Heather Christle’s The Crying Book: a cultural history of tears
Like other poets who write non-fiction, Christle favours a fragmentary style in this history of crying.
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Marina Benjamin
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Karl Ove Knausgaard’s Autumn has gorgeous, poetic observations on almost every page
With his latest book, the author turns his gaze out towards the world.
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The Day That Went Missing: a memoir that breaks all the rules
Richard Beard’s book is brimful of anger and guilt, fails to deliver an uplifting ending and opens with a death.
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Why can you change gender but not race?
Marina Benjamin on the curious logic of modern identity politics.
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Metaphors for madness: the new wave of mental health memoirs
It is no accident that women are writing in ever greater numbers about their mental anguish and pain.
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Blood relations: how to live with a killer in the family
Marina Benjamin probes the stories of the Columbine killers and the Unabomber through A Mother’s Reckoning by Sue Klebold…
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No place like home: a meditation on the meaning of hotels
Hotel by Joanna Walsh is deft and imaginative, tripping between references to Katherine Mansfield, Mae West, the Marx Brothers…
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Matthew Spender’s dreams from his father
Stephen Spender’s is a life well documented. Now his son has written about him.
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Marina Benjamin: what it means to be a woman aged 50
As she prepares for her 50th birthday, the author and journalist reflects on what it means to be “middle-aged”…
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