Page 9 - John Self News Today

Ignore the outside world and immerse yourself in these life-changing novels

In his fictionalised biography of Thomas Mann, Tóibín has created a captivating ‘work of art’

What works of literature should inform your twenties? There is no answer, of course, but we have some opinions.

On 4 June the novelist Jeanette Winterson burned a dozen or so of her own books and shared a picture of the pyre. Explaining her actions on Twitter, Winterson said that she “absolutely hated the cosy little domestic blurbs on my new covers. Turned me into wimmins fiction of the worst kind! Nothing playful or strange or the ahead of time stuff that’s in there. So I set them on

  In Saturday’s books pages, Keith Ridgway talks to John Self about A Shock, his first book in a long time; Anne MacManus talks to Una Mullally about her debut novel, Mother Mother; and David O’Doherty talks to Patrick Freyne about his new children’s book. Reviews are Una Mullally on Rememberings by Sinéad O’Connor; Niamh Donnelly on Trouble by Philip Ó Ceallaigh; Catherine Taylor on the best new fiction in translation; Kevin Gildea on The Stranger Times by CK McDonne...

See all pages Kazuo Ishiguro’s novels have often been about “outsiders trying to navigate worlds that are mysterious or faintly threatening”, said Jon Day in the FT. In his latest – his first since winning the Nobel Prize – the narrator is a type of robot known as an “AF” (“artificial friend”), whose job is to provide companionship for lonely children. When the novel opens, Klara has yet to be bought, and spends her days standing in a shop window, puzzledly observing passers-b...

BBC Sounds - Open Book - Available Episodes Open Book Programme looking at new fiction and non-fiction books, talking to authors and publishers and unearthing lost classics Episodes (577Available)

Updated / Sunday, 1 Nov 2020 14:57 From Nazi Germany to Harrods via the White House, Luke Rix-Standing opens the window on the origins of Advent Calendars. From hand-drawn sheets of cardboard to dispensers of chocolate, shampoo, and even diamonds, Advent calendars have been through countless iterations over the years. Now Christmas constants, they have navigated politics, religious rituals, and date discrepancies during their rise to the top. Here is how the humble Advent calendar came to be, ...