The Booker winning author talks about how his most recent work was inspired by Hilary Mantel, and the way the books world has changed since his debut was published more than 40 years agoToo many people have been dying lately,” Julian Barnes reflects over the phone from his home in north London. He has muted the Test match, he tells me, so he won’t be tempted to shout at the screen. This is a follow-up conversation to a meeting earlier this year to discuss his latest novel, Elizabeth Finch, in which, although unnamed in the book, Hilary Mantel, who died aged 70 last September, played a key part. Barnes’s great friend Carmen Callil, founder of Virago Press, died a month later. “I did adore her,” he says now. And, since we last spoke, Martin Amis has also died, in May.“I knew he didn’t want me to ask him how he was,” Barnes says of his final communications with Amis, who moved to New York in 2011. “So we had a kind of football email exchange: ‘What do you think of Arsenal this season?’ and so on. At the end, I got an email saying, in effect, ‘Look after yourself, old friend.’ I took that as it was intended, which was ‘Goodbye.’” Barnes didn’t email him again. “He did it stylishly, as you would expect,” he says. “Stylishly and privately.” Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2023-09-16 08:00:25 UTC ]
Other writers have reacted with scepticism to the Alex Rider author’s claim that he was discouraged from ‘artificial and possibly patronising’ writingA furore has broken out in the children’s books world around claims by Alex Rider creator Anthony Horowitz that he was “warned off” creating a... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2017-05-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Martin Amis is writing an autobiographical novel about three fellow writers - poet and writer Philip Larkin, Nobel Prize winning novelist Saul Bellow and essayist and literary critic Christopher Hitchens - all of whom have died since he started writing the book. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-12-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Writers including AS Byatt and Philip Hensher say Commonwealth and British writers face greater struggle to find readers, now ‘dice are loaded’ AS Byatt, Philip Hensher and Susan Hill have joined authors backing Julian Barnes’s call for the Man Booker prize to exclude US writers once again, a... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2016-11-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Julian Barnes has reignited the debate over the Man Booker Prize rule changes, calling the decision to allow American authors to compete "straightforwardly daft". Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-11-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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My friend and colleague Trevor Moore, who has died aged 79, was a passionate advocate for a number of publishers’ lists, spending most of his working life in the book trade. Trevor’s early career spanned Hutchinson, Hamish Hamilton, Collins, Andre Deutsch, Methuen, Hodder, Weidenfeld and Bantam... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2016-09-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The books community that my site joined was driven by enthusiasm not clicks, goodwill and not money – and that culture has goneI miss the internet. I know that, technically, the internet still exists. It’s the Facebook-, Twitter-filtered series of algorithms designed to put cat videos, think... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2016-05-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Some cultures do not distinguish between fiction and nonfiction – and instead talk of ‘stories’. Is that a barrier to English-language writers and publishers? Or should they just learn to enjoy telling tales?There’s a mighty canyon that runs down the middle of the world of the word, carving... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2016-03-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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BARCELONA, Spain—Once a doubter in the future of mobile video, Jonah Peretti is now a believer. In a speech on Tuesday at Mobile World Congress, the BuzzFeed founder announced that his publishing company is launching a mobile video app that's focused on binge-watching. It is available today for... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2016-02-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Bestselling novelist Julian Barnes talks to Cathy Rentzenbrink about The Noise of Time, his first novel since his Man Booker Prize triumph. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-01-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Martin Amis has criticised Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as “undereducated”, “humourless” and “slow-minded”. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-10-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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It has been a bit more than nine years since David Foster Wallace delivered “Federer as Religious Experience,” the Magna Carta of what has become one of the most popular genres in sports journalism: the Roger Federer think piece. The now-classic essay, penned for the short-lived New York Times... Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2015-09-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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More than 1,000 new books from Macmillan US are to be added to Scribd, doubling the number of titles available from the publisher. In January Macmillan US put 1,000 backlist titles on to subscription service Scribd. Today (9th July) it will add titles including Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-07-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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India's Ritesh Batra is to direct the film adaptation of The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes' Booker-winning novel, with British actor Jim Broadbent in the lead. Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2015-05-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hilary Mantel, Martin Amis and Dan Davies have made the 13-strong longlist for the Gordon Burn Prize 2015, which "champions a fresh, fearless approach to writing". Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-05-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Canongate has signed memoir from Amy Liptrot, combining her recovery from alcoholism with a tribute to the natural world. The Outrun was signed by senior editor Jenny Lord in a deal for world rights with James Macdonald Lockhart at Antony Harwood Ltd. Liptrot grew up on a sheep farm on... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-04-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Mobile makes up the lion's share of U.K. traffic for Mail Online, but mobile visitors arriving on its homepage are still see the desktop site. That's an increasingly rare sight in news publishing today. "Mail Online's homepage is a key part of its heritage and identity. Our users love it," said... Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2015-03-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Six months after Martin Amis‘ latest novel The Zone of Interest was turned down by the author’s usual German publisher Hanser, the book - set in a fictionalized Auschwitz - has finally found a new home. Zurich-based Kein & Aber will publish Interessengebiet in September. “Martin Amis is... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-03-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Martin Amis, Sarah Waters and Jessie Burton have made the 15-strong longlist for the 2015 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. The longlist has been released for the first time following a 40% increase in entries this year. Amis is longlisted for his dark love story set in a Nazi... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-02-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The novelist Robert Harris was right to call the BBC’s lack of a books show a ‘disgrace’. There’s plenty the corporation could do to make a popular literary programme on TVWith injury, there is always a little insult. When a BBC spokesperson, responding to Robert Harris’s complaints at the Costa... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-01-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Literary agent Jonny Geller, authors Malorie Blackman, Hilary Mantel and Kate Mosse, and trade figures Nicola Solomon, Richard Mollet, Gail Rebuck, Charlie Redmayne and Tom Weldon are among the figures on the 2015 Debrett’s 500. The annual list brings together the 500 most influential and... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-01-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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