To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life
While it might sound like a difficult read, it isn’t. Guibert’s voice remains strong even as his body is starting to weaken and more fear dominates his days.
2020
2020 CE.
2020 is the publication year for the editions below.
You can view all years of edition, or you can search by language/region, genre, era/movement, book authors, or editor/translator.
Before Night Falls
Penguin Vitae editions are easy to love and to gush over. The colours! The foil text! The hardcover, in a comfortable size!
The Cipher
The Cipher is an interesting story that uses extreme violence to help the narrative. It doesn’t become the narrative.
Black Narcissus
It’s the subtlety that I described above that really makes this book a great selection to the spooky season — especially if you’re looking for something a bit off the beaten path.
Asylum Piece
She not only describes depression in a way that goes beyond the hallmark of profound sadness — she also discusses the feelings of being overwhelmed and the incapability of focussing on even simple tasks. She discusses the desire to see life in small objects like birds and flowers when one feels so utterly lifeless themselves.
Ain’t I a Woman?
A modern reader will perhaps be struck by the religious bent of her speeches and arguments that hinge on some outdated ideas, but it’s important to realize that Truth was an essential starting point for the fight for equality for women and for suffrage. She was the beginning of the evolution of what that fight became and how it continued.
Zastrozzi & St Irvyne
There’s a moment in Sunset Boulevard where William Holden’s character Joe Gillis takes Norma Desmond’s (played by Gloria Swanson) script in his hand. That’s what I was reminded of reading these two novellas.
Hiroshima
Hiroshima follows the stories of six individuals who lived through the bomb — a clerk, a seamstress, a doctor, a minister, a surgeon, and a Catholic priest initially from Germany. There are five chapters each with six sections — one for each person.
Valentino and Sagittarius
It’s easy to read Ginzburg’s prose in one sitting due to its compelling ebb and flow that makes the pages disappear and story take shape like the very best of books.
The Penguin Book of Christmas Stories
The Penguin Book of Christmas Stories sticks to a formula that’s pretty hard to get wrong. They take a theme and collect a bunch of stories from classic authors to compose an anthology.