The BBC’s Fergal Keane: ‘The breakdowns get harder to recover from each time’

The former BBC war reporter, now special correspondent, on the terror of PTSD, his tips for living with it day to day, and the people and poets he admiresDuring a career spanning more than 30 years, BBC special correspondent Fergal Keane has covered brutal conflicts in South Africa, Rwanda and Bosnia. It’s taken a lasting toll on his mental health, and in 2020 he stepped back from frontline reporting, revealing that he’s suffering from acute PTSD. In his memoir The Madness, newly published in paperback, he goes into greater detail, powerfully describing multiple breakdowns, alcoholism, and the inherited trauma that shaped his Irish childhood, as well as the resilience he’s found in himself. He will be talking at the Edinburgh International book festival on 17 August.What part of The Madness was hardest to write?Most difficult was what it was like to be in a psychiatric hospital. People talk about going mad and it conjures up all kinds of stereotypical images, but it’s terrifying, it’s this implosion. I’ve never been so afraid in my life. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2023-08-06 08:30:06 UTC ]

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Why the ‘Orange Is the New Black’ Author Went Back to Prison

Piper Kerman, whose experiences and memoir inspired the Netflix prison dramedy, now works with inmates in correctional facilities. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2019-07-26 10:00:06 UTC ]
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The poetry, prose and physics of baseball

Bud Selig’s memoir misses the sport’s magic, while two statheads explain its inspiring innovations. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2019-07-25 16:00:00 UTC ]
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SUCH A PRETTY GIRL is a Necessary, Compelling Memoir

On Nadina LaSpina’s SUCH A PRETTY GIRL, a new memoir about being disabled in Sicily and New York from the 50s onward. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2019-07-24 10:33:40 UTC ]
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The Fire Last Time

THE TRAGEDY OF THIS slim, self-satisfied little memoir about the 2007–2008 financial crisis is not what it gets wrong. Indeed, four of its central arguments are important and exactly right: (1) that extraordinary measures and creative innovation and improvisation saved the entire financial... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-07-22 19:00:44 UTC ]
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Unbound launches YouTuber Jack Maynard's memoir

Crowdfunding publisher Unbound has launched YouTuber Jack Maynard's memoir and guide to living online.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-07-22 01:52:22 UTC ]
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On Interracial Love: Why James Baldwin’s “Another Country” Still Matters

JAMES BALDWIN HAS GROWN into the wise, guiding elder of the United States’s fractured racial conversation. His presence is at times almost palpable. Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote his memoir Between the World and Me (2015) as a letter to his teenage son, directly invoking Baldwin’s addressing his... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-07-18 12:30:39 UTC ]
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Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens’ memoir serves up calm wisdom

John Paul Stevens’ memoir “The Making of a Justice” and the biography “Oliver Wendell Holmes” are must-reads for legal buffs. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2019-07-17 19:13:55 UTC ]
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Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens’ memoir serves up calm wisdom

John Paul Stevens’ memoir “The Making of a Justice” and the biography “Oliver Wendell Holmes” are must-reads for legal buffs. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2019-07-17 19:13:55 UTC ]
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Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens’ memoir serves up calm wisdom

John Paul Stevens’ memoir “The Making of a Justice” and the biography “Oliver Wendell Holmes” are must-reads for legal buffs. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2019-07-17 19:13:55 UTC ]
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Justice John Paul Stevens Had Some Things to Say Before He Died

Stevens’s “The Making of a Justice” is both a personal memoir and a meditation on the law. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2019-07-17 13:32:04 UTC ]
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Lakeith Stanfield will star in an adaptation of Kwame Onwuachi’s Notes From a Young Black Chef

Last night, Variety reported that Lakeith Stanfield (also known as the actual best part of Atlanta, there I said it, don’t @ me) to star in a feature film adaptation of Kwame Onwuachi’s Notes From a Young Black Chef—which is an essential cooking memoir that you should go read immediately if you... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2019-07-16 14:28:13 UTC ]
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It’s My Story and I’ll Pitch if I Want To

Imagine that you are a character from a classic tale pitching your memoir to a literary agent. You know that it will become the next bestseller. Write your query letter, story synopsis, or elevator pitch to the agent.  The post It’s My Story and I’ll Pitch if I Want To by Cassandra Lipp appeared... Continue reading at Writer's Digest

[ Writer's Digest | 2019-07-16 09:00:28 UTC ]
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Virago scoops 'eye-opening' memoir from Toksvig

Virago has scooped an "eye-opening” memoir from broadcaster Sandi Toksvig, based around what she sees from the upper deck of a London bus. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-07-15 11:56:36 UTC ]
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Crazy about books? These 5 L.A. book events offer inspiring stories from Los Angeles and beyond

As we descend into the hazy thick of summer, this week’s book events remind us that one day in a life has the power to change everything. Indeed, it’s all that ever changes anything. In the memoir corner, we have a traumatic encounter at the train station, a knock on the door of a rundown... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-07-12 14:20:00 UTC ]
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Jim Bouton, Author of Tell-All Baseball Memoir ‘Ball Four,’ Dies at 80

A pitcher who had modest success with the Yankees in the 1960s, Bouton revealed the seamier side of baseball in a book that was a best seller. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2019-07-11 02:47:37 UTC ]
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Eat This Book: A Food-Centric Interview with Amber Scorah

“How was the church food of your youth?” and other questions for Amber Scorah on her new memoir about leaving the Jehovah's Witnesses. Continue reading at The Paris Review

[ The Paris Review | 2019-07-05 13:00:54 UTC ]
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David Cameron 'talks candidly' of memoir ahead of publication

Former prime minister David Cameron will “talk candidly” to mark the publication of his long-awaited autobiography, For The Record (William Collins), in a series of events. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-07-04 16:12:23 UTC ]
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Before Ta-Nehisi Coates: On James Alan McPherson’s “Crabcakes”

JAMES ALAN MCPHERSON’S memoir Crabcakes begins with the death of his tenant, Mrs. Channie Washington. A traditional memoir might have sketched McPherson’s upbringing: the strapped childhood in segregated Savannah, Georgia, as the son of an electrician and a maid, and his ascent to Harvard Law... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-07-04 12:30:37 UTC ]
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Bud Selig: By the Book

The former baseball commissioner, whose new memoir is “For the Good of the Game,” was a voracious childhood reader, “mostly about sports,” and especially “novels about the Brooklyn Dodgers.” Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2019-07-04 09:00:07 UTC ]
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Dani Shapiro’s bestselling memoir Inheritance to be adapted into a film

Good news, memoir fans: Variety reports that Dani Shapiro’s bestselling memoir Inheritance will be adapted into a feature by Killer Films, with Cami Delavigne (the co-writer of Blue Valentine) on board to write the script. The memoir centers on Shapiro’s discovery, after a DNA test, that the man... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2019-07-03 13:43:07 UTC ]
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