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 ]
The list, compiled by the American Library Association, is meant to inform the public about censorship. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-04-06 06:46:02 UTC ]
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ANDREA HAIRSTON IS A playwright and theater director, a novelist, a critic, and the Louise Wolff Kahn Professor of Theatre and Africana Studies at Smith College. Her previous books include science fiction (Mindscape) and what can best be described as magical realism (Redwood and Wildfire and... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-12-26 18:00:34 UTC ]
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Henri Cole was born in Fukuoka, Japan, in 1956. His previous books include the poetry collections Middle Earth, Blackbird and Wolf, Touch, and Pierce the Skin, as well as a memoir, Orphic Paris. He has received many awards for his work, including the Jackson Poetry Prize, the Kingsley Tufts... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-09-04 08:51:11 UTC ]
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Today, Simon and Schuster announced that their imprint Scribner will be publishing the debut novel for adults from #1 New York Times bestselling children’s book author Jason Reynolds, whose books include Look Both Ways and Ghost, both finalists for the National Book Award for Young People’s... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-07-22 16:30:17 UTC ]
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Here’s some news to mix up your quarantine-driven online shopping life: the MoMA Design Store has just released a selection of rare books from its archive, and they’re now on sale at its website. The books include seminal texts like a first edition of William Eggleston’s Guide by John Szarkowski... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-04-20 20:00:04 UTC ]
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The books include extraordinary stories by and about radical women who considered themselves to be links in the chain in the battle for social justice. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2020-04-09 10:37:30 UTC ]
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For the next installation in our interview series with contemporary poets, Peter Mishler corresponded with Victoria Chang. Victoria Chang’s books include OBIT (April 2020), Barbie Chang, The Boss, Salvinia Molesta, and Circle. Her children’s picture book, Is Mommy?, was illustrated by Marla... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-02-21 09:48:19 UTC ]
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lol. jk. My dude has never been to the beach. Dave’s actual Top 5 list (according to Far Out magazine) is, of course, a throughly Lynchian quintet of unheimlich surrealism, existentialist historical fiction, disturbing found photography, hundred-year-old art criticism, and auteur biography. Each... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-08-22 16:15:22 UTC ]
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Books are generally presented as the work of one person, but almost 60 others worked on mine. But will readers care enough to read about them?We writers lead a necessarily solitary life – at least, that’s what we like to think. Though the act of writing can involve lots of lonesome glaring at an... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2019-07-19 06:01:08 UTC ]
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Arundhati Roy, whose books include the Booker Prize-winning The God of Small Things along with The Ministry of Utmost Happiness and My Seditious Heart, spoke with writer Siddhartha Deb in May at Harlem’s Apollo Theater as part of PEN America’s World Voices Festival. The following is adapted from... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-07-10 08:49:18 UTC ]
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Whether an exhaustive new profile of Babe Ruth, the reflections of basketball great Bob Cousy, or a retrospective of the heyday of women’s bike racing, there’s plenty to choose from in this grab bag of books. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2019-02-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publisher says it hopes to help the #ReadtheOnePercent pop-up store in south London ‘smash its target’ of £30,000, which it is crowdfunding in order to become permanentPenguin Random House has pledged £15,000 to south London’s #ReadtheOnePercent bookshop, which only stocks children’s books with... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2018-12-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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OWN IT! has acquired Reflections of Me, an art and poetry book by 26-year-old emerging artist Kirsty Latoya, from South London. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-05-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The couple, whose children’s books include We’re Going on a Bear Hunt and Borka, receive BookTrust’s first ever joint lifetime achievement awardTwo giants of children’s books, Helen Oxenbury and John Burningham, are to be honoured with the first ever double BookTrust lifetime achievement award.... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2018-02-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The owner of Tales on Moon Lane, Tamara Macfarlane, will open a second bookshop in South London in April. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-01-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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On this week’s episode of my podcast, I Have to Ask, I spoke with Laura Kipnis, an essayist and author whose books include Against Love, Men: Notes From an Ongoing Investigation, and, most recently, Unwanted Advances: Sexual Paranoia Comes to Campus. Although known for her writings about... Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2017-12-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Digital publisher Bookouture has bought three crime thrillers from an NHS psychologist set in the “grimy backstreets of South London”. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-09-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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John Blake Books is publishing Chloe Ayling, a 20-year-old model from South London who made headlines this summer after she was allegedly lured to Italy for a fake photoshoot, then drugged and kidnapped. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-09-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sheila O’Reilly is to join Village Books in Dulwich, south London, as its events manager, just months after departing its local rival, fellow indie Dulwich Books. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-01-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Author and illustrator Nicholas Allan, whose books include as Father Christmas Needs a Wee and The Queen's Knickers (Red Fox), is donating his entire archive to Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-12-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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