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    Why Marx Was Right by Terry Eagleton
    • 1 day ago
    • 2 min

    Why Marx Was Right by Terry Eagleton

    Why Marx Was Right is Terry Eagleton’s attempt at making Karl Marx’s theory accessible to all and to provide socialists with some...
    How to Live: A Life of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell
    • May 12
    • 2 min

    How to Live: A Life of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell

    How to live? Read a lot, forget most of what you’ve read, and be slow-witted! How do you make peace with the fact of death? How do you...
    The Women of Troy by Pat Barker
    • Apr 26
    • 2 min

    The Women of Troy by Pat Barker

    The Trojan War has left destruction in its wake. The city is defeated, its men have been murdered, and the women enslaved. But the Greek...
    The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante
    • Apr 19
    • 3 min

    The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante

    “Two years before leaving home my father said to my mother that I was very ugly,” is the brutal opening line of Elena Ferrante’s most...
    If This Is a Man by Primo Levi
    • Apr 12
    • 5 min

    If This Is a Man by Primo Levi

    What can you say about a work such as this? It has been several weeks now since I read it, and I still feel lost for words. If This Is a...
    Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller
    • Mar 23
    • 2 min

    Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller

    First developed in the 1940s, attachment theory originally dealt with the relationship between infants and their caregivers and is one of...
    Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah
    • Mar 17
    • 3 min

    Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah

    Uncle Aziz comes by the house every year. His visits are always a cause for excitement. The wealthy merchant and his men are not only...
    The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
    • Mar 2
    • 3 min

    The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

    Holden Caulfield has been expelled from his prep-school. Again. Having failed all subjects but English he now has to pack his bags and go...
    Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
    • Feb 15
    • 2 min

    Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

    It is hot in this 1960s Harlem summer where we meet Ray Carney for the first time. A respectable furniture salesman, Carney is well-liked...
    Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
    • Feb 8
    • 2 min

    Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

    It is a bitter cold winter in Ireland, 1985. We are in a small town, among good Christian citizens and meet Bill Furlong, the coal...
    Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
    • Feb 2
    • 2 min

    Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney

    Frances and Bobbi are students at Trinity College, Dublin. They used to be lovers, now they are best friends who perform poetry together....
    Tar Baby by Toni Morrison
    • Jan 25
    • 2 min

    Tar Baby by Toni Morrison

    L’Isle des Cheavliers is a tropical paradise where the rich American candy manufacturer Valerian Street has chosen to retire with his...
    White Teeth by Zadie Smith
    • Jan 18
    • 2 min

    White Teeth by Zadie Smith

    Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal have been best friends since their adventures during World War II, though none of their friends and family...
    My Top Reads of 2021
    • Jan 11
    • 3 min

    My Top Reads of 2021

    Here are the top 5 fiction and non-fiction books out of the 73 I’ve read this year. Fiction: Beloved by Toni Morrison Beloved is a...
    Milkman by Anna Burns
    • Jan 4
    • 2 min

    Milkman by Anna Burns

    In an unnamed city, where two communities live in conflict with each other, where there is a right and a wrong kind of butter, just as...
    The Booker Prize 2021
    • Nov 2, 2021
    • 5 min

    The Booker Prize 2021

    Tomorrow, the winner of the 2021 Booker Prize will be announced. Over the past few weeks I read my way through the shortlist, and it was...
    Lost in Translation: Life in a New Language by Eva Hoffman
    • Oct 26, 2021
    • 2 min

    Lost in Translation: Life in a New Language by Eva Hoffman

    In 1959, when Eva Hoffman was just 13 years old, her family decided to turn their back on the prevalent anti-Semitism in Poland and...
    The Secret History by Donna Tartt
    • Oct 19, 2021
    • 3 min

    The Secret History by Donna Tartt

    It is late summer in Vermont in the 1980s and Richard Papen has just moved to the East Coast from California to study at the liberal arts...
    The Good Immigrant by Nikesh Shukla
    • Oct 12, 2021
    • 2 min

    The Good Immigrant by Nikesh Shukla

    What does it mean to have to change your name for your classmates to be able to pronounce and remember it? How does it feel to be...
    Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
    • Oct 5, 2021
    • 2 min

    Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

    The family Gifty remembers from early childhood is a family of four, that quickly became a family of three and way too soon was cut into...
    Our Bodies Their, Battlefields by Christina Lamb
    • Sep 28, 2021
    • 3 min

    Our Bodies Their, Battlefields by Christina Lamb

    Our Bodies, Their Battlefields is a brutal, shocking, devastating read. And it could not be any other way. Christina Lamb, co-author of I...
    Strange Flowers by Donal Ryan
    • Sep 21, 2021
    • 2 min

    Strange Flowers by Donal Ryan

    Moll Gladney is a quiet girl, not known to cause troubles to her devout and hardworking parents. But one night she disappears from her...
    A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
    • Sep 14, 2021
    • 3 min

    A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

    Frederic Henry, known simply as “tenente” by most, is an American lieutenant fighting with the Italian Army in World War I. He meets the...
    All That Is Worth Remembering
    • Sep 7, 2021
    • 2 min

    All That Is Worth Remembering

    “We may be intolerant even in advocating the cause of Toleration, and so bent on making proselytes to free-thinking as to allow no one to...
    Famiglia di Natalia Ginzburg
    • Aug 31, 2021
    • 4 min

    Famiglia di Natalia Ginzburg

    (english version below) Famiglia di Natalia Ginzburg contiene due novelle sulla vita della borghesia romana nella seconda metà del secolo...
    The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
    • Aug 24, 2021
    • 2 min

    The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

    Desiree and Stella Vignes are identical and inseparable. Only those who know them well will be able to tell them apart: Desiree, the...
    Normal People by Sally Rooney
    • Aug 17, 2021
    • 2 min

    Normal People by Sally Rooney

    The social laws of high school dynamics govern Connell and Marianne’s behaviour. He is the popular star of the school’s football team,...
    Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall
    • Aug 10, 2021
    • 2 min

    Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall

    The term intersectional feminism was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw to highlight how different dimensions of oppression – for example sexism...
    Grand Union by Zadie Smith
    • Aug 3, 2021
    • 2 min

    Grand Union by Zadie Smith

    Grand Union is Zadie Smith’s collection of short stories, comprising eleven completely new works as well as eight stories previously...
    A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
    • Jul 27, 2021
    • 3 min

    A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

    Moscow, 1922. Count Alexander Rostov – member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt – faces a Bolshevik tribunal and the end to life as...
    A Little History of Religion by Richard Holloway
    • Jul 20, 2021
    • 2 min

    A Little History of Religion by Richard Holloway

    In face of the recent war in Israel and Palestine (and the outbreak of sharing other people’s 240-character opinions on social media), I...
    Ich Würde So Etwas Nie Ohne Lippenstift Lesen von Michaela Karl
    • Jul 13, 2021
    • 3 min

    Ich Würde So Etwas Nie Ohne Lippenstift Lesen von Michaela Karl

    Heute ist sie fast in Vergessenheit geraten, doch einst war Maeve Brennan gefeierte Autorin und Ikone der New Yorker Modewelt. Die schöne...
    Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
    • Jul 6, 2021
    • 3 min

    Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

    Frank and April Wheeler’s life in the suburbs of Connecticut might look very typical to the untrained eye: two children and a charming...
    Voices of the Lost by Hoda Barakat
    • Jun 29, 2021
    • 2 min

    Voices of the Lost by Hoda Barakat

    Five letters that will never reach their destination, written by five unnamed people who come from an unnamed, war-torn country form the...
    all about love by bell hooks
    • Jun 22, 2021
    • 3 min

    all about love by bell hooks

    Feminist writer bell hooks’ All About Love: New Visions is a passionate exploration of how we do and appeal to how we should love. What...
    Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
    • Jun 15, 2021
    • 3 min

    Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

    The pain of growing up is the main character in Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Woods. Toru Watanabe finds himself at a crossways, having to...
    Il Diavolo, Certamente di Andrea Camilleri
    • Jun 8, 2021
    • 3 min

    Il Diavolo, Certamente di Andrea Camilleri

    (english version below) Andrea Camilleri è l’autore molto amato dei romanzi polizieschi sul commissario Montalbano (28 romanzi ed alcuni...
    Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
    • Jun 1, 2021
    • 3 min

    Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

    Yaa Gyasi’s stunning debut novel Homegoing traces the story of a Ghanaian family as it plays out both in the Asante region and in...
    Fathers and Sons by Howard Cunnell
    • May 25, 2021
    • 2 min

    Fathers and Sons by Howard Cunnell

    Fathers and Sons is Howard Cunnell’s beautiful memoir about growing up, about love and masculinity, about fathers and sons. This short...
    The Sellout by Paul Beatty
    • May 18, 2021
    • 2 min

    The Sellout by Paul Beatty

    The Sellout is a work of biting satire, and you best be ready for it when you open this book. Our protagonist is a young man who grew up...
    Conjure Women by Afia Atakora
    • May 11, 2021
    • 2 min

    Conjure Women by Afia Atakora

    “The black baby’s crying wormed and bloomed.” When a pale and black-eyed baby is born in its black caul, Rue hesitates before freeing it...
    The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
    • May 4, 2021
    • 3 min

    The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

    Everyone who eats should read this book! What should we have for dinner? For omnivores like ourselves this question always causes...
    Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
    • Apr 27, 2021
    • 3 min

    Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

    In the 1970s everyone knows The Six. Their songs are played on every radio station, their records and world tours sell out in the blink...
    5 Things I Loved about To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
    • Apr 20, 2021
    • 3 min

    5 Things I Loved about To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

    I have finally (!!) read To Kill a Mockingbird, after it had waited on top of my to-be-read list for years. Books with so much history...
    Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman
    • Apr 13, 2021
    • 2 min

    Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman

    What would the world look like, if we didn’t assume the worst of our fellow human beings? If collectively we had a positive, an...
    Revolting Prostitutes by Molly Smith and Juno Mac
    • Apr 6, 2021
    • 2 min

    Revolting Prostitutes by Molly Smith and Juno Mac

    In their powerful and eye-opening manifesto Revolting Prostitutes, Juno Mac and Molly Smith make the point for sex workers’ rights loud...
    I'm Supposed to Protect You from All This by Nadja Spiegelman
    • Mar 30, 2021
    • 3 min

    I'm Supposed to Protect You from All This by Nadja Spiegelman

    Ah, this book! This is one that is going to stay with me for a long time. While reading it, I was already looking forward to starting it...
    Fiction and Non-Fiction by Chinua Achebe
    • Mar 16, 2021
    • 2 min

    Fiction and Non-Fiction by Chinua Achebe

    Last week I read both an essay collection and a novel by the celebrated Nigerian author Chinua Achebe. Africa’s Tarnished Name is a...
    Beloved by Toni Morrison
    • Mar 9, 2021
    • 3 min

    Beloved by Toni Morrison

    Poetic and heart-breaking. Those are the first words that come to mind when I think about Toni Morrison’s masterpiece Beloved. I only...
    City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
    • Mar 2, 2021
    • 3 min

    City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert

    "Youth is an irreplaceable treasure, and the only respectable thing to do with irreplaceable treasure is to waste it."
     
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