This excellent cradle-to-grave biography of a much loved novelist who goes in and out of fashion captures her alarming habits and tormented love affairsIn 1971 the author Barbara Pym was at her day job at the International African Institute when she noticed “Mr C” laboriously attacking his lunchtime sandwich with a knife and fork. Pym made a mental note of the detail before asking herself ruefully, “Oh why can’t I write about things like that any more – why is this kind of thing no longer acceptable?” Ten years earlier, Jonathan Cape had dumped her after her sixth book on the grounds that her brand of anthropological observation of English social manners was old lady-ish, dull and didn’t sell. As an extra humiliation, no other publishing house had been interested in picking up Miss Pym: books built on “the daily round of trivial things” could hardly compete with Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal or, if you were feeling fancy, Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. Jonathan Cape had even published John Lennon (Pym liked the Beatles, but still). Clearly there was no place in contemporary literature for Mr C and his oddly formal way with a sandwich.There is nothing unusual about major minor novelists having a disappointing and disproportionate decline, followed by a posthumous flowering in reputation and sales. What’s unusual about Pym is that her phoenix moment came while she was still alive. In 1977 the Times Literary Supplement asked well-known... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2021-04-08 06:30:07 UTC ]
News tagged with:
#frederick forsyth
#contemporary literature
#philip larkin
#future books
#delivery charges
#novelists
#jonathan cape
Feature image from Akiko Miyakoshi’s I Dream a Journey * I knew things were going to get hard when the library closed. I am, by profession, a writer and a professor of storytelling. I’ve read to my twin children—now four—since their infancy. But as avid readers as we already were, 2020 upped our... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-12-21 09:49:02 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#ve read
#avid readers
#literary hub
#children’s book
For the past 13 years, 'The Brown Bookshelf,' a website launched in 2007 by children’s authors Varian Johnson and Paula Chase, has promoted Black authors and illustrators with such initiatives as 28 Days Later. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-12-18 05:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#pw notable
#varian johnson
With its buoyant sense of wonder, “D” is a novel graciously indebted to the fantasies of C.S. Lewis, James Thurber and Norton Juster. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-12-14 15:26:44 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#michel faber
#readers young
#james thurber
#norton juster
My introduction to contemporary poets was a trial by fire. Here’s what I learned along the way. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-12-04 14:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#contemporary poets
Transworld has announced the publication of a new book from bestselling novelist Paula Hawkins next summer – the "propulsive, twisty" thriller A Slow Fire Burning. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-12-02 04:03:19 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
‘Perestroika in Paris’ may star a talking horse, but it’s a story about humanity, too. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-12-01 13:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#talking horse
#jane smiley
“The Babur Nama” is the autobiography of the polymathic founder of the Mughal dynasty. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-11-30 19:59:24 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#memoir
Kyle Books, part of the Octopus Publishing Group, will publish Mummin’ It by "Toby and Roo" blogger Harriet Shearsmith in April 2021. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-18 00:03:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#kyle books
The novel’s self-help aphorisms are superficial when they aren’t simply nonsensical. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-11-11 07:27:41 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#paulo coelho
In this week’s episode of Fiction/Non/Fiction, co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan talk to #1 New York Times best-selling author Maria Dahvana Headley about the modern-day relevance of the epic poem Beowulf. She talks about her new translation of the ancient text, and illuminates... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-05 09:48:20 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#literary hub
#best-selling author
Nobrow will next month release three further Hilda books to tie in with the release of the second TV series starring the character on Netflix. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-29 22:16:04 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#month release
The push in book publishing for more authors and workers of color hasn’t abated, and companies are increasingly making lasting changes to the way they do business. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-10-29 16:18:17 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#publishers step
#diversity efforts
#book publishing
There’s no denying that this is a rough—if not catastrophic—year for many businesses, from mom-and-pop-run local eateries to huge corporations like Macy’s. But as the Washington Post noted, a national array of bookstores and readerly good-will has helped Bookshop.org raise millions for indie... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-10-28 11:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#missed appeared
#electric literature
#indie publishing
#small press
Washington’s debut novel, following his acclaimed story collection ‘Lot,’ captures the complexities of love, race and what connects us Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-10-27 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#bryan washington
Six years after moving to D.C. and deciding it's not for me, there’s still something holding me back from leaving: the libraries. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2020-10-19 10:30:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#libraries
Yesterday, on Twitter, Elizabeth Belsky, a senior marketing manager at Hachette Books, shared her “little personal project of the month: reimagining modern horror films as trade paperbacks from the ’70s and ’80s.” And um, they’re incredibly awesome—the perfect blend of nostalgic design and... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-10-13 14:47:47 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#hachette books
#trade paperbacks
#literary hub
#hachette
Edward O. Wilson shares fascinating stories from his eight decades of studying the insects. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-10-09 11:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#amazing adventures
The US children's market has seen huge growth this year with increasing focus on books by people of colour and by celebrities, Barbara Marcus, president and publisher of Random House Children's Books in the US, has said. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-09-27 21:41:42 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#huge growth
#barbara marcus
#random house
Daniel Yergin is behind the curve on the activism, engineering and climate science reshaping the energy world, environmentalist Bill McKibben contends. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-09-25 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#daniel yergin