Yearbooks Are Character Witnesses

This week, the author Curtis Sittenfeld tweeted that it feels like we are now living in her 2005 novel Prep—and she did not mean it in a good way. The book is set at a fictional elite New England boarding school, a place not altogether unlike Georgetown Prep, the Maryland high school that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh attended. One of the book’s major themes is its main character and narrator’s difficulty adjusting to the school’s rarified culture, and in a subsequent tweet, Sittenfeld highlighted a passage in which Prep’s narrator talked about turning to old yearbooks as a way to decipher the school’s exotic-seeming ways: “[T]hey were like an atlas for the school. … You could figure out, if you had the inclination and the time, who in a given year was friends with whom and who had dated whom, and who had been popular, or athletic, or weird and fringy.” Sittenfeld articulated something that almost anyone who’s ever paged through a yearbook can attest to, which is that there’s something transfixing about these keepsakes. I know I spent hours poring over the yearbook of a friend’s older sibling in my early teens, before I started high school and became a yearbook editor myself. For people on the outside, a yearbook can feel like a decoder ring. Continue reading at 'Slate'

[ Slate | 2018-09-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
News tagged with: #major themes #main character #early teens

Other Publishing stories related to: 'Yearbooks Are Character Witnesses'


Ebury picks up 'luminous' Jehovah’s Witnesses memoir

Ebury Press will publish Ali Millar's debut memoir The Last Days, which will recount the author’s experience growing up as part of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-25 07:36:54 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #ebury press #debut memoir #experience growing #memoir


Children's books eight times as likely to feature animal main characters than BAME people

According to UK study, just 5% of children’s books have black, Asian or minority ethnic protagonists – a small improvement from 1% in 2017Two years after the stark revelation that only 1% of British children’s books featured a main character who was black, Asian or minority ethnic, the... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2020-11-11 00:01:23 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #british children #books featured #main character


Susie Yang’s ‘White Ivy’ is an entertaining character study of a social climber with a secret

Yang’s debut novel owes a debt to Edith Wharton’s “The House of Mirth,” though Ivy Lin is no Lily Bart. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-11-05 16:42:29 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #susie yang #white ivy #edith wharton #debut novel


Manga Characters to Help You Vent Your Social Distancing Feels

One reader shares her thoughts on reading manga as an exercise in feeling by proxy and finding emotional catharsis in their character arcs. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2020-10-29 10:39:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #reading manga #character arcs #manga


Daniel Menaker, Book Editor Who Wrote With Wit, Dies at 79

After 26 years at The New Yorker, he became chief editor at Random House, overseeing works by a raft of luminaries. He wrote a half-dozen well-received books of his own. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2020-10-27 16:47:41 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #chief editor #random house #book editor


David Grossman calls on writers to bear witness to pandemic

Speaking at the launch for the Frankfurt book fair – this year focused online – the novelist said authors’ observations could ease the burden of the diseaseThe celebrated Israeli novelist David Grossman has called on his fellow writers to be “trenchant witnesses” to the Covid-19 pandemic, and to... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2020-10-14 12:54:03 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #fellow writers #covid-19 pandemic #bear witness #human rights #trade publishing #frankfurt book fair


Cohen memoir casts him as 'star witness' against Trump

Michael Cohen's tell-all memoir makes the case that President Donald Trump is “guilty of the same crimes” that landed his former fixer in federal prison, offering a blow-by-blow account of Trump's... To view the full story, click the title link. Continue reading at Crains New York

[ Crains New York | 2020-09-08 11:45:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #star witness #michael cohen #memoir makes #federal prison #blow-by-blow account #memoir


Happy pub day to the first mainstream children’s book featuring a Sikh character.

A groundbreaking children’s book based on an equally groundbreaking sports hero comes out today: Fauja Singh Keeps Going by Simran Jeet Singh, featuring the story of the first centenarian marathon runner, is also the first children’s book from a major publisher that features a Sikh main... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-08-25 16:06:55 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #book featuring #book based #major publisher #children’s book


Quiz: Pick Your Favorite Babysitters Club Character and Get a YA Book Recommendation

Pick your favorite Babysitters Club character for each situation in this quiz and get a YA book recommendation to read after! Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2020-07-22 10:31:34 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #ya book


In Gail Tsukiyama’s ‘The Color of Air,’ characters reel in the wake of the Mauna Loa volcanic eruption

Tsukiyama’s first novel in nearly a decade takes readers to the 1930s Hawai’i of her Japanese father, where sugar was king and labor was hard. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-07-20 12:07:23 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #first novel


Jim Carrey the actor-writer deconstructs Jim Carrey the character in ‘Memoirs and Misinformation’

Rather than a straightforward memoir, the actor has delivered a baffling but mesmerizing novel about a fictionalized version of himself. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-07-08 15:01:20 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #jim carrey


Kevin Kwan moves on with ‘Sex and Vanity,’ but the characters are still crazy rich

The “Crazy Rich Asians” author has a new novel, inspired by E.M. Forster’s “A Room With a View.” Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-06-29 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |


You’re not alone: Thrillers and mysteries that also feature characters stuck in isolation

“The Guest List” and “The Safe Place,” among other novels, are entertaining reminders that life in lockdown is a long way from paradise. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-06-22 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #safe place


WATCH: Jericho Brown and Nikky Finney on Black Lives Matter and Bearing Witness

Renowned poets Jericho Brown (2020 Pulitzer Prize winner) and Nikky Finney (2011 National Book Award winner), formerly student and teacher, reunite to address the current moment of uprising and solidarity in the face of anti-Black violence, in a visceral conversation about art, identity, and... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-06-09 17:00:01 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #jericho brown #current moment #national book award #pulitzer prize


Quiz: Which Character From TWILIGHT Are You?

Answer these ten TWILIGHT quiiz questions to find out which character from Stephenie Meyer's YA novel you are most similar to. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2020-05-18 10:34:32 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #stephenie meyer #ya novel


10 Manga Featuring Black Characters to Read Now

Do you love manga and need more books featuring characters of color? Then you need to read these manga books featuring Black characters now. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2020-04-29 10:36:21 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #love manga #manga


Normal People in Love: Sally Rooney’s Ordinary Universal Characters, by Natalia Lomaia

Book Reviews Natalia Lomaia Left: Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal in Normal People (2020) / Courtesy of IMDB Sally Rooney’s 2018 novel is a meticulous observation, or even a study, of how one human being can have immense, intense power over another.... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2020-04-23 13:18:03 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #intimate moments #costa book #man booker prize #irish author


Rowan Hisayo Buchanan and T Kira Madden on Craft, Candles, and Character

T Kira Mahealani Madden is the author of the memoir Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls. She is still an amateur magician. Rowan Hisayo Buchanan is the author of Harmless Like You—the winner of The Authors’ Club First Novel Award and a Betty Trask Award. Her short work has appeared in... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-04-16 08:48:38 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #kira madden #fatherless girls #first novel


Albert Uderzo, a creator of the beloved comic book character Asterix, dies at 92

His character Asterix captured the spirit of the French of the 1960s and grew into a worldwide phenomenon. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-03-24 22:57:45 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #worldwide phenomenon #comic book


Hanging With the Wits and Dandies of the Belle Époque

In “The Man in the Red Coat,” Julian Barnes takes readers on an elegant, illustrated tour of the Paris of one of his favorite historical periods. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2020-02-21 10:00:06 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #illustrated tour