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I am an ethicist—a scholar and professor who thinks and writes about “right” and “wrong” in terms of human behaviors, actions, and relationships, especially where technology is involved. I went into this field because my first pregnancy was a baby girl named Zoe whose brain never developed (anencephaly). When I tried to do what I thought was right, arranging to have her organs donated, some thought it was wrong, and my efforts ultimately failed. In working through my grief, I wrote a SF novel about one woman’s struggles and strength in the face of a frightening use of technology. Books about enduring personal struggles with integrity remind me that this is part of life.
Trevor Noah is the funniest living comedian, and he is brilliant. Who would ever guess that his childhood was filled with so much trauma? Being set in Apartheid South Africa, I was able to keep a personal distance from the story. But it still touched and inspired me, perhaps because my own children are mixed race and had they been born there, I’d not have been allowed to marry or live with their father. Unimaginable. This autobiographical accounting of Trevor’s tormented life is a testimony to his inner strength. An average person from his background might be in prison or dead. But not Trevor. The question is why he made it through with such integrity and heart. He gives a lot of credit to his mother and I appreciate that.
The compelling, inspiring, (often comic) coming-of-age story of Trevor Noah, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed.
One of the comedy world's brightest new voices, Trevor Noah is a light-footed but sharp-minded observer of the absurdities of politics, race and identity, sharing jokes and insights drawn from the wealth of experience acquired in his relatively young life. As host of the US hit show The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, he provides viewers around the globe with their nightly dose of biting satire, but here Noah turns his…
ForThe Oxford Times, I wrote the lives of 120 inspirational people from five continents.My 3 novels are inspired by real lives including the charity founder Nancy Mudenyo Hunt and the artist Qu Leilei,the hero of Andy Cohen’s film Beijing Spring. Stories of 30 not-famous choir members inI Love you Allshow that we are each unique. My memoir has a particular purpose. I dug deep into my life and my husband Atam’s to reveal the intersection of gender class and race—the barriers that shaped my life and how Atam and I tried to transcend them.
In 1966, I bought a copy of Mao’s Little Red Book which sold all over the world but, like almost everyone in the West, I had no idea of the brutal reality of the Cultural Revolution. In 1991, Jung Chang’s memoir took the world by storm and we could feel that reality. It is not just her story but also that of her grandmother and mother. That is the joy of memoir in all its variety. I later got to know an artist friend of Chang’s called Qu Leilei. Unlike her, Leilei and his family were at the heart of events in Beijing. Similarly, it was Leilei’s untold story that made me want to write a novel inspired by him.
Few books have had such an impact as Wild Swans: a popular bestseller which has sold more than 13 million copies and a critically acclaimed history of China; a tragic tale of nightmarish cruelty and an uplifting story of bravery and survival.
Through the story of three generations of women in her own family - the grandmother given to the warlord as a concubine, the Communist mother and the daughter herself - Jung Chang reveals the epic history of China's twentieth century.
Breathtaking in its scope, unforgettable in its descriptions, this is a masterpiece which is extraordinary in every way.
ForThe Oxford Times, I wrote the lives of 120 inspirational people from five continents.My 3 novels are inspired by real lives including the charity founder Nancy Mudenyo Hunt and the artist Qu Leilei,the hero of Andy Cohen’s film Beijing Spring. Stories of 30 not-famous choir members inI Love you Allshow that we are each unique. My memoir has a particular purpose. I dug deep into my life and my husband Atam’s to reveal the intersection of gender class and race—the barriers that shaped my life and how Atam and I tried to transcend them.
I was born in my parent’s house which, like all in our area, had no central heating. That was the reality of giving birth in the forties and fifties in England. Jennifer’s memoir of midwifery in working-class Poplar, in the docklands of London, gave rise to one of the most popular TV series. The BBC has taken the story beyond Jennifer’s memoir but the tone is the same. The TV series, like the book, tackles difficult social, cultural, and economic issues, with insight, compassion, and humour. I aimed to tackle issues of class, gender, and race in my memoir in a similar tone.
The highest-rated drama in BBC history, Call the Midwife will delight fans of Downton Abbey
Viewers everywhere have fallen in love with this candid look at post-war London. In the 1950s, twenty-two-year-old Jenny Lee leaves her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in London's East End slums. While delivering babies all over the city, Jenny encounters a colorful cast of women—from the plucky, warm-hearted nuns with whom she lives, to the woman with twenty-four children who can't speak English, to the prostitutes of the city's seedier side.
An unfortgettable story of motherhood, the bravery of…
We grew up in predominantly white communities and came of age during the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. As academics, we focused on issues of race in our research and teaching. Yet, despite our reading and writing about race, we still hadn’t made a connection to our own lives and how our white privilege shielded us and made us complicit in perpetuating racial inequities. We didn’t fully see our role in white supremacy until we adopted our sons. Becoming an interracial family and parenting Black sons taught us about white privilege and the myriad ways that Blacks confront racism in education, criminal justice, health care, and simply living day-to-day.
Our 44th President’s first book is the one most Americans are least likely to have read. We often commented during Obama’s time in office that many who voted for him would not have had they read the book and discovered Obama’s racial activism.
Obama is the son of a white mother and an African father from Kenya. His father left the family when Obama was two years old and returned to visit only once when Obama was ten. His father died when Obama was 21. Obama’s memoir details his early life in Honolulu, where he was raised by his white grandparents, and later in Chicago, where he was a community organizer before becoming a lawyer.
The book powerfully details the racism Obama experienced as a boy and his search to understand his biracial identity by finding and connecting with his family in Kenya.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ONE OF ESSENCE’S 50 MOST IMPACTFUL BLACK BOOKS OF THE PAST 50 YEARS
In this iconic memoir of his early days, Barack Obama “guides us straight to the intersection of the most serious questions of identity, class, and race” (The Washington Post Book World).
“Quite extraordinary.”—Toni Morrison
In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father—a figure he knows more…
I was first introduced to George Orwell on 30 October 1969 when I bought the Penguin Road to Wigan Pier at Sussex University bookshop. The light blue sticker on the inside verifies time and place. The price shows that I was willing to fork out as much as 4 shillings, (or two days worth of cigarettes) for one of the most enduring friendships of my life.
This is a four-volume collection. First, because the first thing you should read about Orwell should be by him. Second because by getting away from the more famous stuff - Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm especially – the essays, journalism, and letters get you closer to the life he lived. The inside cover says I bought them in January 1973. I remember reading out extracts to my girlfriend in bed in wintry Leyton. Make of that what you will, but the three of us are still together. Sonia Brownell was Orwell’s second wife. Ian Angus is an Orwell scholar, librarian, and founder of the Orwell Archive at UCL.
Essays, journalism and essays by the brilliant, indispensable George Orwell from 1943 to 1945. Even many decades after his death, the more we read of Orwell, the more clearly we can think about our world and ourselves.
During the Second World War, George Orwell was rejected for service and so became the literary editor, reviewer, and frequent columnist of the left-wing weekly, Tribune. “What I have most wanted to do,” Orwell said, “is to make political writing into an art.” And there is ample proof here that he achieve his ambition.
I’m a Brighton based writer. I’ve lived with bloody depression and frigging anxiety, since a child. I’m the founder of The Recovery Letters project, which publishes online letters from people recovering from depression, addressed to those experiencing it. It was published as a book in 2017 and Cosmopolitan named it "One of the 12 mental health books everyone should read". I also edited What I Do to Get Through: How to Run, Swim, Cycle, Sew, or Sing Your Way Through Depression. My fourth book, How to Tell Anxiety to Sod Off, is due out in 2022.
What I love about this book is the journey it takes you on, from despair to hope. At the start of the book, Mark is at the height of anguish with his depression. You read about what he did to start his recovery process; what worked and what didn’t, what he did wrong and what he got right. It gives you hope that you can make a similar journey and hope is the antidote to depression because it’s the main thing it takes from you, so it’s the main thing you need to find and cling on to; even the smallest amount of hope helps.
On paper, things looked good for Mark Rice-Oxley: wife, children, fulfilling job. But then, at his 40th birthday party, his whole world crumbled as he succumbed to depression...
How many men do you know who have been through periods when their lives haven't seemed right? How badly askew were things for them? Many men suffer from depression yet it is still a subject that is taboo. Men often don't visit the doctor, or they don't want to face up to feelings of weakness and vulnerability. By telling his story, Mark Rice-Oxley hopes it will enable others to tell theirs. In…
I was first introduced to George Orwell on 30 October 1969 when I bought the Penguin Road to Wigan Pier at Sussex University bookshop. The light blue sticker on the inside verifies time and place. The price shows that I was willing to fork out as much as 4 shillings, (or two days worth of cigarettes) for one of the most enduring friendships of my life.
Although he instructed that no one should write his biography, Orwell has had many superb biographers including Taylor (2003) and Bowker (2003), and his close friends Richard Rees, Fugitive from the Camp of Victory (1961), and George Woodcock, The Crystal Spirit (1966). John Rodden has written widely on Orwell’s reputation. However, the best full-scale biography remains the first, by Bernard Crick. Sonia commissioned it, then rejected it, but I like it because Crick knows more about politics than the others and, in the end, Orwell was a political writer.
The authoritative biography of George Orwell, written with the cooperation of Orwell's widow.
'In its thoroughness, and its mastery of a considerable volume of material, this is the definitive biography of Orwell.' Sunday Times
'It is hardly worth using up space to declare just how good it is. Different readers will come away from its seventeen pungent and packed chapters with diverse memories of its excellence.' Guardian
Historical fiction, specifically historical mysteries, is my favorite category whether I’m reading for pleasure or writing my own stories, and the decade of the Roaring Twenties is certainly the most colorful era in American history. As a historian, I want to learn; as a writer, I want to teach. But—and this is a big “but”—it’s critical that historical novels are both accurate and subtle. If I find the author has misrepresented the history or larded the story, I’m done. Which is why I can recommend the following five Roaring Twenties series. All feature characters that grow as the series progresses so it’s best to begin at the beginning and proceed mostly in order.
Daisy has solved 23 murder mysteries so far. These Christie-esque plots are set in London, at posh country estates, and in other parts of the British landscape. Daisy works as a journalist—an unusual job for a young woman in the ‘20s, especially one who is aristocratic and wealthy and, therefore, shouldn’t be working at all. Her assignments and social connections inevitably entangle her in murder investigations, which she solves with the help of a competent Scotland Yard inspector who in later books becomes her husband.
No stranger to sprawling country estates, well-heeled Daisy Dalrymple is breaking new ground at Wentwater Court to cover a story for Town & Country magazine. But her interview gives way to interrogation when suave Lord Stephen Astwick meets a chilly end on the tranquil skating pond.
With evidence that his death was anything but accidental, Daisy joins forces with Scotland Yard so the culprit can't slip through their fingers like the unfortunate Astwick slipped through the ice ...
Praise for The Daisy Dalrymple Mysteries:
'Appropriate historical detail and witty dialogue are the finishing touches on this engaging 1920s period piece.'…
I’ve worked in and around journalism long enough to know that not all journalists are heroes. Few even aspire to be. But there is something quietly heroic about the daily task of holding the powerful to account, even in democracies where the risk of imprisonment or assassination is less than in more authoritarian states. Here is my selection of books to remind all of us about some of these more heroic aspects of the journalism trade. I hope you find reading them enjoyable and maybe even inspiring.
If fictional journalists are your thing, then this book will almost certainly introduce you to some you’ve never heard of as well as those you (really should) have. Lonsdale insightfully identifies and dissects themes that crop up time after time in creative writing about journalists, from swashbuckling rogues to unethical scumbags. In the process, she has plenty to say about the craft of journalism itself and its enduring value to society. There is humour too, as when she quotes the immortal line of Stella Gibbons (author of Cold Comfort Farm): "The life of the journalist is poor, nasty, brutish and short. So is his style." Lovely.
Why did Edwardian novelists portray journalists as swashbuckling, truth-seeking super-heroes whereas post-WW2 depictions present the journalist as alienated outsider? Why are contemporary fictional journalists often deranged, murderous or intensely vulnerable? As newspaper journalism faces the double crisis of a lack of trust post-Leveson, and a lack of influence in the fragmented internet age, how do cultural producers view journalists and their role in society today?
In The Journalist in British Fiction and Film Sarah Lonsdale traces the ways in which journalists and newspapers have been depicted in fiction, theatre and film from the dawn of the mass popular press to…
I may be a writer of psychological dramas, but I am first and foremost an avid reader who is addicted to books. My go-to genre is the psychological thriller, but I also love any books that use light and shade, balancing humour and darkness, inverting stereotypes, and generally keeping me guessing on plot twists and turns. All of the books I have recommended would keep you warm and cosy – and certainly distracted – on an autumnal evening when the nights are long and cold.
This is a memoir that took me straight back to those beige culinary days of my Geordie upbringing, when the best thing about Autumn was rice pudding and the comfort food of the eighties. Grace writes with charm and wit, interspersing her career highs and lows with some wonderfully warm moments of nostalgia. Very moving and will make you reach for a can of Heinz tomato soup.
'So funny and so delicious. I could eat it.' DAWN O'PORTER
'Delicious.' THE OBSERVER
From an early age, Grace Dent was hungry. As a little girl growing up in Currock, Carlisle, she yearned to be something bigger, to go somewhere better.
Hungry traces her story from growing up eating beige food to becoming one of Britain's best-loved food writers. It's also everyone's story - from cheese and pineapple hedgehogs and treats with your nan, to…
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