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purely to get published; A Place of Greater Safety emerged only when she contributed to a Guardian piece about writers’ unpublished first novels.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 ]
An excerpt from “Loved and Wanted: A Memoir of Choice, Children, and Womanhood,” by Christa Parravani Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-11-10 10:01:00 UTC ]
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A young woman’s diagnosis is only the beginning of the mystery in “Lightning Flowers.” As Katherine E. Standefer tried to make sense of her heart condition, her conscience sent her on a trip across the world. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-11-10 10:00:08 UTC ]
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Yesterday, I attended a virtual book club where Heavy: An American Memoir was being read. When I clicked the link to join the Zoom, I saw the faces, necks, and shoulders of seven beautiful pixelated Black women from as far west as Las Vegas and as far east as Long Island. I assumed from their... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-10 09:49:30 UTC ]
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The Lit Hub Author Questionnaire is a monthly interview featuring seven questions for five authors with new books. This month we talk to: * Danielle Evans (The Office of Historical Corrections) Éireann Lorsung (The Century) Christa Parravani (Loved and Wanted: A Memoir of Choice, Children, and... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-10 09:48:28 UTC ]
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Tinder Press has won at auction Christina Patterson’s next book, Outside, the Sky is Blue: A Memoir of Faith, Hope and Loss. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-09 23:01:40 UTC ]
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“The Babur Nama is an oddly modern text, almost Proustian in its self-awareness.” William Dalrymple on the 16th-century memoir far ahead of its time. | Lit Hub Biography “We have had no truth and reconciliation process.” On the renaissance of American white supremacy, a conversation with Isaac... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-07 12:30:24 UTC ]
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Don’t expect the usual bromides about hard work and resilience in “One Life.” The soccer star’s memoir gets into her political awakening as much as it does her sports career. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-11-06 10:00:28 UTC ]
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Monoray, part of the Octopus Publishing Group, has acquired Where Did I Go Right?: How The Left Lost Me by comedian and writer Geoff Norcott. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-05 03:36:21 UTC ]
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Jonathan Cape has snapped up an “exquisite” memoir about the challenges facing gay men today from acclaimed poet and Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year shortlistee Seán Hewitt. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-03 07:03:12 UTC ]
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Bonnier Books UK’s new literary imprint Manilla Press has acquired a "powerful memoir" from debut author Bexy Cameron exploring her childhood in the notorious cult Children of God. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-02 00:29:45 UTC ]
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FEW WRITERS MANAGE to capture the essence of the California that exists beyond the images typically offered up by film and television — palm trees, beaches, gridlock, Hollywood, Kardashians; images the rest of the country seems so willing to accept about us “out here.” Kendra Atleework’s new... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-11-01 18:00:10 UTC ]
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Journalist Maria Hinojosa talks about her memoir "Once I Was You," and how a childhood trauma triggered her interest in immigration reporting. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-10-31 16:00:33 UTC ]
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Author Shirley Jackson often responded to readers’ letters; this one, written in 1962 after republication of her historical fiction for juveniles, The Witchcraft of Salem Village, seems uncannily prescient for our times. –Laurence Jackson Hyman, editor of the forthcoming The Collected Letters of... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-10-30 08:49:48 UTC ]
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Harper buys a memoir from Alexander Vindman, a WaPo columnist sells his memoir to S&S, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-10-30 04:00:00 UTC ]
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CHRISTA PARRAVANI’S SEMINAL Guernica essay published last year, “Life and Death in West Virginia,” was my introduction to this author and inspired me to seek out more of her work. I was thrilled when she agreed to an interview. The personal is political, and in Loved and Wanted: A Memoir of... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-10-29 19:00:52 UTC ]
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Barack Obama’s memoir is landing. So is a biography of Adrienne Rich and buzzy fiction from Jo Nesbo, Nicole Krauss and Susie Yang. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-10-29 09:00:34 UTC ]
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Headline has acquired Drama Queen, a "compelling and funny" memoir about autism from comedy writer Sara Gibbs. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-29 03:20:34 UTC ]
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Faber is to publish a memoir from Evan Dando, frontman of alternative rock band the Lemonheads, in 2022. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-27 02:20:55 UTC ]
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Indie September Publishing has revealed two lead titles for spring: Melissa Rice's memoir Sobering: Lessons Learnt the Hard Way on Drinking, Thinking and Quitting, and Ronald J Deibert's non-fiction work, Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-27 01:43:01 UTC ]
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In an excerpt from his upcoming memoir published by the New Yorker, former President Barack Obama recalls the long battle for healthcare reform. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-10-26 19:52:09 UTC ]
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