TIME recently chose their favorite nonfiction books in English from the magazine’s inception in 1923 to today, and we decided to cull 10 from their list to present to you, dear readers. These are the books that have stayed in the public mind for years, which is increasingly difficult to do today, as we measure the popularity of a book now in months, if not days. In June, we featured 10 picks from the Guardian‘s Top 100 list of nonfiction titles, but these were culled from throughout history, making it tough to choose between, say, Herodotus and Hannah Arendt. With this 88-year span, however, the choices were somewhat easier. As always, let us know what you think of the books in the comments section below.
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After our recent roundup of 25 great parties on film, it occurred to us that movies aren’t the only medium to have depicted fantastic fêtes. So, to help you gear up for a celebratory July 4th weekend, we reached out to Flavorpill staff and readers alike to get their nominations for liteature’s best bash. With their help, we’ve come up with a list of ten great gatherings we would love to have attended. Keep the party going by adding your favorites in the comments.
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Patrick Kingsley recently wrote in The Guardian about “poisonous literary feuds” and the peacemakers who could broker a truce. We ran a post on the subject last year, but thought we would do an international list of troublemakers this time around. We’d also like to honor the man who racked up the most hours feuding with his literary colleagues: Norman Mailer. Writers today generally aren’t as venomous toward each other (although maybe Colson Whitehead would disagree after his salivary encounter with Richard Ford). We have to agree with Mailer’s proclamation on The Dick Cavett Show: “I’m going to be the champ until one of you knocks me off.”
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A few years ago, Inigo Thomas wrote in Slate: “If remorse is one part of the hangover, so is resolve — the refusal to give into the worst of it.” Shake off the excesses of St. Patrick’s Day by reading some selections from our list of hangover-themed books. From cookbooks to calamitous fiction, there’s an assortment of titles for the morning after a long night out. We’ve even arranged them in categories for your viewing pleasure.
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We all have a few: the books we read when we were young that altered everything. These were the world-changers, the reality-definers, the stories you died over, gushed to your friends about, pushed into the hands of boyfriends and girlfriends, urgently, sincerely. They were pivotal, inspirational, important.
And then: you grow up a bit and return to the books that started a revolution in the way you existed in the world, the ones you thought would change you ever-after, and you think, oh, goddammit, that’s what had me so hot-and-bothered? And this is fine, this is natural. You were changed for a time, and changed again. You get older, you learn some things. Which is not to say the books below ought be avoided altogether. No, these are a few of the books that knocked you off the roof when you were a kid, that fall flat to re-read right now (plus a few suggestions on grown-up alternatives).
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The release of Quirk Classics’ The Meowmorphosis reimagines Franz Kafka’s classic tale with a Lolcat friendly kitten instead of the original insect. Although Kafka isn’t known to have been particularly cute or cuddly in either his life or work (though skittish, yes), we couldn’t help but ponder which animals do match up with famous authors. It’s an imprecise science, sure, but here are our bids for cross-species author/animal pairings.
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[Editor's note: Flavorwire is counting down our most popular features of 2010. This post comes in at position number 5. It was originally published October 12, 2010.] When it comes to writers’ fashion choices, most people know better than to judge a book by its cover. Although most authors are more closely associated with recluse-chic than aesthetic edge, there are those few who have become almost as recognizable for their stylistic sensibilities as for their literary skills. We’ve already explored the glamorous lives of fictional characters, but after the jump, check out ten great authors with equally distinctive personal styles.
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Nerds tend to overdress — probably the result of being fussed over by mothers who they were always making “so proud.” That overdressing, though well-intentioned, frequently gets out of hand. Yesterday the New York Times’ Bits blog spoke with Kristen Slowe, a designer who’s trying to make style simpler for the geekier males among us with her new line Saboteur. Inspired by the impending fashion revolution, we decided to comb through style site Nerd Boyfriend, and came up with this list of heroes who’ve made their nerdy fashions into classics.
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The cover of this week’s Time Magazine features writer Jonathan Franzen, whose new novel, Freedom, publishes at the end of August. As the New York Times points out, he’ll be the first living writer on the cover in ten years. To get there, an author must brew the perfect combination of sales, publicity, and cultural impact. (Only a small fraction of the authors on Time’s 100 Novels list ever made the cut for a spot on the cover.) After the jump, we’ll take you through the last 15 Time covers featuring a living writer, and explain what landed them there.
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Yesterday Susan Orlean cataloged some of her all-time favorite books on Twitter using the hashtag #booksthatchangedmyworld, and it took off into a trending topic that still has major momentum. “At a moment when the publishing world is having profound self-esteem problems, when writers are worrying whether they need to learn programming code in order to keep pace with wherever it is that book publishing is going, it is marvelous to be reminded that it is still all about stories, and about feeling that something you read changed the way you look at life,” Orlean told The Book Bench. Click through for her full list of must-reads, and if you plan to get in on the action, be sure to tweet your selections @flavorpill.
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