The Big Sleep (1939) is a hardboiled crime novel by American-British writer Raymond Chandler, the first to feature the detective Philip Marlowe. It has been adapted for film twice, in 1946 and again in 1978. The story is set in Los Angeles.
Francis Parkman Jr. was an American historian, best known as author of The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life and his monumental seven-volume France and England in North America. These works are still valued as historical sources and as literature. He was also a leading horticulturist, briefly a professor of horticulture at Harvard University and author of several books on the topic. Parkman wrote essays opposed to legal voting for women that continued to circulate long after his death. Parkman was a trustee of the Boston Athenæum from 1858 until his death in 1893.
Charles Ellsworth "Pee Wee" Russell was an American jazz musician. Early in his career he played clarinet and saxophones, but he eventually focused solely on clarinet.
James Ramon Jones was an American novelist known for his explorations of World War II and its aftermath. He won the 1952 National Book Award for his first published novel, From Here to Eternity, which was adapted for the big screen immediately and made into a television series a generation later.
Chasing Vermeer is a 2004 children's art mystery novel written by Blue Balliett and illustrated by Brett Helquist. Set in Hyde Park, Chicago near the University of Chicago, the novel follows two children, Calder Pillay and Petra Andalee. After a famous Johannes Vermeer painting, A Lady Writing, is stolen en route to the Art Institute of Chicago, Calder and Petra work together to try to recover it. The thief publishes many advertisements in the newspaper, explaining that he will give the painting back if the community can discover which paintings under Vermeer's name were really painted by him. This causes Petra, Calder, and the rest of Hyde Park to examine art more closely. Themes of art, chance, coincidence, deception, and problem-solving are apparent.
Return to Peyton Place is a 1959 novel by Grace Metalious, a sequel to her best-selling 1956 novel Peyton Place.
Robert Leo Hackett was a versatile American jazz musician who played Swing music, Dixieland jazz and Mood music, now called Easy Listening, on trumpet, cornet, and guitar. He played Swing with the bands of Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman in the late 1930s and early 1940s, he played Dixieland music from the 1930s into the 1970s in a variety of groups with many of the major figures in the field, and he was a featured soloist on the first ten of the numerous Jackie Gleason mood music albums during the 1950s.
Edward Clark Haskell is a fictional character on the American television sitcom Leave It to Beaver, which ran on CBS from October 4, 1957, to 1958 and on ABC from 1958 to 1963. He was played by Ken Osmond. The character was also featured in the later series Still the Beaver, and in the film remake of the original series.
Sky Masters of the Space Force was an American syndicated newspaper comic strip created on September 8, 1958, by writer/penciler Jack Kirby and writer Dave Wood, featuring the adventures of an American astronaut. The strip stars the titular Major Skylar Masters—an American astronaut—and features his adventures in a fictionalized Space Race, including rocket launches, space stations, Moon landings, and double agents.
The Wright 3 is a 2006 children's mystery novel written by Blue Balliett and illustrated by Brett Helquist. It was released in April 1, 2006, and is the sequel to Balliett's 2004 children's novel Chasing Vermeer. It chronicles how Calder, Petra, and Tommy strive to save the Robie House in their neighborhood, Hyde Park, Chicago. The underlying plot elements include 3-D pentominoes, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, the Robie House Fibonacci numbers, The Invisible Man, and mysterious occurrences.
Wally Lamb is an American author known as the writer of the novels She's Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True, both of which were selected for Oprah's Book Club. He was the director of the Writing Center at Norwich Free Academy in Norwich from 1989 to 1998 and has taught Creative Writing in the English Department at the University of Connecticut.
Sidney "Big Sid" Catlett was an American jazz drummer. Catlett was one of the most versatile drummers of his era, adapting with the changing music scene as bebop emerged.
The Tap Dance Kid is a musical based on the novel Nobody's Family is Going to Change by Louise Fitzhugh. It was written by Charles Blackwell with music by Henry Krieger and lyrics by Robert Lorick.
Agnes Newton Keith was an American writer best known for her three autobiographical accounts of life in North Borneo before, during, and after World War II. The second of these, Three Came Home, tells of her time in Japanese prisoner-of-war camp and civilian internee camp in North Borneo and Sarawak, and was made into a film of the same name in 1950. She published seven books in all.
The Man in the Net is a 1959 American drama film starring Alan Ladd and Carolyn Jones, and directed by Michael Curtiz. The supporting cast features Diane Brewster.
Day of the Outlaw is a 1959 American western film starring Robert Ryan, Burl Ives, and Tina Louise. It was directed by Andre de Toth; this was de Toth's final Western feature film.
The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window is the second and last staged play by playwright Lorraine Hansberry, author of A Raisin in the Sun. The play focuses on events that occur after Sidney hangs a political sign urging the end to bossism in the window of his Greenwich Village apartment. Chaos ensues in his marriage and personal relationships and raises questions about Bohemian culture, Judaism, race, suicide, homosexuality, political corruption, interracial love, and prostitution.
Telegraph Avenue is a novel by Michael Chabon, published on September 11, 2012. An extensive excerpt from the enhanced e-book edition was released online on July 25, 2012. The novel's setting is North Oakland and Berkeley, California. The title refers to Telegraph Avenue, which runs through both cities.
Some Came Running is a 1958 American drama film directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Shirley MacLaine, based on the 1957 novel of the same name by James Jones. Set in 1948, it tells the story of a troubled Army veteran and author who returns to his Midwestern home town after 16 years, to the chagrin of his wealthy, social-climbing brother.
Catherine Woolley known also by the pen name Jane Thayer, was an American children's writer. She is known best for the book The Puppy Who Wanted a Boy, which became the basis of a 1978 animated television special. The special eventually went on to spin-off three sequel specials and a 1980s Saturday Morning cartoon series, The Puppy's Further Adventures. Thayer wrote 86 books for children, many of which have become classics. She was so prolific that her editor suggested she publish some of her works under a pen name. Thus, Woolley authored picture books under the name Jane Thayer, her grandmother's name, while writing books for older children and adults under her real name.
