Archives de catégorie : Nos incontournables

LABYRINTH de Ben Argon

An original look at the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre—told in cartoons.

LABYRINTH:
An existential Odyssey With Jean-Paul Sartre
by Ben Argon
Abrams ComicArts, April 2020

As graduates embark on the next phase of their lives, what better way to get them accustomed to the rat race they are about to enter than by introducing them to the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre? Cleverly told through the story of a pair of rats trapped in the labyrinth of existence, this allegory humorously conveys the key ideas of Sartre’s existential philosophy in graphic novel form—accessible for students and readers of all ages. In addition, two reputable Sartre scholars have contributed the introduction and afterword: Gary Cox, a British philosopher with a doctorate from the University of Birmingham, and Christine Daigle, professor of philosophy at Brock University in Canada.

Ben Argon grew up in France surrounded by artists, authors, and philosophers of all kinds. It was then that he started making comics. At the age of reason, his attraction to science led him to embark on a corporate career, where he now leads teams of scientists and knowledge workers. He lives in Amsterdam.

PARAS IN PARIS de Jane Smiley

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres and the New York Times best-selling Last Hundred Years Trilogy, a captivating, brilliantly imaginative story of three extraordinary animals—and a little boy—whose lives intersect in Paris

PARAS IN PARIS
by Jane Smiley
Scribner, TBD

Paras is a spirited young racehorse living at a stable in the French countryside. One afternoon she pushes open the gate of her stall—she’s a curious filly—and, after traveling through the night, arrives by chance in Paris. She’s dazzled, and often mystified, by the sights, sounds and smells around her, but she isn’t afraid. Soon she meets an elegant dog, a German shorthair pointer named Frida, who knows how to get by in the city without attracting the attention of suspicious Parisians. Paras and Frida coexist for a time in the city’s lush green spaces, nourished by Frida’s strategic trips to the butchery and the bakery. They keep company with two irrepressible ducks, and by an opinionated crow. But then Paras meets a human boy, Etienne, and discovers a new, otherworldly part of Paris: the secluded, ivy-walled house where the boy and his nearly-one-hundred-year-old great grandmother live, quietly and unto themselves. As the cold weather and Christmas near, the unlikeliest of friendships bloom among humans and animals alike. But how long can a runaway horse live undiscovered in Paris? And how long can a boy keep her hidden, and all his own? Jane Smiley’s beguiling new novel is itself an adventure that celebrates curiosity and ingenuity, and expresses the desire of all creatures for true friendship, love, and freedom.

Jane Smiley is the author of numerous novels, including A Thousand Acres, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and most recently, The Last Hundred Years Trilogy: Some Luck, Early Warning, and Golden Age. She is also the author of several works of nonfiction and books for young adults. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she has also received the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature. She lives in Northern California.

THE FUTURE EARTH de Eric Holthaus

The first hopeful book about climate change, THE FUTURE EARTH shows readers how to reverse the short- and long-term effects of climate change over the next three decades.

THE FUTURE EARTH:
A Radical Vision for What’s Possible in the Age of Warming
by Eric Holthaus
HarperOne, June 2020

Credit: Karen Edquist

The basics of climate science are easy. We know it is entirely human-caused. Which means its solutions will be similarly human-led. In THE FUTURE EARTH, leading climate change advocate and weather-related journalist Eric Holthaus (“the Rebel Nerd of Meteorology”—Rolling Stone) offers a radical vision of our future, specifically how to reverse the short- and long-term effects of climate change over the next three decades. Anchored by world-class reporting, interviews with futurists, climatologists, biologists, economists, and climate change activists, it shows what the world could look like if we implemented radical solutions on the scale of the crises we face. What could happen if we reduced carbon emissions by 50 percent in the next decade? What could living in a city look like in 2030? How could the world operate in 2040, if the proposed Green New Deal created a 100 percent net carbon-free economy in the United States?

This is the book for anyone who feels overwhelmed by the current state of our environment. Hopeful and prophetic, THE FUTURE EARTH invites us to imagine how we can reverse the effects of climate change in our own lifetime and encourages us to enter a deeper relationship with the earth as conscientious stewards and to re-affirm our commitment to one another in our shared humanity.

Eric Holthaus is the leading journalist on all things weather and climate change. His work, which is regularly cited in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Buzzfeed, has appeared in Rolling Stone, Grist, and The Correspondent, where he currently covers climate science, policy, and solutions. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

CUYAHOGA de Pete Beatty

A spectacularly inventive debut novel that reinvents the tall tale for our times. “Cuyahoga defies all modest description…[it] is ten feet tall if it’s an inch, and it’s a ramshackle joy from start to finish”—Brian Phillips, author of Impossible Owls

CUYAHOGA
by Pete Beatty
Scribner, October 2020

Big Son is what you call a spirit of the times—the times being 1837. Behind his broad shoulders, shining hair, and chuch-organ laugh, Big Son practically made Ohio City all by himself. The feats of this frontier superhero have earned him wonder and whiskey toasts but very little in the way of government dollars. And without money, Big cannot become an honest husband to his beloved Cloe (who might not want to be his honest wife). In pursuit of a steady wage, our hero hits the (dirt) streets of Ohio City and Cleveland. These two cities are locked in a fierce fight to become the first great metropolis of the West. Their rivalry has come to a boil over the building of a bridge across the Cuyahoga River – and Big stumbles right into the kettle. The ensuing misadventure involves elderly terrorists, infrastructure collapse, steamboat races, dental hygiene, wild pigs and several ruined weddings.

Narrating this picaresque is Medium Son, Meed to acquaintances – apprentice coffin maker, almanac author, orphan, and the younger brother of Big. Meed finds himself swept into the tumultuous events too, and he is forced to choose between brotherly love and his own shadowed sense of self. His uncanny voice—plain but profound, colloquial but surprisingly poetic—elevates a slapstick frontier tale into a screwball origin myth for the Rust Belt by evoking the Greek classics, mining the best of recent lit’s vernacular-ized canon, from Lincoln in the Bardo, The Sisters Brothers, The Luminaries, or a Coen brothers prologue, and the adventures of Charles Portis.

Pete Beatty has worked at the University of Chicago Press, Bloomsbury, and many other places, including a driving range behind a Dairy Queen. He has taught at Kent State University and the University of Alabama. His writing has appeared in Vulture, Vice Sports, GQ.com, Deadspin, Baseball Prospectus, Belt Magazine, Cleveland Scene, Prairie Schooner and elsewhere. CUYAHOGA is his first book. He lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama with his wife and their two cats.

EMIL AND KARL de Yankev Glatshteyn

A unique work that was one of the first books for young readers describing the early days of what came to be known as the Holocaust.

EMIL AND KARL
by Yankev Glatshteyn
Square Fish/Macmillan, March 2008

Originally published before the war in 1938 and the full revelations of the Third Reich’s persecution of Jews and other civilians, the book offers a fascinating look at life during this period and the moral challenges people faced under Nazism. It is also a taut, gripping, page-turner of the first order. Written in the form of a suspense novel, Emil and Karl draws readers into the dilemma faced by two young boys in Vienna—one Jewish, the other not—when they suddenly find themselves without homes or families on the eve of World War II.

Originally written in Yiddish, Emil and Karl is one of the most accomplished works of children’s literature in this language, and the only book for young readers by Yankev Glatshteyn, a major American Yiddish poet, novelist, and essayist.

“It’s a clear, powerful novel that will bring today’s readers very close to what it was like to be a child under Nazi occupation. . . The fast-moving prose is stark and immediate. . . The translation, sixty-five years after the novel’s original publication, is nothing short of haunting.” ―Booklist, Starred Review

Born in Lublin, Poland, Yankev Glatshteyn (1896-1971) was one of the major figures in the burgeoning Yiddish literary scene in New York City during the first half of the last century.
Jeffrey Shandler (translator) is an associate professor in the Department of Jewish Studies at Rutgers University. He is the author of While America Watches: Televising the Holocaust and editor of Awakening Lives: Autobiographies of Jewish Youth in Poland before the Holocaust, among other books. He lives in New York City.