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P.B. Kerr
Philip Ballantyne Kerr (22 February 1956 – 23 March 2018) was a British author, best known for his Bernie Gunther series of historical detective thrillers. Early life Kerr was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, where his father was an engineer and his mother worked as a secretary. He was educated at a grammar school in Northampton. He studied at the University of Birmingham from 1974 to 1980, gaining a master's degree in law and philosophy. Kerr worked as an advertising copywriter for Saatchi & Saatchi before becoming a full-time writer in 1989. In a 2012 interview, Kerr noted that he began his literary career at the age of twelve by writing pornographic stories and lending them to classmates for a fee. Career A writer of both adult fiction and non-fiction, he is known for the Bernhard "Bernie" Gunther series of 14 historical thrillers set in Germany and elsewhere during the 1930s, the Second World War and the Cold War. He also wrote children's books under the name P. B. K ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PEN American Center
PEN America (formerly PEN American Center), founded in 1922 and headquartered in New York City, is a nonprofit organization that works to defend and celebrate free expression in the United States and worldwide through the advancement of literature and human rights. PEN America is the largest of the more than 100 PEN centers worldwide that together compose PEN International. PEN America has offices in New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. PEN America's advocacy includes work on press freedom and the safety of journalists, campus free speech, online harassment, artistic freedom, and support to regions of the world with challenges to freedom of expression. PEN America also campaigns for individual writers and journalists who have been imprisoned or come under threat for their work and annually presents the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award. PEN America hosts public programming and events on literature and human rights, including the PEN World Voices Festival of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Granta
''Granta'' is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real." In 2007, ''The Observer'' stated: "In its blend of memoirs and photojournalism, and in its championing of contemporary realist fiction, ''Granta'' has its face pressed firmly against the window, determined to witness the world." Granta has published twenty-seven laureates of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Literature published by Granta regularly win prizes such as the Forward Prize, T. S. Eliot Prize, Pushcart Prize and more. History ''Granta'' was founded in 1889 by students at Cambridge University as ''The Granta'', edited by R. C. Lehmann (who later became a major contributor to ''Punch''). It was started as a periodical featuring student politics, badinage and literary efforts. The title was taken from the medieval name f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gridiron (novel)
''Gridiron'' is a science fiction novel written by British author Philip Kerr. It is a story about a highly technical building (nicknamed The Gridiron), which becomes self-aware and tries to kill everyone inside, confusing real life with a video game. Plot summary Ray Richardson and his top team of architects have developed a super-smart building for Yue-Kong Yu's business, the Yu Corporation. It is very much self-standing. It can clean itself, uses holograms as greeters in the reception, controls the lifts, toilets, and offices, and digitizes everyone's voice on entry, to allow them to use voice activated services in the building such as lifts and doors. The whole system was given the name Abraham. Another key feature of Abraham was its ability to replicate itself, to adapt to modern office needs and objectives. This, however becomes a problem, when, before office work even starts in the Gridiron, Abraham start creating a new program named Isaac. This is deleted by computer pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Philosophical Investigation
''A Philosophical Investigation'' is a 1992 techno-thriller by Philip Kerr. Plot summary In a near-future, a British neuroscientist named Professor Burgess Phelan has discovered a portion of the brain, the VMN, that is typically twice the size in men as it is in women. In certain men, however (approximately 1 in 100,000), it is the same size as a woman's, and that abnormality is an exceptionally accurate indicator of violent sociopathy. Professor Phelan developed an imaging device called L.O.M.B.R.O.S.O. (Localisation of Modullar Brain Resonations Obliging Social Orthopraxy) used to help diagnose men with the VMN deficiency. In the interests of public safety, the Lombroso institute is set up to test all the men in Britain. Males are enticed with ad campaigns to submit for testing; those who are VMN-negative are given confidential treatment, including counselling and drugs, and assigned a code name out of the Penguin book of Great Thinkers (''e.g.'', Shakespeare, Plato, etc.). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry Turtledove
Harry Norman Turtledove (born June 14, 1949) is an American author who is best known for his work in the genres of alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction, and mystery fiction. He is a student of history and completed his PhD in Byzantine history. His dissertation was on the period AD 565–582. He lives in Southern California. In addition to his birth name, Turtledove writes under a number of pen names: Eric Iverson, H. N. Turteltaub, Dan Chernenko, and Mark Gordian. He began publishing novels in the realm of fantasy starting in 1979 and continues to publish to the current day; his latest being '' Or Even Eagle Flew'' (2021) about Amelia Earhart and WWII. Early life Turtledove was born in Los Angeles, California, on June 14, 1949 and grew up in Gardena in Southern California. His paternal grandparents, who were Romanian Jews, had first emigrated to Winnipeg, Manitoba, before they moved to California in the United States. He was educated in local pu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
If The Dead Rise Not
''If the Dead Rise Not'' is a crime novel by Philip Kerr, the sixth in the series starring Berlin police detective Bernhard Gunther. It was published in 2009 by Quercus of London. For it, in 2009 Kerr was awarded the world's most lucrative crime fiction prize, the RBA Prize for Crime Writing, worth €125,000. Synopsis The book continues Gunther’s story from his escape from Germany to Argentina recounted in ''A Quiet Flame'' (2008). It again places him in the position of working for unsavoury characters under dictatorial governments. In this case some of them are not Nazis but Jewish gangsters, which introduces the ethical paradox that he is obliged to report a Jew to the Gestapo. As usual, Gunther is torn between his noble feelings and the cynicism induced by his struggle to survive. Kerr also repeats his trademark of including mention of real-life people in this case Ernest Hemingway. The book reminds readers of the support the Nazis had in other countries, notably from Aver ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A German Requiem (novel)
''A German Requiem'' is a 1991 historical detective novel and the last in the Berlin Noir trilogy of Bernhard Gunther novels written by Philip Kerr. Plot After spending the latter part of World War II in a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp, 1947 sees Bernhard Gunther now married to a wife who is trading sex with U.S. Army officers for scarce goods. Berlin and Vienna were captured by the Red Army, so Germans, former Nazis, Allied occupiers, and Gunther have the Russians to contend with. An old colleague from Gunther's days in Berlin, a dirty cop, war criminal, and smuggler named Emil Becker, has been accused and jailed in Vienna for the killing of an American officer called Linden. A high-ranking MVD officer named Poroshin, who claims to be a friend of Becker, tries to recruit Gunther to investigate the case and get Becker exonerated in exchange for a large fee. According to Poroshin, after acting as a secret Vienna-Berlin courier for a certain König, Becker was framed for the murde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Pale Criminal
''The Pale Criminal'' is a historical detective novel and the second in the Berlin Noir trilogy of Bernhard Gunther novels written by Philip Kerr. Plot Set in 1938, two years after the events of March Violets, Bernhard (Bernie) Gunther has taken Bruno Stahlecker, another ex-police officer, as his partner. The two are working on a case where a Frau Lange, owner of a large publishing house, is being blackmailed for the homosexual love letters her son Reinhardt sent to his psychotherapist Dr. Kindermann. Gunther and Stahlecker discover the blackmailer to be Klaus Hering, a disgruntled employee of Kindermann. Bruno is killed during a stakeout at Hering's apartment, and shortly thereafter Hering is found hanging in the apartment. Around that time, Gunther is summoned to the Gestapo offices by Arthur Nebe and there Reinhard Heydrich forces Gunther to look for a serial sex murderer, who is killing blond and blue-eyed teenage girls in Berlin and making fools of the police. Gunther has n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
March Violets
''March Violets'' is a historical detective novel and the first written by Philip Kerr featuring detective Bernhard "Bernie" Gunther. ''March Violets'' is the first of the trilogy by Kerr called ''Berlin Noir''. The second, '' The Pale Criminal'', appeared in 1990 and the third, '' A German Requiem'' in 1991. Plot Bernhard Gunther, a 38-year-old Berlin ex-cop turned private investigator, is hired in the summer of 1936 by rich industrialist Hermann Six to recover a diamond necklace stolen from his daughter Grete's house. As part of the robbery, it appears both his daughter and her husband, Paul Pfarr, were murdered and the house was torched. Through various informants, Gunther discovers that Paul Pfarr was an SS officer and at odds with his father-in-law Six, and was working to eradicate corruption in the government administration under orders from SS and Gestapo leader Heinrich Himmler. He also uncovers a link between Six's private secretary Hjalmar Haupthändler and Kurt J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bladder Cancer
Bladder cancer is any of several types of cancer arising from the tissues of the urinary bladder. Symptoms include blood in the urine, pain with urination, and low back pain. It is caused when epithelial cells that line the bladder become malignant. Risk factors for bladder cancer include smoking, family history, prior radiation therapy, frequent bladder infections, and exposure to certain chemicals. The most common type is transitional cell carcinoma. Other types include squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma. Diagnosis is typically by cystoscopy with tissue biopsies. Staging of the cancer is determined by transurethral resection and medical imaging. Treatment depends on the stage of the cancer. It may include some combination of surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, or immunotherapy. Surgical options may include transurethral resection, partial or complete removal of the bladder, or urinary diversion. The typical five-year survival rates in the Unite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Scott Prize
The Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction is a British literary award founded in 2010.Walter Scott Prize , bordersbookfestival.org. Retrieved April 2012. At £25,000, it is one of the largest literary awards in the UK. The award was created by the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, whose ancestors were closely linked to Scottish author , who is generally considered the originator of historical fiction with the novel '''' in 1814. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
