Page 51 - Doris Lessing News Today

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): For you Pisceans, March is Love Yourself Bigger and Better and Bolder Month. To prepare you for this festival, I'm providing...

We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live Reflections on the literary influence of Joan Didion. Art by Eleanor Curran. February 22, 2021 My preschool years were spent in California, living atop a mountain covered by lush greenery and speckled with wild deer. The Terminator was Governor, Netflix was a small business that delivered DVDs, and strikingly unaware of the woes of the world, my greatest anxiety was of being eaten alive by the mountain lions that supposedly em...

Penguin, 384 pp., $18.00 The history of human attempts to observe and document this phenomenon consists of many misunderstandings and struggles. Flaws in telescopy caused optical illusions that astronomers mistook for atmospheric phenomena, throwing off their measurements, while others waited lifetimes to see it—only for the clouds to gather for the duration. Jean-Baptiste Chappe d’Auteroche died of yellow fever trying to see the 1769 transit in what is today Baja California in Mexico. Ten...

Le notti bianche (1957) We began this short week with a look at the enthusiastic response to Mark Harris’s Mike Nichols: A Life, and opening this month’s round on new and noteworthy books, we turn to a few more biographies. For a New York Times profile of literary biographer Hermione Lee, widely admired for her books on Virginia Woolf, Edith Wharton, and Penelope Fitzgerald, Charles McGrath spoke recently with novelist Julian Barnes who recalled the day that playwright and screenwriter To...

click to enlarge For bibliophiles and history geeks, literary types and plain old nerds, there are few places more comforting than the stacks of a local bookstore. These brick-and-mortar shops, run by passionate individuals who champion the books they love, are meeting places for the community. They cast spotlights on local writers, put new wind in B-list authors’s sails, host book clubs and writing clubs, fos...

Bands new Single Album is out on Feb. 26 Share this article: CREDIT: Jonathan Weiner Fat Mike of NOFX has never been shy about voicing his opinions and speaking the truth about his reality, but he’s taken his honesty to a new level with “Fuck Euphemism,” the brand new single off of the upcoming Single Album. The song itself (and accompanying animated music video) is full of the thoughtful wordplay that’s made them one of the dominating forces in punk for over 30 years now, but the su...

In her column, Re-Covered, Lucy Scholes exhumes the out-of-print and forgotten books that shouldn’t be. Here’s a question: Can you name the debut novel, originally published in Britain in September 1965, that became a more or less immediate best seller, and the fans of which included Noël Coward, Daphne du Maurier, John Gielgud, Fay Weldon, David Storey, Margaret Drabble, and Doris Lessing? “A rare pleasure!” said Lessing. “I can’t remember another novel like it, it is so good and ...

This documentary about Bikini Kill lead singer Kathleen Hanna explains her life using vintage performance footage, interviews with Hanna's fellow musicians, and best, most revealingly of all, chats with Hanna herself.

Kenneth Branagh interview The talented actor and director has one of the most diverse portfolios in the game. He talks to us about his secretive new film, meeting the president and why cinema is bringing us back together “It’s always fun when you walk past a set and there is a big troll catapult outside!” laughs Kenneth Branagh, gesturing towards the window. “It never gets old.” It’s a statement that might cause befuddlement were it not for the fact that I’m standing in an exquisi...

Siphiwe Ndlovu Charts the Path to Her Debut Novel January 13, 2021 This is how I choose to remember it. It is late August, 1997. I am getting ready to leave home again—this time on my own. I am heading off to college to study Creative Writing. As I pack, I am filled with the familiar feelings that are always brought on by a new beginning—excitement, apprehension and curiosity. Because I am going to a school that is far, far away I am saddened by the knowledge that I will not see my family f...