Tag: Magazines

Dear Reader #169

Dear Reader,

By 1924 film producer B.P. Schulberg was guiding Clara Bow’s career. Under his guidance, she made her eighth movie, Poisoned Paradise: The Forbidden Story of Monte Carlo, a silent romantic drama.

Clara played Margot Le Blanc. Left a small fortune by her foster mother, Margot goes to Monte Carlo and loses the fortune gambling. She finds support, and love, from an artist, Hugh Kildair.

Throughout her life, Clara needed sound people around her to guide her. At this time, she had Schulberg along with her agent, Maxine Alton. However, an affair between Alton and Schulberg shattered Clara’s confidence in them. Clara was trusting and naïve, and it’s fair to say that Alton and Schulberg exploited her trust and naivety.

🖼 Lobby card for Poisoned Paradise

Highest Grossing Movie of 1928 (joint) The Singing Fool.

A part-talkie musical melodrama, The Singing Fool starred Al Jolson. Following hot on the heels of The Jazz Singer, this movie established Jolson as a leading entertainer. The Singing Fool was more popular than The Jazz Singer mainly because many movie theatres were not equipped to show talkies when the The Jazz Singer was released in 1927.

Although heavily reliant on its musical interludes, The Singing Fool was released as a silent movie, alongside the sound version. The film ran for 102 minutes with 66 minutes devoted to dialogue and singing.

Reviews were, in the main, positive. “The Singing Fool is the finest example of sound pictures made to date.” – the Film Daily. The New York Times felt that the dialogue was “a little halting” and “not convincing”, but concluded that the main point of interest was “Mr Jolson’s inimitable singing”, and on that basis the movie was “capital entertainment.”

My latest translation, the Italian version of Operation Sherlock, Eve’s War Heroines of SOE, book five.

Clara Bow Quotes: “During my recent troubles, when broken in health and on the verge of despair, my many friends of the vast motion picture audience came to my assistance with countless messages of faith and good cheer. To them, I am profoundly grateful. If I do make another motion picture, it will be to please to the best of my ability those fans and friends who at no time lost faith in me.”

The Golden Age of Hollywood Winter 2022

Intertitle #9

As ever, thank you for your interest and support.

Hannah xxx

For Authors

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Tags Book Promoting, Books in Italian, Clara Bow, Films, Hollywood, Independent Authors, Independent Publishing, Magazines, Movies, Silent Movies, The Fussy Librarian, The Golden Age of Hollywood

Dear Reader

Dear Reader #53

Dear Reader,

Delighted to see that Smashwords are featuring The Olive Tree: Roots on their homepage 🙂

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/996773

An iconic photograph from the Spanish Civil War. This is Marina Ginestà i Coloma, born in Toulouse on 29 January 1919 after her family had emigrated to France from Spain.

Aged eleven, Marina returned to Spain, to Barcelona, with her parents, who were tailors. When the Spanish Civil War broke out she served as a translator and reporter.

This picture was taken by Juan Guzman on 21 July 1936 when Marina was seventeen years old. The location is the rooftop of the Hotel Colón in Barcelona.

In 1952, Marina married a Belgian diplomat. She moved to Paris in 1978 and died there on 6th January 2014.

It’s an amazing fact that the vast majority of the female Resistance fighters I have researched lived well into their nineties.

My article about SOE heroine Jacqueline Nearne is on page 16 of the Seaside News. Lots of other interesting features included too.

The Longest Day contains many remarkable pieces of filmmaking, but from a technical point of view this scene is the highlight.

Sara Ginaite-Rubinson was born in Kaunas on 17 March 1924. She was a schoolgirl in 1941 when the Nazis invaded Lithuania, killing three of her uncles and imprisoning her and the surviving members of her family.

While imprisioned in the Kovno Ghetto, Sara met Misha Rubinson, whom she later married. During the winter of 1943-44 the couple escaped and established a Resistance group. Twice, she returned to the ghetto to help others escape.

In 1944, Sara and Misha participated in the liberation of the Vilnius and Kaunas ghettos, freeing Sara’s sister and niece among many others.

After the war, Sara became a professor of political economics at Vilnius University. She also wrote an award-winning book, Resistance and Survival: The Jewish Community in Kaunas, 1941–1944.

Sara died on 2 April 2018, yet another remarkable Resistance fighter who lived well into her nineties.

* * *

Every year in France the locals collect sand from Omaha Beach, where the Americans lost 2,400 lives on D-Day, and use it to fill in the letters on the tombstones of the fallen.

Delighted that Paula Branch has agreed to narrate Operation Zigzag, book one in my Eve’s War Heroines of SOE Series. Production will begin next week. Meanwhile, here’s one we made earlier https://www.amazon.com/Digging-Dirt-Smith-Mystery-Book/dp/B089CJLFWG/

“In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.” – Pico Iyer

As ever, thank you for your interest and support.

Hannah xxx

Tags Audiobooks, French Resistance, Humour, Magazines, Movies, Philosophy, Second World War, Spanish Civil War, Special Operations Executive

Dear Reader

Dear Reader #30

Dear Reader,

I’m delighted to be a member of the talented team involved in Mom’s Favorite Reads.

And to start the new year in style, here’s our January 2020 issue featuring an exclusive interview with Melinda Mullins, star of Remember WENN, M*A*S*H and the Shakespearean stage, a Romance Roundtable, Anna Grace discusses mental health, young writers and so much more.

The new year promises to be my busiest yet with six books scheduled: two Sam Smith novels, Snow in August and Looking For Rosanna Mee; Roots and Branches, the first two novellas in The Olive Tree, A Spanish Civil War Saga; plus Operation Zigzag and Operation Locksmith, the first two novellas in my Eve’s War series about the Special Operations Executive and the French Resistance.

Yesterday, I wrote the first draft of chapters one and two of The Olive Tree: Roots. The stories in this series will be told from two viewpoints: a nurse, Heini Hopkins, and a socialite author, Naomi Parker. Heini rides a bicycle while Naomi drives this SS Jaguar 100, pictured outside the SS Cars building in 1937.

The ‘100’ was the car’s top speed while this image represents the first recorded use of the Jaguar ‘leaper’ mascot.

In Roots, book one of The Olive Tree, my nurse Heini Hopkins is at home tending her sick mother. This item is from my domestic research into the period. I remember using carpet cleaners like these when I visited my grandparents’ house.

A mangle, another item from my domestic research into the 1930s. My nurse, Heini Hopkins, would certainly be familiar with this item, and I can remember seeing similar models when I visited my grandparents’ house.

In The Olive Tree, Heini Hopkins is a nurse specialising in tuberculosis. As the story opens she is tending Mari, her sick mother.

For centuries, tuberculosis was considered ‘the romantic disease’ because it ‘assisted artistic talent’. People believed that the fever and toxaemia associated with tuberculosis helped artists to see life more clearly and that this clarity of mind liberated their creative muse.

You can read my full article here https://hannah-howe.com/the-olive-tree/tuberculosis/

Local views this morning, at Sger.

As ever, thank you for your interest and support.

Hannah xxx

Tags 1930s, Magazines, Melinda Mullins, Mom’s Favorite Reads, Philosophy, Second World War, Social History, Spanish Civil War, Tuberculosis, Vintage Cars, Wales

Dear Reader

Dear Reader #26

Dear Reader,

This week I wrote chapter twenty-two of Snow in August, Sam Smith Mystery Series book sixteen. In this chapter Sam wanders on to the beach and sees bioluminescent plankton, a phenomenon caused by tiny organisms that produce a chemical called luciferin as a defence mechanism to draw predators towards the creature trying to eat the plankton.

Very proud to be a member of the Mom’s Favorite Reads team. Our magazines have proved popular throughout the year and with our December edition I believe we have produced a cracker 🙂

🎄🎄🎄Our Christmas edition! 🎄🎄🎄

In this edition…articles, short stories, recipes, travel, interviews, young writers, poetry and activities for all the family.

Read or download your copy FREE.

Readers familiar with my Sam Smith Mystery Series will know that the stories are based on psychological and sociological issues. Therefore, I’m delighted that blogger and YouTuber Anna Grace agreed to discuss a range of psychological issues in a guest post for my website. If you haven’t seen Anna’s post you can view it here

https://hannah-howe.com/2019/12/04/anna-grace/

Some political pictorials that caught my eye this week…

Mom’s Favorite Reads‘ charity of the month is Christmas for CAMHS, a charity that supports children and adolescents who will spend Christmas in hospital, often away from their families, because of mental health issues.

The gifts on their wish list are inexpensive, no more than a cup of coffee, so please support this great cause by either: following their Facebook page, sharing their web links, donating via their gift page or by sending gifts. Thank you.

https://www.christmasforcamhs.org.uk

https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/9A29RCVE11LW

https://www.facebook.com/ChristmasForCAMHS/