Page 6 - Whyi Write News Today

By Rebecca Solnit

Author Gregory Galloway shares an intimate moment in his life that taught him the power of words and reveals why he became a writer.

The Norwegian literary superstar follows his epic My Struggle with a misguided foray into Stephen King-style sci-fi

I can recommend two books, which have reminded me to slow down and savour my crosswords

Northern Light is a book by Kazim Ali.(Goose Lane Editions) Kazim Ali was the child of South Asian immigrants, who unexpectedly spent years of his childhood in the small Manitoba town of Jenpeg, a town that existed because of the hydroelectric dam nearby. As an adult, he found himself wondering about the town: did it even exist anymore? And if it did, what was it like? These questions sent him on a journey, one that looked at the environmental destruction the dam caused, and the local Pimic...

30th April 2020 by George Orwell and Fatherhood: Part One The most important influence on George Orwell was probably his father. This essay, then, explores the crucial theme of fatherhood in a number of contrasting ways. It first examines the responses of both Orwell and his contemporaries to his father. It then looks at the many fascinating representations of fathers in his novels. Orwell’s own strikingly progressive attitudes as a dad are highlighted as are, finally, the responses of his s...

John Quin , April 3rd, 2021 09:26 John Quin admires Joan Didion’s late collection Let Me Tell You What I Mean Here’s Joan Didion on roving reporter mode at a Gamblers Anonymous meeting in Gardenia, the draw-poker capital of Los Angeles County. A penitent says their ideal, the aim of the programme, is “getting serenity”. Didion balks at that: she associates serenity with death. Joan doesn’t do serenity: she’s been proven right in her anxieties for decades. It’s 2021 and entirely...

Skip to main content Currently Reading Book World: Joan Didions Let Me Tell You What I Mean shows a writer ahead of her time Charles Arrowsmith, The Washington Post Feb. 9, 2021 FacebookTwitterEmail By Joan Didion - - - Joan Didion has been consecrated in her own lifetime. In the five decades since "Slouching Towards Bethlehem," her work, particularly her nonfiction, has been widely celebrated. In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded her the National Humanities Medal. She was the subject, in 2...

The Crash Palace is a book by Andrew Wedderburn.(Coach House Books, Malcolm Overend) The Crash Palace is about a woman named Audrey, who used to work in the oil fields and attend parties at a remote lodge in the wilderness known as the Crash Palace. Audrey has long left that life behind her, and now has a daughter. But one night, she is compelled to return to the now-abandoned Crash Palace — where she must also reckon with her past. When you can read it: Jan. 12, 2021 Andrew Wedderburn is a ...

When Joan Didion was an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley, in the mid-1950s, she tried to get to grips with the 19th-century German philosopher Hegel. She even attempted to read theoretical linguistics with what she would later describe as “a kind of hopeless late-adolescent energy, to buy some temporary visa into the world of ideas”. Only, the world of abstract, scholarly theories didn’t hold her attention for very long. Every time she tried to contemplate ...