Published:
4:11 PM January 29, 2021
Dog tags presented to the late Hampstead costume designer Patrick Wheatley for his work on the film Saving Private Ryan went under the hammer at Dawsons this week
- Credit: Dawsons Auctions
Costume designs by Cecil Beaton and Yves Saint Laurent went under the hammer this week alongside film memorabilia including a script with the working title Indiana Jones and the Temple of Death .
A script with the working title Indiana Jones and the Temple of Death
- Credit: Dawsons Auctions
They were all owned by the late Hampstead film and stage costume designer Patrick Wheatley who died last year. Dawsons Auctions, based in Heath Street close to Mr Wheatley s former home, auctioned some items from his estate this week with more set to feature in February s online sale.
Move over, Agatha Christie – meet the new whodunit royalty
The Queen of Crime is an inspiration for several of today’s bestselling authors, from their super-lux settings to their locked-room plots
House party: the cast of the 2015 Christie TV adaptation, And Then There Were None
Since Agatha Christie published her first book a century ago, her crime fiction has never been out of fashion with readers – and yet her fellow writers haven’t always been so keen. In fact, those authors in the second half of the 20th century who aimed to bring depth of characterisation and moral focus to the crime novel queued up to denigrate her. To PD James, she was “such a bad writer”; Ruth Rendell said that “when I read one of her books, I don’t feel as though I have a piece of fiction worthy of the name in front of me.”
For Comfort Reading, Susan Minot Turns to Comic Writers
Credit.Jillian Tamaki
Published Jan. 14, 2021Updated March 1, 2021
“Being funny is not only hard but perhaps the most powerful thing of all,” says the author, whose latest book is “Why I Don’t Write: And Other Stories.”
What books are on your night stand?
That would be sprawled on the floor. “Elvis and Gladys,” by Elaine Dundy; “Three of a Kind,” novellas by James M. Cain; “The Paintings of Charles Burchfield”; “The Lost Pianos of Siberia,” by Sophy Roberts; “Abroad: British Literary Traveling Between the Wars,” by Paul Fussell; “100 Years of the Best American Short Stories,” edited by Lorrie Moore and Heidi Pitlor; “The Hat on the Bed,” stories by John O’Hara; “An Alphabet for Gourmets,” by M.F.K. Fisher; “Light Thickens,” by Ngaio Marsh; “Marilyn: Norma Jean,” by Gloria Steinem. I am not at my usual bedside because of the pandemic, but permanently there are the essays of
HE S now celebrated around the world for his books but there was a time when Ian Rankin was a local thug in a teenage gang in Cardenden. But the award-winning author, who grew up in the village and is best known for his Inspector Rebus crime thrillers, said it was all a front to hide his real interests and when it came to fights with the rival Young Lochgelly Mental, he d be at home writing about it instead. Ian, who turned 60 this year, was in conversation with Giles Paley-Phillips and Jim Daly on the Blank podcast and talked about everything from stealing school jotters and electric shocks to comic books and gold-plated pinball machines.
Carlisle-born crime novelist Mike Craven has just published the third book in his series featuring detective Washington Poe, who visitors will soon be following on a murder mystery tour of Cumbria. Evidence of Mike Craven’s growing popularity? Readers who ask him for selfies in Sainsbury’s. People who name their cats after the characters in his crime novels. The tour of Cumbria which features the locations used in those novels. And soaring sales figures, in Cumbria and far beyond. Mike’s books have been translated into 20 languages. His twice-weekly trips from home in Belle Vue to Cranstons, at Orton Grange, see Mike, 52, recognised even while wearing a face mask. “One of the butchers said ‘you’ve got a lot to answer for!’ I thought I’d been caught stealing sausages! He said his mother-in-law is a massive fan.