The author of Original Sins, an account of addiction and shame, on his book’s impact on his evangelical parents, reading the Patrick Melrose series while waiting for drug dealers, and how looking middle class saved him from arrestMatt Rowland Hill, 38, is the author of Original Sins, about growing up as the son of a baptist minister before falling into a decade-long addiction to heroin while studying at Oxford. Out in paperback, it was longlisted for last year’s Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction while being praised by Geoff Dyer for its “novelistic virtues of vivid scene-making, fully realised characterisation and psychological subtlety”. Hill and I sat in a park near his home in east London.I might have read this as a novel had it not been subtitled “a memoir”.The subtitle wasn’t my choice: I was open to it being published as fiction if my publisher had wanted that. I approached it like a novel, thinking about point of view and how I’d produce moments of irony and humour, which maybe liberated me to write with an emotional distance that paradoxically allowed me to be more honest. Nothing is fabricated. I did go to psychiatric units. I was a heroin addict for all that time. I used my imagination to make vivid the bits of dialogue or details about what we were wearing, although it’s surprising how detailed your recollections are once you dig in; what my father told my mother on that car ride to Guernsey – “If you died tonight, I’d dance on your grave” – was scored into... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2023-04-29 17:00:41 UTC ]
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Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Tue, 04/10/2011 - 10:10 Sky Arts is moving "The Book Show" to a new primetime slot on Thursdays when it returns for a fifth series next week. The show, presented by Mariella Frostrup, will be broadcast at 8pm and opens with four episodes from the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-10-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Mon, 03/10/2011 - 17:23 The 2011 Galaxy National Book Awards will take place on 4th November, rather than 9th, with the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Knightsbridge announced as the location. Agile Marketing m.d. Alastair Giles said: "It's mainly a... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-10-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Mon, 03/10/2011 - 08:05 Former Tesco c.e.o. Sir Terry Leahy has written a business book for Cornerstone. Random House Business Books publishing director Nigel Wilcockson bought world rights to Ten Management Lessons by Sir Terry through Danny... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-10-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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"All About Steve: The Story of Steve Jobs and Apple from the Pages of Fortune" has been released on Amazon as a Kindle book. Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2011-10-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams and Philip Stone Publication Date: Fri, 30/09/2011 - 08:40 Childrens books sales outperformed the rest of the market in the first half of 2011, down just 1% year on year to £143m, due to blockbusting brands and the delay in children adopting digital content in... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Fri, 30/09/2011 - 09:29 Bloomsbury leads the way with three nominations across its imprints on the 14-strong longlist for the £27,500 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award 2011. Behind the Boundary: Cricket at a Crossroads by Graeme Wright... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Fri, 30/09/2011 - 08:55 Publishers should not be too quick to write off physical products and should encourage competition between a number of digital players to avoid the mistakes the record industry made, the director general of the Entertainment... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Thu, 29/09/2011 - 09:37 Titles by Roald Dahl, Rod Campbell and Janet and Allan Ahlberg are included in the selection for the third Richard and Judy's Children's Christmas Book Club, launched today in W H Smith stores. The 12 Richard and Judy... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Philip Stone Publication Date: Thu, 29/09/2011 - 09:30 Printed book sales in 2011 have passed the £1bn mark two weeks later than in 2010 with David Nicholls' One Day the biggest selling book of the year to date. In total, £29.5m was spent at UK booksellers in the week ending 24th... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Thu, 29/09/2011 - 08:15 Ebury Press and Random House Children's Books have signed two separate three-book deals with crime writer Jane Casey. Editorial director for fiction at Ebury Gillian Green acquired UK rights, including Europe and British... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Wed, 28/09/2011 - 08:39 Pan Macmillan will be holding the world's first live Twitter book signing to launch Lord Alan Sugar's book The Way I See It: Rants, Revelations and Rules for Life. The signing will be held over www.lordsugar.tv at 1pm... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Mon, 26/09/2011 - 08:50 Amazon c.e.o. Jeff Bezos has been named as the most powerful man in books in a Guardian and Observer "power list" of the 100 key people in the trade. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Fri, 23/09/2011 - 08:35 Marian Keyes is writing a cookery title for Michael Joseph, as the imprint ramps up its spring food publishing list next year by releasing one title every month during the first half of 2012. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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There are almost as many ebook surveys as there are digital conferences. Two new surveys released last week provided more information, one on the impact digital readers have had on consumers' reading and book-buying habits, while a second examined the impact of digital publishing on the industry. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2011-09-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Thu, 22/09/2011 - 15:46 Agents who wish to publish their clients work must offer them a detailed explanation of what they will personally gain from the arrangement and obtain their full and written agreement, the president of the Association of... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Thu, 22/09/2011 - 11:01 Faber is to publish a new detective novel from P D James which combines a murder investigation with the world and characters of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, revisiting Darcy and Elizabeth six years into their... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Benedicte Page and Philip Jones Publication Date: Tue, 20/09/2011 - 10:14 The Travel Bookshop premises in Notting Hill will reopen as a bookshop this week after The Book Warehouse acquired the lease to one-half of the building from the Travel Bookshop's founder Sarah Anderson. read... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Swiftly and at little cost, newspapers, magazines and sites like The Huffington Post are publishing their own version of ebooks. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2011-09-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Mon, 19/09/2011 - 08:20 Scotland is to hold its first Crime Writing Festival next year, supported by Stirling Council, Creative Scotland and the University of Stirling, and working closely with Stirling's general literary festival, Off the Page.... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Mon, 19/09/2011 - 09:32 Bertrams has made three management team appointments, with Nick Harknett joining as group commercial director as parent company Smiths News Group completes its purchase of the Dawson Group. Smiths News now owns the Dawson... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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