The Friday Digest 08/08/14

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This week's update features the First World War centenary, how The Lord of the Rings was influenced by the First World War and a 4,000-year-old hair tress. 

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• * Birmingham remembers fallen men and woman with the Minimum Monument First World War ice exhibition.  

• * A global view of the First World War. 

• * Simon Ball takes a look at prime ministers in the First World War. 

• * The British hero who did not shoot Hitler.

• * Historians Margaret MacMillan and David Reynolds share their views on why Britain was right to go to war in 1914. 

• * The Open University has released restored photographs of the First World War in colour. 

• * Can you help to identify the lost portraits of the Somme? 

• * First World War centenary: my father threw away his poppy in disgust. 

• * How 'female Tommies' and sexism helped save Britain. 

• * The British Empire's unsung heroes of the First World War. 

• * Have we ignored the hard-learned lessons of the First World War? 

• * 9 surprising First World War fashion factoids from Great War Fashion. 

• * How was The Lord of the Rings influenced by the First World War?

• * British 'angels' who braved the trenches. 

• * How the world went to war in 1914. 

• * The OUP looks at memory and the Great War. 

• * BBC World News Witness examines the outbreak of the First World War.

• * The First World War centenary dominates papers. 

• * 'Lights Out' ends day of centenary commemorations.  

• * Royals 'plant' ceramic poppies at the Tower of London.

• * Has the Great War become a nightly pornography of violence?

• * The mystery surrounding the location of haunting image of Irish soldiers in the First World War. 

• * There has been an excavation of Robin Hood's village of Edwinstowe. 

• * The Oxford balloon-man history forgot.

• * Alston pupils have unearthed a 4,000-year-old gold hair tress.

• * A short history of the Post Office.

• * Ofsted praises prisons' reading scheme. 

• * Conan Doyle estate ordered to pay legal fees. 

• * Rome is set to celebrate 2,000th anniversary of Augustus. 

• * 41 Cloth Fair: the oldest house in London.

• * The study of adjective order and GSSSACPM.

• * The Solomon Islanders who saved JFK. 

• * Hambledon Hill fort in Dorset acquired by National Trust for £450,000. 

• * Look at personal war stories from around the word, such as when time stood still in Hiroshima and Helmand's Golden Age in pre-war Afghanistan.

 

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• * What are YA books? And who is reading them?

• * Scrabble has added 5,000 new words, including  'Bromance'.

• * The evolution of slang. 

• * Grammar: how to break all the rules. 

• * The Telegraph has compiled a list of the best books of 2014. 

• * Plague fiction: why authors love to write about pandemics.

• * School reports on writers deliver very bad reviews. 

• * Is there such thing as a perfect e-bookstore?

• * Setting expectations before you publish your book. 

 

  Which history and publishing stories have you enjoyed reading this week?