The turbulent waves of 20th-century history crash over it as the house is sold by a Jewish family fleeing the Third Reich, requisitioned by the Russian army, reclaimed by exiles returning from Siberia, and sold again.
Read the review 90 Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck (2008), translated by Susan Bernofsky (2010)Ī grand house by a lake in the east of Germany is both the setting and main character of Erpenbeck’s third novel. Three narrative strands – spanning far-future space opera, contemporary unease and virtual-reality pastiche – are braided together for a breathtaking metaphysical voyage in pursuit of the mystery at the heart of reality.
One of the most underrated prose writers demonstrates the literary firepower of science fiction at its best. The result is both sharp and dreamy, sliding in and out of different phases of Dylan’s career but rooted in his earliest days as a Woody Guthrie wannabe in New York City. Read the review 95 Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan (2004)ĭylan’s reticence about his personal life is a central part of the singer-songwriter’s brand, so the gaps and omissions in this memoir come as no surprise. Some readers wept all night, some condemned it as titillating and exploitative, but no one could deny its power. One man’s life is blighted by abuse and its aftermath, but also illuminated by love and friendship. This operatically harrowing American gay melodrama became an unlikely bestseller, and one of the most divisive novels of the century so far. Read the review 96 A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (2015) The Triwizard Tournament provides pace and tension, and Rowling makes her boy wizard look death in the eye for the first time.
Book four, the first of the doorstoppers, marks the point where the series really takes off. Read the review 97 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling (2000)Ī generation grew up on Rowling’s all-conquering magical fantasies, but countless adults have also been enthralled by her immersive world. The high-level intrigue beguiled millions of readers, brought “Scandi noir” to prominence and inspired innumerable copycats. Radical journalist Mikael Blomkvist forms an unlikely alliance with troubled young hacker Lisbeth Salander as they follow a trail of murder and malfeasance connected with one of Sweden’s most powerful families in the first novel of the bestselling Millennium trilogy. Photograph: Allstar/Sony Pictures Releasing/Sportsphoto Ltd 98 The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (2005), translated by Steven T Murray (2008) As Mabanckou’s unreliable narrator munches his “bicycle chicken” and drinks his red wine, it becomes clear he has the history of Congo-Brazzaville and the whole of French literature in his sights.ĭaniel Craig and Rooney Mara in the 2011 film adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
The Congolese writer says he was “trying to break the French language” with Broken Glass – a black comedy told by a disgraced teacher without much in the way of full stops or paragraph breaks. Read the review 99 Broken Glass by Alain Mabanckou (2005), translated by Helen Stevenson (2009) This wildly enjoyable collection includes her droll observations about ageing, vanity – and a scorching appraisal of Bill Clinton. Confiding and self-deprecating, she has a way of always managing to sound like your best friend – even when writing about her apartment on New York’s Upper West Side. Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance.Perhaps better known for her screenwriting ( Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally, Heartburn), Ephron’s brand of smart theatrical humour is on best display in her essays. Melodrama is a story with emotionally overloaded heroes, often with the tragic end. Ī often depicted the life of well-known people and their life difficulties. Drama devoted to the Historical Drama and Melodrama. Such famous people like Diderot and Lessing loved drama genre very much. The ideal foundation for this is the relationships in a family.
The main topics of drama genre, as a rule, are love, human relationships, unsuccessful friendship, and treason. The author skillfully inflames the emotional background. This happens even not because of the terrible situations which the hero resides but because of a description of his thoughts and feelings. The tears turn upside down during the reading. Of course, the emotions of the heroes cause the reaction of the reader. The main goal of drama genre is to blast the psychological state of a person, the behavior of the hero in different situations.
Often the main heroes are ordinary people. In antic Greece, this genre was called “tragedy”. The founders of drama are Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.