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 to write a shorter, single volume, but he ended up grappling with a surfeit of good material and with a desire to offer both rich historical detail and a compelling narrative; as he told The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, “there are parts of the book where I just had a really nice description I wanted to leave in and the editor was like, ‘Do we really need this, like, do we really?’ and I said, ‘Eh, I like it, sorry. That’s just a pretty description and I want to leave it.’” Online, every writer related and every editor winced. “Kill your darlings,” Seyward Darby, the editor in chief of the Atavist Magazine, advised. “It’s liberating, I promise.” Ahead of publication day, the former president embarked on a media tour, coverage of which has, implicitly and often explicitly, provided a marked contrast with the behavior of the soon-to-be-former president. Interviewers have asked Obama to weigh in on Trump’s refusal to concede defeat and the state of the country generally; in his answers, Obama has emphasized the centrality of America’s polarized information ecosystem in putting Trump in the White House and bolstering his unhinged claim that he gets to stay there. As Brian Stelter, CNN’s... Continue reading at 'Columbia Journalism Review'
[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2020-11-17 13:29:32 UTC ]
Based on Joanna Rakoff's memoir of working for JD Salinger's agent, the film lacks some of the wit but none of the heart of Joanna's story. Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2021-01-13 01:19:06 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Actress Dame Eileen Atkins, aged 86, will publish her memoir with Virago in October 2021. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-01-12 19:09:03 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Today, Haruki Murakami celebrates his 72nd birthday—and we’re celebrating by diving into his recorded interviews. Murakami rarely gives interviews, but the ones he does are packed with insight into how he approaches the writing process. His memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running digs... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-01-12 18:27:48 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The acclaimed actor’s memoir takes us far from Hollywood to his Irish childhood. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-01-12 13:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
“The world will come between you,” writes Marcos Gonsalez in the prologue of his memoir Pedro’s Theory: Reimagining the Promised Land. The you here refers to both the author and his father, an immigrant from Mexico, captured in a photograph from the author’s childhood. “Hundreds of years of... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-01-12 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
In “Unsolaced,” Greta Ehrlich tells a story of personal discovery against the backdrop of the climate crisis. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-01-12 10:00:06 UTC ]
More news stories like this
“The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata,” by Gina Apostol, takes the form of a found memoir that has been picked apart by scholars. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-01-12 05:00:02 UTC ]
More news stories like this
I first read Nadia Owusu’s debut memoir Aftershocks in June, as the United States—led by the white nationalist backed Republican administration—was several months into a still ongoing unchecked global pandemic which was disproportionately killing Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous Americans.... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-01-11 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Comey’s “Saving Justice” is a revealing memoir that describes his feelings about Trump and his worries about the nation. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-01-10 23:00:02 UTC ]
More news stories like this
“Gone to the Woods” is a memoir so rife with childhood trauma he wrote it in the third person. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-01-09 08:01:28 UTC ]
More news stories like this
IN THE DAYS FOLLOWING the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Archive of American Folk Song dispatched its field workers in 10 different regions across the United States to solicit average Americans’ opinions about the bombing and FDR’s ensuing proposal for a declaration of war. A second round... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2021-01-08 18:00:08 UTC ]
More news stories like this
In our series “Can Writing Be Taught?” we partner with Catapult to ask their course instructors all our burning questions about the process of teaching writing. This time we’re talking to Abeer Hoque, author of the memoir Olive Witch, who’s teaching a two-week seminar on one of the most... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-01-08 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Scribe is publishing a new B-format paperback edition of US president-elect Joe Biden’s 2007 memoir, Promises to Keep. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-01-08 03:07:33 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Bette Howland’s 1974 memoir, recently reissued, recounts her time in a psychiatric ward and the people she met there. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-01-06 20:50:30 UTC ]
More news stories like this
THE FOLLOWING EXCERPT is the opening section from chapter three of my book in progress, Unpacking My Father’s Bookstore, a memoir and critical study about growing up in my father’s Jewish bookstore. As Harelick and Roth Books and then J. Roth / Bookseller of Fine & Scholarly Judaica, the... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2021-01-06 16:00:43 UTC ]
More news stories like this
“W-3,” Bette Howland’s account of her institutionalization, in 1968, proceeds according to a simple binary: those who suffer are patients; those who don’t are not. Continue reading at New Yorker
[ New Yorker | 2021-01-05 20:23:25 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Looking for a memoir by a Latinx author for the Read Harder challenge? This is a list of recommendations to get you started! Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2021-01-05 11:31:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
'Maybe there are lessons to be learned from rule-breaking,' writes Richard Charkin, with a new memoir as his case in point. The post Richard Charkin: ‘Thank Goodness for the Rule-Breakers’ appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2021-01-04 13:04:57 UTC ]
More news stories like this
In a year dominated by a global pandemic and American politics, some might find it fitting that the library book most likely to be checked out across Ontario was a hopeful memoir written by the former first lady of the United States. Continue reading at CBC
[ CBC | 2020-12-31 09:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Want to feel hungry? Read Bryan Washington on his year in takeout orders. | The New Yorker “In the end, Chang’s trauma, and the trauma he inflicted on other people, becomes part of his public persona, while we simply carry ours.” Hannah Selinger on what—and who—David Chang’s memoir leaves out. |... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-12-23 11:30:13 UTC ]
More news stories like this