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 ]

Other news stories related to: "What We're Reading – October 2019"


Napoleonic Conspiracy Theories, Unsociable Shabbiness, and More Occupational Hazards of the Second-Hand Book Trade

“Booksellers are constantly giving their patrons extraordinary bargains. In London recently a copy of an early edition of Keats’ Poems, originally bought from a dealer for 2s was sold for £140, and a first edition of Burns’ Poems bought in Edinburgh for 1s 6d brought £350.” –R.M. Williamson,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-12-07 09:53:48 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Cherríe Moraga on Writing About Queer Motherhood

As a cultivated writing praxis, creative nonfiction allows for a broader panorama of experience than a genre restricted to the empirical. It is one which permits dreams to presage and queer bodies to serve as repositories of memory. With the best of intentions, I believe Waiting in the Wings, my... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-12-07 09:51:50 UTC ]
More news stories like this


8 Horror Books Coming Out in December That Will Chill You to the Bone

FroHere are eight new horror reads to make you shiver with something other than cold this December, including Mine: An Anthology of Body Autonomy Horror. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2022-12-06 11:35:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


If You Want to Build a Story, Become an Architect

Mary-Alice Daniel has been on a journey, literally, across continents. She documents her experiences in A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing, which is a memoir about places, from which she has been uprooted, assimilated into, revisited, and settled, giving the reader a close look into the lives... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-12-05 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Nick Cave, Bob Dylan, Sporty Spice: New Books About Music

This season’s music books include a collection of interviews with Nick Cave, a memoir by Sporty Spice and Greil Marcus’s latest meditation on Bob Dylan. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2022-12-02 14:45:06 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Book Deals: Week of December 5, 2022

Broadside buys a memoir from Florida governor Ron DeSantis, NBC News reporter Char Adams sells a book on Black-owned bookstores to Tiny Reparations, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-12-02 05:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Koos Prinsloo: the cult Afrikaans writer has been translated to English – here's a review

Challenging myths about heterosexual white South African men, Prinsloo published four books of short stories in 12 years. Continue reading at The Conversation

[ The Conversation | 2022-11-28 05:37:53 UTC ]
More news stories like this


A Summary and Analysis of Sandra Cisneros’ ‘Salvador Late or Early’

‘Salvador Late or Early’ is a short story in Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories, a 1991 collection of short stories by the American writer Sandra Cisneros (born 1954). The story – which lacks a conventional plot and is more of a character study – briefly describes the life of […] Continue reading at Interesting Literature

[ Interesting Literature | 2022-11-25 15:00:30 UTC ]
More news stories like this


How to Tell If You Grew Up in a Cult

The first chapter of Daniella Mestyanek Young’s memoir Uncultured opens with a screech: It is 1993 and Mestyanek Young—then 5 years old—is inside a commune in Brazil, standing at the back of a line of children waiting to be paddled. As she explains, it’s a normal day in the Children of God, the... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-11-25 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans is a Beautiful Memory

“Movies are dreams,” young Sammy Fabelman’s mother explains to him in the first few moments of The Fabelmans, “that you never forget.” But movies are also memories, and this is a different thing. The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg’s cinematic memoir about the childhood and adolescence he spent... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-11-23 09:57:44 UTC ]
More news stories like this


‘All you have to do is participate’: how the Shotgun Seamstress zine made space for Black punks

As the DIY publication is collected in a new anthology, creator Osa Atoe and the musicians she inspired reflect on its defiant positivityIn 2006, Osa Atoe picked up pen and paper and began to write herself into history. She had decided to create a fanzine, titled Shotgun Seamstress, with a... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2022-11-21 12:00:20 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Leaving the Church to Find Spiritual Nourishment

The memoir Heretic opens with Jeanna Kadlec boarding a bus to the Middlesex County Courthouse in Massachusetts, where she is filing for divorce against her husband, an Evangelical Christian, and pastor’s son to boot. Kadlec is twenty-five and exhausted from the labor of suppressing her... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-11-17 12:05:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Beneath Its Pink Cover, ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ Offers a Story About Power

The best-selling debut author Bonnie Garmus created Elizabeth Zott, a chemist battling a sexist 1950s establishment, as the role model she craved — and found that readers wanted the same. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2022-11-16 14:07:21 UTC ]
More news stories like this


12 new books to look forward to this week.

Another Tuesday, another round of new releases. This week sees the publication of new Patti Smith, an anthology edited by Eileen Myles, the five-year-anniversary edition of Hanif Abdurraqib, and more. * Patti Smith, A Book of Days (Random House) “A powerful melding of image and text inspired by... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-11-15 09:55:27 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Book Review: ‘The Essential Dick Gregory’

A new anthology collects some of the writings, interviews and speeches of the comic and civil rights activist. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2022-11-14 20:11:45 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Unnamed Press and Rare Bird Now Double as Indie Booksellers

The two Los Angeles–based independent publishers opened North Figueroa Bookshop earlier this month. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-11-14 05:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Aaron Carter memoir delayed amid pushback from singer's publicist and Hilary Duff

Hilary Duff, who dated Aaron Carter in the early 2000s, accused his memoir publisher of 'recklessly pushing a book out to capitalize on this tragedy.' Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2022-11-14 00:40:03 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Rob Delaney Wants You to Know How He’s Feeling (It May Ruin Your Day)

In his memoir “A Heart That Works,” the comedian and actor grapples with the pain of losing a child, and how to keep living. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2022-11-12 10:00:26 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Aaron Carter’s unfinished memoir will be released less than a month after his death.

I guess if you’re a publisher whose stated mission is to disrupt the publishing industry, you have to move fast and break things, no matter how ghoulish that makes you. Such is apparently the case for “hybrid publisher” Ballast Books (“More Than A Publisher, A Brand Builder”), who is... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-11-11 16:17:28 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Desperate Writer Query Template*

Esteemed Agent, I’m seeking representation for my [300,000-word rhyming memoir / novel-in-grocery-coupons / famous literary graves calendar**] which is a cross between [Maid and Green Eggs and Ham / a bag of Halloween candy and that novel-in-texts you just sold / an apple watch and a mortuary... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-11-11 12:05:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this