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November and December paperbacks explore memory, freedom and Beirut’s history
The article recommends a selection of new paperbacks for November and December, featuring novels and non-fiction across a range of subjects. Its opening reviews focus on Benjamin Myers’s experimental novel about actor Klaus Kinski and Rabih Alameddine’s story of a gay philosophy teacher in Beirut, showing how the books use personal lives and inventive voices to explore wider questions of freedom, memory and culture.
Myers’s novel blends Kinski’s recorded words with imagined recollections of his life and a lockdown-era writer’s account of trying to write about him. Alameddine’s award-winning novel follows 63-year-old Raja and spans events including the Lebanese civil war, the Covid pandemic, the 2019 banking crisis and the 2020 Beirut port explosion. The supplied article text ends part-way through another book review, so it does not provide the full list of recommendations.
In short
- New paperbacks are recommended for November and December.
- Benjamin Myers reimagines Klaus Kinski’s final stage performance.
- Rabih Alameddine’s novel follows Raja across decades of Lebanese history.
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Originally published by The Guardian as “The best books to read in November and December: new paperbacks from Benjamin Myers, Jeanette Winterson and John Updike”.