Canadian Store (CAD)
You are currently shopping in our Canadian store. For orders outside of Canada, please switch to our international store. International and US orders are billed in US dollars.
The following is excerpted from the Telegraph-Journal article, 21st Century Man:
In a time like this, when reading is at an all-time low and criticism seems to be a dying art, Stan Persky's Reading the 21st Century was a comforting companion.
From Sept. 11 to the election of Obama, Persky provides a critical analysis of what he considers the best fiction and non-fiction of the aughts. It's always revelatory to look back and place books or films, for that matter, in a historical, sociological and political context.
The writers that Persky entertains are too numerous to enumerate in 500 words. Most notably Philip Roth, José Saramago, Orhan Pamuk, Amos Oz and J.M. Coetzee for fiction, and Richard Dawkins, Azar Nafisi, Edward Said, Tony Judt and Richard Clarke for non-fiction. Roth's The Human Stain, Saramago's Blindness, Pamuk's Snow, and Dawkins' The God Delusion are all at the top of the list, but it is the reason why they are there that makes this book a compelling read.
For example, Dawkins undeniably boorish book on atheism was a cultural phenomenon and was chosen not because he is right or wrong but because it brought the question of God's existence back into our consciousness and made it relevant again. One of the most interesting chapters is called "Exit Strategies" – dealing with writers who are in the later stages of their careers (Roth, Saramago, Coetzee, Said). Instead of trailing off into lesser works – like Vonnegut and Updike – they are producing the most relevant and provocative writing of their career.
To learn more about Reading the 21st Century, or to order online, click here.
To arrange an interview with the author, contact MQUP Publicist Jacqui Davis.
No comments yet.