Olivia Wilde likes ''having a real partner''.The 29-year-old actress is engaged to comedian-and-actor Jason Sudeikis - who she's been dating since... Reported by ContactMusic 4 days ago.

Olivia Wilde is no bridezilla! Jason Sudeikis' fiancée, who landed the cover of InStyle for the August 2013 issue, told the magazine that even though her upcoming nuptials are... Reported by E! Online 4 days ago.

Olivia Wilde shows off her casual chic side on the August cover of In Style Magazine. The 29-year-old actress and almost bride-to-be dishes details on her upcoming nuptials to actor Jason Sudeikis, their relationship and how she stays a confident gal in the Hollywood scene. Reported by NY Daily News 4 days ago.

In fairness to Olivia Munn, the slip dress is a tricky look to pull off. No matter how formal or tailored it is, you always end up looking like you forgot the piece that goes over the... Reported by E! Online 3 days ago.

Olivia Wilde is on the cover of the August issue of InStyle Magazine. In it, she discusses her upcoming marriage to Jason Sudeikis and how they will last.

"I like having a real partner. It's the model I grew up with. It's part of why I was able to take so many chances in my life, because I felt like someone was watching my back. I could never imagine life without someone I respect, someone who offers me infinite possibilities," she said.

While she acknowledged that many relationships in Hollywood fail, she said they will prevail because she isn't the jealous type.

"There are spikes and dips and plateaus in this business. I've seen couples fall apart through it, and it is heartbreaking. You wonder what will happen - will he love me if I'm not as successful? Will jealousy kill us? I know there will be times when Jason is working more than I am, but I'm actually excited by that. I'm excited by what he will become, what depth he has."

Sources: ICYDK Reported by Opposing Views 2 days ago.

Much nonsense is talked about Shakespeare not writing his plays, but more interesting questions remain: who edited the First Folio? And were substantial changes made?

Sometime in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death, the actors John Heminges and Henry Condell published Mr William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies – what we now know as the First Folio. It was the literary event of the century, recording for all time the sound of Shakespeare's English and the sweep of his imagination: Elsinore, Egypt and the Forest of Arden; a balcony, a spotted handkerchief and a skull.

Yet despite this shrine to Shakespeare's memory, erected by those who knew him, sceptics have continued to doubt his authorship of the plays. He was, they insist, inadequately educated, insufficiently travelled, and didn't know how to spell his own name. A range of alternative candidates have come and gone over the centuries, including Anne Hathaway, the Jesuits, and more recently Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, the subject of Roland Emmerich's film Anonymous. As always, conspiracy is more fun than consensus, and the doubters have the internet on their side. Shakespeare has thus become the focus of a global conspiracy industry, joining company with reptilian elites, self-destructing lightbulbs and skeletons on the moon.

Scholars have recently fought back against this scepticism, however. Books such as James Shapiro's Will Contested and Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells's Shakespeare Beyond Doubt marshal facts, allusions and funeral monuments to prove that Shakespeare did indeed write the plays and poems attributed to him. Or as Iago says at the end of Othello: "what you know, you know."

So Shakespeare wrote "Shakespeare". The printing of the First Folio, however, raises another, ultimately more interesting, question. Without the Folio, Shakespeare's plays – scattered around in playscripts or in smaller quarto editions – might have been lost to posterity. But did Heminges and Condell edit the text?

Many of the plays existed in a number of versions: all needed to be edited and prepared for the press. Neither Heminges nor Condell had produced a book before, nor would they afterwards. And it is unlikely that the backers of the Folio, the printers Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount, would have risked putting such an expensive project in their hands. As one expert puts it: "it is doubtful" whether they would be capable of such "exacting work".

Some have suggested that the scribe to the King's Men, Ralph Crane, may have been involved, or the bookkeeper, Edward Knight. But again, would they have been entrusted with such a long and complex undertaking?

New technology has changed scholarship. Whereas previous generations of experts have sought to reconcile the differences between quarto and Folio, current thinking highlights the difficult relationship between the various incarnations of Shakespeare's texts, something made easier by the availability of rare Shakespeare quartos in digital databases such as Early English Books Online.

The scholar Eleanor Prosser thus detects "considerable evidence" for the elimination of metrical and stylistic "irregularities" in the Folio: short lines are lengthened to 10 syllables, verbs agreed with subjects, double negatives resolved. In addition, a range of unusual words are added to the text, words not used elsewhere by Shakespeare. Prosser concludes: "somewhere behind the Folio … lies a conscientious and exacting editor with literary pretensions", albeit one "more experienced in the transcription of literary than of theatrical works". But who was it?

❦

Hamlet provides interesting reading on this question. In Act 1 scene 2 Hamlet taunts a pretentious "Courtier" (renamed "young Osricke" in the Folio):

HAMLET put your Bonet to his right vse, 'tis for the head.
OSRIC I thanke your Lordship, 'tis very hot …
HAMLET Mee thinkes it is very soultry, and hot for my Complexion.
OSRIC Exceedingly, my Lord, it is very soultry, as 'twere I cannot tell how …
HAMLET I beseech you remember. [pointing to his hat]
OSRIC Nay, in good faith, for mine ease …

As critics have noted, Hamlet's frustration with the courtier's over-formality recalls a dialogue from John Florio's Italian language manual, Florio's Second Fruits, printed in 1591:

G Why do you stand barehedded? you do your self wrong.
E Pardon me good sir. I doe it for my ease.
G I pray you be couered, you are too ceremonious.
E I am so well, that me thinks I am in heaven.
G If you loue me, put on your hat.

"I do it for my ease"; "good my lord, for my ease". The similarities of the passages, as well as the mention of "complexion" suggest a desire to satirise not only the stereotypical courtier, but Florio himself, who had become a groom of the privy chamber in August 1604 (Hamlet was published later the same year) and who was known for his "fiery"– possibly acned – complexion.

And in the following lines the satire of Florio's ornate linguistic register, with its alliteration and invented words, becomes more overt:

OSRIC Sir there is newly come to Court Laertes, belieue me an absolute gentleman, ful of most excellent differences, of very soft society, and great showing: in-deede to speake fellingly of him, hee is the card or kalender of gentry …

HAMLET Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you, though I know to deuide him inuentorially, would dazzle th'arithmaticke of memory …
OSRIC Sir …
HORATIO His purse is empty already, all's golden words are spent.

Horatio's words offer a reminder of the full title of John Florio's first book: Florio's First Fruits, which yield Familiar Speech, Merry Proverbs, Witty Sentences, and Golden Sayings (1578).

Shakespeare's "Courtier" may therefore be a satirical portrait of Florio, with whom Shakespeare had shared a patron in Henry Wriothesley. But what is especially interesting is that all the lines in this second quotation from Hamlet are deleted from the 1623 Folio. There are two, equally uncertain, possibilities as to why. The first is that, thinking he had overdone the satire of Florio, and perhaps needing to make a theatrical cut, Shakespeare erased the passage from the play. The major – although not conclusive – problem with this theory is that Shakespeare was long dead before the text was edited in its Folio form.

The other possibility is more disturbing – that alongside Jaggard and Blount there worked an experienced editor who had a particular reason to cut it, someone used to seeing long and  inguistically demanding works through the press. And in that sense, one acquaintance of theirs was uniquely qualified.

John Florio was born in 1553, 11 years before Shakespeare. His father, Michaelangelo Florio, was an Italian Protestant refugee who served as preacher to the Italian Church in London. On the restoration of Catholicism under Mary, the family fled, settling in the Italian Alps. But sometime in the 1570s, the young Florio returned to England and began to make his mark as a scholar and translator. He wrote his pair of pioneering language manuals, the First Fruits of 1578 and the Second Fruits of 1591, and edited the 1590 edition of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia. His career culminated in his monumental translations of the Essays of Montaigne in 1603, Boccaccio's Decameron in 1620, and his Italian-English dictionaries – A World of Wordes (1598) and Queen Anna's World of Words (1611). In all, the OED ascribes 1,224 first usages to Florio – words such as "judicious", "management" and "transcription", but also "masturbation" and "fucker". In this, he is matched only by Chaucer and Shakespeare.

What is important for this story is how Florio's career brought him into close contact with the printers of the First Folio. Blount had published Florio's translation of Montaigne, as well as his dictionaries. Jaggard had printed his translation of the Decameron. The Shakespeare First Folio was dedicated to William and Philip Herbert, patrons with whom Florio had links going back to his father's day.

If Jaggard and Blount were looking for someone to edit Shakespeare, Florio was an obvious choice. He was an indefatigable editor and wrote dialogue and verse, contributing a dedicatory poem to Ben Jonson's Volpone. And he was seasoned in the pitfalls of book production. He describes how books may "misse their ayme, by the escape of Errors and Mistakes, either in sense or matter, the one fault ensuing by a ragged Written Copy; and the other through want of wary Correction".

What's more, Florio had known Shakespeare. They had shared a patron, and both knew Jonson. But whether the relationship between them was entirely amicable is unclear. Shakespeare may have mocked Florio not only in Osric, but also in the pedantic Holofernes in Love's Labour's Lost, as well as perhaps even Malvolio and Shylock (Florio's father was originally of Jewish descent). And such animosity may have been mutual. The biographer Jonathan Bate suggests that the "Dark Lady" of the Sonnets may well have been Florio's wife.

But Shakespeare had died in 1616, and Florio was hard up: a pension promised to him by James I had failed to materialise. The opportunity to improve Shakespeare's "ragged written copy", and further ingratiate himself with the Herberts may have come as a welcome opportunity.

❦

So much is speculation. But a close reading of the Folio reveals some fascinating evidence.

If we look at Hamlet, for instance, we notice that the editor of the Folio introduces a number of unusual words to the text. Thus in Act 1 scene 5, Hamlet instructs his sinews to bear him "swiftly up" to revenge. The Folio changes the quarto's "swiftly" to "stiffely", a word never used elsewhere by Shakespeare but familiar to Florio, who uses it four times. In Act 5 scene 2, "breed" is changed to "beauy" (bevy), again a word never used elsewhere by Shakespeare but which Florio uses three times. And the same can be said of a number of unusual additions to the play – words such as "pratlings", "checking", "detecting", "quicknesse", "diddest", "daintier", "hurling" and "roaming". In Act 2 scene 2, Polonius tells how Hamlet was "repell'd" (rejected) by Ophelia. The Folio changes "repell'd" to "repulsed", the latter a familiar word now, but one never used elsewhere by Shakespeare, or Marlowe or Jonson. But such a substitution would occur naturally to Florio, who uses "repulsed" four times, defining the Italian Ripulso as "repulsed, repelled".

This pattern of rather recondite substitution can be seen across the Folio. In Henry V, Exeter presents the French king with a copy of Henry's family tree, describing it as "In every branch truly demonstrated". The Folio changes "demonstrated" to "demonstratiue", a word never used elsewhere by Shakespeare, Marlowe or Jonson. However, while Florio used "demonstrated" only once, he uses "demonstratiue" 20 times. In Henry IV, Part One, "intemperence" is replaced by "intemperature", again never used by Shakespeare, Marlowe or Jonson, but again familiar to Florio. And in Henry VI, Part Two, the Folio version has the King enter "on the Tarras", a somewhat redundant elaboration on the King's entrance in the quarto. But whereas Shakespeare was never to use the word again, Florio used it 13 times in his translation of the Decameron, published three years before.

Further comparison of the quartos to the Folio reveals a number of words in passages added to the plays that are again uncharacteristic of Shakespeare but familiar to Florio, among them "abutting", "blabbing" and "bungle" (there are lots more). And in the Folio-only plays there are several very rare words that again are familiar to Florio: "longly", "mothy", "queasines", "roynish". And some words from the Folio can only be found in Florio and not in any other writer – "enfoldings", "swaruer".

Even more interesting is where the editor of the Folio feels entitled to not only correct but supplement Shakespeare's text. In King Lear (a play so differing in its quarto and Folio versions that it is often printed as two texts), Gloucester has been fooled into thinking that Edgar has conspired against him, and laments the treachery of the times (the words in italics show the Folio additions):

In Cities, mutinies, Countries, discord; in Pallaces, Treason; and the Bond crack'd, 'twixt Sonne and Father. This villaine of mine comes vnder the prediction; there's Son against Father, the King fals from byas of Nature, there's Father against Childe. We haue seene the best of our time. Machinations, hollownesse, treacherie, and all ruinous disorders follow vs disquietly to our Graues. Find out this Villain, Edmond, it shall lose thee nothing …

The words added include some not used by Shakespeare anywhere else, such as "disquietly", but also the word "machinations"– never used elsewhere by Shakespeare but used five times by Florio in singular and plural forms and also added to Edgar's speech in Act 5 scene 1.

And while it might seem gratuitous scepticism to doubt the integrity of Shakespeare's text, it is clear that someone edited the Folio. It is Florio's linguistic inventiveness – as well as his links to Jaggard and Blount – that would seem to single him out as the most likely contender. Indeed, in King Lear we might almost fancy we can see the lexicographer Florio at work – as Edmond expresses his worship of "nature" rather than nurture:

well the legitimate Edgar, I must haue your land, our Fathers loue is to the bastard Edmund, as to the legitimate: fine word: Legitimate. Well my legitimate, if this letter speede, and my inuention thriue, Edmund the base shall to'th'legitimate.

It seems odd that the nefarious Edmond should pause to admire the word "legitimate". But it is almost as if Florio stops to afford Shakespeare some credit, adding "fine word: Legitimate" to the Folio text.

If Florio was indeed involved in the Folio, a number of other passages may well be his work. It is well known that Gonzalo's utopian vision in The Tempest is lifted from Florio's translation of Montaigne's essay "Of Cannibals". The standard view has been that this represents Shakespeare's borrowing from Montaigne; the alternative is that it might represent Florio borrowing from himself.

❦

There is no reason to assume, of course, that Florio was responsible for every change made between quarto and Folio. Nor should we assume that Shakespeare's quartos represent "pure", unadulterated texts. On the other hand, it is possible that Shakespeare made changes to his plays after their quarto publication. In other words, uncertainties abound.

Yet there are three pages of the Folio that we know for a fact were not written by Shakespeare: the "Dedicatorie Epistle", and the address "To the great Variety of Readers" at the beginning. They are signed by Heminges and Condell, but the cost of the project suggests they were written by a more experienced hand. The obvious candidate would seem to be Ben Jonson: but if he did write them, why didn't he sign them?

These pages feature a number of unusual words and phrases – "exposed", "leauened", "imitator", "ouerseen", "most bounden"– most of which are unfamiliar to Jonson or his contemporaries, but which are familiar to Florio. Other evidence exists, too, not least that calling the preface an "Epistle Dedicatorie" is almost a Florio trademark: he includes them in his Second Fruites (1591), his World of Wordes (1598) and his translation of Montaigne's Essayes (1603), as well as defining the Italian Dedicatória, in his dictionary, as "a dedicatorie Epistle".

Of course, objections remain. Why is Florio's name not on the title page? One response is that Florio had published his translation of the Decameron anonymously, and might have thought it best to lie low, especially if his relationship with Shakespeare had been less than amicable. Secondly, if Florio "censored" a possible allusion to himself in Hamlet, might he not have removed other possible slights elsewhere – in relation to Shylock, perhaps, or Malvolio in Twelfth Night? Here one might say that he could not sabotage the whole project: the scenes involving Malvolio, then as now, were some of the most celebrated in the play. Yet the other simple answer is that we don't know he didn't.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Florio's possible involvement with the Folio is that we may never know its true extent. As Othello says in lines added to the Folio: "I thinke my Wife be honest, and thinke she is not." While with plays such as Hamlet, Othello and King Lear we can compare the Folio against the quarto, for other plays – such as Antony and Cleopatra, The Tempest and Macbeth – we cannot. Half of Shakespeare's works were published for the first time in the Folio; the question remains whether they were subject to Florio's "wary correction". Our knowledge of changes made to the quartos, as well as Florio's treatment of Boccaccio and Montaigne, suggests that there is a strong chance that they were. And yet we have no sure way of knowing. We cannot tell for certain whether the words were written by John Florio or by William Shakespeare.

❦

In the final scene of Twelfth Night, a play published only in the Folio, Fabian reveals the tricks that have been played on the puritanical Malvolio, but pleads "sportful malice", in the hope that it may "pluck on laughter than reuenge". The clown Feste joins in, quoting from the letter that had duped Malvolio into believing Olivia loved him – "Why some are borne great, some atchieue greatnesse, and some haue greatnesse throwne vpon them"– adding: "and thus the whirlegigge of time brings in his reuenges".

What is interesting is that Feste was not on stage when Malvolio read the letter, nor when he repeated its contents to Olivia. Moreover, the original letter read: "Some are become great, some atcheeues greatnesse, and some haue greatnesse thrust vppon em." In Feste's lines the words and spellings have changed: "atcheeues" is spelt "atchieue", and made to agree with the pronoun, "thrust" becomes "throwne", and "them" used for "em". The word "whirlegigge" is also interesting, meaning a children's top, but is not used anywhere else by Shakespeare.

But both the words and the spellings and the grammar are familiar to Florio, whose verbs always agree with their pronouns, who never writes "atcheeue", always "atchieue", who disdains the use of "em", and who uses the word "whirlegigge" five times. Malvolio's response is his final utterance in the play and receives no reply: "Ile be reueng'd on the whole packe of you."

• Saul Frampton's When I Am Playing With My Cat, How Do I Know She Is Not Playing With Me? – about Montaigne – is published by Faber. He is writing a book about John Florio and Shakespeare. Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.

Olivia Munn stepped out in New York City on Thursday looking nearly flawless. With skinny black jeans, a loose gray top, and towering black boots, Munn mastered the sexy-yet-casual look that summer weather tries so hard to destroy.

The night before, the "Newsroom" star celebrated her HBO show's Season 2 premiere at the Paramount Theater in Los Angeles. Her new horror-action film "Beware the Night" with Eric Bana and Joel McHale won't be out until January 2015, but until then, Munn will continue to stun newsies as the Aaron Sorkin show premieres on Sunday, July 14. Reported by Huffington Post 2 days ago.

Olivia Munn is uniquely qualified to play a reporter on HBO's "The Newsroom": She studied to be one in college.

"I went from 'The Daily Show' pretending to be a fake reporter then went to 'The Newsroom' pretending to be a real reporter and majored in journalism so like everything was kind of gearing me up to do something like this which is nice because my mother is very happy that I am using my journalism degree in some way."

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Call her Good Girl Olivia. Knowing the plight of  female 20 to 30-somethings everywhere face during wedding season, Olivia Wilde has taken it upon herself to ensure that she gives the bridesmaids to her upcoming nuptials a break. In an interview with InStyle magazine, the Incredible Burt Wonderstone actress says she’ll skip “that tortured tradition”...Read more» Reported by Celebuzz 2 days ago.

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Celebrity perfumes are a dime a dozen these days. In fact, they're so commonplace that stars like Katy Perry and Mariah Carey have multiple fragrances to their name. Though we doubt Katy'll make it to Mariah's 12-scent tally anytime soon -- the "California Girl" would rather expand her empire in another direction.

Katy's third fragrance, Killer Queen, launched in May. The pop star spoke to Women's Wear Daily this week about the new perfume, her affinity for beauty products... and the prospect of expanding into apparel. Now that she's got a Vogue cover to call her own, fashion seems like it might be an imminent development.

"I would like to [branch into fashion], but this circus act can only juggle so many balls," Katy told the trade. "It's to be determined, but we'll see how it goes. It's a long process, and I want to find the right place for me." Then she divulged her clothing inspirations:

There are a lot of people I really look up to in fashion — [like] Alice + Olivia and The Row — and I like that price range, too. I love what Victoria Beckham did, but I also have to figure out with myself what actually is the market I want to be in. Is it a high fashion market or is it an accessible market? Nothing is [currently] being created; there aren't even sketches on the table, nor a contract."

Well, we're glad Perry's taking the design process seriously. Perhaps the notorious style chameleon isn't yet sure which of her various looks she'd like to spin out into a major collection. Would she design embellished bras? Cozy sweaters? Crop tops? Tiaras? Clearly, Katy's gotta spend a lot of time at the drawing board.

Hey, at least she's getting the fashion ball rolling (even if she hasn't figured out how to juggle it just yet). Let's just hope a Katy clothing line will be a bit more unique than the Olsen collection she references. Are you excited for an upcoming Katy Perry clothing line?

*Killer Queen, indeed:*

Want more? Be sure to check out HuffPost Style on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram at @HuffPostStyle. Reported by Huffington Post 9 hours ago.

From classic novels to recent releases, writers and critics tell the Observer which books they'll be cramming into their suitcases this summer

**Louise Doughty*
*Novelist*
*

Well-written reportage or memoir is my relaxation reading. I loved Janet Malcolm's last book, Iphigenia in Forest Hills, and so will be falling upon her new one, *Forty-One False Starts*, a collection of essays and profiles, if only for the great title. While we are on numbered titles, I might catch up with Elif Shafak's *The Forty Rules of Love*; with recent events in Turkey, her work has become more important than ever. Each summer, I try to read something I'm ashamed to have not read and this summer it's going to be (big admission here) Mary Shelley's *Frankenstein*.

**Julian Barnes** *
*Novelist*
*

For the flight (and for a reminder that the activity was once much more dangerous) I shall take Richard Holmes's history of ballooning and balloonatics, *Falling Upwards*. As every five years or so, it's time to reread *The Great Gatsby* (which also contains a theme of upward mobility); but for once it can be followed by the chaser of Sarah Churchwell's *Careless People*, a kind of biography of that perfect novel. John Williams's *Stoner* is not about drugs – or written by the guitarist – but by a forgotten American; first published in 1965, it is one of those purely sad, sadly pure novels that deserves to be rediscovered.

**Hilary Mantel** *
*Novelist*
*

Since I holiday at home and don't have to pay excess baggage, I look forward to *Modernity Britain*, the latest in David Kynaston's series of postwar histories: these are volumes full of treasure, serious history with a human face. I can recommend Louise Doughty's new thriller, *Apple Tree Yard*: guaranteed to have you on the edge of your sun-lounger. And this may be the season I finally enjoy Richard Ford's modern classic *The Sportswriter*, which has sat on my shelves for many summers.

**John Lanchester*
*Novelist*
*

Two brilliant books by young writers that I've looked at and am looking forward to reading properly are *Money* by Felix Martin and *Idiopathy* by Sam Byers. They're respectively a fascinating new way of telling the story of what money is and a mordantly riveting first novel about what it's like to be a thirtysomething. Joe Brainard's *I Remember* is republished in a beautiful new form by Notting Hill Editions. Every section in it starts with the words "I remember": it was the inspiration for two of my favourite pieces of autobiographical writing, Georges Perec's Je me souviens and Harry Mathews's The Orchard. It's a quarter of a century since I read Proust so I'm going to tackle him again, starting with the translation of *Swann's Way* by one of my favourite writers, Lydia Davis.

**Helen Dunmore *
*Poet*
*

The recent publication of Deirdre Madden's Time Present and Time Past sent me back to her earlier novels. *One By One in the Darkness* is one of the finest books I know about growing up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. A country child's confident world is eaten away while the all-powerful adults are revealed as vulnerable, fearful, even desperate. This is history from within and it grips the heart. I'm a rereader as much as a reader, and the classic that I would take with me is Colette's *Le blé en herbe*. This coming-of-age love triangle between a boy, a girl and an older woman is the essence of summer: tender, sensuous, poignant and without illusions.

**Robert Macfarlane** *
*Travel writer*
*

I'm chairing this year's Man Booker prize jury, and we've been on a novel a day for the past 100 days, and a novel every two days for the 100 before that. So fiction will certainly not be featuring as part of my summer reading (in fact, now I think about it, reading might not be featuring as part of my summer). But among the not-novels I've been looking forward to having time to turn to, once the bulk of the Booker is done – we longlist in late July – are Tim Dee's forthcoming *Four Fields*, about grass, sunshine, life and the pastoral, and *The View from Lazy Point* by Carl Safina, the story of "a natural year in an unnatural world", written by an oceanographer who has been acclaimed in the US as Rachel Carson's successor. Both books, I anticipate, will relate dazzling close observation to the larger politics of the environment. Oh, and as part of the research for a book called Underland that I'm slowly writing, about subterranea and the worlds beneath our feet, I'll also be reading Eyal Weizman's now-classic study *Hollow Land: Israel's Architecture of Occupation* (Verso).

**Stuart Evers *
*Writer*
*

Both Evie Wyld's new novel, *All the Birds, Singing*, and James Scudamore's *Wreaking* have remote, rain-riven places at their heart – perfect, then, for any kind of squall or heatwave. I'll also be taking the first of the Carrigan and Miller novels, *A Dark Redemption*, by the UK's most important, underrated crime novelist, Stav Sherez, as well as the much vaunted web thriller *Kiss Me First* by Lottie Moggach. *The Walk* by Robert Walser is my "classic author I've never read" inclusion for the year, accompanied by Jane Jacob's *The Death and Life of Great American Cities* as my non-fiction choice.

**Alexander McCall Smith*
*Novelist*
*

Peter Davidson, an art historian, has written a remarkable and unusual book, *Distance and Memory*, which is a collection of essays about place and the effect of place. I have started this book but want to make it last the summer. It is a sustained prose poem, very moving in its effect. As for novels, I shall be reading James Robertson's *Professor of Truth*, a controversial fictionalisation of the Lockerbie issue that has haunted the Scottish legal system for some time. Robertson is a very great novelist. And then there is Rosemary Goring's *After Flodden*, another real treat.

**Ali Smith *
*Novelist*
*

I'm looking forward to Bernardine Evaristo's new novel, *Mr Loverman*, out in August. It's the story of Barry, Antiguan-born Hackney local hero/antihero, who, it turns out, has been living a secret gay life (especially secret from his wife and kids) for decades. I'm a fan of Evaristo, who can take any old trail and make it blaze. This novel looks full of explosive life and mischief. I'm also reading all I can find of the 20th-century Italian writer *Giorgio Bassani*. Bassani was Jewish; he survived imprisonment and escaped the fate of so many of his fellow Jewish Ferrarese inhabitants. He spent the postwar decades using fiction to work at the knots of politics, passion and betrayal that formed the psyche of the town he knew inside out. I recently reread his novels, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis and The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles, in powerful new translations by the poet Jamie McKendrick; these sent me back to his other books published in the 1960s and 70s, which I'll read in the knowledge and the pleasurable hope that at some point there'll surely be McKendrick versions of these too. Bassani began as a poet, and McKendrick's redelivery of this taut uncompromising fiction reveals resonance and generosity.

**Justin Cartwright *
*Novelist**

*The Accursed* by the prolific Joyce Carol Oates is apparently a gothic novel but turns out, I am told, to be a subtle novel about fiction. WG Sebald is a great hero of mine; his work is utterly beguiling, and I can't wait to read the latest, *A Place in the Country*, a collection of his essays. As for *Animal Farm*, I have never really wanted to read it after reading Down and Out in Paris and London, and wondering how bad that could have been with a trust fund to call on. But I am aware that Animal Farm has pierced the consciousness of the world to a very deep level, so this summer I am going to read it. And I do like pigs.

**Hari Kunzru *
*Novelist*
*

In fiction, I'm looking forward to reading the reissue of Antonio Tabucchi's novel of fascist Portugal, *Pereira Maintains*, to Javier Marías's latest, *The Infatuations*, and to *Barley Patch* by the overlooked Australian master, Gerald Murnane. I'll also be packing Simon Critchley and Jamieson Webster's *Stay, Illusion!*, in which the husband and wife philosopher/psychoanalyst team dive deep into Hamlet, and William Dalrymple's account of Britain's first (but not last) Afghan disaster, *Return of a King*.

**Craig Taylor *
*Journalist and playwright*
*

This summer, I'll be so deep into Canadian fiction I'll practically be living in Moose Factory or Moose Jaw. There comes a point when people, and by people I mean me, need to play catch-up with the literature of their homeland, so Morley Callaghan and Margaret Laurence await, and also Gabrielle Roy and Madeleine Thien. I can't wait to read Leanne Simpson's collection of short stories *Islands of Decolonial Love*, *The Victoria System* by Eric Reinhardt and also a book made for anyone who cares about cities: Mark Binelli's *The Last Days of Detroit*.

**Kamila Shamsie *
*Novelist**

This summer, as every summer for the past decade, I plan to read *Middlemarch* for the first time. I feel more confident that I'll get around to the more recently published books on my list (possibly because I actually own copies of them): Claire Messud's *The Woman Upstairs*, Patrick Flanery's *Fallen Land*, and the always brilliant Ali Smith's collection of lectures, *Artful*.

**Rachel Cooke *
*Observer writer**

I can't get on with my Kindle, but I will use it for reading Meg Wolitzer's fat new novel, *The Interestings*, which tells the story of six friends down the decades following their first meeting as teenagers in the summer that Nixon resigns. In paperback, I'll be taking Virago Modern Classics' new edition, with an introduction by Barbara Trapido, of Barbara Comyns's 1947 novel, *Sisters By a River*, an autobiographical tale with a wild gothic streak about five girls' struggle to bring themselves up. Comyns is brilliant, and if you haven't read her, you should. My non-fiction is going to be *Careless People* by Sarah Churchwell. Looks juicy, to say the least.

**Ali Shaw *
*Novelist**

For the past few years, when the weather's grown hotter, I've ended up reading about snow. This year, I'm about to start Yasunari Kawabata's *Snow Country*, which has been described as haiku in prose and seems like a novel to return to over and over. I shan't get as far afield as Japan this summer but I will be taking *Holloway* to Dorset. It's a short and atmospherically illustrated book about that county's sunken paths, joint-authored by Robert Macfarlane, Stanley Donwood and Dan Richards. I'm going to find one such holloway and sit in its tunnel of branches until I've finished reading.

**Colin Thubron*
*Travel writer**

Holidays routinely promise more reading time than ever happens, but I shall take with me Gavin Francis's *Empire Antarctica*, which records 14 months among king penguins in the beauty of the west Antarctic. And* **On the Map* by Simon Garfield offers a subtle study of how maps shaped us and vice versa. Finally, I hope to tackle David Foster Wallace's enormous and extraordinary novel *Infinite Jest*, a masterpiece (it is said) of comic seriousness.

**Kate Kellaway *
*Observer writer**

I have a pile of books in waiting. They involve truancy – or a departure from the run of the mill. The new edition of *Wild Swimming* by Daniel Start could not be more beckoning, identifying every British puddle and lake worth swimming in. Jane Robins's *The Curious Habits of Doctor Adams* is a true story that has had blood-curdlingly good reviews. It is about a 1950s GP who bumped off widows with barbiturates (one to keep you alert on the beach). And I have never read *Chekhov's letters*. I expect them to be as good as – perhaps comparable to – Keats's letters.

**Wendy Cope *
*Poet**

I will be spending a month in Stratford-upon-Avon as a writer in residence, so I'll be brushing up my Shakespeare – reading plays I've never got around to, such as Timon of Athens, and rereading others. My copy of Charles Moore's *Margaret Thatcher* biography has just arrived. I know I'll enjoy that because Moore is such a good writer. However, it is a very big, heavy book – more suitable for reading at home than for travelling with. Other new books I'm keen to read include *A Delicate Truth* by John Le Carré, Fleur Adcock's new collection of poems, *Glass Wings*, and *Fifty Years in Time and Space: A Short History of Dr Who* by Frank Danes.

**Elizabeth Day *
*Observer writer**

The best holiday reading experience I had all year was taking *Americanah* by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie away with me over Easter. It is a brilliant novel: epic in scope, personal in resonance and with lots to say. This summer, I'm hugely looking forward to Viv Groskop's *I Laughed, I Cried*. I'm a big fan of Groskop's journalism and the premise of this memoir – an amateur does 100 standup gigs in 100 days – is too intriguing to resist. I've had an untouched copy of *Moby-Dick* on my bedside table for so long it's now getting embarrassing. I seem to have read an awful lot of novels inspired by it (the latest being The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach) so this might be the year that I take the plunge.

**Julie Myerson *
*Novelist**

I can't wait to reread my friend Mark Lawson's astonishingly expansive, hilarious and heartbreakingly dark new novel, *The Deaths*, which is to be published in September; I was treated to a sneak preview last year but now want to savour it as slowly as possible. I'm also going to take Kate Worsley's gender-switching *She Rises*, partly because I love historical novels but also because she's the latest graduate to be published from my husband's creative writing MA at City University. Meanwhile, Halldór Laxness's 1948 classic, *The Atom Station*, has been on my pile for a while, pressed on me by my daughter who has fantastically good taste and is fast becoming much better read than me.

**Philip French *
*Observer film critic**

The weighty volume in my holiday book bag is *Careless People*, Sarah Churchwell's enticing survey of "Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby". It has a striking cover based on Fitzgerald's 1925 bookplate. My fiction choice is John le Carré's *A Delicate Truth*. I'll be reading it in Sweden where he should have been shortlisted long ago for the Nobel prize. I've plucked from my shelves a classic I've long been intending to read: *Hunger*, the Norwegian Nobel prize-winner Knut Hamsun's 1890 novel, of which I've too often said: "No, but I've seen the movie."

**Sam Jordison *
*Writer**

I'll be taking *Elvis Died for Somebody's Sins But Not Mine* by Mick Farren. Farren wrote about everything from Johnny Cash to Richard Nixon to ebola and did it all with rage and humour, not to mention unusual precision. I'll interweave that with JW Ironmonger's *The Coincidence Authority*, hoping it will be as surprising and touching as last year's Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder. But I expect most of my time will be spent basking in *Sodom and Gomorrah*, book four of Proust's In Search of Lost Time. I started reading the first book earlier this year and there's been no turning back. I know it's hardly news that Proust is good – but no one had told me how much fun he is too: how funny, how bitchy and how gloriously naughty. Getting through those millions of words isn't a challenge. It's a delight.

**Alex Preston *
*Author and journalist*
*

To Spain, in August, I'll be taking Evie Wyld's second novel, *All the Birds, Singing*. I adored her first, After the Fire, and I'm looking forward to lingering over this one on a terrace, with a glass of wine, in those precious hours after the kids are in bed. A stray comment in an interview with Günter Grass put me on to Wolfgang Koeppen's *Death in Rome*. It's an extraordinary novel, beautifully translated by Michael Hoffmann. I'm looking forward to reading the others in his "trilogy of failure"– *Pigeons on the Grass* and *The Hothouse*. Finally, I'll pack a proof copy of Anthony McGowan's *Hello Darkness*. His novels – ostensibly "young adult"– are brilliant, dark and very funny.

**Sara Wheeler *
*Travel writer and biographer*
*

I am learning Russian this year so all books point east. Much looking forward to *Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking*, a memoir by American journalist Anya von Bremzen. Also Joseph Frank's monumental biography of *Dostoevsky* – though I will have to pay excess baggage, as the condensed version comes in at 1,000 pages. Then it's *Chekhov's short stories* in a bilingual edition, starting, naturally, with "The Lady With the Dog". A daunting prospect, but what's the point in learning Russian if you can't battle through Chekhov in the original?

**Talitha Stevenson*
*Author and journalist**

I'll be rereading George Saunders's collection of short stories, *Tenth of December*, this summer – and reading all his other work for the first time. I'll also read James Salter's new novel, *All That is*. I was lucky enough to see Salter talk at the South Bank this May and he was still fiery with wit and compassion at the age of 88. I'll also be rereading Marilynne Robinson's novel *Home*, which I have been afraid to look at again for three years because she knows how to break my heart.

**Robert McCrum*
*Observer writer**

Joanna Kavenna is one of the recent "Best of Young British" Granta selections, and her satire, *Come to the Edge*, a Cold Comfort Farm for the new millennium, makes perfect summer reading: pointed, perverse, perceptive – and highly entertaining. Lara Feigel attracted very good notices for her study of literary London during the Blitz, *The Love-charm of Bombs*. Admirers of Elizabeth Bowen, Rose Macaulay and Graham Greene will marvel at the extraordinary world they inhabited during the war. An ideal book for that wet afternoon by the beach. Finally, the classic I'd always take to add a bit of texture and shade to summer's bliss is Elizabeth Taylor's masterpiece, *Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont*. Taylor is one of Austen's heirs – a wonderful comic miniaturist who deserves never to be forgotten.

**Mary Beard*
*Classicist**

Jenn Ashworth's *The Friday Gospels* will make a nicely unsettling poolside read. Brought up in a Mormon family, here she turns her fictional talents to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, both its dark and its hilarious sides. Dark in a different sense is Dante's *Divine Comedy*. Clive James's new translation is wonderfully unstuffy and injects fresh life back into the poem. For those of us making for Greece, the original 2nd-century guidebook, *Pausanias's Guide to Greece* (in Peter Levi's Penguin Classics translation), offers a useful antidote to the Rough Guide and tells you what tourists 2,000 years ago got told.

**Lara Feigel*
*Author and academic**

For me, this is a summer of Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway, so I'll be packing *Hemingway's Boat* by Paul Hendrickson. Hemingway loved his fishing boat more enduringly than any of his wives, so making it the focus of a biography is an inspired idea. Gellhorn is now best known for her incisive journalism but she was also a wonderful novelist. I'll take *Liana* (1944), which is set on a Caribbean island and so may make appropriate beach reading. In the evenings, I'll frighten myself with Stephen Romer's *French Decadent Tales*. These are grizzly, erotic stories of macabre maniacs, elegantly translated by Romer.

**Owen Jones*
*Columnist**

It's no cheery beach read, but I'll be reading up on the human impact of austerity across Europe in *The Body Economic* by David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu, exposing how people's health has suffered because of savage cuts in countries such as Greece. I'm looking forward to getting stuck in to Mike Power's *Drugs 2.0*, a clever and witty take on how drug deals have gone from shady alleyways to the click of a mouse. Finally, I've shamefully never read the late Iain Banks's notoriously dark but riveting classic *The Wasp Factory*: I can't wait to rectify that.

**Stephanie Merritt*
*Novelist**

I'm looking forward to reading Camilla Lackberg's new psychological thriller, *The Lost Boy*. I've raced through the rest of her series; she creates smart crime plots with plenty of twists and I like the way she weaves in the personal lives of her detectives. I'm also taking *The Trip to Echo Spring: Why Writers Drink* by Olivia Laing, an exploration of the relationship between creativity and alcohol. I'm also determined to finish *The Great Gatsby*. It's one of those classics I always pretend I've read but actually haven't, and the film has inspired me to return to it.

**William Dalrymple*
*Travel writer**

I'm taking three books with me on holiday, all by friends, that I should have read by now. Mohsin Hamid's *How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia* has had rave reviews, as has Taiye Selasi's *Ghana Must Go*, and I'm really looking forward to getting into both beside a Tuscan pool. A classic I'm also taking with me is Steve Coll's *Ghost Wars*, about US meddling in Afghanistan prior to 9/11, which I've somehow never read. I'm weighing up the pros and cons of writing a history of the Indo-Pak conflict since 1947 and no one knows the Afpak repercussions of that rivalry better than Steve.

**Lucy Lethbridge *
*Historian**

I'll be reading *And Man Created God* by Selina O'Grady, for perspective; Edith Pearlman's collection of short stories, *Binocular Vision*, for surprises; and David Kynaston's *Modernity Britain* so I can read about Terylene and Fray Bentos tinned steak and kidney pie under an alien sun.

**Salley Vickers*
*Novelist**

I'm packing *Mr Darwin's Gardener* by Kristina Carlson – a quiet novel (my favourite kind) set in Downe, the village where Darwin spent his last years. The book is Finnish but the translation, by a mother-and-daughter team, Emily and Fleur Jeremiah, is terrific and the author's grasp of England circa 1880 is utterly convincing. *Gossip from the Forest* by Sara Maitland looks to be a delightful mix of nature and magic, with no soppiness. Each chapter explores a different British forest concluding in a retelling of an old fairytale. Finally, I am taking Keats's *Selected Letters*. I've read them many times but judging the Keats-Shelley prize this year has made me want to reread.

**Catherine O'Flynn*
*Novelist**

Having grown up in a corner shop in the West Midlands, I suspect Sathnam Sanghera's *Marriage Material* will resonate. I'm expecting acerbic wit, unsentimental tenderness and a Black Country setting – what could be better? I also love the sound of Donal Ryan's *The Spinning Heart*. Told from the points of view of 21 different characters in an Irish village, it focuses inevitably on the aftermath of the recession. I plan to round off the fun with some beautifully rendered ennui and isolation, courtesy of Norwegian cartoonist *Jason*, whose back catalogue I'll be wallowing in this summer.

**Rachel Joyce*
*Novelist**

I'll be reading *Life After Life* by Kate Atkinson and Alison Moore's collection, *The Pre-War House and Other Stories*. Life After Life intrigues me – the brilliant notion that you might live your life repeatedly, shaving away at your mistakes, until you got it "right". I also love the quiet control of Alison Moore's prose, the way she guides you – through the smallest detail – into strange, dark places. I'm finally going to read *Frankenstein* by Mary Shelley and, having only just discovered *Mrs Palfrey At the Claremont*, I shall read Elizabeth Taylor's books by the armful. Reported by guardian.co.uk 7 hours ago.

Patch Taylors-Wade Hampton, SC --

Milton "Melet," Kim, Olivia, Mills, and Ana Antonakos went home to be with the Lord on Sunday, July 7, 2013.

The Antonakos family shared a deep faith and were very active members of Christ Church Episcopal.

*Milton "Melet" A* Reported by Patch 5 hours ago.

This week on Instagram, it was all about bright colors. Between Vogue's amazing neon street style images and Alice + Olivia's whimsical striped dresses, we're about ready to give up black and white for good (OK, maybe not for good).

Since we're such Instagram fiends, we've decided to round up a few of our favorite snaps of the week. Click through the slideshow to see a clever photo of Jenna Lyons and an adorable photo of FLOTUS and POTUS!

Want more? Be sure to check out HuffPost Style on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram at @HuffPostStyle. Reported by Huffington Post 17 minutes ago.

NeverWet, $20, is a waterproofing product now available at Home Depot By Deborah Arthurs and Olivia Fleming UPDATED: 20:25 EST, 10 July 2013 42 View comments It Reported by CapitalBay 4 days ago.

Watch Video


(Image Source: Central Florida News 13) 

 

 

*BY CHRISTIAN BRYANT*

 

 

The defense in the George Zimmerman murder trial rested Wednesday, but not before Zimmerman spoke... for the first time in a long time. The former neighborhood watch captain answered a question that many have been waiting for. 

 

Judge Debra Nelson: *“I don’t need to know what was said, but after those discussions, have you made a decision?”*

George Zimmerman: *“Yes, your honor.” *

Judge Debra Nelson: *“And what is your decision, sir?” *

George Zimmerman: *“After consulting with counsel, not to testify, your honor.” *(Via NBC) 

 

Following that response, Judge Nelson continued questioning Zimmerman to ensure the decision was his alone and that he wasn’t coerced by the defense. (Via USA Today)

 

Though the moment came and went, the lead up to his answer was a bit more heated, with a testy back-and-forth between Judge Nelson and defense attorney Don West. 

 

Don West: *“I object to the court inquiring of Mr. Zimmerman as to his decision about whether not to testify...” *

Judge Debra Nelson: *“You’re objection is overruled.” *(Via CBS)

 

The latest spat between West and Judge Nelson punctuates the growing tension between the two. On Tuesday night, Nelson adjourned court for the day while West vehemently continued to argue. (Via ABC)

 

As for Zimmerman declining to testify, one writer for The Washington Post says he didn’t have to take the stand: *“… jurors heard from him often over three weeks of trial testimony. They watched video and heard audio of him …. In effect, he was testifying to them without having to be cross-examined …”*

 

The defense wrapped things down Wednesday by calling three witnesses to the stand to back up the defense’s main point: that Zimmerman acted in self defense. 

 

Dennis Root, a law enforcement expert, delivered a common refrain during testimony that Zimmerman lacked athletic ability and could’ve been overpowered by Martin the night the teen was killed. (Via WPLG)

 

The defense concluded with Olivia Bertalan — whose home was burglarized by two young, black men months before Martin’s death — and Zimmerman’s father, Robert Zimmerman, Sr. — the ninth person to say the voice heard screaming in the 911 tape is that of George Zimmerman. (Via Central Florida News 13)

 

After the day’s proceedings, defense attorney Mark O’Mara indicated that Zimmerman wanted to tell his story to the jury, but ultimately decided against it. Closing arguments are set for Thursday and the jury could be handed the case as early as late Thursday or early Friday. Reported by Newsy 5 days ago.

This is Bath --

A blind date at a cinema led to 50 years of marriage for a Bath couple.

Mike and Carol Collins from Odd Down were introduced by a friend of Carol's, and hit it off straight away.

The couple, aged 72 and 69, had their first date at the old Beau Nash cinema.

Mr Collins worked as a builder, and as a bus and coach driver, while his wife worked in catering at venues across the city.

They have five children: Julie, Nigel, Stephen, Jayne and Joanne.

Mr Collins retired seven years ago, and Mrs Collins retired five years ago.

They enjoy travelling, and spending time with their ten grandchildren: Craig, Charlotte, Lauren, Sophie, Elle, Josh, Dom, Jordan, Olivia and Kiera and two great grandchildren, Rio and Leo.

Mrs Collins said: "The secret to a happy marriage is lots of patience and give and take." Reported by This is 4 days ago.