Katy Watson on the Sleuths That Made The Three Dahlias
Waterstones | Book Blog
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11M ago
I’ve been a murder mystery lover for almost as long as I can remember – whether it was watching Murder She Wrote on a Friday night with my mum, or reading my way through a stack of paperback Agatha Christie novels during rainy caravan holidays in Wales, crime fiction was always a part of my life – not least because all my family are fans too! When I came to write my own murder mystery novel, The Three Dahlias, I knew I wanted to draw from all the crime fiction I’d enjoyed over the years, and put my favourite aspects of it into my own story. So, I think it’s safe to say that, without the fictio ..read more
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Joanne Harris on Broken Light, Women and Power
Waterstones | Book Blog
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11M ago
When people speak of women’s power, they tend to think of three things. Political influence. Financial clout. And of course, sexual power. Three things that have one thing in common: these things generally serve a capitalist patriarchy, in which – with a few exceptions - a woman’s value is closely tied to her desirability. They have something else in common, too; they are all viewed with ambivalence, even suspicion, by that same patriarchal society. Women who are confident in their sexual power are often depicted as sirens or femmes fatales. Women in authority are often either fetishized ..read more
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The Waterstones Podcast - Caleb Azumah Nelson
Waterstones | Book Blog
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11M ago
After making a huge impression with his debut novel, Open Water, ⁠Caleb Azumah Nelson⁠ returns with another emotionally complex novel of love, Small Worlds. Exploring notions of family and home whilst also connecting with the author's own Ghanaian culture, this is another book that celebrates black creativity. We sat down for a talk about love, memory and the creative urge. Featured in this week's podcast [[2928377160081]] [[9780241448786 ..read more
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The Waterstones Podcast - Han Kang
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11M ago
When Han Kang won the International Booker Prize in 2016 the bonus for readers was that there were more of her books ready to be translated into English. Her latest, Greek Lessons, features a woman who has stopped speaking and her professor, a man who has gradually been losing his sight, in a tale of human connection and communication. We spoke with her about the novel’s inspiration, style and experience for the reader. Featured in this week's podcast [[2928377160050]] [[9781846276033 ..read more
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Chris van Tulleken on Why Ultra-Processed Food is So Addictive
Waterstones | Book Blog
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11M ago
Something entirely unexpected happened whilst I was writing this book – I was released from a trap I barely knew I was stuck in.   The book is about Ultra-Processed Food, products wrapped in plastic which contain at least one additive you don’t find in a domestic kitchen. Lots of it is obvious junk but there are lots of UPF products you might think are healthy. Almost all supermarket bread is UPF, likewise ready meals, breakfast cereals, snacks, yoghurts and confectionary. UPF now makes up 60% of our diet in the UK and is strongly associated with weight gain, cancer, type two diabetes, de ..read more
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R.F. Kuang on Yellowface, Moving On, and Playing with Voice
Waterstones | Book Blog
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11M ago
People keep asking me what it’s been like switching from writing fantasy to writing literary fiction, as if there is such a big difference between the two. Part of me rankles at this question because I have always rankled at the suggestion that fantasy is somehow not literary, that the presence of magic and dragons somehow undermines any artistic value a work might have. (I will never be able to make sense of that kind of genre snobbery when writers like Kazuo Ishiguro and Susanna Clarke exist.) The other part of me is simply confused by this question, as it’s often implied that I’ve switched ..read more
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Justin Cronin on Why We Read Tales About the End of the World
Waterstones | Book Blog
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11M ago
Writing at the End of the World If you know anything about me as a writer, you know I’m an end-of-the-world kind of guy.  I come by this obsession honestly. I’m not just a Cold War baby — I was born during the actual Cuban Missile Crisis, the most dangerous three weeks in the history of the planet. I was just a cooing lump in a basket, the most hopeful thing going, but I’ve often thought that the anxiety of those weeks, when humankind stood on the precipice, found its way into my brain, where it’s resided ever since. The dangers have changed since then, but not the basic theme: that we’re ..read more
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Zohra Nabi on the Best Children's Books Set in Other Worlds & Times
Waterstones | Book Blog
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11M ago
I’ve always loved books that transport their reader to another world. There’s something magical in that moment when the world falls away around you, until you’re walking unfamiliar paths and seeing unfamiliar sights. Most readers I’ve met agree that a map at the beginning of a book is the first sign of a good story – there is nothing better than to know, right at the start, that you’re about to be taken on an adventure. In The Kingdom Over the Sea we travel first to the city of Zehaira, then to a settlement of sorcerers in a mountain valley, and later to the frozen north of the Russlands. A lo ..read more
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The Waterstones Podcast - Emily Henry
Waterstones | Book Blog
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11M ago
Emily Henry had already published four young adult novels before turning 30 but with her fifth, Beach Read, and a switch to writing romantic comedy for adults she found a whole new level of engagement with readers. With huge popularity on TikTok and a boom in romantic fiction in general, we sat down to talk about writing through phases in life, creating relatable characters and whether those cartoon covers are hiding something a little darker inside. Featured in this week's podcast [[2928377170240]] [[9780241989524 ..read more
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Luke Neima on the Fifth Cohort of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists
Waterstones | Book Blog
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11M ago
Julian Barnes was one of the twenty authors selected by Granta for the inaugural issue of the Best of Young British Novelists, back in 1983. He told me about the photograph Lord Snowdon took of him and the rest of the authors, not long after they’d found out that they had been chosen. Largely they were strangers to one another, gathered together in Snowdon’s studio on the Pimlico Road, but among them were a few faces everyone recognised. Martin Amis, who had already made a reputation for himself as an enfant terrible of belles-lettres, and Ian McEwan, who the press had recently nicknamed ‘Ian ..read more
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