Rosemary Tonks Popular Books
Rosemary Tonks Biography & Facts
Rosemary Tonks (17 October 1928 – 15 April 2014) was an English poet and author. After publishing two poetry collections, six novels, and pieces in numerous media outlets, she disappeared from the public eye following her conversion to Fundamentalist Christianity in the 1970s; little was known about her life past that point, until her death. Early life and marriage Born Rosemary Desmond Boswell Tonks in Gillingham, Kent, she had a difficult childhood. She was the only child of Gwendoline (née Verdi) and Desmond Tonks. Her father was the nephew of Henry Tonks, the surgeon, painter, and in the 1920s, professor of fine art at Slade. A mechanical engineer, Desmond died of blackwater fever in Africa before Rosemary was born. She spent her early years in and out of different schools and children's homes. Already suffering in her childhood from troubling eye conditions, Tonks was nevertheless an enthusiastic reader and writer from a young age.Tonks attended boarding school at Wentworth college in Bournemouth. While still at school, she wrote the story which would form her authorial debut when BBC radio broadcast it in 1946. She published children's stories while a teenager, the first in 1946, which she also illustrated: On Wooden Wings: The Adventures of Webster.In 1949, aged 20, she married Michael Lightband (a mechanical engineer and later, a financier), and the couple moved to Karachi for his work, where she began to write poetry. Attacks of paratyphoid, contracted in Calcutta, and of polio, contracted in Karachi, forced a return to England. She lived in Paris in 1952–1953, before returning to London where she settled with her husband in Hampstead. They later divorced and lived several doors from each other for some years. Career Tonks worked for the BBC, writing stories and reviewing poetry for the BBC European Service. She published poems in collections and The Observer, the New Statesman, Transatlantic Review, London Magazine, Encounter, and Poetry Review; she read on the BBC's Third Programme. Her work appears in many anthologies, including: Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry (2001, edited by Keith Tuma); British Poetry since 1945; The Firebox: Poetry in Britain and Ireland after 1945 (1998, edited by Sean O'Brien); and the Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse. Tonks published two collections, Notes on Cafés and Bedrooms (Putnam, 1963) and Iliad of Broken Sentences (Bodley Head, 1967), and after both books went out of print following each publisher's decision to axe their poetry lists, she was discussing a selected edition of her work with John Moat and John Fairfax's Phoenix Press in Newbury from 1976 until 1980, when the project was abandoned following her conversion to a puritanical form of Christianity. Little was known publicly about her subsequent life past that point. As Andrew Motion wrote in 2004, she "Disappeared! What happened? Because I admire her poems, I've been trying to find out for years... no trace of her seems to survive – apart from the writing she left behind." In the 30-minute BBC Radio 4 Lost Voices documentary, "The Poet Who Vanished", broadcast 29 March 2009, Brian Patten observed, from the literary world's perspective, she'd "evaporated into air like the Cheshire cat"; Tonks had disappeared from public view and was living a hermetic existence, refusing telephone and personal calls from friends, family and the media. Withdrawal from literary life Following her death in April 2014, Neil Astley published an obituary and then an article in the Guardian, followed by his introduction to the 2014 Bloodaxe Books edition of her collected poetry and selected prose, Bedouin of the London Evening, in which he revealed the background to her "disappearance", how she had "turned her back on the literary world after a series of personal tragedies and medical crises which made her question the value of literature and embark on a restless, self-torturing spiritual quest". Her mental and physical health deteriorated following an emergency operation on New Year's Day 1978 to save her eyesight. Tonks characterised her dual detached retinas as her "reward" for "10 long years searching for God", believing they had been acquired through her practice of extreme Taoist eye exercises. Taoism had only been the most recent in a series of spiritual explorations with mediums, healers, spiritualists and Sufis. These had begun in 1968, when she rejected Christianity following the sudden death of her mother and her apparently unwanted divorce.In the aftermath of the surgery she was left almost blind for the next few years, and in 1979 she moved to Bournemouth to recuperate, to the home of her aunt, Dorothy (a "double aunt", who was both Gwendoline's sister and married to Desmond's brother, Myles). In 1980 she moved into a house behind the seafront where she lived alone for the next 33 years, using her former married name, Rosemary Lightband. In 1981 she made the decision to "confront her profession" and burnt the manuscript of an unpublished novel, apparently in the belief that the work was spiritually dangerous. She had, not long before, in the October of the same year, also burnt a large number of valuable Oriental artefacts that had been bequeathed to her many years before, on the basis that they were the cause of supernatural ill-effects. That October she travelled to Jerusalem and was baptised near the River Jordan on 17 October 1981, the day before her 53rd birthday. "Obliterating her former identity as the writer Rosemary Tonks, she dated her new life from that 'second birth'", according to Astley, and thereafter she never read any books apart from the Bible. Character of her poetry Tonks's poems offer a stylised view of an urban literary subculture around 1960, full of hedonism and decadence. The poet seems to veer from the ennui of Charles Baudelaire to exuberant disbelief at modern civilisation. There are illicit love affairs in seedy hotels and scenes of café life across Europe and the Middle East; there are sage reflections on men who are shy with women. She often targets the pathetic pretensions of writers and intellectuals. Yet she is often buoyant and chatty, bemused rather than critical, even self-deprecating.She believed poetry should look good on a printed page as well as sound good when read. Poet and essayist Dennis O'Driscoll quotes Tonks in support of his own position on the visual importance of poetry in print: "There is an excitement for the eye in a poem on the page which is completely different from the ear's reaction". Of her style, she said "I have developed a visionary modern lyric, and, for it, an idiom in which I can write lyrically, colloquially, and dramatically. My subject is city life – with its sofas, hotel corridors, cinemas, underworlds, cardboard suitcases, self-willed buses, banknotes, soapy bathrooms, newspaper-filled parks; and its anguish, its enraged excitement, its great lonely joys."Her poem, "The.... Discover the Rosemary Tonks popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Rosemary Tonks books.
Best Seller Rosemary Tonks Books of 2024
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Once Upon A One-Night Stand
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Dream Psychology
Sigmund FreudAn Apple Books Classic edition. Written by the founding father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud’s 1899 book is the definitive text on learning to interpret dreams. Freud’s groundbr...
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Tempting the King
Jessa YorkAn escaped Mafia Queen, hiding from her past. A Mafia King who wants to claim her… Giselle They think I'm lostbut I know better. I can never be found. The path I've creat...
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Always Yours
Claire RayeSome things are just meant to be... Ellen Somerville and Will McIntyre met by accident and under unusual circumstances. Getting sprayed by a skunk in a parking lot wouldn’t normall...
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The Odyssey
HomerAn Apple Books Classic edition. Homer’s eighthcentury epic poem is a companion to The Iliad . It tells the story of Odysseus, who journeys by ship for 10 years after the Trojan War...
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A Bookshop to Die For
M.P. BlackDitching her fiancé at the altar, Alice Hartford bolts to her childhood hometown to reconnect with the last, happy remnant of her past: her mom's old bookstore. But the bookst...
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Awaken Me
Jenna JacobHe was more than a ghost haunting my dreams…he was real. By day, I’m Julianna Garrett …a prim, proper accountant. By night, I’m tormented by dreams of an alpha, ambereyed Adonis wh...
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Hard Love
Peyton BanksHe was football royalty. Legendary quarterback. A champion.  Reiner Strickland had led his team to three national championships and playing a knight in shining armor was a...
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Alpha
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How to Choose a Guy in 10 Days
Lila MonroeThe only thing more hilarious than the movies is… real life?! Fall in love with the sizzling grumpysunshine romantic comedy perfect for fans of Sophie Kinsella and Ali Hazlewood! ...
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Holy Bible
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SaintsThe 2013 edition of the Holy Bible contains all of the study aids contained in the 1979 edition and includes revisions to the study aids, several new photos, updated maps, and adju...
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Little Women
Louisa May AlcottAn Apple Books Classic edition. Meet the Marches! Louisa May Alcott’s classic introduces us to four unforgettable sisters: beautiful Meg, tomboyish Jo, delicate Beth, and Amy, the ...
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Caught Up with the Captain
Kait NolanCan a retired naval commander and the love he left behind overcome a 34yearold secret to find their way to a second chance? Captain Mitchell Greyson is a man who believes in duty. ...
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Noxious
Lexy TimmsStop setting yourself on fire to keep someone else warm. Brady and Levi have been together since high school, since before he became famous and started thinking only about himself....
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The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel HawthorneAn Apple Books Classic edition. Hester Prynne lives in infamy. After committing adultery and bearing a child with a man whose name she refuses to divulge, the heroine of Nathaniel ...
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Coffee Girl
Sophie SinclairMackenzie "Kiki" Forbes finds herself in a pickle. Either become her snarky sister's nanny, or move halfway across the country to work as assistanttothestylist of a ...
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The Three Little Pigs
Mark LeskyClassic fairy tales, legends and folk stories in short version without violence retold with lovely illustrations in simple language. Perfect for reading aloud to small chi...
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Good Guy
Kate MeaderHe's a Special Forces veteran making his pro hockey debut. She's a dogged sports reporter determined to get a scoop. She's also his best friend's widow . . . Fa...
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Assisting the Bosshole
Kristin MacQueenNo hot water? Check Missed the train? Check Broke my heel? Check Dropped my coffee? Check My first day of my new job can’t possibly go worse, right? Wrong. When I meet Parker Scott...
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Dracula
Bram StokerAn Apple Books Classic edition. Few characters have seized readers’ imaginations quite like Count Dracula of Transylvania, the hero of Bram Stoker’s classic. The 1897 novel put vam...
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A Green Kind of Witch
Sierra CrossCinderella crossed with Mean Girls.   That's what Hazel's daily existence feels like. Born to a family of elegant yet shallow Beige Witches, seventeen y...
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Eternal
W.J. MayShe will fight for what is hers. When the king is murdered, Katerina, his only daughter, must flee for her life. She finds herself on a strange and dangerous path. Alone for the fi...
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School of Potential
W.J. MayUSA Today Bestselling author, W.J. May brings you a continuation of the international bestselling series, The Chronicles of Kerrigan! Come back and enjoy the famous characters, or ...
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Saltwater Cove
Amelia AddlerSecond chances...and the secrets that sabotage them. At 48 years old, Margie Clifton never expected to be starting her life all over again. But when her brother gifts her a propert...
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You Are Kind
Michael GordonA little kindness goes a long way. How can you help encourage your kids to be kind from a young age? Teach kindness to preschoolers Acts of kindness can be fun, easy, and make a ...
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Escape, A New Life
David J AntocciTo save herself, she had to lose everything. Trapped in a tropical paradise with no memory of how she got there, Abby is thrust into a fight for her life. Hunted by a madman, and c...
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The Art of War
Sun TzuAn Apple Books Classic edition. It’s believed that Sun Tzu wrote this Chinese military primer during the 5th century BChundreds of years before the Bible. The book’s 13 chapters ex...
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Man In The Water
Jon HillAn attempted murder. A missing spouse. And an international conspiracy that could change the world. Jack Green has always been skeptical of socalled facts. Though he's forced ...
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Never Enough
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Death at Hazel House
Betty Rowlands‘Riveting, can't put it down! I love this story… a wonderfully twisted tale of a crime that has more twists than I thought possible... fantastic.’ Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars ...
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Think and Grow Rich
Greg Habstritt & Napoleon HillThink and Grow Rich is one of the most popular success book of alltime, having sold more than 60 million copies since it was first published more than 70...
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The Four Loves
C. S. LewisThe Four Loves summarizes four kinds of human loveaffection, friendship, erotic love, and the love of God. Masterful without being magisterial, this book's wise, gentle, candi...
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Meditations
Emperor of Rome Marcus AureliusMeditations is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor 161–180 CE, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy.
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A Christmas Carol
Charles DickensAn Apple Books Classic edition. It’s Christmas Eve in Victorian England. While some families don’t know where their next meal will come from, Ebenezer Scrooge sits in his large hom...
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Hot Off the Press
Lexy Timms"This is what really happened… reported by a free press, for a free people…" Wes Shaw leads a secret double life. As the secret owner of a billion dollar newspap...
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Inception of Gold
Lexy TimmsThings are not as bad as they seem. They are worse. Being the personal assistant to a narcissistic actress who just happens to own the key to my family's undoing isn't ex...
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The Next Girl
Carla KovachIF YOU ONLY READ ONE BOOK THIS YEAR, MAKE IT THE NEXT GIRL... You thought he’d come to save you. You were wrong. ‘ Absolutely the best thriller I’ve read this year! ’ Goodreads Rev...
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All Fired Up
Kathryn ShayCaptain Jarek Zenko, a war veteran and firefighter, meets Lacey Roth at a bar one night. They don’t share their real identities, even when they retreat to a hotel. When they meet t...
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Salvation
Meghan O'FlynnIf you like mouthy detectives, serial killers, and suspenseful mysteries that don't quit, this chilling and actionpacked hardboiled detective series has you covered! Try this ...
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Pride and Prejudice
Jane AustenAn Apple Books Classic edition. Jane Austen’s beloved classic opens with this witty and very memorable line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possessio...
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Get Lucky
Lila MonroeFall for the hot and hilarious romcom spin on 'The Hangover', perfect for fans of Tessa Bailey, Ali Hazelwood, and Emily Henry! What happens when you wake up in a hotel s...
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Silenced Girls
Roger Stelljes“ Wow wow wow!  Grips you in a choke hold and  does not let go … Oozes suspense and  bonechilling twists and turns .  Astonishing … One of those...
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Just Me
Lexy TimmsWe all need somewhere where we feel safe… After leaving her abusive husband, Katherine Marshall is out on her own for the first time. She's hopped from city to city to avoid t...
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Wuthering Heights
Emily BrontëAn Apple Books Classic edition. If you’ve only ever seen Wuthering Heights on screen, you may have an image of Catherine and Heathcliff as the ultimate starcrossed lovers. But that...
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The Stoic Mind
Addy Osmani & GoLimitlesssDiscover the timeless wisdom of Stoicism in a modern context with "The Stoic Mind," an enlightening visual guide by Addy Osmani and GoLimitlesss. This rich exploration co...
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His Girl Next Door
Khardine GrayFrom USA Today Bestselling author Khardine Gray comes a sizzling hot single dad romance you won't want to miss. No strings attached fun with the ubergorgeous single d...
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Dark Psychology and Manipulation
Margaret MorrisonTHE MENTAL MANIPULATOR WILL NO LONGER KEEP SECRETS FROM YOU! Are you fed up with the wool being pulled over your eyes?Are you prepared to stand up to those who believe they can man...
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Teach Me
Cassandra DeanFrom awardwinning author Cassandra Dean comes a tale where lessons of pleasure between a curious, sunshine widow and a dissolute, grumpy earl leads to passion and allconsuming love...
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Rogue Alpha
Kimber WhiteOne touch made her crave him. But the pull of fate could be the path to ruin. College student Laura Prince lands a plum internship deep in the Michigan wilderness. When she discove...
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Masters of Restraint
Ines JohnsonMy new boss is good at giving orders. But his latest demand is NSFW. Especially when his two business partners want in on our deal. My new boss My boss’s boss Their investor &#...