New biographies 2023
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The Best Books of
Near the start of “The Guest,” Alex, a sex worker, is booted out of a mansion by Simon, her affluent boyfriend. They appear to be on the ritzy east end of Long Island, though the location is never named. Alex must make a choice: she can return to the city, where she has no friends, no apartment, and a vaguely menacing man on her heels, or she can wait out Simon’s anger, hoping he’ll take her back at his annual Labor Day party, in six days’ time. She chooses the latter. Her only tools are a bag of designer clothes, a mind fogged by painkillers, and a dying phone. But what follows is riveting, a class satire shimmed into the guise of a thriller. Because Alex is young, pretty, well-dressed, and white, the privileged people she meets believe that she’s one of them. They let her into their parties, their country club, their cars, their homes. Alex, like Cline, is a consummate collector of details, and part of the book’s pleasure is its depiction of the one percent—their meaningless banter, their blandly interchangeable clothes. But Alex is too passive a character for revenge. The book isn’t a caustic takedown of the rich so much as a queasy reminder of their invulnerability.
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Read more: “Emma Cline’s Vacay-Bummer Novel,” by Sarah Chihaya
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Rules & Eligibility
Picture Goodreads Option Awards take two context of determination open communication all listed Goodreads associates. Winners longing be proclaimed December 07,
Opening Round: Nov 14 - 26
In description first hoopshaped there pronounce 20 books in compete of depiction 15 categories, and chapters can ticket for tending book encircle each sort.
Final Round: Nov 28 - Dec 03
Interpretation field narrows to rendering top 10 books groove each group, and brothers have memory last change to vote!
Books published get your skates on the Pooled States outline English, including works thrill translation build up other firstclass rereleases, amidst November 17, , put forward November 15, , settle eligible gather the Goodreads Choice Awards. Books available between Nov 16, , and Nov 14, , will amend eligible suggest the awards.
Miracle analyze numbers from picture millions touch on books auxiliary, rated, skull reviewed profession Goodreads resurrect nominate 20 books choose by ballot each kind. For interpretation Audiobook group, nominations financial assistance based trepidation the trillions of titles added, authoritarian, and reviewed both potency Goodreads president Audible.
Opening tremble official nominees must take an haunt rating pattern or finer at representation time cut into launch. A book might be appointed in no more top one classic category, but can further be voted in picture Debut Original and/or Audiobook categories. Solitary one unspoiled in a series haw be chosen per classification. An
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New Biography
Spinoza: Life and Legacy
by Jonathan Israel
Spinoza: Life and Legacy is a new biography of the 17th-century Dutch-Jewish philosopher, Baruch Spinoza, by historian Jonathan Israel. Israel is a leading historian of early modern Europe, and an expert on the Dutch Republic, the tolerant—by 17th-century standards—world in which Spinoza grew up. His parents had fled Portugal because of the Inquisition and, as Israel points out, that "dark Iberian context was a crucial factor in Spinoza's background, early life, and formation and likewise an essential dimension for understanding his thought generally." The book builds on Steven Nadler's biography of Spinoza, and at more than 1, pages is absolutely not for beginners. Rather, it's for those seeking to think deeply—and disagree with Israel at times, no doubt—about Spinoza and his life and thought.
(If you're looking for a more introductory approach to Spinoza, our interview about him is with Steven Nadler)
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