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purely to get published; A Place of Greater Safety emerged only when she contributed to a Guardian piece about writers’ unpublished first novels.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 ]
After you've listened to the EMPIRE podcast, these history and historical fiction books will deepen your understanding of the subject. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-10-19 10:32:00 UTC ]
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The tennis champion has signed a two-book deal with Penguin Random House, saying it will be the first time she has paused and reflected on her remarkable career Serena Williams is set to publish two books, the first of which, a memoir, will take an “intimate” look at her childhood and remarkable... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-10-18 14:56:05 UTC ]
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The pop star explains in her new memoir how control and sexism left her “feeling like a shadow of myself." Continue reading at HuffPost
[ HuffPost | 2023-10-17 17:25:20 UTC ]
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When you hear the phrase “queer history,” how far back does your mind go? For many, there’s a sense that LGBTQIA+ history is fairly recent, starting with Marsha P. Johnson or maybe Oscar Wilde. Beyond that, we start to get into murky territory: stories of “lifelong bachelors” and “happy... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2023-10-17 11:00:00 UTC ]
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This essay isn’t about World War II. But like any historical fiction writer publishing in 2023, it’s impossible to ignore the recent wave of WWII novels that fill bookstore shelves at the moment. As someone who reads and enjoys many of these books but has no desire to write one, I have a theory... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-10-17 08:45:05 UTC ]
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Athena Dixon’s The Loneliness Files: A Memoir in Essays opens on New Year’s Eve of 2021, with Dixon alone in her apartment in Philadelphia, thinking about death during a year fraught with pandemic fear. The first pieces explore her fascination with women who died on their own and, because they... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2023-10-13 11:00:00 UTC ]
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George Stephanopoulos sells a history of the White House Situation Room to Grand Central, Random House buys a memoir from Salman Rushdie, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-10-13 04:00:00 UTC ]
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A recent memoir considers how much we concede when we regard rest as a call to judgment. Continue reading at The Atlantic
[ The Atlantic | 2023-10-12 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Acclaimed novelist Salman Rushdie is releasing a memoir about his experience being attacked on stage last year. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-10-11 15:57:11 UTC ]
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As reported by Publishers Weekly earlier this morning, Random House will publish Salman Rushdie’s new memoir, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, on April 16, 2024. The book will mark Rushdie’s first time speaking at length about the brutal attack he suffered while onstage at the... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-10-11 15:03:03 UTC ]
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Rushdie, who was grievously injured onstage last year, said the forthcoming book was a way “to answer violence with art.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-10-11 14:10:29 UTC ]
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The author describes the book, subtitled Meditations After an Attempted Murder, as ‘a way to take charge of what happened, and to answer violence with art’Salman Rushdie’s memoir Knife, about being stabbed last year, will be published on 16 April next year, Penguin Random House has announced.The... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-10-11 13:36:53 UTC ]
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From haunting historical fiction to poetic contemporary fiction, these 10 Haitian books in translation are worth picking up. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-10-11 10:34:00 UTC ]
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Writers are often advised to write as if we are dying. Awake to our mortality, the theory goes, we will write with urgency and acuity about what matters. We will write honestly, vulnerably, bravely without fear of judgement. We will write for the pure readers: ourselves and our loved ones. We... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-10-11 08:50:48 UTC ]
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Showing Up Every Day: A Conversation with Dewaine Farria, by Matt Gallagher Interviews [email protected] Tue, 10/10/2023 - 15:38 Dewaine Farria belongs to the world. As a US Marine, he served in Jordan and Ukraine, and spent much of his... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2023-10-10 20:38:06 UTC ]
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Encompassing a wide range of genres from historical fiction to fantasy to poetry to investigative journalism to memoir, this exciting abundance of books published in 2023 by emerging and acclaimed Native writers speak to the rich diversity of the Indigenous experience. From meditations on the... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2023-10-09 11:00:00 UTC ]
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October brings the spookier YA reads, but also be on the look out for historical fiction and even a holiday romance. Start with Brooms by Jasmine Walls and Teo DuVall. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-10-06 10:35:00 UTC ]
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“Raw Dog,” by the comedian Jamie Loftus, is an investigative memoir that’s part gonzo travelogue and part takedown of the factory farming system. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-10-06 09:00:48 UTC ]
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Safiya Sinclair writes in her memoir How to Say Babylon, “The perfect daughter was nothing but a vessel for the man’s seed, unblemished clay waiting for Jah’s fingerprint.” The memoir, Sinclair’s first, is about her journey to shaping a future that isn’t limited by the idea of the perfect... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2023-10-05 11:00:00 UTC ]
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“Like the dead‑seeming, cold rocks, I have memories within that came out of the material that went to make me. Time and place have had their say.” So begins with an intense, undeniable beauty the memoir of one of America’s great writers, Zora Neale Hurston. I read her 1942 autobiography, Dust... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-10-05 09:00:52 UTC ]
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