The best books of modern writers

The best books are relative. A good printed publication at the moment is a work that brings comfort, advice, knowledge, wisdom, vivid impressions to a person. Thus, the defining moment is the satisfaction of the book of demand of a certain reader.

For some people, only specialized literature is valuable: documentary, scientific, technical, medical, industry. But it is, rather, food for the mind. However, most of the readers are interested in art books. They contribute to the formation of the spiritual image. About them and will be discussed in this article.

The art book is a unique invention. Pleiades of thinkers of different times and eras trusted in paper their hopes, observations, understanding of truth, life, humanity. It is remarkable, when the bright images created by these authors together with deep and unique quotations (sometimes - decades ago, and sometimes - centuries) illuminate the life of our contemporaries!

The role of the Russian contest "Book of the Year"

The current literary process in Russia is unusually fruitful and has the characteristic features inherent in decadence:

• Creativity has gone beyond: the authors often write anything, if only the reader liked it;
• Mutation of linguistic expressive styles;
• The principle of impromptu when the author combines innovations and traditions;
• Texts acquire the signs of multilayeredness, interactivity;
• The human habitat is depicted as chaotic, unknown, pointless.

To direct the literary process into a constructive channel, to avoid eroding the national and to stimulate in it really talented beginnings - the archival task of modern Russian culture. The indicator of the success of books written by our contemporaries is the annual national competitions of the type "Book of the Year". They are organized to encourage both writers and publishers.

For example, in the Russian contest of 2014, traditionally held in mid-September, 150 publishers participated in the contest and submitted over half a thousand books for the contest. Winners were announced in 8 categories:

• Prose works - novel "The Abode" (Zakhar Prilepin);
• Poetic work - translation of Shakespeare's "King Lear" (Gigory Kruzhkov);
• Fiction for children - the story "Where does the cock ride?" (Svetlana Lavova);
• Art book - "Kargopol trip" (prepared by the local architectural and art museum);
• Nomination Humanitas - art and documentary album "Lermontov" (state archive of arts and literature);
• E-book - media project "Yasnaya Polyana" and "Yaroslavl temples" (project bureau "Sputnik");
• Nomination "Printed in Russia" - the album "Vetka. Book culture ";
• The main prize of the competition "Book of the Year 2014" - a three-volume "Russia in the First World War" (a team of 190 university researchers, museums, archives).

Let us summarize: the tasks of the above-mentioned competition are to raise the status of books in the current public life; Stimulation of the best authors and publishers. During its sixteen years of existence, this event in practice proved its motivating role in the development of Russian literature.

At least, they were nominated by Russian writers, who can rightly be called classics:

• 2004, nomination "Prose" - "Sincerely yours, Shurik" (Lyudmila Ulitskaya); Nomination "Bestseller" - "Night Watch" (Sergei Lukyanenko);
• 2005, nomination "Prose" - "Volteryants and Volteryanki" (Vasily Aksenov);
• 2011, the nomination "Prose" - "My Lieutenant" (Daniil Ganin).

International Book Ratings

As we have already mentioned, the best, most popular books, thanks to the thought crystallized in them, become real friends, advisers, and comfort for their readers. And the authors who wrote them are called classics.

The best books created by talent are studied in schools and higher educational institutions, they are widely quoted in everyday life.

The modern fashionable trend to make ratings of everything that surrounds us, did not bypass the literature.

At least, navigation on the Internet detects dozens of variants of "One hundred best books".

Such lists have a certain value. Thanks to them, the novice reader becomes much easier to find the very best books among tens and hundreds of thousands of works for reading. If a person feels their gaps in the knowledge of world culture (an integral part of which is domestic and foreign literature), then such a rating can become a route map.

Which direction to choose for such a landmark? If you are really interested in world literature, we would recommend using one of the ratings by version:

• English Broadcasting Company (BBC);
• The English newspaper The Observer;
• The Union of Writers of Russia;
• The French newspaper Le Monde;
• American publishing house Modern Library;
• Norwegian Book Club.

Of course, the information agency of each country, listing the best books, tries to give the leading places in the compiled lists to the authors-fellow-countrymen. And this is justified. After all, the talents of recognized classics who created their masterpieces from the time of the ancient world to our days, in reality, are not comparable. Each of them in its own way finds a path to the hearts of readers.

The phenomenon that has come down to us after millennia: the literature of the ancient world

The list of books that reached us through the millennium and inherited from other eras is rather limited. However, they appear in modern rankings. Therefore, we write about them. Unfortunately, the history has not preserved the ancient libraries: the gentiles fought with books as well as with the enemies. Thus, for example, the richest Alexandria library, numbering up to 700,000 scrolls of papyrus, was destroyed.

Which books of our ancestors-classics should be mentioned first of all, speaking about the ancient world? Publius Virgil Maron, the author of the Aeneid, certainly deserves fame in Latin, and Homer, the author of The Odyssey and The Iliad, in ancient Greek. Guided by the theory of Virgil, the Russian scientist and poet Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov developed a syllabo-tonic system of versification, which served as a launching pad for the further development of Russian poetry.

However, not only Virgil and Homer are considered ancient classics. Latin also created Horace, Cicero, Caesar, and in ancient Greek - Aristotle, Plato, Aristophanes. However, it is the two names mentioned earlier that represent the literature of the ancient world to the greatest degree.

Books of Europe in the era of capitalism

Foreign literature, of course, is represented by a much more extensive list of authors than Greece and Ancient Rome. This was facilitated by the rapid development of European states.

France with its Great Revolution awakened to life romantic human aspirations for freedom, equality, brotherhood. In the literature of Germany, which began to create its statehood, romanticism prevailed in unison with French.

In contrast, the industrial, urbanized and politically stable Britain, the ruler of the seas, demonstrated the most powerful and mature literary process, inclined towards realism.

It is generally accepted that the most famous writers who wrote in French at that time were Victor Hugo (Les Miserables, Notre Dame de Paris) and George Sand (Consuelo).

However, speaking of the French contribution to the world literature, one should mention the names of Alexander Dumas-father (The Iron Mask, The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo), Voltaire (poem Agathocles), Charles Baudelaire (collections of poems " Paris "," Flowers of Evil "), Moliere (" Tartuffe "," Bourgeois in the Nobility "," Miserable "), Stendhal (" The Permian Convent "," Red and Black "), Balzac (" Gobsek "," "," Godis-sar "), Prosper Merimee (" Chronicles of the times of Charles IX "," Tamango ").

A list of romantic books, characteristic of early-bourgeois Europe, will be continued, mentioning the works of Spaniards and Germans. A brilliant representative of Spanish classical literature is Cervantes ("The Clever Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha"). Among the German classics, Johann Wolfgang Goethe (Faust, The Wild Rose), Heinrich Heine (The Journey of the Harz), Friedrich Schiller (The Conspiracy of Fiesco in Genoa, The Robbers), Franz Kafka ("The Missing" "," Process ").

Romantic adventure books threw away the entourage of real life, their plot was based on the actions of exceptional heroes in unusual conditions.

The heyday of British literature

In the XIX century, the legislators of "book fashion" on the European continent were rightly considered to be British writers. French authors initiated by the Great Revolution, after the collapse of Napoleon, Bonaparte was less entitled to pay.

The English had their own literary tradition. As early as the fourteenth century, the whole world recognized the genius of William Shakespeare and the innovative social ideas of Thomas More. Developing its literature in a stable industrial society, British authors already in the XVIII century began an evolutionary transition from the classic knightly romance (romanticism) to works of social, psychological.

They are more pragmatic than the French, they tried to answer the philosophical question: "What is a Man, and what is the Society?" Such new thinkers are Daniel Defoe ("Robinson Crusoe") and Jonathan Swift ("Gulliver"). However, at the same time, Britain marked a new direction of Romanticism, as demonstrated by George Gordon Byron, author of the works of Don Giovanni and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.

The literary tradition of realism in the first half of the nineteenth century was powerfully developed by the following well-known writers:

- genius talented Charles Dickens (whom FM Dostoevsky later called his teacher);

- intellectual to uniqueness, stoically carrying hunger and poverty, Charlotte Bronte, known for the novel "Jane Eyre";

- the creator of the world famous Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle;

- Thomas Hardy, kneeling and persecuted by the sales press ("Tess of the kind of the Devberville").

Russian gold literature of the XIX century. The most famous names

Classics of Russian literature is associated in the world primarily with the names of Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. Although in general in the XIX century (which is universally recognized), Russian literature has become the most vivid cultural phenomenon of the world level.

Let's illustrate the above. Tolstoy's style of writing novels became an incurable classics. So, the American writer Margaret Mitchell wrote her famous epic "Gone with the Wind", imitating the style of Lev Nikolaevich.

The piercing psychologism of the highest standard, inherent in Dostoevsky's work , was also universally recognized in the world . In particular, the well-known scholar Freud argued that no one in the world could tell him anything new about the inner world of man, none other than Fedor Mikhailovich.

And Chekhov's innovation inspired the authors to start writing works based on the world of human feelings. In particular, the venerable British playwright Bernard Shaw recognized himself as his pupil. Thus, foreign literature in the XIX century received a powerful ideological support, and a new vector of development from Russian literature.

Therefore, friends, read War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment, Demons, Cherry Orchard, Seagull is your sacred duty.

A note on literary ratings

The fact remains: among the hundreds of best works, a significant part is occupied by books written in the XIX century. It is these writers that are usually taught in schools, for which inertial and unjustifiably stable curricula have been developed.

Is this fair? By no means. It is more expedient to change the curriculum, considering the tastes of a real progressive readership. In our opinion, no less than the works of the 19th century, the writings of the twentieth and the twenty-first century should occupy the curriculum.

The classic of Russian literature today is not only the works of Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, but also the books of Mikhail Bulgakov and Victor Pelevin. We deliberately express the idea figuratively, mentioning only a few names of famous poets and writers.

Raising the subject: "What books are the best?", It is reasonable to tell more about the works of the classics of the present and the last centuries.

The best book by the Air Force version. Critical Look

The first place in the ranking of the best books, according to the BBC version, is the trilogy of John Ronald Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. We will pay special attention in this article to this work-fantasy. Books with a similar depth of study of the plot, based on ancient tales, are a rarity.

What served as a rating for the experts for such a high rating? Indeed, a professor at Oxford University, with his most fascinating work, served the British great service. He, deeply and comprehensively studying the folklore of the Misty Albion (previously fragmented and fragmented), figuratively speaking, uncoiled it in a thread and wove it together in a unified concept of the struggle between Good and Evil. It's not enough to say that he did it with talent. The curious fact testifies to the uniqueness of the trilogy. Once, to the author of The Lord of the Rings, after his lecture, an enraged scholar-colleague came and accused the writer of plagiarism.

Modern fiction, perhaps, hitherto had no such associations. The opponent's opponent proved to be evidence, he brought to the bewildered author of The Rings unknown copies of drawings from ancient British chronicles that seemed to illustrate Tolkien's work.

It happens this! One person succeeded in the impossible - unite, systematize and, more importantly, presentable to present the ancient folklore of his homeland. Not for nothing that Queen Elizabeth II awarded the writer with the honorary title of Chevalier of Britain.

Some other rating books on the BBC version

Traditionally, the English information rating presents classical books of the XX century, for example, Anglo-American literature for reading (novels):

• Children's fantasy trilogy "Dark beginnings" (Philip Pullman).
• "Kill a mockingbird" (Harper Lee).
• "1984" (George Orwell).
• "Rebecca" (Daphne DuMorier).
• "The Catcher in the Rye" (Salinger Jerome).
• "The Great Gatsby" (Francis Fitzgerald).

Opinion of Russian readers

What is the assessment of the fairness of the British rating at Russian book lovers' forums? The answer is brief: ambiguous.

A rather high score is given to the work of the writer George Orwell. For many readers, a fascinating novel with an unpredictable plot - "Rebecca" became a favorite book. To read the children, you can recommend the story of the journey of the girl Lira Belakvy from Oxford on the fantastic worlds from Philip Pullman.

However, there are also sufficiently motivated comments. For example, for a domestic sophisticated reader who has fallen in love with such novel books as the realistic-mystical Bulgakov novel Master and Margarita, the work Doctor Zhivago from Boris Pasternak, as well as the Picnic on the Road and The City of Doom from the Strugatsky brothers, To put it mildly, the criterion of priority ranking of the BBC is not quite clear.

Understand correctly: we are not at all trying to lower the artistic value of a number of talented novels like "Dodge 22", "Great Gatsby", "Above the Catcher in the Rye", when we state the fact: their genre is an ideological novel. Unless, speaking objectively, they can be competitors to the voluminous and multidisciplinary work "Master and Margarita"?

Such novels, consistently revealing only one thought of the author, should be rated lower! After all, their depth of meaning is initially limited by design, devoid of volume, multidimensionality. Therefore, in the opinion of our readers, it is completely absurd to place doubtful positioning of novel ideas in the list of books in positions exceeding the "War and Peace" or "Masters and Margarita" ratings.

Modern books of postmodernity

Postmodern books today are, perhaps, at the peak of popularity, as they represent an ideological antithesis to the stagnant society of mass consumption. Modern postmodern writers dissect the consumer lifestyle surrounding them, filled with soulless advertising and primitive glossy glamor.

Such ideological authors are even in a full-time America. The author of Italian descent Don Delilo (Underworld novels, "White Noise") is recognized in his homeland as a true connoisseur of the problems of the consumer society. Another Italian scientist, professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna, Umberto Eco, immerses the reader in such an intellectually saturated canvas of the work (Foucault's Pendulum, The Name of the Rose) that his creations are in demand by an intellectual audience.

A softer postmodern is demonstrated by another author. One of the representatives of Russian contemporary literature of this trend is Boris Akunin. The books of this modern classic ("The Adventures of Erast Fandorin", "Azazel", "The Adventures of Sister Pelagia") are in demand by the mass reader and even are filmed. Many celebrate the power of the author's talent, his masterful style, the ability to create fascinating stories. In his arguments he demonstrates a special personal philosophy of an oriental character.

The latter is especially noticeable in his "Jade rosary" and "Diamond chariot".

It is noteworthy that, while capturing the reader with detective stories that occur in the general outline of Russia's historical events, the modern classic Akunin does not bypass the problems of poverty, corruption and theft. His books, however, are not sustained in the strict framework of the historical plot. In the West, this genre of prose is called folk-history.

The chronological point that determines the start of the concept of "modern Russian literature" is 1991. Since this time, the property of the broad masses of readers have become closed up to the works of the authors of the sixties:

• "Sandro from Chegem" Fazil Iskander.
• "Island of Crimea" by Vasily Aksenov.
• "Live and Remember" by Valentin Rasputin.

After them, contemporary writers came to the literature, the ideology of which was initiated by perestroika. In addition to the above-mentioned Boris Akunin, other Russian literary stars of the first magnitude were brightly lit: Victor Pelevin (Numbers, Life of Insects, Chapaev and Void, T, Ampir B) and Lyudmila Ulitskaya (Kukotsky's Case "," Sincerely yours, Shurik "," Medea and her children ").

Contemporary Fantasy Books

Perhaps a sign of the era of decadence was a remake of the romantic genre, reborn in the form of fantasy. What is only the phenomenon of popularity of the cycle of novels about Harry Potter from Joan Rowling! It's really like this: everything returns to normal, romanticism is winning back lost ground in realism!

No matter how many people say that realism once (in the thirties of the twentieth century) was stifled to death by romanticism, no matter how much the crisis was concealed, and he again on horseback! It's hard not to notice. Let us recall only one of the classic definitions of this literary style: "Exceptional characters act in unusual situations." Does not the latter statement correspond to the spirit of fantasy ?! What else to add ...

It is noteworthy that the current Russian authors who write fantasy books are widely popular and demonstrate a high literary level. For reading by readers, you can recommend the following works of this genre:

• "Night Watch", "Day Watch" (Sergei Lukyanenko).
• "Forbidden Reality", "Gospel of the Beast", "Catharsis" (Vasily Golovachev).
• The cycle of the novels "The Secret City", the cycle "Enclaves" (Vadim Panov).

Recall also about the popularity in Russia of the fantasy cycle "The Witcher" Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski. In a word, adventure books are now again in favor with readers.

Recommended books of writers from other continents

Looking through the forums of domestic readers, we found that among the outstanding writers of the 20th century , non-European and non-American books are much less often mentioned. However, among them there are very bright and talented works:

• "One Hundred Years of Solitude" (Colombian Gabriel Garcia Marquez).
• "Woman in the Sands" (Japanese Abe Kobo).
• "Waiting for the Barbarians" (South African John Coetzee).

Conclusion

Futile literature is bottomless! Books of its authors (meaning the best) mean the average person, unfortunately, can not read a priori throughout his life. Therefore, navigation in the boundless book "sea" is extremely important. "Why is it necessary - read purposefully?" - an uninitiated person will ask ...

We will answer: "Yes, to decorate your life in order to acquire real friends! After all, books are advisors, inspirers, and comforters.

In conclusion, we note that if you are lucky enough to find at least a dozen books, each of which, like a tuning fork, will perfectly suit you, your soul in a certain life situation, we will assume that we have not in vain worked on this article. Enjoy your reading!