top 8 books i read in 2024
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Books
Heartbreak Is the National Anthem
Rob Sheffield · 2024
Madame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert ·
Madame Bovary (1856) is the French writer Gustave Flaubert's debut novel. The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life. Though the basic plot is rather simple, even archetypal, the novel's true art lies in its details and hidden patterns. Flaubert was a notorious perfectionist and claimed always to be searching for le mot juste ("the precise word"). When it was first serialized in La Revue de Paris between 1 October 1856 and 15 December 1856, the novel was attacked for obscenity by public prosecutors. The resulting trial, held in January 1857, made the story notorious. After Flaubert's acquittal on 7 February 1857, Madame Bovary became a bestseller when it was published as a single volume in April 1857. The novel is now considered Flaubert's masterpiece, as well as a seminal work of realism and one of the most influential novels ever written. In fact, the notable British-American critic James Wood writes in How Fiction Works: "Flaubert established for good or ill, what most readers think of as modern realist narration, and his influence is almost too familiar to be visible".
Yellowface
Kuang Rebecca F. · 2024
Athena Liu is a literary darling and June Hayward is literally nobody.<br/><br/>White lies<br/>When Athena dies in a freak accident, June steals her unpublished manuscript and publishes it as her own under the ambiguous name Juniper Song.<br/><br/>Dark humour<br/>But as evidence threatens June’s stolen success, she will discover exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.<br/><br/>Deadly consequences…<br/>What happens next is entirely everyone else’s fault.<br/><br/>With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface grapples with questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation, as well as the terrifying alienation of social media. R.F. Kuang’s novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable.
Carmilla (Clockwork Editions)
Joseph Sheridan Lefanu · 2019
<p><i>"To this hour the image of Carmilla returns to my memory with ambiguous alternations--sometimes the playful, languid, beautiful girl; sometimes the writhing fiend I saw in the ruined church. Sometimes, I start from a reverie, certain I heard the light step of Carmilla at the drawing-room door."</i><br></p> <p><p>Isolated in a remote mansion in a central European forest, Laura longs for companionship--until a carriage accident brings another young woman into her life: the secretive and sometimes erratic Carmilla. As Carmilla's actions become more puzzling and volatile, Laura develops bizarre symptoms, and as her health goes into decline, Laura and her father discover something monstrous.</p> <p><p>Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's compelling tale of a young woman's seduction by a female vampire was a source of influence for Bram Stoker's <i>Dracula</i>, which it predates by over a quarter century. <i>Carmilla</i> was originally serialized from 1871 to 1872 and went on to inspire adaptations in film, opera, and beyond, including the cult classic web series by the same name.</p>
Antichrista
Amélie Nothomb · 2005
Product Description<br/><br/><br/>AntichristaLa Blanche té 16 anys, pocs amics i no gaire empenta. La seva vida és buida i poc viscuda; no té idees pròpies i ni tan sols està segura de si té ànima. Però un dia coneix la Christa, la noia més popular de la classe, i la seva vida canvia radicalment: finalment té una amiga amb qui compartir-ho tot, sortir a les nits i parlar durant hores. La Christa és una noia fantàstica, i així ho creuen també els pares de la Blanche, que fins i tot la conviden a instal·lar-se a casa seva entre setmana.Però les aparences són sovint enganyoses, i la Christa té una cara oculta. El que sembla d'entrada una amistat positiva que alegrarà la vida a la solitària Blanche s'acaba convertint en un malson ple de jocs perversos i manipulacions.<br/><br/><br/>Book Description<br/><br/><br/>Intel·ligent, penetrant i amb un punt de malícia.
Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck · 1993
A controversial tale of friendship and tragedy during the Great Depression<br/><br/>They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation.<br/><br/>Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. For George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own. When they land jobs on a ranch in the Salinas Valley, the fulfillment of their dream seems to be within their grasp. But even George cannot guard Lennie from the provocations of a flirtatious woman, nor predict the consequences of Lennie's unswerving obedience to the things George taught him.<br/><br/>"A thriller, a gripping tale . . . that you will not set down until it is finished. Steinbeck has touched the quick." —The New York Times
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (A Memoir of the Craft (Reissue))
Stephen King · 2020
The Secret History
Donna Tartt · 1992
<b><b><b><b>ONE OF <i>TIME MAGAZINE</i>'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME • </b>INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A contemporary literary classic and "a<b>n accomplished psychological thriller ... absolutely chilling" (<i>Village Voice</i>)</b>, f<b>rom the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of <i>The Goldfinch.<br><br></i></b></b></b>One of <i>The Atlantic</i>’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years</b><br><br>Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries. But their search for the transcendent leads them down a dangerous path, beyond human constructs of morality.<br><br><b>“A remarkably powerful novel [and] a ferociously well-paced entertainment . . . Forceful, cerebral, and impeccably controlled.” —<i>The New York Times</i></b>
