Showing results by narrator "Mark Rice-Oxley" in All Categories

An essay by Edward Lucie-Smith considers the Andy Warhol exhibition re-opening at Tate Modern on July 27. He puts forward a provocative view of the relevance of the art in an time of turbulent disruption. When the Warhol show returns to Tate Modern on July 27, almost the first thing you’ll meet if you go to see it will be a large painting, on two paired canvases, entitled Marilyn Diptych. It features repeated images the film star Marilyn Monroe.

This audio study guide for Paradise Lost by John Milton includes detailed summary and analysis of each chapter and an in-depth exploration of the book’s multiple symbols, motifs, and themes such as individual freedom and self-determination, the paradox of the pursuit of knowledge, and having the humility to ask for forgiveness. Featured content also includes commentary on major characters, 25 important quotes, essay questions, and discussion topics.

Derek Cooper is a retro gamer. His small flat is full to the brim with consoles, game cartridges, hulking great tube TVs, retro merchandise, and every handheld gaming device you can think of, and then some. They make him happy, so why not? When he decides his collection could do with an addition in the form of a real-life, full-size, good old-fashioned arcade cabinet, he can't possibly know what adventures lie ahead of him after he drags the heavy monolith out of a cellar in Watford to his flat and then painstakingly rebuilds the dud electronics, bringing it back to life.

While Rachel has stayed away from the Antique Shop and concentrated on her business, Peter has spent a lot of time there, making short trips to the past and cataloguing the things that have taken him there. What neither of them realize is that their activities are being watched, and when an estate agent contacts Rachel, wanting to negotiate a sale of the Antique Shop for a wealthy client, she is concerned that he won't take no for an answer. She is right; David Mills is very persistent, as he can see no good reason why Rachel won't sell.

Richard Thomas Gallienne was born in Liverpool on 20th January, 1866. His first job was in an accountant's office, but this was quickly abandoned to pursue his first love as a professional writer. His first work, My Ladies’ Sonnets, was published in 1887. In 1889 he became, for a brief time, literary secretary to Wilson Barrett the manager, actor, and playwright. Barrett enjoyed immense success with the staging of melodramas, which would later reach a peak with the historical tragedy The Sign of the Cross (1895).

This audio study guide for Great Expectations by Charles Dickens includes detailed summary and analysis of each chapter and an in-depth exploration of the book’s multiple symbols, motifs, and themes such as class as a learned social performance and the morality of ambition. Featured content also includes commentary on major characters, 25 important quotes, essay questions, and discussion topics.

Joseph Conrad was born on 3rd December 1857 in Berdychiv in the Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. His birthplace had been part of Poland which its neighbours dismembered into their own Empires. Conrad brought to English Literature both narrative mastery, compelling prose and fully formed characters as well as a deeper examination of the human psyche in a wealth of work. He wrote many novels, short stories, nonfiction, and memoirs which are rightly regarded today as some of the finest in English literature. Jospeh Conrad died on the 3rd August 1924 at Bishopsbourne, Kent in England.

SuperSummary, a modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, offers high-quality instructional study guides for challenging works of literature. This audio study guide for Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare includes detailed summary and analysis of each chapter and an in-depth exploration of the book’s multiple symbols, motifs, and themes such as the beauty and danger of love, dreams and illusions, and rivalry and feud. Featured content also includes commentary on major characters, 25 important quotes, essay questions, and discussion topics.

Stefan Zweig was born on the 28th November 1881 in Vienna, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and into a wealthy Jewish family with interests in banking and textiles. Zweig first published in 1900 and two decades later was a popular and highly regarded author in many parts of the world, although not in England. He was also the librettist with Richard Strauss of two operas and a keen collector of autographed musical manuscripts. His collection of over two hundred pieces was later donated to the British Library.

Móric Jókay de Ásva was born on the 18th February 1825 in Komárom, then in the Kingdom of Hungary but now part of Slovakia. Due to his timid and delicate constitution he was educated at home until the age of 10 and then sent away to complete his studies at the Calvinist college at Pápa. He found a career in law to be dull and, encouraged by the positive reaction to his first play, he moved to Pest in 1845. There he published, first in a newspaper, and then as a novel ‘Hétköznapok’ (‘Working Days’). It was acclaimed as a masterpiece.

There is something about the number 3. The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two. Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore themes and literary avenues that classic authors were so adept at creating.

Sometimes we want to be a little scared when we hear a story. Our nerves to tingle, the hair on our necks to gradually stand up. We can suspend our own reality for a while as authors lay out their wares of anxiety, worry, tension, and then increase the levels one by one until we are gripped by forces that make us afraid. It’s a real feeling. In this volume story after story assault our senses with mere words, with thoughts and descriptions that twist and deceive, with outcomes that we dread and shudder at the thought of.

Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller was born on 10th November 1759, in Marbach, Württemberg, the sole son of six children, into a very religious family. Although primarily admired for his plays Schiller also wrote histories, poetry and some notable translations. In his short story ‘The Criminal from Lost Honour’ the layers of a man’s life are examined as perhaps only Schiller and his literary genius can.

Our ‘fight of flight’ response is something hardwired into the primitive part of our brain. Our need to survive, to outlive whatever danger poses, that immediate threat to our lives is little short of a marvel. Everything else is abandoned in order to survive. Whilst in modern times that ability has been somewhat modified and ‘reasoned’ away to an extent, in past years it’s what usually kept you alive. In this volume people struggle valiantly to survive and to exist no matter the extent of the threat they face.

After returning from their last trip into the past, Peter continued his investigation of all the things that were in the mysterious back room. He found that new things appeared on a regular basis, but what he found this time was very unlikely. It was a cap from the uniform of the Confederate Army. It was in the back room, but when he tried to take it outside, it took him nowhere.

There is something about the number 3. The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two. Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore themes and literary avenues that classic authors were so adept at creating.

With Simms locked away in a mind prison, after his attempt to hijack the Vehni ship in orbit, Elliot, Mei, and Dimitri embark on a new mission: a trip to Earth. Thanks to a groundbreaking Vehni medical process, humans from Mars can now withstand the harsh gravity of Earth without feeling like they are being crushed. When the three friends are framed for a UFO attack and thrown into a web of age-old extraterrestrial secrets, they must fight for their survival—and the fate of Earth.

Franz Kafka was born on 3rd July 1883 in Prague, then in Bohemia, the eldest of 6, into a middle-class Jewish family. Life for the young Kafka and his passion for literature was often made an ordeal by his over-bearing and domineering entrepreneur of a father. His literary works are few in number but towering in influence. His masterpieces include ‘The Trial’, ‘The Metamorphosis’ as well as a number of short stories which reveal facets of humankind that truthfully could only be born from Kafka’s brain and pen.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. In the vast Empire of the Russians literature was a way to exchange ideas, values and cultures. Yet each author, each story, each character is an individual example of a journey that, story by story, has transformed the glimmering arc of its literature.

When Peter Attwood discovers a most unlikely find on an archaeological dig in Egypt, he knows the Antique Shop is up to something, and this time, he feels a deep dread. Yes, he has been searching for the tomb of Cleopatra, and yes, he would love to be the one to find it, but is the Antique Shop really going to send him back to see the queen, the last Pharaoh of Egypt? Could the shop be that helpful? Experience told him it was unlikely. When he gets home to London, he finds that, as usual, the shop will not let him rest until he knows what it has in mind.