Here are 100 books that Candide, or Optimism fans have personally recommended if you like
Candide, or Optimism.
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I come from a family of born storytellers but grew up to become an archaeologist, sensible and serious. Then, my parents’ deaths brought me to my knees. I knew I would not survive their loss in any form recognizable to me. My grief set me on a journey to understand and rekindle the special magic that they and my ancestors had brought to my life. Eventually, through reading books like these and learning to tell my own stories, I, the archaeologist and life-long rationalist, made my greatest discovery to date: the healing power of enchantment.
This is a book you wouldn't want to lend to a friend, but you might want to buy it for a friend! It’s a genre-defying memoir of a grieving daughter that I found inspirational and validating in the wake of my own parents' deaths. Helen MacDonald loses her father and embarks on a journey to find, adopt, and train a goshawk, one of the fiercest and most feral predators on Earth...a remarkable metaphor for her own wild grief.
As her relationship evolves with the goshawk, Mabel, they learn together the beauty and terror of being alive. I found great inspiration here because it taught me that you can talk about hard things in a lyrical, uplifting way, leaving your readers to soar on the last page, not jumping out of windows.
One of the New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of the Year
ON MORE THAN 25 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR LISTS: including TIME (#1 Nonfiction Book), NPR, O, The Oprah Magazine (10 Favorite Books), Vogue (Top 10), Vanity Fair, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times, San Francisco Chronicle (Top 10), Miami Herald, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Minneapolis Star Tribune (Top 10), Library Journal (Top 10), Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Slate, Shelf Awareness, Book Riot, Amazon (Top 20)
The instant New York Times bestseller and award-winning sensation, Helen Macdonald's story of adopting and raising one of…
The bottom has fallen out of my world several times now, but it’s much worse watching disaster strike someone you love. When my husband suffered a near-fatal stroke, it was inevitable I’d end up writing about his road to rehab. Grit and humour were what they said he’d need, and Scousers like me laugh at anything. We also cry and argue a lot. I’m on a mission to cheer people on and hand them arms as they battle through hard times. A life, or a state of mind, can change in a moment, and that’s what I read and write about.
I was hungry for a great piece of comic writing when a friend handed me this book, and it delivered so much more than laughter.
Once I’d tuned in to the language, I ended up shambling through 30s London alongside impecunious painter Gulley Jimson. A humble man, driven by a holy need to make the sort of art which, it turns out, nobody wants, he encounters a world of squalor and beauty, both physical and moral.
I grew to love him and his daily observations on the play of weather and light on the Thames, which form a sort of sketchbook. As Jimson’s physical health declines, he grips beauty wherever he finds it. Theroux, Lessing, and Updike all rated this author.
The Horse's Mouth, famously filmed with Alec Guinness in the central role, is a searing portrait of the artistic temperament.
Gulley Jimson is the charming, impoverished painter who cares little about the conventional values of his day. His unfailing belief that he must live and paint according to his intuition without regard for the cost to himself or to others, makes him a man of great, if sometimes flawed, vision.
But with an admirable drive for creation comes an astonishing hunger for destruction. Is he a great artist? A has-been? Or an exhausted, drunken ne'er-do-well?
The bottom has fallen out of my world several times now, but it’s much worse watching disaster strike someone you love. When my husband suffered a near-fatal stroke, it was inevitable I’d end up writing about his road to rehab. Grit and humour were what they said he’d need, and Scousers like me laugh at anything. We also cry and argue a lot. I’m on a mission to cheer people on and hand them arms as they battle through hard times. A life, or a state of mind, can change in a moment, and that’s what I read and write about.
I’m a sucker for a pun, and this is another witty book about a serious subject, so it’s right up my street. Milton it ain’t—I
romped through it at a time when I was desperate for entertainment. Aging is explored with a sense of freshness and fun as a teenager goes
to work in an old people’s home.
A convincing voice, well observed, and ultimately poignant as our protagonist gets closer to understanding age and the elderly—whilst growing up herself. I love the fact that the jokes are never laboured. It’s coming to us all…
Working in a care home is not really a suitable job for a schoolgirl but 15-year-old Lizzie Vogel went for it. It just seemed too exhausting to commit to being a full-time girlfriend or a punk (it is the 1970s after all), plus she has some knowledge of old people. They're not suited to granary bread, and you mustn't compare them to toddlers, but she doesn't know there's…
The bottom has fallen out of my world several times now, but it’s much worse watching disaster strike someone you love. When my husband suffered a near-fatal stroke, it was inevitable I’d end up writing about his road to rehab. Grit and humour were what they said he’d need, and Scousers like me laugh at anything. We also cry and argue a lot. I’m on a mission to cheer people on and hand them arms as they battle through hard times. A life, or a state of mind, can change in a moment, and that’s what I read and write about.
I love the delightful daftness, the sheer infantile silliness of this autobiography; it’s proof you can preserve your inner child well into maturity. Words are like Play-Doh to our Bob.
The comedian’s early years were marked by sadness, but he celebrates the power of having a laugh and hanging out with your mates. It made perfect sense to me to learn that the book came about because of a brush with heart failure.
It’s one of those books I dip into for a quick fix.
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Foreign Language Teaching Methodologies at Vyatka State University in Kirov, Russia. My book Stalin’s Constitution: Soviet Participatory Politics and the Discussion of the 1936 Draft Constitution was published in November 2017. Most recently I have published an article-length study entitled Peasant Communal Traditions in the Expulsion of Collective Farm Members in the Vyatka–Kirov Region 1932–1939 in Europe Asia Studies in July 2012. I am currently conducting research for a future book manuscript on daily life on the collective farms and the day-to-day relationships between collective farmers and local officials.
Soviet satire is often overlooked or dismissed as purely propaganda. John Etty offers a refreshingly updated look at a key Soviet publication and provides the casual reader with an introduction to the colorful and humorous content in the USSR’s premier satirical journal. He explores how content was created, revealing a collaborative process that could involve everyone from the head of the party to everyday readers. While there was oversight and interference from state censors and political authorities, and self-censorship in the 1930s due to repression, Etty reveals that editors and creators had a great deal of creative freedom.
Etty also explores the Krokodil “Extended Universe”. In the 1920s, when there was a severe shortage of paper and many citizens were illiterate, Live Krokodil, a repertory company was organized in theatres, workers’ and Red Army clubs. Additionally, Krokodil published the Krokodil Library (Biblioteka Krokodila) which included cartoon compendiums and…
After the death of Joseph Stalin, Soviet-era Russia experienced a flourishing artistic movement due to relaxed censorship and new economic growth. In this new atmosphere of freedom, Russia's satirical magazine Krokodil (The Crocodile) became rejuvenated. John Etty explores Soviet graphic satire through Krokodil and its political cartoons. He investigates the forms, production, consumption, and functions of Krokodil, focusing on the period from 1954 to 1964.
Krokodil remained the longest-serving and most important satirical journal in the Soviet Union, unique in producing state-sanctioned graphic satirical comment on Soviet and international affairs for over seventy years. Etty's analysis of Krokodil extends and…
Like a caricature, satire lets you see reality better by exaggerating it. When satire is done right, every element, from the overall plot to the characters to paragraph-level details, is there to cast an exposing light on some part of our real world. They are books that exist on many levels, expose hubris and essential misunderstandings, and generally speak truth to power. They should leave the reader reassessing core assumptions about how the world works. I’ve written a best-selling nonfiction book about machine learning in the past, and I probably could have taken that approach again, but AI and American politics are both ripe for satire.
This book taught me that great satire spares no one. It’s not about one group in society or one ideology—it skewers all of them equally, one after another until we see the flaws in human nature that underlie all of them. You could say it’s a very pessimistic book, but I didn’t read it that way.
Seeing your shortcomings, individual or social, is the first step to overcoming them.
'Thus, gentle Reader, I have given thee a faithful History of my Travels for Sixteen Years, and above Seven Months; wherein I have not been so studious of Ornament as of Truth.'
In these words Gulliver represents himself as a reliable reporter of the fantastic adventures he has just set down; but how far can we rely on a narrator whose identity is elusive and whoses inventiveness is self-evident? Gulliver's Travels purports to be a travel book, and describes Gulliver's encounters with the inhabitants of four extraordinary places: Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, and the country of the Houyhnhnms. A consummately skilful…
The worst of all deceptions, said Plato, is self-deception. Perhaps it is also the most common. I'm fascinated by the human capacity to believe nonsense, and also by the power of satire to weaken twaddle’s hold on us. As a political science professor, and as a political speechwriter, I often used humor to expose sloppy thinking, debunk untruths, and open minds. Especially today, satire is one of the best ways to show the high price we pay for our delusions. Satire alone will not end our collective folly, but laughing at rather than denying what we're doing to the natural environment can be a step on the road to change.
Candide is wonderful for many reasons, but above all because it is an equal opportunity parody.
Voltaire spares no one as he spoofs the usual suspects, such as religion, colonialism, and the nobility, but also the Enlightenment’s excessive optimism, philosophical speculation, and rationalism. Voltaire’s greatest setups are favored upon young Candide’s mentor, Dr. Pangloss who, in the face of every monstrous, absurd tragedy that befalls Candide, insists that all is well in this “best of all possible worlds.”
I also love that this crazy, tragic farce ends with a cautiously optimistic invitation to “cultivate our garden,” – to leave philosophical speculation to the philosophers, and instead to focus on concrete efforts to make the world a better place
Enriched Classics offer readers accessible editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and commentary. Each book includes educational tools alongside the text, enabling students and readers alike to gain a deeper and more developed understanding of the writer and their work.
A classic work of eighteenth century literature, Candide is Voltaire's fast-paced novella of struggle and adventure that used satire as a form of social critique. Candide enlists the help of his tutor, Dr. Pangloss, to help him reunite with his estranged lover, Lady Cunegonde. But the journey welcomes many unexpected challenges, and overcoming or outwitting the…
I love reading adaptations of classics which complicate the original texts in interesting ways, I have just written one myself, The Middle Daughter. Transcultural adaptations, particularly remind us that we are all members of one human family, dealing with the same kind of problems across time and space and cultures. In these times of deepening polarization, it's important to see that there's more that unites us than not.
FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER
LONGLISTED FOR THE ORANGE PRIZE FOR FICTION 2009 WINNER OF THE ORANGE YOUTH PANEL AWARD 2009 FINALIST FOR THE HURSTON WRIGHT LEGACY AWARD 2010
'A phenomenal book. It is so ingenious and so novel. Think The Handmaid's Tale meets Noughts and Crosses with a bit of Jonathan Swift and Lewis Carroll thrown in. This should be thought of as a feminist classic.' Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast
Welcome to a world turned upside down. One minute, Doris, from England, is playing hide-and-seek with her sisters in the fields behind their cottage.…
Second novels rarely get the love that they deserve. People come to them with all kinds of presumptions and expectations, mostly based on whatever they liked (or didn’t like!) about your first novel, and all writers live in fear of the dreaded “sophomore slump.” I spent a decade trying to write my second novel and was plagued by these very fears. To ward off the bad vibes, I want to celebrate some of my favorite second novels by some of my favorite writers. Some were bona fide hits from the get-go, while others were sadly overlooked or wrongly panned, but they’re all brilliant, beautiful, and full of heart.
Sam Lipsyte’s sentences are demented and perfect. He’s one of the
funniest writers I have ever read.
The story behind this book is one of publishing legend. Here's the way
I've always heard it told: Lipsyte’s first book, The Subject Steve, was a
brutal satire of contemporary American life that had the deep
misfortune of being published on September 11, 2001. (Yes, I know, it
wasn’t the worst thing that happened on 9/11, but still.)
He followed it with Home Land, a vitriolic, sleazy, hilarious novel in
the form of epic pissy dispatches to a high school alumni newsletter. As
narrators go, Lewis Miner is as unimprovable as he is unredeemable.
This book was passed around to every publishing house in New York City,
read and cherished by dozens of editors who were scared to put their
colophon where their heart was.
Welcome to the most twisted high-school reunion imaginable, from a rising star of American satire. 'Sam Lipsyte is a gifted stylist, precise, original, devious, and very funny.' Jeffrey Eugenides, author of 'Middlesex' 'It's confession time, fellow alumni. Ever since Principal Fontana found me and commenced to bless my mail slot, monthly, with the Eastern Valley High School Alumni Newsletter, I've been meaning to pen my update. Sad to say, vanity slowed my hand. Let a fever for the truth speed it now. Let me stand on the rooftop of my reckoning and shout naught but the indisputable: I did not…
Through the 88 years of my life, I have experienced more diverse situations than most people even dream about, from being the youngest dentist in Canada at age 21 being the first Canadian to invent, patent, obtain international approval, and market several of the most successful dental implant systems in the world for humans and small animals, attempt to sail around the world, be the oldest rugby player in the world at age 85, and meet and befriend a myriad of weird and wonderful people by practicing the mantra of saying "YES." I am not ashamed to pass on my lessons from these experiences.
I can totally relate to his non-conformist views on subjects that too many unthinking flocks of people religiously believe in. I absolutely love the way he fearlessly challenges societal norms and his generally humorous discussion of taboo subjects.
Discover the untold stories, the triumphs, and the unfiltered truth behind the laughter. Dive into the extraordinary journey of one of comedy's most influential icons, Ricky Gervais.
From his groundbreaking work on "The Office" to his fearless hosting gigs, this captivating book takes you behind the scenes, revealing the man behind the comedy. Get ready to laugh, reflect, and be inspired by the wit, satire, and unapologetic honesty of Ricky Gervais.
"THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE AND COMEDY OF RICKY GERVAIS" is a must-read for fans and newcomers alike. Embark on this inspiring and thought-provoking journey today!
