![]() ![]() ![]() Milligan found himself classed as stateless, and took Irish citizenship, although he continued to live in England). With the establishment of the Irish Republic the British government rescinded the British passports given to children of Irish-born British citizens. Although the family returned to England in 1933 (after a brief spell in Burma), Spike retained the sensibility of an outsider, an iconoclast and a rebel. The legacy of British colonialism on Milligan should not be underestimated. As an Irishman Spike’s father, a captain in the Royal Artillery, was himself a colonial subject (all of Ireland being then under British rule). ![]() His first 16 years were spent under the waning days of British colonial rule in India. Terence Alan (‘Spike’) Milligan was born of an Irish father and English mother in India in 1918. Though virtually unknown across the Atlantic, contemporary performers as varied as Eddie Izzard and Robin Williams have acknowledged that his legacy not only influenced them, but also inspired their own development. His radio scripts for The Goon Show, his television series Q, his novels and war memoirs have been cited as an influence by practically every significant innovator in comedy over the last four decades. Spike Milligan, who died February 27 aged 83, was the single most important figure of post-war British comedy. ![]()
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![]() ![]() To decide the ranking, again, I tried to be impartial: I chose to consider the owned copies in LibraryThing, a cataloguing website that seems to be "serious" and of common use. I haven't read ALL the books, like you, I am trying to read as much as possible, but the list is impartial, meaning that if I didn't like a book, or I haven't read it yet, I nevertheless included it in the list. To enter the list I browsed all the LGBT publishers I found, considered all the specific awards and all the recommendation from friends. Books released in electronic format before January 1, 2000, and then in print after that date, I listed it. Some books went up, some went down, and there are many new entries.Īs usual some boring basic rules: the list considers only gay themed books released in print for the first time after January 1, 2000, so you can consider it a Top 100 List of the XXI century. Elisa_rolleIt's that time of the year again, when I update the Top Gay Books List. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The Game is the story of one man's transformation from frog to prince - to prisoner in the most unforgettable book of the year. And then things really start to get strange - and passions lead to betrayals lead to violence. ![]() On his journey from AFC (average frustrated chump) to PUA (pick-up artist) to PUG (pick-up guru), Strauss not only shares scores of original seduction techniques but also has unforgettable encounters with the likes of Tom Cruise, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Heidi Fleiss, and Courtney Love. The result is one of the most explosive and controversial books of the year - guaranteed to change the lives of men and transform the way women understand the opposite sex forever. And Neil Strauss, the bestselling author, spent two years living among them, using the pseudonym Style to protect his real-life identity. They live together in houses known as Projects. And in these lairs, men trade the most devastatingly effective techniques ever invented to charm women. Hidden somewhere, in nearly every major city in the world, is an underground seduction lair. ![]() ![]() ![]() However, until 15 October 1941, Jewish people were still in practice able to leave the Grand Duchy - and some 2,500 did so, fleeing for Vichy France. These antisemitic laws included making Jews wear badges with yellow stars and the word 'Jude'. During the first year of the Nazi occupation, the Germans introduced the Nuremberg Race Laws in Luxembourg as well, which were a series of racist and antisemitic laws stripping Jewish people of their rights. The Jewish population in Luxembourg was made up of Jews who had emigrated from eastern Europe as well as German Jews fleeing towards the Grand Duchy. What started as a population of 3,900 (figures vary between 3,500 and 3,900) Jews before the war quickly dwindled through deportations and many of those Jewish people fleeing towards Vichy France, but also being deported to concentration camps from France. ![]() The Luxembourgish people suffered in many ways under the occupation and the Grand Duchy was not immune to the persecution of the Jewish people. Knowledge Bites: Luxembourg's darkest day? ![]() From May 1940 to September 1944, the Nazi regime invaded the Grand Duchy and occupied the country, implementing policies like the Nuremberg Race Laws and banning speaking French. The Nazi occupation in Luxembourg remains entrenched in public memory. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Extensively covering the likes of Highgate, Brompton and Kensal Green to others such as Chadwell Heath and Woodgrange Park, historians Hugh Mellor and Brian Parsons meticuolously reveal the history and formation of each place of rest, as well as listing some of the notable people buried in each one. THE book to have for any cemetery fan or researcher if you’re looking at 19th century cemeteries. London Cemeteries: An Illustrated Guide and Gazetteer ![]() Please buy these fascinating books and support the writers/researchers! 1. This list is not exhaustive, but part of what I would consider to be a core reading for any budding researcher or enthusiast. I’ve put together a reading list of books that have helped me with my own research – be it people, graves or stories linked to burial places across the country. Looking into the history of cemeteries can be overwhelming – where to start, where to go, what to look for. ![]() ![]() ![]() She was a finalist in the Writers' Union of Canada's Short Prose Competition as well as the recipient of a grant from the Nova Scotia Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage. ![]() Her documentary, Daughter of Family G won an Excellence in Journalism Medallion at the 2003 Atlantic Journalism Awards. Her work has aired on Maritime Magazine, Outfront, This Morning and The Sunday Edition. ![]() She began her writing career as a freelancer for CBC Radio. McKay was born in Lebanon, Indiana, but now lives with her husband and two sons on the Bay of Fundy.
![]() ![]() In my review for Seveneves, I said that the book was “the result of a brilliant writer surrounded by editors unwilling or unable to tell him to stop, rewrite, condense, or anything else an editor is supposed to do with a book.” Further, and in summarising my feelings about the book, I wrote: I genuinely love Neal Stephenson books, but as he has gotten older, his books have gotten progressively longer, and my ability to stick with his particular Neal Stephenson-specific style of writing has gotten tricky. In that time I have read and reviewed dozens of other books – including another Neal Stephenson book, his 2015-published Seveneves, reviewed here. ![]() So, eight years after I first started reading Reamde, I have finally finished it. Unfortunately, within minutes of picking Reamde back up off the shelf, I realised that I had no memory of the first half of the book – only impressions of mayhem in a small Chinese city. ![]() In fact, a bookmark had been sitting close to halfway through the mammoth 1,000-page behemoth for nearly a decade. I was 30 pages into Neal Stephenson’s Fall, or Dodge in Hell when I came across the word “T’rain” and I remembered that a) this book was a sequel from Stephenson’s 2011 Reamde and b) I had never finished reading Reamde. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() I’m not a liar, exactly, but I do have a wild imagination. Then imagine it over and over again to make up for every book, movie, TV show, play, puppet show, PBS period miniseries, and interpretive dance you’ve experienced in your life that was sorely lacking in the ladies in love department. Imagine the sparks flying over a heated argument or a kind gesture, and then imagine those ladies deciding they should spend more time together and totally do it. Have you seen ladies? Have you seen ladies together? Cute ladies, chubby ladies, short ladies, tall ladies, medium ladies? Black, Brown, White, Asian and everything in between ladies? Ladies with freckles and slight lisps or gaps in their teeth? Now imagine those ladies just the way you like them, in the combo that suits your fancy just right, then imagine them meeting over a case of mistaken identity, or on a dating site, or at a job interview gone wrong, or at a horrible wedding that just will not end. Here are five reasons why you could never pry me away from my laptop and the stories I love to create. The process of crafting a novel and getting it through the publishing machine can be a grueling one, filled with so much take-out and so few showers, but at the end of the day. ![]() Over the last five years, I’ve dedicated my life to the written word-penning romance novels, to be exact. ![]() ![]() ![]() There’s nothing slavish, though, about Tartt’s allusions to Dickens. You can hear the great master in everything from the endlessly propulsive plot to the description of a minor character with a “cleft chin, doughball nose, tense slit of a mouth, all bunched tight in the center of a face which glowed a plump, inflamed, blood-pressure pink.” Indeed, Charles Dickens floats through these pages like Marley’s ghost. While the world has been transformed over the past decade, one of the most remarkable qualities of “The Goldfinch” is that it arrives singed with 9/11 terror but redolent of a 19th-century novel. Tartt’s many fans have waited with great expectations since her previous book, “The Little Friend,” was published in 2002. She places Fabritius’s tiny bird at the center of a capacious story that soars across the United States and around the planet, lighting on themes of beauty, family and destiny. But Tartt’s novel is no delicate study of a girl with a pearl earring. Though he was a celebrated student of Rembrandt, the Dutch painter was almost blasted into obscurity by a gunpowder explosion in 1654, a fatal accident that made his few extant paintings even rarer than Vermeer’s. ![]() Don’t worry if you can’t recall that name from a dark and somnolent art-history classroom. You’ll need lots of space for “The Goldfinch,” Donna Tartt’s giant new masterpiece about a small masterpiece by Carel Fabritius. Clear off the biggest wall in the gallery of novels about beloved paintings. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() If Adam got one of my cousins accused of murder, I wouldn’t be a fan either. “I was searching the gardens for you when I heard that idiot’s motorcycle.” He grimaced slightly. He’d watched me enter MII and leave my car in the parking lot. The traffic had been too heavy for him to tail me effectively anyway. I always checked to see if I was being followed. Even if it didn’t, I’d still know he was lying. My magic bounced up and down like a giddy toddler. It wasn’t a lie exactly, but it felt off to me. I saw you come out of the building and talk on the phone, then I followed you to Mercer.” Given their business ties, if the Pierces wanted to funnel money to Adam, using MII would’ve been a logical step. ![]() I thought you were delivering the cash to him. “You thought I was Adam’s groupie?” I’d be offended, but it was a waste of time. ![]() |