{"product_id":"howl-02-castle-in-the-air-paperback","title":"Howl 02: Castle in the Air (Paperback)","description":"\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eA magical Arabian Nights tale from the captivating creator\nof fantasy, Diana Wynne Jones. The dazzling sequel to Howl's Moving Castle.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eFar to the south in the Land of Ingary, lives a young carpet\nmerchant called Abdullah. In his dreams, he is the long-lost son of a great\nprince. This dream is a complete castle in the air... or is it?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eAbdullah's day-dreams suddenly start to come true when he\nmeets the exquisite Flower-in-the-Night, daughter of the ferocious Sultan of\nZanzib. Fate has destined them for each other, but a bad-tempered genie, a\nhideous djinn, and various villanous bandits have their own ideas. When\nFlower-in-the-Night is carried off, Abdullah is determined to rescue her - if\nhe can find her.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eDiana Wynne Jones\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eIn a career spanning four decades, award-winning author\nDiana Wynne Jones wrote more than forty books of fantasy for young readers.\nCharacterized by magic, multiple universes, witches and wizards—and a\ncharismatic nine-lived enchanter—her books were filled with unlimited\nimagination, dazzling plots, and an effervescent sense of humor that earned her\nlegendary status in the world of fantasy. From the very beginning, Diana Wynne\nJones’s books garnered literary accolades: her novel Dogsbody was a runner-up\nfor the 1975 Carnegie Medal, and Charmed Life won the esteemed Guardian\nchildren’s fiction prize in 1977. Since then, in addition to being translated\ninto more than twenty languages, her books have earned a wide array of\nhonors—including two Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honors—and appeared on\ncountless best-of-the-year lists. Her work also found commercial success: in\n1992 the BBC adapted her novel Archer’s Goon into a six-part miniseries, and\nher best-selling Howl’s Moving Castle was made into an animated film by\nJapanese director Hayao Miyazaki in 2004. The film was nominated for an Academy\nAward in 2006, and became one of the most financially successful Japanese films\nin history. The author herself has also been honored with many prestigious\nawards for the body of her work. She was given the British Fantasy Society’s\nKarl Edward Wagner Award in 1999 for having made a significant impact on\nfantasy, received a D.Lit from Bristol University in 2006, and won the Lifetime\nAchievement Award at the World Fantasy Convention in 2007.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eBorn just outside London in 1934, Diana Wynne Jones had a\nchildhood that was “very vivid and often very distressing”—one that became the\nfertile ground where her tremendous imagination took root. When the raids of\nWorld War II reached London in 1939, the five-year-old girl and her two younger\nsisters were torn from their suburban life and sent to Wales to live with their\ngrandparents. This was to be the first of many migrations, one of which brought\nher family to Lane Head, a large manor in the author-populated Lake District\nand former residence of John Ruskin’s secretary, W.G. Collingwood. This time\nmarked an important moment in Diana Wynne Jones’s life, where her writing\nambitions were magnified by, in her own words, “early marginal contacts with\nthe Great.” She confesses to having “offending Arthur Ransome by making a noise\non the shore beside his houseboat,” erasing a stack of drawings by the late\nRuskin himself in order to reuse the paper, and causing Beatrix Potter (who\nalso lived nearby) to complain about her and her sister’s behavior. “It struck\nme,” Jones said, “that the Great were remarkably touchy and unpleasant, and I\nthought I would like to be the same, without the unpleasantness.” Prompted by\nher penny-pinching father’s refusal to buy the children any books, Diana Wynne\nJones wrote her first novel at age twelve and entertained her sisters with\nreadings of her stories. Those early stories—and much of her future work—were\ninspired by a limited but crucial foundation of classics: Malory’s Morte D’Arthur,\nThe Arabian Nights, and Epics and Romances of the Middle Ages. Fantasy was\nJones’s passion from the start, despite receiving little support from her often\nneglectful parents. This passion was fueled further during her tenure at St.\nAnne’s College in Oxford, where lectures by J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis\nincreased her fascination with myth and legend. She married Medievalist John\nBurrow in 1956; the couple have three sons and six grandchildren.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eAfter a decade of rejections, Diana Wynne Jones’s first\nnovel, Changeover, was published in 1970. In 1973, she joined forces with her\nlifelong literary agent, Laura Cecil, and in the four decades to follow, Diana\nWynne Jones wrote prodigiously, sometimes completing three titles in a single\nyear. Along the way she gained a fiercely loyal following; many of her admirers\nbecame successful authors themselves, including Newbery Award winners Robin\nMcKinley and Neil Gaiman, and Newbery Honor Book author Megan Whalen Turner. A\nconference dedicated solely to her work was held at the University of West\nEngland, Bristol, in 2009. Diana Wynne Jones continued to write during her\nbattle with lung cancer, which ultimately took her life in March 2011. Her last\nbook, Earwig and the Witch, will be published by Greenwillow Books in 2012.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"TIMES DISTRIBUTION PTE LTD","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44896273137871,"sku":"9780006755302","price":18.48,"currency_code":"SGD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0574\/5662\/3823\/files\/download_eb769815-1df9-464f-b9a1-58cc4e49f3e3.jpg?v=1773042563","url":"https:\/\/popular.com.sg\/products\/howl-02-castle-in-the-air-paperback","provider":"Popular Book Company Pte Ltd","version":"1.0","type":"link"}