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 ]
Little, Brown has signed the first memoir by cartoonist and illustrator Gerald Scarfe, alongside a lavish fully-illustrated retrospective of his six decades in the business. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-08-12 17:12:12 UTC ]
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A powerful new memoir refuses to turn a blind eye to sexual abuse and offers survivors a way forward. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-08-12 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Cecil Woolf was indeed generous and sociable. Two years ago I visited his home and publishing headquarters off Mornington Crescent in north London, to buy some Bloomsbury Heritage monographs while researching my book Virginia Woolf at Home, on the houses she knew in London, Cornwall and Sussex.I... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2019-08-11 16:09:37 UTC ]
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T M Logan's The Holiday (Zaffre) has defeated Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt (Picador) for the Weekly E-Book Ranking top spot, putting at least another week between the junior doctor memoir and the record for longest-running e-book number one. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-08-09 11:11:41 UTC ]
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Bloomsbury has won a first-hand account of postpartum psychosis by Curtis Brown associate agent Catherine Cho, in a six-way auction. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-08-07 09:49:35 UTC ]
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Happy pub day to Keah Brown! Her debut memoir, The Pretty One, released today from Atria Books. To celebrate, we're publishing the unabridged version of Keah's interview featured in the Breaking In column of the September 2019 issue of Writer's Digest. You can catch Keah on the debut authors... Continue reading at Writer's Digest
[ Writer's Digest | 2019-08-06 17:00:43 UTC ]
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Their book profiles more than 100 path-breaking women down the centuries, from a 17th-century radical nun to Greta ThunbergHillary Clinton is set to publish a new book about the women who have inspired her, from Mary Beard to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – “leaders with the courage to stand up to... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2019-08-06 12:45:53 UTC ]
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“The Long Accomplishment: A Memoir of Hope and Struggle in Matrimony” is Rick Moody’s attempt to come to terms with his troubled domestic life. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2019-08-06 09:00:06 UTC ]
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Sarah Broom’s first book tells the story of a shotgun house in New Orleans and its fate before and after Hurricane Katrina. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2019-08-05 16:56:35 UTC ]
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Books are important to the texture of everyday life in Orange Is the New Black, which is based on a memoir ... Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2019-08-04 10:31:09 UTC ]
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Metropolitan Books, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers, announced Thursday that Edward Snowden's "Permanent Record" will be released on Sept. 17. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-08-01 19:04:36 UTC ]
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Pan Macmillan has scooped NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s "incredible" memoir as part of a global deal by Macmillan Publishers. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-08-01 17:23:10 UTC ]
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The National Security Agency whistle-blower has written a book exploring his role in mass surveillance and the “crisis of conscience” that led to his actions. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2019-08-01 17:09:52 UTC ]
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Metropolitan Books, an imprint of Macmillan, will release a memoir by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden titled Permanent Record in September, the publisher announced Thursday. The project has been cloaked in secrecy for the last year; the Associated Press reported Thursday that the book was... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-08-01 16:03:07 UTC ]
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In Permanent Record, the former spy will recount how his mass surveillance work eventually led him to make the biggest leak in historyAfter multiple books and films about his decision to leak the biggest cache of top-secret documents in history, whistleblower Edward Snowden is set to tell his... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2019-08-01 13:09:01 UTC ]
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'Permanent Record,' a memoir by former CIA agent Edward Snowden, will be published globally by Macmillan on September 17. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-08-01 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Pan Macmillan has snapped up the autobiography of Shane "Shakey" Byrne, the most successful British Superbike Championship rider in history, in a three-publisher auction. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-08-01 00:46:31 UTC ]
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Susan Straight's new memoir, "In the Country of Women," depicts the tough, trauma-burdened women who have populated her life. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-07-30 19:40:36 UTC ]
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HarperCollins imprint 4th Estate will publish Whitesnake musician Bernie Marsden's memoir in November 2019. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-07-30 07:38:39 UTC ]
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TWO RECENT TITLES from the University Press of Florida make for a remarkably successful pairing: one focuses on the “golden years” of George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet through the memoir lens of former soloist Bettijane Sills, while the other offers, through a series of impressionistic... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-07-28 17:00:03 UTC ]
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