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ABC News
an hour ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Amy Bloom, Ben Markovits and Barbara Truelove on love, basketball and monsters
Amy Bloom on her latest novel I'll Be Right Here about an unconventional chosen family, Ben Markovits goes on the road with his Booker Prize longlisted novel The Rest of Our Lives and Barbara Truelove's bonkers book about Dracula in space, Of Monsters and Mainframes. Amy Bloom is the American author of ten books (including White Houses) and her new historical novel, I'll Be Right Here, begins in wartime Paris and follows an unconventional, chosen family into the 21st century. The famous French author Collette has a cameo role too. Amy Bloom also shares the two things that matter to her most and why she writes about love in all its forms. Of Monsters and Mainframes is the debut novel of the Australian author and game designer Barbara Truelove. It's a genre mash of science fiction and pulp horror and is largely narrated by a sentient spaceship. The Rest of Our Lives is the 12th novel by British-American writer Benjamin Markovits and has recently been longlisted for the Booker Prize. It follows Tom, who's in a middle aged rut, as he sets out on a road trip across America and visits people from his past. Ben also talks about his failed career as a professional basketball player, the parallels between basketball and writing, and how a health crisis enriched the writing of this latest book.
Times
15 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Times
Me, my husband and our many lovers: inside our open marriage
I'm in my thirties and an author. My real name is the one I usually write under. You may have read my books while tackling the humdrum morning commute to work. They are historical fiction about romance in a century long past. In my normal life, I wear Reiss clothing and buy cushions from John Lewis. I'm also in an open marriage. Some nights, I dress up in black tie and go to elite sex parties. My husband and I have regular encounters with others: couples, single women and men. We engage in orgies and trysts all over the world. It's a hobby, a vibrant extension of our already full lives, like the time I smiled at a drop-dead gorgeous guy at a party in Mayfair who followed me to the toilets, pushed me against the wall and kissed me, slipping his hands under my dress. The delicious feeling of being wanted, and of wanting, is something addictive and hard to let go of. Words like polyamory, polycule (a network of people involved in sexual relationships) and throuple seem to be everywhere. Non-monogamous sex is suddenly on TV, both in the plotlines of dramas such as The Couple Next Door and reality shows. It's in buzzy confessional memoirs and being spoken about by Gillian Anderson. One study by the Kinsey Institute and Feeld found that 24 per cent of millennials like me have expressed a preference for ethical non-monogamy. While another survey found that 95 per cent of men and 87 per cent of women have fantasised about a threesome, though only about 18 per cent of men and 10 per cent of women have had one. • The monogamy myth — we're proof that open marriages are happy Richard and I used to be like any regular couple. If you saw us wandering through Borough Market in London, comfortable and in sync, you'd never guess our secret. We met at a redbrick university in the north of England and for ten years we were really happy with our lives as they were. When I first saw him in a bar, he was kissing my university flatmate. He was tall, with jet black hair and a slow smile. I found him attractive, feeling a twinge of jealousy that she'd found him first. At 21 I'd only had sex once, with a guy who'd been kind and handsome, but our sexual encounter was over almost as soon as it began and I'd been disappointed, wondering if it even counted as losing my virginity. Weeks later, when their brief fling was over, he kissed me on the dancefloor on St Patrick's Day after numerous pints of Guinness. We still joke that without it, our love story might never have begun. So far, so conventional. Post-university, his job took him abroad; my master's kept me in London. We spanned continents, speaking daily via Skype. I wrote my first novel, he built his new life abroad and then I joined him. We came back to the UK to marry and I dreamt of a life in the countryside — a stone house scattered with children's belongings, maybe a dog. Read more expert advice on sex, relationships, dating and love We found the house — a cottage with roses round the door — but a baby wasn't as forthcoming. Despite my husband's caution, I told everyone we were trying. But as the months slipped by, turning to years, the happy-go-lucky mask I'd always worn began to slip. I became impatient, frustrated, envious of the friends who were conceiving all around me. Sex became a means to an end. I kept an ovulation chart in my desk drawer, taking my temperature and pouncing on Richard when my cervix was open. Doctors poked, prodded and scanned me, and there was no conclusive medical reason that I wasn't getting pregnant. Our next step was IVF, but the cost and strain felt overwhelming. • Want a happy relationship? Monogamy is not the only way, study finds Over time, desire itself vanished. Richard expresses his love through touch, and my aversion to it felt like a rejection of him. I'd look at him and still find him attractive, but I just couldn't face sex. Bedtime became a source of dread. I remember one night, he reached for me. As I made an excuse, familiar disappointment flickered across his face before he turned out the light, and guilt washed over me. So I reached for him in the dark but, sensing my pity, he pushed me away. I lay awake for hours afterwards, worried I'd broken us and knowing something needed to change. I tried to find a way back to my body, taking long baths followed by hesitant masturbation. Initially, I felt numb, almost resentful. But with persistence, sensation returned, followed by fantasies. Long-dormant images resurfaced, many featuring women: intense feelings for my schoolfriend; a fantasy of being a maid seduced by an older couple. These desires hinted at a part of myself I'd never fully acknowledged, a potential attraction to women that had always lingered beneath the surface of my heterosexual experiences. The intensity of these feelings surprised me. Did I like women? I told my husband what I was feeling even though I was concerned that, with one confession, I might wipe out our ordinary life. Yet his response was one of curiosity and a deep desire for my happiness. He suggested that exploring these feelings, rather than suppressing them, might ease the pressure in our relationship. For him, seeing me struggle for years over failed pregnancy tests had been difficult, and he hoped this might bring me some relief. We discussed having a threesome. Over the next few weeks, the thought nagged at me, and I couldn't help feeling excited as well as terrified. Maybe this would be the thing to reignite the excitement we used to share when travelling the world, when our life wasn't so consumed with the idea of a baby. So over a glass of wine, we set up a dating profile on the alternative dating app Feeld, where people go to look for things conventional dating sites might not offer. Now I see the people who search for fulfilment of their deepest desires as brave, but then it felt as if we were entering a realm of people I didn't understand and frankly I found their penchant for whips, chains and orgies overwhelming. I typed the bio, being the writer. 'We are looking for a third, a woman, to join us.' We used decoy jobs and fake names, terrified of being seen by anyone we knew. We searched for likely candidates on the sofa in the evenings while watching cooking programmes. Weeks later, we found V. We met her at a Sheffield shopping centre on a mundane Tuesday afternoon. Among shoppers, we crossed the motorway to a Travelodge. I didn't fancy her at first. Nervous jokes in the lift preceded the sudden intimacy of the hotel room. What-ifs rose up and I was afraid: would this break us? What if I felt jealous? What if our reactions differed? It felt like a significant gamble. I looked around the drab hotel room, the mundanity of the small kettle, tea set and the clinical bathroom making me wonder what the hell we were doing here. I'd imagined a glamorous suite above the city, a context suited to a transcendental experience. I wondered how to voice the fact I'd changed my mind. Luckily, V took control: leading me to the bed and kissing me. It felt like cocktails in the sun, like coming home, like a door opening to a new place. When she kissed my husband, I searched myself for jealousy but found only fascination at this new thing. Watching them, I felt a strange pride in him, a sense of ownership, empowered by facilitating this shared pleasure. For him, it was a release, a physical reconnection free from the weight of expectation. After that, we didn't look back. We attended our first party and had sex with another couple in a cage. Everyone wore masks until 11pm and the setting was sultry, glamorous and everything that had been missing from our first encounter. The feeling of escaping the real world into a beautiful, sexy environment is a crucial part of our extracurricular activities for me. There was the time we met another couple in a club in London who were going to Ibiza the next day. They invited us to come with them and we did, spending four sun-soaked days having fun on beaches, on boats, in hotel rooms. The vibe between us all felt amazing — until we arrived home and found they'd blocked us. We'll never know the reason, and commiserated together. We'd read about ghosting but hadn't experienced it until then. • The English teacher who's become the face of polyamory I've gained profound self-knowledge and confidence, reconnecting with my body and, perhaps for the first time, considering my own desires, not just pleasing a partner. Unlike conventional narratives of non-monogamy, we are united, side by side on this adventure, simultaneously supported and free. This path isn't for every marriage; it demands unwavering foundations and open communication. Every time we attend a party or meet others we are entering dangerous territory, and it requires constant effort and honesty. I will tell my husband when I like someone — talking about it can be part of the fun. I don't harbour secret fantasies and neither does he. We are honest about everything, perhaps more than most people reading this, and that honesty spreads to the rest of our lives. Putting our marriage at risk repeatedly reinforces our primary bond, as we actively choose each other as the one we commit to, despite playing with others. My mum was the one to notice the change in me. Once, she asked me what me and Richard were on, because she wanted some of it. She could see that whatever was happening was making us stronger. My parents are (as far as I know) in a conventional marriage, and my own childhood was anchored in their loving, near-perfect bond. On a girls' shopping trip with my mum, I decided to tell her over lunch at the Ivy. Obviously, I was nervous. My relationship with both my parents is uncomplicated, supportive and incredible, and my admission had the capacity to destroy that. Mum asked lots of questions, interested in the specifics of how things worked and the logistics more than anything. I answered all of them. She told me that as long as I was happy, that was all that mattered. She said it all sounded rather fun (for me). On the way home, she sent me a message that simply said go forth and conquer the world. My dad still doesn't know. He is a traditional man who believes in marriage and God. I think he'd want to understand, but our relationship has a purity that I can't quantify, and I don't want to take the risk. Sometimes there are nights when it feels like we're living inside a glamorous movie. But there are other times when we've had fun at a party and he wants the night to continue. I have been known to sneak back to our room in the hotel and watch QI and then go back and join him later, or simply go to bed. • My husband and I sleep with other people — but there are rules We can read each other much better now, as often we have to work out what the other is thinking when we are in company. And I've learnt to be more forthright and not just go along with things, which has helped me be more direct in the rest of my life. I often wonder what that dreamy girl at university would make of the love she's found. I used to think love was adoration and self-surrender. Now, I believe it's wanting the best for your partner, choosing them above all others, except for yourself. It's a love that is empowering. I have no idea how we will evolve, but I'm definitely here for the ride. Me, You, Them: A Memoir of Modern Love by Evie Sage (Michael Joseph, £20). To order a copy go to or call 020 3176 2935. Free UK standard P&P on online orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members Names have been changed
New York Times
24-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Esi Edugyan Has a Long List of Canadian Writers to Recommend
In an email interview, the Vancouver Island-based novelist described why being a Booker Prize judge turned out to be surprisingly 'exhilarating.' SCOTT HELLER What's the last great book you read? 'Change,' by Édouard Louis. He writes about how the abandonment of modest roots for a more privileged life can enact a kind of violence on intimate relationships. I read everything he writes. What's your go-to classic? I was 18 when I started reading 'Anna Karenina,' and I continue to read it every few years. I remember how grown up and worldly the characters once seemed. Now they are all so young! Your favorite book no one else knows? 'The Cave,' by the Dutch author Tim Krabbé, is an elegant puzzle of a novel. Do books serve a moral function? How so? They can, but they shouldn't set out to. When readers open themselves up to the intensity of another's experience — even that of an invented person — it can be transformative. Books can leave you feeling less singular, strange and alone, but they can also expose you to a way of being that is completely alien to you, against which to measure your own choices. Novels that are written with a pointed moral or a message are not novels. They are propaganda. Do you consider yourself a writer of historical fiction? Every time I describe myself as a writer of historical fiction, I feel an inward cringe as I sense those unfamiliar with my work picturing scenes of ripped-off bodices and men riding horses across twilit downs. Inevitably when I'm asked again, my reply is always the same. Something in that description must feel true. But I chafe against it. When 'Washington Black' came out, you told The Times that it would be 'daunting' to write a novel set in the present. Are you getting closer to trying? The temptation is still to look to parallels in the past for what's going on now. The past has contours the present simply doesn't possess for me; its throughlines feel more easily grasped and wrestled into a kind of shape. But I think it's probably an important skill to be able to confront the moment as it now appears, somehow. What surprised you most about chairing the Booker Prize panel in 2023? What a healthy state literature is in. You can only hear that the novel is dying so many times before you start to feel cynical about the whole enterprise. Paring down the list became excruciating — our jury had many rigorous conversations from which we all mercifully emerged with our limbs still intact. It was a fascinating, combative, respectful, exhilarating experience. What surprised you most about seeing 'Washington Black' adapted for television? I was struck by how much more externalized the storytelling has to be. This would seem an obvious fact, but it can still surprise you. Because characters' inner worlds can't be accessed as readily, everything must be recreated as surface, as something that can be gleaned visually. And so the set design is ferociously intricate, and multitudes are expressed in a glance or a grimace or the way a masterful actor carries her body. In a novel, the writing is everything. In a series or a film, it is one thread of a larger netting. Tell me about western Canadian writers the wider world should know more about. Patrick Lane was one of our greatest poets — his work is in many ways evocative of Cormac McCarthy. Also wonderful are the short stories of Tamas Dobozy and the novels of Patrick deWitt; Michael Christie's era-spanning 'Greenwood'; Jasmine Sealy's epic 'The Island of Forgetting'; Steven Price's elegant 'Lampedusa'; the beautiful poetry of Lorna Crozier and Jan Zwicky. For canonical works, I'd suggest Sheila Watson's high modernist novel 'The Double Hook,' Jack Hodgins' Vancouver Island stories 'Spit Delaney's Island,' and Joy Kogawa's 'Obasan,' about the internment of Japanese Canadians during World War II. How do you organize your books? I recently moved house, so my entire book collection is unfortunately boxed in my garage! When I get the shelving up, I'll again arrange things alphabetically, and also by genre. It's the only way to find anything when you've got over 10,000 books. What's the last book you read that made you laugh? Kevin Wilson's 'The Family Fang' is an utter delight. Katherine Heiny's 'Single, Carefree, Mellow' was also a singular pleasure. What books are on your night stand? Ben Lerner's exquisite '10:04,' which I've somehow only just come to; James Fox's 'The World According to Color: A Cultural History'; Percival Everett's 'James'; Alan Hollinghurst's 'Our Evenings'; Katie Kitamura's 'Audition'; and Donatella Di Pietrantonio's 'The Brittle Age.' What books are you embarrassed not to have read yet? I've never been able to finish 'Moby-Dick,' an admission made all the more dreadful for the fact that it is my partner's favorite novel. You're organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite? Leo Tolstoy, Toni Morrison and Elena Ferrante — though I fear Tolstoy might spend the evening lecturing us on the world's ills.
Wall Street Journal
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘Washington Black' Review: On Hulu, a Swashbuckling Story of Self-Discovery
Based on the 2018 novel by Esi Edugyan, 'Washington Black' inhabits its own particular and unwieldy zone, one that has to accommodate history, social criticism and a classic boy's adventure—one that takes the runaway lad of the title into the air, under the ocean, across the Arctic and into the crossfire of slavers and abolitionists. The moral instruction may be a bit heavy-handed, but the more swashbuckling elements—a mix of Kipling, Twain, Jules Verne and even Frederick Douglass—make for an old-fashioned adventure. What daydreaming kid wouldn't want to run away with pirates? It is also a story, eight episodes long, about fathers and where you find them. When we first meet George Washington Black (Ernest Kingsley Jr.) the setting is 1837 Halifax, Nova Scotia ('the last stop on the Underground Railroad,' as the voiceover tells us), where he's a dockworker in a village whose black citizens are free and happy. This is largely due to Medwin Harris (Sterling K. Brown), who helps people of dubious origins into jobs and out of trouble; bounty hunters have been known to ignore the Canadian border in enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act. Medwin, who has his own backstory, doesn't know much about the young man he calls Jack Crawford, but we will learn it in the parallel narrative that tracks the title character to Canada from his boyhood on a Barbados sugar plantation.
Yahoo
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
HarperCollins India is delighted to announce the forthcoming publication of The Chola Tigers: Avengers of Somnath
A scintillating new novel by the bestselling author of the Shiva Trilogy and the Ram Chandra series- Amish The cover of The Chola Tigers was revealed by Indian cinema's superstar and living legend Rajinikanth, along with the author Amish, in a private ceremony in Chennai. NEW DELHI, July 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Scheduled for release on 29 August 2025, The Chola Tigers is the second book in Amish's Indic Chronicles, after the bestselling Legend of Suheldev. A thrilling historical saga of defiance, honour and redemption it celebrates the indomitable spirit of India. When the ruthless tyrant Mahmud of Ghazni destroys the sacred temple of Somnath, the greatest ruler of the time, Emperor Rajendra Chola, summons a squad of defiant assassins to embark on a perilous quest and bring the fearsome enemy to his knees. This historical fiction title builds on the world introduced in the 2020 bestseller Legend of Suheldev, which garnered widespread appreciation from readers and went on to become a bestseller. Pacy and action-packed, The Chola Tigers, explores the profound question: How far would you go to defend dharma and your country's honour? On the occasion of the book's announcement, Amish, author, says, "The Chola Tigers is an exhilarating story in which Emperor Rajendra Chola, the mightiest man of his era, orders a daring surgical strike on Ghazni in response to Sultan Mahmud's attack on the Somnath temple. This work of historical fiction is linked to my 2020 release Legend of Suheldev. It is about a mission ordered by one of the greatest Tamilians ever, Emperor Rajendra Chola. And it is a great honour that the cover of this book was released by one of the greatest Tamilians alive and an Indian treasure, Rajinikanth ji." Poulomi Chatterjee, Executive Publisher — HarperCollins India, adds, "Amish has brilliantly reimagined our beloved legends and epics, and episodes from medieval Indian history, for millions of people across the country to enjoy afresh. The new novel is vintage Amish—a sweeping historical saga that is pacy, dramatic, simmering with political intrigue and personal vendetta, and heart-rending in its scenes of sacrifice and retribution. At its heart it masterfully explores the depths of human courage and resilience, and the indomitable spirit of a nation that refuses to be broken. It's going to keep readers spellbound until the final page, and we can't be happier to publish it!" ABOUT THE CHOLA TIGERS The place will be of their choosing. The time will be of their choosing. But the Indians will have their vengeance. 1025 CE, India. Mahmud of Ghazni believes he has crushed the spirit of Bharat—the Shiva Linga at the Somnath temple lies shattered and thousands are dead. But among the ashes of destruction, an oath is taken. Five people—a Tamil warrior, a Gujarati merchant, a devotee of Lord Ayyappa, a scholar-emperor from Malwa, and the most powerful man on Earth, Emperor Rajendra Chola—resolve to undertake a perilous quest and strike at the heart of the invader's kingdom. From the grandeur of the Chola Empire to the shadows of Ghazni's bloodstained court, The Chola Tigers is the scintillating story of a fierce retaliation. A story of unity forged through pain, of courage born from despair, and of vengeance that becomes Dharma. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Amish is a 1974-born, IIM (Kolkata)-educated banker-turned-author. The success of his debut book, The Immortals of Meluha (Book 1 of the Shiva Trilogy), encouraged him to give up his career in financial services to focus on writing. Besides being an author, he is also a broadcaster, the founder of a video gaming company, a film producer and a former diplomat with the Indian government. Amish is passionate about history, spirituality and philosophy, finding beauty and meaning in all world religions. His books have sold more than 8 million copies and have been translated into 21 languages. His Shiva Trilogy is the fastest-selling and his Ram Chandra Series the second-fastest-selling book series in Indian publishing history. His books in The Indic Chronicles, which are based on medieval Indian history, are also blockbuster bestsellers. You can connect with Amish here: ABOUT HARPERCOLLINS INDIA HarperCollins India publishes some of the finest writers from the Indian subcontinent and around the world, publishing approximately 200 new books every year, with a print and digital catalogue of more than 2000 titles across 10 imprints. Its authors have won almost every major literary award including the Man Booker Prize, JCB Prize, DSC Prize, New India Foundation Award, Atta Galatta Prize, Shakti Bhatt Prize, Gourmand Cookbook Award, Publishing Next Award, Tata Literature Live!, Gaja Capital Business Book Prize, BICW Award, Sushila Devi Award, Sahitya Akademi Award and Crossword Book Award. HarperCollins India also represents some of the finest publishers in the world including Harvard University Press, Gallup Press, Oneworld, Bonnier Zaffre, Usborne, Dover and Lonely Planet. HarperCollins India is also the recipient of five Publisher of the Year Awards – in 2021 and 2015 at the Publishing Next Industry Awards, and in 2021, 2018 and 2016 at Tata Literature Live. HarperCollins India is a subsidiary of HarperCollins Publishers. 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