In her 20s, she set up her own company, publishing everyone from James Ellroy to the Worst Witch series, and changing Britain for the better, book by book There is a revealing story Margaret Busby tells, about the first novel she published. A family friend had bumped into a former US serviceman called Sam Greenlee. Greenlee said he had written a novel, rejected by 40 American publishers, a satirical thriller about the first African American man hired by the CIA but given a very visible non-job (the point being it was only to improve the CIA’s image). The man keeps his head down, learns about guerrilla warfare, then quits to become a freedom fighter in Chicago. Busby took it on, borrowing money so Greenlee could stay in London while the book was edited and, when it was about to be published, in 1969, she sent it to the Observer.The paper refused it – it didn’t extract fiction and certainly not black power novels. Busby sent it back, insisting the paper was wrong. It ran an extract, and The Spook Who Sat By the Door was translated into six languages and turned into a film. When this “parable of institutional racism”, as the New York Times described the film, opened in 1973, newspapers wondered if it would start race warfare. It closed early under FBI pressure, and was not reissued until 2004, then, nearly a decade later, added to the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2020-10-22 05:00:17 UTC ]
Doerr’s first novel since winning a Pulitzer Prize for “All the Light We Cannot See” is full of people thinking big thoughts. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-09-28 12:00:00 UTC ]
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“Cloud Cuckoo Land,” Doerr’s first novel since “All the Light We Cannot See,” unites five characters over a millennium in a tribute to books and those who love them. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-09-24 09:00:04 UTC ]
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The Nigerian writer, the first sub-Saharan winner of the Nobel Prize, discusses 'Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth.' Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-09-23 13:00:36 UTC ]
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Simon & Schuster UK has acquired the 28th instalment in American author Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum bounty hunter series, alongside the first novel in a brand new series. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-09-22 17:14:06 UTC ]
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“Palmares” — her first novel since 1999’s “Mosquito” — is an emancipation story set in 17th-century Brazil. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-09-14 09:00:08 UTC ]
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With Harrow, her first novel in two decades, Joy Williams stares into the abyss. Continue reading at The Atlantic
[ The Atlantic | 2021-09-12 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Mantle has landed The Exhibitionist, Charlotte Mendelson's first novel since her 2013 Booker-longlisted work Almost English (Mantle). Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-09-07 21:02:28 UTC ]
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From the acclaimed author of novels and short stories, 'Harrow' is a magnificent, moving story about people picking up the pieces of apocalypse. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-09-07 13:00:01 UTC ]
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Atticus Lish was acclaimed for his first novel 'Preparation for the Next Life.' His second, 'The War for Gloria,' is more raw, painful and personal. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-09-02 13:00:39 UTC ]
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Book Reviews The National Memorial for Peace and Justice. Photo by Steven Taylor / Flickr The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers’s first novel, is textually connected to the works of Harriet Jacobs, Zora Neale Hurston,... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-08-18 20:12:10 UTC ]
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The country music superstar has teamed up with the novelist James Patterson to write Run, Rose, Run, which will be published in MarchFirst globally successful entertainer, then heroic sponsor of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine, and now novelist … Dolly Parton seems determined to prove that there... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-08-11 16:27:28 UTC ]
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Independent publisher Influx Press is launching a new fiction prize for Black British women, in partnership with lifestyle platform Black Ballad. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-07-27 19:32:32 UTC ]
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"The notion of 'a book' is just a convenient fiction which we books go along with because it serves the needs of the bean counters in publishing, not to mention the ego of the writers. But the reality is far more complex.” So explains “the Book”, one of the narrators of Ruth Ozeki’s fourth novel... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-07-09 19:27:08 UTC ]
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The winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature, Soyinka is coming out with his first novel in almost 50 years, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth. The post Fifty Years Later, a New Novel Emerges appeared first on The Millions. Continue reading at The Millions
[ The Millions | 2021-06-24 09:59:45 UTC ]
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“Widespread Panic,” a pulpy noir, features a cameo of ’50s stars, including Liz Taylor, James Dean and Liberace. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-06-22 12:00:00 UTC ]
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'Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch,' historical fiction about Kepler's mother, is Galchen's first novel since 2008's 'Atmospheric Disturbances.' Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-06-03 14:00:33 UTC ]
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Book Reviews Matthew Goode and Teresa Palmer in the TV adaptation of A Discovery of Witches (2018) / IMDB Deborah Harkness’s All Souls trilogy has taken a new life through the Sundance dramatic series, A Discovery of Witches. The novels... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-05-27 13:42:23 UTC ]
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"Second Place," Rachel Cusk's first novel after the radical, brilliant "Outline" trilogy, follows a forceful woman who's had enough of difficult men. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-04-28 14:00:33 UTC ]
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Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the US cover for Wole Soyinka’s new novel, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, which will be published on September 28 by Pantheon Books. This will be Soyinka’s first novel to be published in 48 years, and also the first since he won the... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-04-23 13:30:34 UTC ]
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While we don’t know what the state of the our pandemic society will be come September, we can at least be sure that we’ll all be getting a little Joy Williams, as a treat. Specifically, a new novel—her fifth, and her first since 2000’s The Quick and the Dead, which was a runner-up for the […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-03-03 21:01:23 UTC ]
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