Soft City
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Soft City
''Soft City'' is the first book written by Jonathan Raban, and published by Hamish Hamilton (UK) and E. P. Dutton & Company (US) in 1974 Major events in 1974 include the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis and the resignation of United States President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal. In the Middle East, the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War determined politics; f .... Synopsis ''Soft City'' records one man's attempt to plot a course through the urban labyrinth. Holding up a revealing mirror to the modern city, it is used as the locale for a demanding and expressive personal drama. Jonathan Raban’s soft city is the malleable material from which identity is formed. “It invites you to remake it, to consolidate it into an shape you can live in . . . Decide who you are, and the city will again assume a fixed form around you.” This soft city is the mythic city, where illusion, dream, aspiration, and nightmare are all fixed into place; it comes into focus as ...
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Jonathan Raban
Jonathan Raban (born 14 June 1942, Hempton, Norfolk, England) is a British travel writer, critic, and novelist. He has received several awards, such as the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Royal Society of Literature's Heinemann Award, the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, the PEN West Creative Nonfiction Award, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, and a 1997 Washington State Governor's Writer's Award. Since 1990 he has lived with his daughter in Seattle. In 2003, his novel Waxwings was long listed for the Man Booker Prize. Though he is primarily regarded as a travel writer, Raban's accounts often blend the story of a journey with rich discussion of the history of the water through which he travels and the land around it. Even as he maintains a dispassionate and often unforgiving stance towards the people he meets on his travels, he does not shirk from sharing his own perceived foibles and failings with the reader. Frequently, Raban's autobiographical accoun ...
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1974 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1974. Events *February – Novelist Juan Carlos Onetti is one of a group arrested by the Uruguayan dictatorship for selecting as a competition prizewinner and publishing in the newspaper ''Marcha'' a short story implicitly critical of the military regime. He subsequently goes into exile in Spain. *February 12 – After publication at the end of 1973 of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's ''The Gulag Archipelago'' (Архипелаг ГУЛАГ), the author is arrested for treason; the following day he is deported from the Soviet Union. In spring and summer the first translations into French and English begin to appear. *August 8 – The first of Armistead Maupin's ''Tales of the City'' is published as a serial in ''The Pacific Sun'' (Marin County, California). *October 21 – New Guildhall Library opens in the City of London. *''unknown dates'' **The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics is founded by Allen ...
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Hamish Hamilton
Hamish Hamilton Limited was a British book publishing house, founded in 1931 eponymously by the half-Scot half-American Jamie Hamilton (''Hamish'' is the vocative form of the Gaelic Seumas eaning James ''James'' the English form – which was also his given name, and ''Jamie'' the diminutive form). Jamie Hamilton was often referred to as ''Hamish Hamilton''. The Hamish Hamilton imprint is now part of the Penguin Random House group. History and current publishing Hamish Hamilton Limited originally specialized in fiction, and was responsible for publishing a number of American authors in the United Kingdom, including Nigel Balchin (including pseudonym: Mark Spade), Raymond Chandler, James Thurber, J.D. Salinger, E. B. White and Truman Capote. In 1939 Hamish Hamilton Law and Hamish Hamilton Medical were started but closed during the war. Hamish Hamilton was established in the literary district of Bloomsbury and went on to publish many promising British and American authors, m ...
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1974 Books
Major events in 1974 include the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis and the resignation of United States President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal. In the Middle East, the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War determined politics; following Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir's resignation in response to high Israeli casualties, she was succeeded by Yitzhak Rabin. In Europe, the invasion and occupation of northern Cyprus by Turkish troops initiated the Cyprus dispute, the Carnation Revolution took place in Portugal, and Chancellor of West Germany Willy Brandt resigned following an espionage scandal surrounding his secretary Günter Guillaume. In sports, the year was primarily dominated by the FIFA World Cup in West Germany, in which the German national team won the championship title, as well as The Rumble in the Jungle, a boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire. Events January–February * January 26 – Bülent Ecevit of CHP forms ...
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Hamish Hamilton Books
Hamish is a Scottish masculine given name. It is the anglicized form of the vocative case of the Gaelic name ''Seamus'' or ''Sheumais''. It is therefore, the equivalent of James. People Given name * Hamish Bennett, retired New Zealand cricketer * Hamish Bennett (director), New Zealand filmmaker * Hamish Blake (born 1981), Australian comedian and radio presenter * Hamish Bond (born 1986), New Zealand Olympic rower * Hamish Bowles (born 1963), European editor-at-large for ''Vogue'' * Hamish Brown, writer and mountain walker * Hamish Carter (born 1971), Olympic gold medallist triathlete from New Zealand * Hamish Clark, Scottish actor * Hamish Forbes, 7th Baronet (1916–2007), British Army major * Hamish Glencross (born 1978), heavy metal guitarist for the band My Dying Bride * Hamish Henderson (1919–2002), Scottish singer and collector of folk music * Hamish Imlach (1940-1996), Scottish folk singer * Hamish Kilgour, New Zealand musician in the band The Clean * Hamish Linkla ...
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