Jonathan Raban
Encyclopedia
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....
, The Royal Society of Literature
Royal Society of Literature
The Royal Society of Literature is the "senior literary organisation in Britain". It was founded in 1820 by George IV, in order to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". The Society's first president was Thomas Burgess, who later became the Bishop of Salisbury...
's Heinemann Award, the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award
Thomas Cook Travel Book Award
The Thomas Cook Travel Book Award originated as an initiative of Thomas Cook AG in 1980, with the aim of encouraging and rewarding the art of literary travel writing. The awards stopped in 2005...
, the PEN West Creative Nonfiction Award, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award
Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award
Since 1965, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, or PNBA, has presented annual awards to recognize excellence in writing from the American Pacific Northwest...
, and a 1997 Washington State Governor's Writer's Award
Washington State Book Award
The Washington State Book Awards are presented annually in recognition of notable books written by Washington authors in the previous year.This literary awards program was established in 1967 as the Governor's Writers Awards. The program was based at the Washington State Library in Olympia...
. Since 1990 he lives with his daughter in Seattle.
Though he is primarily regarded as a travel writer, Raban’s accounts often blend the story of a journey with rich discussion of the history of the water through which he travels and the land around it. Even as he maintains a dispassionate and often unforgiving stance towards the people he meets on his travels, he does not shirk from sharing his own perceived foibles and failings with the reader. Frequently, Raban’s autobiographical accounts of journeys taken mirror transformations in his own life or the world at large: Old Glory
Old Glory: An American Voyage
Old Glory is a travel book by Jonathan Raban. It is the winner of The Royal Society of Literature's Heinemann Award and the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award.- Plot summary :...
takes place during the buildup to Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
’s victory in the 1980 presidential election, Coasting as the Falklands War
Falklands War
The Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict or Falklands Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...
begins, and Passage to Juneau as the failure of the author’s marriage becomes apparent. Similarly melancholic and personal themes of turmoil and loss can be detected in his novels.
Book reviews
Review ofAwards
- Heinemann Award, 1982
- Thomas Cook Travel Book AwardThomas Cook Travel Book AwardThe Thomas Cook Travel Book Award originated as an initiative of Thomas Cook AG in 1980, with the aim of encouraging and rewarding the art of literary travel writing. The awards stopped in 2005...
, 1981 and 1991 - National Book Critics Circle AwardNational Book Critics Circle AwardThe National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....
, 1996 - The StrangerThe Stranger (newspaper)The Stranger is an alternative weekly newspaper in Seattle, Washington, USA. It runs a blog known as Slog.-History:The Stranger was founded by Tim Keck, who had previously co-founded the satirical newspaper The Onion, and cartoonist James Sturm. Its first issue came out on September 23, 1991...
newspaper "Genius Awards", 2006 Article
Inspiration and writing style
- Our Mutual FriendOur Mutual FriendOur Mutual Friend is the last novel completed by Charles Dickens and is one of his most sophisticated works, combining psychological insight with social analysis. It centres on, in the words of critic J. Hillis Miller, "money, money, money, and what money can make of life" but is also about human...
by Charles DickensCharles DickensCharles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic... - Summer LightningSummer LightningSummer Lightning is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United States on 1 July 1929 by Doubleday, Doran, New York, under the title Fish Preferred, and in the United Kingdom on 19 July 1929 by Herbert Jenkins, London...
by PG Wodehouse - Put Out More FlagsPut Out More FlagsPut Out More Flags, the sixth novel by Evelyn Waugh, was first published by Chapman and Hall in 1942. The novel is set during the first year of the Second World War, and follows the wartime activities of characters introduced in Waugh's earlier satirical novels Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies and...
by Evelyn WaughEvelyn WaughArthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer... - The Whitsun Weddings and High WindowsHigh WindowsHigh Windows is a collection of poems by English poet Philip Larkin, and was published in 1974 by Faber and Faber Limited. The readily available paperback version was first published in Britain in 1979...
by Philip LarkinPhilip LarkinPhilip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century... - Collected Poems by Robert LowellRobert LowellRobert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet, considered the founder of the confessional poetry movement. He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress where he served from 1947 until 1948...
External links
- Internet Movie Database, IMDb, Raban as a newsreader, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2703155/
- Raban author page and archive from The New York Review of Books