Alice Walker's The Color Purple published this year

First posted 6/16/2020; updated 7/5/2020.

The Color Purple Alice Walker

First Publication: 1982 Category: novel about race Sales: ?

Accolades:

About the Book: “This is the story of two sisters – one a missionary in Africa and the other a child wife living in the South – who sustain their loyalty to and trust in each other across time, distance, and silence. Beautifully imagined and deeply compassionate, this classic novel of American literature is rich with passion, pain, inspiration, and an indomitable love of life.” AZ “Published to unprecedented acclaim, The Color Purple established Alice Walker as a major voice in modern fiction.” AZ The San Francisco Chronicle called it “a work to stand beside literature of any time and place.” AZ The Nation wrote that it “places Walker in the company of Faulkner.” AZ and the New York Times Book Review called her “a lavishly gifted writer.” AZ In his New York Times review, Mel Watkins said, “The cumulative effect is a novel that is convincing because of the authenticity of its folk voice…a striking and consummately well-written novel. Alice Walker’s choice and effective handling of the epistolary style has enabled her to tell a poignant tale of women's struggle for equality and independence.” BN The book was adapted into a film and musical of the same name. WK Resources and Related Links: AZ Amazon BN Barnes & Noble WK Wikipedia

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World published 50 years ago this year

First posted 6/24/2020; updated 7/6/2020.

Brae New World Aldous Huxley

First Publication: 1932 Category: dystopian novel Sales: ?

Accolades (click on badges to see full lists):

About the Book: The Chicago Tribune called Aldous Huxley “the greatest 20th century writer in English.” AZ The New Yorker called him “a genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine.” AZ He “was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization.” AZ “Brave New World, his masterpiece…retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature.” AZ The Wall Street Journal called it “one of the most prophetic dystopian works of the 20th century.” AZ “Ignorance is far from bliss in Huxley’s terrible vision of a future of rampant consumerism, worthless free love, routine drug use and cultural passivity.” TG Set in a future version of London and “written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s,” AZ Brave New World “follows the fortunes of the illegitimate son of a senior governor, who has grown up in America, outside the new empire, and who experiences a dramatic culture-clash when he has to live under its rules.” WK The story “speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.” AZ “It propounds that economic chaos and unemployment will cause a radical reaction in the form of an international scientific empire that manufactures its citizens in the laboratory on a eugenic basis, without the need for human intercourse.” WK This is all done “at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls.” AZ Resources and Related Links: AZ Amazon TG Telegraph: The Perfect Library WK Wikipedia