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 ]

Other news stories related to: "What We're Reading – April 2019"


The Boy Who Talked to Dogs: a story of trauma brought to the stage with honesty and grace

This new play based on Martin McKenna’s memoir tells a difficult story with theatrical skill and artistic heart. Continue reading at The Conversation

[ The Conversation | 2021-03-01 05:56:16 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Olga Tokarczuk's 'magnum opus' finally gets English release – after seven years of translation

The Books of Jacob, praised by the Nobel prize judges and winner of Poland’s prestigious Nike award, will be published in the UK in NovemberThe magnum opus of Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk – a novel that has taken seven years to translate and has brought its author death threats in her native... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2021-02-26 15:00:18 UTC ]
More news stories like this


The Storyteller of Tangier

Mrabet was friends with Paul Bowles—and, it’s assumed, lovers, too—and they were artistic collaborators. But his memoir begins long before they met. Continue reading at The Paris Review

[ The Paris Review | 2021-02-26 14:00:30 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Allen & Unwin snaps up Ryder's 'sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll' memoir

Allen & Unwin to publish How to be a Rock Star by Shaun Ryder, a memoir that promises to lift the lid on what it's like to be a rock star. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-02-25 01:13:37 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Isabel Allende isn't passing the feminist torch — she's sharing it

The bestselling novelist, subject of an upcoming HBO Max biopic and author of the new memoir 'The Soul of a Woman' discusses aging, feminism and home. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-02-24 17:00:12 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Two Roads to publish memoir from Billy Connolly

Two Roads will publish Billy Connolly's first autobiography, titled Windswept and Interesting.    Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-02-24 15:35:50 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Corsair to reissue Delia Owens wildlife memoir

A memoir by Where the Crawdads Sing author Delia Owens and her husband Mark Owens, titled Cry of the Kalahari, will be reissued by Corsair in October, 36 years after its first release. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-02-23 09:02:09 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Faber bags Caldwell's 'beautifully moving' wartime novel

Faber is to publish Lucy Caldwell's first novel in nearly a decade, These Days. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-02-23 01:30:10 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Woody Allen's memoir publisher threatens to sue HBO over documentary

Skyhorse Publishing, the imprint behind director Woody Allen's memoir, is considering suing HBO for sampling its audiobook for a documentary series. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-02-22 22:46:48 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Two Roads to publish Hart's memoir on starting over

John Murray Press imprint Two Roads has acquired Devorgilla Days: A Memoir of Hope and Healing by Kathleen Hart, a "heart-warming and deeply moving" memoir about recovery, resilience and starting over. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-02-22 09:27:36 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Cassell scoops Emma John's single life memoir

Cassell will publish the “hilarious and unflinching” memoir from award-winning author and journalist Emma John about "what it means to be alone when everyone else isn't".   Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-02-22 00:54:33 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Forgive and Remember: A Conversation with Susan Shapiro

WHAT WOULD YOU DO if the person who hurt you most refused to say they were sorry? Could you forgive anyway? Best-selling author Susan Shapiro explores this universal question in her intriguing, insightful, all-too-relatable new book The Forgiveness Tour, out this past January. In her... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2021-02-21 18:00:04 UTC ]
More news stories like this


A History of the Comedian Memoir in Nine Books

A syllabus of sorts for exploring some of the funniest books of all time by the funniest people. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2021-02-19 10:00:27 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Lit Hub Daily: February 18, 2021

Kristin Iversen profiles Patricia Lockwood, writer of crystalline sentences, really good tweets, and a new novel about much more than the internet. | Lit Hub Yemisi Adegoke grapples with what it means to be a “returnee” to Lagos, after growing up in the UK. | Lit Hub Memoir “Am I prepared? Is... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2021-02-18 10:30:19 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Open the Portal: A Conversation with Patricia Lockwood

READING PATRICIA LOCKWOOD’S first novel feels a lot like having your brain poisoned by the internet — or at least like having that particular contemporary condition understood. No One Is Talking About This is a searing entry into the rapidly emerging pantheon of digital culture literature, told... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2021-02-16 16:00:53 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Unseen work by Proust announced as ‘thunderclap’ by French publisher

The Seventy-Five Pages, out next month, contains germinal versions of episodes developed in In Search of Lost Time and opens ‘the primitive Proustian crypt’For everyone who decided to bite the madeleine and read all 3,000-odd pages of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time during lockdown,... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2021-02-16 15:21:36 UTC ]
More news stories like this


‘Blindfold: A Memoir of Capture, Torture, and Enlightenment,’ by Theo Padnos: An Excerpt

An excerpt from “Blindfold: A Memoir of Capture, Torture, and Enlightenment,” by Theo Padnos Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2021-02-16 13:32:26 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Held Hostage in Syria, a Reporter Tells What It Took to Survive

“Blindfold” is the American journalist Theo Padnos’s memoir of his nearly two years in captivity and a meditation on resilience. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2021-02-16 10:00:06 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Was ‘60 Minutes’ TV’s Most Toxic Workplace?

“Ticking Clock,” a new memoir by Ira Rosen, a former producer for the show, recounts the newsmagazine’s pathbreaking journalism and its culture of harassment and abuse. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2021-02-16 10:00:05 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Review: A survivor's memoir on sickness and health — 'we are all terminal patients on this earth'

In 'Between Two Kingdoms,' young cancer survivor Suleika Jaouad writes with fierce honesty about the false divide between the sick and the well. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-02-15 15:00:38 UTC ]
More news stories like this