I have always loved stories, and I love the clash of ideas – political and philosophical, religious and atheistic. And if you can put them together in a novel, so much the better. But I insist that it has to be a real story, with real characters, not ciphers. They must be inconsistent, their ideas half-formed and subject to change. And they must be allowed to put their point of view with their own voice, so I’m never entirely sure what the author thinks. The characters have to be people I can care about, people I can love or hate, people whose fate can cause me anxiety, sorrow, or joy.
It doesn’t patronise the reader as it weaves a history of Western philosophy into the narrative. The story is a semi-autobiographical motorcycle road trip undertaken by the writer as he recovers from a nervous breakdown caused by his obsession with philosophical questions.
I really enjoyed this book even though I didn’t agree with all the author’s ideas. And the first time I read it, the moment his alter ego first appears was one of the creepiest things I had ever read in a novel. It freaked me out.
Acclaimed as one of the most exciting books in the history of American letters, this modern epic became an instant bestseller upon publication in 1974, transforming a generation and continuing to inspire millions. A narration of a summer motorcycle trip undertaken by a father and his son, the book becomes a personal and philosophical odyssey into fundamental questions of how to live. Resonant with the confusions of existence, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a touching and transcendent book of life.
I gave this book to my eldest daughter when she was about 12, and many years later, she told me it absolutely blew her mind.
It is a young adult book that covers much the same ground as Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, with a history of Western philosophy and the questions it throws up woven into an engaging story of a young girl and her mysterious tutor.
Towards the end, the narrative takes an unexpected postmodern turn, and it had me gripped as it raced to its conclusion. Brilliant.
The international bestseller about life, the universe and everything.
When 14-year-old Sophie encounters a mysterious mentor who introduces her to philosophy, mysteries deepen in her own life. Why does she keep getting postcards addressed to another girl? Who is the other girl? And who, for that matter, is Sophie herself? To solve the riddle, she uses her new knowledge of philosophy, but the truth is far stranger than she could have imagined.
An addictive blend of mystery, philosophy and fantasy, Sophie's World is an international phenomenon which has been translated into 60 languages and sold more than 40 million copies.
Set in the exotic and romantic realm of international rare bookselling, this is a story about protecting the written word against a digital world threatening to destroy it.
Michael Ashe, a young Los Angeles bookseller, must confront the fact that his once-thriving business is collapsing. Reading is in decline. Refusing…
I’m cheating a bit here because this one isn’t a novel but a collection of short stories by Argentina’s greatest writer.
Beautifully translated, it shows Borges at the height of his powers. I also got a sense throughout of the extraordinary range of his intellect – he certainly liked to show off.
Among my favourite stories are "The Garden of Forking Paths," which anticipates the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, "The Lottery of Babylon," a meditation on luck, "Three Versions of Judas," which comes to a shocking conclusion about who Judas was and why he betrayed Jesus, and "The Immortal," which shows us what a curse immortality would be. And I thought his description of a dream in Ragnarok was spot on.
The groundbreaking trans-genre work of Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) has been insinuating itself into the structure, stance, and very breath of world literature for well over half a century. Multi-layered, self-referential, elusive, and allusive writing is now frequently labeled Borgesian. Umberto Eco's international bestseller, The Name of the Rose, is, on one level, an elaborate improvisation on Borges' fiction "The Library," which American readers first encountered in the original 1962 New Directions publication of Labyrinths.
This new edition of Labyrinths, the classic representative selection of Borges' writing edited by Donald A. Yates and James E. Irby (in…
I loved the way Dostoevsky took me deep inside the head of a murderer and showed how his crime almost destroyed him long before he was caught.
Though I found the killings shocking and appalling, I couldn’t help but sympathise with the killer as he fell apart. I later read that many of the characters represented currents of thought that were influential in Dostoyevsky’s day. Much of that went above my head, but that was okay because the characters were well-drawn and came across as real people, not ciphers.
One thing that shocked me was the crushing nature of the poverty that so many supposedly upper-class characters faced, and how low they had to stoop to survive it.
Hailed by Washington Post Book World as “the best [translation] currently available" when it was first published, this second edition has been updated in honor of the 200th anniversary of Dostoevsky’s birth.
With the same suppleness, energy, and range of voices that won their translation of The Brothers Karamazov the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Prize, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky offer a brilliant translation of Dostoevsky's astounding pyschological thriller, newly revised for his bicentenniel.
When Raskolnikov, an impoverished student living in the St. Petersburg of the tsars, commits an act of murder and theft, he sets into motion a story that is…
Hope, Laughter, Survival on the Refugee Trail
by
Eileen Kay,
Dramatic true story with a wacky sense of humor.
Retired English teacher in Budapest meets foreign medical students fleeing the war in Ukraine, producing a sweet and unlikely friendship, spicy soup, and wicked joking. A sense of humor, however dark, can keep us from despair.
I first read Orwell’s dystopian nightmare as a teenager and have gone back to it several times since.
Apparently, it is such a brilliant description of life under totalitarianism that, during the communist era, some Eastern Europeans refused to believe that an inhabitant of a democratic country could have written such a book.
Even today, I find the book very relevant, as Orwell develops themes of truth, propaganda, doublethink, and the misuse of language that you can find in Homage to Catalonia, written a decade earlier. And the ubiquitous and intrusive telescreen has a parallel in our age of surveillance capitalism and the way the Chinese authorities are using information technology to cement their rule.
62
authors picked
1984
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
9,
10,
11, and
12.
What is this book about?
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU . . .
1984 is the year in which it happens. The world is divided into three superstates. In Oceania, the Party's power is absolute. Every action, word, gesture and thought is monitored under the watchful eye of Big Brother and the Thought Police. In the Ministry of Truth, the Party's department for propaganda, Winston Smith's job is to edit the past. Over time, the impulse to escape the machine and live independently takes hold of him and he embarks on a secret and forbidden love affair. As he writes the words 'DOWN WITH BIG…
The Omega Course is a coming-of-age story cum novel of ideas. The narrative focuses on 17-year-old Ross Collins, who is arrested after he causes a traffic accident in which another driver dies. Devastated, distraught and terrified of what the future holds, he turns to religion in the hope of finding some kind of redemption. He joins the Alpha Course, where he encounters “Omega” Bee, a brilliant theology student who faces a crisis of her own as her faith crumbles.
Their friendship ignites the second theme of the book, a deep dive into faith, loss of faith, myth, historical truth and the origins of Christianity and the Bible. All this is woven into Ross’s search for redemption as his trial approaches.
Prisons are at bursting point. Criminals are released early and the guilty walk free from courts. The Justice system is in a state of collapse and no-one is safe.
i4Ni is created to solve the problem. i4Ni is a humanoid which, according to its 'creator' Jules Von Beck, will serve…
A dystopian tale about Tayler's brush with deadly augmented reality players who are out to kill him, and a wise cracking robot keen to take over the world.
As reviewer Joseph Sullivan from Aurealis magazine wrote, “Virtual Insanity will resonate with readers who enjoy modern takes on science fiction…
