Book Reviews John K. Cox Jurij Koch / Courtesy of Domowina-Verlag In the 1950s, a girl whom Jurij Koch knew in high school moved away from their hometown of Cottbus in East Germany. It was a case, he says in his recent memoir, of “Weg von Ulbricht, hin zu Adenauer” (Away from Ulbricht, over to Adenauer). Her mother took the girl to the West, before the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. This is a familiar enough arc of events, but, as it turns out, the motivation behind the move is probably not something that most people outside of Germany would have considered. The reason was ethnic. Little Greta was growing up surrounded by Sorbs in the southeastern part of the country. The Sorbian language reminded her mother of Polish, and she had had quite enough of the Poles in her pre-1945 home farther east. In addition, Greta’s family was Protestant and they felt awash in a “Catholic sea.” So off they went, leaving the author of this autobiography—who, well, yes, had a crush on Greta—scratching his head. Like so many other scenes in this engaging book, this story blends the customary with the unexpected to stretch our understanding of what is “German.” Like so many other scenes in this engaging book, Koch’s memoir blends the customary with the unexpected to stretch our understanding of what is “German.” Windrad auf dem Dach (Domowina-Verlag, 2016) is the second volume of Koch’s memoirs to be published in German. Currently in his... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2020-01-27 20:47:13 UTC ]
The value of “writing a life” that Wallis Wilde-Menozzi undertook a quarter century ago is now the model to express our times. Continue reading at The Paris Review
[ The Paris Review | 2020-03-20 16:10:53 UTC ]
More news stories like this
A MAJOR FEATURE of the African-American writer James McBride’s books — beginning with the memoir The Color of Water (1995), a tribute to his white mother — is the large dose of humor injected into subjects that are, on the face of things, deadly serious if not sacred. Here in The Color of Water... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-03-18 19:00:39 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Hodder has acquired a celebrity memoir, Eat, Gay, Love, by the YouTube star and radio presenter Calum McSwiggan. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-17 11:41:15 UTC ]
More news stories like this
“Nobody Will Tell You This but Me,” a memoir by Bess Kalb, traces her family history from the Russian pogroms to the American dream. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-03-17 09:00:08 UTC ]
More news stories like this
“Our House Is on Fire” shares a very personal story of the suffering that preceded Thunberg’s activism on climate change. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-03-16 16:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Little, Brown has acquired a new memoir by award-winning actor Rupert Everett, Tainted Glory, to be published on 8th October. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-15 15:05:18 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Paul Lisicky, author of “Later: My Life at the Edge of the World,” talks about Provincetown, the challenges of memoir and learning not to suppress anger. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-03-15 09:00:05 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Leslie Gray Streeter's memoir about grief is funny, sad and real. When a critic said it wasn’t “top shelf,” she said, "I was like, 'I’m the mid-price vodka of memoirs.'" Continue reading at HuffPost
[ HuffPost | 2020-03-14 10:00:03 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Among the big books that sold this week are the three new titles My Lovely Wife author Samantha Downing will pen for seven figures; Alexandra Andrews’s hotly contested debut, Who Is Maud Dixon?; and a new memoir from Michael J. Fox. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-03-13 04:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
In this episode, writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit reflects on her new memoir Recollections of My Nonexistence. Solnit talks to Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell about the deep impact of gendered violence on daily life and what it means to... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-03-12 08:49:53 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Headline is publishing the first memoir by ex-Liverpool and England player Jamie Redknapp. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-11 22:25:10 UTC ]
More news stories like this
“Young Heroes of the Soviet Union,” by Alex Halberstadt, is a moving and often funny memoir about the author’s family and their history. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-03-11 16:29:22 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Katy Waldman reviews the writer Rebecca Solnit’s new book, “Recollections of My Nonexistence,” which is Solnit’s first to be billed as a memoir. Continue reading at New Yorker
[ New Yorker | 2020-03-11 10:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Sphere has done a string of "major" international rights deals for a memoir by human rights lawer Benjamin Ferencz, Parting Words, including a pre-empt in Germany. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-10 23:17:05 UTC ]
More news stories like this
HarperNonFiction has bought a “unique and poignant” memoir by Holocaust survivor Thomas Geve, told through the drawings of concentration camps he did as a boy. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-10 19:10:45 UTC ]
More news stories like this
A trans author reflects on the fraught history of trans women’s memoir covers, and why she didn’t want her likeness on her own. Continue reading at Guernica
[ Guernica | 2020-03-10 12:00:35 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The film director’s book Apropos of Nothing was dropped by its US publisher after staff walkouts, but the French publisher says ‘Allen is not Roman Polanski’Woody Allen’s controversial memoir will still be published in France despite its US publisher dropping it, with his French publisher saying... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-03-09 14:57:23 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Hachette Book Group is no longer publishing Woody Allen’s autobiography, returning all rights to the author a day after an estimated 75–100 employees walked out in protest. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-08 18:31:06 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Writer ‘uneasy’ over US publisher’s decision to drop director’s memoirAuthor Stephen King has hit out at publisher Hachette over its decision to drop publication of Woody Allen’s memoir after a protest from his son, the author Ronan Farrow, prompted a walkout of staff at the publishing group’s... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-03-08 08:10:29 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Hachette Book Group has decided not to publish film director Woody Allen’s upcoming memoir, a day after employees at the company walked out in solidarity with Ronan Farrow. In a statement, Hachette... To view the full story, click the title link. Continue reading at Crains New York
[ Crains New York | 2020-03-06 23:58:20 UTC ]
More news stories like this