What We're Reading – December 2019

Text Me When You Get Home: the Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship by Kayleen SchaeferIt’s a non-fiction book about the change in perspective around female friendship over the last few years, featuring interviews with a huge range of people including Judy Blume. The book looks at the radical potential of female friendships, how women support one another in a way that runs counter to the often one-dimensional representations of these friendships in the media. The bit I’ve found most interesting so far is an examination of how the idea that ‘girls are mean’ became mainstream. Many of Schaefer’s interviewees point out that if you tell a group repeatedly that they are a certain way, it becomes self-fulfilling, whether it has any basis in fact originally or not.It’s a very interesting book which sparks lots of thoughts and further discussions.Harriet Williams, Literatutre Programme ManagerThe Stubborn Archivist by Yara Rodriques FowlerThis month I’ve been reading The Stubborn Archivist, by Yara Rodrigues Fowler which was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writers Award. It’s a really sophisticated debut novel set in London and Brazil, exploring the intricacies of the relationship between the narrator who is a ‘third-culture’ half British half Brazilian young woman, her family, and their histories. The author plays with form in such a way that connects fragments of memories together or makes them jar against each other revealing trauma that lives across the... Continue reading at 'British Council global'

[ British Council global | 2019-12-17 09:49:28 UTC ]

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In ‘Who Is Maud Dixon?,’ a Dream Job Leads to a Twisty Nightmare

Alexandra Andrews’s debut novel follows a Machiavellian aspiring writer who becomes entangled in her work for a best-selling fiction writer. Continue reading at The New York Times

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“Justine” Is a Coming-of-Age Novel for the Tamogotchi Set

Perhaps it’s not surprising that even the prose in illustrator Forsyth Harmon’s debut novel Justine is deeply imagistic. Reading this short, powerful story feels like wandering through a museum exhibit about teenage girlhood on Long Island in the summer of 1999. Narrator Ali and her friends feed... Continue reading at Electric Literature

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We Can’t Believe Survivors’ Stories If We Never Hear Them

When we started sheltering in place at the beginning of the pandemic, in a burst of energy and optimism I haven’t experienced since, I started a social distance book club. I selected Lara Williams’s debut novel Supper Club, which I’d recently read, because I thought a book that centered on women... Continue reading at Electric Literature

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Book Review: ‘Burnt Sugar,’ by Avni Doshi

“Burnt Sugar,” a debut novel by Avni Doshi, depicts a particularly intense mother-daughter relationship — from the tormented daughter’s point of view. Continue reading at The New York Times

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Hodder Studios pre-empts Bonner's 'brilliantly addictive' debut thriller

Hodder Studios has pre-empted two books from Sarah Bonner, including her debut novel Her Perfect Twin, described as an "original, compelling and propulsive" thriller.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

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Virago bags Sharma Taylor's 'deeply moving' debut

Virago has acquired the debut novel by Sharma Taylor, What a Mother’s Love Don’t Teach You, at auction as part of a two-book deal.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

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Sceptre takes two from 'stunning' Craig

Sceptre has landed a "stunning" short story collection and debut novel by Serpent's Tail assistant editor Leon Craig. Continue reading at The Bookseller

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Lauren Oyler’s Narrator Is Unreliable, but So Are All of Us Online

Lauren Oyler’s debut novel brings the reader down a rabbit hole of endless, mindless scrolling, online identities, and conspiracy theories. Fake Accounts follows the journey of a young woman after she discovers that her boyfriend is running an Instagram account spouting dangerous conspiracies... Continue reading at Electric Literature

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His Debut Novel Won the Pulitzer. Now It Has an Action-Packed Sequel.

In “The Committed,” a follow-up to “The Sympathizer,” Viet Thanh Nguyen’s nameless spy navigates a Paris underworld rife with drug deals, violence and colonialism’s ghosts. Continue reading at The New York Times

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An Argentinian Underworld Haunted by the Ghosts of the Disappeared

In Daniel Loedel’s haunting debut novel Hades, Argentina, Tomás Orilla returns to Buenos Aires—“a city made for forgetting as much for nostalgia”—ten years after fleeing the military dictatorship whose regime disappeared upwards of 30,000 thousand political opponents, including Isabel Aroztegui,... Continue reading at Electric Literature

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Nico Walker has seen the film adaptation of his book, and he’s not impressed.

The movie adaptation of Nico Walker’s Cherry—the best-selling debut novel about an Iraq veteran turned heroin addict turned bank robber—will be released in theaters in two days, directed by the Russo Brothers (who you might know from Avengers) and starring Tom Holland (who you might know from... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

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A mother searches for the child she gave up as a teen in ‘The Kindest Lie’

Nancy Johnson’s debut novel “The Kindest Lie” is a well-crafted exploration of class, race, and culture; of motherhood; and of family ties. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

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A mother searches for the child she gave up as a teen in ‘The Kindest Lie’

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Picador nets Baxter's New Animal

Picador has netted New Animal, a “sharp and witty” debut novel by poet and sculptor Ella Baxter. Continue reading at The Bookseller

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Alan Johnson's debut novel pre-empted by Wildfire

Wildfire has pre-empted former Home Secretary and memoirist Alan Johnson’s debut novel, The Late Train to Gipsy Hill. Continue reading at The Bookseller

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The Stories That Bind Us Together: On E. Lily Yu’s “On Fragile Waves”

DURING ONE KEY MOMENT, E. Lily Yu’s disquieting debut novel On Fragile Waves offers a kind of authorial self-critique regarding the representation of diasporic migrants. A character Yu calls “the writer” has traveled to Australia to interview asylum seekers in the Afghan migrant community there... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

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The Monthly Digest: February 2021

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A Debut Novel Examines the Alluring Trap of Our Online Personas

“Fake Accounts,” Lauren Oyler’s debut novel, considers how social media has reconfigured our behavior, relationships and how we think of ourselves. Continue reading at The New York Times

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Books Are Back in the White House — And One of Them Is by Angie Thomas

The best-selling author just found out that her debut novel is soon to be on the first lady’s bedside table. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2021-01-28 10:00:04 UTC ]
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The Roar of the Wronged: Aravind Adiga’s White Tiger, by Yahia Lababidi

Culture A still image from the film White Tiger (Netflix, 2021). After watching White Tiger, a writer contemplates the film alongside revolution in Egypt, Black Lives Matter protests, the film Parasite, and literary “complicated works of... Continue reading at World Literature Today

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