We seek inspiration, consolation – and the unvarnished truth. And we know that all the best stories are trueCaroline Knox is director of the Boswell book festivalMy love affair with biography began aged nine, when my subscription book club sent me a compendium of “true life” adventure stories. It is a passion I have carried into adulthood: before moving to the great biographer and diarist James Boswell’s home county of Ayrshire and founding a festival in his name, I had enjoyed commissioning biography, memoir and travel writing – all genres at which Boswell excelled – as a senior editor at the renowned publisher John Murray. It was then still housed in the family’s London mansion in Albemarle Street, where one of the great lost memoirs in literature, Lord Byron’s, had been burnt in the drawing-room grate.Visiting Boswell’s burial place for the first time, in the churchyard in Auchinleck, a former mining village in Ayrshire, I was shocked to discover that Boswell’s literary legacy had also seemingly been laid to rest. His exquisite neoclassical mausoleum stood derelict, with not even a sign to mark his last resting place. I immediately determined to launch a book festival of biography.Caroline Knox is director of the Boswell Book festival. The Boswell book festival will take place at Dumfries House, Ayrshire, from 12 to 14 May 2023, with a children’s festival taking place at the same time Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2023-05-09 08:00:15 UTC ]
In the middle of Carmen Maria Machado’s new memoir In the Dream House, CARMEN, stylized in all caps like a play script, sits across from the woman with whom she’s been in an abusive relationship (THE WOMAN IN THE DREAM HOUSE). The scene is set (“the curtain rises”) and we’re shown, “the house... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-11-05 12:00:26 UTC ]
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Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other, which recently won the Booker Prize, is out now from Grove Atlantic. We asked her about writers’ block, her favorite books, and more. * Who do you most wish would read your book? Oprah. I don’t know if her book club has ever featured a novel or book... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-11-05 09:49:45 UTC ]
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“WHAT IS DIFFICULT is not impossible.” Anne Boyer both writes and proves this maxim in The Undying, her crystalline memoir of illness and the hard knowledge that illness provides. The Undying engages with art from Aelius Aristides to John Donne to Audre Lorde, within an account of the author’s... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-11-04 20:00:59 UTC ]
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Val Kilmer’s memoir lands at a Big Five house, 'Dead Man Walking' goes graphic, the screenwriter of The Jerk sells a thriller, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-11-01 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Scottish Book Trust celebrate Book Week Scotland in this week's pictures round-up, while Hachette hosts its first Women For Refugee book club and Liz Pichon doodles at Waterstones Piccadilly. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-11-01 00:30:31 UTC ]
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Katy Waldman reviews Carmen Maria Machado’s ”In the Dream House,“ a formally inventive memoir that recounts the author’s experience with an abusive relationship. Continue reading at New Yorker
[ New Yorker | 2019-10-31 17:04:01 UTC ]
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The book doesn’t offer a clear-eyed view of who the singer really was — he would have hated that. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2019-10-30 14:42:51 UTC ]
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Whether you’re meeting your book club or you’re talking about this book with your friends, these BECOMING book club questions get the conversation going. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2019-10-30 10:38:18 UTC ]
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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... Continue reading at British Council global
[ British Council global | 2019-10-30 09:49:28 UTC ]
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Carmen Maria Machado follows up her acclaimed collection of stories, “Her Body and Other Parties,” with a memoir about her frightening relationship with another woman while in graduate school. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2019-10-29 19:27:21 UTC ]
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JAQUIRA DÍAZ’S FIRST BOOK — the memoir Ordinary Girls, published by Algonquin Books on October 29 — lyrically chronicles a childhood and early adulthood marked by pain and chaos but also by joy and celebration. Díaz grew up, first, in one of Puerto Rico’s roughest neighborhoods and then amid... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-10-29 12:30:43 UTC ]
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Author Timothy J. Hillegonds shares three ideas on how to determine what to include and what to leave out of a memoir so that it supports the main themes of the book. The post But This Really Happened: What to Include and Leave Out of a Memoir by Timothy Hillegonds appeared first on Writer's... Continue reading at Writer's Digest
[ Writer's Digest | 2019-10-28 15:03:11 UTC ]
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ABC’s Black-ish spinoff joins a new memoir by Thomas Chatterton Williams in presenting a seemingly enlightened but ahistorical view of race. Continue reading at The Atlantic
[ The Atlantic | 2019-10-26 13:00:00 UTC ]
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Duras’s body of work is a reminder that it’s okay to press send, to publish your drafts.” On Marguerite Duras, proto-internet essayist. | Lit Hub Memoir “Space flight is not being powered by people doing reasonable things.” Peter Ward explores the fraught history (and inevitable future) of space... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-10-26 10:30:56 UTC ]
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Stop whatever it is you’re doing and pay attention to me because I have, just this morning, stumbled upon some joyous, and potentially game-changing, literary news: Val Kilmer is releasing a memoir. Yes, friends, according to Publishers Weekly, Simon & Schuster will publish I’m Your... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-10-25 16:13:04 UTC ]
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“Little Weirds,” a new collection by the actress and comedian, isn’t the funny memoir you might have expected. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2019-10-25 09:00:27 UTC ]
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Marji Ross is retiring from Regnery Publishing on January 1, 2020, after a 20-year run at the house. Tom Spence, senior editor at Regnery and publisher of its Gateway imprint, will assume the role of president and publisher. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-10-24 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Beano has launched a new book subscription service for children offering newly published books across a wide range of authors and genres. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-23 16:43:46 UTC ]
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Chatto & Windus has triumphed in a hotly-contested eight-way auction to publish an "extraordinarily brave" memoir about faith, loss and addiction. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-23 09:08:05 UTC ]
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Paisley will host its first ever book festival in February 2020, honouring the "brilliant political thinkers and creatives that have long been associated with the area", say organisers. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-22 11:53:08 UTC ]
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