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"


Sandycove's Deevy goes full Boyle for new collection

The Penguin Random House Ireland imprint buys medievalist Elizabeth Boyle's memoir hybrid.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-15 13:39:11 UTC ]
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Glenn Close is unrecognizable in the first trailer for Hillbilly Elegy.

This week in films that I just…I just can’t: the first trailer for Ron Howard’s adaptation of J. D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy is now live. Based on Vance’s bestselling memoir about growing up in, and then escaping from, an abandoned Rust Belt town ravaged by poverty and drug addiction, the film... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-10-14 15:41:25 UTC ]
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Banks' first novel in a decade to No Exit Press

No Exit Press will publish Russell Banks’ new novel Foregone as a lead fiction title in June 2021. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-13 01:47:40 UTC ]
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Mrs Hinch sweeps into second week in the top spot

Mrs Hinch's memoir This is Me (Michael Joseph) has dusted off a second week in the UK Official Top 50 number one spot, selling 25,983 copies in its first full week on sale. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-12 18:35:40 UTC ]
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Former CIA director John Brennan takes on Trump, and doesn’t hold back

His memoir recounts his suspicions on Russia and has intriguing comments on Joe Biden. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-10-09 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Lit Hub Daily: October 9, 2020

“The road was a community in which we all pursued our destination at our own pace.” Lynne Sharon Schwartz on a lifetime in cars. | Lit Hub Memoir “People say I arrived in Trump’s America, but is it really Trump’s?” Ajibola Tolase making the move from Nigeria to the USA. | Lit Hub Politics “I’ve... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-10-09 10:30:37 UTC ]
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Personal Space: Maggie Smith on Her Shift in Artistic Practice

On this episode of Personal Space: The Memoir Show, Sari Botton interviews Maggie Smith, whose inspirational memoir, Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change, is published by Atria/One Signal Publishers. In the book, Smith intersperses bits of memoir — about moving forward after... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-10-09 08:48:58 UTC ]
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Michael Joseph buys Tyler's Walk from the Wild Edge

Michael Joseph has bought a memoir from Jake Tyler, the mental health advocate, adventurer, runner, walker and depression sufferer who made headlines when he embarked on a 3,000-mile journey around the UK. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-08 12:33:17 UTC ]
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Ebury bags Carraway's sex industry memoir

Ebury Press has bagged Fleshpot, the second book by Cash Carraway, billed as a “powerful, politically-charged” coming of age memoir set in the last days of the Soho sex industry. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-07 22:53:30 UTC ]
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It’s been a bittersweet week for surf literature.

The last few days have brought two major pieces of surf literature news: one welcome, the other dispiriting. The first is that Barbarian Days—New Yorker staff writer and journalist William Finnegan’s Pulitzer Prize-winning surf memoir and one of the greatest books ever written about the greatest... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-10-07 14:11:57 UTC ]
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Amazon Charts: Hinch winches into the top

Mrs Hinch's This is Me (Michael Joseph) has jumped straight to the top of the Amazon Charts' Most-Sold: Non-Fiction top 20 in its first week on sale. The cleaning influencer's memoir earned the "all ears" tag, meaning it was more listened to on Audible last week than read on Kindle. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-07 08:08:06 UTC ]
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6 Audiobooks to Celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day

From memoir to young adult, there is a little bit of something for everyone on this list of audiobooks by Indigenous authors. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2020-10-06 10:31:00 UTC ]
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Verso snares Hwang Sok-Yong's imprisonment memoir

Verso is to publish the memoir of Korean novelist Hwang Sok-Yong, which details the years he spent in a Seoul Detention Centre.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-06 09:32:52 UTC ]
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Chatto wins Ratinon's Unearthed memoir in six-way auction

Chatto & Windus has won a six-way auction for organic food grower Claire Ratinon's “beautiful and moving” memoir Unearthed: On Race and Roots, How the Soil Taught Me I Belong. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-05 23:59:18 UTC ]
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Ethan Hawke's new novel on art, love and fame to William Heinemann

William Heinemann is publishing the first novel in almost 20 years from actor, writer and director Ethan Hawke: A Bright Ray of Darkness. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-05 04:15:41 UTC ]
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Mariah Carey, Elusive No More

A new memoir and rarities collection show the powerhouse vocalist and songwriter’s evolution into a poised, boundary-blurring pop superstar. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2020-10-04 17:32:58 UTC ]
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The Case for Writing a Memoir in Essays

When Sonja Livingston began to write about her life with an itinerant mother and six siblings in the raw corners of western New York, she wrote, she says, in snatches. “I wrote of living in apartments and tents and motel rooms. Of places where corn and cabbage grew in great swaths. Of the... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-10-02 08:48:29 UTC ]
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Court Rules the DoJ's Case Against Bolton Can Go Forward

A federal judge this week denied former national security adviser John Bolton’s motion to dismiss the government's case against him, finding that the government has presented sufficient evidence to support its claim that Bolton breached his confidentiality agreements by publishing his memoir... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-10-02 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Here’s the shortlist for the Center for Fiction’s 2020 First Novel Prize.

Today the Center for Fiction announced the shortlist for its 2020 First Novel Prize. The prize, first awarded in 2006, recognizes the best debut fiction of the year, and it comes with $15,000; each finalist receives $1,000. Previous winners include De’Shawn Charles Winslow, Tommy Orange, and... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-10-01 15:05:06 UTC ]
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A Memoir About Growing Up Undocumented in America

In his memoir Children of the Land, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo tells the story of growing up undocumented in California and having to navigate the convoluted and dehumanizing American immigration system. Hernandez Castillo captures the emotional and psychological toll that being both invisible... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2020-10-01 11:00:54 UTC ]
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