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Jan 13, 2025 | 
dailymail.co.uk | Daisy Goodwin
When I woke up to the news that wildfires were raging in Los Angeles and that thousands of people had had to leave their homes, I felt unutterably bleak. I'm not prone to crying, but I could feel tears pouring down my cheeks as I thought of the horror of what they were going through. One minute you are eating dinner, watching TV, walking the dog, putting the children to bed. Then, in the space of a few minutes, you are homeless and helpless – your future scorched beyond recognition.
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Oct 22, 2024 | 
thetimes.com | Daisy Goodwin
This country seems to be hurtling back to the Victorian era: trad wives, religious fundamentalism, child poverty, and of course that staple of the 19th century, the inheritance drama. The Dowager Duchess of Rutland has caused much pearl-clutching in ducal circles by leaving a will that divided her estate unequally between her daughter, her housemaid, her grandson — the Marquess of Granby — and her dog. Guess who got the lion’s share of her £5.6 million fortune?
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Jul 9, 2024 | 
thedailybeast.com | Daisy Goodwin
There is a cognitive dissonance about Munro, so long admired for her compassionate feminism, choosing to compound the terrible sexual abuse that had been done to her own daughter. Alice Munro, the Canadian writer who won the Nobel Prize for her short stories, packed into their slender boundaries all the heft of a novel.
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Apr 24, 2024 | 
thetimes.co.uk | Daisy Goodwin
My week is measured out not in miles run, or words written, but in the maunderings of midlife men. It’s Monday so it’s Tom and Dominic mansplaining the Punic Wars; Wednesday is Alastair and Rory mansplaining the democratic process in India; Thursday is a bumper day with Tom and Dominic and Alastair and Rory holding forth; then, every other Friday, Tim Harford grimaces through another session of Cautionary Tales.
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Apr 17, 2024 | 
sheerluxe.com | Marian Keyes |Kirsty Capes |Daisy Goodwin |Hiroko Oyamada
/ 17 April 2024 If you’re after a new read, we’ve rounded up the best books out there – from highly anticipated debuts to non-fiction page-turners… All products on this page have been selected by our editorial team, however we may make commission on some products.
My Favourite Mistake By Marian Keyes Hot on the heels of the return of Rachel Walsh in Again, Rachel, Marian Keyes is back with another Walsh family novel.
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Apr 10, 2024 | 
dailymail.co.uk | Daisy Goodwin
Love you, darling.’ ‘Love you too, Mum.’ It’s the call and response that ends every phone conversation with one of my daughters. Sometimes it will be me who professes love first, sometimes them, but we know something is off if it doesn’t happen. It’s not a huge deal, but I know I feel better if we have made the effort. Now aged 23 and 32, both have left home, but we speak most days on the phone.
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Mar 14, 2024 | 
theguardian.com | Daisy Goodwin
Although she was born a hundred years ago, Maria Callas remains the best-selling classical singer of all time. But when I tell people I have written a novel about her, the reaction comes with a sigh: “Oh Maria, such a talent, but what a tragedy.” All because Callas was left by a man. In 1968, the singer’s lover of nine years, the “Golden Greek” shipowner Aristotle Onassis, ended his relationship with her in order to marry the former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy.
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Mar 8, 2024 | 
thetimes.co.uk | Daisy Goodwin
When I write a novel, I like to get as close as possible to my protagonist’s physical experience. When I wrote about Queen Victoria, I trussed myself up in an 1840s corset to get a sense of how she would have moved and the level of physical discomfort she felt during the day. When I wrote about Sisi, Empress of Austria, the famous equestrienne, I took riding lessons on a side saddle so I could understand how it felt to gallop with your leg around a giant hook instead of astride a horse.
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Mar 8, 2024 | 
bloomsbury.com | Daisy Goodwin |Gillian Anderson |Tom Kerridge |Sarah J. Maas
For me, Diva means goddess or genius, not an overhyped performer who wants seven kinds of mineral water in their dressing room. Maria said, “ I will be as difficult as necessary to achieve perfection.” If Steve Jobs had said this, it would be printed on t-shirts – that kind of perfectionism is praised in men, but deplored in women. I have had enough of words that belittle women’s achievements. All geniuses are difficult, whatever sex they are. Let’s celebrate them.
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Jan 26, 2024 | 
bookreporter.com | Daisy Goodwin
I never heard Maria Callas sing in person, but I fell in love with her voice --- uniquely dark and thrilling; wonderfully imperfect --- in my early 20s. I bought all her opera albums and saw her in a televised performance of Act II of Puccini’s Tosca: a passionate, glamorous, murderous presence in red velvet and gold, all flashing eyes and high cheekbones. Don’t worry if you aren’t an opera buff.
