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  • Jeanne Eagels: A Life Revealed
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Tara Hanks

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

Tara Hanks

Category Archives: Books

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 →

2024: A Year in Music

26 Thursday Dec 2024

Posted by marina72 in Books, Lana Del Rey, Music, Non-Fiction

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2024, A Year in Music, Beth Gibbons, Blondie, Chris Stein, David Bowie, English Teacher, Françoise Hardy, Lana Del Rey, Lives Outgrown, Mary Weiss, Michael Kiwanuka, Quavo, Sade, Suzi Ronson, The Shangri-Las, This Could Be Texas, Young Lion

Continue reading →

Darryl F. Zanuck: The Gentleman Preferred Blondes

18 Thursday Jan 2024

Posted by marina72 in Books, Film, Marilyn Monroe, Music, Non-Fiction

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42nd Street, A Ticket to Tomahawk, Alice Faye, Bernard F. Dick, Betty Grable, Broadway, Carousel, Darryl F. Zanuck, Down Boy, Fred Karger, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, George Cukor, How to Be Very Very Popular, How to Marry a Millionaire, Howard Hawks, Irving Berlin, Jane Russell, Jayne Mansfield, June Haver, Ladies of the Chorus, Let's Make Love, Marilyn Monroe, Mitzi Gaynor, Musicals, Orson Welles, Richard Zanuck, River of No Return, Sheree North, Shirley Temple, Something's Got To Give, Sonja Henie, The Girl Can't Help It, The Jazz Singer, There's No Business Like Show Business, Twentieth Century Fox, Vivian Blaine, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter

Bernard F. Dick, a professor of English and communication at Fairleigh-Dickson University in New Jersey, has published many titles on the classical era of Hollywood film-making, covering a wide range of figures like producers Harry Cohn and Hal B. Wallis; directors Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Billy Wilder; actresses Claudette Colbert and Rosalind Russell; and the blacklisted Hollywood Ten. In his 2018 book, That Was Entertainment, Dick hailed the MGM musical as the genre’s ‘Gold Standard,’ reeling off a list of the studio’s all-time greats from The Wizard of Oz to Singin’ in the Rain. Continue reading →

2023: A Year in Film

02 Tuesday Jan 2024

Posted by marina72 in Art and Photography, Documentaries, Film, Non-Fiction, Updates

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A Year in Films and TV, Aftersun, Aki Kaurismäki, Alcarràs, Babak Jalali, Broker, Buck and the Preacher, Carla Simón, Catalonia, Charlotte Wells, China, David Leland, Davy Chou, Elisa Jordan, Fallen Leaves, Finland, Fremont, Fyzal Boulifa, Gina Gammell, Hirokazu Koreeda, Humphrey Bogart, Iran, Jim Jarmusch, Killers of the Flower Moon, Korea, Lauren Bacall, Léonor Seraille, Li Ruijun, Marilyn Monroe, Martin Scorsese, Morocco, Mother and Son, Paul Sng, Return to Dust, Return to Seoul, Richard Barrios, Riley Keough, Shirley Anne Field, Sidney Poitier, Spain, The Damned Don't Cry, The Last Stage, The Old Oak, Tish Murtha, Wanda Jakubowska, War Pony, William J. Mann, Wish You Were Here

Adapted from David Grann’s history of the Osage murders, Killers of the Flower Moon was – for me at least – the cinematic event of 2023. With authoritative performances from Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and a luminous Lily Gladstone, plus the painterly cinematography of Jack Fisk and a subtly insistent final score from the late Robbie Robertson, Killers channels the spirit of the first revisionist Westerns. While perhaps lacking the flash of this year’s Oscar rivals (Oppenheimer, Poor Things), this is a masterclass in neo-classical filmmaking from Martin Scorsese – and a tough-minded reckoning with America’s brutal origins. Continue reading →

2023: A Year in Books

31 Sunday Dec 2023

Posted by marina72 in Books, Fiction, History, Non-Fiction

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A Northern Wind, A Year in Books, Alba de Céspedes, Andy Warhol, Brigitte Reimann, Call and Response, Cold Nights of Childhood, David Kynaston, Emma Cline, Forbidden Notebook, George Orwell, Germany, Gothataone Moeng, Italy, Jean Stafford, Joaquina Ballard Howles, Julia, Kate Grenville, Last House Before the Mountain, Lauren Groff, Leïla Slimani, Megan Nolan, Monika Helfer, Nicole Flattery, No More Giants, Nothing Special, Ordinary Human Failings, Poland, Restless Dolly Maunder, Sandra Newman, Seventy Times Seven, Short Stories, Siblings, Susanna Moore, Tezer Özlü, The Fraud, The Guest, The Lost Wife, The Mountain Lion, The Peasants, The Vaster Wilds, True Crime, Turkey, Watch Us Dance, William Harrison Ainsworth, Władysław Reymont, Zadie Smith

Set in her beloved West London, Zadie Smith’s The Fraud focuses on two forgotten figures: William Harrison Ainsworth, once a bestselling author – and a doorway into literary celebrity, Victorian-style; and Andrew Bogle, a formerly enslaved Jamaican and chief witness in the trial of the Tichborne Claimant. Caught in the whirl of notoriety, their fates are tracked by a free-thinking widow whose acidic commentary tests the bounds of white liberalism. Continue reading →

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