Knife by Salman Rushdie recounts how the world-famous author survived an attempted murder at a literary event in New York in August 2022, over three decades after a fatwa was issued which forced him into hiding for several years. Rushdie manages to create suspense despite the outcome of the shocking attack being well known, and describes his distressing injuries and long recovery in some detail. The passage where Rushdie imagines a conversation with his attacker, who he refers to only as “The A”, is a creative and moving way of addressing such a traumatic event. Above all though, Rushdie is keen to emphasise that ‘Knife’ is also a love story. Many people were unaware that he had quietly married author and poet Rachel Eliza Griffiths less than a year before the attack, and the book is a moving tribute to her support. Rushdie said that writing about the attack was the only way he would be able to move forward, and I hope that this has helped him achieve that. Many thanks to Vintage Books for sending me a review copy via NetGalley. Continue reading
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Books I Read in May 2024
Books I Read in April
How Words Get Good: The Story of Making a Book by Rebecca Lee offers a fascinating look at the journey of making a book from initial idea in the author’s head to finished copies on a bookshelf. It celebrates the huge number of people involved in producing books, including authors who choose to remain anonymous, ghostwriters, literary agents, proofreaders and editors, and the processes such as typesetting, translation, indexes, footnotes, cover design, printing and much more. As well as demystifying certain elements of the publishing industry, it contains lots of trivia. For example, Donald Trump asked his ghostwriter, Mark Schwartz, to cover half the cost of the launch party for ‘The Art of the Deal’ on the grounds that Schwartz received half of the advance and royalties (p.47), and the Japanese version of ‘Finnegans Wake’ by James Joyce “required three separate translators after the first disappeared and the second went mad” (p.216). Lee has worked as an editorial manager at Penguin Press for over 20 years and her wealth of experience shines through in her amusing anecdotes and encyclopaedic knowledge. Equal parts entertaining and insightful, this is highly recommended for bibliophiles everywhere, particularly those who enjoy weird trivia. Continue reading
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