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"


Val Kilmer is releasing a memoir (!!!)

Stop whatever it is you’re doing and pay attention to me because I have, just this morning, stumbled upon some joyous, and potentially game-changing, literary news: Val Kilmer is releasing a memoir. Yes, friends, according to Publishers Weekly, Simon & Schuster will publish I’m Your... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2019-10-25 16:13:04 UTC ]
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Jenny Slate Wrote a Book-Shaped Thing. What Is It?

“Little Weirds,” a new collection by the actress and comedian, isn’t the funny memoir you might have expected. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2019-10-25 09:00:27 UTC ]
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Daunt Books buys 'unsettling' first novel from Sarah Bernstein

Daunt Books Publishing has acquired debut novel The Coming Bad Days by poet and academic Sarah Bernstein.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-24 06:01:24 UTC ]
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Chatto & Windus wins Matt Rowland Hill memoir in eight-way auction

Chatto & Windus has triumphed in a hotly-contested eight-way auction to publish an "extraordinarily brave" memoir about faith, loss and addiction. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-23 09:08:05 UTC ]
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The Art of Surviving a Move to New York

In 2013, I moved to New York City alone. I had just divorced and graduated from the Iowa Writers Workshop. My first novel had been released—waiting for it had been my only remaining tether to a former life. With its release, my last connection to the functional adult world was severed and I was... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2019-10-23 08:48:27 UTC ]
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Catherine Chung | 'Mathematics at its highest levels reminds me more of poetry than anything else'

In her first novel to be published in the UK, Catherine Chung tells the story of a gifted mathematician whose studies take her deep into her family history. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-23 07:02:53 UTC ]
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On the Darkness, Strangeness, and Unbridled Joy of Children’s Books

The first novel I published with a major house was about a murder I covered as a reporter when I was in my early twenties. The victim, who was my age, and lived in my neighborhood, disappeared in the winter and her body was found in the summer in a shallow grave in the woods […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2019-10-22 08:48:49 UTC ]
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Remembering Kate Braverman’s Los Angeles

On this warm October day in Southern California, I walk the Venice canals and think of Kate Braverman. How in her sensational first novel Lithium for Medea she captured a Venice so distant that it’s difficult to accept that this version, which is polished and expensive and filled with tourists,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2019-10-22 08:48:36 UTC ]
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Head of Zeus picks up Carson's Belfast memoir

Head of Zeus has picked up a memoir of Belfast by poet and writer Ciaran Carson, who passed away earlier this month. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-22 01:49:57 UTC ]
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Colleagues pay tribute to journalist and 'lioness' Deborah Orr

Columnist, editor and author hailed as ‘fearless’, after her death at the age of 57Friends and colleagues have responded to the death of the journalist and author Deborah Orr with a flood of tributes, describing the longtime Guardian columnist as fearless, hilarious, and “a lioness in a world... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2019-10-21 15:54:16 UTC ]
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The First Arabic Novel to Win the International Booker Prize

Jokha Alharthi’s inventive multigenerational tale, “Celestial Bodies,” is also the first novel by an Omani woman to be translated into English. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2019-10-21 15:10:57 UTC ]
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'Animals feared him': fake David Cameron memoir cover spotted in bookshop

Complete with endorsements from Donald Trump and Judy Murray, the parody jacket turned up in a branch of FoylesThere are large acts of protest, such as the People’s Vote march that took place in London on Saturday. And then there are smaller ones, such as the work of the as yet unidentified... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2019-10-21 12:46:59 UTC ]
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Orr's Motherwell unpicks the complexities of familial relationships

Motherwell, the incisive memoir by Deborah Orr, unpicks the complexities of familial relationships. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-21 06:10:58 UTC ]
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Welcome to “The Handmaid’s Tale” Expanded Universe

LOOK, IT MUST be said: Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments is a deeply strange text. A page-turning potboiler set 15 years after the events of the first novel and published over three decades later, and co-winner this week of the 2019 Booker Prize, it tells a story only barely connected to the... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-10-19 15:00:57 UTC ]
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The Life of Cameron Douglas, From Privilege to Prison and Back

In his memoir “Long Way Home,” Michael Douglas’s oldest son examines the “demented death wish” that drove him to drugs and crime, shining a light on his famous family along the way. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2019-10-19 09:00:12 UTC ]
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Charles Schwab takes sharper aim at Robinhood as it pursues younger clients

Chuck Schwab said his company will soon introduce fractional-stock trading and other services designed to appeal to younger clients. The founder and chairman of Charles Schwab (NYSE: SCHW) told The Wall Street Journal on Thursday that introducing the new services is the next step after dropping... Continue reading at Silicon Valley Business Journal

[ Silicon Valley Business Journal | 2019-10-18 18:05:16 UTC ]
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Am I Allowed to Break Up with My Book Agent?

The Blunt Instrument is an advice column for writers, written by Elisa Gabbert (specializing in nonfiction), John Cotter (specializing in fiction), and Ruoxi Chen (specializing in publishing). If you need tough advice for a writing problem, send your question to [email protected].... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2019-10-18 11:00:04 UTC ]
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Centenarian tale wins £20k PRH/Daily Mail First Novel Award

A novel featuring a 110-year-old character has won the £20,000 Daily Mail and Penguin Random House First Novel Competition, now in its fourth year. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-18 05:17:36 UTC ]
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Safran Foer’s memoir to illuminate family’s Holocaust history

HarperCollins imprint HQ will publish a "heartwrenching" post-Holocaust memoir from the mother of Jonathan Safran Foer, the story of which was the basis for his bestselling 2002 novel, Everything is Illuminated. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-16 20:21:07 UTC ]
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Oneworld acquires inside story of musical family the Kanneh-Masons

Oneworld has acquired the memoir of the woman who raised seven extraordinarily talented musical children, the Kanneh-Masons, exploring parenting, music education and the boundless potential of all children. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-16 16:07:07 UTC ]
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