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 ]
Barack Obama's A Promised Land (Viking) has soared straight into the UK Official Top 50 number one spot in its first week on sale. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-24 12:37:14 UTC ]
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Cash’s memoir is the story of a man whose penchant for letters suggests a desire to hold on to the present. Sealing up the envelope means ending the letter; it means allowing our fantasies and stories to be finished, read, and judged. The post The Stories We Become: On William Cash’s... Continue reading at The Millions
[ The Millions | 2020-11-23 17:00:48 UTC ]
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On foreign policy, Obama’s memoir reveals a president fully aware of many of his shortcomings, and ambivalent about many of his accomplishments. Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2020-11-20 21:32:35 UTC ]
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Critical responses to Barack Obama’s memoir suggest less what’s in the book than what we’ve always wanted from him. Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2020-11-20 20:45:30 UTC ]
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Interviews Since 2003, Jessica Cohen has published over twenty books translated from Hebrew to English. Among other honors, she shared the 2017 Man Booker International Prize with author David Grossman for her translation of Grossman’s A Horse Walks... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2020-11-20 16:36:29 UTC ]
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Roald Dahl holds a special place in my childhood. I still have vivid memories of reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda in school (we even read his rather unsavory memoir Boy; his accounts of boarding school bullying haunt me to this day!) and of watching the delightful early ’90s... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-11-20 12:00:50 UTC ]
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News Corp executive chairman says ‘we do not deny climate change’. Plus: ABC rejects Media Watch segmentWhile News Corp’s Australian outlets were waging war against two former prime ministers at home, the New York-based company was holding its first virtual annual general meeting to update its... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-11-20 00:31:56 UTC ]
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Quercus has pre-empted a “seminal” debut memoir from award-winning actor and “Succession” star Brian Cox. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-19 17:45:26 UTC ]
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Barack Obama's first presidential memoir, 'A Promised Land,' sold more than 887,000 units in all formats and editions in the U.S. and Canada on its first day on sale, its publisher said. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-11-19 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Pamela Sneed’s book powerfully recalls the contributions and leadership of lesbians during the height of the AIDS crisis. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-11-18 20:38:22 UTC ]
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An all-star cast came together, remotely and in socially distanced shoots, to turn Ta-Nehisi Coates’s memoir into a vivid amalgam of art, music and performance for HBO. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-11-18 15:34:00 UTC ]
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The former president offers familiar praise without delving deeper into their relationship. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-11-18 13:00:00 UTC ]
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Some publishing executives worry their authors and staff might rebel, but they say their bigger concern would be ensuring the book’s accuracy. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-11-18 10:19:13 UTC ]
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Sphere will publish My Farming Life, the new memoir from shepherdess Emma Gray. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-18 10:05:06 UTC ]
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Waterstones has seen "strong" online orders for A Promised Land (Viking), with the title also at number one in Amazon's bestseller charts. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-18 06:17:45 UTC ]
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As you may have noticed, Barack Obama has a book out today. It’s a memoir, titled A Promised Land, that runs to more than seven-hundred pages and is still only a first volume—covering the period from Obama’s childhood to the raid, in 2011, that killed Osama bin Laden. Originally, Obama planned... Continue reading at Columbia Journalism Review
[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2020-11-17 13:29:32 UTC ]
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My first novel was released within six months of Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance’s memoir of Appalachian roots and a youth spent in a Rust Belt community with a dearth of jobs and resources. Vance’s book came out just before the 2016 election; mine was released just after. Donald Trump’s victory had... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-11-17 12:01:45 UTC ]
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In the coming days, the team will cover two major awards and reveal two year-end lists. There’s also a certain presidential memoir coming out. Two editors discuss an industry that hasn’t slowed down. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-11-17 10:00:11 UTC ]
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Catherine Coleman Flowers’s memoir chronicles her advocacy for improved sanitation systems in rural America and her own education as an activist. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-11-17 10:00:08 UTC ]
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Independent booksellers reported solid first-day sales of former President Barak Obama's 'A Promised Land.' There was a downside, however, as many store owners reported some cartons of the memoir arrived damaged. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-11-17 05:00:00 UTC ]
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