Categorising fiction may help to sell books, but it says little about how writers write or readers readIn her Reith lecture of 2017, recently published for the first time in a posthumous collection of nonfiction, A Memoir of My Former Self, Hilary Mantel recalled the beginnings of her career as a novelist. It was the 1970s. “In those days historical fiction wasn’t respectable or respected,” she recalled. “It meant historical romance. If you read a brilliant novel like I, Claudius, you didn’t taint it with the genre label, you just thought of it as literature. So, I was shy about naming what I was doing. All the same, I began. I wanted to find a novel I liked, about the French Revolution. I couldn’t, so I started making one.”She made A Place of Greater Safety, an exceptional ensemble portrayal of the revolutionaries Danton, Robespierre and Desmoulins, but although the novel was completed in 1979, it wasn’t published until 1992 – widely rejected, as she later explained, because although she thought the French Revolution was the most interesting thing in the world, the reading public didn’t agree, or publishers had concluded they didn’t. She decided to write a contemporary novel – Every Day Is Mother’s Day – purely to get published; A Place of Greater Safety emerged only when she contributed to a Guardian piece about writers’ unpublished first novels. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2023-11-27 12:30:00 UTC ]
In the memoir “Firstborn,” Lauren Christensen writes about losing the daughter she was expecting. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2025-03-17 16:00:04 UTC ]
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Sam Altman, the OpenAI boss, has declared its new model ‘good at creative writing’. We asked writers including Tracy Chevalier, Kamila Shamsie and David Baddiel if they agreeThis week has seen writers divided over a story written by an AI model that is “good at creative writing” – at least... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-03-14 16:00:23 UTC ]
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SOIL will make you reconsider everything you think you know about nature (including your own connection to it). Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2025-03-14 13:00:00 UTC ]
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Whether the Meta boss and his ex-lieutenant Sheryl Sandberg are truly beyond awful is neither here nor there. I thought he was done with factcheckingI am as shocked as I am confused that Mark Zuckerberg is going all-out to block a memoir by Facebook’s former director of global public policy,... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-03-14 12:37:30 UTC ]
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‘Careless People,’ which contains unflattering portrayals of Meta executives, is getting a sales boost despite attempts to stop its promotion. A new memoir that paints Facebook’s parent company and its executives in a negative light is rising on Amazon’s Best Sellers rankings faster than you... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2025-03-13 19:40:00 UTC ]
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His memoir “Growing Up” depicted her hometown “like a shining city on a hill.” Other authors who mean a lot to the musician (and now childrens’ book writer): Kevyn Aucoin and Hilary Mantel. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2025-03-13 09:00:09 UTC ]
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The new memoir about Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg is billed as an exposé – but it feels like a morality tale for our timesMany years ago, when Facebook was an entity most people had warm – or at least neutral – feelings towards, I visited the company’s HQ in Menlo Park, California. I admired the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-03-12 17:57:42 UTC ]
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Historical fiction’s popularity has remained solid since the 19th century, when Romanticism inspired writers to look to the past. Exploring the human ... Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2025-03-12 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Oprah Winfrey has chosen a new memoir by venture capitalist Amy Griffin for her book club Continue reading at ABC News
[ ABC News | 2025-03-11 12:30:31 UTC ]
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“Careless People,” a memoir by a former Facebook executive, portrays feckless company leaders cozying up to authoritarian regimes. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2025-03-10 12:07:24 UTC ]
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Most musicians can only make money on the platform by writing songs inoffensive enough to get on to one of its vapid playlistsIn the hands of some of its most gifted practitioners, songwriting is a kind of emotional alchemy. For the past week, I have been returning to a perfect example: Every... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-03-09 16:38:43 UTC ]
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Peter Wolf befriended music legends, married a movie star and led the J. Geils Band. His new memoir reminds us: He was there. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2025-03-07 11:00:38 UTC ]
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Somehow, it’s March already. I know; I’m baffled, too. But even if the year feels like it’s already slipping by ... Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2025-03-05 14:00:00 UTC ]
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A new memoir by the historian Martha S. Jones combines a trenchant analysis of race and the historical record with a homage to other Black women scholars. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2025-03-04 10:00:40 UTC ]
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At the 30th annual Audies, presented by the Audio Publishers Association and held in New York City on March 4, winners across 28 categories were announced. Barbra Streisand’s memoir took home the night's biggest honor, Audiobook of the Year. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2025-03-04 05:00:00 UTC ]
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At last, it’s official: Andrew Cuomo is running for mayor of New York City.That sentence would have seemed inordinately strange a year or two ago. But Cuomo had been telegraphing for many months that he wanted to launch a comeback. And now he’s running, with a Manhattan launch event and... Continue reading at Crains New York
[ Crains New York | 2025-03-03 15:46:55 UTC ]
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A fantasy epic sells for seven figures at Bramble, Bobbi Brown brings a memoir to Marysue Rucci, Stonefruit and Del Rey pick up two multibook horror projects, and more in this week’s book deals. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2025-02-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Writing memoir is an act of saying I am here. This is what I find beautiful. Troubling. Worth paying attention to. And there is a democratic invitation in this gesture that interests me—the way that writing and reading memoir allow us to push past a monolithic understanding of the world and... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2025-02-27 09:58:16 UTC ]
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Andrea Barrett on why writing fresh historical fiction means more than cosplaying the past. | Lit Hub Craft Bookstore owner Brad Johnson reflects on the total destruction, by fire, of East Bay Booksellers (and its rebirth!). | Lit Hub Bookstores Michael Hiltzik on how California made Ronald... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2025-02-26 11:30:54 UTC ]
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Out of the Shadows, by Lilach Galil Fiction [email protected] Mon, 02/24/2025 - 15:16 Photo by Lucas Alexandros / Flickr Lilach Galil’s 2009 novel, Betsilo (In its shadow), is a polyphonic novel told by the six main characters. Rona is a poet... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2025-02-24 21:16:13 UTC ]
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