Sally John Popular Books
Sally John Biography & Facts
Sally Bowles () is a fictional character created by English-American novelist Christopher Isherwood and based upon 19-year-old cabaret singer Jean Ross. The character debuted in Isherwood's 1937 novella Sally Bowles published by Hogarth Press, and commentators have described the novella as "one of Isherwood's most accomplished pieces of writing." The work was republished in the 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin and in the 1945 anthology The Berlin Stories. In the 1937 novella, Sally is a British flapper who moonlights as a cabaret singer in Weimar-era Berlin during the twilight of the Jazz Age. She is depicted by Isherwood as a "self-indulgent upper-middle-class British tourist who could escape Berlin whenever she chose." By day, she is an aspiring film actress hoping to work for the UFA GmbH, the German film production company. By night, she is a mediocre chanteuse at an underground club called The Lady Windermere located near the Tauentzienstraße. She aspires to be a serious actress or, as an alternative, to ensnare a wealthy man to keep her as his mistress. Unsuccessful at both, Sally departs Berlin on the eve of Adolf Hitler's ascension as Chancellor of Germany and is last heard from in the form of a postcard sent from Rome, Italy, with no return address. Following the tremendous popularity of the Sally Bowles character in subsequent decades, Jean Ross was hounded by reporters seeking information about her colourful past in Weimar-era Berlin. She believed her popular association with the naïve character of Bowles occluded her lifelong work as a political writer and social activist. According to her daughter Sarah Caudwell, Ross never "felt any sense of identity with the character of Sally Bowles, which in many respects she thought more closely modeled on" Isherwood's gay friends, many of whom "fluttered around town exclaiming how sexy the storm troopers looked in their uniforms". Sally Bowles is a central character in the 1951 John Van Druten stage play I Am a Camera, the 1955 film of the same name, the 1966 musical stage adaptation Cabaret and the 1972 film adaptation of the musical. The character of Sally Bowles inspired Truman Capote's Holly Golightly in his novella Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the character also has appeared in novels by other authors. In June 1979, critic Howard Moss of The New Yorker commented upon the peculiar resiliency of the character: "It is almost fifty years since Sally Bowles shared the recipe for a Prairie oyster with Herr Issyvoo [sic] in a vain attempt to cure a hangover" and yet the character in subsequent permutations lives on "from story to play to movie to musical to movie-musical." Creation and description Inspiration Sally Bowles is based on Jean Ross, a vivacious British flapper and later an ardent Stalinist, whom Isherwood knew while sojourning in Weimar-era Berlin during the twilight of the Jazz Age. Belying her humble circumstances in Berlin, the 19-year-old Ross was the offspring of a wealthy Scottish cotton merchant and came from a privileged background. She had "a long, thin handsome face, aristocratic nose, glossy dark hair" with large brown eyes. Isherwood noted that the teenage Ross was "more essentially British than Sally; she grumbled like a true Englishwoman, with her grin-and-bear-it grin. And she was tougher. She never struck Christopher as being sentimental or the least bit sorry for herself. Like Sally, she boasted continually about her lovers." According to Isherwood, Ross was a sexually liberated young woman who once claimed to have had sex with another performer in view of the audience during Max Reinhardt's production of Tales of Hoffmann circa Winter 1931: "In the course of the ball scene at the Venetian palace of the courtesan Giulietta, several pairs of lovers were carried onto the stage. Each pair reclined on a litter, locked in each other's arms. These lovers were merely extras and few members of the audience can have paid any attention to their embraces, once they had made their entrance, for a dazzling corps de ballet was performing in the middle of the stage. But Christopher watched one pair of lovers intently, through opera glasses, until the end of the scene. Even so, he couldn't be sure if what Jean had told him was true—that she had sex with her partner in full view of the audience." When crafting the "divinely decadent" Sally Bowles as a literary character, Isherwood purloined the surname "Bowles" from American writer Paul Bowles whom he had likewise met in Berlin in 1931 and to whom he was sexually attracted. Explaining his choice, he wrote, "[I] liked the sound of it and also the looks of its owner." Isherwood famously introduces Sally in his 1937 novella by writing: "A few minutes later, Sally herself arrived. 'Am I terribly late, Fritz darling?'.... Sally laughed. She was dressed in black silk, with a small cape over her shoulders and a little cap like a page-boy's stuck jauntily on one side of her head.... I noticed that her finger-nails were painted emerald green, a colour unfortunately chosen, for it called attention to her hands, which were much stained by cigarette smoking and as dirty as a little girl's. She was dark.... Her face was long and thin, powdered dead white. She had very large brown eyes which should have been darker, to match her hair and the pencil she used for her eyebrows." Isherwood described Ross' singing talent as mediocre: "She had a surprisingly deep, husky voice. She sang badly, without any expression, her hands hanging down at her sides—yet her performance was, in its own way, effective because of her startling appearance and her air of not caring a curse of what people thought of her." Likewise, acquaintance Stephen Spender recalled that Ross' singing ability was underwhelming and forgettable: "In my mind's eye, I can see her now in some dingy bar standing on a platform and singing so inaudibly that I could not hear her from the back of the room where I was discreetly seated." In the 1937 novella, Sally is a British flapper who is the wayward daughter of a Lancashire mill-owner and an heiress. She is a "self-indulgent upper-middle-class British tourist who could escape Berlin whenever she chose." By day, she is an aspiring film actress hoping to work for the UFA GmbH, the German film production company. By night, she is a chanteuse at an underground club called The Lady Windermere located near the Tauentzienstraße. She aspires to be a serious actress or, as an alternative, to ensnare a wealthy man to keep her as his mistress. Unsuccessful at both, Sally departs Berlin on the eve of Adolf Hitler's ascension as Chancellor of Germany and is last heard from in the form of a postcard sent from Rome, Italy, with no return address. Novella After Hitler's ascension as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933, Isherwood began to notice the sinister developments occurring in the country. "Adolf, with his rectangular black moustache, has come to stay and brough.... Discover the Sally John popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Sally John books.
Best Seller Sally John Books of 2024
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The Hopeless Life Of Charlie Summers
Paul TordayA modern A TALE OF TWO CITIES by the bestselling author of SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN.'Brilliantly and sympathetically drawn...this wonderfully written, clever book does not miss ...
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Christmas With Billy and Me
Giovanna FletcherThe heartwarming sequel to Billy and Me from the Number One bestseller and I'm A Celebrity 2020 contestant!Christmas has come to Rosefont Hill and it's destined to be a particularl...
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Dinner with the Schnabels
Toni Jordan'I loved every page of this funny, warm, delightful novel!' LIANE MORIARTY'A smart, funny novel about love, marriage and family.' Weekend Australian'With sharply observed character...
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The Legacy of Hartlepool Hall
Paul TordayHartlepool Hall has been in Ed's family for generations but is that about to change, and who is the mysterious Lady Alice?'A deliciously dark comedy about class, snobbery and a va...
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Life Moves Pretty Fast
Hadley FreemanFrom Vogue contributor and Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman, a personalized guide to eighties movies that describes why they changed moviemaking foreverfeaturing exclusive intervi...
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Prettier if She Smiled More
Toni Jordan'Jordan is a kind of Australian Marian Keyes, combining overdrive pace and throwaway humour with a razor intelligence and a deft, illuminating touch on darker subjects and themes ....
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Emergency Exit Only
Michelle UptonNo evacuation plan, no safety net ... Sometimes you just have to save yourself. A hilarious, bighearted story about second chances from the author of Terms of Inheritance 'Whim...
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Thursdays at Orange Blossom House
Sophie GreenFrom the author of beloved Top Ten bestsellers The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club and The Shelly Bay Ladies Swimming Circle comes a delightful new novel about f...
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The Big New Yorker Book of Cats
The New Yorker Magazine, Haruki Murakami, Calvin Trillin & M.F.K. FisherLook what The New Yorker dragged in! It’s the purrfect gathering of talent celebrating our feline companions.This bountiful collection, beautifully illustrated in fu...
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The Orange Girl
Jostein GaarderFrom the author of SOPHIE'S WORLD, a modern fairy tale with a philosophical twist.'It should be read by all' VOGUE'My father died eleven years ago. I was only four then. I never th...
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Everything You Ever Wanted
Luiza SaumaRead along with Florence Welch this February and March as part of the Between Two Books book club'Wry, beautiful, surprising and deeply moving' Rachel Seiffert, Guardian'Captures s...
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Christmas at The New Yorker
The New Yorker, E. B. White, Sally Benson & S.J. PerelmanFrom the pages of America’s most influential magazine come eight decades of holiday cheerplus the occasional comical coal in the stockingin one incomparable collection. Sublime an...
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Light Shining in the Forest
Paul Torday'An unsettling, haunting story...memorable, atmospheric and tense' THE LADY'Wellwritten, wellcrafted and constantly gripping' DAILY MAIL'A disquieting and atmospheric psychological...
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Theo
Paul TordayFrom the bestselling author of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, a haunting novella that introduced one of the most memorable characters from Torday's novel Light Shining in the Forest....
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The Ninth Child
Sally Magnusson'WONDERFUL. ONE NEVER MESSES WITH THE FAERIES' Melanie Reid, The Times'AN ABSOLUTE TRIUMPH' Sarah Haywood, author of The Cactus'EXTRAORDINARILY VIVID' Michelle Gallen, author of Bi...
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Into the Black
Rowland WhiteA book “no aviation buff will want to miss” (The Wall Street Journal) and “the perfect tale that educates as it entertains” (Clive Cussler, #1 bestselling author), Into the Black r...
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The Terms Of Inheritance
Michelle UptonFour sisters. A vast fortune. And a mother who thinks she knows best ...Where there's a will, there's a way.A funny, moving, brilliantly observed story about letting go of the past...
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Sally Proffer v. Honorable John G. Yates
Supreme Court of TexasThis is an original mandamus action. Relator, Sally Proffer, seeks a writ of mandamus directing the Honorable John G. Yates, sitting as Judge of the 150th Judicial District Court o...
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While You Were in the Country
Eva Scott'A charming story about finding love when and where you least expect it. Eva Scott's loveable characters and modern twists on rural romance are simply delightful.' Australian Autho...
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We Were Young
Niamh Campbell'Witty, fiery, wistful and even shocking, with engrossing heady prose, Campbell's style is unique' Irish Independent'An immensely enjoyable novel, and a great validation of Campbel...
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The Castle in the Pyrenees
Jostein GaarderTwo former lovers are brought back together ... but can they really trust their pasts? The new novel from the bestselling author of SOPHIE'S WORLD.Through five intense years in the...
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More Than You Can Say
Paul TordayThe bestselling author of SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN returns with a Buchanesque thriller.'Torday has an extraordinary gift for making apparent "normality" look sinister and strang...
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Sex Lives Of The Presidents
Nigel CawthorneIt didn't start with Clinton, or even Kennedy. Ever since the Father of our Country was sworn in over 200 years ago, the White House has seen its share of oversexed, adulterous, ph...
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Lonely in Longreach
Eva ScottIn the red heart of Queensland, two teenagers playing matchmaker are about to turn more than one life upsidedown.Widower Sam Costello has no time for love. When he's not working on...
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Pussy
Howard JacobsonA provocatively entertaining, savagely funny satire on Donald Trump by Britain’s greatest comic novelist.Pussy is the story of Prince Fracassus, heir presumptive to the Duchy of Or...
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Das Weibliche im Mann
Loren E. PedersenDer Psychoanalytiker Loren E. Pedersen zeigt, welch immense Bedeutung die Anima, das «Weibliche im Mann», hat und wie verhängnisvoll es für die seelische Entwicklung eines männlich...
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One Nation Under Sex
Larry Flynt & David Eisenbach, Ph.D.“Americans often like to think that extramarital sexor even a strong libidois somehow a sign of poor character in our presidents. One Nation Under Sex explodes that myth...You don’...
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Ranking the Vice Presidents
Ian Randal StrockWith all eyes on their Presidential bosses, the Vice Presidents of the United States have often been relegated to the background. But they are an intriguing group, and nowin this u...
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Lines in Long Array
David C. Ward & Frank H. Goodyear IIILines in Long Array demonstrates the enduring impact of the Civil War on American culture by presenting poems and photographs from both the past and present, including 12 wholly ne...
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Two Eerie Tales of Suspense
Paul TordayTwo creepy, spinetingling tales from the masterful storyteller and author of R&J book club selected SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMENIn BREAKFAST AT THE HOTEL DÉJÀ VU, Bobby Clarke a...
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Meet Me in Bendigo
Eva ScottRural Australia meets You've Got Mail in this romantic comedy about online dating, second chances, and following your heart.Smalltown sweetheart Annalisa Cappelli has returned to W...
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Sally Ann Ross Fields v. City Texas City and John Quinn
Fourteenth District, Houston Court of Appeals of TexasThis is an appeal from a summary judgment granted in favor of appellees on grounds that the suit was barred by limitations. We affirm.
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The End of Cuthbert Close
Cassie HamerFrom bestselling author Cassie Hamer, comes a hilarious tale of warring neighbours in Australian suburbia, with a mystery at its heart.'Captures Australian suburbia perfectly. Has ...
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The Truth About Faking It
Cassie HamerLie to your friends. Lie to your family. Just don't lie to yourself... Funny, smart, heartfelt fiction for readers of Holly Wainwright from a distinctive new voice.'Cassie Hamer is...
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Home to Echidna Lane
Eva ScottWith Eva Scott's trademark warmth and wit comes a rural romcom about friendship, family, failure and finding the place you truly belong.It's been thirteen years since Lacey Kane es...
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The World According to Anna
Jostein Gaarder & Donald BartlettWhen fifteenyearold Anna begins receiving messages from another time, her parents take her to the doctor. But he can find nothing wrong; in fact he believes there may be some truth...
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John A. Gautier v. David Lapof and Sally Lapof
Supreme Court of FloridaThe appellant Marion Iona W. Lentz, who was the defendant below, has appealed from a final decree of divorce granted to the plaintiff husband on the ground of extreme cruelty, in a...
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An Unreliable Man
Jostein Gaarder & Nichola SmalleyFrom the creative genius of Jostein Gaarder, author of modern classic Sophie's World, comes a novel about loneliness and the power of words Jakop is a lonely man. Divorced from hi...
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Sally Proffer v. Honorable John G. Yates
Supreme Court of Texas No. C-6140Per Curiam This is an original mandamus action. Relator, Sally Proffer, seeks a writ of mandamus directing the Honorable John G. Yates, sitting as Judge of the 150th Judicial Distr...
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Sally St. Johns
Denise HeinzeFortythreeyearold Sally St. Johns is in deep trouble. A major player in alternative energies, Sally is on the verge of a revolutionary breakthrough in energy consumption. ...
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The Secret of Father Brown
G. K. ChestertonThe fourth collection of Father Brown stories featuring the ingenious amateur detective. Ahead of a new series of the popular BBC adaptation starring Mark Williams, all five of Che...