Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel In Search of Lost Time, originally in French and published in seven volumes between 1913 and 1927. He is considered by critics and writers to be one of the most influential authors of the 20th century.
In Search of Lost Time, first translated into English as Remembrance of Things Past, and sometimes referred to in French as La Recherche, is a novel in seven volumes by French author Marcel Proust. This early 20th-century work is his most prominent, known both for its length and its theme of involuntary memory. The most famous example of this is the "episode of the madeleine", which occurs early in the first volume.
In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode or method that attempts "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind" of a narrator. The term was coined by Daniel Oliver in 1840 in First Lines of Physiology: Designed for the Use of Students of Medicine, when he wrote,
If we separate from this mingled and moving stream of consciousness, our sensations and volitions, which are constantly giving it a new direction, and suffer it to pursue its own spontaneous course, it will appear, upon examination, that this, instead of being wholly fortuitous and uncertain, is determined by certain fixed laws of thought, which are collectively termed the association of ideas.
Anthony Dymoke Powell was an English novelist best known for his 12-volume work A Dance to the Music of Time, published between 1951 and 1975. It is on the list of longest novels in English.
Joyce Carol Oates is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and non-fiction. Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000), and her short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize (2019).
A Dance to the Music of Time is a 12-volume roman-fleuve by English writer Anthony Powell, published between 1951 and 1975 to critical acclaim. The story is an often comic examination of movements and manners, power and passivity in English political, cultural and military life in the mid-20th century. The books were inspired by the painting of the same name by French artist Nicolas Poussin.
A fictional book is a text created specifically for a work in an imaginary narrative that is referred to, depicted, or excerpted in a story, book, film, or other fictional work, and which exists only in one or more fictional works. A fictional book may be created to add realism or depth to a larger fictional work. For example, George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four has excerpts from a book by Emmanuel Goldstein entitled The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism which provides background on concepts explored in the novel.
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is a series of novels by Alexander McCall Smith set in Botswana and featuring the character Mma Precious Ramotswe. The series is named after the first novel, published in 1998. Twenty-three novels have been published in the series between 1998 and 2022.
A book series is a sequence of books having certain characteristics in common that are formally identified together as a group. Book series can be organized in different ways, such as written by the same author, or marketed as a group by their publisher.
Martin Roger Seymour-Smith was a British poet, literary critic, and biographer.
The WH Smith Literary Award was an award founded in 1959 by British high street retailer W H Smith. Its founding aim was stated to be to "encourage and bring international esteem to authors of the British Commonwealth"; originally open to all residents of the UK, the Commonwealth and the Republic of Ireland, it latterly admitted foreign works in translation and works by US authors. The final three winners were Americans, and 2005 was the award's final year.
The Military Philosophers is the ninth of Anthony Powell's twelve-novel sequence A Dance to the Music of Time. First published in 1968, it covers the latter part of Nicholas Jenkins' service in World War II. It is the last in Powell's war trilogy, and Jenkins is assigned to a War Office Section with the Allies of World War II.
The Valley of Bones is the seventh novel in Anthony Powell's twelve-volume series A Dance to the Music of Time. Published in 1964, it is the first of the war trilogy.
Books Do Furnish a Room is a novel by Anthony Powell, the tenth in the twelve-novel sequence A Dance to the Music of Time. It was first published in 1971 and, like the other volumes, remains in print.
Kenneth Widmerpool is a fictional character in Anthony Powell's novel sequence A Dance to the Music of Time, a 12-volume account of upper-class and bohemian life in Britain between 1920 and 1970. Regarded by critics as one of the more memorable characters of 20th century fiction, Widmerpool is the antithesis of the sequence's narrator-hero Nicholas Jenkins. Initially presented as a comic, even pathetic figure, he becomes increasingly formidable, powerful and ultimately sinister as the novels progress. He is successful in business, in the army and in politics, and is awarded a life peerage. His only sphere of failure is his relationships with women, exemplified by his disastrous marriage to Pamela Flitton. The sequence ends with Widmerpool's downfall and death, in circumstances arising from his involvement with a New Age-type cult.
The Anthony Powell Society is an international literary society dedicated to the works of English novelist Anthony Powell. Membership is open to all interested in A Dance to the Music of Time and Powell's other works.
Agents and Patients is the fourth novel by the English writer Anthony Powell. It combines two of the aspects of 1930s life, film and psychoanalysis. In what Powell himself has acknowledged is a roman a clef of sorts, a comically critical eye is cast across entre deux guerres society and its often self-indulgent, usually unsatisfied quest for contentment.
George Baxt was an American screenwriter and author of crime fiction, best remembered for creating the gay black detective, Pharaoh Love. Four of his novels were finalists for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Mystery.
My Struggle is a series of six autobiographical novels written by Karl Ove Knausgård and published between 2009 and 2011. The books cover his private life and thoughts, and unleashed a media frenzy upon their release, with journalists attempting to track down the mentioned members of his family. The series has sold half a million copies in Norway alone and has been published in 35 languages.
