Crash is a novel by British author J. G. Ballard, first published in 1973 with cover designed by Bill Botten. It follows a group of car-crash fetishists who, inspired by the famous crashes of celebrities, become sexually aroused by staging and participating in car accidents.
The Kaddish, also transliterated as Qaddish, is a hymn praising God that is recited during Jewish prayer services. The central theme of the Kaddish is the magnification and sanctification of God's name. In the liturgy, different versions of the Kaddish are functionally chanted or sung as separators of the different sections of the service.
Zadie Smith is an English novelist, essayist, and short-story writer. Her debut novel, White Teeth (2000), immediately became a best-seller and won a number of awards. She became a tenured professor in the Creative Writing faculty of New York University in September 2010.
Bleak House is a novel by English author Charles Dickens, first published as a 20-episode serial between 12 March 1852 and 12 September 1853. The novel has many characters and several subplots, and is told partly by the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and partly by an omniscient narrator. At the centre of Bleak House is a long-running legal case in the Court of Chancery, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, which comes about because a testator has written several conflicting wills. In a preface to the 1853 first edition, Dickens said there were many actual precedents for his fictional case. One such was probably Thellusson v Woodford, in which a will read in 1797 was contested and not determined until 1859. Though many in the legal profession criticised Dickens's satire as exaggerated, Bleak House helped support a judicial reform movement that culminated in the enactment of legal reform in the 1870s.
The Line of Beauty is a 2004 Man Booker Prize-winning novel by Alan Hollinghurst.
White Teeth is British author Zadie Smith's debut novel, published in 2000. It focuses on the later lives of two wartime friends—the Bangladeshi Samad Iqbal and the Englishman Archie Jones—and their families in London. The novel centres on Britain's relationship with immigrants from the British Commonwealth.
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.
Bereavement in Judaism is a combination of minhag (traditions) and mitzvah (commandments) derived from the Torah and Judaism's classical rabbinic literature. The details of observance and practice vary according to each Jewish community.
Esther Freud is a British novelist, known for her autobiographical novel Hideous Kinky (1992). She is the daughter of the painter Lucian Freud.
"Prick Up Your Ears" is the sixth episode of the fifth season of Family Guy. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on November 19, 2006. In this episode, Lois discovers that Chris' school has removed the sex education program due to budget cuts and decides to bring the class back by becoming the teacher. She gets fired a short time later for teaching the students about safe sex rather than abstinence. Meanwhile, Stewie attempts to find and kill the Tooth Fairy after being told "horror" stories by Brian.
Children of Divorce is a 1927 American silent romantic drama film directed by Frank Lloyd and starring Clara Bow, Esther Ralston, and Gary Cooper. Adapted from the 1927 novel of the same name by Owen Johnson, and written by Louis D. Lighton, Hope Loring, Alfred Hustwick, and Adela Rogers St. Johns, the film is about a young flapper who tricks her wealthy friend into marrying her during a night of drunken revelry. Even though she knows that he is in love with another woman, she refuses to grant him a divorce and repeat the mistake of her divorced parents. Produced by Jesse L. Lasky, E. Lloyd Sheldon, and Adolph Zukor for the Famous Players–Lasky, the film was released on April 25, 1927 by Paramount Pictures.
On Beauty is a 2005 novel by British author Zadie Smith, loosely based on Howards End by E. M. Forster. The story follows the lives of a mixed-race British/American family living in the United States, addresses ethnic and cultural differences in both the USA and the UK, as well as the nature of beauty, and the clash between liberal and conservative academic values. It takes its title from an essay by Elaine Scarry—"On Beauty and Being Just". The Observer described the novel as a "transatlantic comic saga".
Elana Dykewomon was an American lesbian activist, author, editor, and teacher. She was a recipient of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction.
Alone on a Wide Wide Sea is a children's novel written by Michael Morpurgo, first published in 2006 by HarperCollins. It was partly inspired by the history of English orphans transported to Australia after World War II. The book's title is taken from a line in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The novel won the Rotherham Children's Book Award; the Independent Booksellers' Book of the Year for Children; and was short-listed for the Red House Children's Book Award for books for older readers. In 2017, the book was adapted into an audio play by Ian McMillan, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in four half-hour parts.
A Visit from the Goon Squad is a 2011 Pulitzer Prize-winning work of fiction by American author Jennifer Egan. The book is a set of thirteen interrelated stories with a large set of characters all connected to Bennie Salazar, a record company executive, and his assistant, Sasha. The book centers on the mostly self-destructive characters of different ages who, as they grow older, are sent in unforeseen, and sometimes unusual, directions by life. The stories shift back and forth in time from the 1970s to the present and into the near future. Many of the stories take place in and around New York City, although other settings include San Francisco, Italy, and Kenya.
Swimming Home is a novel by British writer Deborah Levy, published in 2011. The short novel deals with the experiences of poet Joe Jacobs, when his family vacation is interrupted by a fanatical reader.
White Teeth is a 2002 British four-part drama TV serial based on the 2000 novel of the same name written by Zadie Smith.
NW is a 2012 novel by British author Zadie Smith. It takes its title from the NW postcode area in North-West London, where the novel is set. The novel is experimental and follows four different characters living in London, shifting between first and third person, stream-of-consciousness, screenplay-style dialogue, and other narrative techniques in an attempt to reflect the polyphonic nature of contemporary urban life. It was nominated for the 2013 Women's Prize for Fiction.
Remainder is a 2005 novel by British author Tom McCarthy. It is McCarthy's third published work. It was first written in 2001, although not published until 2005. The novel was later re-printed by UK publishing house Alma Books; Vintage Books printed the book in the United States. The plot revolves around an unnamed narrator who has received a large financial settlement after an accident, and his obsession with recreating half-remembered events from his life before the incident.
Swing Time is a novel by British writer Zadie Smith, released in November 2016. The story takes place in London, New York and West Africa, and focuses on two girls who can tap dance, alluding to Smith's childhood love of tap dancing.
