The Booker Prize, formerly the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a prestigious literary award conferred each year for the best single work of sustained fiction written in the English language, which was published in the United Kingdom and/or Ireland. The winner of the Booker Prize receives £50,000, as well as international publicity that usually leads to a significant sales boost. When the prize was created, only novels written by Commonwealth, Irish, and South African citizens were eligible to receive the prize; in 2014, eligibility was widened to any English-language novel—a change that proved controversial.
The Church of England is the established Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the origin of the Anglican tradition, which combines features of both Reformed and Catholic Christian practices. Its adherents are called Anglicans.
Humanae vitae is an encyclical written by Pope Paul VI and dated 25 July 1968. The text was issued at a Vatican press conference on 29 July. Subtitled On the Regulation of Birth, it re-affirmed the teaching of the Catholic Church regarding married love, responsible parenthood, and the rejection of artificial contraception. In formulating his teaching he explained why he did not accept the conclusions of the Pontifical Commission on Birth Control established by his predecessor, Pope John XXIII, a commission he himself had expanded.
Sir Kingsley William Amis was an English novelist, poet, critic and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, short stories, radio and television scripts, and works of social and literary criticism. He is best known for satirical comedies such as Lucky Jim (1954), One Fat Englishman (1963), Ending Up (1974), Jake's Thing (1978) and The Old Devils (1986).
The sexual revolution, also known as the sexual liberation, was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the developed Western world from the 1960s to the 1970s. Sexual liberation included increased acceptance of sex outside of traditional heterosexual, monogamous relationships. The normalization of contraception and the pill, public nudity, pornography, premarital sex, homosexuality, masturbation, alternative forms of sexuality, and the legalization of abortion all followed.
Wimbledon is a district and town of south-west London, England, 7.0 miles (11.3 km) southwest of the centre of London at Charing Cross; it is the main commercial centre of the London Borough of Merton. Wimbledon had a population of 68,187 in 2011 which includes the electoral wards of Abbey, Wimbledon Town and Dundonald, Hillside, Wandle, Village, Raynes Park and Wimbledon Park.
Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder is a novel by the English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. It follows, from the 1920s to the early 1940s, the life and romances of Charles Ryder, especially his friendship with the Flytes, a family of wealthy English Catholics who live in a palatial mansion, Brideshead Castle. Ryder has relationships with two of the Flytes: Lord Sebastian and Lady Julia. The novel explores themes including Catholicism and nostalgia for the age of English aristocracy. A well-received television adaptation of the novel was produced in an 11-part miniseries by Granada Television in 1981. In 2008, it was adapted as a film.
Andrew M. Greeley was an American Catholic priest, sociologist, journalist and popular novelist. He was a professor of sociology at the University of Arizona and the University of Chicago, and a research associate with the National Opinion Research Center (NORC).
David John Lodge CBE FRSL is an English author and critic. A literature professor at the University of Birmingham until 1987, some of his novels satirise academic life, notably the "Campus Trilogy" – Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses (1975), Small World: An Academic Romance (1984) and Nice Work (1988). The second two were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Another theme is Roman Catholicism, beginning from his first published novel The Picturegoers (1960). Lodge has also written television screenplays and three stage plays. After retiring, he continued to publish literary criticism. His edition of Twentieth Century Literary Criticism (1972) includes essays on 20th-century writers such as T. S. Eliot. In 1992, he published The Art of Fiction, a collection of essays on literary techniques with illustrative examples from great authors, such as Point of View, The Stream of Consciousness and Interior Monologue, beginning with Beginning and ending with Ending.
The British Museum is Falling Down (1965) is a comic novel by British author David Lodge about a 25-year-old poverty-stricken student of English literature who, rather than work on his thesis in the reading room of the British Museum, is distracted time and again from his work and who gets into trouble instead.
The History Man is a campus novel by Malcolm Bradbury published in 1975. His best-known novel, it is a satire of academic life in the "glass and steel" universities, the ones established in the 1960s which followed the "redbricks". In 1981 the book was made into a successful BBC television serial.
Changing Places (1975) is the first "campus novel" by British novelist David Lodge. The subtitle is "A Tale of Two Campuses", and thus a literary allusion to Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. It is the first novel in a trilogy, followed by Small World (1984) and Nice Work (1988), in which several of the same characters reappear.
Small World: An Academic Romance (1984) is a campus novel by the British writer David Lodge. It is the second book of Lodge's "Campus Trilogy", after Changing Places (1975) and before Nice Work (1988).
Dame Jilly Cooper, is an English author. She began her career as a journalist and wrote numerous works of non-fiction before writing several romance novels, the first of which appeared in 1975. Cooper is most famous for writing the Rutshire Chronicles.
Earthly Powers is a panoramic saga novel of the 20th century by Anthony Burgess first published in 1980. It begins with the "outrageously provocative" first sentence: "It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me."
David Stephen Mitchell is an English novelist, television writer, and screenwriter.
Prior to the 20th century, the three major branches of Christianity—Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism —generally held a critical perspective of birth control. Among Christian denominations today, however, there is a large variety of views regarding birth control that range from the acceptance of birth control to only allowing natural family planning to teaching Quiverfull doctrine, which disallows contraception and holds that Christians should have large families.
The Catholic Church in Ireland or Irish Catholic Church, is part of the worldwide Catholic Church in communion with the Holy See. With 3.5 million members, it is the largest Christian church in Ireland. In the Republic of Ireland's 2022 census, 69% of the population identified as Roman Catholic. By contrast, 41% of people in Northern Ireland identified as Catholic at the 2011 census; it is expected that this proportion will increase in the coming years. The Archbishop of Armagh, as the Primate of All Ireland, has ceremonial precedence in the church. The church is administered on an all-Ireland basis. The Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference is a consultative body for ordinaries in Ireland.
Madeleine Clare J. Bunting is an English writer. She was formerly an associate editor and columnist at The Guardian newspaper. She has written five works of non-fiction and two novels. She is a regular broadcaster for the BBC. Her most recent series of essays for BBC Radio 3 was on the idea of Home, and broadcast in March 2020. Previous series of essays include 'Are You Paying Attention?' (2018) 'The Crisis of Care' (2016) and 'The Retreating Roar' (2014) on the loss of faith.
My Brother Jack is a classic 1964 Australian novel by writer George Johnston. It is part of a trilogy centering on the character of David Meredith. The other books in the trilogy are Clean Straw for Nothing and A Cartload of Clay. It is commonly studied for English literature subjects in Australia.
