{"id":1089,"date":"2016-09-13T10:50:33","date_gmt":"2016-09-13T17:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/?p=1089"},"modified":"2016-09-13T10:50:33","modified_gmt":"2016-09-13T17:50:33","slug":"roald-dahl-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/2016\/roald-dahl-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Roald Dahl Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Roald<\/a><\/p>\n

Today is Roald Dahl’s 100 Birthday! Many of us vividly remember his\u00a0famous children’s books, including\u00a0Matilda<\/em>, The BFG<\/em>, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory<\/em>, and many more from our childhood. While these books are always worth re-reading as an adult, there’s more to Roald Dahl than these fabulous stories. An Ace pilot with the Royal Air Force during WWII, Dahl also served as a spy for Great Britain in Washington DC, working to get the United States to enter the war. Take a look at one of these fascinating\u00a0biographies of Roald Dahl or pick up a collection of the intriguing\u00a0and often macabre stories he wrote for adults to learn more about one of the most beloved and unique children’s authors of all time.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Jennet Conant<\/p>\n

When Roald Dahl, a dashing young wounded RAF pilot, took up his post at the British Embassy in Washington in 1942, his assignment was to use his good looks, wit, and considerable charm to gain access to the most powerful figures in American political life. A patriot eager to do his part to save his country from a Nazi invasion, he invaded the upper reaches of the U.S. government and Georgetown society, winning over First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and her husband, Franklin; befriending wartime leaders from Henry Wallace to Henry Morgenthau; and seducing the glamorous freshman congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce.\u00a0Dahl would soon be caught up in a complex web of deception masterminded by William Stephenson, aka Intrepid, Churchill’s legendary spy chief, who, with President Roosevelt’s tacit permission, mounted a secret campaign of propaganda and political subversion to weaken American isolationist forces, bring the country into the war against Germany, and influence U.S. policy in favor of England.<\/p>\n

In an account better than spy fiction, Jennet Conant shows Dahl progressing from reluctant diplomat to sly man-about-town. He and his colorful co-conspirators — David Ogilvy, Ian Fleming, and Ivar Bryce, recruited more for their imagination and dramatic flair than any experience in the spy business — gossiped, bugged, and often hilariously bungled their way across Washington, doing their best to carry out their cloak-and-dagger assignments.\u00a0It is an extraordinary tale of deceit, double-dealing, and moral ambiguity — all in the name of victory.<\/p>\n

\"Collected<\/a>Collected Stories<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by\u00a0Roald Dahl<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Later known for his immortal children\u2019s books, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach,\u00a0<\/i>and The BFG, <\/i>Dahl <\/i>also had a genius for adult short fiction, which he wrote throughout his life. Whether fictionalizing his dramatic exploits as a Royal Air Force pilot during World War II or concocting the ingeniously plotted fables that were dramatized on television as Tales of the Unexpected<\/i>, Dahl was brilliant at provoking in his readers the overwhelming desire to know what happens next\u2014and at satisfying that desire in ways that feel both surprising and inevitable.<\/p>\n

Filled with devilish plot twists, his tales display a tantalizing blend of macabre humor and the absurdly grotesque. From \u201cThe Landlady,\u201d about an unusual boardinghouse that features a small but very permanent clientele, to \u201cPig,\u201d a brutally funny look at vegetarianism, to \u201cMan from the South,\u201d in which a fanatical gambler does his betting with hammer, nails, and a butcher\u2019s knife, Dahl\u2019s creations amuse and shock us in equal measure, gleefully reminding us of what might lurk beneath the surface of the ordinary.<\/p>\n

\"Going<\/a>Going Solo<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by\u00a0Roald Dahl<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Superb stories, daring deeds, fantastic adventures! Learn all about Roald Dahl’s encounters with the enemy, his worldwide travels, the life-threatening injuries he sustained in a plane accident, and the rest of his sometimes bizarre, often unnerving, and always colorful adventures. Told with the same irresistible appeal that has made Roald Dahl one of the world’s best-loved writers, Going Solo<\/em> brings you directly into the action and into the mind of this fascinating man as he recounts his\u00a0life as a young man from his employment with the Shell Company in Tanzania through his service in the Royal Air Force during World War II.<\/p>\n

\"Storyteller\"<\/a>Storyteller: The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl<\/i><\/b><\/a> by\u00a0Donald Sturrock<\/span><\/p>\n

In his lifetime Roald Dahl pushed children\u2019s literature into uncharted territory, and today his popularity around the globe continues to grow, with millions of his books sold every year. But the man behind the mesmerizing stories has remained largely an enigma. A single-minded adventurer and an eternal child who gave us the iconic Willy Wonka and Matilda Wormwood, Dahl was better known during his lifetime for his blunt opinions on taboo subjects\u2014he was called an anti-Semite, a racist and a misogynist\u2014than for his creative genius. His wild imagination, dark humor and linguistic elegance were less than fully appreciated by critics and readers alike until after his death.<\/p>\n

Granted unprecedented access to the Dahl estate\u2019s extraordinary archives\u2014personal correspondence, journals and interviews with family members and famous friends\u2014Donald Sturrock draws on a wealth of previously unpublished materials that informed Dahl\u2019s writing and his life. It was a life filled with incident, drama and adventure: from his harrowing experiences as an RAF fighter pilot and his work in wartime intelligence, to his many romances and turbulent marriage to the actress Patricia Neal, to the mental anguish caused by the death of his young daughter Olivia. Tracing a brilliant yet tempestuous ascent toward notoriety, Sturrock sheds new light on Dahl\u2019s need for controversy, his abrasive manner and his fascination for the gruesome and the macabre.<\/p>\n

\"Roald<\/a>Roald Dahl: A Biography<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/span>\u00a0by\u00a0Jeremy Treglown<\/p>\n

Roald Dahl<\/em> explores this master of children\u2019s literature from childhood\u2014focusing a tight lens on the relationship between Dahl and his mother, who lovingly referred to him as \u201cApple\u201d\u2014through to his death. Treglown deftly navigates Dahl\u2019s time as a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force, exploring how the experience transformed many of the beliefs that influenced the English writer\u2019s work, including The Gremlins<\/em>, which was commissioned by Walt Disney.<\/p>\n

Treglown discusses many of Dahl\u2019s most famous works, such as James and the Giant Peach<\/em> and Fantastic Mr. Fox<\/em>, while also delving into his marriage to actress Patricia Neal, combing through letters and archives to show a man who could be both comic and vitriolic, thoughtful yet manipulative and irascible. Treglown highlights many of Dahl\u2019s literary achievements as well as his breakdowns and shortcomings, presenting a very personal and telling picture of the author and the inner turmoil that crippled him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is Roald Dahl’s 100 Birthday! Many of us vividly remember his\u00a0famous children’s books, including\u00a0Matilda, The BFG, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and many more from our childhood. While these […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":1092,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"Layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[23,14,19,18],"class_list":["entry","author-","post-1089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-book-lists","tag-biography","tag-book-list","tag-fiction","tag-history"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/11\/files\/sites\/11\/2016\/09\/2016-09-Digital-Frame-Slides-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p71KTL-hz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1089"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1096,"href":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089\/revisions\/1096"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}