What to read this week: The Light Eaters, Paranoid Gardens and I Was a Teenage Slasher

Recent releases in fiction, nonfiction and comics that caught our attention. I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones Stephen Graham Jones is something of an expert on slashers. The author has tackled the genre in a slew of his novels (most notably in the Indian Lake Trilogy, with its slasher-movie-obsessed main character) and has an ongoing column in Fangoria dedicated to its impact, so it’s not really a surprise to see he’s churned out another entry for the canon. But this time around, we’re getting a different perspective: the slasher’s point of view. I Was a Teenage Slasher is the fictional memoir of Tolly Driver, who in 1989 reluctantly became Lamesa, Texas’ very own Michael Meyers at the age of 17 — a transformation that’s seemingly driven by powers beyond Tolly’s control. It takes the classic slasher formula and injects a whole lot of heart. The Light Eaters by Zoë Schlanger The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth was released in the spring, but it just popped onto my radar and I was immediately drawn in by both the premise and Schlanger’s easy-to-digest writing style. The Light Eaters explores the long-debated concept of plant “intelligence” through conversations with scientists and deep dives into the complex processes that underlie plants’ survival. There’s a fair amount of anthropomorphizing, but The Light Eaters provides a really fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of plants... Continue reading at 'Engadget'

[ Engadget | 2024-07-20 13:30:12 UTC ]

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Sceptre pre-empts musician Mikel Jollett's memoir

Sceptre has pre-empted Hollywood Park by musician and writer Mikel Jollett, frontman of indie band The Airborne Toxic Event. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-08-16 14:59:29 UTC ]
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Trump won't leave office peacefully, his former lawyer Cohen claims in upcoming book

Michael Cohen's memoir about U.S. President Donald Trump will be released Sept. 8 by Skyhorse Publishing, which confirmed the news on Thursday. Continue reading at CBC

[ CBC | 2020-08-14 12:29:48 UTC ]
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Trump’s war on mail-in voting and the postal service

Yesterday, a pair of TV interviews crystallized just how the Trump administration is threatening the integrity of the election. On CNBC, Larry Kudlow, Trump’s top economic adviser, cast “voting rights” as part of a “liberal-left wish list,” adding, “That’s not our game.” On Fox Business, Trump... Continue reading at Columbia Journalism Review

[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2020-08-14 12:26:12 UTC ]
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Jean Giorno: Fighting the Battle of Gay Liberation in a Homophobic World

“I don’t know what it means!” Andy Warhol bleats, in John Giorno’s Great Demon Kings: A Memoir of Poetry, Sex, Art, Death, and Enlightenment (out now from Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Warhol’s ditzy refrain is a mantra for the perpetually bemused, at once tragicomic and tongue-in-cheek. He says... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-08-14 08:48:26 UTC ]
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Book Deals: Week of August 17, 2020

Among the week’s big deals are the acquisition of a #MeToo memoir by a French publishing exec, Sharon Stone’s memoir, and Andy Weir’s new novel. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-08-14 04:00:00 UTC ]
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The Delicate Balancing Act of Black Women’s Memoir

As Crown Publishing predicted, readers eagerly anticipated Michelle Obama’s Becoming. Autobiography and memoir are best selling categories because virtually everyone enjoys learning about the private life of public figures. In this case, many were curious about the woman who seemed to rise above... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2020-08-12 11:00:00 UTC ]
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OWN IT! partners with Grime record label on Adenuga memoir

OWN IT! is to partner with Grime music label Boy Better Know to co-publish the memoir of Ifeomagwu “Ify” Adenuga, the mother of the label's founders.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-08-11 10:24:04 UTC ]
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Hodder acquires 'hopeful' memoir on choosing to parent alone

Hodder & Stoughton has acquired Liv's Alone by Liv Thorne, an "honest and hopeful memoir that captures the joy and the challenge that is parenting alone by choice". Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-08-09 12:38:16 UTC ]
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Better titles for ex-Trump staffers’ memoirs.

Another day, another announcement of a memoir from a former Trump collaborator. This time, it’s Fiona Hill, an ex-advisor who testified in Trump’s impeachment inquiry, whose “views about the future of a polarized America” will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2021. I have nothing... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-08-06 19:59:16 UTC ]
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How a writer learned to open up about Dad's secret sex books

Sara Faith Alterman's "Let's Never Talk About This Again" is a memoir about strange family dynamics, love, grief and the benefits of finally opening up. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-08-05 18:00:51 UTC ]
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Dissecting Pain: An Interview with Alisson Wood

It would be easy to summarize Being Lolita as a memoir about a toxic, exploitative relationship between a high school English teacher and his student, and it is about that—but it’s about that in the way Walden is about a pond. Continue reading at The Paris Review

[ The Paris Review | 2020-08-04 16:08:33 UTC ]
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Personal Space: Morgan Jerkins on Making Unexpected Family Discoveries

On this episode of Personal Space: The Memoir Show, Sari Botton interviews Morgan Jerkins, author of Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots, published by Harper. In this fascinating historical memoir, Jerkins explores her identity and heritage by tracing... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-08-03 19:36:31 UTC ]
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How Poetry Helps Us Through Grief

A former U.S. poet laureate’s new memoir reflects on the power of storytelling to reconcile past traumas—and offers lessons for surviving the cataclysms of the present. Continue reading at The Atlantic

[ The Atlantic | 2020-08-01 12:00:00 UTC ]
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In ‘Memorial Drive,’ Natasha Trethewey reclaims her mother’s life from the man who took it

Trethewey’s memoir is a tribute to a life snuffed out by a brutal man, a fractured judicial system and a patriarchy as old as Methuselah. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-07-31 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Green Tree acquires Liz Fraser memoir

Bloomsbury's Green Tree is to publish Liz Fraser's memoir Coming Clean: A True Story of Love, Addiction and Recovery next year.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-07-31 11:02:40 UTC ]
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A Queer Memoir About Navigating Toxic Masculinity

I met David Adjmi at a fancy writing residency. The kind of place where you work all day alone and then eat dinner together, have a drink in the parlor afterwards. I remember a night when someone suggested watching a movie. As people were perusing the house copy of the criterion collection... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2020-07-31 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Book Deals: Week of August 3, 2020

Scribner buy a book about American’s first female astronauts, Matthew McConaughey sells a memoir to Crown, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-07-31 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Personal Space: Laura Lippman Dares to Focus on Herself

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[ Literrary Hub | 2020-07-30 18:00:43 UTC ]
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In ‘Memorial Drive’ a Poet Evokes Her Childhood and Confronts Her Mother’s Murder

The new memoir by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natasha Trethewey is an aching investigation of trauma and art. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2020-07-30 10:06:53 UTC ]
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How “Memorial Drive” Tries to Make Sense of a Mother’s Murder

Katy Waldman writes about “Memorial Drive,” a new memoir by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natasha Trethewey, who pieces together memories of her mother, who was murdered by Trethewey’s stepfather. Continue reading at New Yorker

[ New Yorker | 2020-07-29 10:00:00 UTC ]
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