AfternoonTea & English

В прошлом году наткнулась на высказывание то ли Аси Казанцевой, то ли Анны Козловой, то ли еще кого-то: "писатели научпоп литературы - новые поп-звезды". Уже тогда тренд с книгами нонфикшн был заметен - все их скупали, читали, советовали друг другу. Сегодня принесла вам свежую статью из The Guardian - они тоже заметили этот тренд и решили разобраться, почему он вообще появился, на примере нашумевшей (реально нашумевшей - она просто везде) книги Sapiens📚.

This is a story about a book that just kept selling, catching publishers, booksellers and even its author off guard. The book is Sapiens, and it’s about evolutionary history and the development of humankind. 🐒Its wild success shows a broader trend in our book-buying habits: a surge in the popularity of intelligent, challenging nonfiction.

We are turning away from glitzy stories towards more serious, thoughtful, quiet books that help us understand our place in the world 👗

It may be, though, that the picture is more nuanced. Karolina Sutton, an agent who represents writers such as Malala Yousafzai, sees a number of different forces driving this latest publishing trend. “There are two things going on in serious contemporary nonfiction,” she says. “On one hand, we’re seeing that people are reaching out to books that help to make sense of this unstable world, and on the other hand you have a new generation of activist-writers who are telling stories of gender, politics or race.”📝

Now the political backdrop demands that we take positions: it’s no longer acceptable not to have an opinion on the big subjects. Again, it appears that we are looking to books to deliver us these opinions.

At a time when politics is more fragmented than ever, when technology is colonising our existence, when medicine is reshaping our lives, we still look to books to make sense of things. These are serious times and they demand serious, intelligent and challenging books.

NEW WORDS:

📙To catch (someone) off guard: Застать (кого-то) врасплох

📙humankind: человечество

📙surge: всплеск, нахлынувшая волна

📙glitzy: роскошный

📙contemporary: современный

📙backdrop: фон

📙fragmented: разбитый на куски

📙to reshape: менять

📙to make sense of something: разобраться (в чем-то)

Оригинал: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/29/why-brainy-book-became-publishing-phenonmenon

#tuesday_news