Sweet Days of Discipline
aeggy’s starkness has an edge almost of brutality. She doesn’t mince words, she doesn’t dance around what she is trying to say. A confidence and absolute assurance resonates in her work that I rarely see in other authors.
Contemporary
The 20th century contains a lot of small movements, categorized by modern history. Some are more prominent than others, and some are very difficult to define. That’s where the contemporary label comes in.
Post-modernism, structuralism, post-structuralism, post-post-modernism, deconstructionism, post-colonialism, hypertexts, and modern genre fiction can all be found here. Books that don’t fall into a broader movement can also be found here, including many topics of interest that are still current for readers.
Contemporary works were written mostly in the last 100 years. These books are usually a bit easier to find on shelf (though not always) in a bookstore.
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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 Fifth Child
One things about horror is that it can be a bit loud or garish in the way it delivers the message is seeks to convey. Lessing doesn’t do this.
The Country Girls Trilogy
Though the inside flap copy describes the trilogy as ‘Dickensian’, I have to disagree with that description. There’s a reason these books were censored in Ireland when they were first published and implying that these books have any ‘quaintness’ of tone is really not capturing what O’Brien is attempting to say.
Ariel
Plath’s lyrical prose made it obvious that her poetry would be just as lyrical, and she excels at using language and a sparsity of words to express powerful concepts and themes.
Juneteenth
Ellison’s use of language to create complex tapestries of themes and concepts is hard to put into words, both because his style is so unique and because his skill is so profound.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
he doesn’t shy away from what happened to her, but neither does she use it to shock the reader. Instead, she writes of the horror with blunt honesty, and brutality tempered with careful sentence level consideration and a language that is powerful, yet never gratuitous.
I Am Not Your Negro and Nothing Personal
We happened across Raoul Peck’s film I Am Not Your Negro one February night while flipping through the channels. TVO was airing it as part of its yearly Black History Month’s selections. It’s a film that I would not hesitate to name as essential, and it’s what was responsible for my introduction to James Baldwin’s work.
The Complete Novels of Flann O’Brien
Each novel is a different exploration and comment on Irish culture, but each is written in a style that is uniquely O’Brien’s. He has a talent for bitter, scathing satire that sits in the midst of light, often comic prose.
The Enchanted Isle
If you haven’t heard of James M. Cain, you’ve most certainly heard of the films based on his work. Cain is a master at creating a feeling of disgusted disillusionment in his many horrible and fractured characters.