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purely to get published; A Place of Greater Safety emerged only when she contributed to a Guardian piece about writers’ unpublished first novels.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 ]
Stephanie Heit’s new book, Psych Murders, is a hybrid memoir poem that documents her experience of shock treatment. She traces her queer mad bodymind through breathlessness, damage, refusal, and memory loss as it shifts in and out of locked psychiatric wards and extreme bipolar states. Stephanie... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-08-18 09:25:04 UTC ]
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Pidgeon and I met in the summer of 2020, the summer of sickness, and violent change. We spoke over Zoom, nearly 800 miles apart—I had been hired as a developmental editor for an intersex activist named Pidgeon Pagonis. A developmental editor is a bit of a catch-all title: we do a bit of... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-08-17 09:20:26 UTC ]
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'Extraordinary Birder' host Christian Cooper brings his memoir 'Better Living Through Birding: Notes From a Black Man in the Natural World' to the L.A. Times Book Club. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-08-16 20:59:16 UTC ]
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My husband, a professor of electrical engineering by trade, is the kind of obsessive for which I have an affinity in my writing life. A refugee born in Latvia, John loves Latvian rye bread fervently. He eats Latvian rye several times a day and is unable to leave home without a five-pound loaf... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-08-16 09:50:36 UTC ]
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Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Wei Tchou’s Little Seed, “an experimental memoir that braids together the narrative of the author’s relationship with her brother and family with a deeply personal field guide to ferns,” which will be published by Deep Vellum/A Strange Object in... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-08-15 14:00:01 UTC ]
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Pan Macmillan will publish the former first minister’s as-yet-untitled memoirNicola Sturgeon’s “deeply personal and revealing” memoir will be published in 2025 by Pan Macmillan, after nine publishers bid for it at auction.After her resignation as Scotland’s first minister in February, Sturgeon... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-08-09 10:49:24 UTC ]
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Damian Barr’s Literary Salon tempts the world’s best writers to read exclusively from their latest greatest works and share their own personal stories. Star guests include Jojo Moyes, John Waters, Yaa Gyasi, Mary Beard, Diana Athill and Louis de Bernières—all in front of a live audience at... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-08-09 08:58:06 UTC ]
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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... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-08-06 08:30:06 UTC ]
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In a climate crisis that feels huge and hopeless, these eight books — essays, fiction, memoir and poetry on the wild — will help you focus on small things Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-08-04 13:00:09 UTC ]
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Julie Schumacher on 30 years of correspondence with her late friend, Melissa Bank: “I feel the impulse to write to her when I see the coil of postage stamps on my desk, or when I read a book that I wish she could read.” | Lit Hub Memoir When the Beatles found their voice. | […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-08-02 10:30:58 UTC ]
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Paul Reubens 'finished a first draft' of a memoir about his life and career before he died, a representative for the Pee-wee Herman actor has confirmed. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-08-01 18:13:09 UTC ]
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A memoir by Tahir Hamut Izgil, a Uyghur intellectual who escaped China, explores the corrosive effect of repression and surveillance on his community. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-08-01 12:36:10 UTC ]
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The Oscar-nominated actor’s new memoir is at once a Hollywood air kiss and a moving tribute to a happy marriage that ended too soon. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-08-01 09:01:10 UTC ]
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August's new nonfiction books include a memoir exploring the model minority myth, a historical look at Middle Eastern horsewomen, and more, including Mexikid by Pedro Martín. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-07-31 10:34:00 UTC ]
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There's something for every reader in August's new mystery, thriller, and crime releases, from a true crime memoir to historical mysteries including Harlem After Midnight by Louise Hare. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-07-31 10:33:00 UTC ]
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Richard E. Grant, star of 'Loki,' 'The Lesson' and much more, on how writing his memoir 'A Pocketful of Happiness' helped him grieve for his wife. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-07-28 19:53:27 UTC ]
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These novels remind us of old-fashioned human connections that can’t be severed, for better or worse. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-07-28 09:01:35 UTC ]
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Laura Cumming’s Thunderclap, Kate Zambreno’s The Light Room, and John McPhee’s Tabula Rasa all feature among the best reviewed nonfiction titles of the month. Brought to you by Book Marks, Lit Hub’s “Rotten Tomatoes for books.” * 1. Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life & Sudden Death by... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-07-28 09:00:49 UTC ]
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Actor Delroy Lindo sells a memoir to Little, Brown; Sarah Pekkanen re-ups with St. Martin’s; and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-07-28 04:00:00 UTC ]
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“My thinking is that reading will focus my mind, bring a hush over the chaos of the day so I can drift off,” says the author of the memoir “Educated,” one of the Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2018. “But from time to time a book takes hold in that peculiar way that a book can, and I end up... Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-07-27 09:00:37 UTC ]
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