‘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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Forgive and Remember: A Conversation with Susan Shapiro

WHAT WOULD YOU DO if the person who hurt you most refused to say they were sorry? Could you forgive anyway? Best-selling author Susan Shapiro explores this universal question in her intriguing, insightful, all-too-relatable new book The Forgiveness Tour, out this past January. In her... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2021-02-21 18:00:04 UTC ]
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A History of the Comedian Memoir in Nine Books

A syllabus of sorts for exploring some of the funniest books of all time by the funniest people. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2021-02-19 10:00:27 UTC ]
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Lit Hub Daily: February 18, 2021

Kristin Iversen profiles Patricia Lockwood, writer of crystalline sentences, really good tweets, and a new novel about much more than the internet. | Lit Hub Yemisi Adegoke grapples with what it means to be a “returnee” to Lagos, after growing up in the UK. | Lit Hub Memoir “Am I prepared? Is... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2021-02-18 10:30:19 UTC ]
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‘Blindfold: A Memoir of Capture, Torture, and Enlightenment,’ by Theo Padnos: An Excerpt

An excerpt from “Blindfold: A Memoir of Capture, Torture, and Enlightenment,” by Theo Padnos Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2021-02-16 13:32:26 UTC ]
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Held Hostage in Syria, a Reporter Tells What It Took to Survive

“Blindfold” is the American journalist Theo Padnos’s memoir of his nearly two years in captivity and a meditation on resilience. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2021-02-16 10:00:06 UTC ]
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Was ‘60 Minutes’ TV’s Most Toxic Workplace?

“Ticking Clock,” a new memoir by Ira Rosen, a former producer for the show, recounts the newsmagazine’s pathbreaking journalism and its culture of harassment and abuse. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2021-02-16 10:00:05 UTC ]
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Review: A survivor's memoir on sickness and health — 'we are all terminal patients on this earth'

In 'Between Two Kingdoms,' young cancer survivor Suleika Jaouad writes with fierce honesty about the false divide between the sick and the well. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-02-15 15:00:38 UTC ]
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Headline pre-empts memoir from Luna Lovegood actress Lynch

Actress and activist Evanna Lynch is publishing a "raw and compelling" memoir with Headline, exploring eating disorders and "the battle between perfection and creativity". Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-02-15 11:29:21 UTC ]
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The French #MeToo Memoir That Ensnares the Abuser in His Own Trap

Vanessa Springora’s memoir, Consent, electrified the French literary world. American readers will find it exhilarating. Continue reading at Slate

[ Slate | 2021-02-15 10:50:00 UTC ]
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Lit Hub Weekly: February 8 – 12, 2021

“Still, the best, most generative conversations mostly happen out of the public eye.” Wayne Miller on the hazards of talking poetry on social media. | Lit Hub As Gabriel Byrne watches his father’s decline, he wonders if it’s ever possible to be truly honest with himself. | Lit Hub Memoir “It... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2021-02-13 11:30:54 UTC ]
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From an Artist’s Life in Brooklyn to North Dakota’s Oil Fields

Michael Patrick F. Smith’s “The Good Hand” is a memoir about grinding work in the last days of the Bakken oil boom. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2021-02-12 10:00:02 UTC ]
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to publish memoir about her father's death

Notes on Grief will recount the life of ‘a remarkable man of kindness and charm’ and the author’s struggle to absorb his loss during lockdown last yearChimamanda Ngozi Adichie has written a memoir about the sudden death of her father in lockdown last year. Notes on Grief, by the Orange... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2021-02-11 14:18:53 UTC ]
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Toeing the Trap

TOVE DITLEVSEN’S first novel, A Child was Harmed, was sent back from the publisher with the accusation that she had “been reading too much Freud.” But Ditlevsen says she didn’t know who Freud was, a declaration that, 200-plus pages into her three-part memoir — a clear-eyed exploration of the... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2021-02-10 13:30:35 UTC ]
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She’s Ready to Discuss Just About Anything

Patricia Lockwood followed up on her memoir “Priestdaddy” with “No One Is Talking About This,” a novel that explores the chaotic feel of the internet and the pain of personal loss. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2021-02-10 10:00:17 UTC ]
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Danny Trejo’s memoir is hitting shelves (extremely hard) this summer.

Beloved Mexican-American actor and restauranteur Danny Trejo’s first memoir, Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood—which details Trejo’s path from drug addiction and incarceration in some of America’s most notorious prisons (including San Quentin, Folsom, and Soledad), to unexpected... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2021-02-09 21:03:44 UTC ]
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‘Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted,’ by Suleika Jaouad: An Excerpt

An excerpt from “Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted,” by Suleika Jaouad Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2021-02-09 16:17:10 UTC ]
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15 Nonfiction Black History Books to Read This Month

A list of nonfiction Black history books you can read this month to learn more about the history of racism and being Black in the U.S., including Men We Reaped: A Memoir by Jesmyn Ward. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2021-02-09 11:31:00 UTC ]
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A Memoir About Queer Identity, Told One Gay Bar at a Time

In his new memoir, “Gay Bar,” Jeremy Atherton Lin documents his personal history and the history of queer identity by exploring gay bars around the world. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2021-02-09 10:00:09 UTC ]
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Priyanka Chopra Jonas dishes on the director who said she needed plastic surgery

In her new memoir coming out Tuesday, actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas recalls the pressure she felt to conform to the film industry's beauty standards. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-02-08 23:44:01 UTC ]
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Midwife's account of the womb to Virago in eight-way auction

Virago has acquired Womb: The Inside Story of Where We All Began by Leah Hazard, to publish as its lead publication in spring 2023, following an eight-way auction.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-02-08 09:01:35 UTC ]
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