| Yours, for Probably Always: Martha Gellhorn’s Letters of Love and War 1930-1949 – review |
[03 Dec 2019|07:00am] |
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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/03/yours-for-probably-always-matha-gellhorn-letters-love-war-1930-1949-janet-somerville-review The war reporter’s candid correspondence with her husband, family and friends underlines her courage and fight for recognitionWomen are not welcome on the frontline, wrote famed war correspondent Martha Gellhorn in 1940 as she battled against military rules and male rivals for space alongside the troops. Actually, to be exact, she was only referring to the frontline before a morning attack, “because the men are going to the bathroom (in agony of spirit) in all the trenches up and down the countryside and supposedly it would embarrass the woman”. Continue reading...
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| The best thrillers of 2019 – review roundup |
[03 Dec 2019|09:00am] |
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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/03/thrillers-year-alison-flood-harper-hammer-heller-mckinty-mina-paver Death in the Australian outback, a kidnap chain, vengeance of a betrayed spouse, and a spooky tale of medieval mysticism are the pick of the yearI read Jane Harper’s The Lost Man (Little, Brown) in February, the height of Australia’s summer but the depths of the English winter. The central image at the heart of the novel, of a man who has perished in the punishing heat of Australia’s outback, hours from anywhere, has stayed with me ever since. Just as good – perhaps even better – than Harper’s excellent thrillers The Dry and Force of Nature, this follows a small cast in a vast, terrifyingly empty setting, as the dead man’s eldest brother tries to determine whether his sibling deliberately walked out to his death or if a malign third party was involved. Aussie noir – or as it has also been dubbed, “bush noir” – is my new favourite genre, and if you like Harper, try Chris Hammer’s Scrublands (Wildfire), in which a community permanently threatened by bush fires tries to understand why its young priest turned a gun on his congregation. Continue reading...
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| When imagining our future, what can sci-fi teach us? – books podcast |
[03 Dec 2019|10:35am] |
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https://www.theguardian.com/books/audio/2019/dec/03/sci-fi-fiction-james-sa-corey-the-expanse-books-podcast This week, Richard sits down with duo Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, who write science fiction together under the name James SA Corey. Their bestselling space-opera series, The Expanse, which started in 2012 and is due to end in 2021, is set in the middle of the 24th century, when humanity has colonised the solar system. Human society is now beyond race and gender, and is instead divided on a planetary level: those living on Earth, on Mars and on various asteroids, moons and space stations called Belters. The eighth book in the series, Tiamat’s Wrath, is the latest, while the fourth season of the award-winning TV adaptation will launch on Amazon Prime on 13 December. Continue reading...
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| Choose your book of 2019 for us to read this December |
[03 Dec 2019|12:40pm] |
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https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2019/dec/03/choose-your-book-of-2019-for-us-to-read-this-december ’Tis the season for best-of lists, so please help the reading group zero in on this year’s must-read – which we shall then read! We’re at the end of 2019. And hey! It hasn’t all been bad. We’re still here, after all. We’re still just about in the EU, even. And, in spite of the political weather, not to mention the worsening climate crisis, plenty of people have continued to do fine things, including publishing some great books. And this is a good time and place to celebrate them. So let us know – what were your favourite books in 2019? Please tell us what you’ve loved reading, what’s mattered to you and what’s impressed you. Also, which books do you feel you missed out on reading? And what have we missed at the Guardian? Do you know of that precious gem that’s just waiting to be discovered? Continue reading...
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| Milan Kundera's Czech citizenship restored after 40 years |
[03 Dec 2019|01:04pm] |
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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/03/milan-kundera-czech-citizenship-restored-unbearable-lightness-of-being The Unbearable Lightness of Being’s author has lived in France since fleeing communism in 1975, and has previously questioned ‘the notion of home’ After more than 40 years in exile, Milan Kundera, the Czech-born author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, has been given back the citizenship of his homeland. Petr Drulák, the Czech Republic’s ambassador to France, told public television he visited the 90-year-old author in his Paris apartment last Thursday to hand deliver his citizenship certificate. Continue reading...
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| Joe Hammond, author of acclaimed motor neurone disease memoir, dies aged 50 |
[03 Dec 2019|02:39pm] |
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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/03/joe-hammond-author-of-acclaimed-motor-neurone-disease-memoir-dies-aged-50 Tributes paid to ‘a deeply original writer who used his own mortality as a lens’ and was still writing days before his death Joe Hammond, the author who wrote movingly about his diagnosis with motor neurone disease (MND) and his own mortality, has died at the age of 50. The British writer and playwright became famous in 2018 when he wrote for the Guardian about writing 33 cards for his two young sons, Tom and Jimmy, for the birthdays he would not live to see. Continue reading...
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