‘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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Personal Space: Samantha Irby is Fine Not Leaving the House

This is Personal Space: The Memoir Show, with Sari Botton. On this episode, Botton speaks with Samantha Irby about her recently released essay collection, Wow, No Thank You. Irby discusses what it was like to move to a small town in the country after a lifetime of city living, how people wearing... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-04-16 20:00:01 UTC ]
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Alicia Keys Can Now Add ‘Best-Selling Author’ to Her Résumé

The singer’s latest hit is “Underdog.” Her memoir proves she is anything but one. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2020-04-16 09:00:04 UTC ]
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Alex Trebek Memoir Is Coming in July

The book, “The Answer Is …,” arose from the “Jeopardy!” host’s desire to give fans more insight into his life after his pancreatic cancer diagnosis. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2020-04-15 16:08:39 UTC ]
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'Jeopardy' Host Alex Trebek Releasing Memoir One Day Before 80th Birthday

The book will reportedly feature what the publisher calls “illuminating personal anecdotes.” Continue reading at HuffPost

[ HuffPost | 2020-04-14 20:21:27 UTC ]
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Alex Trebek set to publish a memoir while fighting pancreatic cancer

On Tuesday, Simon & Schuster announced it will publish Alex Trebek's memoir, "The Answer Is…: Reflections on My Life," on July 21. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-04-14 19:35:53 UTC ]
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From Hollywood ‘Pretty Girl’ to Empowered Novelist

Susanna Moore’s memoir “Miss Aluminum” is a provocative look at the early circumstances that shaped her writing career. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2020-04-14 09:00:20 UTC ]
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Freeway Dreams

“I KNEW I WAS QUEER the moment my consciousness had evolved enough to formulate thoughts,” Lydia R. Otero writes in the introduction to the memoir In the Shadows of the Freeway: Growing Up Brown & Queer. In this compelling examination, Otero draws upon decades of experience as a historian... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-04-13 17:00:43 UTC ]
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Personal Space: Hadley Freeman on Finding Out the Tall Family Tales Were All True

This is Personal Space: The Memoir Show, with Sari Botton. On this episode, Botton talks to Hadley Freeman about her fourth book, House of Glass: The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth-Century Jewish Family, a memoir and family Holocaust history published by Simon & Schuster. Botton and... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-04-09 17:00:34 UTC ]
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Religion Book Deals: April 8, 2020

A former beauty queen lands at Convergent, country music singer Sara Evans brings a memoir to Howard Books; and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-04-08 04:00:00 UTC ]
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‘Walden’ may be the most famous act of social distancing. It’s also a lesson on the importance of community.

Henry David Thoreau’s most famous book is more than a guide to nature. It’s a memoir of grieving. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-04-07 12:00:00 UTC ]
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In ‘Afropessimism,’ a Black Intellectual Mixes Memoir and Theory

Frank B. Wilderson III talks about his experimental approach to writing about blackness and violence, as well as the solace he found in Sarah Vaughan. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2020-04-05 09:00:00 UTC ]
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Personal Space: Sue William Silverman on Being Fascinated with the Thing You Fear Most

On the debut episode of Personal Space: The Memoir Show, Sari Botton talks to Sue William Silverman about her seventh book, How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences, a memoir in essays published by the University of Nebraska Press on March 1st. In the book, Silverman explores her... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-04-03 18:00:03 UTC ]
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Book Deals: Week of April 6, 2020

Among the big books that sold this week are a memoir by actor Billy Dee Williams and Elizabeth George’s 21st Inspector Lynley mystery. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-04-03 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Kathy Valentine's hair-raising memoir 'All I Ever Wanted' recounts the Go-Go's wild ride

Kathy Valentine's hair-raising memoir recounts life before, during and shortly after the Go-Go's ascended to become the darlings of the MTV generation. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-04-02 19:09:22 UTC ]
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Seven Dials lands Vinnie Jones' memoir of love and loss

Seven Dials has won world rights at auction to Lost Without You, a book from the footballer turned actor Vinnie Jones about coping with the loss of his wife, Tanya, after her six-year battle with cancer.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-04-02 12:09:30 UTC ]
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Early release for Adam Buxton audiobook, recorded remotely

HarperNonFiction is releasing an early audiobook edition of Adam Buxton's memoir in May—its first to be recorded entirely remotely. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-04-01 21:06:52 UTC ]
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Monoray to publish filmmaker Oliver Stone's memoir

Octopus imprint Monoray has acquired a "no-holds-barred" memoir from film director Oliver Stone: Chasing the Light: Writing, Directing & Surviving Platoon, Midnight Express, Scarface, Salvador & The Movie Game. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-04-01 16:53:11 UTC ]
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Woody Allen’s New Memoir Is Sometimes Funny — and Tone Deaf and Banal

Allen’s “Apropos of Nothing,” recently released after being canceled by its original publisher, covers his childhood in Brooklyn, his career and the abuse allegations against him. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2020-03-26 21:46:30 UTC ]
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Amazon signs memoir on surviving depression by Amanda Prowse and her son

Amazon Publishing imprint Little A has signed a memoir from author Amanda Prowse and her son, Josiah Hartley, about coping with depression within a family. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-24 18:02:02 UTC ]
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Woody Allen: 'I would welcome Dylan Farrow back with open arms'

Director says in new memoir that not raising his adopted daughter after abuse allegations – which he denies – was ‘one of the saddest things’ of his lifeWoody Allen has written that he “would welcome Dylan [Farrow] with open arms if she’d ever want to reach out”, in his recently published memoir... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2020-03-24 17:17:03 UTC ]
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