All Fours by Miranda July audiobook review – the frank, sexy novel everyone's been talking about
All Fours – which has been shortlisted for this year's Women's Prize for fiction – is narrated by July whose pacy, hypnotic reading skilfully evokes the internal monologue of her protagonist, who pinballs between drily funny and existentially bereft. The book has been called a menopause novel on the basis that it centres on a 45-year-old dismayed at being halfway through her life and past her peak (both her grandmother and aunt killed themselves and she worries she is next in line). But there's more than just dwindling oestrogen in this frank and subversive tale which reflects on desire, freedom and creativity, and shines a light on the complex inner life of a woman.
Available via Canongate, 10hr 13min
Maternity ServiceEmma Barnett, Penguin Audio, 1hr 50min
The Today presenter narrates her manifesto for rethinking women's maternity leave based on her own experiences on motherhood's 'frontline'.
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Character LimitKate Conger and Ryan Mac, Penguin Audio, 15hr 20min
This blistering behind-the-scenes account of Elon Musk's catastrophic Twitter takeover is read by Edoardo Ballerini.
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Daily Mail
28 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
American Pie star Seann William Scott's massive six-figure monthly income revealed amid messy court battle with ex
Seann William Scott's substantial six-figure monthly income has been revealed amid a messy court battle with ex-wife Olivia Korenberg. The American Pie star, 48, declared his income and expenses in a recent court filing on Monday, August 18, revealing he makes about $110,000 per month, according to Us Weekly. He made the revelation following a custody and child support battle over his and Korenberg's 5-year-old daughter, Frankie. The pair are currently fighting over attorney fees in the case. Scott, who listed himself as an actor on the paperwork, said he earns about $45,000 in royalty payments and $31,000 in dividends/interest payments per month, adding that he has $158,000 in cash and checking/savings accounts. Further more, the Role Models actor has $12,285,322 in stocks and bonds as well as $18,781,328 in real property, including three homes in Los Angeles, a Honda Passport worth $55,000, a Mini Cooper worth $30,000, as well as jewelry worth $650 and furniture worth $171,000. Scott — who played the iconic character of 'Stifler' in 1999's American Pie — also has an art collection valued at $93,000. His monthly expenses total to nearly $60,000, and include $15,000 in property taxes, $5,000 in repairs, $2,000 on utilities, $2,500 on groceries, $1,500 on eating out, $500 on his cell phone, $1,500 on clothes, $1,500 on entertainment and $11,000 on other bills. Scott also stated that he has paid his legal team over $500,000 for the divorce proceedings. Scott filed for divorce from Korenberg last February, after four years of marriage. Their date of separation is listed as October 2, 2023. He filed for dissolution of marriage from the interior designer in Los Angeles County Courts citing 'irreconcilable differences. Scott asked to divide his and Korenberg's assets according to their prenuptial agreement. He also requested to keep all of the earnings he made before, during, and after their marriage. When the former couple finalized their divorce in May 2024, they reportedly waived their rights to spousal support. In June, Korenberg claimed her ex 'blindsided' her by putting their home up for sale. She alleged that he did so in retaliation for her 'new romantic relationship.' Scott has denied this accusation, stating that the sale was simply a financial decision. Korenberg asked the court to change their joint custody agreement for sole custody and permission to move more than 20 miles away from Scott, a distance restricted by their custody agreement. However, the court denied her request for sole custody. The pair got married on Sept. 19, 2019, however, they kept the ceremony under wraps and news of the union didn't surface until later that month. Before the wedding, Scott told UsWeekly in 2019 that he had been 'dating somebody' but he declined to name the woman. Scott said that his secret sweetheart was 'a great girl.' He also mentioned that even though he's a 'pretty private' person, he's 'super happy' in the relationship. Before his nuptials, Scott was engaged to model Lindsay Frimodt, a decision he confirmed in 2012. 'I don't how I got a girl like my fiancée,' he said to E! News in jest after he proposed to her. 'She hadn't seen American Pie. Thank God. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't be engaged.' At the time a source told Us that Scott and Frimodt 'were talking about getting married as early as October, but it didn't happen then.' News broke that they had split in January 2013. In 2023, Scott revealed he only made $8000 for 1999's American Pie, despite playing the iconic Stifler. The hit comedy cost a $11 million to make and made a massive $235M at the global box office. Steven 'Steve' Stifler is one of the five main characters in the movie, and the main antagonist of both American Pie and American Pie 2 - his actions are arguably some of the most memorable. Speaking on the Rick Eisen Show, Scott explained how it had come about that he was paid so little for a role so many people remember to this day. In a game of true or false, he was asked if it was true that American Pie was his first feature-length role and he was only paid $8000.' The actor responded 'I think so, yeah, because I remember afterwards I bought a used Thunderbird for like $5000 or maybe $6000, I'm like, 'Oh yeah, baby'. 'I don't know what happened to the other $2000 because I ended up having to work at the LA Zoo as a churro guy, so maybe it was even less than $8000.' For their roles in 2012's American Reunion, both Scott and his co-star Jason Biggs were reportedly paid $5 million - quite a jump from the original $8k.
The Herald Scotland
3 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
Irvine Welsh documentary was a fitting end to close the EIF
Irvine Welsh is full of stories, one reason he is such a prolific author. He isn't short of anecdotes, either, or of opinions. These range from politics to what he mockingly refers to as his 'practice', in other words his approach to fiction writing. But he also has the raconteur's gift of delivery and – whisper it – a whiff of the public intellectual to him. God knows we need that breed these days. Throw in his oeuvre (another term he probably hates) and his authorship of the most iconic Scottish novel of the last 30 years, and you can see why he is such a rich subject for a documentary. Unsurprisingly there have been a few to date. But Edinburgh-based film-maker Paul Sng's is undoubtedly the best, making it a welcome and fitting work to bring down the curtain on this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival. Artful, considered, imaginative, rewarding, though-provoking and pleasingly high concept, it avoids dwelling too much on past glories to foreground its subject in the present. Read More: We open, though, with a sort of career précis. It comes courtesy of clips from an onstage interview conducted at a Toronto literary festival by Welsh's fellow Edinburgh-er Michael Pedersen, fast approaching national treasure status himself. Still in Canada, we then see Welsh visit the offices of a couple of lifestyle/therapy gurus in order to take hallucinogenic drug Dimethyltryptamine. Known as DMT – or, sometimes, the businessman's drug, because the trip it induces can be had in a lunch-break – it offers Welsh a break from the reality which he says is 'not enough' for a writer and from which Sng takes his intriguing title. Having brusquely headed off some therapy-speak 'bullshit' from the shaven-headed wellness dudes – just give me the drug is Welsh's simple request – he takes to a mattress to enjoy the experience. We return to him there throughout, Sng using this as a framing device and as a slipway to launch the free-wheeling sequences in which Welsh, dressed in white suit and t-shirt, wanders through an abandoned factory as images and colours are projected onto him and the walls. These sequences are trippy and psychedelic, and have the effect of making it look as if he is in some liminal space, or is being invited to amble through a dream version of his own life. Much of the projections show old footage of Edinburgh, causing the author to reflect on his early life, the death of his parents, his use of drugs, his reasons for first picking up a pen. 'I wouldn't have been a writer if it hadn't been for Acid House,' he says at one point. Sng also drops in excerpts from Welsh's novels, accompanied by even trippier visuals. The obliging readers include Liam Neeson (a passage from The Acid House), Stephen Graham (Glue), Maxine Peake (Porno), Ruth Negga (Dead Men's Trousers) and, last, an unspecified voice with a very slight Australian lilt. Could it be? It is: Nick Cave, reading from The Blade Artist. Too much of this would be, well, too much, so interspersed with the curated readings and the jazzy visuals are more prosaic sections. We see Welsh and his wife Emma at Traquair House in the Borders following a book festival event. We watch him play football with childhood friends in Muirhouse, at the ground of Lowland League football club Civil Service Strollers, then chatting easily with them in the bar afterwards. We see him in LA with his manager, at his house in Miami, and at the boxing club he frequents there. Sng controls and presents his material well, though it's Welsh's own observations, thoughts and opinions which really drive the film. Some are just wryly humorous. 'Married to me? I think it would be a hard shift,' he says, the only time he answers an off-screen question. Others are more reflective. 'Writing ... is essentially a square go with yourself,' he says. Then, later: 'You steal from your own life. You're constantly putting fangs in your own fucking neck.' And: 'The most important resource you have is time. I basically retired 30 years ago, I've just been indulging myself since.' But it's one of his post-trip comments which lingers most in the mind. 'I'm no longer an atheist,' he says. 'It makes dying a more exciting thing than a thing to dread.' No sign of that yet, though – it's very much a life and an appetite for life which Paul Sng's commendable documentary celebrates and explores.
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Jessica Alba's ex Cash Warren, 46, confirms he's dating a model 20 years his junior as they hold hands and kiss
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