A Bite of the Apple by Lennie Goodings – essential literary memoir

The Virago publisher is eloquent and inspiring on writing – but her memoir lacks grit and gossipLennie Goodings has had a long and highly respected career in publishing. She is chair of Virago Press, the pioneering publishing house that champions women’s writing. She’s been with Virago since the 1980s and A Bite of the Apple is an account of the company’s journey from punkish upstart to literary stalwart. It’s also – more juicily – about her experiences as an editor working with authors including Sarah Waters, Maya Angelou, Margaret Atwood and Sarah Dunant.For the historical lead-in, Goodings maintains a careful, stately tone, like the voiceover in a prestigious BBC period drama about ladies: The House of Elliot, but for books. The story is one of artistry, ambition, activism and a fierce desire to marry the three. Putting women’s lives, women’s stories and women’s words back into history requires work. A Bite of the Apple is about the women who did this work from the 1970s onwards, a time of huge activism around race, class and sex, when “women wanted a voice, women wanted to understand their history, women wanted to see themselves on the page… women wanted their share”. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2020-02-23 09:00:48 UTC ]

Other news stories related to: "A Bite of the Apple by Lennie Goodings – essential literary memoir"


Deborah Orr | 'The more humble my beginnings, the more I appeared to have achieved'

Motherwell, the incisive memoir by Deborah Orr, unpicks the complexities of familial relationships. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-01-08 09:25:51 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Elizabeth Wurtzel, 'Prozac Nation' Author And Memoirist, Dead At 52

Wurtzel, who had breast cancer, gave new breath to the memoir and was a new voice for those struggling with clinical depression and addiction. Continue reading at HuffPost

[ HuffPost | 2020-01-07 21:47:12 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Elizabeth Wurtzel, journalist and author of Prozac Nation, dead at 52

Author of bestselling memoir about clinical depression, which made her ‘a hashtag before there was Twitter’, died from metastatic breast cancer Elizabeth Wurtzel, journalist and author of bestselling memoir Prozac Nation, has died at the age of 52.Writer David Samuels, Wurtzel’s friend since... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2020-01-07 16:51:54 UTC ]
More news stories like this


A Complete Guide to the Handful of Proper Nouns Anna Wiener Uses in Uncanny Valley

One of the first things you notice about Wiener’s Silicon Valley memoir is her elegant, strategic elision. Continue reading at Slate

[ Slate | 2020-01-07 13:30:02 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Lemn Sissay's memoir shortlisted for Slightly Foxed Best Biography Prize

Lemn Sissay’s account of his childhood in care My Name is Why (Canongate) has been shortlisted for the 2019 Slightly Foxed Best Biography Prize along with Francesca Segal’s story of sitting "vigil" for her premature twins, Mother Ship (Chatto & Windus). Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-01-06 22:27:54 UTC ]
More news stories like this


A Tech Insider Stylishly Chronicles Her Industry’s ‘Uncanny Valley’

Anna Wiener’s memoir captures the dreams, delusions and general absurdity of Silicon Valley in indelible detail. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2020-01-03 10:00:08 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Virago pre-empts Chloé Cooper Jones' memoir

​Virago has pre-empted Chloé Cooper Jones' "game-changing" memoir about disability as US rights were snapped up by Avid Reader Press in a "major auction".  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-01-03 01:28:14 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Yearning for Transcendence

TWO CULTS FEATURE in Sands Hall’s memoir Reclaiming My Decade Lost in Scientology, as the author jokes to an old friend in its early pages. There’s L. Ron Hubbard’s “religion,” of course, which ensnares Hall — via a charismatic Scientologist boyfriend — after she moves to Los Angeles in 1980 to... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-12-31 20:00:14 UTC ]
More news stories like this


“Still Evolving”: A Conversation with Staceyann Chin

STACEYANN CHIN MADE a name for herself performing poetry on Russell Simmons’s Def Poetry Jam, but her work extends beyond her electrifying spoken-word performances. She is a civil rights activist and teacher, published a critically acclaimed memoir in 2009 called The Other Side of Paradise,... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-12-29 18:00:18 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Tremain, Kay, Shrigley in New Year's Honours

Novelist Rose Tremain has been made a Dame in the New Year's Honours list. Meanwhile poet and novelist Jackie Kay, the Scots Makar, receives a CBE. Sir Elton John, author of autumn memoir Me (Macmillan), is made a Companion of Honour. Among those receiving OBEs are artist and author David... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-12-27 17:04:32 UTC ]
More news stories like this


‘Just Mercy’ Review: Echoes of Jim Crow on Alabama’s Death Row

Jamie Foxx and Michael B. Jordan star in an adaptation of a memoir by the civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2019-12-24 19:45:28 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Four audiobooks to keep you listening into the new year

The best audiobooks of December 2019 include the latest John le Carré spy novel and a stirring memoir by a Philippine immigrant. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2019-12-20 20:54:02 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Four audiobooks to keep you listening into the new year

The best audiobooks of December 2019 include the latest John le Carré spy novel and a stirring memoir by a Philippine immigrant. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2019-12-20 20:54:02 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Four audiobooks to keep you listening into the new year

The best audiobooks of December 2019 include the latest John le Carré spy novel and a stirring memoir by a Philippine immigrant. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2019-12-20 20:54:02 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Edward Snowden’s profits from memoir must go to US government, judge rules

Court says state is entitled to any profits from Permanent Record because its publication breached non-disclosure agreementsEdward Snowden is not entitled to the profits from his memoir Permanent Record, and any money made must go to the US government, a judge has ruled.Permanent Record, in... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2019-12-20 13:20:57 UTC ]
More news stories like this


C-3PO actor Anthony Daniels talks ‘The Rise of Skywalker,’ his new memoir and four decades of Star Wars

The only actor to appear in every film of the Skywalker saga reflects on his experience in the book “I Am C-3PO: The Inside Story.” Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2019-12-20 13:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


A Memoir That Serves as a Playbook for Your 20s

Audacious Brit Dolly Alderton explores a raucous decade of living and loving in her debut, 'Everything I Know About Love.' Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-12-20 05:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Indigenous Writers Deserve More Credit for Being Hilarious

Tiffany Midge is the author of several books including the recent memoir Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese’s, a collection of prose that blends humor with social commentary and meditations on love and loss. Her poetry collection The Woman Who Married a Bear won Kenyon Review’s Earthworks Prize... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2019-12-19 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Read Harder: A Memoir By Someone From a Religious Tradition Not Your Own

From stories about commitment to faith to those about leaving the faith, learn more about the traditions in these religious memoirs for Read Harder 2020. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2019-12-19 11:33:46 UTC ]
More news stories like this


You Won’t Find Mark Morris at the Multiplex

“I’m not that interested in movies,” says the dancer and choreographer, whose new memoir is “Out Loud.” “I like poetry.” Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2019-12-19 10:00:04 UTC ]
More news stories like this