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 ]
Good news, memoir fans: Variety reports that Dani Shapiro’s bestselling memoir Inheritance will be adapted into a feature by Killer Films, with Cami Delavigne (the co-writer of Blue Valentine) on board to write the script. The memoir centers on Shapiro’s discovery, after a DNA test, that the man... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-07-03 13:43:07 UTC ]
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Book Reviews Alan Levenson Ever since early Islam, Jews have been dubbed the people of the book. The title stuck in European lands too, a deferential nod to the role of the Hebrew Bible in the Western canon, the breadth of Jewish literacy (never... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2019-07-02 20:46:30 UTC ]
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SPCK has signed ex-Lib Dem leader Tim Farron’s “gripping” autobiography, detailing how he balanced being a Christian and a Liberal during his political career. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-07-01 12:23:42 UTC ]
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A short list of books includes a personal memoir about a family’s struggle with schizophrenia, a history of psychiatry and an exploration of how tyrants think. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2019-06-28 22:41:56 UTC ]
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“A Good American Family,” by David Maraniss, examines the paranoia and brutality of the McCarthy era through the lens of his father’s experience. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2019-06-28 15:12:51 UTC ]
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Ebury will publish the memoir of Holocaust survivor and concentration camp librarian Dita Kraus, who inspired the novel The Librarian of Auschwitz (Ebury). Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-06-26 06:34:21 UTC ]
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Interviews Shelly Bhoil Tenzin Dickie is a Tibetan writer and translator and editor of The Treasury of Lives, a biographical encyclopedia of Tibet, Inner Asia, and the Himalayan region. Her edited anthology, Old Demons, New Deities: 21 Short Stories from... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2019-06-25 14:25:59 UTC ]
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Philip H. Geier, Jr., the long-time chairman and CEO of the advertising giant known as The Interpublic Group of Companies, died on Wednesday, June 19, at the age of 84. Over the course of his nearly six-decade-long career, Geier made a name for himself in the worlds of both advertising and... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2019-06-24 19:42:28 UTC ]
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The title of Bobby Hundreds’ book — “This Is Not a T-Shirt” — is straight-up transparent: It’s not a T-shirt. It’s less obvious at the outset — but not for long — that it’s also not a traditional memoir, brand history or “how-we-turned-a couple-hundred bucks-into-global-streetwear-label”... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-06-20 15:40:00 UTC ]
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The title of Bobby Hundreds' book — "This Is Not a T-Shirt" — is straight-up transparent: It's not a T-shirt. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-06-20 15:30:01 UTC ]
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On a quest to make sense of what was happening to her body, the author Darcey Steinke sought guidance from female killer whales. Continue reading at The Atlantic
[ The Atlantic | 2019-06-18 14:40:31 UTC ]
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Memoirs of faith by Rachel Denhollander, Tom Voss and Rebecca Anne Nguyen, Helen Prejean, and others teach and reassure readers. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-06-14 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Serpent’s Tail will publish a new memoir by British-Zimbabwean author Alexandra Fuller. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-06-13 15:11:33 UTC ]
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Adam Kay is sending his exposé of life as a junior doctor during the leadership candidate’s time as health secretary to highlight how he ‘left the NHS in tatters’Adam Kay is sending a copy of his bestselling memoir about life as a junior doctor, This Is Going to Hurt, to all 330 Conservative MPs... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2019-06-12 11:40:05 UTC ]
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Books are a go-to gift for Father's Day, but if you rely on chain bookstore displays, you'll probably find a lot of the same things: cookbooks with recipes for grilling obscenely large hunks of meat, ghostwritten memoirs by pro athletes, and techno-thrillers featuring very long descriptions... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-06-11 17:30:00 UTC ]
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After cease and desist letter issued for portraying Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez like DC’s Wonder Woman, indie Devil’s Due pastiches another characterAfter getting into hot water with DC Comics for an issue in which congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez looked a little too much like DC’s Wonder... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2019-06-06 13:44:12 UTC ]
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Newly retired NBA star Dwyane Wade will tell the story of his life and celebrated basketball career in a new memoir. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-06-05 17:29:40 UTC ]
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Colin Dayan's brief but explosive memoir of her relationship to her mother should find a place among the more indelible life histories of the last several years. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-06-05 16:00:01 UTC ]
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In musician and magician Rob Zabrecky's new memoir, "Strange Cures," the Los Angeles of the 1980s and early '90s is an alien landscape of raucous underground nightclubs, seedy Hollywood crack dens and low-rent Silver Lake duplexes; and the Valley is a place where errant teens roam free, sans... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-05-30 18:01:20 UTC ]
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Blondie lead singer Debbie Harry will tell the story of her career as a musician and actress in a new memoir set for release this fall. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-05-30 16:44:35 UTC ]
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