Stay tuned :)
Participate is easy, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post and once the contest is due (on November 12th) I’m going to randomly choose two winners. Then I will need your address and we’ll send you your copy of the book. Contest open to US residents only.
» About the book:
The opulent age of empires is ending, but the great queens of the sea— the magnificent ocean liners—continue to reign supreme. Despite the tragedy of the Titanic, the race to build ever larger and more luxurious floating palaces continues, and passengers still flock to make the Atlantic crossing in style.In 1921,the SS Paris leaves Le Havre on her maiden voyage. Aboard, passengers dine in glittering grandeur on French cuisine, served by hundreds of unnoticed servants and chefs. Below the waterline, the modern oil-fired engines throb day and night. And for three women, this voyage will profoundly change their lives.
Traveling first class, elderly Vera Sinclair is reluctantly moving back to Manhattan after thirty wonderful years abroad. In cozy second class, reveling in her brief freedom from family life, Constance Stone is returning after a failed mission to bring her errant sister home from France. And in the stifling servants’ quarters, young Le Havre native Julie Vernet is testing her wings in her first job as she sets out to forge her own future. For all three, in different ways, this transatlantic voyage will be a life-changing journey of the heart.
Good luck to everyone! SPREAD THE WORD! :D (and remember: the contest is open to US residents only.)
PLEASE REBLOG AND SPREAD THE WORD!
Participate is easy, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post and once the contest is due (on November 12th) I’m going to randomly choose two winners. Then I will need your address and we’ll send you your copy of the book. Contest open to US residents only.
» About the book:
The opulent age of empires is ending, but the great queens of the sea— the magnificent ocean liners—continue to reign supreme. Despite the tragedy of the Titanic, the race to build ever larger and more luxurious floating palaces continues, and passengers still flock to make the Atlantic crossing in style.In 1921,the SS Paris leaves Le Havre on her maiden voyage. Aboard, passengers dine in glittering grandeur on French cuisine, served by hundreds of unnoticed servants and chefs. Below the waterline, the modern oil-fired engines throb day and night. And for three women, this voyage will profoundly change their lives.
Traveling first class, elderly Vera Sinclair is reluctantly moving back to Manhattan after thirty wonderful years abroad. In cozy second class, reveling in her brief freedom from family life, Constance Stone is returning after a failed mission to bring her errant sister home from France. And in the stifling servants’ quarters, young Le Havre native Julie Vernet is testing her wings in her first job as she sets out to forge her own future. For all three, in different ways, this transatlantic voyage will be a life-changing journey of the heart.
Good luck to everyone! SPREAD THE WORD! :D (and remember: the contest is open to US residents only.)
Just to be clear: since the season 3 started everything that I post – videos, images, articles, interviews – could be/is spoilers for those in the USA or any other part of the world that hasn’t aired Downton Abbey yet. I always try to warn anyway, sometimes it happens that I forget. Because I don’t always have the time to read all the interviews/articles or watch all the videos. But it’s kinda obvious that everything that I post is season 3 related thus spoilers. Feel free to unfollow the twitter and stop coming on the site until the series airs on your country, I will totally understand.
British actor Dan Stevens is known for his portrayal of Matthew Crawley on the phenomenally successful series “Downton Abbey.” Yet on Tuesday, the heartthrob took on the role of literary critic when he partook in the ceremony that announced the winner of the 2012 Man Booker Prize. Each year, one novel by a UK author is selected to receive the honor.
Some of the books shortlisted for the prize this year include “Swimming Home” by Deborah Levy, “The Lighthouse” by Alison Moore, and “The Garden of Evening Mists” by Tan Twan Eng. Ultimately, as reported by the Huffington Post, the award went to Hilary Mantel for “Bring up the Bodies.”
Though it might seem odd that a TV star was chosen to help select the winner of the coveted prize, Stevens has an extensive literary background. The actor earned an English degree from Cambridge University and frequently appears on BBC’s “Review Show,” a talk show where guests discuss books and high culture.
He also serves as the editor-at-large of The Junket, a literary quarterly that features pieces on everything from health concerns to deceased literary icons. In a 2011 piece for the Daily Telegraph, the 30-year-old called his position at the site, “my grandest role to date.”
In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal Stevens shared his inability to turn down a position on the judge’s panel.
“I couldn’t say ‘no.’ It appealed to ego and intellect,” Stevens said of being asked to judge 146 works. “Most years they have one person who raises the profile of the panel a bit. I guess I was the one this year. I’m the ‘what the hell is he doing on the panel’ guy. My basement was looking like Barnes and Noble by the end of it.”
Stevens got his start on the West End stage and starred in small scale British productions before appearing on “Downton Abbey.” The series has emerged as one of the most successful shows of all time. Set in the early 1900’s, it centers on the wealthy Crawley family and their dedicated servants. Stevens stars as a distant cousin who is summoned by the family after their only male heir dies, and he becomes the sole inheritor of their estate.
While in the U.S., Stevens was surprised to learn that Americans have been unable to escape the “Downton” craze.
“I’d traveled a long way from home,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “I thought I was going to get away from ‘Downton Abbey’ mania, when actually you guys are crazier about it [in the U.S.] then they are in London!”
(source)
Public Appearance > 2012 > The Man Booker Prize Winner Ceremony [+11]
Finally added the screencaps (I’ve had some problems with the file), DowntOnline exclusives stills and behind the scenes from the (most sad?) fifth episode of the third season of Downton Abbey.
Season 3 > Episode Stills > Episode 5 [+36]
Season 3 > Behind the Scenes Episodes > Episode 5 [+31]
Season 3 > Episodes Screencaptures > Episode 5 [+1531]
Finally added the screencaps (I’ve had some problems with the file), DowntOnline exclusives stills and behind the scenes from the (most sad?) fifth episode of the third season of Downton Abbey.
Season 3 > Episode Stills > Episode 5 [+36]
Season 3 > Behind the Scenes Episodes > Episode 5 [+31]
Season 3 > Episodes Screencaptures > Episode 5 [+1531]
There is, of course, a lot to talk about when it comes to Downton Abbey, the compulsively watchable but frequently soapy British period drama series from writer-creator Julian Fellowes. The show, which is set in and around an English manor in the early part of the last century, features more than 20 characters—and at least as many story lines. But there is one character around which the others seem to circle: Lady Mary Crawley. Mary, who is played by actress Michelle Dockery, was introduced in Season One as the beautiful, imperious, and marble-cold eldest daughter of Lord and Lady Grantham; she mostly occupies herself with parlor games such as callously destroying her younger sister’s proposal, brazenly flirting with one man in front of another, and trying to avoid scandal after being seduced by a houseguest who then dies in her bedroom. But by the end of Season Two, Mary had evolved into a heroine to millions of impassioned viewers when, with the devastation of World War I and one conveniently dead fiancé behind them, Mary and her distant cousin, Matthew Crawley, finally realize that they’re meant for each other.
Through it all, Dockery has expertly captured the uncertainty of a young woman navigating the decline of the British aristocracy. But almost predictably, the actress’s own life has hardly resembled her character’s corseted Edwardian beginnings. Born in Essex, she trained as a singer and dancer, and, in her career thus far, has tackled everything from theatrical productions of Shakespeare to police crime dramas. Following her roundly praised performance as Eliza Doolittle in a 2007 stage production of Pygmalion, she was cast in the Red Riding trilogy, and last year, also appeared in the Joe Wright thriller Hanna. But it’s her role in Downton Abbey that has made her one of the most chattered-about women on television.
Season Three of Downton Abbey is set to air in the U.S. in January (the show started up again in the U.K. in September). Dockery also recently got back into a corset for Wright’s new film version of Anna Karenina, which stars Keira Knightley and Jude Law, and, for a change of pace, she donned a pair of bell-bottoms for the forthcoming BBC miniseries Restless, which is set partially in the 1970s. Elisabeth Moss, who stars as Peggy Olson in that other obsessed-over TV show set in the past, Mad Men, recently spoke to the 30-year-old Dockery.
ELISABETH MOSS: I feel like you and I sort of had similar careers in the sense that we’ve both been working for a very long time, but it wasn’t until Mad Men or Downton Abbey that we got the kind of recognition that comes from being in people’s homes. It’s interesting because my show is very American but has done quite well in the U.K., and your show is so British and has been incredibly well received here in the States. What do you think is the thing that makes your show appeal to people in the States and makes it so universal?
MICHELLE DOCKERY: What it boils down to is the writing. Julian [Fellowes] is incredibly talented. He’s created 18 lead characters, each with their own story lines. And it’s beautiful to look at—the costumes are stunning. The audience gets a nostalgic feeling for the period. It’s a time without the Internet, without mobile phones. It was an easier sort of period that people look back on and find very heartwarming.
MOSS: What’s brilliant about it, though, is that despite all the cultural and historical differences, what I connect to as a viewer are the stories that are completely relatable at any time–the Matthew and Mary story, the unrequited love, the complications.
DOCKERY: It’s something that everyone can relate to. I find that Mary is quite a modern woman, really, because she’s got her own mind and she won’t be told what to do. But she’s incredibly indecisive when it comes to her relationships with men. There’s also the struggle of women at the time because they’re kind of longing to do something. In the first season, we see the three sisters, and pretty much all they do is change clothes three times a day—once for breakfast, once for lunch, and then again at dinner. And they’re bored. What was wonderful about the second season is that because of the First World War, women became far more practical and useful. The character of Edith, for example, who helps care for wounded soldiers. But once the war is over, she finds herself at loose ends. In the third season, Edith really comes into her own. Another thing that I find relates to Mad Men is that a lot of the time, the show is very much about the women.
(source)
Photoshoots > Michelle Dockery > Set 15 [+4]
