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The Busconductor Hines
''The Busconductor Hines'' is the first published novel of the Scottish writer James Kelman James Kelman (born 9 June 1946) is a Scottish novelist, short story writer, playwright and essayist. His novel '' A Disaffection'' was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 1989. Kelman won ..., published in 1984. This novel is the first to be published by Kelman, but it was written after '' A Chancer''. Critical reception A profile in the ''Sunday Times'' retells the reception of this novel by critics: "head Booker judge Richard Cobb voted Kelman's ''The Busconductor Hines'' to be one of the two worst books submitted to the competition. Addressing his audience, Cobb recalled with astonishment: "''There was even one novel written entirely in Glaswegian!''" This is just the kind of pompous remark that has fuelled Kelman's love-hate relationship with English critics (they love him, he hates them) and led to his metamorphosis into a c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Kelman
James Kelman (born 9 June 1946) is a Scottish novelist, short story writer, playwright and essayist. His novel '' A Disaffection'' was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 1989. Kelman won the 1994 Booker Prize with ''How Late It Was, How Late''. In 1998, Kelman was awarded the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award. His 2008 novel ''Kieron Smith, Boy'' won both of Scotland's principal literary awards: the Saltire Society's Book of the Year and the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year. Life and work Born in Glasgow, Kelman says: My own background is as normal or abnormal as anyone else's. Born and bred in Govan and Drumchapel, inner city tenement to the housing scheme homeland on the outer reaches of the city. Four brothers, my mother a full time parent, my father in the picture framemaking and gilding trade, trying to operate a one man business and I left school at 15 etc. etc. (...) For one reason or another, by the a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, the North Sea to the northeast and east, and the Irish Sea to the south. It also contains more than 790 islands, principally in the archipelagos of the Hebrides and the Northern Isles. Most of the population, including the capital Edinburgh, is concentrated in the Central Belt—the plain between the Scottish Highlands and the Southern Uplands—in the Scottish Lowlands. Scotland is divided into 32 administrative subdivisions or local authorities, known as council areas. Glasgow City is the largest council area in terms of population, with Highland being the largest in terms of area. Limited self-governing power, covering matters such as education, social services and roads and transportation, is devolved from the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glasgow Patter
The Glasgow dialect, popularly known as the Glasgow patter or Glaswegian, varies from Scottish English at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum to the local dialect of West Central Scots at the other. Therefore, the speech of many Glaswegians can draw on a "continuum between fully localised and fully standardised". Additionally, the Glasgow dialect has Highland English and Hiberno-English influences owing to the speech of Highlanders and Irish people who migrated in large numbers to the Glasgow area in the 19th and early 20th centuries. While being named for Glasgow, the accent is typical for natives across the full Greater Glasgow area and associated counties such as Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Dunbartonshire and parts of Ayrshire, which formerly came under the single authority of Strathclyde. It is most common in working class people, which can lead to stigma from members of other classes or those outside Glasgow. As with other dialects, it is subject to dialect levelling ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Literary Fiction
Literary fiction, mainstream fiction, non-genre fiction or serious fiction is a label that, in the book trade, refers to market novels that do not fit neatly into an established genre (see genre fiction); or, otherwise, refers to novels that are character-driven rather than plot-driven, examine the human condition, use language in an experimental or poetic fashion, or are simply considered serious art. ''Literary fiction'' is often used as a synonym for literature, in the exclusive sense of writings specifically considered to have considerable artistic merit. While literary fiction is commonly regarded as artistically superior to genre fiction, the two are not mutually exclusive, and major literary figures have employed the genres of science fiction, crime fiction, romance, etc., to create works of literature. Furthermore, the study of genre fiction has developed within academia in recent decades. Slipstream genre is sometimes located in between the genre and non-genre fictions ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated population of 635,640. Straddling the border between historic Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, the city now forms the Glasgow City Council area, one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, and is governed by Glasgow City Council. It is situated on the River Clyde in the country's West Central Lowlands. Glasgow has the largest economy in Scotland and the third-highest GDP per capita of any city in the UK. Glasgow's major cultural institutions – the Burrell Collection, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Scottish Ballet and Scottish Opera – enjoy international reputations. The city was the European Capital of Culture in 1990 and is notable for its architectur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birlinn (publisher)
Birlinn Limited is an independent publishing house based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was established in 1992 by managing director Hugh Andrew. Imprints Birlinn Limited is composed of a number of imprints, including: *Birlinn, which publishes Scottish interest books, from biography to history, military history and Scottish Gaelic. (Its name comes from the old Norse word , meaning a long boat or small galley with 12 to 18 oars, used especially in the Hebrides and West Highlands of Scotland in the Middle Ages.) *Polygon Books, which publishes literary fiction and poetry, both classic and modern, from Scottish writers such as Robin Jenkins, George Mackay Brown, and the author of '' The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency'', Alexander McCall Smith. It was founded in the late 1960s by students of the University of Edinburgh. * Mercat Press, founded in 1970 and acquired by Birlinn in 2007, which publishes walking and climbing guides. (''Mercat'' is the Scots language word for "market" or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Octavo
Octavo, a Latin word meaning "in eighth" or "for the eighth time", (abbreviated 8vo, 8º, or In-8) is a technical term describing the format of a book, which refers to the size of leaves produced from folding a full sheet of paper on which multiple pages of text were printed to form the individual sections (or ''gatherings'') of a book. An octavo is a book or pamphlet made up of one or more full sheets (e.g. of A2 paper) on which 16 pages of text were printed, which were then folded three times to produce eight leaves. Each leaf of an octavo book thus represents one eighth the size of the original sheet. Other common book formats are folios and quartos. ''Octavo'' is also used as a general description of the ''size'' of books that are about tall (almost A4 paper size), and as such does not necessarily indicate the actual printing format of the books, which may even be unknown as is the case for many modern books. These terms are discussed in greater detail in book sizes. F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Chancer
''A Chancer'' is a novel by the Scottish writer James Kelman published in 1985 by Polygon Books. This novel is the first to be written by Kelman, but it was published after ''The Busconductor Hines ''The Busconductor Hines'' is the first published novel of the Scottish writer James Kelman James Kelman (born 9 June 1946) is a Scottish novelist, short story writer, playwright and essayist. His novel '' A Disaffection'' was shortlisted for ...'' (1984). In a 2016 interview, Kelman said of ''A Chancer'': In that novel, there are no adverbs. There's only concrete. There wouldn't be anything with a value on it, unless it was said in dialogue. Because I tried to create a value-free novel.' He smiles, but there is a hint of resignedness when he says, 'That never gets picked up. References Novels by James Kelman Polygon Books books 1985 British novels {{1980s-novel-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Disaffection
''A Disaffection'' is a novel written by Scottish writer James Kelman, first published in 1989 by Secker and Warburg. Set in Glasgow, it is written in Scots using a stream-of-consciousness style, centring on a 29-year-old schoolteacher named Patrick Doyle. The novel won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1989, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 2012, ''A Disaffection'' was shortlisted for the Best of the James Tait Black The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Unit .... Plot synopsis The novel, written in a stream-of-consciousness style using the Glasgow dialect, concerns one week in the life of 29-year-old schoolteacher Patrick Doyle. Patrick is increasingly bitter about his entire life, despite feeling quite all right with the children he is coaching. He is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Existentialist Novels
Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and value of human existence, and the role of personal agency in transforming one's life. In the view of an existentialist, the individual's starting point is phenomenological, grounded in the immediate direct experience of life. Key concepts include " existential angst", a sense of dread, disorientation, confusion, or anxiety in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world, and also authenticity, courage, and human-heartedness. Existentialism is associated with several 19th- and 20th-century European philosophers who shared an emphasis on the human subject, despite often profound differences in thought. Among the earliest figures associated with existentialism are philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche and novelist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novels By James Kelman
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the historica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
