1 hour ago The Young Man by Annie Ernaux audiobook review – anatomy of an affair

The Nobel winner explores the dynamics of her relationship with a student 30 years her junior in an intimate, taboo-breaking memoirIn Annie Ernaux’s autobiographical story, translated by Alison L Strayer, the author recalls a past affair with a student who was 30 years her junior. “Often I have made love to force myself to write I hoped that orgasm, the most violent end to waiting that can be, would make me feel certain that there is no greater pleasure than writing a book.” In other words, she is keen to break her writer’s block. But, to both their surprise, the affair becomes “a relationship that we longed to take to the limit, without really knowing what that meant”.The Young Man is Ernaux’s shortest memoir yet, clocking just over half an hour in audio. But brevity doesn’t impede her ability to get to the heart of the intimate dynamics or external pressures of a situation that many others view as taboo. The couple get disapproving looks in restaurants, which, rather than leaving ...

Politics

33 h. ago Sally Rooney and Annie Ernaux among authors urging Macron to reinstate Gaza writers programme

20 authors, including Viet Thanh Nguyen and Abdulrazak Gurnah, call on the French president to restart scheme to help creatives evacuateSally Rooney, Deborah Levy, Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux and Pulitzer winner Viet Thanh Nguyen are among 20 authors urging French president Emmanuel Macron to resume a “lifeline” programme for evacuating Palestinian writers, scholars and artists from Gaza.The Pause programme for writers and artists in emergency situations, as well as a student evacuation programme, were abruptly suspended by the French government at the beginning of August over a Palestinian student’s allegedly antisemitic online remarks, a decision that the letter-writing authors said amounted to a “collective punishment”. Continue reading...

Politics

7 d. ago I Love You, Byeee by Adam Buxton audiobook review – warm and witty whimsy

A chatty, self-deprecating memoir recalls the podcaster’s start in TV and his lifelong friendship with comedian and film-maker Joe CornishThe writer and comic Adam Buxton’s first memoir, Ramble Book, dug into his childhood and his relationship with his father, who featured as the cantankerous BaaadDad in Buxton’s 1990s pop culture series The Adam and Joe Show. I Love You, Byeee is the follow up in which he remembers his late mother, Valerie, and reflects on his TV career which began with him landing a job at Takeover TV, a showcase for new talent on Channel 4, where he brought in his childhood friend Joe Cornish.Fans of The Adam and Joe Show will find reminiscences about the pair’s toy movies, where they recreated films such as Titanic and Trainspotting, and their radio shows on XFM and 6Music. Buxton is candid about the strain of their working relationship and his feelings of insecurity when Cornish went off to direct his first film, Attack the Block, without him. Continue reading...

Events

2 w. ago Three Days in June by Anne Tyler audiobook review – a masterclass in marital disharmony

A mother reflects on the breakdown of her marriage as she attends her daughter’s wedding, in a novella that brilliantly depicts family dynamicsAt the start of Three Days in June, Gail Baines, a 61-year-old teacher, has a meeting with her school head, who informs her she is about to retire. Gail assumes she is next in line for the job, but the head tells her she doesn’t have the people skills and asks if she has considered retirement herself. Affronted, she walks out of the school and from her job without collecting the photo on her desk of her daughter, Debbie, who is about to get married. After Gail gets home, her ex-husband, Max, arrives. He is staying with her for the wedding weekend and tells her he has forgotten to bring a suit – although he has brought a cat. Not for the first time, Gail wonders “why it was that I had so many irritating people in my life”.Set in Baltimore, Anne Tyler’s novella spans the before, during and after of Debbie’s wedding. Told through Gail’...

Politics

3 w. ago Gunk by Saba Sams audiobook review – messy nights and motherhood

The first novel from the Send Nudes author moves from a Brighton club to baby feedingGunk opens with new divorcee Jules sitting at home cradling a baby who is 24 hours and 17 minutes old, feeding him colostrum from a syringe. After being fed, the baby cries, which Jules interprets as a howl of rejection: “He has no language to tell me I’m not right for him.” We learn that Jules isn’t the child’s biological parent; the birth mother is Nim who, shortly after being stitched up, left the hospital ward and seemingly vanished. Concerned for her wellbeing, the hospital called the police who questioned Jules. “Nim has run away before,” she told them. “And she’s good at hiding.”Set in Brighton, this is Saba Sams’s first novel, the follow-up to her much-admired short story collection Send Nudes. Where that book examined the lives of girls coming of age, Gunk has an older heroine in Jules, who is desperate to have a child. Her alcoholic ex-husband, Leon, who ran a student nightclub and with wh...

Politics

4 w. ago John and Paul by Ian Leslie audiobook review – the bromance behind the band

Actor Chris Addison narrates a deep dive into the creative partnership of Lennon and McCartneyAnother book on the Beatles? It’s hard to imagine a writer shedding new light on the band given the mountain of literature already in existence. But there is a freshness of perspective in Ian Leslie’s book, which tells of Lennon and McCartney’s unique alchemy through the songs they wrote together. Leslie’s background in psychology serves him well in a study that jettisons the usual narrative of male rivalry; their partnership, Leslie suggests, was closer to a marriage.He begins with the pair’s early songwriting sessions, usually in McCartney’s front room, where rather than each taking ownership of songs, they worked in sync. Other fabled musical partnerships such as Leiber and Stoller, or Rodgers and Hammerstein, divided the labour between lyrics and melody, but Lennon and McCartney worked together on both. Pointing to their profound connection, Leslie notes how in the song I...

Culture