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Strange Hotel by Eimear McBride review – evasive and claustrophobic [28 Jan 2020|07:00am] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/28/eimear-mcbride-strange-hotel-review Eimear McBride’s tale of a woman drifting from one hotel to another leaves our reviewer scratching her head If you’ve read so much as a sentence of Eimear McBride’s writing, it is likely to have burned into your brain. Her first two novels, A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing and The Lesser Bohemians, were both written with a ferocious immediacy, in hurtling, viscerally direct prose that captures pre-verbal thought processes “far back in the mind”, as McBride put it. Strange Hotel feels like a book determined to show just how different it is from its predecessors. An unnamed 35-year-old woman checks into a hotel in Avignon; over the years, we’ll meet her in several more – in Prague, Oslo, Auckland and Austin. She monitors her desire to drink, to have casual sex, and to not quite look at her own past. She is haunted by a lost love, and these encounters with others – or mostly, really, with herself – in these anonymous rooms bring painful flashes of that former relationship. Continue reading... post comment

The best recent thrillers – review roundup [28 Jan 2020|09:00am] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/28/best-recent-thrillers-review-havent-they-grown-beyond-recall-mr-nobody-dark-matter Ageless children, a soldier with PTSD, an amnesiac on a beach and the first in a new series by Doug Johnstone make for moreish mysteries Sophie Hannah Hodder & Stoughton, £16.99, pp336 Continue reading... post comment

Jonathan Coe and Sara Collins on their Costa-winning novels – books podcast [28 Jan 2020|10:00am] https://www.theguardian.com/books/audio/2020/jan/28/books-podcast-jonathan-coe-sara-collins-costa-prize As the Costa prize judges gather to decide the winner of the 2019 book of the year, the winners of the debut fiction and novel categories read from their works and reveal their inspirations. We also examine what it means for the Costa prizes to reward “the most enjoyable books of the year”. What exactly is it that makes a book enjoyable after all? Continue reading... post comment

Paulo Coelho deletes draft of children's book collaboration with Kobe Bryant [28 Jan 2020|10:57am] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/28/paulo-coelho-deletes-draft-childrens-book-kobe-bryant Alchemist author says basketball player’s death in helicopter crash means book has ‘lost its reason’ Author Paulo Coelho has deleted the draft of a children’s book he was working on with Kobe Bryant, saying that without the basketball player’s contribution, “this book has lost its reason”. The bestselling Brazilian author revealed on Monday that he had been writing a children’s book with Bryant, a fan of Coelho’s spiritual fable, The Alchemist. Following the NBA legend’s death in a helicopter crash on Sunday, along with his daughter and seven others, Coelho said he would delete what the pair had worked on together. Continue reading... post comment

Reading group: which Georges Simenon book should we read in February? [28 Jan 2020|11:58am] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/28/guardian-reading-group-georges-simenon-book-february-maigret Adored by writers from André Gide to Muriel Spark, Simenon was astonishingly prolific. Help us choose which of his novels we should read Last month, Penguin republished Maigret and Monsieur Charles, the last Maigret written by Georges Simenon in a new translation by Ros Schwartz. It marks the end of what author John Banville called “a positively heroic publishing venture”. Over the past six years, Penguin has brought out all 75 of the Maigret books that Simenon wrote, producing a new translation every six months, which is, as Banville says, a fitting monument to one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. It feels like a good reason to investigate Simenon here on the Reading Group. We can discover why André Gide called him “perhaps the greatest and the most truly a novelist in contemporary French letters”. Why Camus said he learned from him. Why Muriel Spark and Henry Miller adored him. Why William Faulkner compared him to Chekhov. Why the famous Belgian remains one of the most widely read French-language writers of the 20th century. Continue reading... post comment

Mazel Tov by JS Margot review – a memoir of mutual affection [28 Jan 2020|11:58am] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/28/mazel-tov-js-margot-review How did an orthodox Jewish family cope with a tutor in a miniskirt? This is a gentle chronicle of empathy and understanding Even to many Jews, the laws and mores of Orthodox Judaism can seem forbidding and inscrutable. Exactly what is it that constitutes “work” on the Sabbath? If you can’t turn on a light, what about opening a fridge with one built in? What about setting off a motion sensor? One of the reasons for these confusions is that Judaism is a combination of the archaic and pragmatic, a constantly evolving system that has contorted its ancient customs to fit the demands of the real world. Another is the tendency for religious Jews – adherents of a non-proselytising religion – to stick together. There are practical reasons why it might, for example, be difficult to eat lunch in a non-kosher home. And there are historical motives that go far beyond religion. As Mr Schneider, a survivor of the Holocaust, tells JS Margot in her tender and quizzical memoir, “The less people know about our way of life the better.” Continue reading... post comment

Stephen King says Oscars are 'rigged in favor of the white folks' [28 Jan 2020|02:07pm] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/28/stephen-king-says-oscars-are-rigged-in-favor-of-the-white-folks-washington-post Novelist clarifies controversial comments about diversity, acknowledging that while in a perfect world ‘judgments of creative excellence should be blind’, we’re not there yet Stephen King has rowed back on his controversial comments about diversity in the Oscars, acknowledging in a lengthy essay that the awards are still “rigged in favor of the white folks”. King provoked anger among authors and fans after tweeting earlier this month that he “would never consider diversity in matters of art. Only quality. It seems to me that to do otherwise would be wrong.” King is able to nominate films in three Oscars categories – best picture, adapted screenplay and original screenplay – and had been commenting on the lack of recognition for women and artists of colour in this year’s Oscars nominations. Continue reading... post comment

Graphic novel New Kid wins prestigious Newbery Medal [28 Jan 2020|04:03pm] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/28/graphic-novel-new-kid-wins-prestigious-newbery-medal Jerry Craft’s story exploring ‘friendship, race, class and bullying in a fresh manner’ is the first graphic novel to win the long-running American children’s award For the first time, a graphic novel has won the Newbery Medal, the oldest and most prestigious children’s book award in the US. The win places cartoonist Jerry Craft alongside titans of American literature including Madeleine L’Engle, Louis Sachar and Beverly Cleary. Craft’s graphic novel New Kid follows the life of Jordan Banks, one of the only children of colour at a prestigious private school. Announcing Craft’s win, Newbery committee chair Krishna Grady called it a “distinct and timely story”. “Respectful of its child audience, it explores friendship, race, class and bullying in a fresh and often humorous manner … It is, simply put, a ‘distinguished contribution to American literature’,” said Grady, referring to the criteria of the prize, which is given by the Association for Library Service to Children. Established in 1922, the Newbery has gone to titles including L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, Sachar’s Holes and Cleary’s Dear Mr Henshaw. Continue reading... post comment

Costa prize: Jack Fairweather wins book of the year with The Volunteer [28 Jan 2020|07:30pm] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/28/costa-prize-jack-fairweather-wins-book-of-the-year-with-the-volunteer Biography of Witold Pilecki, a Polish resistance fighter who infiltrated Auschwitz, hailed as extraordinary The former war reporter Jack Fairweather has won the Costa book of the year award for The Volunteer, his biography of a Polish resistance fighter who voluntarily entered Auschwitz in order to reveal its horrors to the world. Fairweather’s life of Witold Pilecki, a member of the Warsaw resistance who infiltrated the concentration camp and encouraged rebellion, was hailed as “a book that needs to be read” by the chair of judges, Sian Williams. Continue reading... post comment

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