The Art of Joy

By Goliarda Sapienza, Anne Milano Appel (translator),

Book cover of The Art of Joy

Book description

Goliarda Sapienza's The Art of Joy was written over a nine year span, from 1967 to 1976. At the time of her death in 1996, Sapienza had published nothing in a decade, having been unable to find a publisher for what was to become her most celebrated work, due toā€¦

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Art of Joy as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Censored and despised as lascivious for a long time, only published thirty years after its writing, and ten after the author's death, this is a true masterpiece of feminist writing, embodying a genuine and refreshing rebellion against Italian society and its gender order throughout most of the 20th century. 

Set in Sicily, the story follows the entire life of a woman born in 1900, living through the belle epoque, the fascist era, two world wars, and the post-war republic, until her elder age in the 1970s. Born a proletarian, she challenges all kinds of rules and constraints to become aā€¦

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The Ballad of Falling Rock by Jordan Dotson,

Truth told, folks still ask if Saul Crabtree sold his soul for the perfect voice. If he sold it to angels or devils. A Bristol newspaper once asked: ā€œAre his love songs closer to heaven than dying?ā€ Others wonder how he wrote a song so sad, everyone who heard itā€¦

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