The novelist on his new collection of journalism, why he regrets criticising Sally Rooney and how he’s never shaken off the influence of JG Ballard“I’ll see your eidolon next Tuesday,” writes Will Self, 61, when I email to arrange a video call to discuss his new collection of journalism, Why Read: Selected Writings 2001-2021, which is centred on the concern (as he later told me, or my on-screen spirit-image) that “people are dumbing down their entire response to their own culture by their unfettered use of social media”. Self’s 26 previous books include Umbrella, shortlisted for the Booker prize in 2012, and its sequels Shark and Phone, the latter a single 624-page paragraph which the Telegraph called an “epic anti-tweet”. Speaking from his home in south London, he said he liked the description “because the book was a deliberate attempt to call people’s attention to what was being lost by the digital. I don’t think the Umbrella trilogy is that hard to read at all; it’s only hard to read in contrast to a tweet. By Donald Trump!”How did you pick the pieces in Why Read?Until fairly recently, certainly since 2001, I probably wrote an average of 150,000 words of journalism every year, so there’s a vast amount to choose from. My New York editor said that in the age of the web, collections like this need a theme or else readers feel they’re just getting a grab bag they could’ve sourced themselves. So the emphasis fell on the impact on reading and writing of what I choose to call... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2022-11-26 18:00:32 UTC ]
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The winners of the fourth annual Whiting Literary Magazine Prizes have been announced, with three print magazines and two digital publications, including 'Bellevue Literary Review' and 'Full Stop,' taking home a combined total of $144,000 in funding. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-09-09 04:00:00 UTC ]
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White Rabbit has acquired This Woman’s Work: Essays on Music, an essay collection edited by founding member of band Sonic Youth Kim Gordon, and former music journalist Sinéad Gleeson. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-08-26 12:37:21 UTC ]
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Rafia Zakaria sees a power gap between career feminists and those with lived experience. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-08-13 12:00:00 UTC ]
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After 35 years, the Observer’s former correspondent is leaving as what was once a haven of liberty and peace is transformed into a police stateWhen I arrived in Hong Kong in 1987 as the Observer’s south-east Asia correspondent, the foreign editor said he saw it as being a base, not the kind of... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-08-08 07:00:15 UTC ]
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Well, this is kind of heartwarming. A full quarter-century after shuttering his old store in Bloomington, Indiana, Rick Morgenstern has opened what suddenly becomes the state’s largest independent bookstore. The reboot of the eponymous store has been in the works for years and is reopening in a... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-07-28 18:29:10 UTC ]
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Bonnier Books UK has acquired independent Scottish publisher Black & White Publishing as part of its long-term strategy for growth. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-07-27 19:25:22 UTC ]
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The country legend's deadpan response was too much for "The Tonight Show" host. Continue reading at The Huffington Post
[ The Huffington Post | 2021-06-26 09:56:05 UTC ]
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Update your playlist with ‘The Passenger,’ ‘The Thursday Murder Club’ and ‘Red Island House Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-06-25 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Richard Cohen’s work, revised after criticism of its viewpoint, will not be published this week after a new row over its titleBilled as an “epic exploration of who writes about the past”, The History Makers was due out this Friday before being serialised on Radio 4 in the UK. But publication has... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-06-19 18:20:01 UTC ]
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People had questions about the Trump White House press secretary's upcoming book: "I assume that this is in the fiction section?" Continue reading at The Huffington Post
[ The Huffington Post | 2021-06-16 07:18:09 UTC ]
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Former Eight Tray Gangster Crip member's memoir brought attention to the sobering truth of gang life in South L.A. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-06-15 23:57:16 UTC ]
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Calling reading a 'civil right,' Richard Robinson joined Scholastic in 1964 and led the company for almost 50 years. The post Scholastic’s Richard Robinson, Dead at 84, a Leader in Children’s Books appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2021-06-07 02:51:41 UTC ]
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The longtime head of the children’s publishing giant Scholastic Inc. who presided over such bestsellers as J Continue reading at ABC News
[ ABC News | 2021-06-07 01:26:31 UTC ]
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The science of walking shows us why we should never take it for granted. It’s not just good for your glutes. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-06-05 12:00:00 UTC ]
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‘The Dead’ is the most critically acclaimed and widely studied story in James Joyce’s Dubliners, a collection of 15 short stories written by James Joyce and published in 1914. As we’ve remarked before, Dubliners is now regarded as one of the landmark texts of modernist literature, but initially... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2021-05-29 14:00:07 UTC ]
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When Sean Spicer was given prime billing at BookExpo America and Milo Yiannopoulos tried to publish a book with Simon & Schuster, I churned out 40 pages of text about free speech, white supremacy, and independent bookstores over the next several months, returning to it now and then as a... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-05-27 08:54:54 UTC ]
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Randa Jarrar’s memoir Love Is An Ex-Country focuses predominantly on the years leading to the 2016 election, a period, which, like now, was characterized by heightened Islamophobia, misogyny, homophobia, anti-immigrant sentiment, and racism. Jarrar embarks on a road trip inspired by Tahia... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-05-21 11:00:43 UTC ]
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Sam Riviere’s novel is hard to stop reading — because it’s written as a single paragraph almost 300 pages long. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-05-17 10:52:09 UTC ]
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The list of Pulitzer Prize-winning books is dominated by white men, so we're highlighting winning nonfiction by women and people of color. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2021-05-17 10:37:00 UTC ]
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The latest volume of Michael Nava’s Henry Rios mystery series demonstrates his mastery of the genre. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-05-13 14:00:00 UTC ]
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