![]() ![]() ![]() She feels powerless to change her life and feels that things will only get worse as she ages, so makes a relatively passionless decision to end her life in order to find “freedom.” As she waits for the pills to take hold, she reads an article asking, “Where is Slovenia?” (in a meta stroke, the article is stated as being written by Coelho) and decides to write a letter to the editor, justifying her suicide as a reaction to the article’s belittlement of her home country. Though she has a job, friends and family, she feels nothing but apathy toward her life and feels no great draw toward the kind of life that is expected of her. Veronika is a young librarian with a good life that she nonetheless finds unfulfilling. ![]() The novel takes place in Ljubljana, Slovenia, a few years after the break up of Yugoslavia. It follows the story of a 24-year-old woman’s attempted suicide and stay at a mental hospital. Veronika Decides to Die is a 1998 novel by Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho. ![]()
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![]() ![]() There he wrote a series of blockbuster, award-winning articles that changed the public conversation around race, culture and political possibility, and became, himself, an example of how the Obama era changed individual lives and opened opportunities for new voices to find a place at the center of the American story. ![]() During this same period, Ta-Nehisi Coates, who begins the book in an unemployment office and ends it having interviewed President Obama in the Oval office, became one of the country’s most important voices through his work at The Atlantic. The years between 20 don’t just mark two terms of a historic presidency but define a dramatic era in politics, activism, culture, and historiography that have reshaped this country and its public discourse. ![]() In these “urgently relevant essays,”* the National Book Award-winning author of Between the World and Me “reflects on race, Barack Obama’s presidency and its jarring aftermath” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)-including the election of Donald Trump. ![]() ![]() ![]() Learn about the major environmental problems facing our planet and what can be done about them! Saving Earth Britannica Presents Earth’s To-Do List for the 21st Century.100 Women Britannica celebrates the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, highlighting suffragists and history-making politicians.COVID-19 Portal While this global health crisis continues to evolve, it can be useful to look to past pandemics to better understand how to respond today.Student Portal Britannica is the ultimate student resource for key school subjects like history, government, literature, and more.This Time in History In these videos, find out what happened this month (or any month!) in history.#WTFact Videos In #WTFact Britannica shares some of the most bizarre facts we can find.Demystified Videos In Demystified, Britannica has all the answers to your burning questions.Britannica Classics Check out these retro videos from Encyclopedia Britannica’s archives.Britannica Explains In these videos, Britannica explains a variety of topics and answers frequently asked questions. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Let’s start with what I did like, shall we? My favorite thing about the book was definitely the way that Olsson changed perspectives throughout. I did like the book, and I was interested enough to keep turning its pages, but I wasn’t thrilled. The novel was, overall, somewhere along the range of okay to good. ![]() Set against a haunting Swedish landscape, Astrid & Veronika is a lyrical and meditative novel of love and loss, and a story that will remain with readers long after the characters’ secrets are revealed.ĭespite not loving Olsson’s Sonata for Miriam when I read it a few months ago, I did love her beautiful writing and was intrigued enough by that to seek out a copy of this, her first novel, Astrid & Veronika. Her arrival is silently observed by Astrid, an older, reclusive neighbor who slowly becomes a presence in Veronika’s life, offering comfort in the form of companionship and lovingly prepared home-cooked meals. ![]() Veronika, a young writer, rents a house in a small Swedish village as she tries to come to terms with a recent tragedy while also finishing a novel. With extraordinary emotional power, Linda Olsson’s stunningly well-crafted debut novel recounts the unusual and unexpected friendship that develops between two women. Genres: Contemporary Fiction, Womens’ Fiction ![]() ![]() This solidified his place among the literary elite and he was soon flooded with requests for his signature. ![]() His books were a heartwarming and accurate reflection of his times, and his use of colloquialisms only added authenticity to his writing.īook collectors have been adding Twain to their assemblage since 1885, when Leon & Brothers, rare book dealers from New York, devoted a catalogue entirely to American authors, which included 13 of Twain’s first edition books. But despite his southern upbringing during the time of slavery, Twain was decidedly not racist. Schools across America banned what is arguably his most popular book, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, due to its frequent use of racial epithets. For this reason, much of Twain’s work has been restricted throughout the years. Twain was able to accurately reflect the sensitive social issues of his day in a way that intimately touched his readers and often caused great controversy. ![]() His vast body of work spans multiple genres. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his nom de plume Mark Twain, was one of the most critically acclaimed and popular writers of our time. ![]() ![]() ![]() I am normally not one for a book with more than two point of views because things tend to spiral and get confusing from there, but Samantha Durante did a great job of keeping everything organized and it was really easy to tell whose story we were on in any given chapter. The different people are in different places during the story and the chapters pretty much all go in the same order so you know who is coming up next. I know that sounds like a lot, but it is not hard to keep track of anyone. Shudder follows five different point of views. ![]() So much is going on! There is action from page one. And book two, Shudder did not dissappoint. It is honestly one of the best dystopians that I have read in a long time. How crazy is that? But Stitch is more than just a cool concept. Stitching them so that they would think they were living out various lives on tv dramas for entertainment for people. ![]() I thought the concept of Stitch was so cool! I mean, it was totally creepy and kinda scary when you think about everything that this “government” of sorts was doing to people. Note: Shudder is book two in the Stitch series. ![]() ![]() ![]() While some readers might be aware of Kansas City’s status as a “wide-open” playground, a sin city that was fertile ground for the blossoming of the sound of jazz, the realities of systemic segregation and cultural racism were no less in force than anywhere else. Bill and a wandering spirit, a few years after the end of World War II. ![]() He was born there in 1924, left for college and the Naval Air Corps in the early 1940s, and essentially left for good, via the G.I. Bridge followed 10 years later, in 1969, following the legislative successes of the 1960s as well as the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr., John Kennedy and his brother Robert, and Malcolm X.īut both novels looked back to an earlier period, one at least partly reflecting Connell’s own boyhood in Kansas City. ![]() Bridge in the 1950s, in the era when the civil rights movement and conflicts over the grip of Jim Crow segregation were both growing. Bridge, contain numerous incidents that peel back the scab of genteel indifference and overt scorn that white Americans brought to race relations.Ĭonnell wrote Mrs. His two novels about a prosperous Kansas City family in the 1930s and ‘40s, Mrs. Connell, the writer largely known for his portrayals of domestic uneasiness in mid-20th century America, never shied from the realities of whiteness and race. Connell, appears as part of a package about me and Connell in an online feature of New Letters magazine: Įvan S. This essay, which I wrote before the publication of Literary Alchemist: The Writing Life of Evan S. ![]() ![]() ![]() In the novel’s present day, however, Schwinn’s bicycles have long been outsourced, and Alan is suffering from the poor effects of several ventures he made in attempts to regain his status and capital. While I don’t remember Eggers making any direct references to Death of a Salesman, I certainly felt the presence of Willy Loman in this novel’s flashbacks to Alan’s years of learning salesmanship and gaining confidence and authority in a world whose rules he understood. It’s also a work of social satire and a midlife cri de coeur in the vein of Orwell’s Coming Up for Air, and at times I even felt as if I were reading a parable of sorts.Īs a young salesman working for Schwinn, Alan learned that all sales are driven by four human insecurities: the compulsions toward money, romance, self-preservation, and recognition. ![]() This novel is an absurdist comedy, as King Abdullah consistently fails to show up, leaving Alan and his three young co-workers to languish in a tent in the middle of a city that is planned but mostly not yet built. In this novel, protagonist Alan Clay is a salesman facing bankruptcy and ruin who travels to Saudi Arabia with the goal of selling a hologram (and the larger business package that goes with it) to King Abdullah. ![]() ![]() ![]() It’s a book that doesn’t “tight the world to its chest”. If you’re ever looking for a book that balances social issues and the reality of average Nigerians in the most hilarious way, then Lola Shoneyin’s debut novel is that book. The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives by Lola Shoneyin (2010).So if you think we left out anything, please let us know. ![]() Creating this list was super difficult because so many wonderful novels were published in the last decade. Here at Zikoko, we’ve decided to make a list to celebrate some of the novels we consider to be the best published in the last decade. And while there’s so much more to be done, there’s proof that Nigerian writers are doing the work. With new voices, a range of genres and topics, the books, short stories and people that make up Nigerian literature have steadily circumvented labels and stereotypes. ![]() Nigerian literature in the past decade has shown an incredible growth spike. ![]() ![]() ![]() We argue that the two Acts of Unveiling and Veiling have been a mechanism in the service of patriarchy, which created division, conflict and segregation amongst women. By examining the history of veiling in Iran and the study of veiling as represented in Marjane Satrapi’s memoir, Persepolis, this paper sheds light on the ramifications of forced unveiling and veiling, and it also enlightens the readers to how the Iranian women became the yardstick with which the country’s progress is measured. ![]() ![]() However, little mention is given in most scholarly works as to how it affects women and its ramifications in society. Much ink has been spilled on the history of veiling, reveiling, and unveiling in various parts of the Muslim world, particularly in Iran. ![]() |