Up next, in this month’s Coming of Age theme, an extract from Bee Wilson’s First Bite. We are not born knowing what to eat; we each have to figure it out for ourselves. From childhood onwards, we learn how big a portion is and how sweet is too sweet. We learn to love broccoli – or not. But how does this happen? What are the origins of taste? And once we acquire our food habits, can we ever change them for the better? In this chapter, Bee tackles memory, and how our food memories hold emotional force year after year. Read more…
The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie is out today, and to celebrate we’re offering a nugget sized chunk of literary goodness for your commute/night-time read/tea break.
As you’ll know by now, this month’s theme is SECRETS AND LIES; a common thread in literature, because there’s nothing better than a hidden story. We thought that it might be nice to share a short story from the incredible Barbara the Slut. Take it away, Mike Anonymous… Read more…
ONE DOOMED PRIME MINISTER.
TWO WOULD-BE SUCCESSORS.
BUT WHO’S PULLING THE STRINGS?
Out today: the debut novel by a British writer with nearly two decades of African experience – a compelling courtroom drama and a gritty, aromatic evocation of place, inspired by recent events. Read more…
For many of us (particularly if you were fortunate enough to be born in the 70s or 80s), America was introduced to us at a tender, impressionable age thanks to Hollywood’s far-reaching and never-ending power.
For Hadley Freeman, American movies of the 1980s taught her everything she needed to know: comedy in Three Men and a Baby, Hannah and Her Sisters, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future and Trading Places; all a teenager needs to know – in Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Say Anything, The Breakfast Club and Mystic Pizza; the ultimate in action – Top Gun, Die Hard, Young Sherlock Holmes, Beverly Hills Cop and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom; love and sex – in 9 ½ Weeks, Splash, About Last Night, The Big Chill, Bull Durham; and family fun – in The Little Mermaid, ET, Big, Parenthood and Lean On Me. Read more…
New beginnings can be exciting, fun, and an opportunity to start afresh. They can also be frightening, unfamiliar, and isolating. In keeping with this month’s theme of firsts, Molly Antopol’s new collection of short stories, The UnAmericans, explores these ideas of new beginnings, fresh starts, and first homes never forgotten. Through the eyes of a variety of characters who have migrated from their homes, but who remain ‘alien’ to the societies in which they end up, Antopol gives us an insight into what it means to be the minority. Read more…
This month we’ve been discussing the theme of Power on the blog. What better way to finish than with an extract from one of the most caustic satires of Power we’ve published in recent years, Joseph O’Neill’s Man Booker longlisted ‘The Dog’…
