What We're Reading – April 2019

Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado I've absolutely loved this collection of short stories, which floats between the weird and the queer, passing horror, black comedy and feminism along the way. Doubles and others are especially important: a wife enters her wife’s dream when they are apart; a girlfriend fades until her girlfriend accidentally falls through her in bed. Most noticeably, in the magnificent story ‘Especially Heinous’, detectives Stabler and Benson from Law & Order: SVU meet Abler and Henson, who always get to the crime scene first but do nothing about the beautiful murdered girls whose deaths fuel most episodes of Law & Order: SVU. Machado’s stories are direct, fast-paced, and funny, yet there’s always a slow-moving malevolence to them, a hidden seriousness, a careful confusion, and a sense of meaning that’s just out of reach for the characters. I can’t wait for her second book – a memoir – to be published later this year. Swithun Cooper, Research and Information Manager   Ordinary People, by Diana Evans Just shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize. Ordinary People is the story of two couples in the second flush of marriage, wondering about where their lives together are going and what compromises they’ll have to make along the way. It’s also a love-letter to London, and to the music of John Legend. I’m enjoying Diana Evans’ lyrical writing style and in depth exploration of her characters inner lives, their frustrations and complex... Continue reading at 'British Council global'

[ British Council global | 2019-04-11 08:49:28 UTC ]

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Doris Kearns Goodwin and husband Dick Goodwin lived, observed, created and chronicled the 1960s

A mix of history, memoir and biography, this book reflects on how time, perspective and stories left unwritten can shape our view of the past. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2024-04-24 10:00:41 UTC ]
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7 Questions for Kim Hye-jin, by Michelle Johnson

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[ World Literature Today | 2024-04-22 14:49:51 UTC ]
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Book Review: Joseph Epstein’s New Memoir and Book of Essays

The editor and essayist Joseph Epstein looks back on his life and career in two new books. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2024-04-22 09:03:39 UTC ]
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Lit Hub Daily: April 19, 2024

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[ Literrary Hub | 2024-04-19 10:30:28 UTC ]
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The Monitor’s 10 best new books of April

The 10 best books of April offer adventurous readers everything from a futuristic novel to Doris Kearns Goodwin’s history-laced memoir about the 1960s. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2024-04-18 11:34:55 UTC ]
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“The Stone Home,” My Second Novel, Was Crafted From Shocking Historical Truths

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[ Electric Literature | 2024-04-18 11:05:00 UTC ]
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Lit Hub Daily: April 18, 2024

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The Best New Book Releases Out April 16, 2024

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The Literary Outsider: How Barbara Comyns Wrote Her Way to The Juniper Tree

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The Country That Tried to Control Sex

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Alexei Navalny’s memoir due to be published posthumously in October

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‘Unfurling tension and menace’: how slow TV like Ripley makes for a truly gripping watch

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‘She was like an auntie to me’: Lynne Reid Banks remembered by Michael Morpurgo

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[ The Guardian | 2024-04-08 10:18:15 UTC ]
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Hollywood's bravest and most foolhardy memoir wasn't written by a movie star

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Unsolvable Puzzles: Anna Shechtman on the Feminist Psychology Behind Crosswords

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17 New Books to Read in April: Salman Rushdie, Emily Henry and More

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Lit Hub Daily: March 28, 2024

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