Mark Twain’s “bile-filled” bio finally releasedOne hundred years after his death, Huckleberry Finn author Mark Twain’s autobiography is finally being published. So why did he want it hidden for a century? It’s “400 pages of bile”, according to one insider. Or maybe he just wanted a guaranteed best-seller.
Memoirs
Enough with the cry-baby mums
Your life is ruined because you had a baby and now spend all your time doing housework not having sex. Boo hoo, enough with the misery mumoirs, says Samantha Selinger-Morris. Did you think parenthood would be a breeze?
Meet Bush’s ghostwriter
The man who penned George W. Bush’s memoirs is 28-year-old Christopher Michel. After starting life as an unpaid White House intern only seven years ago, he became the Pres’s pet favourite, head speechwriter and a member of Dubbya’s “inner circle”.
Fiction is dead; long live the autobiography!
What’s with the spate of tell-alls, autobiographies and memoirs lately? According to a new book, it’s all about the “democratisation” of authorship: everyone has a story to tell, and it’s now easier than ever to tell it.
My father, Osama bin Laden
Read a chapter from the new book by Omar bin Laden, son of the world’s most infamous terrorist leader, Osama bin Laden, who he describes (amongst other things) as a mathematical genius who showed little affection and didn’t believe in refrigerators.
How to pen an autobiography in one day
Inspired by news that Sarah Palin wrote her upcoming memoirs in only four months, Joel Stein attempts to go one better, and write his in one day… with the help of a ghostwriter. Just like Palin.
Just in time for Christmas: the Sarah Palin memoirs
Good news: Sarah Palin (or her ghostwriter) has finished writing her new 400-page book, Going Roque, earlier than expected — just in time to land in Christmas stockings everywhere.
Sense from chaos: a memoir born of pain
Literary Minded interviews Sarah Manguso on her memoir The Two Kinds of Decay, about life after being flattened by a rare neurological disorder and the inspiration she takes from Chekhov.
The remarkable story of TS Eliot’s late love affair
Details of poet TS Eliot’s love life come to light with the release of scrapbooks he made with his younger lover, Valerie Fletcher.
Childhood memories published for all to see
How will the increase in confessional ‘bad’ mum and dad memoirs affect their children in future years? What does it say about the parents?
