Sir Henry Rider Haggard was an English writer of adventure fiction romances set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a pioneer of the lost world literary genre. He was also involved in land reform throughout the British Empire. His stories, situated at the lighter end of Victorian literature and including the eighteen Allan Quatermain stories beginning with King Solomon's Mines, continue to be popular and influential.
The Virgin Suicides is a coming-of-age thriller novel and the debut novel by American writer Jeffrey Eugenides, published in 1993. The story, which is set in Grosse Pointe, Michigan during the 1970s, centers on the lives of five doomed sisters, the Lisbon girls. The novel is written in first person plural from the perspective of an anonymous group of teenage boys who struggle to find an explanation for the Lisbons' deaths. The novel's first chapter appeared in The Paris Review in 1990, and won the 1991 Aga Khan Prize for Fiction. The novel was adapted into a 1999 movie by director Sofia Coppola, starring Kirsten Dunst.
The Last Tycoon is an unfinished novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. In 1941, it was published posthumously under this title, as prepared by his friend Edmund Wilson, a critic and writer. According to Publishers Weekly, the novel is "generally considered a roman à clef", with its lead character, Monroe Stahr, modeled after film producer Irving Thalberg. The story follows Stahr's rise to power in Hollywood, and his conflicts with rival Pat Brady, a character based on MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer.
Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, was an English author of thrillers and psychological murder mysteries.
A magic carpet, also called a flying carpet, is a legendary carpet and common trope in fantasy fiction. It is typically used as a form of transportation and can quickly or instantaneously carry its user(s) to their destination.
The Phoenix and the Carpet is a fantasy novel for children, written by E. Nesbit and first published in 1904. It is the second in a trilogy of novels that begins with Five Children and It (1902), and follows the adventures of the same five children: Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane and the Lamb. Their mother buys the children a new carpet to replace one from the nursery that they have destroyed in an accidental fire. The children find an egg in the carpet, which hatches into a talking Phoenix. The Phoenix explains that the carpet is a magic one that will grant them three wishes a day. The five children go on many adventures, which eventually wear out their magic carpet. The adventures are continued and concluded in the third book of the trilogy, The Story of the Amulet (1906).
The Moorgate tube crash occurred on 28 February 1975 at 8:46 am on the London Underground's Northern City Line; 43 people died and 74 were injured after a train failed to stop at the line's southern terminus, Moorgate station, and crashed into its end wall. It is considered the worst peacetime accident on the London Underground. No fault was found with the train, and the inquiry by the Department of the Environment concluded that the accident was caused by the actions of Leslie Newson, the 56-year-old driver.
Atonement is a 2001 British metafictional novel written by Ian McEwan. Set in three time periods, 1935 England, Second World War England and France, and present-day England, it covers an upper-class girl's half-innocent mistake that ruins lives, her adulthood in the shadow of that mistake, and a reflection on the nature of writing.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an Indian-born American author, poet, and the Betty and Gene McDavid Professor of Writing at the University of Houston Creative Writing Program. Her short story collection, Arranged Marriage, won an American Book Award in 1996. Two of her novels, as well as a short story were adapted into films.
The Dark Portal is a dark fantasy novel for children by British author Robin Jarvis. The first book in The Deptford Mice trilogy and Jarvis's debut novel, it follows the story of Audrey Brown, a mouse girl who is looking for her missing father. Her search takes her into the sewers of Deptford where, with the help of her friends and family, she must face an army of evil rats and their living god, a mysterious being known as Jupiter.
Germaine Maurice Lindsay, also known as Abdullah Shaheed Jamal, was a British terrorist who acted as one of the four Islamist suicide bombers who detonated bombs on three trains on the London Underground and a bus in central London during the 7 July 2005 London bombings, killing 52 people plus themselves, and injuring more than 700. Lindsay detonated the bomb that killed himself and 26 other people on a train travelling on the Piccadilly line between King's Cross St Pancras and Russell Square tube stations.
The Metropolitan Railway E Class is a class of 0-4-4T steam locomotives. A total of seven locomotives were built between 1896 and 1901 for the Metropolitan Railway: three by the railway at their Neasden Works and four by Hawthorn Leslie and Company in Newcastle upon Tyne.
The Bartimaeus Sequence is a series of young adult novels of alternate history, fantasy and magic. It was written by British writer Jonathan Stroud and consists of a trilogy published from 2003 to 2005 and a prequel novel published in 2010. The story follows the career of a teenage magician Nathaniel and a five-thousand-year-old djinni Bartimaeus, whom he has summoned and nominally controls, through the alternative history of the peak of London's domination as a magical oligarchy.
A Tale of Two Cities is a historical novel published in 1859 by English author Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel tells the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris, and his release to live in London with his daughter Lucie whom he had never met. The story is set against the conditions that led up to the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror.
Lee Goldberg is an American author, screenwriter, publisher and producer known for his bestselling novels Lost Hills and True Fiction and his work on a wide variety of TV crime series, including Diagnosis: Murder, A Nero Wolfe Mystery, Hunter, Spenser: For Hire, Martial Law, She-Wolf of London, SeaQuest, 1-800-Missing, The Glades and Monk.
The Raven Cycle is a series of four contemporary fantasy novels written by American author Maggie Stiefvater. The first novel, The Raven Boys, was published by Scholastic in 2012, and the final book, The Raven King, was published on April 26, 2016.
Jessica Bell is an Australian singer-songwriter, author, writing and publishing coach, and graphic designer. She has published a memoir, five novels, three poetry collections, and her bestselling series Writing in a Nutshell. She has been featured in a variety of publications and ABC Radio National shows such as Writer's Digest, Publishers Weekly, The Music, Life Matters, and Poetica.
The West Ham station attack was a bombing and shooting attack at West Ham station in east London on 15 March 1976. A 5 lb (2.3 kg) bomb on a Metropolitan line train exploded prematurely in the front carriage of the train, injuring seven passengers. The bomb detonated prior to reaching the City of London, where it was thought the intended target was Liverpool Street station at rush hour. Adrian Vincent Donnelly, a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) member, then shot Post Office engineer Peter Chalk in the chest, and killed train driver Julius Stephen, who had attempted to catch him. Donnelly exited the station to the street and threatened people with his revolver before PC Raymond Kiff caught up with him. Shouting "You English bastards!", Donnelly shot himself in the chest, but he survived and was apprehended by Kiff.
If It Bleeds is a collection of four previously unpublished novellas by American writer Stephen King. The stories in the collection are titled "Mr. Harrigan's Phone", "The Life of Chuck", "If It Bleeds", and "Rat". It was released on April 28, 2020.
