No Sweetness Here by Ama Ata AidooRead about the other titles on Chimamanda Adichie's list.
Aidoo wisely and subtly explores the lives of urban and rural characters in newly independent Ghana, and we see people who are struggling to negotiate a new world with hair wigs, bribes, etc. The voice is effectively “oral” and reflects Aidoo’s interest in the idea of community. She deals with big issues with much sly wit.
Terese Svoboda, author of several books of prose and poetry -- including Trailer Girl and Other Stories, Cannibal, Treason, and Tin God -- lists her favorite books at her website: Learn more about Svoboda's Tin God, including how well it was served by the Page 99 Test.• Fishboy
by Mark Richard• Omon Ra
by Victor Pelevin• Wolf Whistle
by Lewis Nordan• Autobiography of Red
by Anne Carson• The Birthday Boys
by Beryl Bainbridge
• The Clam Theater
by Russell Edson• Radio, Radio: Poems
by Ben Doyle• Venus Examines Her Breast
by Maureen Seaton• Sara's Choice
• Saturday Night at the Pahala Theater
by Eleanor Wilner
by Lois Ann Yamanaka
Helen Rappaport named a brief list of books in the London Times about women in wartime.The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands by Mary SeacoleRead the rest of Rappaport's list.
Vivid memoir of a Jamaican nurse who served in the Crimean War.
Six Red Months in Russia by Louise Bryant
Feisty American Marxist-feminist newspaperwoman’s engrossing account of Russia in the turmoil of revolution.
Scott Simon, host of NPR's "Weekend Edition" and the author of Pretty Birds (Random House, 2005), a novel set during the siege of Sarajevo, named the five best journalism books for Opinion Journal.In Search of Light edited by Edward Bliss Jr. (Knopf, 1967).Read the entire list.
Forget the hagiography of Edward R. Murrow since his death in 1965. All theevidence we need to understand what made Murrow broadcast journalism's first great star can be found in "In Search of Light," a collection of scripts for his broadcasts between 1938 and 1961. He had a mesmerizing presence on the air to match momentous events and, as this book reminds us, a rare poetic power. Murrow wrote for the ear -- and heart. His descriptions of the London Blitz as "a terrible symphony of fire and light," or of the starved survivors of a death camp welcoming Allied soldiers with applause from arms so frail that "it sounded like the handclapping of babies," are unsurpassed images of two of the signature events of the 20th century.
Red Cavalry by Isaac BabelRead the entire list.
Babel was one of the great Russian writers of his generation — a Jewish journalist who rode with Budyonny’s Cossacks in the civil wars following the 1917 revolution. He was arrested and shot in 1940. Who knows what great books he might have written.
The White Guard by Mikhail Bulgakov
Bulgakov is famous for The Master and Margarita, but this is an adventure novel of the Russian Revolution, and hard to put down once you start. Very few honest books about this time survive — the Soviet secret police made sure of that. But here is one that did.
SapphoRead about the rest of Padel's list.
She is in fragments but still astonishing. Just look at her beautiful language, her total swashbuckling trust in the image to say it all (anyone who loves haiku will love her too), her mix of gorgeous metaphor with direct emotion: "The stars are sinking; the watch goes by; I lie alone." Despite having been translated, imitated and versioned down the millennia, these fragments are still fresh, heartbreaking, memorable and strong. She lays out the stall for us all, both in what she is saying and how she says it. What do people care for? "Look at that other person also in love with you." She celebrates, and questions, and turns in the light, the beauty of what is.
Emily Dickinson
You can't do without her: those leaps of idea between one beautiful, surprising phrase and the next. Mysterious, ferociously original, poignant and evocative: the power of pure thought compressed to diamond.
The Culture Cult by Roger SandallRead about the other titles.
In "The Culture Cult: Designer Tribalism and Other Essays," anthropologist Roger Sandall explores romantic primitivism--the myth of Eden and the Noble Savage. Mr. Sandall's histories of utopian communities (Robert Owen's New Harmony, John Humphrey Noyes's disastrous Oneida) are vivid, and his portraits of leading primitivists, from Rousseau to Mead to Levi-Strauss, are sharply drawn. This ignorant nostalgia for our tribal past ignores the truly horrific reality of tribal initiation, warfare, mutilation and human sacrifice.
The Book of Common Prayer by Thomas Cranmer.Read about the other five titles.
He only became a clergyman because his father didn't have enough land to pass on to him but went on to become Archbishop of Canterbury and to write in 1549 the most part of what became the foundation document of the Church of England. Contemporary authors such as PD James freely acknowledge their debt to the beauty of his prose. He was burnt at the stake in 1556.
Steve Cone, a senior marketing executive at Citigroup and the author of Steal These Ideas: Marketing Secrets That Will Make You a Star, named the five best books about selling for Opinion Journal.Branded Nation by James B. TwitchellRead about all five titles.
James B. Twitchell begins Branded Nation by asserting that "the secret to great brands is that they are oftennonsensical." After all, what's golden about McDonald's? What's real about Coke? Among the endless number of books churned out each year that try to explain brand success, this is the best overview of the rules of the road. It also provides an in-depth look at the often overlooked marketing strategies of churches, universities and museums. Twitchell is unusual among college professors in that he teaches both English and advertising, two disciplines that make perfect sense together.
English Passengers by Matthew KnealeRead about all six titles on Shriver's list.
This novel follows the hapless mid-19th-century journey of a ship bound for Tasmania in search of the original Garden of Eden. It’s wonderfully wicked about religion, and it’s hilarious.
Paris Trout by Pete Dexter
Dexter writes about race and bigotry without the moral obviousness that this subject matter often elicits. His tone is terse and muscular, but not pose-y and tough-guy.
Jon Clinch's debut novel Finn has just been published to rave reviews.Absalom, Absalom! — William Faulkner--Marshal Zeringue
Island — Alistair MacLeod
Wise Blood — Flannery O’Connor
The Remains of the Day — Kazuo Ishiguro
Moby-Dick — Herman Melville
The Mosquito Coast — Paul Theroux
The Confessions of Nat Turner — William Styron
Pride and Prejudice by Jane AustenRead about the other half of the list.
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter
A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O'Connor
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Posts
All Comments
