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Jackson Brodie
Kate Atkinson (born 20 December 1951) is an English writer of novels, plays and short stories. She is known for creating the Jackson Brodie series of detective novels, which has been adapted into the BBC One series '' Case Histories''. She won the Whitbread Book of the Year prize in 1995 in the Novels category for '' Behind the Scenes at the Museum'', winning again in 2013 and 2015 under its new name the Costa Book Awards. Early life The daughter of a shopkeeper, Atkinson was born in York, the setting for several of her books. She studied English literature at the University of Dundee, gaining her master's degree in 1974. Atkinson subsequently studied for a doctorate in American literature, with a thesis titled "The post-modern American short story in its historical context". She failed at the viva (oral examination) stage. After leaving the university, she took on a variety of jobs, from home help to legal secretary and teacher. Writing career Her first novel, ''Behind ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edinburgh International Book Festival
The Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF) is a book festival that takes place in the last three weeks of August every year in Charlotte Square in the centre of Scotland’s capital city, Edinburgh. Billed as ''The largest festival of its kind in the world'', the festival hosts a concentrated flurry of cultural and political talks and debates, along with its well-established children's events programme. It coincides with the Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, as well as the other events that comprise the Edinburgh Festival. Nick Barley is the Director. History The first Book Festival took place in a tent in Edinburgh in 1983. Initially a biennial event, it began to be held annually in 1997. It is a large (225,000 visitors in 2015) and growing international event, central to Edinburgh's acclaimed August arts celebrations. Perhaps partly as a result of this, Edinburgh was named the first UNESCO City of Literature in 2004. The Festival in C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Started Early, Took My Dog (novel)
''Started Early, Took My Dog'' is a 2010 novel by English writer Kate Atkinson named after the Emily Dickinson poem of the same name. It was adapted into an episode of the second season of the British television series ''Case Histories'' in 2013. Plot The main story takes place over a few days in present-day (2010) Leeds, England and vicinity. There are frequent flashbacks to 1975, when the mystery being investigated originated. Main characters *Tracy Waterhouse is now security chief at the Merrion Centre in Leeds but back in 1974 as a WPC just off probation she was one of the first on scene when the body of a murdered prostitute is found in a flat in Lovell Park, also in the flat is her 4-year-old son. Back in the present she sees another young child being dragged through the shopping centre by her abusive prostitute mother and decides to intervene. *Jackson Brodie now a private investigator is trying to trace the birth parents of a woman now living in New Zealand who was ad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transcription (novel)
''Transcription'' is a spy novel by British novelist Kate Atkinson, published in September 2018.Patrick, Bethanne (2018)Kate Atkinson’s WWII Spy Drama Is Fall’s Must Read Novel ''Time'', 20 September 2018. Retrieved 12 November 2018. The novel focuses on the activities of British orphan Juliet Armstrong throughout World War II and afterwards. She begins a career as a low-level transcriptionist for MI5, before rising through the ranks. After the war she moves to the BBC. Summary In 1950, Juliet Armstrong, a producer of children's programmes at the BBC, sees Godfrey Toby, a man she knew during WWII. When she approaches him he denies knowing her. The incident causes Juliet to reflect back to 1940 when she was a young 18-year-old woman who had recently been orphaned. Hired to work at MI5, she is quickly scouted for an operation run by the elusive Perry Gibbons. Working out of two flats, the MI5 team reveal that they are spying on a group of low-level Nazi sympathisers who repo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2015 Costa Book Awards
The Costa Book Awards were a set of annual literary awards recognising English-language books by writers based in UK and Ireland. Originally named the Whitbread Book Awards from 1971 to 2005 after its first sponsor, the Whitbread company, then a brewery and owner of restaurant chains, it was renamed when Costa Coffee, then a subsidiary of Whitbread, took over sponsorship. The companion Costa Short Story Award was established in 2012. Costa Coffee was purchased by the Coca-Cola Company in 2018. The awards were abruptly terminated in 2022. The awards were given both for high literary merit but also for works that are enjoyable reading and whose aim is to convey the enjoyment of reading to the widest possible audience. As such, they were considered a more populist literary prize than the Booker Prize, which also limits winners to literature written in the UK and Ireland. Awards were separated into six categories: Biography, Children's Books, First Novel, Novel, Poetry, and Short ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A God In Ruins (Atkinson Novel)
''A God in Ruins'' is Kate Atkinson's ninth novel, published in 2015. The main character, Teddy Todd is the younger brother of Ursula Todd, the protagonist in Atkinson's 2013 novel, '' Life After Life''. Atkinson calls it the "companion piece" rather than a sequel to the earlier novel. The first book spans half a century, including World War II; the second is set entirely within it. It won the Costa Book Award for Novel in 2015. Plot The novel is about the life of Teddy Todd (younger brother of Ursula Todd, the protagonist of the companion work, '' Life After Life''). Events in his life are not revealed in chronological order. The book opens with a brief glimpse of him as a Royal Air Force (RAF) Halifax bomber pilot in World War II, then goes on to events in his childhood and the lives of his child and grandchildren, at times juxtaposing his memories with events in the lives of his family members. Teddy's memories of his own childhood in Fox Corner, the Todd family's country ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2013 Costa Book Awards
The Costa Book Awards were a set of annual literary awards recognising English-language books by writers based in UK and Ireland. Originally named the Whitbread Book Awards from 1971 to 2005 after its first sponsor, the Whitbread company, then a brewery and owner of restaurant chains, it was renamed when Costa Coffee, then a subsidiary of Whitbread, took over sponsorship. The companion Costa Short Story Award was established in 2012. Costa Coffee was purchased by the Coca-Cola Company in 2018. The awards were abruptly terminated in 2022. The awards were given both for high literary merit but also for works that are enjoyable reading and whose aim is to convey the enjoyment of reading to the widest possible audience. As such, they were considered a more populist literary prize than the Booker Prize, which also limits winners to literature written in the UK and Ireland. Awards were separated into six categories: Biography, Children's Books, First Novel, Novel, Poetry, and Short ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Life After Life (novel)
''Life After Life'' is a 2013 novel by Kate Atkinson. It is the first of two novels about the Todd family. The second, '' A God in Ruins'', was published in 2015. ''Life After Life'' garnered acclaim from critics. Plot The novel has an unusual structure, repeatedly looping back in time to describe alternative possible lives for its central character, Ursula Todd, who is born on 11 February 1910 to an upper-middle-class family near Chalfont St Peter in Buckinghamshire. In the first version, she is strangled by her umbilical cord and stillborn. In later iterations of her life she dies as a child - drowning in the sea, or when saved from that, by falling to her death from the roof when trying to retrieve a fallen doll. Then there are several sequences when she falls victim to the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 - which repeats itself again and again, though she already has a foreknowledge of it, and only her fourth attempt to avert catching the flu succeeds. Then there is an unhappy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emotionally Weird
''Emotionally Weird'' is the third novel by Kate Atkinson. It was published in 2000. Plot introduction The novel begins with chapter one of a murder mystery set in a seaside resort. This tale is later revealed as being written by Euphemia (Effie) Stuart-Murray as part of a creative writing class at the University of Dundee in 1972. This main narrative is in fact being told by Effie to her presumed mother Nora on a remote Scottish Island in return for which Effie hopes to entice from Nora the truth about her family history and parentage... Reception Reviews were mixed: *Stephanie Zacharek in ''The New York Times'' complained: "sometimes it's clear in a novel's first 50 pages that its story is going nowhere fast. But there are other times, and harder cases, when a novelist kicks off a book with such lively, crackling prose and such deft character descriptions that you hang on desperately to the hope that its plot is going somewhere good...But there's a problem with too much clev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Human Croquet
''Human Croquet'' is the second novel of Kate Atkinson. The book covers the experiences of Isobel Fairfax, including her occasional bouts of time-travelling, while setting out the legacy of a 300-year-old family curse. Reception In a review of Atkinson's later novel ''Life After Life'' (2013), Sam Sacks of ''The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...'' stated that ''Human Croquet'' was "indifferently received". References External links * 1997 British novels Novels by Kate Atkinson Family saga novels British magic realism novels Doubleday (publisher) books {{1990s-family-novel-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1995 Whitbread Awards
The Costa Book Awards were a set of annual literary awards recognising English-language books by writers based in UK and Ireland. Originally named the Whitbread Book Awards from 1971 to 2005 after its first sponsor, the Whitbread company, then a brewery and owner of restaurant chains, it was renamed when Costa Coffee, then a subsidiary of Whitbread, took over sponsorship. The companion Costa Short Story Award was established in 2012. Costa Coffee was purchased by the Coca-Cola Company in 2018. The awards were abruptly terminated in 2022. The awards were given both for high literary merit but also for works that are enjoyable reading and whose aim is to convey the enjoyment of reading to the widest possible audience. As such, they were considered a more populist literary prize than the Booker Prize, which also limits winners to literature written in the UK and Ireland. Awards were separated into six categories: Biography, Children's Books, First Novel, Novel, Poetry, and Short ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Desert Island Discs
''Desert Island Discs'' is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942. Each week a guest, called a " castaway" during the programme, is asked to choose eight recordings (usually, but not always, music), a book and a luxury item that they would take if they were to be cast away on a desert island, whilst discussing their life and the reasons for their choices. It was devised and originally presented by Roy Plomley. Since 2018 the programme has been presented by Lauren Laverne. More than 3,000 episodes have been recorded, with some guests having appeared more than once and some episodes featuring more than one guest. An example of a guest who falls into both categories is Bob Monkhouse, who appeared with his co-writer Denis Goodwin on 12 December 1955 and in his own right on 20 December 1998. When ''Desert Island Discs'' marked its 75th year in 2017, ''The Guardian'' called the show a radio classic. In Februar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasting House, London. The station controller is Mohit Bakaya. Broadcasting throughout the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands on FM, LW and DAB, and on BBC Sounds, it can be received in the eastern counties of Ireland, northern France and Northern Europe. It is available on Freeview, Sky, and Virgin Media. Radio 4 currently reaches over 10 million listeners, making it the UK's second most-popular radio station after Radio 2. BBC Radio 4 broadcasts news programmes such as ''Today'' and ''The World at One'', heralded on air by the Greenwich Time Signal pips or the chimes of Big Ben. The pips are only accurate on FM, LW, and MW; there is a delay on digital radio of three to five seconds and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
