The Comic Turn in Contemporary English Fiction explores the importance of comedy in contemporary literature and culture. In an era largely defined by a mood of crisis, bleakness, cruelty, melancholia, environmental catastrophe and collapse, Huw Marsh argues that contemporary fiction is as likely to treat these subjects comically as it is to treat them gravely, and that the recognition and proper analysis of this humour opens up new ways to think about literature. Structured around readings of authors including Martin Amis, Nicola Barker, Julian Barnes, Jonathan Coe, Howard Jacobson, Magnus Mills and Zadie Smith, this book suggests not only that much of the most interesting contemporary writing is funny and that there is a comic tendency in contemporary fiction, but also that this humour, this comic licence, allows writers of contemporary fiction to do peculiar and interesting things – things that are funny in the sense of odd or strange and that may in turn inspire a funny turn in readers. Marsh offers a series of original critical and theoretical frameworks for discussing questions of literary genre, style, affect and politics, demonstrating that comedy is an often neglected mode that plays a generative role in much of the most interesting contemporary writing, creating sites of rich political, stylistic, cognitive and ethical contestation whose analysis offers a new perspective on the present.
Nicola Barker's exuberant novels here receive the scholarly attention they deserve in a collection of essays which moves chronologically through her oeuvre. The chapters are broad-ranging, placing Barker's work in its contemporary context and collectively making a convincing case for her importance as one of our most inventive novelists. Contents Foreword Nicola Barker The Barkeresque Mode: An Introduction Berthold Schoene Indie Style: Reversed Forecast and a Turn-of-the-Century Aesthetic Ben Masters 'Temporary People': Wide Open as an Island Narrative Daniel Marc Janes 'You grew up in this shithole, then?': Literary Geographics and the Thames Gateway Series Len Platt 'The Pair of Opposites Paradox': Ambivalence, Destabilization and Resistance in Five Miles from Outer Hope Ginette Carpenter 'Woah there a moment. Time out!': Slowing Down in Clear: A Transparent Novel Beccy Kennedy Beneath the Thin Veneer of the Modern: Medievalism in Darkmans Christopher Vardy Burley Cross Postbox Theft as Comedy Huw Marsh 'Tuning into My "Awareness Continuum"': Optimized Attention in The Yips Alice Bennett Exuberant Narration as Metaphysical Currency in In the Approaches Berthold Schoene The Pursuit of Happiness in H(A)PPY, or What a Difference an (A) Makes Eleanor Byrne Notes on Contributors Index
The Comic Turn in Contemporary English Fiction explores the importance of comedy in contemporary literature and culture. In an era largely defined by a mood of crisis, bleakness, cruelty, melancholia, environmental catastrophe and collapse, Huw Marsh argues that contemporary fiction is as likely to treat these subjects comically as it is to treat them gravely, and that the recognition and proper analysis of this humour opens up new ways to think about literature. Structured around readings of authors including Martin Amis, Nicola Barker, Julian Barnes, Jonathan Coe, Howard Jacobson, Magnus Mills and Zadie Smith, this book suggests not only that much of the most interesting contemporary writing is funny and that there is a comic tendency in contemporary fiction, but also that this humour, this comic licence, allows writers of contemporary fiction to do peculiar and interesting things – things that are funny in the sense of odd or strange and that may in turn inspire a funny turn in readers. Marsh offers a series of original critical and theoretical frameworks for discussing questions of literary genre, style, affect and politics, demonstrating that comedy is an often neglected mode that plays a generative role in much of the most interesting contemporary writing, creating sites of rich political, stylistic, cognitive and ethical contestation whose analysis offers a new perspective on the present.
The Ashes away series is without doubt the toughest test of an English cricketer’s career. From the ageing team of the first post-war tour, landing at Fremantle after three weeks at sea in a Ministry of War transport carrier, to the ‘whitewash’ of 2006-7, when England fell like rabbits caught in Shane Warne’s headlights, Australian soil has played host to some of English cricket’s most gruelling nadirs – but also some of its most glorious and infamous highs. In this unique oral history, drawn from dozens of original interviews with the surviving tourists, the Telegraph’s Huw Turbervill chronicles sixty years of England down under, recreating the greatest moments of every tour since the end of the Second World War through the words of the players who witnessed them and who made them happen. Whether reliving, with Alec Bedser, England’s dismay at Don Bradman’s shock reprieve on 28 in the first Test at Brisbane in 1946 (he went on to 187); wincing with Frank ‘Typhoon’ Tyson as he describes the moment he was bowled to the ground, unconscious, at the second Test in Sydney in 1954 – only to exact a furious and victorious revenge; or rejoicing with John Emburey and Chris Broad as England confound their critics to prove they really can bat, bowl and field, during the first Test upset of 1986, The Toughest Tour is a constantly entertaining, often heartfelt and sometimes shamelessly partisan account of six decades and sixteen tours of cricket’s most compelling rivalry.
Commercial exploitation of attributes of an individual's personality, such as name, voice and likeness, forms a mainstay of modern advertising and marketing. Such indicia also represent an important aspect of an individual's dignity which is often offended by unauthorized commercial appropriation. This volume provides a framework for analysing the disparate aspects of the problem of commercial appropriation of personality and traces, in detail, the discrete patterns of development in the major common law systems. It also considers whether a coherent justification for a remedy may be identified from a range of competing theories. The considerable variation in substantive legal protection reflects more fundamental differences in the law's responsiveness to commercial practices and different attitudes towards the proper scope and limits of intangible property rights.
First Published in 2000. Over the last 30 years, growth in the popularity and provision of books for children has been remarkable. The quality and inventiveness of children's authors and illustrators have led some to think of the picture book as a new art form. This book is a celebration of some of this work and it concentrates on the potential that picture books have for the teaching and learning of literacy. The aim of this book is to encourage colleagues to take a closer look at some of their favourite picture books and to see how they can be used as a starting point for enjoyable and challenging literacy work in primary classrooms. Believing that teachers do not need to rely on schemes to structure their English curriculum and with this in mind this book includes 24 popular titles that have been identified in terms of their potential for delivering exciting text-, sentence- and word-level work. Written to be used as a resource, and anticipate that many readers will be most interested the commentaries on the picture books (contained in Chapters 3- 7) and the accompanying photocopiable activity sheets.
(Piano Instruction). From Duke Ellington, to Chick Corea, Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson and many others, take a look at the genesis of jazz piano. This book with audio provides solo transcriptions in standard notation, lessons on how to play them, biographies, instrument information, photos, history, and more. The accompanying audio contains full-band demo tracks and accompaniment-only tracks for every piano solo in the book. Songs include: All of You * Caravan * Freddie Freeloader * Have You Met Miss Jones? * I Fall in Love Too Easily * If I Were a Bell * In Walked Bud * Night and Day * Slings & Arrows * West Coast Blues * and more.
Variegated Neoliberalism provides comparative analyses of global and European banking communities, and economic research centres, in the UK, France, and Germany. It explains the current neoliberal order in global finance, and the realms of possibility for challenges to it.
The trade in books has always been and remains an ambiguous commercial activity, associated as it is with literature and the exchange of ideas. This collection is concerned with the cultural and economic roles of independent bookstores, and it considers how eight shops founded during the modernist era provided distinctive spaces of literary production that exceeded and yet never escaped their commercial functions. As the contributors show, these booksellers were essential institutional players in literary networks. When the eight shops examined first opened their doors, their relevance to literary and commercial life was taken for granted. In our current context of box stores, online shopping, and ebooks, we no longer encounter the book as we did as recently as twenty years ago. By contributing to our understanding of bookshops as unique social spaces on the thresholds of commerce and culture, this volume helps to lay the groundwork for comprehending how our relationship to books and literature has been and will be affected by the physical changes to the reading experience taking place in the twenty-first century.
Written by a group of the UK's leading Sociologists, this book covers in one volume all of the themes central to an understanding of contemporary British Society. Essays provide an historical overview of such topics as class, gender, work, ethnicity and community but also make a theoretical and substantive contribution to current debates.
Britain's answer to Marilyn Monroe". This tag was to hang around Diana Dors' neck during the 1950s. As Diana would often point out she had been working professionally a lot longer than Monroe. Her first appearance was in 1946 in The Shop at Sly Corner, while still a student at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Diana, like Marilyn, was blonde, curvy and sexy, but that's where the comparison ended. Her range as an actress encompassed everything from comedy to Greek tragedy. She was a real person – a quality that endeared her to the public, but above all, she was a survivor. Diana was also a talented writer compiling two autobiographies of herself, as well as her three A - Z books. Diana had a prolific career covering every facet of the entertainment industry - theatre, cabaret, film and TV. Passport to Fame is a comprehensive study of Diana's work across her 40 years of filmmaking. The book is also an invaluable source of reference to the film-buff interested in the changing face of the film industry.
No one personified the age of industry more than the miners. The Shadow of the Mine tells the story of King Coal in its heyday – and what happened to mining communities after the last pits closed. The Shadow of the Mine tells the story of King Coal in its heyday, the heroics and betrayals of the Miners’ Strike, and what happened to mining communities after the last pits closed. No one personified the age of industry more than the miners. Coal was central to the British economy, powering its factories and railways. It carried political weight, too. In the eighties the miners risked everything in a year-long strike against Thatcher’s shutdowns. Their defeat doomed a way of life. The lingering sense of abandonment in former mining communities would be difficult to overstate. Yet recent electoral politics has revolved around the coalfield constituencies in Labour’s Red Wall. Huw Beynon and Ray Hudson draw on decades of research to chronicle these momentous changes through the words of the people who lived through them. This edition includes a new postscript on why Thatcher’s war on the miners wasn’t good for green politics. ‘Excellent’ NEW STATESMAN ‘Brilliant’ TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT ‘Enlightening’ GUARDIAN
The protection of privacy and personality is one of the most fascinating issues confronting any legal system. This book provides a detailed comparative analysis of the laws relating to commercial exploitation of personality in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. It examines the difficulties in reconciling privacy and personality with intellectual property rights in an individual's identity and in balancing such rights with the competing interests of freedom of expression and freedom of competition. This analysis will be useful for lawyers in legal systems which have yet to develop a sophisticated level of protection for interests in personality. Equally, lawyers in systems which provide a higher level of protection will benefit from the comparative insights into determining the nature and scope of intellectual property rights in personality, particularly questions relating to assignment, licensing, and post-mortem protection.
This is a companion to the highly successful GP Quiz Book 1. It enables interactive learning and rapid identification of new areas of knowledge. Questions and answers on a range of disease management topics are covered with material sourced from the British Medical Journal and the British Journal of General Practice. The practical application of research findings and advisory statements is unique in presenting both fact and authoritative opinion. The book includes questions model answers and references for each question for those who wish to study that topic in more detail. It can stimulate discussion for individuals or those in a group setting. Students and all professionals working in healthcare will find it essential reading and reference.
Illustrated with a wide range of case studies drawn from all parts of the world, POPULATION GEOGRAPHY clearly depicts the cause-and-effect links between demographic change and the socio-economic transformation of societies. Providing timely information in a clear and accessible style, the text is an ideal classroom text for instructors who are introducing their students to the topic of population geography.
Eat homegrown food all year round and save money on your weekly shop by following a simple plan for self-sufficiency. Huw Richards and Sam Cooper have spent the past two years planning and trialing their self-sufficiency garden in a 10x13m plot, and now they've worked out the perfect formula. Grow six portions of nutritious veg a day per person following their month-by-month growing plan, which is realistic and flexible with cost, space, and time in mind. Follow this carefully curated year-round growing plan to yield six portions of veg per person per day, plus batching and preserving recipes! Whether you are looking for cost-effective ways to put food on the table and feed your family, a fan of Huw’s YouTube videos and would like to try out the recipes for yourself or a gardener who would like some guidance on how to grow your own food, this book will be great for you. With this gardening book, you will be able to: -Learn about Huw's self-sufficiency ethos, goals, and approaches to growing food -Create your garden and learn how to build all the growing spaces you will need, such as hotbeds and polytunnels -Follow month-by-month planting plans with guidance on key tasks throughout the year and different seasons -Perfect your growing skills with sowing, weeding, watering, and composting. -Discover useful kitchen tips for meal prep, storage, and preserving ideas along with base recipes so you can make the most of your crops. -Find recipes for delicious dishes including soup, curry, tray bakes and salads + dressings Follow Huw Richards and SamCooper’s tried-and-tested methods and save money while enjoying homegrown food all year. If you are interested in learning more or want more books by Huw Richards, check out these titles: Veg in One Bed, Grow Food For Free, and The Vegetable Grower's Handbook.
Nicola Barker's exuberant novels here receive the scholarly attention they deserve in a collection of essays which moves chronologically through her oeuvre. The chapters are broad-ranging, placing Barker's work in its contemporary context and collectively making a convincing case for her importance as one of our most inventive novelists. Contents Foreword Nicola Barker The Barkeresque Mode: An Introduction Berthold Schoene Indie Style: Reversed Forecast and a Turn-of-the-Century Aesthetic Ben Masters 'Temporary People': Wide Open as an Island Narrative Daniel Marc Janes 'You grew up in this shithole, then?': Literary Geographics and the Thames Gateway Series Len Platt 'The Pair of Opposites Paradox': Ambivalence, Destabilization and Resistance in Five Miles from Outer Hope Ginette Carpenter 'Woah there a moment. Time out!': Slowing Down in Clear: A Transparent Novel Beccy Kennedy Beneath the Thin Veneer of the Modern: Medievalism in Darkmans Christopher Vardy Burley Cross Postbox Theft as Comedy Huw Marsh 'Tuning into My "Awareness Continuum"': Optimized Attention in The Yips Alice Bennett Exuberant Narration as Metaphysical Currency in In the Approaches Berthold Schoene The Pursuit of Happiness in H(A)PPY, or What a Difference an (A) Makes Eleanor Byrne Notes on Contributors Index
It was the era of the New Romantics, Blitz Kids and Gender Benders. From the UK club scene came the likes of Boy George and Steve Strange. Fashion went wild with pirate shirts, kilts, glitter and makeup. Huw Collingbourne was there - a writer for '80s music magazines such as Number One, Kicks and Flexipop!, he interviewed all the stars of the day. In neon 80s, many of those interviews are printed for the first time in decades. Whether you were there at the time or only know the period through its music, neon 80s gives you a unique flavour of that luminous decade... neon 80s Includes original interviews with: Steve Strange, Marilyn, Divine, Pete Burns, Boy George, Spandau Ballet, Depeche Mode, Limahl, Midge Ure, David Sylvian of Japan, Adam Ant, Toyah, Modern Romance, Matt Bianco, Heaven 17, Duran Duran, ABC, The Thompson Twins, Kim Wilde. Plus new articles about the styles, fashions, musical trends and memorable events of the 1980s...
‘Hawksmoor has redefined the steakhouse. It’s brought great food, an amazing vibe and great cocktails together all under one roof to make it one of the best restaurants, not just in London, but in all of Britain.’ Gordon Ramsay From inauspicious beginnings, Hawksmoor has become a restaurant institution. Both the company and the restaurants have won numerous awards, and the distinctly British food, revolving around charcoal-grilled steaks and seafood, has made Hawksmoor amongst the busiest restaurants in the country. Now with seven restaurants, including a dedicated cocktail bar, Hawksmoor brings you Restaurants & Recipes, an essential read for anyone interested in the realities of restaurants, revealing the trials and tribulations faced along the way, as well as the people, places and plates that have made it so successful. From refined, tweaked and perfected Hawksmoor favourites like Mac ’n’ Cheese to the Steak Slice that caused a social media storm, and from a light and elegant Lobster Slaw to big carnivorous sharing feasts, this book will make you look at the classics anew and fall in love with a whole new collection of dishes for the first time. Bringing together recipes from all the Hawksmoor restaurants, and with insights like how to cook the titans of steaks like the Tomahawk, and the intricate cocktail spec sheets used by the bar staff, Hawksmoor: Restaurants & Recipes is the ultimate bible for booze and beefy perfection – an immaculately researched, sometimes irreverent look into Hawksmoor’s obsessions and inspirations.
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