Here at 4th Estate we’ve been celebrating International Women’s Day, which comes as no surprise considering the wonderful array of female writers we publish. And so, to mark this momentous occasion, we wanted to share insightful snippets of what it’s like to be a woman by a selection of these revered writers – from being a feminist, and telling our stories, to gender bias in the way we eat, tropes in films, and the stereotypes attached to beauty. Read more…
Merry Christmas! If, like us, you’ve had your dinner and would like to take yourself to a quiet corner with something good to read and a cup of tea (or a second Christmas dinner- why not?) , rather than get into yet another discussion about politics or similar tricky topics with your aunt’s husband, then we have a treat for you.
Kindle have discounted a whopping 12 of our bestselling titles. Just click on the tiny price next to each title below and you’ll be able to read Wolf Hall, Americanah, All the Light We Cannot See, Pretty Honest and many more in an instant. With enough titles to take you through to 2016, you’ll have a very happy new year too. Read more…
y’ Roxane Gay
Back in October, 4th Estate hosted a meeting of two brilliant, whip-smart and erratic minds, Lena Dunham and Caitlin Moran, in a sell out event at London’s Southbank Centre.
Out today in paperback, the sensational Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham.
‘If I could take what I’ve learned and make one menial job easier for you, or prevent you from having the kind of sex where you feel you must keep your sneakers on in case you want to run away during the act, then every misstep of mine was worthwhile. I’m already predicting my future shame at thinking I had anything to offer you, but also my future glory in having stopped you from trying an expensive juice cleanse or thinking that it was your fault when the person you are dating suddenly backs away, intimidated by the clarity of your personal mission here on earth. No, I am not a sexpert, a psychologist, or a dietician. I am not a mother of three or the owner of a successful hosiery franchise. But I am a girl with a keen interest in having it all, and what follows are hopeful dispatches from the frontlines of that struggle.’
Read the book behind the hype…
A very happy New Year to you and all you know, from 4th Estate. 2014 was a fantastic year for books, wasn’t it? Or, to borrow the phrase from Andy Miller, it truly was The Year of Reading Dangerously. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie taught us that We Should All be Feminists, while Lena Dunham told us how she came to be one in Not That Kind of Girl. David Cronenberg put us off our dinner with the fantastic techno-thriller Consumed, but Anna Jones set us back on track with her astonishing debut recipe book A Modern Way to Eat. The phenomenal Sali Hughes taught us all we needed to know about beauty (and all we didn’t know we should) in Pretty Honest: The Straight-Talking Beauty Companion, a guide we should all start referring to daily in the new year. Read more…
This Christmas we’ve decided to make your present buying a lot less stressful by asking the 4th Estate team to hand-pick books for all your relatives. Hopefully this will mean less umming and ahhing in the bookshop, and more oohing and ahhing on Christmas Day…
When you’re growing up and negotiating hormonal changes, troubles of the heart, subconsciously establishing the worries that will plague you for years, the hell that was SCHOOL (uniforms, come on) and fluid friendship groups, we couldn’t be told that it wasn’t just us struggling, that we weren’t alone, and that, amazingly, other people had problems. We’re a bit older now, and sometimes, looking back into the past is tough. We’ve repressed a lot of the memories, good or bad. I’ve repressed the time that, when in detention, I wrote a rap about a boy I fancied/hated (equal parts) to the tune of ‘Maria, Maria‘ by Santana. I was kind enough to dredge that up, just for you. More than enough about me, Amy Poehler and Lena Dunham, two of our favourite and funniest women, in a series of retrospective and contemporary essays that have thankfully been bound and turned into brilliant books, share their memories with us. In Yes Please, Amy Poehler presents to us an unmarked childhood; a happy one, filled with laughter and encouragement. Conversely, Lena Dunham, in Not That Kind of Girl, shows us a childhood filled with fear. Here’s to being a funny woman, strong enough to delve into the past. As ridiculous as it might have been, you can’t say that it wasn’t formative. Read more…
Discovering Lena Dunham’s hit TV series Girls was a light-bulb moment for me. It was as if somebody had taken my disastrous early twenties, transported them to New York City, cast them in a mellow, instagrammed hue, added an achingly-cool soundtrack and committed them to screen. I was elated, I raised my frustrated fists to the sky and shouted ‘yessss!’ Read more…
