. Harold Becker and David Lean were originally to direct before Spielberg came on board, initially as a producer for Lean. Spielberg was attracted to directing the film because of a personal connection to Lean's films and World War II topics. He considers it to be his most profound work on "the loss of innocence".Forsberg, Myra"Spielberg at 40: The Man and the Child". ''The New York Times'', October 1, 2008. Retrieved: September 17, 2008. The film received positive reviews, but was not initially a box office success, earning only $22 million at the US box of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Theater of the Second World War. The beginning of the war is conventionally dated to the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on 7 July 1937, when a dispute between Japanese and Chinese troops in Peking escalated into a full-scale invasion. Some Chinese historians believe that the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 18 September 1931 marks the start of the war. This full-scale war between the Chinese and the Empire of Japan is often regarded as the beginning of World War II in Asia. China fought Japan with aid from Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, United Kingdom and the United States. After the Japanese attacks on Malaya and Pearl Harbor in 1941, the war merged with other conflicts which are generally categorized under those conflicts of World War II a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sexual Fetishism
Sexual fetishism or erotic fetishism is a sexual fixation on a nonliving object or nongenital body part. The object of interest is called the fetish; the person who has ''a fetish'' for that object is a fetishist. A sexual fetish may be regarded as a non-pathological aid to sexual excitement, or as a mental disorder if it causes significant psychosocial distress for the person or has detrimental effects on important areas of their life. Sexual arousal from a particular body part can be further classified as partialism. While medical definitions restrict the term ''sexual fetishism'' to objects or body parts, ''fetish'' can, in common discourse, also refer to sexual interest in specific activities. Definitions In common parlance, the word ''fetish'' is used to refer to any sexually arousing stimuli, not all of which meet the medical criteria for fetishism. This broader usage of ''fetish'' covers parts or features of the body (including obesity and body modifications), object ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Why I Want To Fuck Ronald Reagan
''Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan'' is a short fictional work by English author J. G. Ballard, first published as a pamphlet by the Unicorn Bookshop, Brighton, in 1968. It was later collected in ''The Atrocity Exhibition''. It is written in the style of a scientific paper and catalogues an apocryphal series of bizarre experiments intended to measure the psychosexual appeal of Ronald Reagan, who was then the Governor of California and candidate for the 1968 Republican presidential nomination. History Ballard himself was inspired by the then-new phenomenon of "media politicians" and in his preface to the 1990 edition of ''The Atrocity Exhibition'', explained: A bookseller who sold the pamphlet was charged with obscenity. In 1970, the pamphlet was added as an appendix to Doubleday's first American edition of ''The Atrocity Exhibition'', which was destroyed prior to release. At the 1980 Republican National Convention in Detroit, a copy furnished with the seal of the Repub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Short Story
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest types of literature and has existed in the form of legends, mythic tales, folk tales, fairy tales, tall tales, fables and anecdotes in various ancient communities around the world. The modern short story developed in the early 19th century. Definition The short story is a crafted form in its own right. Short stories make use of plot, resonance, and other dynamic components as in a novel, but typically to a lesser degree. While the short story is largely distinct from the novel or novella/short novel, authors generally draw from a common pool of literary techniques. The short story is sometimes referred to as a genre. Determining what exactly defines a short story has been recurrently problematic. A classic definition of a short story ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Drowned World
''The Drowned World'' is a 1962 science fiction novel by British writer J. G. Ballard. The novel depicts a post-apocalyptic future in which global warming caused by heightened solar radiation has rendered much of the Earth's surface uninhabitable. The story follows a team of scientists researching environmental developments in a flooded, abandoned London. The novel is an expansion of a novella of the same title first published in '' Science Fiction Adventures'' magazine in January 1962, Vol. 4, No. 24. In 2010, ''Time Magazine'' named ''The Drowned World'' one of the top 10 best post-apocalyptic books. The novel has been identified as a founding text in the literary genre known as climate fiction. Synopsis In the mid 22nd Century, sudden violent and prolonged solar storms enlarge the Van Allen belts, leading to a deterioration of the Earth's ionosphere. Solar radiation bombards the planet, increasing temperatures, raising sea levels and imposing a tropical climate worldwide. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Post-apocalyptic Literature
Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astronomical, such as an impact event; destructive, such as nuclear holocaust or resource depletion; medical, such as a pandemic, whether natural or human-caused; end time, such as the Last Judgment, Second Coming or Ragnarök; or more imaginative, such as a zombie apocalypse, cybernetic revolt, technological singularity, dysgenics or alien invasion. The story may involve attempts to prevent an apocalypse event, deal with the impact and consequences of the event itself, or it may be post-apocalyptic, set after the event. The time may be directly after the catastrophe, focusing on the psychology of survivors, the way to keep the human race alive and together as one, or considerably later, often including that the existence of pre-catastrophe civ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
