Why do so many people still love Friends? | Zoe Williams

The 90s were a decade of carefree optimism and comically low stakes. Matthew Perry’s death brings us crashing back into the now In 2004, the author Damian Barr published Get It Together: Surviving Your Quartlerlife Crisis. Barr would go on to write poignant and beautiful books (including the memoir Maggie and Me) but this wasn’t either of those things. It was more of a fun, generational howl: how’s this stuff supposed to work? How are you supposed to become an adult in these conditions? The dream of life in your 20s – flailing around not sure what to do, mooching from one dead-end job to another but still managing to afford a gigantic, lovely flat in the centre of everything, failing romantically, hilariously, while it all turns out for the best, never feeling anxious for no reason or as if you’re slipping through the sieve of polite society, too small and weightless to remain in the in-crowd – well, that dream was cracking a little. As Barr put it in a radio interview, the question, essentially, was this: what if Friends, which by then was in its 10th and final season, wasn’t very true to life?Definitely, the economic winds were changing: wages in the UK started to stagnate in 2003; in the US, graduate wages had been falling since 2000, and health cover cut for young employees, both graduate and not, since 2002. All of this, plus climbing student debt, was dwarfed by the 2007-2008 financial crash, after which everyone got much poorer, much faster. But the casual 90s... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2023-10-30 18:37:24 UTC ]

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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... Continue reading at British Council global

[ British Council global | 2019-10-30 09:49:28 UTC ]
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‘In the Dream House’ Recounts an Abusive Relationship Using Dozens of Genres

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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“Either Hyper-Visible or Invisible”: An Interview with Jaquira Díaz

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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But This Really Happened: What to Include and Leave Out of a Memoir

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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A Simplistic View of a Mixed-ish America

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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Lit Hub Weekly: October 21 – 25, 2019

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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Val Kilmer is releasing a memoir (!!!)

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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WPP returns to growth and Facebook News offers publishers ‘free money’: Friday Wake-Up Call

Welcome to Ad Age’s Wake-Up Call, our daily roundup of advertising, marketing, media and digital news. If you're reading this online or in a forwarded email, here's the link to sign up for our Wake-Up Call newsletters. You can get an audio version of this briefing on your Alexa device; sign up... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2019-10-25 10:25:54 UTC ]
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Jenny Slate Wrote a Book-Shaped Thing. What Is It?

“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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Chatto & Windus wins Matt Rowland Hill memoir in eight-way auction

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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Head of Zeus picks up Carson's Belfast memoir

Head of Zeus has picked up a memoir of Belfast by poet and writer Ciaran Carson, who passed away earlier this month. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-22 01:49:57 UTC ]
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Colleagues pay tribute to journalist and 'lioness' Deborah Orr

Columnist, editor and author hailed as ‘fearless’, after her death at the age of 57Friends and colleagues have responded to the death of the journalist and author Deborah Orr with a flood of tributes, describing the longtime Guardian columnist as fearless, hilarious, and “a lioness in a world... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2019-10-21 15:54:16 UTC ]
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'Animals feared him': fake David Cameron memoir cover spotted in bookshop

Complete with endorsements from Donald Trump and Judy Murray, the parody jacket turned up in a branch of FoylesThere are large acts of protest, such as the People’s Vote march that took place in London on Saturday. And then there are smaller ones, such as the work of the as yet unidentified... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2019-10-21 12:46:59 UTC ]
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Orr's Motherwell unpicks the complexities of familial relationships

Motherwell, the incisive memoir by Deborah Orr, unpicks the complexities of familial relationships. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-21 06:10:58 UTC ]
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The Life of Cameron Douglas, From Privilege to Prison and Back

In his memoir “Long Way Home,” Michael Douglas’s oldest son examines the “demented death wish” that drove him to drugs and crime, shining a light on his famous family along the way. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2019-10-19 09:00:12 UTC ]
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Charles Schwab takes sharper aim at Robinhood as it pursues younger clients

Chuck Schwab said his company will soon introduce fractional-stock trading and other services designed to appeal to younger clients. The founder and chairman of Charles Schwab (NYSE: SCHW) told The Wall Street Journal on Thursday that introducing the new services is the next step after dropping... Continue reading at Silicon Valley Business Journal

[ Silicon Valley Business Journal | 2019-10-18 18:05:16 UTC ]
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Am I Allowed to Break Up with My Book Agent?

The Blunt Instrument is an advice column for writers, written by Elisa Gabbert (specializing in nonfiction), John Cotter (specializing in fiction), and Ruoxi Chen (specializing in publishing). If you need tough advice for a writing problem, send your question to [email protected].... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2019-10-18 11:00:04 UTC ]
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Safran Foer’s memoir to illuminate family’s Holocaust history

HarperCollins imprint HQ will publish a "heartwrenching" post-Holocaust memoir from the mother of Jonathan Safran Foer, the story of which was the basis for his bestselling 2002 novel, Everything is Illuminated. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-16 20:21:07 UTC ]
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Oneworld acquires inside story of musical family the Kanneh-Masons

Oneworld has acquired the memoir of the woman who raised seven extraordinarily talented musical children, the Kanneh-Masons, exploring parenting, music education and the boundless potential of all children. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-16 16:07:07 UTC ]
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Saraband lands Helen Moat memoir

Indie publisher Saraband will publish Helen Moat’s memoir covering her 2000-mile cycle journey across Europe, in April 2020.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-16 00:50:09 UTC ]
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