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Discover the best books from 2005 with this curated reading list, featuring literary classics from Yasunari Kawabata, Franz Kafka, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Explore timeless fiction, drama, and plays including *Thousand Cranes*, *The Trial*, and *Waiting for Godot*—essential reads for any literature lover.
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Woodcutters
by Thomas Bernhard
This controversial portrayal of Viennese artistic circles begins as the writer-narrator arrives at an 'artistic dinner' given by a composer and his society wife--a couple that the writer once admired and has come to loathe. The guest of honor, an actor from the Burgtheater, is late. As the other guests wait impatiently, they are seen through the critical eye of the narrator, who begins a silent but frenzied, sometimes maniacal, and often ambivalent tirade against these former friends, most of whom were brought together by the woman whom they had buried that day. Reflections on Joana's life and suicide are mixed with these denunciations until the famous actor arrives, bringing a culmination to the evening for which the narrator had not even thought to hope. "Mr. Bernhard's portrait of a society in dissolution has a Scandinavian darkness reminiscent of Ibsen and Strindberg, but it is filtered through a minimalist prose. . . . Woodcutters offers an unusually intense, engrossing literary experience."--Mark Anderson, New York Times Book Review "Musical, dramatic and set in Vienna, Woodcutters. . . .resembles a Strauss operetta with a libretto by Beckett."--Joseph Costes, Chicago Tribune "Thomas Bernhard, the great pessimist-rhapsodist of German literature . . . never compromises, never makes peace with life. . . . Only in the pure, fierce isolation of his art can he get justice."--Michael Feingold, Village Voice "In typical Bernhardian fashion the narrator is moved by hatred and affection for a society that he believes destroys the very artistic genius it purports to glorify. A superb translation."--Library Journal
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The Trial
by Franz Kafka
From one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, the author of The Metamorphosis: Written in 1914 but not published until 1925, a year after Kafka’s death, The Trial is the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, The Trial has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers.
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Thousand Cranes
by Yasunari Kawabata
A luminous story of desire, regret, and the almost sensual nostalgia that binds the living to the dead—from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner and author of Snow Country. "A stunning economy, delicacy of feeling, and a painter’s sensitivity to the visible world.” —The Atlantic While attending a traditional tea ceremony in the aftermath of his parents’ deaths, Kikuji encounters his father’s former mistress, Mrs. Ota. At first Kikuji is appalled by her indelicate nature, but it is not long before he succumbs to passion—a passion with tragic and unforeseen consequences, not just for the two lovers, but also for Mrs. Ota’s daughter, to whom Kikuji’s attachments soon extend. Death, jealousy, and attraction convene around the delicate art of the tea ceremony, where every gesture is imbued with profound meaning.
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Rhinoceros, and Other Plays
by Eugène Ionesco
A collection of three modern plays by the master of the absurd and member of the French Academy.
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The Bald Soprano, and Other Plays
by Eugène Ionesco
Four original plays by French author Eugène Ionesco.
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Nausea
by Jean-Paul Sartre
Presents Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist novel, first published in 1938, in which Antoine Roquentin, a French writer, chronicles his reactions to the world and people around him, which combine to give him an overpowering feeling of nausea.
