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The Coma
''The Coma'' is a novel by Alex Garland, illustrated by his father, Nicholas Garland Nicholas Withycombe Garland OBE (born 1 September 1935) is a British political cartoonist. Early life Garland was born in Hampstead, London. His father was a doctor and his mother a sculptor. He was the second of six children: he had three brot .... It explores the boundary between the conscious and subconscious mind. ''The Coma'' was published in 2004, eight years after Garland's first novel, '' The Beach''. Plot summary While traveling home on an underground train, Carl is forced to defend a young girl from the harassment of a group of men. For his efforts, Carl is violently attacked and falls into a coma. When he awakes, he quickly discovers that his seemingly normal world is very peculiar. Critical reception Scott Tobias, writing for the A.V. Club, said, "''The Coma'' lacks the gravity of ideas, which leaves the narrative to drift along in the blinkered consciousness of a pot haze." Ti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alex Garland
Alexander Medawar Garland (born 26 May 1970) is an English writer and filmmaker. He rose to prominence as a novelist in the late 1990s with his novel '' The Beach'', which led some critics to call Garland a key voice of Generation X. He subsequently received praise for the screenplays of the films ''28 Days Later'' (2002), '' Sunshine'' (2007), both directed by Danny Boyle, '' Never Let Me Go'' (2010), and ''Dredd'' (2012). He co-wrote the video game '' Enslaved: Odyssey to the West'' (2010) and was a story supervisor on '' DmC: Devil May Cry'' (2013). In 2014, Garland made his directorial debut with '' Ex Machina'', a science fiction- thriller that explores the emergence of artificial general intelligence. The film earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay and won three British Independent Film awards for Best Screenplay, Best Director, and Best British Independent Film. His second film, ''Annihilation'' (2018), based on the 2014 novel by Jeff Vande ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8th and 9th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faber & Faber
Faber and Faber Limited, usually abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, Margaret Storey, William Golding, Samuel Beckett, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon, Milan Kundera, and Kazuo Ishiguro. Founded in 1929, in 2006 the company was named the KPMG Publisher of the Year. Faber and Faber Inc., formerly the American branch of the London company, was sold in 1998 to the Holtzbrinck company Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG). Faber and Faber ended the partnership with FSG in 2015 and began distributing its books directly in the United States. History Faber and Faber began as a firm in 1929, but originates in the Scientific Press, owned by Sir Maurice and Lady Gwyer. The Scientific Press derived much of its income from the weekly magazine ''The Nursing Mirror.'' The Gwyers' desire to expand into trade publishing led them to Geoffrey Fab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riverhead Books
Riverhead Books is an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) founded in 1994 by Susan Petersen Kennedy. Writers published by Riverhead include Ali Sethi, Marlon James (novelist), Marlon James, Junot Díaz, George Saunders, Khaled Hosseini, Nick Hornby, Anne Lamott, Carlo Rovelli, Randall Munroe, Patricia Lockwood, Sarah Vowell, the 14th Dalai Lama, Dalai Lama, Chang-rae Lee, Meg Wolitzer, Dinaw Mengestu, Daniel Alarcón, Daniel H. Pink, Steven Johnson (author), Steven Johnson, Jon Ronson, Ellen Burstyn, Elizabeth Gilbert, James McBride (writer), James McBride, Jing Tsu and C Pam Zhang. Authors published by Riverhead won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hardcover
A hardcover, hard cover, or hardback (also known as hardbound, and sometimes as case-bound) book is one bound with rigid protective covers (typically of binder's board or heavy paperboard covered with buckram or other cloth, heavy paper, or occasionally leather). It has a flexible, sewn spine which allows the book to lie flat on a surface when opened. Modern hardcovers may have the pages glued onto the spine in much the same way as paperbacks. Following the ISBN sequence numbers, books of this type may be identified by the abbreviation Hbk. Hardcover books are often printed on acid-free paper, and they are much more durable than paperbacks, which have flexible, easily damaged paper covers. Hardcover books are marginally more costly to manufacture. Hardcovers are frequently protected by artistic dust jackets, but a "jacketless" alternative has increased in popularity: these "paper-over-board" or "jacketless" hardcover bindings forgo the dust jacket in favor of printing the cove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paperback
A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with adhesive, glue rather than stitch (textile arts), stitches or Staple (fastener), staples. In contrast, hardcover (hardback) books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth, leather, paper, or plastic. Inexpensive books bound in paper have existed since at least the 19th century in such forms as pamphlets, yellow-backs, yellowbacks, dime novels, and airport novels. Modern paperbacks can be differentiated from one another by size. In the United States, there are "mass-market paperbacks" and larger, more durable "trade paperbacks". In the United Kingdom, there are A-format, B-format, and the largest C-format sizes. Paperback editions of books are issued when a publisher decides to release a book in a low-cost format. Lower-quality paper, glued (rather than stapled or sewn) bindings, and the lack of a hard cover may contribute to the lower cost of paperbacks. Paperb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicholas Garland
Nicholas Withycombe Garland OBE (born 1 September 1935) is a British political cartoonist. Early life Garland was born in Hampstead, London. His father was a doctor and his mother a sculptor. He was the second of six children: he had three brothers and two sisters and two half-sisters. The family emigrated to New Zealand in 1946–7. He attended Rongotai College in Wellington. Theatrical and directorial career On leaving school, Garland joined the New Zealand Players (as a spear carrier and ASM), the only professional theatre company in New Zealand at the time, under the directorship of Richard Campion. In 1954 he returned to London to attend the Slade School of Art. After leaving the Slade, he went back into the theatre and joined Guildford Repertory Theatre Company as a stage manager. In 1958 he moved to the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, London, where he worked for the next three years. Subsequently he worked as a director, at Cheltenham Repertory Company and els ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was published on Saturday 26 March 2016, leaving only the online edition. The newspaper was controlled by Tony O'Reilly's Irish Independent News & Media from 1997 until it was sold to the Russian oligarch and former KGB Officer Alexander Lebedev in 2010. In 2017, Sultan Muhammad Abuljadayel bought a 30% stake in it. The daily edition was named National Newspaper of the Year at the 2004 British Press Awards. The website and mobile app had a combined monthly reach of 19,826,000 in 2021. History 1986 to 1990 Launched in 1986, the first issue of ''The Independent'' was published on 7 October in broadsheet format.Dennis Griffiths (ed.) ''The Encyclopedia of the British Press, 1422–1992'', London & Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992, p. 330 It was produc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Beach (novel)
''The Beach'' is a 1996 novel by English author Alex Garland. Set in Thailand, it is the story of a young backpacker's search for a legendary, idyllic and isolated beach untouched by tourism, and his time there in its small, international community of backpackers. In 2000, it was adapted into a film directed by Danny Boyle and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Virginie Ledoyen and Guillaume Canet. In 2003, the novel was listed on the BBC's survey The Big Read. Plot summary Richard, a British backpacker meets a mentally disturbed Scot going by the alias of Daffy Duck at a hotel in Bangkok. Daffy tells Richard about a beautiful island with a hidden lagoon and beach, located in the Gulf of Thailand, where he settled years prior. The beach is inaccessible to tourists and can only be located by a map, which Daffy leaves for Richard. Shortly thereafter, Richard discovers that Daffy has died by suicide. Wanting company in his search, Richard befriends a travelling French couple, Étie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alex Cornish
Alex Cornish is an Edinburgh-based singer-songwriter. He was educated at The Harvey Grammar School, Folkestone. His debut album, ''Until the Traffic Stops'', was released in 2008 on Bellevue Records and was co-produced by Stuart Wilson. Later in 2008, the album was remixed with much of it re-recorded, this time with Cornish working on his own. The album re-released at the end of April 2009. Cornish wrote, sang and performed all the tracks on the album, in his home studio in Edinburgh. with Simon Berriman (drums) and Bevis Hungate (piano) contributing. They also form part of Cornish's live band. Cornish has been played on BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2, BBC 6 Music and XFM Scotland. He was the '' Sunday Times 'hottest download of the week'. One of his tracks, "I'm on the Right Side" was used as the play out track to the film ''Solstice''. Cornish spent 2009 touring and supported Alison Moyet throughout November and December 2009. His second album ''Call Back'' was released on 27 Sep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simulated Reality
The simulation theory is the hypothesis that reality could be simulated—for example by quantum computer simulation—to a degree indistinguishable from "true" reality. It could contain conscious minds that may or may not know that they live inside a simulation. This is quite different from the current, technologically achievable concept of virtual reality, which is easily distinguished from the experience of actuality. Simulated reality, by contrast, would be hard or impossible to separate from "true" reality. There has been much debate over this topic, ranging from philosophical discourse to practical applications in computing. Arguments Simulation argument A version of the simulation hypothesis was first theorized as a part of a philosophical argument on the part of René Descartes, and later by Hans Moravec. The philosopher Nick Bostrom developed an expanded argument examining the probability of our reality being a simulation. His argument states that at least one of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
