![Best Political Fiction Books Best Political Fiction Books](/uploads/1/2/3/7/123739511/781909115.jpg)
Jul 09, 2018
As befits one more year of strident political discussion dominating public consciousness, political books sold well in the print sector in the first half of 2018. Macmillan, in particular, has seen its books perform well, with Michael Wolff’s tell-all Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House (Henry Holt) settling in as the year’s bestseller to date and James Comey’s A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership (Flatiron) making the #3 spot. Even political parodies did well: Chronicle Books’s crashed children’s title Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Presents a Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, written by Jill Twiss and illustrated by E.G. Keller, which details a fictional same-sex romance between U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s pet rabbit and another rabbit named Wesley, came in at #6.
Otherwise, children’s literature and other adult nonfiction books dominated the top 10. A cookbook, Joanna Gaines’s Magnolia Table: A Collection of Recipes for Gathering, was the #2 bestseller in the year so far, and nonfiction books by Jordan Peterson and Jen Sincero placed at #7 and #10, respectively. Children’s authors Madeleine L’Engle, Dav Pilkey, and Dr. Seuss all saw books in the top 10, too. The only adult fiction title to hit the list, at #9, was James Patterson’s collaboration with former president Bill Clinton, The President Is Missing. Even fiction, it seems, can’t escape the clutches of politics.
Fire and Fury was also the top-selling title in e-books, according to lists compiled by both Barnes & Noble and Apple/iBooks (PW has opted to change to the iBooks and BN.com e-book lists, from Amazon, since the online retailer’s list now skews heavily to titles released by Amazon publishing units and also includes sales made through the Kindle Unlimited program). Comey’s book placed #8 on the iBooks list, but did not appear in the top 10 at B&N. On both lists, as is typical with e-books, fiction titles were more prominent than nonfiction, compared to print lists, with A.J. Finn’s The Woman in the Window placing at #2 on both lists, while novels by David Baldacci, Lisa Wingate, Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, and Kristin Hannah appeared on the top 10 of both e-book lists.
NPD BookScan Top 20 Print books, January 1–July 1, 2018
1. | Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff (Holt) |
2. | Magnolia Table by Joanna Gaines (Harper) |
3. | A Higher Loyalty by James Comey (Flatiron) |
4. | A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (Macmillan) |
5. | Dog Man and Cat Kid by Dav Pilkey (Scholastic) |
6. | A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Marlon Bundo (Chronicle) |
7. | 12 Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson (Random Canada) |
8. | Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss (Random) |
9. | The President Is Missing by Bill Clinton/James Patterson (Little, Brown/Knopf) |
10. | You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero (Hachette) |
11. | The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson (Harper) |
12. | The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur (Andrews McMeel) |
13. | Wonder by R.J. Palacio (Random) |
14. | Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur (Andrews McMeel) |
15. | The Outsider by Stephen King (S&S) |
16. | Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss (Random) |
17. | Diary of a Wimpy Kid #12 by Jeff Kinney (Abrams) |
18. | The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn (Morrow) |
19. | The Great Alone by Hannah Kristin (St. Martin’s) |
20. | Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath (Gallup) |
Apple/iBooks Top 10 e-books, January 1–June 30, 2018
1. | Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff (Holt) |
2. | The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn (Morrow) |
3. | The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen (St. Martin’s) |
4. | Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (Penguin) |
5. | The Fallen by David Baldacci (Grand Central) |
6. | The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin’s) |
7. | The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson (Harper) |
8. | A Higher Loyalty by James Comey (Flatiron) |
9. | Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate (Ballantine) |
10. | Origin by Dan Brown (Anchor) |
BN.COM Top 10 e-books, January 1–June 30, 2018
1. | Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff (Holt) |
2. | The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn (Morrow) |
3. | The Fallen by David Baldacci (Grand Central) |
4. | The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin’s) |
5. | The 17th Suspect by James Patterson & Maxine Paetro (Little, Brown) |
6. | The President Is Missing by Bill Clinton & James Patterson (L,B/Knopf) |
7. | Shelter in Place by Nora Roberts (St. Martin’s) |
8. | Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate (Ballantine) |
9. | The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen (St. Martin’s) |
10. | Dark in Death by J.D. Robb (St. Martin’s) |
A version of this article appeared in the 07/09/2018 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: The Bestselling Books of 2018 (So Far)
Jul 09, 2018
As befits one more year of strident political discussion dominating public consciousness, political books sold well in the print sector in the first half of 2018. Macmillan, in particular, has seen its books perform well, with Michael Wolff’s tell-all Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House (Henry Holt) settling in as the year’s bestseller to date and James Comey’s A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership (Flatiron) making the #3 spot. Even political parodies did well: Chronicle Books’s crashed children’s title Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Presents a Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, written by Jill Twiss and illustrated by E.G. Keller, which details a fictional same-sex romance between U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s pet rabbit and another rabbit named Wesley, came in at #6.
Otherwise, children’s literature and other adult nonfiction books dominated the top 10. A cookbook, Joanna Gaines’s Magnolia Table: A Collection of Recipes for Gathering, was the #2 bestseller in the year so far, and nonfiction books by Jordan Peterson and Jen Sincero placed at #7 and #10, respectively. Children’s authors Madeleine L’Engle, Dav Pilkey, and Dr. Seuss all saw books in the top 10, too. The only adult fiction title to hit the list, at #9, was James Patterson’s collaboration with former president Bill Clinton, The President Is Missing. Even fiction, it seems, can’t escape the clutches of politics.
Fire and Fury was also the top-selling title in e-books, according to lists compiled by both Barnes & Noble and Apple/iBooks (PW has opted to change to the iBooks and BN.com e-book lists, from Amazon, since the online retailer’s list now skews heavily to titles released by Amazon publishing units and also includes sales made through the Kindle Unlimited program). Comey’s book placed #8 on the iBooks list, but did not appear in the top 10 at B&N. On both lists, as is typical with e-books, fiction titles were more prominent than nonfiction, compared to print lists, with A.J. Finn’s The Woman in the Window placing at #2 on both lists, while novels by David Baldacci, Lisa Wingate, Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, and Kristin Hannah appeared on the top 10 of both e-book lists.
NPD BookScan Top 20 Print books, January 1–July 1, 2018
1. | Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff (Holt) |
2. | Magnolia Table by Joanna Gaines (Harper) |
3. | A Higher Loyalty by James Comey (Flatiron) |
4. | A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (Macmillan) |
5. | Dog Man and Cat Kid by Dav Pilkey (Scholastic) |
6. | A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Marlon Bundo (Chronicle) |
7. | 12 Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson (Random Canada) |
8. | Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss (Random) |
9. | The President Is Missing by Bill Clinton/James Patterson (Little, Brown/Knopf) |
10. | You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero (Hachette) |
11. | The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson (Harper) |
12. | The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur (Andrews McMeel) |
13. | Wonder by R.J. Palacio (Random) |
14. | Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur (Andrews McMeel) |
15. | The Outsider by Stephen King (S&S) |
16. | Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss (Random) |
17. | Diary of a Wimpy Kid #12 by Jeff Kinney (Abrams) |
18. | The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn (Morrow) |
19. | The Great Alone by Hannah Kristin (St. Martin’s) |
20. | Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath (Gallup) |
Apple/iBooks Top 10 e-books, January 1–June 30, 2018
1. | Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff (Holt) |
2. | The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn (Morrow) |
3. | The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen (St. Martin’s) |
4. | Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (Penguin) |
5. | The Fallen by David Baldacci (Grand Central) |
6. | The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin’s) |
7. | The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson (Harper) |
8. | A Higher Loyalty by James Comey (Flatiron) |
9. | Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate (Ballantine) |
10. | Origin by Dan Brown (Anchor) |
BN.COM Top 10 e-books, January 1–June 30, 2018
1. | Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff (Holt) |
2. | The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn (Morrow) |
3. | The Fallen by David Baldacci (Grand Central) |
4. | The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin’s) |
5. | The 17th Suspect by James Patterson & Maxine Paetro (Little, Brown) |
6. | The President Is Missing by Bill Clinton & James Patterson (L,B/Knopf) |
7. | Shelter in Place by Nora Roberts (St. Martin’s) |
8. | Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate (Ballantine) |
9. | The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen (St. Martin’s) |
10. | Dark in Death by J.D. Robb (St. Martin’s) |
A version of this article appeared in the 07/09/2018 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: The Bestselling Books of 2018 (So Far)
From the very beginning we have looked to the stars and dreamed of reaching them, and stories about how we get there and what comes next are a fundamental part of that dream. Good science fiction can amaze and motivate, warn, raise questions and spark the imagination, inspiring human creativity and each new generation of stargazers. Plus, it's just fun to read. Here are some of the best science fiction books Space.com's writers and editors have read and loved — an incomplete list, but one that's always growing.
(We are constantly reading new and classic space books to find our favorite takes on the universe. Our recently-read books in all categories can be found at Best Space Books. You can see our ongoing Space Books coverage here.)
What We're Reading:
'Children of Time' (Tor, 2015) and 'Children of Ruin' (Orbit, 2019)
By Adrian Tchaikovsky
Nonhuman intelligences are tricky to make understandable, believable and interesting, while staying alien, and author Adrian Tchaikovsky has landmark success in his novels 'Children of Time' (2015) and 'Children of Ruin' (2019). While (most of) the nonhuman creatures in these books are of terrestrial origin, their rise to intelligence follows a very different path than humanity's. Reading these novels, you see the distant descendants of humanity confront these strange intelligences and come up against the ecosystems and technologies that have sprouted from those strange perspectives. These books are unique and sweeping dives into the alien — but not recommended if you're viscerally afraid of spiders. ~Sarah Lewin
Tchaikovsky discusses both novels in a Q&A here.
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We check over 130 million products every day for the best prices
'Delta-v' (Dutton, 2019)
By Daniel Suarez
In 'Delta-v,' an unpredictable billionaire recruits an adventurous cave diver to join the first-ever effort to mine an asteroid. The crew's target is asteroid Ryugu, which in real life Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft has been exploring since June 2018. From the use of actual trajectories in space and scientific accuracy, to the title itself, Delta-v — the engineering term for exactly how much energy is expended performing a maneuver or reaching a target — Suarez pulls true-to-life details into describing the exciting and perilous mission. The reward for successful asteroid mining is incredible, but the cost could be devastating. ~Sarah Lewin
Read a Q&A with the author here.
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![Best Political Fiction Books Best Political Fiction Books](/uploads/1/2/3/7/123739511/345803254.jpg)
'The Calculating Stars' and 'The Fated Sky' (Tor, 2018)
By Mary Robinette Kowal
What if space exploration wasn't a choice but a necessity, driven by the knowledge that Earth would soon become uninhabitable and powered by international coalitions built after a catastrophic meteorite impact? That's the alternative history novelist Mary Robinette Kowal explores in her Lady Astronaut series. The books follow mathematician and World War II pilot Elma York, who dreams of becoming an astronaut herself. Kowal intricately melds real history with her fictional plot to create a series that is simultaneously hopeful and pragmatic. The Lady Astronaut offers a powerful vision of how spaceflight could be a positive force in society. ~Meghan Bartels
Kowal talks with Space.com about the books here; read an excerpt from chapter 1 of 'The Fated Sky' here.
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'Red Moon' (Orbit, 2018)
By Kim Stanley Robinson
'Red Moon,' the latest novel from legendary science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson, blends realism and drama in a way that instantly transports the reader to the lunar surface. The book, which takes place 30 years into the future, opens on the journeys of Fred Fredericks, an American quantum engineer working for a Swiss company, and Ta Shu, a poet, feng shui expert and celebrity travel reporter to the moon where they are traveling to work. In the world of the book, China has become the first political and technological entity to inhabit the moon in a serious, long-term way.
At first, as a reader, you may find yourself adjusting to the character's clumsy movements in lunar gravity and anticipating what life on the moon might really be like, but the story takes a shocking turn and life on the moon turns out to be much different from what you may have expected. 'Red Moon' does an incredible job immersing the reader in a captivating alien, yet still familiar, world while at the same time staying grounded in a reality that we could truly one day face. ~Chelsea Gohd
Read a Q&A with Robinson about 'Red Moon' here.
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'Before Mars' (Ace, 2018)
By Emma Newman
Emma Newman's latest book set in her 'Planetfall' universe, 'Before Mars,' sees a geologist arriving at a small Mars base after a lengthy journey only to realize that things aren't as they seem. The base's AI is untrustworthy, the psychologist seems sinister, and the main characters finds a note to herself she has no memory of writing. In a world of perfectly immersive virtual reality, can she trust what she sees? Or did the long trip take a toll on her sanity? 'Before Mars' takes place on an eerie, largely empty Mars after a giant corporation buys the rights to the planet.
It's a thrilling read but — like Newman's other 'Planetfall' books — also a deep dive into the protagonist's psychology as she grapples with what she discovers on the Red Planet. 'Before Mars' and the other books in the same universe ('Planetfall' and 'After Atlas') can be read in any order, but Space.com highly recommends giving them all a look. ~Sarah Lewin
Read a Q&A with Newman here and an excerpt from 'Before Mars' here.
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'Artemis' (Crown, 2017)
By Andy Weir
In 'The Martian' (Crown, 2014) first-time author Andy Weir gave voice to the sardonic, resourceful botanist Mark Watney as he struggled for survival stranded on Mars. In his second novel, 'Artemis,' he follows Jazz Bashara, a porter (and smuggler) on the moon who's drawn into a crime caper. Weir brings a similar meticulous detail to his descriptions of the moon as the ultimate tourist destination as he did to Watney's misadventures on Mars, but his characterization of Jazz doesn't play to his writing strengths like Watney's log entries did. Still, 'Artemis' is an entertaining romp through a really intriguing future moon base, with plenty of one-sixth-gravity action and memorable twists. It's well worth the read. Plus, there's an audiobook version read by Rosario Dawson. ~Sarah Lewin
Space.com talked with Weir about constructing a realistic moon base here.
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'Provenance' (Orbit Books, 2017)
By Ann Leckie
A young woman plots to find stolen artifacts in 'Provenance,' which takes place in the same universe as author Ann Leckie's award-winning 'Ancillary' trilogy of books — but introduces readers to a new selection of future human cultures with a more straightforward and less high-concept adventure story. Don't let that fool you, though: The book's exploration of multiculture, multispecies conflict (with aliens called the Geck) works just as much intriguing worldbuilding into the mix as her previous books. Plus, there are mind-controlled robots, stolen alien ships and a society with three genders. ~Sarah Lewin
Read an interview with Leckie about the book here.
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'Leviathan Wakes' (Orbit, 2011) and the other books in 'The Expanse' series
By James S.A. Corey
200 years in the future, humanity has colonized the solar system and is split among three factions on the brink of conflict: Earth, Mars and the Asteroid Belt, which includes the spinning Ceres asteroid colony. As multiple viewpoint characters are ensnared in a system-wide mystery, the story's scope slowly broadens to reveal the full complexity of the novels' science fiction world. The books, co-written by Dan Abraham and Ty Franck, originally stemmed from a tabletop roleplaying game idea, and it shows through the detailed worldbuilding and exploration of a solar system remade in humanity's image. Plus, it's a fun, tightly-plotted set of spacefaring adventure stories.
The series is slated for nine books, and they've appeared steadily one per year from 2011-2015 for a total of five so far (plus some tie-in novellas). They're also the basis for Syfy's TV show 'The Expanse,' recently renewed for a 13-episode second season. Book six, 'Babylon's Ashes,' is slated for release December 2016. Windows 8 copy user profile.
See here and here for Q&As with the series' authors describing the book's inception and the TV show's development (plus, the coolest sci-fi in the series). ~Sarah Lewin
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'Aurora' (Orbit, 2015)
By Kim Stanley Robinson
After numerous novels and short stories probing humanity's trials in the near future, far future and distant past, science fiction master Kim Stanley Robinson offers his own highly detailed spin on the challenge of interstellar travel in his new book 'Aurora' (Orbit, 2015).
Humanity's first trip to another star is incredibly ambitious, impeccably planned and executed on a grand scale in 'Aurora.' The novel begins near the end of a 170-year mission aboard a spaceship carrying roughly 2,000 humans to the seemingly Earth-like moon of a planet orbiting a nearby star, Tau Ceti.
Told largely from the perspective of the ship's computer, 'Aurora' emphasizes the fragile unity of all the living and nonliving parts aboard the starship as it hurtles through space. As the story of the landing unfolds, the narrative doesn't shy away from the science or the incredible complexity of a 2,000-person, multigenerational ship. The spacecraft is portrayed as one organism that can have conflicting interests or fall out of balance but that ultimately has to work in concert to reach its destination intact. ~Sarah Lewin
For more info about the book, check out our Q&A with Robinson.
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'The Martian Chronicles' (Doubleday, 1951)
By Ray Bradbury
Age range: High school and up
In case you haven't heard of him, Ray Bradbury is an icon of science fiction writing. In 'The Martian Chronicles,' Bradbury explores the gradual human settlement of the Red Planet, through a series of lightly connected stories. Bradbury paints the Martian landscape and its inhabitants with master strokes, but equally strong is his portrayal of the psychological dangers that await the human settlers who arrive there. This, as well as the space-themed stories in Bradbury's other classic collection 'The Illustrated Man,' struck a chord with me when I was young and dreamed about traveling to the stars. Reading his work today, it is amazing to see that although Bradbury writes from a time when human space travel hadn't yet begun (the book was first published in 1950), the issues and questions his stories raise are still relevant as humanity takes its first steps into that great frontier. ~Calla Cofield
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'Ender's Game' (Tor Books, 1985)
By Orson Scott Card
Age range: High school and up
This classic science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card should be ever-present on any space fan's bookshelf. Card's novel follows the life of Ender Wiggin as he learns to fight the Formics, a horrifying alien race that almost killed off all humans when they attacked years and years ago. Wiggin learns the art of space war aboard a military space station built to help train young people to fight the cosmic invaders. Basically, this book is a coming-of-age tale that makes you want to fly to space and also forces you to think about some serious social issues presented in its pages. (The book is the first in a quintet, and inspired a much larger body of work that takes place in the same universe.) ~Miriam Kramer
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'The Martian' (Random House, 2014)
By Andy Weir
'The Martian,' by Andy Weir, is a truly great science fiction book that's heavy on the science. Weir tells the story of Mark Watney, a fictional NASA astronaut stranded on Mars, and his difficult mission to save himself from potential doom in the harsh Red Planet environment. Watney seems to have everything against him, yet Weir deftly explains not only what Watney's survival needs are but also how he goes about trying to make them work. 'The Martian' also will be made into a movie, which is set for release in November 2015. The film stars Matt Damon as Watney and is directed by space movie veteran Ridley Scott. ~Miriam Kramer
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'Dune' (Chilton Books, 1965)
By Frank Herbert
In 'Dune,' Frank Herbert imagines a vast, intricate future universe ruled by an emperor who sets the Atreides and Harkonnen families warring over the desert planet Arrakis, also known as Dune. The arid world holds the only source of the spice mélange, necessary for space travel. Spread across star systems, 'Dune' teems with wild characters: human computers (Mentats), tribal fighters (Fremen), mind-controlling 'witches' (Bene Gesserit Sisterhood) and humans ranging from the corrupt Baron Harkonnen to Paul 'Muad'Dib' Atreides, whose journey from a sheltered childhood anchors the story. Early on, the Baron says, 'Observe the plans within plans within plans,' summing up the adversaries' wary analyses of each faction's complex motivations. This cerebral second-guessing balances with epic action throughout the book, centering on the perhaps best-known feature of the Duniverse: the monstrous spice-producing sandworms. The best-selling novel raised science fiction literature to greater sophistication by including themes of technology, science, politics, religion and ecology, although the burgeoning Dune franchise remains less popular than Star Wars (which borrowed heavily from 'Dune'). ~Tom Chao
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'Hyperion' (Doubleday, 1989)
By Dan Simmons
Part space epic, part 'Canterbury Tales,' 'Hyperion' tells the story of seven pilgrims who travel across the universe to meet their fate, and the unspeakably evil Shrike, who guards the Time Tombs on the planet Hyperion. On the way, each pilgrim tells his or her own tale, and each world is so exquisitely created that it's hard to believe it all came from the mind of one author. The tale of the scholar whose daughter ages backward after her visit to the Tombs, and his quest to save her as she returns to childhood, is my favorite — it's heartbreaking and terrifying at the same time. ~Jennifer Lawinski
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'Gateway' (St. Martin's Press, 1977)
By Frederik Pohl
'Gateway' is the first science fiction book I ever read, because my father, a longtime sci-fi junkie, had loved it. It's an intense read that explores why we make the choices we do, and how we deal with the consequences of those choices in the black vacuum of space. In 'Gateway,' those with the money to leave the dying Earth can hitch a ride on a starship that will either make them wealthy beyond their wildest dreams or lead them to a grim and possibly violent death. Or, like our hero, you could wind up in the grip of a massive black hole and have to make difficult decisions that lead you to the couch of an electronic shrink. ~Jennifer Lawinski
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We're adding new and classic science fiction books to this all the time, so be sure to check back later!
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Fiction
recommended by Joshua Cohen
Interview by Thea Lenarduzzi
Through the writing of political novels, writers might hope to speak against their time, says the American author Joshua Cohen. Here he selects five books in which the protagonist undergoes a political education.
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Joshua Cohen
Joshua Cohen is the author of nine books, including the novels Book of Numbers(2015) and, mostly recently, Moving Kings. In 2017, Granta Magazine included him on its decennial list of the Best Young American Writers. He was born in 1980 in Atlantic City and lives in New York City.
Part of me thinks that all novels are, to a degree, political novels, consciously or otherwise; but one of the major distinctions to make is between novels that are political, in the sense of having a message that the author wants to impart, and novels that are political because they’re showing the effects of the structures on the individual, the experience of politics.
I’m not sure that I’d agree with you, that all novels are political. But I am convinced that, nowadays, to read a novel is political. Especially so if the novel you’re reading is in hardcopy. And you paid for it. At a bookstore. Staffed by humans. As for there being different approaches to what we call the political novel, sure, OK—though I have to say that, to my mind, these approaches have as much to do with the writer as with the reader. What I mean is, writers write to impart one meaning, but then readers read and derive another. They ‘analyse’ or ‘identify’ a certain politics behind—inside?—the prose. I’m not certain how constructive this deconstruction is, but then of course I’d be uncertain: I mean, show me a novelist who doesn’t think that his or her intentions must be respected by the reader, and I’ll show you . . . someone very, very sad.
I’m not interested in propaganda. What I am interested in, when it comes to the politics of the novel, is the revival of that old debate, realism v. naturalism, which I always took to mean the distinction between writing about the-ways-in-which-a-character-experiences-something and writing about the-ways-in-which-a-character-has-been-conditioned-to-experience-something. I find the tension between those two approaches enlivening.
So, what kind of political novels have you chosen today?
These are all novels in which characters discover politics, or politics discover them. Most of the characters—the protagonists—don’t begin the novel as ‘political creatures.’ Some don’t even end the novels as ‘political creatures.’ But the arc they all experience is one between innocence and disabuse.
In both Moving Kings and Book of Numbers your protagonists start out rather disconnected from their political context.
That’s true. Both of those novels centre around characters who have no sense of themselves as having lived political lives: they are unaware of their own conditions, and so they are unaware of the conditions their existences inflict on others. Slowly, however, events unfold that provide their political education. They come to consciousness, in a sense. I’ve always thought of this as the contemporary version of the process of the Bildungsroman, or the Kunstlerroman: after generations of stories about young people coming of age, after generations of stories about young people becoming artists, now we have the story of the young person coming into ideological consciousness, or, if you prefer, the story of the young person getting ‘woke,’ and then craving, to one degree or another, the ability to sleep again.
How would you plot the course to awakening of your protagonists David King, Yoav and Uri?
Yoav and Uri are 21 years old, just out of their compulsory service in the Israeli Defense Forces. They’ve never before been out of Israel. They have only the vaguest notions of how Israelis, or Jews for that matter, are perceived, or misperceived, abroad. Also, they’ve always just been confined to their families: to their military family, to their family-family. They’ve always just followed the orders of their officers and parents. They notice all this, of course, only after decamping for America—only after they’ve made a break and got distance.
Whereas for David King, his awakening comes much later in life, and actually follows divorce and the breakdown of his own family.
David King is a businessman. He has no time for politics—that’s what he tells himself. Politics, in his mind, is just a gentile (in the sense of non-Jewish), publicly acceptable way of thieving for your living, of robbing the general citizenry to support yourself, or your family, tribe, or class. His daughter disagrees—his daughter loathes and condemns him, but still relies on him financially. Which, in turns, lets David ignore her critique. He seeks, then, an alternate family, and so brings Yoav and Uri over to work for him. He invites them, and so politics, into his home.
Nostromo
Let’s talk about your first choice: Nostromo (1904). I like how Conrad seems to have this above-it-all gaze, taking in the workings of everything on the fictional island of Costaguana. Neither side offers fix-it-all solutions; badness exists, to a degree, on both, or all, sides, so there’s no absolute opposition between good and bad and no revolution leads to a bettering of circumstances on the island. Is it consciousness of that that constitutes awakening here?
I don’t think Conrad is interested in asserting any type of moral equivalency—I don’t think he believes the exploited and the exploiters have equal moral claims. Instead, what Conrad cares about is individuality—the possibility or impossibility of a world of individuals—and how each of them, each of us, might be trapped, or might resist being trapped, in the positions and circumstances into which we were born. This, in Nostromo, is best dramatized in the person of Charles Gould: is the mine his birthright? From there, it’s a very direct line to asking the question: To what degree are birthrights delusions, or self-invented?
Again, an awakening as stepping up or away from the unit you were born into–but obviously, as with Yoav and Uri, it’s not enough to leave your motherland. So what does that stepping up entail for Conrad?
For Conrad, especially in Nostromo, it’s a question of personal ennoblement, of honour. So many of his characters have conflicting loyalties and are always trying to negotiate between them. Conrad is especially engaged with the ways in which people fail, or feel as if they have failed, the standards that were set for them. So, for him, “stepping up” as you put it, usually takes the form of a “stepping down,” a betrayal—not least of notions of Empire, or of duty.
Do you think his focus on the individual defining himself, making himself the best he can be, as opposed to his birth–and nationality, and class, and so on–defining him, derives from Conrad’s own status as a kind of transnational drifter?
Sure. He was the displaced son of a Polish patriot who hated the Russians and spoke French and wrote in English. This, for him, is what the sea did. His style is ship style: when you work and live on a ship, it doesn’t matter where you’re from, or where your shipmates are from. The only thing that matters is that they can do their jobs, and that you can do your job. You’re forced to become mutually reliant, for survival. At sea, or on Conrad’s sea, problems of origin fall away or become translated into problems of individual talent and character. The sea, in Conrad’s imaginary, becomes a democracy, a meritocracy, of survival. This, at least, is the “governance” that his Europeans aspire to and are tried by. This is Conrad’s European way of understanding the “natives,” not by appropriating them culturally, but by enlisting and rallying them in a campaign against the elements, a campaign against the pitilessness of Nature.
The Foundation Pit
The notion of individuals working together for the advancement of the group is central to your next book: The Foundation Pit (completed in 1930; published in 1987) by Andrei Platonov.
Platonov’s novel concerns the destruction of a Russian village or town and the digging of a foundation pit for a vast communist housing-block that the reader slowly realises will be the size of, or just will be, the world. The men who dig this hole are myriad: from true communist believers to convicts. And sometimes the convicts are the truest believers.
And, again, about these individuals’ realisation that they might want to, and yet probably can’t, break free from the mould that they have been set in.
To be clear, many of Platonov’s characters believe in communism, but their belief comes through a misapprehension of communism. To many of them, communism has become, or originally was, a religion: something like an early Christianity, something like a pre-Christian Christianity of Edenic charity and provision. Platonov’s pit-diggers are convinced of the brotherhood of man. In their innocence, they are convinced and so convicted.
He works in so much individual psychological detail—each dawning of consciousness is different; each man experiences and is shaped by the labour of digging the pit differently even though they are, notionally, all aiming to build the same structure. So, yes, basically, it’s the world…
Many of Platonov’s characters regard communism as this abstract moral principle—a principle of equality. But then each of them—from worker to engineer—defines this equality differently. This, of course, is where the conflict comes in. What is a perfect world? How many simultaneous perfect worlds can there be? In Platonov, this notion of the perfectible is related to, or emerges from, language. Because the perfectible can only exist in language: it can only ever be just a word.
Is that what Joseph Brodsky was getting at when he diagnosed Platonov’s suspicion of language and narrative, of meaning itself?
What Brodsky said was this: “Woe to the people into whose language Andrei Platonov can be translated”? It was Brodsky’s notion that any language that can bear Platonov’s meanings is already degraded—in other words, it has already been manipulated and used for purposes of political obfuscation.
The Cleft
Let’s talk about The Cleft (2007), Doris Lessing’s final novel…
I remember, you don’t like this book. Why?
It’s a while since I read it, but I remember struggling. I’m not the kind of person who needs human characters, or any characters at all even, or plot, for that matter—but I do remember finding it a bit of a grind. I never felt very involved, I suppose. What do you see in it?
It’s always been one of my dreams to make a text that appeals to an authority beyond myself—an authority greater than myself. If I write a book and my name is the name on the cover: it’s my fault. I’m to blame. I’m responsible. But what about all those texts that I grew up reading—all those texts that were, in many cases, poorly written, though that was OK, that was acceptable, because those texts were written by God, or at least I was told that they were? I’m thinking about my experiences of reading the Romans, the Greeks, the Sumerians—reading things that are millennia old, and how it’s the age itself that imparts their authority.
“We become inured to the world in which we’re raised. The monstrous can come to seem the natural”
The fact that these texts have survived, and have been commented on, and interpreted, for generations: this gives them a certain aura. I’ve always been interested in this aura, or in pursuing the aesthetics of this aura as a way to dissociate myself from my books—as a way to evade responsibility for them. In other words, I’ve always hoped to write a text that read like it was ‘found.’ And this is what Lessing succeeded in doing with The Cleft, which has all the authority of a ‘found text,’ without any trickery. She doesn’t say ‘this was found in a bottle washed up on a beach,’ or ‘this manuscript was dug up in my backyard.’ She just writes, and what follows doesn’t reads like a novel but like a fragment. There’s the sense that its flaws are the flaws of transmission: there are mistranscriptions, there are lacunae.
It also picks up on what you were saying before about not belonging, not being rooted in one side, one country, one culture or another, because an ancient found text pre-dates most of those distinctions. In the case of most ancient religious texts, they almost belong everywhere.
Lessing’s version especially, because hers tells of an island of women—an entire female society based on an island—that is suddenly “disrupted” by the introduction of a new species: males. No men have ever existed before, and then, out of nowhere, one man appears, bringing sex with him, and so bringing chaos. It’s a creation myth, created out of creation myths.
The Union Jack
Let’s have your fourth book The Union Jack by Imre Kertész (first published in 1991; published in translation by Tim Wilkinson in 2010). When you were talking at the very beginning about your interest in awakenings, this was the first book that sprung to mind–it’s quite explicitly about that, set during the Hungarian revolution of 1956.
This is one of the most beautiful short novels, or novellas, ever written. And only one thing ever happens: Kertész’s narrator looks out a window and sees a jeep go by flying the Union Jack. That’s it. But just the sight of this flag, and the context of the sighting, reminds Kertész that there’s an outside world: a world beyond Hungary, a world of freedom.
The rest of Kertész’s oeuvre is worth discussing too, if we can–even though, pending more great efforts from Melville House and Tim Wilkinson, a chunk of it remains unavailable in English.
He was one of the few, the very few, great writers who came through the Nazi death camps who wrote beyond the camps: who transposed the camps onto other structures. He once wrote that he was happiest in the camps, and he wasn’t being perverse, or he wasn’t only being perverse. What he meant was that, as a child in Hungary, all he knew were the camps, and so the rare moments that was able to sit in a field or have a fleeting conversation with a friend, became exceptionally joyous, exceptionally precious.
We all become inured to the world in which we’re raised: this was Kertész’s point. The monstrous can come to seem, and too often does come to seem, the natural.
Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age
Tell us about your final book, Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age by Bohumil Hrabal (1964; in English, in 1995).
A phenomenal book. A literal translation of the Czech title would be: Advanced Dancing Lessons for the Elderly. It consists of a single sentence: a monologue being delivered to a gang of women sunbathing topless—and perhaps also bottomless—behind a church. The subject of the monologue is nothing less than the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
How is that brought to bear on what we were talking about before, how an individual can, or should, be?
The narrator, who is and isn’t Hrabal, is concerned with elegance: not with decadence, but with elegance—in literature, painting, music, but especially in fashion. He is especially taken with army uniforms: soldiers, to his mind, should always be well-dressed. And there was no better-dressed army than Austria-Hungary’s.
It becomes apparent, after a bit, that the narrator is drunk, and that his endless sermonizing is just drunk-talk: a harangue at the end of the bar. Hrbal himself was always intoxicated with intoxication as a literary, and political, principle: the notion that to live in this world you have to in some way numb your sensibilities. His characters essentially enter a pub under the monarchy and drink the pub dry. They emerge only to find that they’ve boozed their way through history: they’ve missed Nazism and communism, and they now have to stumble home, which is, of course, an imaginary ‘home’—an imaginary past—through the gaudy solicitations of the free-market.
Hrabal’s characters drink so as not to be harmed by others. They prefer to harm themselves.
Speaking of monologues, do you think there’s enough talking going on these days? Is the political novel is good shape?
I’m not sure. I don’t know whether it would be a good thing for the political novel to be in good shape, or a bad thing for it to be in good shape, or a good thing for it to be in bad shape, or a bad thing for it to be in bad shape. I think if there’s any lesson to be taken from my choice of books here, it’s this: the political must be founded in the individual. These writers, these characters, cannot be reduced to any one specific camp, or any one specific ideology: they resist this reduction and, in fact, would regard this reduction as a mechanism of oppression.
That said, it’s the novelist’s tendency to refuse to agree with anyone: to agree is to be destroyed. Novelists must insist on their own words—it’s only by doing so that they can hope to speak against their time.
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Joshua Cohen
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Joshua Cohen is the author of nine books, including the novels Book of Numbers(2015) and, mostly recently, Moving Kings. In 2017, Granta Magazine included him on its decennial list of the Best Young American Writers. He was born in 1980 in Atlantic City and lives in New York City.