“How does a government steal a child and then imprison him? How does it keep that a secret? This book is how.”
“I was a man, that much was clear. But, years after I became one, I still wondered what, exactly, that meant.”
“So there I lie on the plateau, under me the central core of fire from which was thrust this grumbling grinding mass of plutonic rock”
“The only difference between a medicine and a poison is the dosage.”
“Twelve. That was the year that I learned that being Black and poor defined me more than being bright and hopeful and ready.”
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat – the wonderful Samin Nosrat’s Sunday Times Food Book of the Year – is coming to Netflix! Here’s the official trailer: look out for it on 11 October.
Alan Rusbridger, the author of Breaking News, on the Snowden revelations, and being called before a parliamentary committee in their aftermath.
Gina Miller, author of Rise, talks to James O’Brien about moving from Guyana to the UK, becoming a successful businesswoman, and her campaigning work, including on Brexit.
“The problem had many different names and diagnoses. Some thought we were drowning in too much news; others feared we were in danger of becoming newsless. Some believed we had too much free news; others, that paid-for news was leaving behind it a long caravan of ignorance. On this most people could agree: we were now up to our necks in a seething, ever churning ocean of information, some of it true, much of it wrong… How did we get here? And how could we get back to where we once belonged?”
Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian from 1995–2015 – across the most profound, abrupt shift in the technology and business of news the industry has ever seen – writes about journalism, trust, the public interest and being questioned on his patriotism by a select committee, in this edited extract from Breaking News.
Guardian
“In A Room of One’s Own, Woolf asks the reader to consider the following questions: why did men drink wine and women water? Why was one sex so prosperous and the other so poor? What effect has poverty on fiction? On poetry? What conditions are necessary for the creation of a work of art? She had already asked these questions in Orlando.”
Jeanette Winterson writing in the Guardian: “How Woolf’s Orlando became a trans triumph”.
Guardian
‘We have a really shamefully horrid healthcare system, and I think that’s part of it. It’s much more convenient to think these people are just crazy, or it’s in their heads. It’s a very real thing; I don’t know of anyone who doubts it any more. Occasionally I encounter people that do. I’m astounded at their wilful ignorance; it’s not actual ignorance.’ Porochista Khakpour discusses living with chronic illness and her new book Sick with The Observer.
Alex Clark
The Observer
Thomas Page McBee talked to The Observer on his new book Amateur, covering transitioning, sexuality and the fight organised by Haymakers for Hope that altered his life.
Aaron Hicklin
The Observer
David Lynch pitches a film. From the audiobook of Room to Dream.
When They Call You a Terrorist
Patrisse Khan-Cullors & asha bandele
“A revealing scene from her memoir narrates the time Khan-Cullors was invited to dinner at a white classmate’s house. She admires how the family sits down to eat together, discussing their aspirations – only to learn that the father, who is so gently encouraging, is the slumlord trying to evict her family from their home.”
Patrisse Khan-Cullors interviewed on the fifth anniversary of Black Lives Matter.
Dazed
An early recommendation (from none other than Ian Rankin) for Ambrose Parry’s upcoming The Way of All Flesh.
Guardian
In a short extract from his book, Notes on a Nervous Planet, Matt Haig talks about the news and about anxiety – and the relationship between the two. Narration from the audiobook, read by the author.
The Independent on the rediscovery of the brilliant Eve Babitz, author of Sex & Rage:
“She’s a comic, a poet, and a rare writer who is capable of finding the universal in the unique.”