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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Sherrill was a cofounder of Chosen Books and co-author of bestsellers such as 'The Hiding Place' with Corrie ten Bloom, who hid Jews during the Holocaust. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-06-02 04:00:00 UTC ]
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"Zev's Los Angeles," a memoir by former L.A. County supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, covers an era when L.A. transformed radically — and does it really well. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-05-29 13:00:43 UTC ]
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A 57-year-old “self-styled poet” (aren’t they all?) has spent $116,000 of his own money to build a bookstore in a mountaintop village. Oh, and it’s shaped like the number 7 and contains 7,000 books. No, this is not a parable. As Jiang Libo told the South China Morning Post: Before my bookshop... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-05-08 15:04:22 UTC ]
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The award, championing small presses with fewer than five staff, was won by The Doloriad – an audaciously original novel set in a post-apocalyptic dystopiaDead Ink Books has won the Republic of Consciousness prize for small presses for Missouri Williams’s “astonishing” debut novel The Doloriad.... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-04-26 08:35:38 UTC ]
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A champion of LGBTQ stories as both editor and author, Denneny died on April 12. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-04-17 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover for writer Ross White’s poetry collection, Charm Offensive, which will be published by Eyewear Publishing this July. White is the designer and author of Valley of Want, a finalist for Electric Lit’s Best Book Cover of 2022 contest. Charm... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2023-04-14 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Rick Wolff, who published dozens of bestselling books as a business editor for Warner Books, Hachette Book Group, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, died April 10. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-04-13 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Some of them posed for photos – and before they knew it they had become the face of skin lightening, bad boyfriends, penis disorders and Canadian immigration. What’s it like when your image goes around the world?Stock images are everywhere, and you probably rarely notice them: on billboards and... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-04-08 09:00:18 UTC ]
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An early Easter and sales of more than 225,000 copies of the newest edition in Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man series combined to increase unit sales of print books by 2.7% last week over the comparable week in 2022. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-04-06 04:00:00 UTC ]
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At a ceremony on March 29 in New York City, the winners of this year’s Whiting Awards, which honor emerging writers, were announced. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-03-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Princess Bride official cookbook helped me embrace the wonder of experimenting and just plain having fun in the kitchen. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-03-30 10:33:00 UTC ]
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Ten award winners were announced in the categories of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and drama at an in-person ceremony held in New York City. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-03-30 04:00:00 UTC ]
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The crop of emerging writers who will receive $50,000 as a Whiting Award winner has been announced. Ten writers across fiction, nonfiction, drama, and poetry received the prize at the March 29 ceremony, with a keynote address by Pulitzer Prize winner and PEN president Ayad Akhtar. Previous... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-03-29 23:31:07 UTC ]
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By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’ is one of the few short stories of the last half-century or so which can truly be called a modern myth. Indeed, Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018), the story’s author, called her 1973 tale a ‘psychomyth’, inspired […] Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2023-03-21 15:00:42 UTC ]
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Melvin Shapiro, once called by 'PW' the "sage of the bargain book business," died earlier this month. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-03-17 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Pat Schroeder, who served as a congresswoman from Colorado for 24 years before being named president and CEO of the Association of American Publishers, died on March 13. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-03-14 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Formative love affairs and sentimental educations are classic novelistic territory. And for good reason— these connections serve as catalysts, tell stories taut with tension, and leave characters forever changed. Madelaine Lucas’s debut novel Thirst for Salt describes such a relationship, set in... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2023-03-09 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Early on in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, our hero Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and his daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton) are warped into a quantum-level universe. It’s filled with alien biology and vistas that wouldn't be out of place on distant planets. But while that sounds like the perfect... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-02-23 13:00:36 UTC ]
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Some of us are destined to lead successful lives thanks to the circumstances of our birth. Some of us, like attorney Bruce Jackson, are destined to lead such lives in spite them. Raised in New York's Amsterdam housing projects and subjected to the daily brutalities of growing up a black man in... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-02-19 15:30:33 UTC ]
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If you’re looking for more manga with similar themes and topics, here are eight manga like Chainsaw Man for you to try out next! Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-02-17 11:34:00 UTC ]
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