What We're Reading – October 2019

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine EvaristoSince studying Lara as a student, I have been a fan of Bernardine Evaristo’s work, and am delighted to see her win the Booker Prize this year. Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives of twelve black characters with different backgrounds and experiences, most of whom identify as female, living in London. I’ve enjoyed getting to know them through my reading and seeing how their lives are linked or overlap in different ways. What I found particularly interesting about this book is how each character responds in their own way to the universal questions of self and identity, particularly the tensions between personal, public and political gender discourse and the effect it has on the relationships the characters have with others. This feels like a very important book, and a must-read if you’re interested in what’s happening in UK fiction today.Rachel Stevens, Director LiteratureCommon People - An Anthology of Working-class Writers (ed Kit de Waal). An exceptional collection of essays, poems, memoir and short stories celebrating working-class life, culture and literature. There are many highlights, but I especially recommend Lisa McInnery’s essay ‘Working Class: An Escape Manual’, which considers how working-class writers and artists are co-opted into other identities when they achieve success. Debut author Adam Sharp’s ‘Play’, a memoir of his relationship with a substance-addicted father, is poignant and deftly handled - he’s a writer to... Continue reading at 'British Council global'

[ British Council global | 2019-10-30 09:49:28 UTC ]

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Woody Allen’s memoir has just been published after all.

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Woody Allen Releases Memoir After Quietly Finding New Publisher

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An Attentive Memoir of Life in Parma

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British Book Awards 2020: Books of the Year shortlists revealed

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Covid-19 forces widespread bookshop closures as major publishers go remote

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Humor Is the Dominant Note: On James McBride’s “Deacon King Kong”

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The Ghost Writer: An Author Imagines a Letter From Her Late Grandmother

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We Need to Resacralize the World

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New memoir from Rupert Everett to Little, Brown

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A Gay Man Remembers His Awakening, as AIDS Shook His World

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What It's Like To Be A Black Widow

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