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 ]
The star has deposed Oprah Winfrey as queen of the online literary discussion groups – and plenty more A-listers are getting in on the act. Our reporter dives under the coversEvery novel I’ve ever read as part of a book club has involved a sprint to the finish. My latest group is no different,... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-12-12 06:00:54 UTC ]
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A filmmaker has accused Canadian writer Leah McLaren of sexual assault, saying that Penguin Random House Canada knowingly published a memoir by McLaren that depicts the alleged incident as consensual. Continue reading at CBC
[ CBC | 2022-12-09 19:13:28 UTC ]
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Yes, using reviews drawn from more than 150 publications, over the next two weeks we’ll be calculating and revealing the most critically-acclaimed books of 2022, in the categories of (deep breath): Fiction; Nonfiction; Memoir and Biography; Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror; Short Story Collections;... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-12-09 09:52:42 UTC ]
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Back in August I wrote about Pavel Filatyev, an active-duty Russian soldier who posted online his 141-page account of the lead up to and taking of Kherson by Russian forces. With the help of Vladimir Osechkin, who runs Gulagu.net (an anti-corruption website whose name translates as “No to the... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-12-08 15:42:53 UTC ]
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Film-maker Zoe Greenberg says she raised concerns with Penguin Random House Canada over Leah McLaren’s bookA Canadian film-maker who was allegedly sexually assaulted as a teenager has accused the country’s largest book publisher of knowingly releasing a memoir by one of her alleged assailants... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-12-08 14:58:26 UTC ]
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Hearing a memoir in the author’s voice can make a big difference, and not just when the author is Viola Davis. Plus: A creepy novel gets creepier in audio. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-12-07 10:00:40 UTC ]
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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 ]
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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 ]
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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 ]
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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 ]
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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 ]
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“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 ]
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Learn how to join a TikTok book club and discover a few of the different kinds you'll find in the #BookTok community. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2022-11-22 11:35:00 UTC ]
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Dwindling daylight set the stage for The Cloisters, Katy Hays’s gothic first novel, which explores dark academia, tarot cards and betrayals among friends and colleagues. It’s a November B&N Book Club and Read with Jenna pick. (“Leo, the gardener at the Cloisters, reminds me of Heathcliff in... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-11-22 09:52:10 UTC ]
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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 ]
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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 ]
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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 ]
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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 ]
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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 ]
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New book club picks include Katy Hays's debut novel, 'The Cloisters,' and a 10th anniversary edition of Cheryl Strayed's 'Tiny Beautiful Things.' Plus Matthew Perry and Bono release memoirs, and Boby Dylan and Quentin Tarantino contemplate the greats in their respective fields. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-11-11 05:00:00 UTC ]
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