6 Jul 2023, 3:31pm
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP” by S.J. Watson

Kate’s 2¢: “BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP” by S.J. Watson

“BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP” by S.J. Watson

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

   In “BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP” by S.J. Watson, Christine wakes up every morning with no memory of the days before, of who that man (her husband, Ben) in bed with her is, of who she is or how old she is.

   I enjoyed this psychological thriller and couldn’t really tell what the truth was, until the very end  Well written..

Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia

Steve “S. J.” Watson (born 1971)[1] is an English writer. He debuted in 2011 with the thriller novel Before I Go to Sleep. Rights to publish the book have been sold in 42 countries[2] and it has continued to be an international bestseller.[3]

Personal life[edit]

Watson was born in Stourbridge, Worcestershire (now West Midlands). He studied Physics at the University of Birmingham and then moved to London, where he worked in various hospitals and specialized as an audiologist[4] in the diagnosis and treatment of hearing-impaired children. In the evenings and weekends he wrote fiction.[5]

From BookShare:

Synopsis

“The best debut novel I’ve ever read.”–Tess Gerritsen,bestselling author of the Rizzoli & Isles series”Anexceptional thriller. It left my nerves jangling for hours after I finished the last page.” –Dennis Lehane, New York Times bestselling author of Moonlight MileS. J. Watson makes his powerful debutwith this compelling, fast-paced psychological thriller, reminiscent of Shutter Island and Memento, in which an amnesiac who, following a mysterious accident, cannot remember her past or form new memories, desperately tries to uncover the truth about who she is–and who she can trust.

Copyright: 2011

Book Details Book Quality: Publisher Quality

ISBN-13:9780062060570

Related ISBNs: 9780062060563

Publisher: HarperCollins

Date of Addition: 05/05/20

Copyrighted By: S. J. Watson

Adult content: No

Language: English

Has Image Descriptions: No

Categories: Literature and Fiction, Mystery and Thrillers

Submitted By: Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions: This is a copyrighted book.

 Reviews No Rating Yet

Bookshare® and Benetech® are registered trademarks of Beneficent Technology, Inc. This website is © Copyright 2002-2023, Beneficent Technology, Inc.

6 Jul 2023, 3:30pm
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “26A” by Diana Evans

Kate’s 2¢: “26A” by Diana Evans

“26A” by Diana Evans

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

   This was an interesting and intriguing story that was well crafted. It will mess with your mind

and cause you to think again about the twin-bond.

   Gabriella Cavallero is one of my favorite readers.

Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia

Diana Omo Evans FRSL (born 1972)[1] is a British novelist, journalist and critic who was born and lives in London. Evans has written four full-length novels. Her first novel, 26a, published in 2005, won the Orange Award for New Writers,[2] the Betty Trask Award[3] and the deciBel Writer of the Year award.[4] Her third novel Ordinary People was shortlisted for the 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction[5] and won the 2019 South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature.[6] A House for Alice was published in 2023.[7]

As well as writing fiction, Evans contributes essays and literary criticism to the national press.[8] She was honoured as a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2020.[9]

Background and education[edit]

Evans is the daughter of a Nigerian mother and an English father. She was born and grew up in Neasden, north-west London, with her parents and five sisters, one of whom was her twin.[10] She also spent part of her childhood in Lagos, Nigeria.[11]

She completed a media studies degree at the University of Sussex.[11] While in Brighton, she was a dancer[12] in the African dance troupe Mashango.[11]

She completed an MA in creative writing at the University of East Anglia.[11] At the age of 25 she became a journalist. She contributed human-interest features and art criticism to a range of magazines, journals and newspapers in the UK; published interviews with celebrities; worked as an editor for Pride Magazine[13] and the literary journal Calabash.

Writing[edit]

Her first novel, 26a, “a Bildungsroman that centres its storyline on the growing process of a pair of identical twins of Nigerian-British origin, Georgia and Bessi”[14] growing up in Neasden, was published in 2005 to wide critical acclaim and has since been translated into 12 languages.[15] It was shortlisted in the first novel category for both the Whitbread Book Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and was the inaugural winner of the Orange Award for New Writers.[16] Literary critic Maya Jaggi said in The Guardian of 26a: “The writing is both mature and freshly perceptive, creating not only a warmly funny novel of a Neasden childhood … but a haunting account of the loss of innocence and mental disintegration.”[17] Carol Birch, writing in The Independent, said of 26a that “Evans writes with tremendous verve and dash. Her ear for dialogue is superb, and she has wit and sharp perception” and though she has her criticisms, concludes that Evans “has produced a consistently readable book filled with likeable characters: a study of loss that has great heart and humour.”[18] According to Diriye Osman in the Huffington Post: “Here was a Bildungsroman of such daring and sustained elegance that it felt like a gorgeous dance of a novel. In many ways, it is apropos that this book which focused on the secret bond that exists between twins was followed in 2009 by the equally masterful The Wonder, a novel rooted in the world of dance.”[19]

Evans’ second novel, The Wonder (2009), explores the world of dancing in the context of Caribbean immigration to the UK, London gentrification, and the bond between father and son.[2][12] Maggie Gee, writing in The Independent, called it “a serious work of art, with sentences like ribbons of silk winding around a skeleton of haunting imagery. … The Wonder’s most central achievement is to explore what art means in human life. … This second novel, both powerful and delicate, lacking in linear plot but rich in the poetry of human observation, proves that Evans has what she calls ‘the watch-me, the grace note’ that marks a true artist.”[20]

Her third novel, Ordinary People (2018), is a portrait of family life for two black couples in their 30s in South London in a year bookended by the election of Barack Obama and the death of Michael Jackson.[13][21][22] Ordinary People was the winner of the South Bank Sky Arts Award and shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and the Rathbones Folio Prize.[6][5][23][24]

Her fourth novel, A House for Alice, was published in 2023,[25][26] charaterised as “the first memorialisation of Grenfell in fiction”.[27]

Also a journalist, Evans has contributed essays and literary criticism to Marie Claire, The Independent, The Observer, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, the Financial Times, Time, The New York Review of Books and Harper’s Bazaar.[11][28][29]

She is an associate lecturer of Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is a patron of the SI Leeds Literary Prize for unpublished fiction by Black and Asian women in the UK.[30] She is also a 2014–16 Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the London College of Fashion and a 2016–17 Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Kent.[16]

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

26a DB63157

Evans, Diana. Reading time: 9 hours, 21 minutes.

Read by Gabriella Cavallero.

Family

Psychological Fiction

In 26a, the attic of their London loft, Georgia and Bessi Hunter, twin daughters of a Nigerian mother and alcoholic English father, build a blissful sanctuary. But adolescence tests their bonds and identities as Georgia descends into mental illness. Strong language, some explicit descriptions of sex, and some violence. 2005.

Downloaded: June 28, 2023

Download 26a

 
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