Books with category 🗣 Social Commentary
Displaying 6 books

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

2018

by Hank Green

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is a sweeping, cinematic debut novel by Hank Green, co-creator of Crash Course, Vlogbrothers, and SciShow. The story follows a young woman, April May, who becomes an overnight celebrity after discovering a giant sculpture in New York City at three a.m.

Delighted by its appearance and craftsmanship—like a ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armor—April and her best friend, Andy, make a video with it, which Andy uploads to YouTube. The next day, April wakes up to a viral video and a new life.

News quickly spreads that there are Carls in dozens of cities around the world—from Beijing to Buenos Aires—and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the center of an intense international media spotlight.

Seizing the opportunity to make her mark on the world, April now has to deal with the consequences her new particular brand of fame has on her relationships, her safety, and her own identity. All eyes are on April to figure out not just what the Carls are, but what they want from us.

Compulsively entertaining and powerfully relevant, the novel grapples with big themes, including how the social internet is changing fame, rhetoric, and radicalization; how our culture deals with fear and uncertainty; and how vilification and adoration spring from the same dehumanization that follows a life in the public eye.

Adjustment Day

2018

by Chuck Palahniuk

The author of Fight Club takes America beyond our darkest dreams in this timely satire. People pass the word only to those they trust most: Adjustment Day is coming. They’ve been reading a mysterious book and memorizing its directives. They are ready for the reckoning.

Adjustment Day, the author’s first novel in four years, is an ingeniously comic work in which Chuck Palahniuk does what he does best: skewer the absurdities in our society. Smug, geriatric politicians bring the nation to the brink of a third world war in an effort to control the burgeoning population of young males; working-class men dream of burying the elites; and professors propound theories that offer students only the bleakest future.

When Adjustment Day arrives, it fearlessly makes real the logical conclusion of every separatist fantasy, alternative fact, and conspiracy theory lurking in the American psyche.

Milkman

2018

by Anna Burns

In an unnamed city, to be interesting is dangerous. Middle sister, our protagonist, is busy attempting to keep her mother from discovering her maybe-boyfriend and to keep everyone in the dark about her encounter with Milkman. But when first brother-in-law sniffs out her struggle, and rumors start to swell, middle sister becomes 'interesting'. The last thing she ever wanted to be.

To be interesting is to be noticed and to be noticed is dangerous. Milkman is a tale of gossip and hearsay, silence and deliberate deafness. It is the story of inaction with enormous consequences.

Told with ferocious energy and sly, wicked humor, Milkman establishes Anna Burns as one of the most consequential voices of our day.

Negeri Di Ujung Tanduk

2018

by Tere Liye

Di Negeri di Ujung Tanduk, kehidupan semakin rusak, bukan karena orang jahat semakin banyak, tapi semakin banyak orang yang memilih tidak peduli lagi.

Di Negeri di Ujung Tanduk, para penipu menjadi pemimpin, para pengkhianat menjadi pujaan, bukan karena tidak ada lagi yang memiliki teladan, tapi mereka memutuskan menutup mata dan memilih hidup bahagia sendirian.

Tapi di Negeri di Ujung Tanduk setidaknya, kawan, seorang petarung sejati akan memilih jalan suci, meski habis seluruh darah di badan, menguap segenap air mata, dia akan berdiri paling akhir, demi membela kehormatan.

Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

From the best-selling author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists comes a powerful new statement about feminism today—written as a letter to a friend. A few years ago, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie received a letter from a dear friend from childhood, asking her how to raise her baby girl as a feminist. Dear Ijeawele is Adichie's letter of response.

Here are fifteen invaluable suggestions—compelling, direct, wryly funny, and perceptive—for how to empower a daughter to become a strong, independent woman. From encouraging her to choose a helicopter, and not only a doll, as a toy if she so desires; having open conversations with her about clothes, makeup, and sexuality; debunking the myth that women are somehow biologically arranged to be in the kitchen making dinner, and that men can "allow" women to have full careers, Dear Ijeawele goes right to the heart of sexual politics in the twenty-first century.

It will start a new and urgently needed conversation about what it really means to be a woman today.

Los Divinos

2018

by Laura Restrepo

Un crimen real que conmovió a una sociedad entera. Un alegato contra el feminicidio, por una de las autoras más importantes en español.

El cuerpo de una niña es encontrado flotando en el agua en lo que parece un ritual. En el fondo de este episodio se encuentra el mundo superficial de unos jóvenes ricos y exitosos que mantienen desde la infancia una hermandad maligna y que contrasta con el de la víctima, pobre, sobreviviente de la violencia de su lugar de origen.

Los divinos es la recreación hecha desde la ficción de un crimen real pero, sobre todo, es la novela más importante de una de las mejores escritoras de Latinoamérica.

Una historia basada en uno de los crímenes más impactantes cometidos en Colombia en los últimos años.

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