Beth's Books (and other bits and bobs)
Feel free to judge this book by its cover, it does what it says on the tin
Thoughts, reflections, realisations
Small gloating moment, allow me it. I got to hear Anna Burns read extracts from her Booker Prize winning novel Milkman on Thursday evening. She was brilliant. The passages aloud came alive with her control of the cadence and tempo of the language. Although familiar to me in writing they took on a whole new …
Chamamanda Adichie’s TED Talk on ‘the danger of the single story’ is incredibly powerful and was an excellent introduction for me into the issue of ethnic diversity in publishing. The point: how important it is for people to read themselves in stories but also the power of publishing to reinforce narratives and the moral imperative …
The author of the runaway success Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine gave an audience at Kingston University on Wednesday 24th October and it was lovely. Ostensibly this is a book about loneliness, so how has it become a genre defining novel in the category of ‘up-lit’? Part of the answer to this question must lie in …
Continue reading "An audience with Gail Honeyman @ Kingston Univeristy"
Yesterday evening I attended a panel discussion at The Stationers Company in central London. The building itself was beautiful and the panel consisted of representatives from Pluto Press, The New Statesman and Bloomsbury Publishing. All speakers left leaning and all taking a positive attitude to the current political climate. In particular they were keen to …
Continue reading "‘Is Publishing up to the Job?’ @ The Stationers Company"
Just back from a lovely afternoon at the Southbank Centre. Cannot wait to get my hands on a copy of Cassara’s debut novel The House of Impossible Beauties. Both he and Andrew McMillan spoke eloquently on their own struggles coming to terms with their male-ness and the contradictions of masculinity in the twenty first century. …
Beth's Books (and other bits and bobs) 