He saw the world’s cruel absurdities through a comic lens, writes Boyd, who recalls his very first meeting with Amis – and explains why his unmistakable voice will never be forgotten• John Self on Amis: ‘He stamped his style over a generation’• Geoff Dyer on Amis: ‘Mick Jagger in literary form’The awful news of Martin Amis’s death prompts a rush of memories. I first met him in 1969, in Paris, when we both found ourselves staying in the same apartment on the Île Saint-Louis for a few days. I was 17, Martin was 20. I only realised who this Martin guy was four years later when his first novel, The Rachel Papers, appeared. In a strange but real sense, he was the first writer I had ever met. And thus began an acquaintance as an avid reader and later as a friend.The remarkable thing about that first novel was the utter confidence and distinctiveness of the narrative voice. Martin found his style at the very beginning of his career as a writer and it never changed. That voice he had defined and charged everything else he wrote – fiction, essays, journalism, memoirs. Very few writers can be instantly identified by a sentence or two of their prose – Laurence Sterne, Charles Dickens, James Joyce, DH Lawrence, Vladimir Nabokov – and Martin precociously joined that elite group and stayed there. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2023-05-22 07:00:49 UTC ]
HarperNorth has snared its first fiction acquisition, a gritty gangland thriller by Karen Woods. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-02-08 01:06:27 UTC ]
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On February 2, 1922, Sylvia Beach, through her legendary bookstore and occasional imprint Shakespeare and Company, published the entirety of James Joyce’s modernist novel, Ulysses. (It was also Joyce’s 40th birthday.) Two years later, she sought to have at least some of it recorded in Joyce’s... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-02-02 15:29:36 UTC ]
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LEOPOLD VON SACHER-MASOCH was the original kinky bastard. A 19th-century Viennese nobleman, he wrote the controversial 1870 novella Venus in Furs, which explored his fetish for pain and abasement, and inadvertently helped coin the term “masochism.” The Masochist, Slovenian poet Katja Perat’s... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2021-01-19 18:00:58 UTC ]
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Virago is publishing the first novel in two decades from Gayl Jones, Palmares, set in 17th-century colonial Brazil on Portuguese plantations and in the last fugitive slave settlement. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-01-17 23:38:33 UTC ]
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Sarah Ferguson says historical tale Her Heart for a Compass is inspired by experiences in her own lifeThe Duchess of York has landed a book deal with the romantic fiction publisher Mills & Boon, revealing that she “drew on many parallels from my life” for the historical tale.Sarah... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-01-13 10:13:08 UTC ]
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I consider myself Argentine. I tell people it is not only part of my origin story but my identity. My first novel is titled Hades, Argentina, and to my friends I’m sure that seems fitting, the natural summation of my life and literary ambitions so far. But the truth is I had never been to […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-01-12 09:48:41 UTC ]
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Eley Williams’s first novel follows characters living in London more than a century apart who toil to compile the same ill-fated dictionary. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-01-05 10:00:02 UTC ]
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When my wife and I were expecting our first child, a friend described it as “the ultimate deadline.” Many writers I’ve known since have determined to finish their books before a baby arrives. Some do, of course, but the deadline wasn’t so ultimate in my own case. I was five years into my first... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-01-05 09:49:10 UTC ]
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Bloomsbury is to publish Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole Soyinka, the Nobel Laureate's first novel in 48 years. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-12-09 16:14:16 UTC ]
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Yes, the two-time National Book Award finalist and America’s most famous contemporary practitioner of the Joni Mitchell school of marriage fiction (think about it) is returning to the novel game. Riverhead Books announced earlier this afternoon that Matrix—Groff’s first novel since 2015’s... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-12-01 18:25:06 UTC ]
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William Heinemann will publish Bewilderment, Richard Powers' first novel since his Booker-shortlisted and Pulitzer Prize-winning The Overstory (William Heinemann, 2018). Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-24 19:27:03 UTC ]
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Hello and welcome to the very niche readership who understands what I am talking about and why I am excited and amused by this! The rumors (from this headline) are true: Principal Snyder, also known as Armin Shimerman, has recently published the first novel in a historical fantasy series about... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-17 15:43:11 UTC ]
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Sarah Crossan’s first novel for adults is, like some of her celebrated YA novels, written in verse. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-11-17 13:59:37 UTC ]
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My first novel was released within six months of Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance’s memoir of Appalachian roots and a youth spent in a Rust Belt community with a dearth of jobs and resources. Vance’s book came out just before the 2016 election; mine was released just after. Donald Trump’s victory had... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-11-17 12:01:45 UTC ]
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Every year, we ask The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize Finalists to reminisce about the first book they fell in love with. This year, we asked Finalists to reflect not just on the first story that stole their heart, but the story that seeded curiosity and empathy for the plight of others... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-17 09:48:30 UTC ]
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Jonathan Franzen is set to return in the US next year with Crossroads, the first novel in a new trilogy from the author. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-16 09:26:52 UTC ]
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John Murray is publishing a new novel from Susan Beale, whose debut novel The Good Guy was shortlisted for 2016's Costa First Novel Award. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-05 19:51:11 UTC ]
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In her first novel published in 14 years, author Julia Alvarez explores grief, isolation, and sisterhood. Afterlife follows Antonia, a writer and retiring English professor, who has just lost her husband Sam. As she reimagines what her life will be without her husband, Antonia also struggles... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-11-02 12:00:33 UTC ]
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I DON’T KNOW when I first became aware of Lynne Sharon Schwartz’s writing, but it was probably sometime between 1980, when Raymond Carver lauded her on the basis of her National Book Award–nominated first novel Rough Strife, and 1989, when Sven Birkerts raved about Schwartz’s PEN/Faulkner... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-10-29 15:00:49 UTC ]
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In one of my earliest memories I am standing on a beach with my father and we are sculpting the shape of a woman’s body out of sand. In my mind it is winter—Avalon in the off-season—and I see us huddled in coats, wrapped in wool, bracing ourselves against the salt wind that blows in […] The post... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-10-29 08:50:18 UTC ]
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