What the critics thought of Howard Jacobson’s Pussy, Lisa McInerney’s The Blood Miracles and Bill Hayes’s Insomniac CityTwo eagerly anticipated and very different novels divided critics this month. Howard Jacobson’s Pussy was written in two months in “a fury of disbelief” after Donald Trump’s US election victory, and is set in a fictionalised world in which spoiled Prince Fracassus rules. “Flawed but fascinating” wrote Anita Sethi in the i, summing up many critics’ feelings. “At its best, the book brilliantly portrays a world in which language and the complexity of ideas that it can convey have been devalued … ” The Observer’s Andrew Anthony also accentuated the positives, finding “many aesthetic pleasures to be had in Pussy. If Trump’s presidency is a source of continuing anxiety, then among its very few benefits is that it is has moved one of our finest comic writers to write an elegantly savage satire of a man who defies satire.” But this satirising of the unsatirisable vexed some. “The more you share its premises, the more you wish this satire had sharper edge. Fracassus’s unsavoury grotesqueness never trumps Trump’s,” wrote Peter Kemp in the Sunday Times, while the Independent’s Lucy Scholes felt “inclined to wonder what [Jacobson’s] hurry was. From a novelist of his pedigree ... I wanted something more considered.”Lisa McInerney’s The Blood Miracles is the follow-up to her Baileys women’s fiction prize-winning debut The Glorious Heresies and focuses on that novel’s... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2017-04-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
A celebration of community libraries and their expanding role, and a look at the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Paul Harding. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-02-17 17:56:54 UTC ]
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“The Applicant,” a debut novel by Nazli Koca, features a worldly-wise 20-something Turkish writer who works as a cleaner at a Berlin hostel while struggling to figure out what kind of life she wants to lead. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-02-14 10:00:12 UTC ]
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In her memoir “The Critic’s Daughter,” Priscilla Gilman recounts her life with intensely intellectual — and very different — parents. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-02-13 10:00:09 UTC ]
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In his memoir “Holding Fire,” Bryce Andrews confronts the violence and guilt of past generations. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-02-07 10:00:30 UTC ]
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A welcome revival of a 1980s comedy prophesying the collapse of the Soviet UnionHere is a revival of a 1983 film from the Georgian director Eldar Shengelaia (still alive at 90) and it is revealed as an intriguing, and perhaps even remarkable creation: a dapper, droll satire on Soviet... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-02-06 13:00:00 UTC ]
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A debut novel from Kira Yarmysh, a longtime critic of Vladimir Putin, offers an intimate look at political imprisonment. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-02-06 10:00:09 UTC ]
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“Essex Dogs,” the first novel in a projected trilogy by the historian Dan Jones, imagines a hard-bitten band of mercenaries hired to invade France on behalf of their English king. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-02-03 10:00:06 UTC ]
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Her second memoir — about her small-town coming-of-age, her multiple traumas and Hollywood escapades — is an attempt to set the record straight. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-01-27 10:00:07 UTC ]
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In his latest novel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Paul Harding reimagines the history of a small mixed-race community’s devastating eviction from their homes. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-01-24 10:00:17 UTC ]
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John Hendrickson's memoir “Life on Delay” recounts his experience with this poorly understood neurological disorder, tracing an arc from frustration and isolation to acceptance and community. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-01-18 10:00:22 UTC ]
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“Teller of the Unexpected,” an elegant new biography, sidesteps the ugly side of the children’s book author while capturing his grandiose, tragedy-specked life. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-01-17 20:39:40 UTC ]
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At once emotional and embittered, the royal memoir is mired in a paradox: drawing endless attention in an effort to renounce fame. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-01-10 21:07:46 UTC ]
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On the 125th anniversary of “J’Accuse,” a picture book for older kids places the lives of Alfred Dreyfus and Émile Zola side by side. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-01-06 07:36:52 UTC ]
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In a newly reissued photo book from 1967, Ernest Cole surveys the ever-present atrocities of European oppression. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-12-29 10:00:35 UTC ]
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‘Tis the season for schadenfreude. Yes, for the sixth year running, we’ve emerged from the bowels of the book review mines trailing behind us an oozing sack of pans—each one riper and more wince-inducing that the last. Among the books being gored and devoured by feral hogs this year: Jared... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-12-20 09:55:19 UTC ]
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Way back in the mid-aughts when I first started writing about books, pitching a print publication was the only reliable way for book critics to get paid, and third-person point of view was all the vogue. Much has changed in the years since: Newspaper and magazine book sections have shuttered,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-12-19 09:55:21 UTC ]
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Beatrice Alemagna’s “You Can’t Kill Snow White,” a picture book for older kids, mines the brutal envy that underpins the original Brothers Grimm tale. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-12-16 17:24:59 UTC ]
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A new anthology collects some of the writings, interviews and speeches of the comic and civil rights activist. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-11-14 20:11:45 UTC ]
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First published in Japan in 1983, this picture book from the fabled animator is eerie, enchanting and surpassingly strange. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-11-02 09:00:16 UTC ]
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The National Book Award-winning author and translator of “Winter in Sokcho” return with another quietly powerful tale of dislocation. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-10-22 09:00:12 UTC ]
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