In an interview in 2000, Zadie Smith told the Guardian about the pressure she felt after the astonishing success of her debut novel, White Teeth. “I was expected to be some expert on multicultural affairs, as if multiculturalism is a genre of fiction or something,” she said. “Whereas it’s just a fact of life—like there are people of different races on the planet.” Whether it’s indeed a fact of life or, we now fear, a feature of American life that is at risk of erasure, multiculturalism in all its complexity is at the center of Smith’s books. From White Teeth to NW, which was published in 2012, Smith’s characters inhabit mixed urban communities, often in London. Her latest novel, Swing Time, is out this week; set in England and West Africa, the story concerns the friendship of two young girls who meet in a dance class (“our shade of brown was exactly the same”) and traces the paths of their lives over a quarter-century. Continue reading at 'Slate'
[ Slate | 2016-11-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Kim Kardashian West is to be the subject of the next of Sean Smith's celebrity biographies, contracted to Harper NonFiction last year in a deal with agent Gordon Wise. Kim will be published in hardback on 24th September (£14.99) and is described as "the ultimate insight into the reality behind... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-06-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The past week has been filled with great data points. Here are 14 of the more intriguing numbers we came across: 1. Airbnb is on track to make $900 million this year, The Wall Street Journal reported. That's more than triple what it made in 2013 ($250 million). Internally, the sharing-economy... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2015-06-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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HarperCollins will publish the first co-written novel from Wilbur Smith in September this year. The book, titled Golden Lion, will be co-written by historical fiction author Giles Kristian. Golden Lion will revisit one of Smith's best-known series, following the adventures of the Courtney... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-06-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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James Salter, the prize-winning author acclaimed for his sophisticated, granular prose and sobering insights in "Light Years," "A Sport and a Pastime" and other fiction, died Friday in Sag Harbor, N.Y. He was 90. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2015-06-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Small press And Other Stories will produce no books by men in 2018 in answer to Kamila Shamsie’s call for direct action to beat gender bias in publishingSmall press And Other Stories has answered author Kamila Shamsie’s provocative call for a year of publishing women to redress “gender bias” in... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-06-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ali Smith wins the £30,000 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction for her time-shifting novel How to be Both. Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2015-06-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ali Smith has won the 2015 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction with How to be Both (Hamish Hamilton). Smith was announced as the 20th winner of the £30,000 prize this evening (3rd June) at a ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall, London, hosted by broadcaster, author and DJ Lauren Laverne. Shami... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-06-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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WH Smith's total group sales for the last quarter grew slightly by 1% compared to the same period in 2014, although high street sales were down. The high street division saw both total sales and like-for-like sales fall 4% compared to last year in the 13 weeks ending 30th May. However, the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-06-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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"Vested interests" profiting only a few will attempt to hold up the reform of copyright, Andrus Ansip, vice president for the digital single market (DSM) at the European Commission, has said. Speaking at the European Digital Forum in Brussels yesterday (1st June), Ansip said that copyright... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-06-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Excerpted from Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves by Adam Hochschild. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co. Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2015-06-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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When gardening writer Amy Stewart was researching The Drunken Botanist (Algonquin, 2013), about the intersection of botany and booze, she came across Henry Kaufman, a gin smuggler from a hundred years ago. Although she hasn't been able to verify that he's the same Kaufman who ran a silk-dyeing... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-05-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#debut novelist
There has been "phenomenal interest" from media and retailers in James Rhodes’ Instrumental (Canongate), after the Supreme Court overturned an injunction preventing the release of the book, Canongate c.e.o. Jamie Byng has told The Bookseller. In Instrumental Rhodes tells of the sexual abuse he... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-05-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs—the only authorized biography of the Apple founder—went on sale in China at 10:05 a.m. Beijing Time on Oct. 24, 2011. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-05-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Matthew De Abaitua’s Self & I covers the six-month period he spent reading, drinking and rolling ‘special cigarettes’ as assistant to the Booker-shortlisted author in the early 1990sFrom an interview involving shooting whisky bottles and smoking “special” cigarettes to an attempt to take a... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-05-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Alexander McCall Smith has won this year’s Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Fatty O’Leary’s Dinner Party, published by Birlinn imprint Polygon. This is the first time McCall Smith, the author of No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series published by Little, Brown, has appeared on the comic... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-05-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Jessica Hopper on how she kept her creative dream job—and her family—thriving.In the early '90s, then-ninth-grader Jessica Hopper started putting out a fanzine to write about her favorite bands in Minneapolis. She turned that into assignments for local publications like City Pages, and then... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2015-05-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Suzanne Gibbs Taylor, associate publisher and creative director at Gibbs Smith, has been promoted to publisher and COO of the press. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-05-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Leaders, take note (and MFA grads, take heart): acclaimed novelist Mohsin Hamid on the most important tool you're not using enough.True story: In 2007, the Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid catapulted into the literary spotlight with his second book, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, an examination of... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2015-05-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Daily Telegraph's head of books Gaby Wood is chosen as the new head of the Man Booker Prize. Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2015-04-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#daily telegraph
Kobo has said it has “no interest in fighting publishers”, after signing its first publishing deal with journalist Kevin Donovan for a book about Canadian radio presenter Jian Gomeshi, who is currently awaiting trial for sexual assault. The Canadian ebook retailer has signed world English... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-04-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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