Archives de l’auteur : WebmasterBenisti

THE INDEX OF SELF-DESTRUCTIVE ACTS de Christopher Beha

Through baseball (although not too much!), finance, media, and religion, Christopher Beha traces the passing of the torch from the old establishment to the new meritocracy, exploring how each generation’s failure helped land us where we are today.

THE INDEX OF SELF-DESTRUCTIVE ACTS
by Christopher Beha
Tin House, May 2020

The day Sam Waxworth arrives in New York to write for the Interviewer, a street-corner preacher declares that the world is coming to an end. A data journalist and recent media celebrity―he correctly forecasted every outcome of the 2008 election―Sam knows a few things about predicting the future. But when projection meets reality, things turn complicated. Sam’s assigned a profile of disgraced political columnist Frank Doyle, a liberal lion turned neocon Iraq-war apologist and author of the great works of baseball lore that first sparked Sam’s love of the game (books he now views as childish myth-making to be crushed with his empirical hammer). But Doyle is convincing in person, charming and intelligent. Sam takes a liking to him, and to his daughter, Margo, with whom Sam becomes involved―just as his wife, Lucy, arrives from Wisconsin. It’s a precarious moment for the Doyle family. Kit, the matriarch, lost her investment bank to the financial crisis; Eddie, their son, hasn’t been the same since his second combat tour in Iraq; Eddie’s best friend from childhood, the fantastically successful hedge funder Justin Price, is starting to see cracks in his spotless public image. So while the end of the world might not be arriving, Beha’s characters appear to be headed for apocalypses of their own making.

Christopher Beha is the Executive Editor of Harper’s Magazine. He is the author of a memoir, The Whole Five Feet, and the novels Arts & Entertainments and What Happened to Sophie Wilder. His writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Esquire, the New York Times Book Review, and the London Review of Books, among other publications.

THE CURE FOR SLEEP de Tanya Shadrick

A memoir about a new mother who begins dying, fast and without warning—and returns from coma determined to stop sleepwalking through life and learn instead what it takes, and costs, to be fully awake: to her body, love and motherhood; to effort, art and nature; to risk and possibility.

THE CURE FOR SLEEP
by Tanya Shadrick
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Spring 2022

“Those breaths after coma were posthumous: the me of my first thirty-three years – that girl, that woman, who had worked so steadily to keep herself hidden, safe and small – was dead. My new self was stripped bare and spreadeagled. Flayed too of con soling ideas about how life might be kept neat and tidy.”

The Cure for Sleep is about the times when lives change shape, turning towards or away from awareness: a terror-stricken child retreats into routine and daydream; a young wife hibernates in marriage; birth and death intertwine; doors open onto strangers who alter life’s course; promises are made and broken; and a woman in midlife finally wakes up to her body, her desires and her voice – enlivening others in turn. For readers of Joan Didion, Annie Ernaux and Elena Ferrante.

Tanya Shadrick is founder of The Selkie Press and editor of Wild Woman Swimming by Lynne Roper – a journal of west country waters longlisted for the 2019 Wainwright Prize. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, she is also a sought-after artist in residence who encourages creativity in others.

THE SWEET TASTE OF MUSCADINES de Pamela Terry

A moving debut novel about the intricacies of family and spirituality, for readers of Pat conroy, Kate Atkinson, Elizabeth Strout or Marilynne Robinson.

THE SWEET TASTE OF MUSCADINES
by Pamela Terry
Ballantine, September 2020

…“The first time Mama died I ran off to hide in the muscadine arbor.”

So begins the story of Lila Bruce-Breedlove. After her mother dies for the second, and very last, time, Lila and her brother, Henry, travel back to their small Southern hometown to find nothing is quite what they expected. Hometowns always hold secrets and when those of Lila’s family are unearthed they prompt a reevaluation of everything she thought to be true, leading Lila and Henry on a journey to places neither ever expected where they learn things are frequently not all they seem. THE SWEET TASTE OF MUSCADINES is set against the backdrops of coastal Maine, the deep South and the Scottish Hebrides. With wit and compassion it faces down the more painful parts of a South that continues to value appearances over truth, and where too often its citizens still struggle to live an honest life with joy. It is a surprising tale of redemption and forgiveness. The Bruce family history is unique, yet universal, and it is not one you will soon forget.

For the past decade Pamela Terry has been the author of the internationally popular blog, FROM THE HOUSE OF EDWARD, which was named one of the top ten home blogs by London’s Daily Telegraph in 2012. A lifelong Southerner, she learned the power of storytelling at a very early age. Pamela lives in Smyrna, Georgia with her songwriter husband, Pat, and their two dogs.

EVERY LAST FEAR de Alex Finlay

Told through multiple points-of-view and alternating between past and present, EVERY LAST FEAR is not only a page-turning intrigue, but also a poignant story about a family managing heartbreak and tragedy, and living through a kind of fame they never wanted to have.

EVERY LAST FEAR
by Alex Finlay
Minotaur, early 2021

When FBI agents arrive at his dorm room, New York University student Matt Pine learns the terrible news: his parents and younger siblings, on vacation in Mexico, have been found dead in their rental home. It’s a horrible blow to Matt, who is already trying to cope with life in the shadow of his older brother’s infamy: seven years ago, Danny Pine was convicted of the murder of a teenage girl in their small Nebraska town, and he’s been in prison ever since. Recently, his case was profiled in a blockbuster documentary that swayed public opinion toward his innocence, but Matt has never believed in Danny’s innocence himself. Now, as the deaths in Mexico appear increasingly suspicious and connected to Danny’s prosecution, Matt must finally unearth the truth behind the crime that sent his brother to prison, and doing so leads him to a shocking conspiracy.

Alex Finlay is the pseudonym of an author who lives in Washington, D.C. Born in Opelika, Alabama, Alex spent his formative years traversing the globe, from a tropical island in the Pacific to a small village in the UK to a remote region in the Far East. But it was on a vacation in Tulum, Mexico that Alex was inspired to write Every Last Fear.

THIS IS WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE de Susan Rogers

A legendary record-producer–turned–brain-scientist explains why you fall in love with music.

THIS IS WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE:
What the Music You Love Says About You
by Dr. Susan Rogers & Dr. Ogi Ogas
W.W. Norton, September 2022
(via Levine Greenberg Rostan)

When you listen to music, do you prefer lyrics or melody? Intricate harmonies or driving rhythm? The “real” sounds of acoustic instruments or those of computerized synthesizers? Drawing from her successful career as a music producer (engineering hits like Prince’s “Purple Rain”), professor of cognitive neuroscience Susan Rogers reveals why your favorite songs move you. She explains that we each possess a unique “listener profile” based on our brain’s reaction to seven key dimensions of any record: authenticity, realism, novelty, melody, lyrics, rhythm, and timbre. Exploring this profile will deepen your connection to music, refresh your playlists, and uncover aspects of your personality. Rogers takes us behind the scenes of record-making, using her insider’s ear to illuminate the music of Prince, Frank Sinatra, Lana Del Rey, and many others. Told in a lively, inclusive style, this book will change the way you listen to music.

« A revelation. Susan Rogers and Ogi Ogas offer extraordinary insights about music, emotion, and the brain and they deliver them with great flair and flow. For all I thought I knew about these subjects, I learned a lot from this book―and was entertained at every turn, both by the ideas and the poetry of their expression. An instant classic, THIS IS WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE should be read by anyone who has ever been moved by a piece of music―in other words, everyone. » ― Dr. Daniel J. Levitin, New York Times bestselling author of This Is Your Brain on Music and The Organized Mind

Susan Rogers, PhD, is a cognitive neuroscientist and a professor at Berklee College of Music, as well as a multiplatinum record producer. She resides in Boston, Massachusetts.
Ogi Ogas, PhD, was a Department of Homeland Security Fellow at the Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems at Boston University and a research fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He coauthored Dark Horse, The End of Average, and Shrinks, which was longlisted for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award.