Novelist Kate Atkinson: ‘I do feel a need to prove myself’

As her latest Jackson Brodie thriller comes out, the award-winning author discusses cosy crime, sniffy critics, and how she investigated her own family’s secretsKate Atkinson has an idea for a fun side-hustle: at some point in the future, when she’s done with the second world war, and with her jaded private eye, Jackson Brodie, she’ll bring to life the creative projects that have hitherto existed only as facets of her characters’ lives. She’ll take the fortune teller Madame Astarti from her third novel, Emotionally Weird, and put her at the centre of her own series of mysteries; she’ll conjure up a script for Green Acres, the rural soap opera that features in her two short-story collections, 2002’s Not the End of the World and last year’s Normal Rules Don’t Apply; she’ll craft episodes of the TV police procedural Collier, in which Brodie’s one-time girlfriend Julia played a pathologist. And finally, she’ll flesh out the breathtakingly hammy murder mystery that a cast of clapped-out actors perform at Burton Makepeace, the stately home that is the setting for her new Jackson Brodie novel, Death at the Sign of the Rook.Writing these scenes – teeming with aristocrats, actors, Russian countesses, clergymen and a “fastidious little Swiss detective” – were Atkinson’s treat, she tells me, as she constructed the novel during lockdown. “I would have done so much more of that,” she explains, as we sit sipping coffee in a studiedly antiquated hotel near her home in Edinburgh. “But I... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2024-08-10 08:00:37 UTC ]

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7 Terrifying Horror Novels Perfect for Young Adult Readers

Kiersten White, the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of “The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein,” “Hide” and more, recommends a few of her favorite horror novels. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2022-10-01 09:00:17 UTC ]
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WATCH: Saeed Jones on the Apocalypse as a State of Being

Greenlight is thrilled to welcome award-winning author and long-time friend of the store Saeed Jones back to our Fort Greene events stage to celebrate the release of his new poetry collection, Alive at the End of the World. In haunted poems glinting with laughter, pierced by grief and charged... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-09-29 08:56:48 UTC ]
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The Best Books to Take You Through Newfoundland

Michael Crummey, an award-winning author whose poetry and prose explore the region and its capital, St. John’s, shares book recommendations, local vocabulary and where to find a good pint. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2022-07-20 09:00:09 UTC ]
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Read Your Way Through Newfoundland

Michael Crummey, an award-winning author whose poetry and prose explore the region and its capital, St. John’s, shares book recommendations, local vocabulary and where to find a good pint. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2022-07-20 09:00:09 UTC ]
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Disfigured soldiers of World War I found a hero in their healer

Lindsey Fitzharris's “The Facemaker: A Visionary Surgeon’s Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I” tells of a plastic surgeon whose care went beyond physical healing. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2022-07-15 12:00:26 UTC ]
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Jesmyn Ward has won the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.

Jesmyn Ward—the two-time National Book Award-winning author of Salvage the Bones and Sing, Unburied, Sing—has just become, at 45, the youngest ever winner of the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. The prize, which was established in 2008 as a lifetime achievement award, honors “an... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-07-01 17:08:35 UTC ]
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Printing fake news, this editor helped push America into World War I

Providence Journal editor John Revelstoke Rathom also had a fake biography, writes journalist Mark Arsenault. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2022-05-20 12:00:53 UTC ]
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Shirley Hughes obituary

Prolific author and illustrator whose affectionate image of childhood has been instantly recognisable for more than 60 yearsShirley Hughes, who has died aged 94, was an award-winning author of more than 50 children’s books, and illustrator of some 200 more, with worldwide sales of more than 11m.... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2022-03-02 11:09:12 UTC ]
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Constituting the Human in a Dystopian World: Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun, by Lopamudra Basu

Book Reviews Photo by Dominik Scythe / Unsplash A new book by a Nobel laureate and Booker award-winning author always brings with it a sense of trepidation. Will the new novel live up to the already established high expectations? Klara and the... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2022-03-01 21:50:34 UTC ]
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Announcing The Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award shortlist

Photo credit: Nigel DaviesSunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award marks the 30th anniversary with one of it's most decorated shortlists to date:• Irish novelist Megan Nolan for her darkly funny debut novel Acts of Desperation;• US-based writer Anna Beecher for her novel... Continue reading at British Council global

[ British Council global | 2022-02-16 14:40:41 UTC ]
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Ian McEwan’s ‘most epic book to date’ to be published in September

The Booker prize-winning author’s new novel Lessons is ‘a powerful meditation on history and humanity told through the prism of one man’s lifetime’Ian McEwan’s “most epic book to date”, moving from the end of the second world war to the current pandemic and exploring the impact of childhood... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2022-01-19 12:00:11 UTC ]
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Waterstones apologises after award-winning author Owusu asked for ID

Waterstones has apologised and said it is "deeply embarrassed" after award-winning author Derek Owusu was asked for ID in a London branch when he offered to sign copies of his books.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2022-01-16 01:22:08 UTC ]
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Sphere nets Epstein-inspired thriller from Marwood

Award-winning author Alex Marwood has written a Jeffrey Epstein-inspired psychological thriller for Sphere, The Island of Lost Girls, exploring the “obscene levels of wealth and the sex trafficking of vulnerable teenage girls”.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2022-01-07 23:48:26 UTC ]
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Howard named Children’s Writing Fellow for Northern Ireland

Award-winning author and illustrator Paul Howard, whose recent work includes Joe Wicks' debut picture book The Burpee Bears (HarperCollins Children's Books), has been appointed the new Children’s Writing Fellow for Northern Ireland. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-12-31 03:43:57 UTC ]
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Debut novel by ‘Russian Proust’ to be published in English for the first time

The translation of Deceit by ‘groundbreaking’ author Yuri Felsen, who died in Auschwitz in 1943, is set to come out next MayThe debut novel by Yuri Felsen, an author once regarded as the “Russian Proust” whose work has been forgotten since he died in Auschwitz in 1943, is set to be published in... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2021-12-01 14:12:48 UTC ]
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Alex Hyde | 'If I was ever going to write something, I was going to start with this story'

Academic Alex Hyde‘s first novel is a lyrical tale about two women named Violet during the Second World War. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-11-26 18:23:13 UTC ]
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10 of the Best Robert Graves Poems Everyone Should Read

Robert Graves (1895-1985) is now probably best-remembered for two prose works: his 1929 memoir Goodbye to All That, about his experience fighting in the First World War, and his 1934 novel I, Claudius, set in ancient Rome. But Graves was also a highly influential poet – and theorist of poetry […] Continue reading at Interesting Literature

[ Interesting Literature | 2021-11-24 15:00:55 UTC ]
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Legend Press lands Snyder's 'powerful' First World War story

Legend Press has landed The Tin Nose Shop, an “incredibly powerful” First World War novel by Don J Snyder. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-11-11 06:14:29 UTC ]
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Richard Hammer, Who Illuminated the My Lai Massacre, Dies at 93

His books on that Vietnam episode drew acclaim, and he was an Edgar Award-winning author of nonfiction books about crime in its many manifestations. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2021-10-29 14:54:52 UTC ]
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The last time America broke apart: How author Kevin Boyle retold the 1960s

The award-winning author of 'Arc of Justice' talks about his new book, 'The Shattering,' and how he came to write history for people like his father. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-10-25 13:00:08 UTC ]
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