On Tuesday, Donald Rumsfeld—who, as defense secretary under George W. Bush, was a driving force behind the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—died. Major outlets wheeled out pre-written obituaries. The AP’s, by Robert Burns, bordered on hagiography. Its headline initially declared Rumsfeld “a cunning leader undermined by Iraq war”; that language was later changed to “cunning leader who oversaw a ruinous Iraq war,” but the opening paragraph still says that “try as he might,” Rumsfeld “could not outmaneuver the ruinous politics of the Iraq war,” as if he had been forced to play chess against a supercomputer. The Iraqi death toll from the war is not noted; the American death toll is—but not before Rumsfeld’s charitable work on behalf of veterans, his “accomplished” college wrestling career, and colleagues’ recollections of his smarts and patriotism. The first words of the article’s URL are “Chicago Bears,” a reference to the football team Rumsfeld supported as a kid. Because the AP is a wire service, the obituary was republished widely. Other prominent efforts were better, but did not adequately foreground the human cost of Rumsfeld’s military aggression: The New York Times addressed Iraq only after mentioning the records he broke as defense secretary (he was the youngest person in that post, under Gerald Ford, then the oldest, under Bush) and his reputation as a “combative infighter” who challenged “military orthodoxies.” The Washington Post described him as “controversial,” but... Continue reading at 'Columbia Journalism Review'
[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2021-07-02 12:32:38 UTC ]
If Amazon's market power over book publishing is left unchecked, competition in the industry will continue to diminish, the heads of the AAP, ABA, and Authors Guild wrote in a letter to the chairman of the House Antitrust Subcommittee. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-08-18 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Sceptre has pre-empted Hollywood Park by musician and writer Mikel Jollett, frontman of indie band The Airborne Toxic Event. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-08-16 14:59:29 UTC ]
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Michael Cohen's memoir about U.S. President Donald Trump will be released Sept. 8 by Skyhorse Publishing, which confirmed the news on Thursday. Continue reading at CBC
[ CBC | 2020-08-14 12:29:48 UTC ]
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Yesterday, a pair of TV interviews crystallized just how the Trump administration is threatening the integrity of the election. On CNBC, Larry Kudlow, Trump’s top economic adviser, cast “voting rights” as part of a “liberal-left wish list,” adding, “That’s not our game.” On Fox Business, Trump... Continue reading at Columbia Journalism Review
[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2020-08-14 12:26:12 UTC ]
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“I don’t know what it means!” Andy Warhol bleats, in John Giorno’s Great Demon Kings: A Memoir of Poetry, Sex, Art, Death, and Enlightenment (out now from Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Warhol’s ditzy refrain is a mantra for the perpetually bemused, at once tragicomic and tongue-in-cheek. He says... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-08-14 08:48:26 UTC ]
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Among the week’s big deals are the acquisition of a #MeToo memoir by a French publishing exec, Sharon Stone’s memoir, and Andy Weir’s new novel. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-08-14 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Since the killing of George Floyd in late May, the book publishing industry, overwhelmingly white at every level, seems to have reached a period of reckoning about its own history of exclusionary hiring practices. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-08-14 04:00:00 UTC ]
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As Crown Publishing predicted, readers eagerly anticipated Michelle Obama’s Becoming. Autobiography and memoir are best selling categories because virtually everyone enjoys learning about the private life of public figures. In this case, many were curious about the woman who seemed to rise above... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-08-12 11:00:00 UTC ]
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OWN IT! is to partner with Grime music label Boy Better Know to co-publish the memoir of Ifeomagwu “Ify” Adenuga, the mother of the label's founders. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-08-11 10:24:04 UTC ]
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Hodder & Stoughton has acquired Liv's Alone by Liv Thorne, an "honest and hopeful memoir that captures the joy and the challenge that is parenting alone by choice". Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-08-09 12:38:16 UTC ]
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Another day, another announcement of a memoir from a former Trump collaborator. This time, it’s Fiona Hill, an ex-advisor who testified in Trump’s impeachment inquiry, whose “views about the future of a polarized America” will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2021. I have nothing... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-08-06 19:59:16 UTC ]
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Sara Faith Alterman's "Let's Never Talk About This Again" is a memoir about strange family dynamics, love, grief and the benefits of finally opening up. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-08-05 18:00:51 UTC ]
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It would be easy to summarize Being Lolita as a memoir about a toxic, exploitative relationship between a high school English teacher and his student, and it is about that—but it’s about that in the way Walden is about a pond. Continue reading at The Paris Review
[ The Paris Review | 2020-08-04 16:08:33 UTC ]
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On this episode of Personal Space: The Memoir Show, Sari Botton interviews Morgan Jerkins, author of Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots, published by Harper. In this fascinating historical memoir, Jerkins explores her identity and heritage by tracing... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-08-03 19:36:31 UTC ]
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A former U.S. poet laureate’s new memoir reflects on the power of storytelling to reconcile past traumas—and offers lessons for surviving the cataclysms of the present. Continue reading at The Atlantic
[ The Atlantic | 2020-08-01 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Trethewey’s memoir is a tribute to a life snuffed out by a brutal man, a fractured judicial system and a patriarchy as old as Methuselah. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-07-31 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Bloomsbury's Green Tree is to publish Liz Fraser's memoir Coming Clean: A True Story of Love, Addiction and Recovery next year. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-07-31 11:02:40 UTC ]
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I met David Adjmi at a fancy writing residency. The kind of place where you work all day alone and then eat dinner together, have a drink in the parlor afterwards. I remember a night when someone suggested watching a movie. As people were perusing the house copy of the criterion collection... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-07-31 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Scribner buy a book about American’s first female astronauts, Matthew McConaughey sells a memoir to Crown, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-07-31 04:00:00 UTC ]
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On this episode of Personal Space: The Memoir Show, Sari Botton interviews Laura Lippman, author of My Life as a Villainess, published by William Morrow. In this wry essay collection she writes movingly about becoming a mom in her fifties, choices she made in her career as a journalist and a... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-07-30 18:00:43 UTC ]
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