The combative broadcaster’s memoir mixes engaging snapshots of his early career with some score-settling and a robust defence of his interviewing styleJohn Humphrys is the first to admit he doesn’t deal well with authority. He inherited it from his father, who refused to use the service entrance at the grand houses where he worked as a French polisher and, as a child, once watched his aunt get a humiliating dressing-down from the vicar for missing church. Humphrys had his own brush with condescending authority figures when he was in hospital with a cyst on his spine at 13, and an “arrogant posh bastard consultant” told his retinue of trainees it was because he didn’t wash regularly. “I don’t like being defined or told what to do, whoever is in charge,” he notes, a stance that has proved useful for grilling politicians (he has interviewed eight prime ministers), though it has also landed him in hot water.His memoir mixes engaging snapshots of his early career and analysis of the evolution of broadcasting with diatribes and petty score-settling. The early chapters tell of his passage from teen lackey on the Penarth Times in Wales, where his main task was standing outside the local church taking the names of those attending weddings and funerals, to being the first journalist on the scene at the Aberfan disaster, near Merthyr Tydfil, in which 116 children and 28 adults died after a colliery tip collapsed. Later he became a BBC foreign correspondent, reporting on the 1971 war... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2019-10-10 06:30:10 UTC ]
She was accused of ‘betraying motherhood’ when she was revealed as the author of the Guardian’s Living With Teenagers column. Will her novel about a child with addiction issues reopen old wounds?Few writers have published and been damned with quite the ferocity Julie Myerson was back in 2009 for... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-05-21 08:00:14 UTC ]
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Being fired as an advertising executive freed him to write a blistering memoir about his Southern family and an erotic novel that became a best seller. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-05-21 00:03:50 UTC ]
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Donald Trump's former White House adviser admits in her new memoir that she had a hard time competing with her husband's "new fling." Continue reading at HuffPost
[ HuffPost | 2022-05-19 20:47:28 UTC ]
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Shaina Loew-Banayan’s new book, “Elegy for an Appetite,” chronicles fifteen years of the author’s relationship to food, in an irreverent stream of consciousness. Continue reading at New Yorker
[ New Yorker | 2022-05-19 19:15:10 UTC ]
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More than a month after revealing the revamped version of PlayStation Plus, Sony has shared the initial lineup of games heading to its new service, covering everything from original PlayStation classics and PlayStation Portable titles to modern hits. The new PlayStation Plus has three tiers,... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2022-05-19 18:45:16 UTC ]
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James Campbell’s memoir "Just Go Down to the Road" captures an era and how it shaped the author’s eventual literary career. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2022-05-18 12:00:46 UTC ]
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First, Mark Esper’s career got hijacked by Donald Trump. Now, his perfectly dull memoir has to deal with the guy too. Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2022-05-17 09:40:00 UTC ]
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“Hillbilly Elegy,” a best-selling memoir that became a star-studded film, raised the profile of the onetime “Never Trump guy” who won an Ohio primary with the help of the former president. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-05-15 09:00:16 UTC ]
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In her memoir “Mean Baby,” the “Hellboy” actress opens up about her childhood and career and how she has coped with a variety of challenges Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2022-05-15 04:00:00 UTC ]
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“I am drawn to the idea of continuing to bear witness to that horrible time,” says the actor, whose new book is “Mean Baby: A Memoir of Growing Up.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-05-12 15:13:09 UTC ]
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When I started reading Chloe Caldwell’s new book, The Red Zone, a memoir about identity, love, health, and pain, all told through the lens of her relationship to her period, I didn’t think I had period hang-ups of my own to work through. I do have pudendal neuralgia, a nerve pain condition that... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-05-12 11:05:00 UTC ]
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Surrender, which will ‘draw in detail’ what he had previously only sketched in songs, will contain 40 chapters, each named after a U2 song, and include 40 original drawings by the singerThe first memoir by Bono will be released this year, publisher Penguin Random House has announced.While the U2... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-05-10 15:24:58 UTC ]
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Look, The Joshua Tree was the first album I ever bought with my own money. I have a soft spot for U2, up to and including Achtung Baby (I guess). And I suppose a memoir by one of the biggest rock stars of a generation is to be expected, particularly one who’s assumed an often […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-05-10 13:35:33 UTC ]
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The DJ and writer on coming to terms with being a novelist, the appeal of middle-aged men and the book that broke her heartRadio 2 DJ Sara Cox has come a long way since the 1990s when Channel 4’s The Girlie Show made her one of the original ladettes. In 2019, her memoir Till the Cows Come Home:... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-05-07 17:00:05 UTC ]
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Lost in the subject matter: Gerald Murnane rereads his first novel, Tamarisk Road, nearly 50 years later. | Lit Hub Why Twitter loves James Baldwin (and whether that’s a good thing). | Lit Hub A quiet reply to a life cut short: Elisha Cooper on coming to terms with what killed his brother. | Lit... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-05-07 10:30:22 UTC ]
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Viola Davis has the #1 book in the country with the memoir 'Finding Me.' Plus Don Winslow's 'City on Fire' heats up our hardcover fiction list, and Alice Oseman's Heartstopper books get a boost from Netflix. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-05-06 04:00:00 UTC ]
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“No one would know it was us,” the former president said, according to an upcoming memoir written by the former Pentagon chief. Continue reading at HuffPost
[ HuffPost | 2022-05-06 01:41:29 UTC ]
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The son-in-law and former adviser to President Donald Trump will be the first Trump family member to publish a book about his time in the administration. Continue reading at HuffPost
[ HuffPost | 2022-05-02 19:05:29 UTC ]
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John Gleeson’s “The Gotti Wars” is a memoir about what it took to jail America’s star gangster. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-04-29 20:03:55 UTC ]
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