Others: Overwhelmingly positive Waugh’s second novel, published in 1930, is a satire of upper class modern society, savagely parodying the so-called ‘Bright Young Things’ of the nineteen twenties.
Lists: …
H.G. Wells
1900 · 381 pages · 2 reviews
Others: PositivePartly based on Wells’ own experiences as a young man this novel centres on an orphan who becomes apprenticed to a draper. Bored with his humdrum existence of living and working in a drapers, Kipps’ life changes radically when he inherits a fortune from a previously unknown relative. However more troubles occur when he attempts to emulate the people he encounters in upper class society.
What made the match, strongest first
George Orwell
1949 · 314 pages · 12 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveNineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, often referred to as 1984, is a dystopian social science fiction novel by the English novelist George Orwell (the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair). It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final book completed in his lifetime. Thematically, Nineteen Eighty-Four centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and repressive regimentation of persons and behaviours within society. Orwell, himself a democratic socialist, modelled the authoritarian government in the novel after Stalinist Russia. More broadly, the novel examines the role of truth and facts within politics and the ways in which they are manipulated.
What made the match, strongest first
Yukio Mishima
1958 · 254 pages · 1 review
Others: PositiveConfessions of a Mask is Japanese author Yukio Mishima's second novel. Published in 1949, it launched him to national fame though he was only in his early twenties.
Truman Capote
1965 · 343 pages · 2 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveOn November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.
What made the match, strongest first
Mary Jean Chan
2023 · 2 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveFollowing their award-winning debut, Flèche (2019), comes Mary Jean Chan's gleaming second collection: Bright Fear. Through poems which engage fearlessly with intertwined themes of identity, multilingualism and postcolonial legacy, Chan's latest work explores a family's evolving dynamics, as well as microaggressions stemming from queerphobia and anti-Asian racism that accompanied the Covid pandemic.Yet Bright Fear remains deeply attuned to moments of beauty, tenderness and grace. It asks how we might find a home within our own bodies, in places both distant and near, and in the 'constructed space' of the poem. The contemplative central sequence, Ars Poetica, traces the radically healing and transformative role of poetry during the poet's teenage and adult years, culminating in a polyphonic reconciliation of tongues. Throughout, Chan offers us new and galvanising ways to 'withstand the quotidian tug- / of-war between terror and love'.
What made the match, strongest first
Thomas Hardy
1878 · 470 pages · 1 review
Others: PositiveThe native of the title is Clym Yeobright, who returns to the area from the bright society of Paris and, as any reader of Hardy knows, all is not smooth. He is quickly taken by and marries the one woman he should not--Eustacia Vye. The suffering that follows is mitigated somewhat by the ending.
What made the match, strongest first
Loved itthis is a book that I want to do the opposite of gate keep I literally want you and your family and your friends and everyone you've ever interacted with to read this book it's one of my favorite books ever it's silly it's frivolous and it's a roaring good time.
Loved itit is bitter and spiky and funny it's written in this really kind of sparse spiky prose which i really enjoy
