Anthony Cheetham will unveil his new publishing company, Head of Zeus, in the summer of next year, with a biography of Catherine the Great by Robert K Massie bought from Random House US.
The venture—which Cheetham had planned to launch at Atlantic Books before leaving the publisher four months ago—will see him bring out a further 10 print titles in 2012 on a list of "general books with a slightly upmarket feel", alongside a digital-first popular fiction list.
read more
Atlantic Books made a loss of £1.8m on turnover of £6.9m in 2010, the company has confirmed. But chief executive Toby Mundy said the publisher was likely to grow 15% on 2010's figures this year and had also reduced its costs by 15%.
Mundy said the 2010 losses came about after Atlantic increased its overheads to push ambitious growth plans, including with the launch of its Corvus imprint, while the economy flatlined. The company's 2010 turnover was flat year-on-year, at £23,773 below its 2009 total.
read more
BBC Four has acquired an Australian adaptation of Christos Tsiolkas’ Man Booker-longlisted novel The Slap.
“Hotel Rwanda” actress Sophie Okenedo, Jonathan La Paglia and Melissa George will star in the series of eight one-hour episodes, described as a “very well made tale of our times” by the channel. BBC Four will broadcast in October.
read more
A new HBO series, Boardwalk Empire, premiered this weekend. Worlds away from what we see on Jersey Shore, it has reignited interest in New Jersey history and culture. Bryant Simon (author of Boardwalk of Dreams: Atlantic City and the Fate of Urban America and Professor of History at Temple University) has been interviewed for the accompanying HBO documentary, and here we ask him some questions about the “dreamlike” place that is AC.
You’ve described yourself as a native of South New Jersey. What drew you to writing the history of Atlantic City?
When I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s in Vineland, Philly was not the place that drew us; it was more Atlantic City. That was where we went for splurge meals, special occasions, amusement parks, parades, and shopping. In fact, that’s where I got my bar mitzvah suit! Years later, my family moved just outside of Atlantic City and I watched, while riding my bike in the morning on the Boardwalk, as gambling woke the place up and irrevocably transformed it. I was transfixed by the city, by people’s nostalgia for it, by its nervous energy, and its aching sadness and painful poverty in the midst of plenty. Really, it had everything I wanted to write about it – it was like a Springsteen song, a place that could be mean and cruel, but a place of romance and possible redemption. How could I resist?
Compared to places like Las Vegas or Coney Island in its heyday, how did/does Atlantic City epitomize the urban playground?
All of these places share something in common – they are each the tale of two cities. They are places built in the interests of visitors, not necessarily residents; they sell (or sold) fantasies – fantasies that put tourists as the center of the narrative and allowed them to slip their daily skin and imagine themselves not as they were, but as they wanted to be. That is what people paid for when they went these places – they paid for fantasies.
As you researched the book, what memorable anecdotes did you come across that really captured the heart and history of Atlantic City?
One of the first things I learned about Atlantic City stayed with me throughout the project. I remember looking at a postcard from the 1920s or so. In it, the benches on the Boardwalk were pointed away from the beach. I asked if this was a mistake. “No” an expert on the city told me, “That’s how it was.” That was my first lesson that Atlantic City was essentially a stage and the visitors were both actors and audience.
You’ve been interviewed for a documentary that’s set to run in conjunction with the HBO series, Boardwalk Empire. What do you make of the series’ take on Atlantic City, and what to your mind does it say about public perception of the city?
If the show is a success, it will no doubt draw tourists to town, looking for the romantic, if still violent, past the program surely mythologizes. Yet the real Atlantic City Boardwalk of today has little relationship to the past except its common geography. Most of the dreamlike hotels – buildings that looked like French chateaux and Moorish palaces – have been torn down. The amusement piers are long gone or covered up and turned into air-conditioned malls. The crowds of people dressed in their Sunday – really their sleek and elegant Saturday night best – have been replaced by people in t-shirts and flip flops. Except for the ocean and
1. What album was the second released by The Beatles in the U.K.?
2. What is the second largest planet in the Solar System?
3. Who was the second U.S. President to be assassinated?
4. And, as a follow-up to the previous question, who was the second assassin of a U.S. President?
5. Who was the second person to fly solo, non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean?
6. Of the World’s continents what is the second largest in area?
7. What was the title of the second film in the James Bond series made by Eon Productions?
8. Mount Everest is the highest but what is the second highest mountain?
9. Queen Victoria has the longest reign in British history but who has the second longest?
10. Apollo 11 with Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin made the first manned Moon landing, what mission, and what astronauts made the second manned Moon landing?
ANSWERS
1. What album was the second released by The Beatles in the U.K.?
With The Beatles was the second album released by the group. Like the first (Please Please Me) it was released in 1963, amongst its 14 tracks were Lennon and McCartney’s All My Loving and I Wanna Be Your Man.
Image from Wikipedia
2. What is the second largest planet in the Solar System?
Saturn. Jupiter is the largest of the planets and Saturn is approximately one-third of Jupiter’s mass whereas it is 95 times the mass of Earth. It is the sixth planet from the Sun and takes approximately 29.5 (Earth) years to orbit the Sun.
Image from Wikipedia
3. Who was the second U.S. President to be assassinated?
James A. Garfield who was not only the second U.S. President to be assassinated, after Abraham Lincoln, he was also the one who had the second shortest tenure in presidential history, after William Henry Harrison.
Image from Wikipedia
4. And, as a follow-up to the previous question, who was the second assassin of a U.S. President?
Charles Guiteau. John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln’s assassin, being the first.
Image from Wikipedia
5. Who was the second person to fly solo, non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean?
Amelia Earhart was the second to achieve this feat, after Charles Lindbergh. Her time for her flight was 14 hours 56 minutes, which was a record at that time. She had previously become the first woman to fly across the Atlantic albeit as a passenger.
Image from Wikipedia
6. Of the World’s continents what is the second largest in area?
Africa is second in size after Asia. Africa 11,668,598.7 sq mi (30,221,532 sq km) compared to Asia 17,212,000 sq mi (44,579,000 sq km).
Image from Wikipedia
7. What was the title of the second film in the James Bond series made by Eon Productions?
From Russia with Love, released in 1963, followed its predecessor Dr. No. It was the also the second to star Sean Connery in the role of 007.
Image via Wikipedia
8. Mount Everest is the highest but what is the second highest mountain?
K2 (other names Mount Godwin Austen, Qogir Feng, Dapsang or Chogori) at 28,251 feet (8,611 metres)is the world’s second highest mountain. Situated in the Karakoram Range K2 is located on the border of and lies partly in the Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang of China and partly in the Kashmir region of Pakistan.
Image from Wikipedia
9. Queen Victoria has the longest reign in British history but who has the second longest?
George III is the second longest reigning monarch in British history having reigned for 59 years 96 days. Victoria reigned for 63 years 216 days. If she was still on the throne on 12th May 2011 Elizabeth II would surpass George III and become the second longest reigning British monarch.
Image from Wikipedia
10. Apollo 11 with Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin made the first manned Moon landing, what mission, and what astronauts made the second manned Moon landing?
Apollo 12 with Pete Conrad & Alan Bean. Between 1969 and 1972 Apollo’s 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 landed on the Moon each carrying a two man crew meaning that 12 Apollo astronauts walked on the Moon’s surface. In July 1969 Neil Armstrong of Apollo 11 became the first man to walk on the Moon and in December 1972 Eugene Cernan of Apollo 17 was the ‘last man on the Moon’. An on-board explosion meant that Apollo 13 had to abandon a Moon landing while trying to make repairs that would allow them to return to Earth.
Image from Wikipedia
1. What album was the second released by The Beatles in the U.K.?
2. What is the second largest planet in the Solar System?
3. Who was the second U.S. President to be assassinated?
4. And, as a follow-up to the previous question, who was the second assassin of a U.S. President?
5. Who was the second person to fly solo, non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean?
6. Of the World’s continents what is the second largest in area?
7. What was the title of the second film in the James Bond series made by Eon Productions?
8. Mount Everest is the highest but what is the second highest mountain?
9. Queen Victoria has the longest reign in British history but who has the second longest?
10. Apollo 11 with Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin made the first manned Moon landing, what mission, and what astronauts made the second manned Moon landing?
ANSWERS
1. What album was the second released by The Beatles in the U.K.?
With The Beatles was the second album released by the group. Like the first (Please Please Me) it was released in 1963, amongst its 14 tracks were Lennon and McCartney’s All My Loving and I Wanna Be Your Man.
Image from Wikipedia
2. What is the second largest planet in the Solar System?
Saturn. Jupiter is the largest of the planets and Saturn is approximately one-third of Jupiter’s mass whereas it is 95 times the mass of Earth. It is the sixth planet from the Sun and takes approximately 29.5 (Earth) years to orbit the Sun.
Image from Wikipedia
3. Who was the second U.S. President to be assassinated?
James A. Garfield who was not only the second U.S. President to be assassinated, after Abraham Lincoln, he was also the one who had the second shortest tenure in presidential history, after William Henry Harrison.
Image from Wikipedia
4. And, as a follow-up to the previous question, who was the second assassin of a U.S. President?
Charles Guiteau. John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln’s assassin, being the first.
Image from Wikipedia
5. Who was the second person to fly solo, non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean?
Amelia Earhart was the second to achieve this feat, after Charles Lindbergh. Her time for her flight was 14 hours 56 minutes, which was a record at that time. She had previously become the first woman to fly across the Atlantic albeit as a passenger.
Image from Wikipedia
6. Of the World’s continents what is the second largest in area?
Africa is second in size after Asia. Africa 11,668,598.7 sq mi (30,221,532 sq km) compared to Asia 17,212,000 sq mi (44,579,000 sq km).
Image from Wikipedia
7. What was the title of the second film in the James Bond series made by Eon Productions?
From Russia with Love, released in 1963, followed its predecessor Dr. No. It was the also the second to star Sean Connery in the role of 007.
Image via Wikipedia
8. Mount Everest is the highest but what is the second highest mountain?
K2 (other names Mount Godwin Austen, Qogir Feng, Dapsang or Chogori) at 28,251 feet (8,611 metres)is the world’s second highest mountain. Situated in the Karakoram Range K2 is located on the border of and lies partly in the Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang of China and partly in the Kashmir region of Pakistan.
Image from Wikipedia
9. Queen Victoria has the longest reign in British history but who has the second longest?
George III is the second longest reigning monarch in British history having reigned for 59 years 96 days. Victoria reigned for 63 years 216 days. If she was still on the throne on 12th May 2011 Elizabeth II would surpass George III and become the second longest reigning British monarch.
Image from Wikipedia
10. Apollo 11 with Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin made the first manned Moon landing, what mission, and what astronauts made the second manned Moon landing?
Apollo 12 with Pete Conrad & Alan Bean. Between 1969 and 1972 Apollo’s 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 landed on the Moon each carrying a two man crew meaning that 12 Apollo astronauts walked on the Moon’s surface. In July 1969 Neil Armstrong of Apollo 11 became the first man to walk on the Moon and in December 1972 Eugene Cernan of Apollo 17 was the ‘last man on the Moon’. An on-board explosion meant that Apollo 13 had to abandon a Moon landing while trying to make repairs that would allow them to return to Earth.
Image from Wikipedia
