Here are 22 books that Memory of Fire fans have personally recommended once you finish the Memory of Fire series.
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I am a professor emeritus of history and sociology, who has taught in universities in Canada and the UK. In the 20th century, Prague Castle was the seat of a gamut of modern political regimes, from democracy through fascism to communism. Gazing across the river at the Castle one night during my first visit to the city in early 1990, soon after the fall of communism, it occurred to me that there can be few better vantage points from which to rethink "the modern condition." My interest in imaginative histories, which montage details rather than attempting to provide an overarching grand narrative, stems from wrestling with how to communicate this complexity.
What holds together this freewheeling part-memoir, part-meditation, part-history, part-cultural study, wafting across five continents, is the bad, seductive smell of tobacco.
What it feels like to desire it, to inhale it, to crave it, to miss it. What smoking signifies. At sixteen it was Jean-Paul Belmondo in Breathless and Len Deighton's nameless spy in The Ipcress File who chain-smoked Gauloises blues.
At sixty it was the withdrawal I felt when I reluctantly "gave up" not just the risky kicks but parts of a past and a self too, accepting that I was getting too old to party. I love this book because I am a smoker who no longer smokes.
I love this book because I knew Lesley. But most of all, I love this book for Lesley's writing.
"The Smoking Book" is built on the foundation of two questions: how does it feel to smoke, and what does smoking mean? Lesley Stern muses on these questions through intersecting stories and essays. Stern writes of addictions and passionate attachments, of the body and bodily pleasure, of autobiography and cultural history. Smoking is Stern's seductive pretext, her way of entering unknown and mysterious regions. The book begins with accounts of growing up on a tobacco farm in colonial Rhodesia, reminiscences that permeate subsequent excursions into precolonial tobacco production and postcolonial life in Zimbabwe, as well as vignettes set in Australia,…
I am a professor emeritus of history and sociology, who has taught in universities in Canada and the UK. In the 20th century, Prague Castle was the seat of a gamut of modern political regimes, from democracy through fascism to communism. Gazing across the river at the Castle one night during my first visit to the city in early 1990, soon after the fall of communism, it occurred to me that there can be few better vantage points from which to rethink "the modern condition." My interest in imaginative histories, which montage details rather than attempting to provide an overarching grand narrative, stems from wrestling with how to communicate this complexity.
The filmmaker Humphrey Jennings was a leading British surrealist and a founder of the pioneering social research project Mass–Observation.
Built out of quotations from letters, diaries, literature, scientific journals, and official reports, Pandaemonium is his "imaginative history" of the industrial revolution in Britain. These "images," he writes, "contain in little a whole world—they are the knots in a great net of tangled time and space—the moments at which the situation of humanity is clear—even if only for the flash time of the photographer or the lighting."
Published long after Jennings's death, Pandaemonium formed the basis for Danny Boyle's spectacular opening ceremony at the 2012 London Olympic Games. Jennings's use of revelatory images has strongly influenced my own approach to writing history.
Collecting texts taken from letters, diaries, literature, scientific journals and reports, Pandaemonium gathers a beguiling narrative as it traces the development of the machine age in Britain.
Covering the years between 1660 and 1886, it offers a rich tapestry of human experience, from eyewitness reports of the Luddite Riots and the Peterloo Massacre to more intimate accounts of child labour, Utopian communities, the desecration of the natural world, ground-breaking scientific experiments, and the coming of the railways.
Humphrey Jennings, co-founder of the Mass Observation movement of the 1930s and acclaimed documentary film-maker, assembled an enthralling narrative of this key period…
I have always been fascinated by the relationship between the concept of time, history, and politics. My first publications were in the philosophy of history. I started by translating some Left Hegelians. Then I moved toward Kant and Benjamin. My research background was constituted by the attempt to liberate Marxism from any kind of teleological philosophy of history. Recently, I began digging into concrete historical cases to extract political and legal categories. I’m interested in the reactivation of past possibilities to reconfigure the present and open alternative futures. I am now fortunate to teach courses on Temporalities and History in the History of Consciousness Department at UCSC.
There are numerous reasons why this text should be read. Personally, Benjamin's reflections on progress and history are crucial to a critique of capitalist modernity.
From a methodological perspective, this text allows the reader to enter Benjamin's laboratory and grasp the essential aspects of his groundbreaking methodology that merged cultural analysis, historical research, and philosophical reflection. Benjamin's unique approach combined elements of sociology, anthropology, and literary critique, creating a multidisciplinary work that defied conventional boundaries.
"To great writers," Walter Benjamin once wrote, "finished works weigh lighter than those fragments on which they labor their entire lives." Conceived in Paris in 1927 and still in progress when Benjamin fled the Occupation in 1940, The Arcades Project (in German, Das Passagen-Werk) is a monumental ruin, meticulously constructed over the course of thirteen years--"the theater," as Benjamin called it, "of all my struggles and all my ideas."
Focusing on the arcades of nineteenth-century Paris-glass-roofed rows of shops that were early centers of consumerism--Benjamin presents a montage of quotations from, and reflections on, hundreds of published sources, arranging them…
I am a professor emeritus of history and sociology, who has taught in universities in Canada and the UK. In the 20th century, Prague Castle was the seat of a gamut of modern political regimes, from democracy through fascism to communism. Gazing across the river at the Castle one night during my first visit to the city in early 1990, soon after the fall of communism, it occurred to me that there can be few better vantage points from which to rethink "the modern condition." My interest in imaginative histories, which montage details rather than attempting to provide an overarching grand narrative, stems from wrestling with how to communicate this complexity.
Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2022, Annie Ernaux is one of France's best-loved writers.
She writes through details. Collaging phrases, photographs, lines of songs, objects, advertising jingles, fragments of film, radio and TV programs, and the words of men in bed at night, Ernaux writes the history of modern France via an intensely personal memoir. Dien Bien Phu, the Algerian War, the May '68 revolt, 9–11 are all here, as seen through her eyes and told in her unmistakable voice.
As one critic wrote, Ernaux "transforms her life into history and her memory into the collective memory of a generation." At once richly evocative and utterly unsentimental, this is one of the most original and impressive books I've read in a long while.
Considered by many to be the iconic French memoirist's defining work, The Years is a narrative of the period 1941 to 2006 told through the lens of memory, impressions past and present, cultural habits, language, photos, books, songs, radio, television, advertising and news headlines. Annie Ernaux invents a form that is subjective and impersonal, private and communal, and a new genre - the collective autobiography - in order to capture the passing of time. At the confluence of autofiction and sociology, The Years is 'a Remembrance of Things Past for our age of media domination and consumerism' (New York Times),…
The excitement of new visions! Ever since growing up surrounded by Arabian deserts and then Iran’s mountains, I’ve been fascinated with diverse cultures. My path led me to Cairo and Berkeley for university and then onto Greece, Indonesia, and Italy. Today’s dominant world histories remain rooted in Anglo-American narratives. Only by challenging enshrined status quos, can we capture the truth, often long hidden. Now, an interest for critical storytelling may capture a fuller picture. History needs to be told not only from the point-of-view of the victors, but also the vanquished. Counter histories create bridges of dialogue, where there were none.
This is what inspires me.
Pucci’s book breaks all the clichés about Bali by writers over the last five decades. It offers an eye-opening world view - not only of the island of Bali - through the true stories of Dr. Djelantik. His mission, as a physician, take him to the most remote regions of the planet. He faces all sorts of dangers, even the arrest by Saddam Hussein’s secret police. In each situation, he responds with humanity and a sublime sense of humor. His extraordinary life is grounded in a constant search for truth. Imbued with wonder and magic, these stories awaken a feeling of “lightness of being” in this uncertain age. An incomparable vision of life that offers timeless guidance.
The true story of a prince from Bali, whose fascinating life was shaped by uncommon events and exotic places.
Born in 1919, Prince Made Djelantik witnessed pivotal moments of history: the twilight of a feudal age, the Second World War in Nazi-occupied Holland, Indonesia's long battle for independence from four hundred years of Dutch colonial rule, and finally, the great changes provoked on his island by unbridled development.
Driven by an early passion for medicine, the prince set sail for Europe on the eve of WWII to study at the University of Amsterdam. His calling…
I was a wild card in the industry heavy town where I was born and raised, destined to burn out my days early in a factory or steel mill. But I worked my way through college, survived several close calls in Vietnam and bull headed my way into a series of jobs that pushed me toward Hollywood assignments as a writer, producer and director.
I liked this hundred-year-old novel because it explores some darker doubts and concerns I have always had about “the hidden heart of mankind unrestrained.” What’s more, the theme of Heart Of Darkness is reflected in the movie Apocalypse Now, with stark modern-day observations on the wounds the violence of war can inflict on the hearts and minds of humans.
Although Polish by birth, Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) is regarded as one of the greatest writers in English, and Heart of Darkness, first published in 1902, is considered by many his "most famous, finest, and most enigmatic story." — Encyclopaedia Britannica. The tale concerns the journey of the narrator (Marlow) up the Congo River on behalf of a Belgian trading company. Far upriver, he encounters the mysterious Kurtz, an ivory trader who exercises an almost godlike sway over the inhabitants of the region. Both repelled and fascinated by the man, Marlow is brought face to face with the corruption and despair…
The excitement of new visions! Ever since growing up surrounded by Arabian deserts and then Iran’s mountains, I’ve been fascinated with diverse cultures. My path led me to Cairo and Berkeley for university and then onto Greece, Indonesia, and Italy. Today’s dominant world histories remain rooted in Anglo-American narratives. Only by challenging enshrined status quos, can we capture the truth, often long hidden. Now, an interest for critical storytelling may capture a fuller picture. History needs to be told not only from the point-of-view of the victors, but also the vanquished. Counter histories create bridges of dialogue, where there were none.
This is what inspires me.
Open this treasure chest! A perceptive, elegant collection by SE Asia’s leading journalist, public intellectual, and poet. His magnus opus represents 40 years of essays from 1968 – 2014 and each of his 100 brief passages can stand alone as sledgehammers of provocative thought. Often called the Borges of Asia, Goenawan’s dexterous mind tackles issues of identity, literature, nationalism, culture, colonial crimes, terrorism, Islam, mythologies, historicity, and destiny. As he grapples with universal themes, his deep wisdom offers fascinating insights and compassion into questions that concern us all.
A wide-ranging and beautiful collection of essays from one of world literature's most important writers.
Goenawan Mohamad is one of Indonesia's foremost public intellectuals, and this translated volume of essays spanning from 1968 to the present day demonstrates the breadth of his perceptive and elegant commentary on literature, faith, mythology, politics, and history.
Through the worst days of Indonesia's authoritarianism, in the face of the trauma of great violence and the chaos of democratic transition, Goenawan has never lost faith in the act of writing. Many of his essays from In Other Words were first published for Tempo, the Indonesian…
The excitement of new visions! Ever since growing up surrounded by Arabian deserts and then Iran’s mountains, I’ve been fascinated with diverse cultures. My path led me to Cairo and Berkeley for university and then onto Greece, Indonesia, and Italy. Today’s dominant world histories remain rooted in Anglo-American narratives. Only by challenging enshrined status quos, can we capture the truth, often long hidden. Now, an interest for critical storytelling may capture a fuller picture. History needs to be told not only from the point-of-view of the victors, but also the vanquished. Counter histories create bridges of dialogue, where there were none.
This is what inspires me.
This Paris-based Lebanese author may soon be awarded the Nobel Prize! His first book is a classic that forces readers into a completely different perspective. Maalouf offers in his own vivacious style, a vivid portrait of a society torn by internal conflicts and shaken by a traumatic encounter with an alien culture of invaders. His fascinating insights delve deeply into the Arab and Islamic consciousness today. All Maalouf’s books should be read! Each opens unexpected, illuminated windows on the Middle East with compassion, wisdom, and drama.
European and Arab versions of the Crusades have little in common. For Arabs, the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were years of strenuous efforts to repel a brutal and destructive invasion by barbarian hordes. In "The Crusades Through Arab Eyes", Amin Maalouf has sifted through the works of a score of contemporary Arab chroniclers of the Crusades, eyewitnesses and often participants in the events. He retells their stories in their own vivacious style, giving us a vivid portrait of a society rent by internal conflicts, and shaken by a traumatic encounter with an alien culture. He retraces two critical centuries of…
I am passionate about historical facts, and fiction. My narrative has a universeal appeal making my work relevant to readers of diverse backgrounds. My books entertain and at the same time educate the reader, giving him/her a greater appreciation of the complex world of Latin America and the resilience of its people. I love reading diverse approaches to history and exploring ideas of how our personal interpretations of history shape our opinions.
Eduardo Galeano examines Simón Bolivar’s famous question of whether Latin America will ever know happiness by documenting how exploitation has led to social inequities and political instability. Another question I have grappled with is just as complex to answer, but Galeano does it. Why has Latin America suffered so many military dictatorships?
Recent political developments in the United States resemble the instability and unprincipled rhetoric that caused democracies to fall all over the southern continent.
Since its U.S. debut a quarter-century ago, this brilliant text has set a new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America. It is also an outstanding political economy, a social and cultural narrative of the highest quality, and perhaps the finest description of primitive capital accumulation since Marx.
Rather than chronology, geography, or political successions, Eduardo Galeano has organized the various facets of Latin American history according to the patterns of five centuries of exploitation. Thus he is concerned with gold and silver, cacao and cotton, rubber and coffee, fruit, hides and wool, petroleum, iron, nickel, manganese, copper, aluminum ore,…
I am passionate about historical facts, and fiction. My narrative has a universeal appeal making my work relevant to readers of diverse backgrounds. My books entertain and at the same time educate the reader, giving him/her a greater appreciation of the complex world of Latin America and the resilience of its people. I love reading diverse approaches to history and exploring ideas of how our personal interpretations of history shape our opinions.
I really enjoyed this novel by Sofía Segovia. She takes us to a mystical world. Exceptionally well described, the main character, Simonopio, sees things nobody else can see, visions of what is to come. Disfigured and covered in a blanket of bees, Simonopio is welcomed by Francisco and Beatriz Morales, who adopt and care for him as if they were their own. His swarm of bees always helps Simonopio, and his mission is to protect his adoptive family from threats, both human and those of nature. For me, this is a fascinating book that shows the beauty of this little boy.
From a beguiling voice in Mexican fiction comes an astonishing novel-her first to be translated into English-about a mysterious child with the power to change a family's history in a country on the verge of revolution.
From the day that old Nana Reja found a baby abandoned under a bridge, the life of a small Mexican town forever changed. Disfigured and covered in a blanket of bees, little Simonopio is for some locals the stuff of superstition, a child kissed by the devil. But he is welcomed by landowners Francisco and Beatriz Morales, who adopt him and care for him…
