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Tara Hanks

~ Author of 'The Mmm Girl' and 'Wicked Baby'

Tara Hanks

Category Archives: Art and Photography

2025: A Year in Books

15 Sunday Feb 2026

Posted by marina72 in Art and Photography, Books, Fiction, Non-Fiction

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2025, A Year in Books, Alba de Céspedes, Allegra Goodman, Andrew Miller, Another Man in the Street, Barbara Windsor, British Blonde, Carol White, Caroline Fraser, Caryl Phillips, Celia Dale, Crime Fiction, Crooked Cross, Daniel Kehlmann, Darryl W. Bullock, Diana Dors, Emma Donoghue, Eric Tucker, Ethel Carnie Holdsworth, G.W. Pabst, Gabriele Tergit, Germany, Havoc, Isola, Italy, Joe Meek, Julie Christie, Louise Brooks, Love and Fury, Lynda Nead, Murderland, Noah Eaton, Other People, Pauline Boty, Rebecca Wait, Rickard Sisters, Ruth Ellis, Saint of the Narrows Street, Sally Carson, Shadow Ticket, The Director, The Effingers, The Harrow, The Land in Winter, The Paris Express, The Secret Painter, There's No Turning Back, This Slavery, Thomas Pynchon, William Boyle

I read Thomas Pynchon’s first novel, The Crying of Lot 49, for my American Literature module at university – and like most of the books I studied back then, I haven’t returned to it in thirty years. But after seeing Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice, I started thinking maybe Pynchon wasn’t just another of those great white males I generally avoid like the plague. And that I might even enjoy reading one of his books, if the same kind of mayhem conjured on the screen could also be found within its pages.

In what has been a good year for fiction (if not our lived experience), Shadow Ticket was my most anticipated read of 2025. Continue reading →

Angels of Pop: Marilyn and Rosalyn Drexler

30 Tuesday Sep 2025

Posted by marina72 in Art and Photography, Marilyn Monroe

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Arthur Miller, Clark Gable, Connecticut, Cornell Capa, Homage to Marilyn Monroe, Ira Slade, Kermit Miller, Mara Scherbatoff, Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Pursued by Death, New York, Paris Match, Pop Art, Rosalyn Drexler, Roxbury, Sidney Janis Gallery, Something's Got To Give, The Misfits

Rosalyn Drexler, a pioneer of the Pop Art movement – and one of the first women to paint Marilyn Monroe – has died aged 98. Continue reading →

Hollywood or Bust: Remembering June Wilkinson

14 Sunday Sep 2025

Posted by marina72 in Art and Photography, Film, Periodicals

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Blonde Bombshell, Eastbourne, Elvis Presley, Francis Ford Coppola, John Cassavetes, June Wilkinson, Mamie Van Doren, Marilyn Monroe, Playboy, Russ Meyer, Seven Arts Productions, Sex Symbols, Sexploitation

June Wilkinson, who has died aged 85, was a British-born showgirl who became a popular Playboy model and B-movie starlet after crossing the Atlantic in 1958. One of the most curvaceous blonde bombshells, June fought to prove herself as more than just another pin-up – and in an echo of Marilyn Monroe’s romance with Joe DiMaggio, she also married (and divorced) a famous athlete. During a lengthy, unconventional career, she reinvented herself as a stage diva, cable TV broadcaster, and fitness guru.
Continue reading →

2024: A Year in Books

03 Friday Jan 2025

Posted by marina72 in Art and Photography, Books, Fiction, History, Non-Fiction

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2024, A Year in Books, Alex Grant, Amy Helen Bell, Avril Horner, Barbara Comyns, Bastard Out of Carolina, Bristol, Brooklyn, Carol Ann Lee, Civil War, Cold War, Colm Toibin, Dorothy Allison, Dust Bowl, Edna O'Brien, Eilis Lacey, Gayl Jones, Highland Clearances, Huckleberry Finn, Ingrid Persaud, Iris Jamahl Dunkle, Irish Literature, James, Jayne Ann Phillips, John Steinbeck, John Vassall, Kate Summerscale, Kevin Barry, Lancashire Witches, London, Long Island, Marc Kristal, Mark Twain, Mrs Gulliver, Native American Literature, Night Watch, Novella, Paula Spencer, Pauline Boty, Pendle Witches, Percival Everett, Pop Art, Profumo Affair, Pulitzer Prize, Reginald Christie, Rillington Place, Roddy Doyle, Sam Selvon, Sanora Babb, Scotland, Short Stories, Slavery, Sunjeev Sahota, Tessa Hadley, The Country Girls, The Heart in Winter, The Lost Love Songs of Boysie Singh, The Party, The Peepshow, The Spoiled Heart, The Unicorn Woman, The Women Behind the Door, Toni Morrison, Trinidad, True Crime, Under Cover of Darkness, Valerie Martin, Ways of Sunlight, Western, Windrush, Witchcraft, World War II

Marilyn Monroe reads Walt Whitman (Photo by John Florea)

For me, 2024 was a nebulous year when literary favourites returned but the best novels came from unexpected quarters. It was perhaps a stronger year for non-fiction, particularly when exploring the lives of creative women. Continue reading →

Pauline Boty’s Epitaph to Marilyn Sold at Christie’s

22 Friday Mar 2024

Posted by marina72 in Art and Photography, Documentaries, Marilyn Monroe

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Ali Smith, Christie’s, Epitaph to Something’s Gotta Give, Marilyn Monroe, Market Harborough, Pauline Boty, Pop Art

Epitaph to Something’s Gotta Give – a 1962 painting by British pop artist Pauline Boty – was sold for £1,310,500 at Christie’s in London this week. It was one of three works inspired by Marilyn Monroe, whose influence I’ve discussed here – and the highest price reached for the late artist’s work to date. Continue reading →

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