When on screen, she is usually played by Maggie Smith. For bonus points, there is often a cameo appearance by royalty, and invariably a dowager lurks somewhere, dispensing bons mots with aplomb. Well-bred, beautiful women will be entangled with equally well-bred but badly behaved men, whose caddish streak betokens either a heart of gold or scarcely contained psychosis, but all will be well with the family estate and the heir apparent by the story’s conclusion. From Brideshead Revisited to Downton Abbey, via any number of books, films and TV dramas, we all know the constituent parts of the story. Th e continued existence of the English aristocracy is owed, in large part, to the persistent fascination that those lower down the social spectrum have with them. Lady in Waiting, by Anne Glenconner, Hodder & Stoughton, £20
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We have more sexy, brooding dukes then you will know what to do with (or will you.?), plus a lot of rakes and rogues too-all of whom will ultimately fulfill your every need first, listen to you and validate you (while shirtless!). Our list includes books set in Regency- and Victorian-era England plus, for good measure, Gilded Age New York. Do not be discouraged! Fellow romance reader Kate Fais (and YA Librarian) and I have got you covered. Go ahead and put your name on the lists for all the Bridgerton books you want but, in the meantime, Kate and I have put together a list of books you can enjoy and indulge in while you wait. If you’ve watched the Bridgerton series on Netflix and then gone to NYPL's catalog to look for all the other books in the series by Julia Quinn, you may have noticed something-HOLDS. In addition to animation, Miyazaki also draws manga. In particular, Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke received the Japan Academy Award for Best Film and was the highest-grossing (about US$150 million) domestic film in Japan's history until it was taken over by another Miyazaki work, Spirited Away. All of these films enjoyed critical and box office successes. The success of the film led to the establishment of a new animation studio, Studio Ghibli, at which Miyazaki has since written, directed, and produced many other films with Takahata. In 1984, he released Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind, based on the manga (comic) of the same title which he had started two years before. In 1978, he directed his first TV series, Conan, The Boy in Future, then moved to Tokyo Movie Shinsha in 1979 to direct his first movie, the classic Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro. In 1971, he moved to A Pro with Isao Takahata, then to Nippon Animation in 1973, where he was heavily involved in the World Masterpiece Theater TV animation series for the next five years. From the beginning, he commanded attention with his incredible ability to draw, and the seemingly-endless stream of movie ideas he proposed. He started his career in 1963 as an animator at the studio Toei Douga, and was subsequently involved in many early classics of Japanese animation. Hayao Miyazaki was born in Tokyo on January 5, 1941. Although Wonderland is billed by Waterstones as: “addressing issues of mental health, gender and privilege” this is a radically sanitised description, and we found the book to be every bit as inappropriate as our parent said – as affirmed by the good women of this Mumsnet thread. Having some cursory knowledge of this book, we had our ex-English teacher reviewer read it so that you – and your kids – do not have to. However, both Waterstones and Amazon UK label this book as suitable for 12+. Key Stage Four varies from school to school and covers the age range for GCSEs. The school librarian recommends the book for Key Stage Four readers. Yet according to Wikipedia, Dawson is the author of 22 books not the hallmark of marginalisation. The rationale offered by the school for stocking such books was that the authors come from marginalised groups. One of our parents discovered that Juno Dawson’s book Wonderland is stocked in their child’s secondary school library. |