‘Damn, that fool can write’: how Martin Amis made everyone up their game

He exploded into the tweedy world of literature, a young, pouting and outrageously brash crusader for prose. Our writer remembers her encounters with the novelist, whose smarts and chutzpah confounded his peers‘You’ll be reading me every now and then at least until about 2080, weather permitting. And when you go, maybe my afterlife, too, will come to an end, my afterlife of words.” So wrote Martin Amis in his heavily autobiographical final novel Inside Story in 2020. With a body of work spanning 50 years, he leaves 15 novels, two short-story collections, one memoir and seven book-length works of journalism and history. Did posterity matter to him? Hell, yes. “There is only one value judgment in literature: time,” he insisted.Back in 2009, I called Amis – as editors all over the world would have been calling or emailing leading writers on Saturday night – to ask if he might write a tribute to the American novelist John Updike, who had just died. Time was tight and we were aiming high, but as with every major (and not so major) event at that time, Amis was the writer everyone was after. And on Updike, the last postwar American literary giant? It had to be him. Happily, he felt a duty to contribute to what Gore Vidal called “book chat”. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2023-05-22 05:00:48 UTC ]

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Lit Hub Daily: March 15, 2023

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[ Literrary Hub | 2023-03-15 10:30:59 UTC ]
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No obstacle too tall for this Ugandan wildlife veterinarian

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[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2023-03-13 22:15:07 UTC ]
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Waterstones says ‘no truth’ in claims it refuses to sell books on gender and feminism

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[ The Guardian | 2023-03-09 16:00:56 UTC ]
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[ The Guardian | 2023-03-09 12:58:59 UTC ]
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[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-03-07 19:04:58 UTC ]
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An army of Prince Harries is intimidating shoppers.

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[ Literrary Hub | 2023-03-03 15:21:13 UTC ]
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Lit Hub Daily: March 2, 2023

Carolyn Forche remembers the late, great poet Charles Simic. | Lit Hub Nerds, jocks, and a secret society: Will Schwalbe recalls the start of an unlikely friendship at Yale. | Lit Hub Memoir Bruce Krajewski unpacks the criticism of Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front and its... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2023-03-02 11:30:14 UTC ]
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Book Review: ‘We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I,’ by Raja Shehadeh

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[ The New York Times | 2023-03-02 10:00:15 UTC ]
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Exclusive cover reveal: See the cover for Athena Dixon’s The Loneliness Files.

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[ Literrary Hub | 2023-02-28 15:00:10 UTC ]
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It was all a blur: How guitarist Graham Coxon (barely) survived Britpop, in a memoir

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[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-02-24 14:00:20 UTC ]
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8 Peruvian Books in Translation

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[ Book Riot | 2023-02-22 11:33:00 UTC ]
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[ Literrary Hub | 2023-02-21 09:56:59 UTC ]
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Nicola Sturgeon’s memoirs attract fevered speculation from publishers

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[ The Guardian | 2023-02-18 08:00:35 UTC ]
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This Week's Bestsellers: February 20, 2023

Heather Gay, one of the 'Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,' makes her debut with the memoir 'Bad Mormon,' the #1 book in the Mountain region of the U.S. Plus two February book club picks hit our lists: 'Someone Else’s Shoes' by Jojo Moyes and Sadeqa Johnson’s 'The House of Eve.' Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-02-17 05:00:00 UTC ]
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New Aussie drama Bad Behaviour gives us a complex portrayal of girlhood and queer stories

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[ The Conversation | 2023-02-17 02:14:58 UTC ]
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[ The Guardian | 2023-02-14 14:00:16 UTC ]
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[ The New York Times | 2023-02-13 10:00:09 UTC ]
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[ The New York Times | 2023-02-11 22:40:33 UTC ]
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Book Deals: Week of February 13, 2023

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-02-10 05:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Literrary Hub | 2023-02-09 16:20:44 UTC ]
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