Here are the latest Books in the Media newsletters for my followers to peruse:
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Includes first reviews of Carmen Maria Machado's In
the Dream House, Steph Cha's Your House Will Pay and Anna Wiener's
Uncanny Valley
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The
Week in Review: 27th January 2020
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Reviewers lay out the welcome mat for Machado's In
the Dream House
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Good morning,
Carmen Maria Machado's In
the Dream House (Profile) has left the critics in reverie,
with the memoir praised as "ravishingly beautiful",
"a tour de force" and "as compelling as any
thriller". Johanna Thomas-Corr in the Observer described
Machado's account of her abusive relationship with her
"petite, blonde, Harvard graduate" girlfriend as
"horrifying but beguiling" and "a tender,
incandescent memoir like no other", adding, "There’s no
doubt that Machado is one of the brightest literary talents
around." In the Sunday Telegraph, Lucy Scholes praised In
the Dream House as "dazzling" and
"exceptional", and in the New Statesman Catherine
Taylor wrote that it was "just as untamed, original and
brilliantly unclassifiable" as Machado's debut short story
collection Her Body and Other Parties.
Steph Cha's Your
House Will Pay (Faber & Faber) also mortgaged out space
in the critics' affections, with The Scotsman's Roger Cox
describing the 1991 and 2019 Los Angeles-set novel as "a
masterclass in elegant plotting" and praised Cha's
"profound and apparently instinctive understanding of human
nature", which "elevates this book way beyond a mere
ripped-from-the-headlines potboiler". Lucy Knight in the Sunday
Times praised the author as "an elegant storyteller"
and the Irish Times' Sarah Gilmartin wrote that it was
"an urgent portrait of a time not so long ago where civil
blood made civil hands unclean".
Reviewers also clicked like on Anna Wiener's Uncanny
Valley (Fourth Estate), about a young woman from a
"liberal-arts background" thrust into the world of tech.
Julia Carrie Wong in the Guardian wrote that it
"unfolds like an exquisitely curated Tumblr blog, with a
scroll of beautifully juxtaposed snapshots of the young, newly
wealthy and utterly absurd", and the Sunday Times'
Laura Pullman praised Wiener's wry asides, saying, "She
pierces the self-inflation of Silicon Valley deftly and, as she
finally runs out of patience with the baby tyrants, you’re cheering
on her escape from the madness."
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 By Kiera O'Brien, charts editor, The
Bookseller
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In the Dream House: A
Memoir
Carmen Maria Machado
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"Carmen Maria Machado’s account of the abuse
she suffered at the hands of her ‘petite, blond, Harvard graduate’ lover
is horrifying but beguiling"
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"Innovative and haunting, compelling and
jarring, Machado has created what is essentially a new form of
memoir"
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" Machado’s approach is as compelling as any
thriller, playful in its self-discovery, and intriguing in its
references"
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"Carmen Maria Machado’s book is a tour de
force. "
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Orwell: A Man of Our Times
Richard Bradford
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"...He could “step outside himself”, as Bradford
writes in this fascinating book"
The Times
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A Place For Everything: The Curious History of
Alphabetical Order
Judith Flanders
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"...It took a long time for the alphabet to
rule our lives, shows a delightfully quirky study"
The Sunday Times
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Square Haunting
Francesca Wade
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"......endlessly interesting, unshowy, tightly
argued and large-hearted"
The Guardian
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"...This is what this utterly riveting, often
darkly comic, and astonishingly honest debut memoir "
The Bookseller
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The Shadow King
Maaza Mengiste
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"...I suspect I won’t read anything more moving
this year."
The Times
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A Curious History of Sex
Kate Lister
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"...This wonderfully irreverent chronicle of
sex explores centuries of kinks, quirks and hang-ups"
The Times
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Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line
Deepa Anappara
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"...An outstanding debut—Vintage's lead for
2020—and not to be missed."
The Bookseller
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A World Without Work
Daniel Susskind
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"...(a) fascinating and tightly argued
book"
The Sunday Telegraph
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A Very Stable Genius
Carol D. Leonnig, Philip Rucker
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"...Naked partisanship gives the game away in
this White House analysis"
The Sunday Times
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"...a novel of great kindness, often
unexpectedly moving, with much to say about the status of
“invisible” older women"
The Observer
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This is Pleasure
Mary Gaitskill
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"...At the heart of this extraordinary, daring,
provocative, pitch perfect story lies the idea that, sometimes, we
act out a truth, only to run from it"
The Observer
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"...She is shrewd and witty about the medical
profession"
The Independent
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Listen to Episode #13
- Jan 2020
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The latest podcast includes author interviews with
Sophie Hanna and Deepa Anappara plus the Bookseller team
looks forward to the most anticipated books of 2020...
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In the Dream House: A Memoir
Carmen Maria Machado
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Ladies Can't Climb Ladders
Jane Robinson
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The Doll
Ismail Kadare, John Hodgson
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Three Hours
Rosamund Lupton
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A Scheme of Heaven
Alexander Boxer
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The Death of Jesus
J.M. Coetzee
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The Shapeless Unease
Samantha Harvey
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A World Without Work
Daniel Susskind
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Uncanny Valley
Anna Wiener
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An Evening with
Professor Frank McDonough
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Eat Green with
Melissa Hemsley
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Haven't They Grown
by Sophie Hannah
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Kimberley Chambers
- The Queenie Tour
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© 2019 Bookseller Media Ltd.
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Including Deborah Orr's posthumous memoir Motherwell,
Rob Doyle's Threshold and Jane Robinson's Ladies Can't Climb
Ladders
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The
Week in Review: 20th January 2020
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Motherwell finds home in the critics' hearts
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Good morning
Deborah Orr's posthumous memoir Motherwell
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson) has been hailed by the
reviewers as "utterly riveting", "wonderful and
awful", and "a fitting legacy left by a blazing
talent". The Bookseller's non-fiction previewer
Caroline Sanderson praised the title for its portrayal of the
"complex and tangled mixture of light and shade" in
parent-child relationships, adding that Orr "succeeds so
brilliantly that for me it ranks with Alexandra Fuller's Don't
Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight—one of my favourite memoirs of all
time—in its understanding of how the places and people we come from
make us who we are". Many critics felt the poignancy of the
author's recent death in the pages, with Susie Boyt in the Financial
Times writing "You forget a little as you go along but
when Orr writes in the present tense or refers to her future things
darken as you come up hard against the facts", and Sarah
Hughes in the Observer describing Motherwell as
"a deeply moving reminder of all she might still have
achieved", as well as her legacy.
Rob Doyle's Threshold
(Bloomsbury) also got a foot through the door, with Jude Cook in
the TLS describing it as "boundary-nudging
fiction" and "compellingly readable". Martin Chilton
in the Independent described it as "a humorous
delight", Lee Langley in the Spectator wrote, "Not
many books manage to expand your mind, do your head in and set you
laughing out loud. This one does, and Doyle’s words sing on the
page."
Jane Robinson's Ladies
Can't Climb Ladders (Doubleday) scaled heights, with the Sunday
Telegraph's Frances Wilson commending the historical title on
the first professional women as "an important and crackingly
good read". Melanie Reid in the Times wrote,
"Modern professional women will read it with a slow burn of
anger and heightened respect for those whose actions, such a
relatively brief time ago, made today possible."
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 By Kiera O'Brien, charts editor, The
Bookseller
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"This is what this utterly riveting, often
darkly comic, and astonishingly honest debut memoir "
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"No one in Orr’s family, least of all the man
she would marry and divorce, Will Self, comes away unscathed"
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"Deborah found a way to rise out of her sorrows
and dependencies... and create a masterpiece of
self-exploration"
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"it is both a fitting legacy left by a blazing
talent and a deeply moving reminder of all she might still have
achieved"
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Pills, Powder and Smoke
Antony Loewenstein
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"...the only thing wars against human nature
ever produce, as Loewenstein shows in this lucid and
well-researched book, are piles of dead bodies"
The Times
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"...Eleven freewheeling pharmaceutically messy
vignettes"
The Observer
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Parisian Lives
Deirdre Bair
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"...(a) candid and entertaining memoir"
The Bookseller
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"...it’s the author’s inclusive humanity that
lingers"
Daily Mail
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Asha and the Spirit Bird
Jasbinder Bilan
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"...an exotic journey with a feelgood
ending"
The Sunday Times
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"...A seductive, sharply observed tale of love,
loss and hope"
Daily Mail
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"... Few guides take us so directly, or so
sympathetically, into the imaginative worlds of that tumultuous
decade"
The Sunday Times
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Your House Will Pay
Steph Cha
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"...Steph Cha’s deftly written novel explores
Los Angeles in 1991 and 2019"
Irish Times
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A World Without Work
Daniel Susskind
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"...the voice of a clever, sensible man telling
you what’s what"
The Guardian
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Trick Mirror
Jia Tolentino
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"...A profound survival guide for an
increasingly isolating world"
The Independent
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"...The natural and supernatural collide in
this portrait of a tiny community brimming with secrets. "
The Sunday Times
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Uncanny Valley
Anna Wiener
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"......an artful contribution to the war on
tech exceptionalism"
Financial Times
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Listen to Episode #13
- Jan 2020
|
The latest podcast includes author interviews with
Sophie Hanna and Deepa Anappara plus the Bookseller team
looks forward to the most anticipated books of 2020...
|
|
|
|
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In the Dream House: A Memoir
Carmen Maria Machado
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|
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Ladies Can't Climb Ladders
Jane Robinson
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The Shapeless Unease
Samantha Harvey
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The Doll
Ismail Kadare, John Hodgson
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Three Hours
Rosamund Lupton
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A Scheme of Heaven
Alexander Boxer
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The Death of Jesus
J.M. Coetzee
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The Shapeless Unease
Samantha Harvey
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The Captain and the Glory
Dave Eggers
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Uncanny Valley
Anna Wiener
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Deepa Anappara,
Michelle Gallen & Tomasz Jedrowski
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Derek Owusu: That
Reminds Me
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Helen Taylor - Why
Women Read Fiction
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© 2020 Bookseller Media Ltd.
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