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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Kate Garraway's Covid memoir to Transworld

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Ebury signs 'inspirational' memoir from SAS trooper Jamie Hull

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Virago to publish first novel in two decades from Gayl Jones

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Lit Hub Weekly: January 11 – 15, 2021

When white supremacist mobs threaten democracy: David Zucchino on the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898 and the Capitol Insurrection of 2021. | Lit Hub Politics Navigating the intricacies of race and the violence of antiblackness: Nadia Owusu reflects on her early years in America. | Lit Hub... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

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Mary Catherine Bateson, anthropologist and author of ‘Composing a Life,’ dies at 81

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Lit Hub Daily: January 15, 2021

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Duchess of York’s first novel to be published by Mills & Boon

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Virago to publish memoir from Dame Eileen Atkins

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There Are as Many Americas as There Are Pedros

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