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 ]
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Penguin Life has triumphed in a five-way auction to publish The Modern House by design writers and entrepreneurs Matt Gibberd and Albert Hill. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-05 17:45:16 UTC ]
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Hodder & Stoughton has snapped up "cosy, festive romance" Someday at Christmas by YA author Tanya Byrne, writing under the pen name Lizzie Byron. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-02-27 23:09:19 UTC ]
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Cussler's page-turning novels about underwater explorer Dirk Pitt sold millions of copies. Continue reading at The Huffington Post
[ The Huffington Post | 2020-02-27 05:10:29 UTC ]
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Clive Cussler, bestselling adventure novelist and a real-life maritime explorer whose life at times mirrored the seafaring escapades of his books, died February 24 at his home in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was 88. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-02-27 05:00:00 UTC ]
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His literary fantasies and larger-than-life exploits swirled together for decades. He wrote some 70 books, selling no fewer than 100 million copies, and located scores of shipwrecks. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-02-26 17:57:43 UTC ]
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Scholastic UK is publishing Keren David’s “highly topical, thrilling and thought-provoking” YA book exploring modern-day antisemitism in the UK. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-02-19 12:22:42 UTC ]
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Her work for the 1965 paperback editions of “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” achieved mass-cult status. But she hadn’t read the books when she got the job. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-02-17 17:30:40 UTC ]
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Her work for the 1965 paperback editions of “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” achieved mass-cult status. But she hadn’t read the books when she got the job. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-02-15 22:27:37 UTC ]
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The novelist on William Blake, crying through Greta Gerwig’s Little Women and an insightful poem about teenage masturbationBorn in Bury, Greater Manchester, in 1978, Emma Jane Unsworth studied English literature at the University of Liverpool and received an MA from Manchester University’s... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-01-26 10:00:20 UTC ]
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Quartey’s mysteries, set in Ghana, regularly bring a part of the African continent authentically and strikingly to life. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-01-24 23:38:02 UTC ]
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HarperCollins Children’s Books has triumphed in an eight-publisher UK auction for début author Aisling Fowler’s Middle Grade magical adventure series Fireborn. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-01-09 01:49:54 UTC ]
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Annual literary festival The Laugharne Weekend is appealing for cash after being denied funding from Arts Council Wales (ACW) for the first time in the event's 12-year history. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-12-23 16:58:59 UTC ]
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Bloomsbury Continuum has won a five-way bidding war for a “manifesto for modern masculinity” by Book of Man founder Martin Robinson. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-12-15 15:29:43 UTC ]
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HarperCollins Children’s Books has secured world rights to publish the tie-in books for "The Adventures of Paddington", a new Nickelodeon television series launching globally in 2020. The animated pre-school series comprises 26 episodes and features the voice of Ben Whishaw as Paddington in... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-12-08 20:24:37 UTC ]
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Scholastic Entertainment is debuting a brand-new 'Clifford the Big Red Dog' TV series, based on the Norman Bridwell books. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-12-05 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Publishers are missing out on audiobook listeners who want sci-fi and romance titles, statistics on sales show. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-11-25 14:46:44 UTC ]
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A right-wing hero called the Question inspired Watchmen’s faceless vigilante. But later stories took the character in a very different direction. Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2019-11-22 19:45:46 UTC ]
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Barbara Taylor Bradford has written a prequel to her bestselling 1979 novel A Woman of Substance, to be published by HarperCollins in 2020. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-11-21 16:49:46 UTC ]
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Arrow will publish a "breathtaking" debut novel by Paula Greenlees, inspired by the three years she lived in Singapore. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-11-13 19:37:40 UTC ]
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The Twitter personalities discuss their new book and making astrology — as well as poetry — accessible. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2019-11-11 19:14:40 UTC ]
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