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"


Alastair Campbell's mental health memoir to John Murray

Former political aide and author Alastair Campbell is publishing a "candid" and "empowering" memoir about his struggles with mental health Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-12-11 06:30:30 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Quiller buys prison memoir of NatWest Three member Darby

Quiller has bought the memoir of former British banker Giles Darby, one of the NatWest Three who was jailed in the US for his involvement in a $7m fraud. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-12-10 16:17:14 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Fourth Estate triumphs in six-publisher auction for O’Neill’s Belfast memoir

Alix O’Neill’s memoir of growing up in a Republican area of Belfast during the 1990s has gone to Fourth Estate Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-12-10 02:33:14 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year - meet the shortlist

Raymond AntrobusWho/ What inspired you to start writing? I never started writing poetry with the intention of writing books until publishers approached me. I was happy to write poems and travel and read the poems for audiences. I live poem by poem. The idea of a book of poems doesn’t really... Continue reading at British Council global

[ British Council global | 2019-12-05 12:09:15 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Edelweiss, Edelweiss? Julie Andrews Loves Reading About 18th-Century Plant Hunters

“I’m fascinated by stories of how the various plant specimens we take for granted today were originally discovered,” says the actor, whose latest book is “Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years.” Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2019-12-05 10:00:03 UTC ]
More news stories like this


'Crawdads,' 'Becoming' Top Amazon 2019 Lists

Led by sales of such of powerhouse titles as Delia Owen's wildly popular novel 'Where the Crawdads Sing' on the fiction list, and Michelle Obama's memoir 'Becoming' for nonfiction, Amazon released lists of the e-tailers top selling books of 2019. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-12-05 05:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Mitch Albom Reads From His New Memoir Finding Chika

Storybound is a radio theater program designed for the podcast age. Hosted by Jude Brewer and with original music composed for each episode, the podcast features the voices of today’s literary icons reading their essays, poems, and fiction. In our first episode, Mitch Albom reads an excerpt from... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2019-12-03 09:47:32 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Harvill Secker wins Elaine Feeney's first novel at auction

Irish poet Elaine Feeney’s "dazzlingly inventive" debut novel As You Were will be published by Harvill Secker following an auction. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-12-02 15:33:42 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Lit Hub Daily: December 2, 2019

What was the first book you fell in love with? The Center for Fiction’s 2019 First Novel Prize authors weigh in. | Lit Hub “Disagree with my argument, beliefs, and my politics, but hands off my syntax!” Lore Segal’s love letter to editors. | Lit Hub “Among Larry’s many strengths as a writer,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2019-12-02 11:30:22 UTC ]
More news stories like this


What Was the First Book You Fell in Love With?

We asked this year’s Center for Fiction First Novel Prize finalists about their earliest love affairs with reading. Meet them all at the Finalist Reading and Fête on December 9 at The Center for Fiction. * Chia-Chia Lin, author of The Unpassing on The Elves and the Shoemaker, Fran Hunia and... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2019-12-02 09:49:11 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Lit Hub Weekly: November 25 – 27, 2019

Of Bohumil Hrabal’s six great loves, guess how many were cats? (Hint: almost all of them.) | Lit Hub Memoir The car culture that’s helping destroy the planet was by no means inevitable: on the relentless campaign to force Americans to accept the automobile. | Lit Hub History Here are the 78 best... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2019-11-30 12:30:39 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Why All Americans Should Read “Celestial Bodies”

Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi won the Man Booker International Prize this year for its beautifully rendered portrayal of a family’s tangled history in the village of al-Awafi in Oman. The novel was the first book translated from Arabic to win the prize, and more surprisingly, it was the... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2019-11-26 11:59:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


An American Boy and His Jamaican Nanny: A Conversation with Ross Kenneth Urken

“UNLIKE MOST JEWISH BOYS from New Jersey, I have a Jamaican accent,” writes Ross Kenneth Urken in Another Mother, his memoir in which he goes in search of both his recollections of the Jamaican nanny who raised him and all of the things he never knew about her before she died. He writes,... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-11-24 20:00:33 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Our Bodies, Ourselves: On Saeed Jones’s “How We Fight for Our Lives”

THE QUEER COMING-OF-AGE MEMOIR is a weapon against erasure. The best of these memoirs move us by daring to be profoundly specific, providing a necessary consolation to readers who might have believed until then that they were alone in the dark. That their suffering would have no choice but to... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-11-24 13:30:59 UTC ]
More news stories like this


10 Books Like BECOMING By Michelle Obama

If Michelle Obama's memoir left you looking for more of the same, you're not alone. Check out these books like BECOMING and fill that hole in your heart. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2019-11-20 11:36:56 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Hodder to publish Veronica Roth's first novel for adults

Hodder & Stoughton is publishing Veronica Roth's first novel for adults, Chosen Ones, after striking a two-book deal. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-11-20 08:51:10 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Elton John opens up about memoir during sold-out talk with David Walliams

Elton John was greeted by a standing ovation last night as the legendary singer took to the stage to discuss his life in the spotlight. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-11-19 16:03:01 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Yes He Did: Barajas Graphic Bio Reclaims Great-Granddad’s Civil Rights Legacy

Henry Barajas’ Latinx memoir and graphic biography of his social activist great-grandfather, 'La Voz de M.A.Y.O.: Tata Rambo' with art by J. Gonzo, will be published this month by Image Comics. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-11-19 05:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Starry Lite: Isaac Asimov’s Space Ranger

In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle reads the first novel in Isaac Asimov’s juvenile science fiction series Science fiction set in our own solar system arguably began with Lucian, the classical author whose short satirical piece True History paved the way for... Continue reading at Interesting Literature

[ Interesting Literature | 2019-11-15 15:00:55 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Carmen Maria Machado’s Memoir Is Riddled with Restless Ghosts

I first encountered Carmen Maria Machado in 2016, reading her short fiction “Horror Story” in Granta. Her innovative and acclaimed debut collection Her Body and Other Parties had not yet been published, but I scourged the internet for everything I could find. What I found were stories about... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2019-11-15 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this