If you have long re-read all the bestsellers of classical literature, then it’s time to start reading modern works. In addition to the fact that they carry new thoughts and reflect the ideas of the modern generation, they also help to broaden horizons and change the worldview. In this review, we will talk about 10 contemporary works over time.
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Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
This novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2014, and in 2019, based on it, a film starring Ansel Elgort and Nicole Kidman was released. This is a story about a 13-year-old guy who woke up after an explosion in a museum and received from a dying old man a ring and a rare painting by Karel Fabritius (it’s called “Goldfinch”) with an order to take them out of the museum. Now he has a difficult path to recover from the resulting psychological trauma.
The Incredible Private Life of Maxwell Sim, Jonathan Coe
The main character is a classic loser who has no friends, his marriage broke up, his work is collapsing, and for six months he has been clinically depressed. A chance meeting with a strange girl sets off a chain reaction of confessions and memories in his head that will lead him to a fantastic ending. This is a story about loneliness in the era of social networks, which will surely resonate with everyone.
Children’s book, Antonia Byatt
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the novel tells the story of several related families from 1895 to the end of the First World War. And although at first the life of the heroes looks perfect, later it becomes obvious that the life of any family is much more complicated than it seems at first glance. There are many characters and micro plots here, and fairy tale motifs are intertwined with the main ideas of the century.
Atonement, Ian McEwan
The 2007 film adaptation of the same name starring James McAvoy and Keira Knightley received seven Oscar nominations! Set against the backdrop of World War II, the story follows the daughter of a successful politician who falls in love with a gardener. True, their romance is not approved by the younger sister of the main character, and in order to get rid of her lover, she slanders him, and he is put in jail. Now, for the rest of her life, she will have to work on redemption. The ending will definitely surprise you.
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
A novel about the amazing power of female solidarity. In the center of the plot are two completely different women who would hardly ever have become friends if it were not for the terrible events of the civil war in Afghanistan. BBC in 2019 included this work in the list of the 100 most inspiring!
Life of Pi, Yann Martel
The film adaptation of this novel became a four-time Oscar winner, and the work itself received the Booker Prize in 2002. A philosophical adventure novel centered around the zoo director’s son. When his family decides to move with most of the animals, the ship crashes, but the boy manages to escape. Ahead – 227 days of struggle for life.
Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
The novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and shortlisted for the US National Book Award and received critical acclaim. The book tells about the lives of four friends, gradually shifting the focus to one of them and his psychological trauma received in childhood and broke his faith in people.
Normal People by Sally Rooney
In 2020, based on this novel, a drama series of the same name was filmed, the author of the book is called Jerome Salinger for millennials, and the work itself was included in the Booker Prize list. This is a story about two dissimilar guys and a girl whose life will be changed by one short and awkward, but very important conversation.
White Teeth, Zadie Smith
The author wrote it in her last year at Cambridge University, and two years after the publication, Channel 4 made a TV series based on the novel. This is a story about friendship, love, war, three cultures, three families over three generations, and one very unusual… mouse! Time magazine included this book in the list of the best novels from 1923 to 2005, calling it the first novel in the world that fully reflects our post-colonial, globalized world, where the boundaries between races and nations are blurred even within families.
Utopia Shore, Tom Stoppard
A play that tells about Russia in the 19th century and with many characters from both domestic and foreign history: Ivan Turgenev, Vissarion Belinsky, Nikolai Chernyshevsky, Georg Herweg, Karl Marx, and many others. One of the central themes of the trilogy is freedom, and the author himself spoke about his work as follows: “Plays are written about people, about relationships, about how people fall in love, grow up, get married, die, leave their wives or husbands, return to them … Plays are not written about ideas. I was drawn to the characters.”
All of the above books are among the most talked about in the world today. Therefore, if you are a famous literature lover and want to keep abreast of the latest book innovations, read these books.
