Billed as ‘a therapeutic novel’, the publisher’s first foray into fiction follows 29-year-old Anna’s mental health journey – with a view to helping the reader. But how useful can such clunky writing be?At 29 years old, Anna is full of self-loathing. She hates her job, her boyfriend is having an affair and her parents’ response to her troubles is indifferent at best. This is the starting point for A Voice of One’s Own, the first novel to be published by The School of Life. In its pages, fiction and self-help make for uneasy bedfellows.Co-founded by philosopher Alain de Botton in 2008, The School of Life broadly aims to teach its “students” how to lead calmer, more fulfilling lives. Its publishing arm, launched in 2016, disseminates self-help literature with pithy titles such as Reasons to be Hopeful and A Simpler Life, which purport to blend philosophical wisdom with practical advice. Like De Botton himself, the books are Marmite; while many critique the school for peddling watered-down pop philosophy, its teachings have clearly found a market. The organisation has branches in seven major cities, and its most popular title, Big Ideas for Curious Minds, has sold over 120,000 copies globally, while its workshops on playfulness, confidence and self-awareness regularly sell out. The new book represents a departure, however. Through A Voice of One’s Own, The School of Life is showing, rather than telling, its readers how to live better. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2023-07-07 15:45:50 UTC ]
Sara Collins has won the Costa First Novel Award for her gothic romance, The Confessions of Frannie Langton (Viking), in a stellar year for début authors after three out of the five award categories were won by first-time writers. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-01-06 21:35:49 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Riot announced its new publishing arm for new League of Legends-related games, Riot Forge, just last week, and tonight at The Game Awards it revealed the first title to spawn from this business: Ruined King: A League of Legends Story. It's a narrativ... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2019-12-13 03:16:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Huge congratulations to De’Shawn Charles Winslow, who last night took home the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize for his acclaimed debut In West Mills. Winslow was presented with the prestigious prize—which has in previous years been awarded to Junot Diaz, Tiphanie Yanique, Viet Thanh Nguyen,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-12-11 17:00:27 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Raymond AntrobusWho/ What inspired you to start writing? I never started writing poetry with the intention of writing books until publishers approached me. I was happy to write poems and travel and read the poems for audiences. I live poem by poem. The idea of a book of poems doesn’t really... Continue reading at British Council global
[ British Council global | 2019-12-05 12:09:15 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Irish poet Elaine Feeney’s "dazzlingly inventive" debut novel As You Were will be published by Harvill Secker following an auction. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-12-02 15:33:42 UTC ]
More news stories like this
What was the first book you fell in love with? The Center for Fiction’s 2019 First Novel Prize authors weigh in. | Lit Hub “Disagree with my argument, beliefs, and my politics, but hands off my syntax!” Lore Segal’s love letter to editors. | Lit Hub “Among Larry’s many strengths as a writer,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-12-02 11:30:22 UTC ]
More news stories like this
We asked this year’s Center for Fiction First Novel Prize finalists about their earliest love affairs with reading. Meet them all at the Finalist Reading and Fête on December 9 at The Center for Fiction. * Chia-Chia Lin, author of The Unpassing on The Elves and the Shoemaker, Fran Hunia and... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-12-02 09:49:11 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi won the Man Booker International Prize this year for its beautifully rendered portrayal of a family’s tangled history in the village of al-Awafi in Oman. The novel was the first book translated from Arabic to win the prize, and more surprisingly, it was the... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-11-26 11:59:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Hodder & Stoughton is publishing Veronica Roth's first novel for adults, Chosen Ones, after striking a two-book deal. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-11-20 08:51:10 UTC ]
More news stories like this
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle reads the first novel in Isaac Asimov’s juvenile science fiction series Science fiction set in our own solar system arguably began with Lucian, the classical author whose short satirical piece True History paved the way for... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2019-11-15 15:00:55 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The publishing arm of ReaderLink has enjoyed solid gains over the past four years.that ended this September. Tasker has been with ReaderLink since 2015, when he joined as v-p and publisher of Silver Dolphin Books, and since that time, PRPG has expanded through a series of acquisitions, as well... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-11-08 05:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Her first novel first novel came out in 1778, when she was twenty-five, and made her famous. Continue reading at The Paris Review
[ The Paris Review | 2019-11-06 14:00:37 UTC ]
More news stories like this
According to the Bookseller, Elena Ferrante’s first novel in five years will be published in English in June 2020 by Europa Editions. The Lying Life of Adults (great title? or greatest title?) is out in Italian this coming November 7, and the English version will, of course, appear in a... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-10-28 12:11:35 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Daunt Books Publishing has acquired debut novel The Coming Bad Days by poet and academic Sarah Bernstein. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-24 06:01:24 UTC ]
More news stories like this
In 2013, I moved to New York City alone. I had just divorced and graduated from the Iowa Writers Workshop. My first novel had been released—waiting for it had been my only remaining tether to a former life. With its release, my last connection to the functional adult world was severed and I was... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-10-23 08:48:27 UTC ]
More news stories like this
In her first novel to be published in the UK, Catherine Chung tells the story of a gifted mathematician whose studies take her deep into her family history. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-23 07:02:53 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The first novel I published with a major house was about a murder I covered as a reporter when I was in my early twenties. The victim, who was my age, and lived in my neighborhood, disappeared in the winter and her body was found in the summer in a shallow grave in the woods […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-10-22 08:48:49 UTC ]
More news stories like this
On this warm October day in Southern California, I walk the Venice canals and think of Kate Braverman. How in her sensational first novel Lithium for Medea she captured a Venice so distant that it’s difficult to accept that this version, which is polished and expensive and filled with tourists,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-10-22 08:48:36 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Jokha Alharthi’s inventive multigenerational tale, “Celestial Bodies,” is also the first novel by an Omani woman to be translated into English. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2019-10-21 15:10:57 UTC ]
More news stories like this
LOOK, IT MUST be said: Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments is a deeply strange text. A page-turning potboiler set 15 years after the events of the first novel and published over three decades later, and co-winner this week of the 2019 Booker Prize, it tells a story only barely connected to the... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-10-19 15:00:57 UTC ]
More news stories like this