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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Book Deals: Week of July 18, 2022

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She overcame bias as a woman in science. Her memoir is testimony.

Lindy Elkins-Tanton, lead scientist for NASA’s Psyche mission, describes challenges and successes in “A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman.” Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

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An 'emotional' Jennifer Grey opens up about how abortion changed her life

The 'Dirty Dancing' star discusses the upcoming sequel, her memoir and the Supreme Court's 'fundamentally wrong' abortion ruling. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

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Subverting Traditional Narratives of Love and Happiness

When CJ Hauser published “The Crane Wife” in The Paris Review, an essay about repressing her needs in a relationship, calling off a wedding, and going to study whooping cranes on the Gulf Coast, it quickly became a viral hit. Three years later, her 17-piece memoir in essays of the same name... Continue reading at Electric Literature

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Lit Hub Daily: July 13, 2022

How Josephine Baker transformed from dancer to spy. | Lit Hub History “Although they’d been dead for 30 years, I was writing their story in a taut, blow-by-blow replay as the noose of Jones’s madness pulled tighter and tighter.” Julia Scheeres on the harrowing experience of writing about the... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

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Book Deals: Week of July 11, 2022

Random House buys a memoir about alcoholism and family, and Irish novelist Joseph O’Connor sells a historical trilogy to Europa. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

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A 'Jane the Virgin' writer shares the story 'Hollywood wasn't quite ready to tell'

Rafael Agustin dishes about "Illegally Yours," his candid new memoir about a childhood without documents, and the TV pilot that never made it. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

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Erika L. Sánchez Wishes More Authors Would Write About Money

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Stories About Growing Up on the Reservation

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Paul Tremblay delivers another mind-bending horror novel

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Bilingual poetry book about A470 sets Welsh hearts racing

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The Best Short Stories about Mothers and Motherhood

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New Books to Read in July

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Journalist, Felon, Figure Skater: A New Memoir From Keri Blakinger

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11 of the Best Stories about the Supernatural

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Sex, Freedom, Cruising, and Consent: A Conversation with Garth Greenwell

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‘I’ve Seen Several Giants Die on My Land’

A new anthology about climate change acknowledges that we are both willing participants in and at the mercy of the systems that are destroying us. Continue reading at The Atlantic

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What is Twitterature? An Introduction to the Genre

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The book that tore publishing apart: ‘Harm has been done, and now everyone’s afraid’

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