We find out so little about a person by watching them on Big Brother or reading their secrets exposed in the Daily MailWe just met half an hour ago. But I'm sitting in a Soho tapas bar, drinking sherry, and telling Josh Cohen my life story. The joke – lost on neither of us – is that he has just published a book called The Private Life, questioning our confessional culture and the need some people have to over-share. I suspect I am doing it on purpose. Maybe trying to flush out whether his critique of openness is just a cover for some sort of squeamishness about personal details. It's not. Or maybe I am trying to figure out how a psychoanalyst can have the chutzpah to write a book defending privacy when he spends hour after hour peering into the inner lives of his clients.He tells me about the Reverend Hooper in Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1836 short story The Minister's Black Veil. One day, quite without explanation, the minister starts to wear a crepe veil over his face. His congregation are understandably disturbed. No one knows the reason why he is doing it. Only on his deathbed does he reveal the truth. Between friends, between lovers, between human beings and God: "I look around me and lo! On every visage, a Black Veil!" In other words, his material veil is just a physical expression of the veil that exists on every human face. The face is both the point of access to another's subjectivity and the means of its concealment. How very confusing.As he speaks, I am reminded of... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2014-02-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
A seasonal selection of new (and not so new) books about language that are anything but dullBooks about English fall into various categories, mostly offputting ones: the academic, rarely of much interest, and often incomprehensible, to the general reader; the lament for a (mythical) golden age... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2013-12-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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He was the scourge of Mitt Romney in the 2012 US election, now Obama's 'backroom Brit' is heading Labour's digital response team for its 2015 campaignIn his new book about the 2012 US presidential election campaign, the Time journalist Mark Halperin singles out the role played by a young Briton... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2013-12-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A battle for the hearts, minds and pockets of small and medium-sized newspaper publishers is being fought over the new system of press regulation.The large publishing companies who created the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) are urging smaller publishers to sign up to their... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2013-11-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Daily Mail's consultant literary editor Jane Mays has predicted that reviewing... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-06-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Daily Mail's Marcus Rich is among the executives lined up for the Professional Publishers Association's annual conference, which will examine how to boost digital revenues and explore whether content is still king. Continue reading at Media Week
[ Media Week | 2013-03-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The publishing giant behind the Daily Mail is entering the travel arena with a bookings site. MailTravel.co.uk is described as offering a “robust new sales distribution channel to existing and new suppliers”. A& ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2012-07-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Mon, 16/05/2011 - 09:56 The economics for booksellers "simply don't work" as they struggle with high costs and low margins, the president of the Booksellers Association has claimed. Jane Streeter was delivering the introduction at the BA Conference at... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Thu, 24/03/2011 - 15:52 Setting books within the wider cultural scene and building collaborations are set to be key themes at this year's Book Industry Conference, as organisers revealed the event programme. BIC 2011, which takes place between... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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