Swat () was a princely state and is now part of Pakistan. Swat was part of the Mughal Empire ruled by local Gujar rulers known as Akhoond or Akhwand. From 1926 until 1947, Swat was a princely state in British Raj, and in 1947 it acceded to Pakistan. It lay to the north of the modern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan until it was dissolved in 1969. It incorporated the current states of Swat, Buner and Shangla.
Marri-Bugti County
Marri-Bugti Country (Marri and Bugti Country) was a tribal region during the British occupation of Baluchistan.
Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson (December 14, 1916, San Francisco, California - August 8, 1965, Bennington, Vermont) was an important American author. A popular writer in her time, her work has received even more attention from literary critics in recent years. She has influenced such writers as Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Nigel Kneale and Richard Matheson.
Born Shirley Hardie Jackson in San Francisco in 1916 to Leslie and Geraldine Jackson, Shirley and her family lived in Burlingame, California, an wealthy middle-class suburb. Shirley spent most of her early life in California. The Jackson family then moved to Rochester, New York, where Shirley attended Brighton High School and graduated in 1934. For college, she first attended the University of Rochester before graduating from Syracuse University in 1940.
She got married in 1940 to Stanley Edgar Hyman who met in campus literary magazine, literary critic, and have four children who are Laurence (Laurie), Joanne (Jannie), Sarah (Sally), and Barry. The Hyman family lived in Vermont, in a quiet rural community and far away from city life. In 1965, Shirley Jackson died of heart failure in her sleep at the age of 48. Shirley suffered all through her life from various neuroses and psychosomatic illness. These illnesses, along with the various prescription drugs used to treat them, overweight and heavy smoking, may have led to her declining health and early death.
She is best known for "The Lottery" (1948), which suggests a deeply unsettling dark underside in human nature who lives in suburban small-town in America. This is easily the best adaptation of the famed Shirley Jackson short story, first published in The New Yorker (June 28, 1948). Jackson may even have taken pleasure in the destructive impact of her work, as evidenced by Hyman's statement that she "was always proud that the Union of South Africa banned "The Lottery", and she felt that they at least understood the story. Larry Yust made this story into a short film which was banned in Boston.
With information for Jackson's first novel, "The Road Through the Wall" (1948), her husband who also is a literary critic, described Shirley Jackson as someone who practiced witchcraft. Shirley later wrote about witchcraft accusations in her book for young readers, "The Witchcraft of Salem Village" (1956).
Her other novels include "Hangsaman" (1951), "The Bird's Nest" (1954), "The Sundial" (1958) and The "Haunting of Hill House" (1959), regarded by many as one of the important horror novels of the 20th Century.
When the Hymans eventually settled in Vermont, Shirley continued to publish novels and short stories while caring for their children Laurence, Joanne, Sarah and Barry. Eventually her four children would come to their own brand of literary characters as fictionalized versions of themselves in their mother's short stories; In a series of the short stories, later collected in the books "Life Among the Savages" and "Raising Demons", she presented a fictionalized version of her marriage and the experience of raising four children.
In addition to her adult literary novels, Shirley also wrote a children's novel, "Nine Magic Wishes" as well as a children's play based on "Hansel and Gretel" and entitled The "Bad Children".
The first annual Shirley Jackson Awards for "outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror and the dark fantastic" were presented July 20, 2008. The jurors were John Langan, Sarah Langan, Paul G. Tremblay and F. Brett Cox.
The winners were:
Book Off
Book Off () is Japan’s biggest chain of second hand bookstores. It is operated by Book Off Corporation Limited. The first Book Off store opened in May, 1990. The first franchisee Book Off store opened in Nov, 1991. The success of the business expanded to 917 stores in Japan and 14 stores abroad (8 in US, 3 in France, 2 in Korea, and 1 in Canada). Book Off sells books including comic books, magazines, and novels, and also sells CDs, DVDs, and Game software. Books are grouped by genres, writers, and prices. The overseas Book Off stores sell second hand books from Japan and also from its own country. Book Off not only sells the second hand books, but also buys the books from customers. For that reason Book Off’s theme copy is “お売りください” which means “Please, sell us your book”. The company uses this copy rather than ”We buy your book” to show respect to customers.
Some Book Off chains, especially ones abroad, have various signboard designs, but still they share the symbol colors of Book Off which are yellow, blue, and red. Book Off has its mascot "Yomuyomukun (Mr. Yomu-yomu)" holding a book in his hands. "Yomu (読む)" in Japanese means "read". Another uniqueness of Book Off is the employees’ loud greeting. Employees shout “いらっしゃいませ! (irashaimase! : welcome!)” when customers enter, and "ありがとうございました! (arigatou gozaimasita! : thank you!)” when customers leave the shop. Book Off chain stores abroad also greet customers with Japanese.
From 1999 Book Off Corporation Limited started to expand the business into other second hand stores. B-Kids, B-Sports, B-Style, B-Life and B-Select cover second hand baby goods, children wear, sports goods, ladies’ and men’s wear, interior goods, and accessories respectively. After the first B-Kid store opened in Apr, 1999, now there are 26 B-Kids, 32 B-Style, 24 B-Sports stores in Japan. Book Off charges about 81% of the business and the other type of stores charge 19% of the entire sales.
Françoise Hardy
Françoise Hardy is a French singer, actress and model. As a celebrity in various fields, she has been an icon in France.
Hardy was born at 17 January 1944 in Paris and grew up in rich family. From her childhood, she was so interested in literature that she was attracted to Simone de Beauvoir and Albert Camus. She received a guitar from her mother as a present for her passing baccalaureat at 16. It caused her to get interested in Chanson. Hardy mastered guitar by herself and showed an interest in composing chanson. Trying to be a singer was hard, she failed many times. After entering the University of Sorbonne in Paris, she kept studying a chanson in Petit conservatoire de la chanson, a chanson school founded by Mireille who was a famous singer at that time. Soon, she contracted with the record label Vogue in November 1961.
In June 1962, she made a great debut with her famous chanson ‘Tous les garçons et les filles' which became a hit all over Europe at her age of 18. The song made the wave of Yé-yé music in France with two million sales. It was when another famous song ‘Comment te dire adieu' appeared that Hardy estalished her as a singer in 1968. The song received a favorable review from many critics who were indifferent to young singers without precedent. Since then, she has been a cultural iconic figure in France. All of almost her songs were self written, and they have been translated into English, Spanish, Italian and German. As an actress, she appeared in many films - ‘Château en Suède”(1963) , “Une balle au cœur”(1965), ”What’s new pussycat?”(1966) “Masculin- Féminin”(1966) and “Grand prix”(1967)
She had a son, Thomas Dutronc in 1973 and married his father Jacques Dutronc. Now, they remain a couple.
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