Macroscópio – Os livros do ano, as selecções dos outros
Macroscópio – Os livros do ano, as selecções dos outros
Macroscópio
Por José Manuel Fernandes, Publisher
Boa noite!
Final do ano, tempo de Natal. É altura de olhar para os melhores livros do ano. É isso mesmo que, nesta época, a imprensa de todo o mundo costuma fazer. É sempre útil, para recordarmos o mais relevante, descobrirmos o que nos passou despercebido e, no tempo de Amazon, encomendarmos o que mais nos agradar. O Macroscópio esteve por isso a olhar para algumas das selecções dos melhores livros do ano da imprensa anglo-saxónica e deixa-vos aqui algumas recomendações.
Começo pela The Economist: Em Page turners, a revista anuncia que “The best books of 2014 were about the South China Sea, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Kaiser Wilhelm II, the publishing of “Ulysses” and capitalism in the 21st century”.
Aqui ficam duas referências:
The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall. By Mary Elise Sarotte. Basic Books; 291 pages; $27.99 and £18.99
A blow-by-blow account of the birth of modern Germany on November 9th 1989, when, at an otherwise dull press conference in East Berlin, a government spokesman said that a new law permitting East Germans more freedom to travel would go into effect immediately. It changed Europe for ever.
Kaiser Wilhelm II: A Concise Life. By John Röhl. Cambridge University Press; 240 pages; $24.99 and £16.99.
Scholarship and authority shine through this short version of John Röhl’s 4,000-page, multi-volume life of Kaiser Wilhelm, an emotionally needy, bombastic, choleric and hypersensitive man quite ill-suited to run the most powerful country in Europe.
Continuo em Inglaterra para ver as sugestões do The Telegraph, que anuncia o seu espaço como “The must-read novels, memoirs and history books released in 2014 so far.” Deixo de lado os romances e novelas, para escolher uma biografia e um livro de história:
Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Scott Anderson (Atlantic, 575pp)
This study of the scramble for territory in the collapsing Ottoman Empire is a masterpiece of detachment and a work of tantalising fascination.
Read The Telegraph's review of Lawrence in Arabia.
Men at War: What Fiction Tells us About Conflict from the Iliad to Catch-22 by Christopher Coker (Hurst, 325pp)
In just 300 pages, Christopher Coker provides an unusually rewarding analysis of war, fiction and history.
Read The Telegraph's review of Men at War.
As escolhas do Guardian procuram ser mais exaustivas e estão arrumadas por categorias. Assim temos, entre outras: The best fiction of 2014; The best science books of 2014; The best biographies of 2014; The best history books of 2014; The best sports books of 2014 e por aí adiante.
Aqui ficam três sugestões, uma de ciência, uma biografia e uma colectânea de ensaios:
- We live in an era defined by extinctions, as Elizabeth Kolbert reveals in The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (Bloomsbury £20). “One-third of all reef-building corals, a third of all fresh-water molluscs, a third of sharks and rays, a quarter of all mammals, a fifth of all reptiles, and a sixth of all birds are now headed toward oblivion,” she states in her superb history of Earth’s disappearing life forms.
- WS Churchill gets just one index reference in AN Wilson’s sparkling new life of the great queen-empress, Victoria: A Life (Atlantic £25). Wilson has already seduced many readers with his acclaimed study of the Victorians; here he bewitches them with a characteristically brilliant life-and-times. His Victoria is short in stature, but “fascinating and self-contradictory”, an addicted journal- and letter-writer. Following Disraeli, Wilson falls for her charms. This will be a must-read in many English households during the Christmas hibernation.
- Hugh Trevor-Roper, the conservative Cambridge historian, served in British intelligence during the 1939-45 conflict and became expert on the subject of Soviet and Nazi espionage. His cold war essays, collected in The Secret World: Behind the Curtain of British Intelligence in World War II and the Cold War (IB Tauris £25), condemn the “squalid trio” of Cambridge agents – Maclean, Burgess and Philby – who betrayed compatriots to the Soviet Union. Trevor-Roper sees a priestly or hieratic aspect to their treachery as they sent unsuspecting novices to “our friends” in the Kremlin and a certain death. The essays, first published in theSpectator, Encounter and New York Review of Books, radiate a waspish elegance.
Ainda em Inglaterra, passagem pela Spectator, onde a selecção é também muito exaustiva e segue o critério de alguns dos colaboradores da revista: Paul Johnson on Henry Kissinger, Arthur Miller and Dior; Mark Amory on the joy of short books and Colm Tóibín; A.N. Wilson on the British Pushkin; Jonathan Mirsky on dogs; Stephen Walsh on Leningrad; Alan Johnson on why H is for Hawk is A for Amazing; Sam Leith explains why The Mighty Dead: Why Homer Matters nearly lost him money; Molly Guinness on the ‘oddly adorable’ New York dentist; Melanie McDonagh embraces The Essence of the Brontës; Philip Hensher urges you to read We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves before someone tells you the twist; e Jane Ridley on her favourite books about The Great War.
Foi deste último texto que retirei a seguinte referência:
One of last year’s books which I’ve only just got round to reading in paperback is David Reynolds’s Long Shadow (Simon & Schuster, £9.99). Because the Great War seemed so meaningless, killing so many British soldiers for reasons which remain remote and obscure even today, it has always been especially difficult for the British to make sense of it. Yet of all the European countries Britain dealt with its consequences — mass democracy and the rise of Labour — remarkably well. What the hell was it all about? asks Reynolds, and the answers he delivers are always interesting and sometimes brilliant.
O Financial Times tmbém escolheu os seus Best books of 2014 e, ao ler a lista, é difícil escapar a nova referência a um dos livros mais falados, e discutidos, do ano:
But no writer spoke more directly to the zeitgeist than the winner of the 2014 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award, Thomas Piketty, whose Capital in the Twenty-First Century arrived with a resounding thud in a fine English translation this spring to challenge a century of theory-driven economics with a degree of confidence seldom found outside the grandes écoles. The product of 15 years’ research, Capital in the Twenty-First Century pulls together disparate data from a number of different countries to argue that we are returning to levels of inequality last seen a century ago; and to propose, furthermore, that the tendency for the rate of return on capital to exceed the rate of growth (“r > g”) requires sharp taxation of wealth at the higher end if we are to preserve the levels of social harmony necessary for democracy to function.
Este livro já foi editado em Portugal e, no Observador, dedicámos-lhe duas apreciações críticas: O Capital segundo Piketty, uma apresentação da obra escrita pelo antigo ministro das Finanças Vítor Gaspar; e Falemos de desigualdade, já sobre a tradução portuguesa, da autoria de Carlos Guimarães Pinto.
Prossigo agora com as sugestões do Wall Street Journal, Best Books of 2014:
A Compilation. Dos livros seleccionados, destaco dois:
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, By Atul Gawande, Metropolitan Books, 304 pp.
Author, professor, and practicing surgeon Atul Gawande explores medicine’s role in aging and death in this poignant blend of research and storytelling.
The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind, By Michio Kaku, Doubleday, 500 pp.
A broad look at the state of neuroscience around the world, “The Future of the Mind” examines such futuristic possibilities as a “smart pill” for increasing brain power the ability to upload a brain’s contents to a
As escolhas da Nacional Public Radio (NPR’s Book Concierge) dos Estados Unidos são muito numerosas, mas a minha escolha vai para um livro de memórias, as de Robert M. Gates, que serviu como secretário da Defesa nas administrações Bush e Obama, o que não deixa de ser surpreendente:
Duty: Memoirs Of A Secretary At War, By Robert M. Gates
When this book was first published, a cacophonous kerfuffle erupted over its criticism of President Obama. Lines were pulled out to suggest that Robert M. Gates — the only defense secretary ever asked to stay on by the next president — had turned on the boss. But at its core, Duty is so much more than just a report card on the current administration. It's a heartfelt — and sometimes heartbreaking — account of a challenging time in American history. Gates does indulge in a bit of score-settling — Vice President Biden probably won't be buying extra copies of Duty to use as stocking stuffers this Christmas. Yet what shines forth is Gates' fundamental decency, his respect for military bigwigs as well as common soldiers, and his love for his country.
Termino com a síntese do New York Times The 10 Best Books of 2014 e com uma referência a um livro que aborda a um tema que o médico Luis Carvalho Rodrigues tem vindo a tratar no Observador (aqui e aqui), o da importância da vacinação:
On Immunity: An Inoculation, By Eula Biss, Graywolf Press, $24.
In this spellbinding blend of memoir, science journalism and literary criticism, Biss unpacks what the fear of vaccines tells us about larger anxieties involving purity, contamination and interdependency. Deeply researched and anchored in Biss’s own experiences as a new mother, this ferociously intelligent book is itself an inoculation against bad science and superstition, and a reminder that we owe one another our lives.
Enquanto realizava as buscas para vos fazer estas sugestões, descobri muito mais livros que gostaria de comprar e ler do que os que já tinha nas minhas listas pessoais (e que aqueles que, desconfio, terei tempo para desfrutar…). Só espero que suceda o mesmo a todos os leitores do Macroscópio. Ler ainda é, e sempre será, um grande prazer. Boas leituras portanto.
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