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purely to get published; A Place of Greater Safety emerged only when she contributed to a Guardian piece about writers’ unpublished first novels.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 “Molly,” Blake Butler’s pained account of his wife’s death, love demands a near-total exposure of private life. Continue reading at New Yorker
[ New Yorker | 2023-12-15 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Liz Cheney has the #1 book in the country with the memoir 'Oath and Honor.' Plus popular romantasy author Carissa Broadbent makes her traditionally published debut with the PW-starred 'The Serpent & the Wings of Night,' and we look at some of the hit books of the holiday season so far. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-12-15 05:00:00 UTC ]
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‘Love is Greater Than AIDS’ (R&L, Apr.), a memoir by the late Rev. A. Stephen Pieters, describes his watershed interview with Tammy Faye Bakker in 1985 as well as decades of AIDS activism. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-12-13 05:00:00 UTC ]
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The father of Jeffrey Dahmer, he wrote a memoir that one reviewer said sought to “peer not just into the soul of his son but into his own.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-12-13 00:00:21 UTC ]
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Chanel Miller’s next book after her prize-winning memoir “Know My Name” will help fulfill a longtime dream to write and illustrate children’s stories Continue reading at ABC News
[ ABC News | 2023-12-06 14:46:03 UTC ]
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In “Dwell Time: A Memoir of Art, Exile, and Repair,” Rosa Lowinger writes with compassion about the dislocation her parents experienced after leaving Cuba for the U.S. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2023-12-05 17:16:16 UTC ]
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Should historical fiction stick to the views and opinions of the time, or provide a modern perspective? Here are the pros and cons. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-12-05 11:31:00 UTC ]
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It’s been a roller coaster of a year. Thankfully, we’ve had novels to whisk us to days gone by, even if those eras had their own highs and lows. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-12-05 10:01:03 UTC ]
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In 'Oath and Honor,' Rep. Liz Cheney exposes the actions of Kevin McCarthy and other Jan. 6 enablers of Donald Trump, but fails to compel readers. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-12-04 20:11:02 UTC ]
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Narrator Dion Graham joins AudioFile’s Michele Cobb to discuss his narration of King: A Life, written by Jonathan Eig, and one of AudioFile’s 2023 Best Biography & Memoir Audiobooks. Listen to hear Graham discussing the research and preparations that went into this narration, and the... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-12-04 09:08:51 UTC ]
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A secret, a disappearance, a frozen body and a mysterious stranger — these historical novels have something for everyone. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-12-01 10:53:25 UTC ]
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In his memoir Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov reflected: “Music, I regret to say, affects me merely as an arbitrary succession of more or less irritating sounds.” The furor over Lolita may have died down, but this confession still has the power to shock. Did the man just say he doesn’t like... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-11-29 09:55:49 UTC ]
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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... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-11-27 12:30:00 UTC ]
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Blake Butler's first reaction to his wife's death by suicide was silence. Then he wrote the stark, indelible and beautifully written memoir, "Molly." Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-11-20 23:16:54 UTC ]
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Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover for the memoir Loose of Earth by Kathleen Dorothy Blackburn, which will be published by University of Texas Press on April 16, 2024. Preorder the book here. Kathleen Dorothy Blackburn was the oldest of five children, a twelve-year-old from... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2023-11-20 12:00:00 UTC ]
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“I have a lot of books on near-death experiences, psychic phenomena and past-life regression on my shelves,” says the two-time poet laureate, whose new book is the memoir “To Free the Captives.” “These kinds of books nudge me to remember our world is but one facet of an enormous continuity.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-11-16 10:00:11 UTC ]
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Erin French has the #7 book in the country with 'Big Heart Little Stove,' which follows her cookbook 'The Lost Kitchen' and memoir 'Finding Freedom.' Plus the Fonz writes about 'Being Henry,' and a new hockey romance skates onto our list. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-11-10 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Read rapid-fire interviews with (almost) all the finalists for the 2023 National Book Award, before next week’s ceremony. | Lit Hub Is twinship the ideal relationship? Helena de Bres investigates. | Lit Hub Memoir A Gilded Age Kardashian: Why Apple TV+ made a mistake in passing on Sofia... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-11-08 11:30:33 UTC ]
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Amy Schneider’s new memoir is honest and so very reasonable. The Jeopardy! winner shares insight and experiences in her new memoir. Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2023-11-08 10:00:00 UTC ]
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Jami Nakamura Lin begins with a warning: “In the presence of a story—if the story is a good one—time collapses.” This is precisely what she achieves in a genre-bending memoir that collapses past and present, personal and mythical. The Night Parade begins with her attempts to trace the origins of... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2023-11-07 12:00:00 UTC ]
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