Bestselling author of Lace and Superwoman and women’s editor for the Daily Mail and the Observer Shirley Conran, who has died aged 91, supplied interviewers with a multi-page CV, but her life could be summarised on a book dust jacket. All that was needed was her surname – from her first husband, the designer Terence Conran – and the quote from her notorious domestic manual, Superwoman (1975): “Life is too short to stuff a mushroom.” And perhaps a line about the crucial erotic role of a goldfish in her 1982 novel, Lace.Both books were written for much-needed money, and were phenomenons. Superwoman was her response to a request from a recently divorced male publisher for a household manual; Conran understood that “men saw housework as a background to life, and women saw it as their responsibility”, and compiled a guide that came out of the postwar era then just ending, when middle-class wives had been required to be clever and sexy while managing a home with almost no help from paid staff, or husbands. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2024-05-10 12:06:47 UTC ]
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Walter Freese, former executive at Doubleday Publishing, died February 21 on Shelter Island, N.Y., four days shy of his 86th birthday. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-02-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Top academic publisher who joined Cambridge University Press as a graduate trainee and became a managing director in 2002Andrew Brown, who has died aged 63 of cancer, was one of the leading academic publishers of his generation. Having joined Cambridge University Press as a graduate trainee in... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-02-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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One of the first women to write about wine, she was known for her prickly putdowns and forthright views about food and drinkPamela Vandyke Price, who has died aged 90, was the first woman in Britain to write seriously about wine and spirits. Writing about drinking – its tastes, smells,... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-02-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Leading Sunday Times journalist who was the first editor of its groundbreaking investigative Insight unitRon Hall, a former top executive of the Sunday Times in its pre-Murdoch golden era, has died aged 79. Hall's distinctions were many: first editor of the paper's successful investigative unit,... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-02-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publisher adept at balancing the demands of literature and commerce, and a notable writer on artIn his prime, with his coloured shirts, red braces, bright bow ties and macho cigars there were few more flamboyant London publishers than Tom Rosenthal, who has died aged 78. But the extravagant top... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-01-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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My friend Mary Cowan, who has died aged 99, rebelled against her privileged background and in the 1930s became a communist.She was born in Edinburgh, where her father, John Jameson, was the Conservative MP for Edinburgh West. Her mother, Margaret (nee Smith), was the daughter of a master of... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2013-12-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Britain's first homegrown existentialist star, he failed to follow up the huge success of his 1956 book, The OutsiderFor a few dazzling months, Colin Wilson, who has died aged 82, was taken at his own valuation in his diary as "the major literary genius of our century", a writer destined to be... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2013-12-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publisher of military history books and husband of Jilly CooperLeo Cooper, who has died aged 79 after suffering from Parkinson's disease, was a publisher with a zeal for military history, who also enjoyed some notoriety as the husband of the novelist Jilly Cooper.Leo's hospitality was out of all... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2013-12-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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My friend Paul Westlake, who has died of cancer aged 65, was a pillar of the radical publishing world from the mid-1970s onwards. He was an advocate of workers' co-operatives and gained much experience in ensuring that the output of independent publishers reached the bookshops.In autumn 1976,... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2013-11-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Journalist, biographer and author who explored the history of property ownership in AmericaThe Scottish author Andro Linklater was fascinated by the relationship between people and land. His death at the age of 68 from a heart attack came while he was on the isle of Eigg, researching for a new... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2013-11-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Pam Shirley, co-founder of publisher Ragged Bears, has died. A statement from her family said... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-09-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Children’s author Shirley Hughes has been signed up for a new series by Random House... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-10-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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