125 anos: The New York Times Review of Books - seleção de resenhas (Jean-Paul Sartre, o último livro de Conan Doyle, etc.)

Dear Reader,

Contributors to this week’s issue include Vladimir Nabokov, Mario Puzo, Neil Sheehan, Diane Johnson, James Baldwin and Roger Angell, among others. It includes reviews of worthwhile new titles including “Ulysses,” “Song of Solomon,” “O Pioneers!” and the latest book by Arthur Conan Doyle.

Have I gotten lost in time? Maybe I have, slightly. And so will you after paging through this week’s special 125th anniversary issue, a keepsake edition that includes some of the most groundbreaking, surprising and absorbing literary coverage and criticism that has run in our pages since 1896. The entire issue is the brainchild of deputy editor Tina Jordan, who also edited a glorious companion book with dozens of additional archival gems, available forpreorder.

If it’s more contemporary work you’re interested in, check out this week’s podcast, which features Farah Stockman, editorial board member of The New York Times, talking about her new book, “American Made: What Happens to People When Work Disappears.” And my colleague John Williams speaks to the Chilean writer Benjamín Labatut about his new book, “When We Cease to Understand the World.”

Please stay in touch and let us know what you think — whether it’s about this newsletter, our reviews, our podcast, our literary calendar, our Instagram or what you’re reading. We read and ponder all of it. I even write back, albeit belatedly. You can email me at books@nytimes.com.

Pamela Paul

Editor of The New York Times Book Review

@PamelaPaulNYT

FICTION & POETRY

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘Nausea,’ by Jean-Paul Sartre Vladimir Nabokov wondered in 1949 whether the French existentialist’s novel was even worth translating.

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘O Pioneers!’ by Willa Cather In 1913, The Times declared Cather’s “novel without a hero” to be “American in the best sense of the word.”

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘Ulysses,’ by James Joyce Our reviewer called “Ulysses” the “most important contribution that has been made to fictional literature in the 20th century.” That doesn’t mean he liked it.

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘Song of Solomon,’ by Toni Morrison In the deep, sprawling 1977 story of Milkman Dead, the reviewer Reynolds Price found evidence for “the possibility of transcendence within human life.” By Reynolds Price

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘The Golden Notebook,’ by Doris Lessing In 1962, our reviewer described this radically feminist novel — now considered Lessing’s most influential work — as “a coruscating literary event.”

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘The Joy Luck Club,’ by Amy Tan In this 1989 novel, a young woman comes to understand her place in a Chinese family — and in the world — through visits with her aging aunts. By Orville Schell

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘Roots,’ by Alex Haley James Baldwin, reviewing this headline-making novel in 1976, called it “a study of … how each generation helps to doom, or helps to liberate, the coming one.” By James Baldwin

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘The Bell Jar,’ by Sylvia Plath To our reviewer, the poet’s novel was “the kind of book Salinger’s Franny might have written about herself 10 years later, if she had spent those 10 years in Hell.”

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From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘The Complete Stories,’ by Flannery O’Connor This collection — which appeared seven years after the Southern Gothic writer’s death in 1964 — was reviewed by Alfred Kazin.

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘The Road,’ by Cormac McCarthy In 2006, our reviewer correctly predicted that this father-son tale would eclipse the popularity of McCarthy’s 1992 hit, “All the Pretty Horses.” By William Kennedy

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘The Lost World,’ by Arthur Conan Doyle Dinosaurs in the 20th century? In 1912, Sherlock Holmes’s creator invented the template that Michael Crichton would follow almost eight decades later.

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘Hannibal,’ by Thomas Harris Eleven years after “The Silence of the Lambs,” Hannibal Lecter returned. Stephen King called him “the great fictional monster of our time.” By Stephen King

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘Wolf Hall,’ by Hilary Mantel This fictional portrait of Henry VIII’s scheming aide Thomas Cromwell — the first volume in a trilogy — won the Man Booker Prize in 2009. By Christopher Benfey

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘The Street,’ by Ann Petry This classic story of a single mother’s struggle against poverty, published in 1946, would become the first novel by a Black woman to sell a million copies.

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘The Age of Innocence,’ by Edith Wharton This tale of Gilded Age New York City became, in 1921, the first novel by a woman to win the Pulitzer Prize.

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘White Teeth,’ by Zadie Smith A satirical, multigenerational family saga set during the waning of the colonial British Empire, this 2000 debut established its author as a prodigy of the novel form.

From The Book Review Archives Classic Crime Novels That Still Thrill Today Here’s how we reviewed now-famous mysteries by the likes of Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy Sayers, Dashiell Hammett and more.

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘The Makioka Sisters,’ by Junichiro Tanizaki A classic Japanese novel echoes Jane Austen, with instructive contrasts.

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘Color,’ by Countee Cullen In 1925, the Book Review raved about the “sensitive” love poems and “piercing” satire from a young star of the Harlem Renaissance.

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘Sister Carrie,’ by Theodore Dreiser The novel’s headline-making candor and explicitness led the Book Review to assure its readers, “It is a book one can very well get along without reading.”

NONFICTION

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘Eat, Pray, Love,’ by Elizabeth Gilbert Reeling from a divorce, a writer sought solace in Italy, India and Indonesia. There, she found peace — and plenty of material for a blockbuster memoir. By Jennifer Egan

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘The Death and Life of Great American Cities,’ by Jane Jacobs This 1961 masterwork offered new, vibrant ways to think about how city neighborhoods ought to look.

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book’ When Toklas — Gertrude Stein’s partner — published this cookbook, it was reviewed by Rex Stout, the creator of the food-loving detective Nero Wolfe.

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People,’ by Dale Carnegie The blockbuster forerunner of today’s self-help guides was both sensible and superficial, according to The Times’s reviewer in 1937.

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘The Jeweler’s Eye,’ by William F. Buckley Jr. Mario Puzo, who reviewed this collection of the conservative thinker's essays, found himself charmed despite the politics.

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘The Liars’ Club,’ by Mary Karr The Times would later call this 1995 memoir of a hardscrabble Texas childhood “one of the best books ever written about growing up in America.”

From The Book Review Archives Review: Books About Babe Ruth In 1974, Roger Angell celebrated four new biographies of the Bambino.

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘Between the World and Me,’ by Ta-Nehisi Coates This 2015 homage to James Baldwin identified racism at the heart of the American dream. By Michelle Alexander

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘The Woman Warrior,’ by Maxine Hong Kingston This brilliant 1976 memoir evokes the author’s Chinese immigrant family and summons the ghosts who haunt it.

From The Book Review Archives Review: ‘Persepolis,’ by Marjane Satrapi A memoir and a history of Iran’s turbulent 20th-century politics, one comic strip frame at a time. By Fernanda Eberstadt

Children’s Books

When William Faulkner and Langston Hughes Wrote Children’s Books. You might think that celebrated adult authors writing for kids is a new trend. It isn’t.

Features

An interview with Colson Whitehead. By Daniel Zalewski. Poem: “Weather.” By Claudia Rankine. An interview with Sandra Cisneros. By Rosemary L. Bray. Essay: The Second Shelf. By Meg Wolitzer. An interview with Isabel Allende. By Leigh Hafrey. An interview with Ralph Ellison. By Harvey Breit. An interview with Eudora Welty. By Walter Clemons. An interview with Gore Vidal. By Diane Johnson.  Essay: Should We Have War Crime Trials? By Neil Sheehan. From the Archive: The first best-seller list. Classic Book Review covers.

Etc.

A letter from the editors of The New York Times Book Review. Peeved, Irritated and Annoyed: Early Letters to the Editor.

Best Sellers

Combined Print & E-Book Fiction Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction Hardcover Fiction Hardcover Nonfiction Paperback Trade Fiction Paperback Nonfiction All Lists

New International Books

Thoka Maer for The New York Times

Your sneak preview of books coming out in 2021 from around the world. Get globetrotting.

China: 110 anos da revolução que terminou com 2 mil anos de regime imperial (CGTN)

 China CGTN, 22:25, 09-Oct-2021

Why the 1911 Revolution is a significant event in China

Updated 12:48, 10-Oct-2021

CGTN

The Former Address of Wuchang Uprising Military Government in Wuchang District, Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province. /CFP

Editor's note: This year marks the 110th anniversary of the 1911 Revolution, or the Xinhai Revolution, which overthrew the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and put an end to the country's over 2,000-year-old monarchy. The revolution is of great historical significance, for it led to the establishment of the Republic of China (1912-1949) and the following social changes in the country. 

Launched by Chinese revolutionaries represented by Sun Yat-sen, the 1911 Revolution began with the Wuchang Uprising, an armed rebellion against the Qing Dynasty rulers that broke out on October 10, 1911 in what is today's Wuchang District, Wuhan City, in central China's Hubei Province. 

The revolution "was an inevitable product of the intensifying social conflicts and tenacious struggles of the Chinese people in modern China," Chinese President Xi Jinping said Saturday at a meeting marking the 110th anniversary of the event.

In the face of a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, the Chinese people did not admit defeat but kept fighting and exploring new ways to save the nation, Xi added.

A statue of China's revolutionary pioneer Sun Yat-sen is erected in front of the Former Address of Wuchang Uprising Military Government in Wuchang District, Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province. /CFP

First great change of 20th century in China

"The Xinhai Revolution is the first great historical change in China of the past century. It is of great epoch-making significance in Chinese history and had a profound historical influence," Li Zaiquan, a researcher at the Institute of Modern History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told CGTN.

Besides ending the monarchy, it also created a modern national democratic revolution in a complete sense, and brought about the rise of democratic consciousness and the liberation of the mind, Li added.

"As it overthrew the emperor, who was regarded as supreme in the past, the psychology of the people underwent great changes, and they realized that they are the masters of the country," wrote Jin Chongji, an expert of Chinese modern history and the 1911 Revolution, in an article published on the website of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. 

Without this social atmosphere and the psychological state it created, subsequent movements of the country wouldn't be able to happen, he said.

Success, failure should be viewed comprehensively

"The revolution had successes and failures. Its success was mainly focused in politics," Li said. After the revolution, any claim or action to rebuild or restore the monarchy in China ended in failure, he added.

The failure or incompleteness of the revolution is mainly related to its social implication, Li continued, as it did not change the nature of China's semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. It was also unable to have any major impact on the living conditions of the Chinese people. 

"It is incomplete if you only see the failed parts of the revolution, especially when people don't see the tremendous progress it brought to China and the world," Li said, adding that the revolution opened the floodgates of progress, which is "irreversible."

Li told CGTN that young people who did not go through that period might underestimate the political significance of the revolution.

"This is not surprising, as they did not see how difficult it is to overthrow the monarchy system that had lasted for more than 2,000 years," he added.

Read more:

Xi says CPC is the 'strong force' to lead Chinese people forward

110 Years: Pursuing dreams and modern China

Tracing the history of the 1911 Revolution in Wuhan