What does the future look like? This is a problem that we cannot predict. However, how we will recall the present moment in the future is something we can influence. Although life and years have different stages, they are not isolated compartments, in one stage after another, too many tiny details and memories, forming an invisible silk thread, re-intertwining the time scattered in the years.
Memory is not only a trace of the past, but also a tunnel to the future. Through the screening of things by memory, we save valuable fragments in our own brains, and books are undoubtedly the ones that can most affect the way we remember. Through history and social science books, we can remember the phenomena that have emerged in human society, through literary and art books, we can capture details and subtle emotions that are ignored, and through children's books and life books, we can gradually grow up in time.
In this year's time, there may be a lot of new books sliding past you, leaving no trace of excess, but there will also be many bookmarks that will remain in the page number of your life. And what we do every year is to share these books that can become the pages of readers' lives.
In 2021, Beijing News Book Review Weekly continued to uphold the principle of "public position, professional character, independent spirit, and realistic feelings", and selected 12 different types of books worth reading for readers, which will build a path to the future, and at the same time use words and ideas to shape the way we look at today in the future.
2021 Beijing News annual reading recommendation special issue
Annual Reading Recommendation
2021
new
capital city
report
Love confronts reality
The Condor Flies Over the City
Author: Song Lin
Edition: Yazhong Culture Beijing United Publishing Company
Tribute
From 1982 to 2019, the poetry collection "Vultures Fly Over the City" captured the essence of Song Lin's nearly four decades of creation, and it was only three hundred pages. But in this extremely limited space is the poet's rich sense of life and infinite spiritual breadth. As a "private detective of the soul", the poet identifies the complex self in the turbulent and wandering life, meditates on eternal time and death, and tastes the inevitable loneliness and melancholy; as a "stranger", the poet carries pain and wounds, sows love for others at the same time, faces reality, echoes the plight of Milosz and Kafka, and in the end, the poet uses a slow but firm pace to indicate the direction of the "spiritual homeland".
We pay tribute to "The Condor Flies Over the City", to its refinement, elegance and balance in poetry, and to the richness, profundity and sharpness of the theme; we pay tribute to the poet Song Lin, who pays tribute to his adherence to poetry and poetry in the ever-changing social context, the maintenance of the purity and nobility of poetry, and his initiative to bear the "heavy burden". His long writing process shows us a rare spiritual height and courage.
Bright and sad upbringing
"Childhood Memories"
Author: Roddy Doyle (Ireland).
Translator: Guo Guoliang Peng Zhendan
Publisher: Shanghai Translation Publishing House
Childhood is the origin of everyone's personality and emotions, and childhood experiences determine the way we see the world in the future. Writing about childhood is difficult, not only to write childish and even stupid behavior, but also to observe in it the mind of childhood human beings who are easily infected by the outside world, who will risk simple things and will be moved by simple things. In this world, people in different countries and different regions will experience different childhoods because of the limitations of the environment, although they have different forms in their life narratives, but in the growth of childhood, there are similar paths.
We pay tribute to "Childhood Memories", which as a successful depiction of childhood, successfully captures the commonality of all human beings in childhood beyond the social and cultural background barriers. In it, we hear the original and chaotic voices, see the reflection of our own obscurantist period, look at the future that was once noisy and confused, and it is in this process of re-observation and examination that we bid farewell to the naïve stage of life and move to the future at the other end.
Grasp the key points of Benjamin
Declaration of Uncertainty
Author: (French) Federico Payak
Translator: Yu Zhongxian
Publisher: Houlang Sichuan Literature and Art Publishing House
Can a person's life find a definite self-existence in an uncertain future? In a person's life, can he find an independent mind in turbulent times? In the ups and downs of the 1930s, these questions plagued every intellectual and those who sought meaning. Walter Benjamin's life, trying to think about the temperature of civilization in a cold world, grasping a lone leaf that can inhabit him in a world full of drifting people, he chases philosophy, love, freedom, and he finally ends his life with a panic suicide, declaring his failure of an uncertain future. But what he left us with was a true path of the soul.
We pay tribute to the Declaration of Uncertainty, in which author and illustrator Federico Payak devotes a three-volume account of Benjamin's life. He opened the passage between literature, biography, art and historical memory in the most suitable way for Benjamin, and used black and white brushstrokes to depict the confused people in that era of light and dark. It outlines Benjamin's life in a concise form, and also uses visual effects to bring the reader into the same questions as Benjamin, giving his own exploration to an uncertain life and future.
The concept of sculpture was greatly broadened
The Story of Sculpture
Author: Anthony Gormley/Martin Gayford
Translator: Ke Wang
Publisher: Republic of China, Guangxi Normal University Press
What is sculpture? Sculptor Anthony Gormley and art historian Martin Gayford had a conversation that lasted 18 years. In their eyes, sculpture is a solid substance, but also the void of light; sculpture is a solidified present, but also the flow of time and space; sculpture is a contemplation of death, but also a vigorous burst of vitality; sculpture is the bearer of imagination, but also a way of thinking that does things. The themes of their conversations, spanning geographies, cultures and contexts, connect tens of millions of years of human practice by elaborating on "what is sculpture" and then asking the grander proposition of "what is human beings".
We pay tribute to "The Story of Sculpture", pay tribute to its in-depth exploration of the complex emotions and diverse aesthetics that sculpture art can contain, and also pay tribute to its bold exploration of the long time and vast space that sculpture art can touch. As author Gormley says, sculpture is still an important way for us to question the world in this virtual digital age.
An independently thinking voice
Cheese and Maggots
Author: (Italian) Carlo Günzburg
Translator: Rui
Edition: Republic of China, Guangxi Normal University Press
In 16th-century Europe, the afterglow of the Renaissance sank into the night, but the dawn of the Enlightenment had not yet arrived. The seeds of change brew silently in the long night, and a small person in a poor and remote country makes an independent thinking voice. His outrageous cries eventually brought him to trial, and his life was buried in flames. Except for the dusty archives, his life is obscured. But historians eventually returned him with dignity. The spiritual universe of a small person, through the pen of a historian, penetrates the curtain of time and space and reaches the eyes of modern people.
We pay tribute to "Cheese and Maggots", to its profound insights, clean and vivid writing, which gives the boring literature and archives a living life. We would like to pay tribute to the author Carlo Günzburg, who cut through the thorns in the dusty archival jungle and unearthed the extraordinary story of an ordinary person from the microscopic details, and his rigorous, profound and warm historical writing makes us believe that even if it is as small as dust and sand, even if the glimmer of independent thinking will disappear in the long night, it also has the dignity of not being forgotten.
Use seashells to run through the entire history of the globe
Sea Shells and Shell Coins
Author: Yang Bin
Publisher: Oracle Social Sciences Academic Press
Sea shells were originally the object of marine biology research, but they were salvaged from the ocean of time and space by historians, giving them a new meaning. As a symbol of wealth and power, the ancient aristocracy flocked to it and transported it thousands of miles. The obsession with seashells connected the world's earliest communication networks. Before gold and silver currencies dominated the world, haibei also played a pivotal role in global trade as shell coins, creating the first world monetary system in history. Through the sea shells, we get a glimpse of the grandest panoramic view of civilization in human history.
We pay tribute to "Haibei and Shell Coin", pay tribute to its historical writing of "to the vast and subtle", and pay tribute to the author's insight as a historian to explore the subtle. This book's analysis of the sea shell and the shell coin redefines the meaning of money from a historical perspective, and also allows us to re-examine the meaning of global trade. The desires and pursuits of human beings, the exchange and estrangement of civilizations, the excitement and suffering of the times, like the thin waves and waves on the sea, the sea shells in the book become the compass that guides the direction, leading the reader to the depths of the sea of history. Just as pearls are hidden in sea shells, the power to rewrite human civilization is often contained in the commonplace of ordinary things.
The political ecology of the late Qing Dynasty in the diary
"Mirror image of the late Qing Dynasty Officialdom"
Author: Qiu Jie
Publisher: Social Sciences Literature Press
In the archives of the History Department of Sun Yat-sen University, a rarely asked diary is stored. Its owner, Du Fengzhi, a prefecture and county official in the late Qing Dynasty, only began his career at the age of 50, and for more than ten years, he truly recorded the official situation in the late Qing Dynasty from the private perspective of a local bureaucrat. Qiu Jie had a unique insight, and after a long period of in-depth reading, he fully excavated the value of this diary. Why did local officials in the late Qing Dynasty often deviate from the royal law to make judgments? How do officials interact on a daily basis, top to bottom? Is "imperial power" "not down to the county"? In view of this series of important issues, "Mirror Images of The OfficialDom of the Late Qing Dynasty" fills in many key facts and details that have not been fully paid attention to by predecessors on the basis of existing research on the history of the political system and legal system of the Qing Dynasty.
We salute Qiu Jie, who used his wisdom to contribute valuable new historical materials and new perspectives to an important field of historical research, and even more to pay tribute to him as a historian who practiced the research spirit of "sitting on the bench for ten years", and poured nearly twenty years of painstaking efforts into a work. We pay tribute to "Mirror Image of the Late Qing Dynasty Officialdom", which is a micro-knowledge, and uses the vivid daily life of grass-roots officials to reflect the political ecology of the late Qing Dynasty and its hidden worries. It looks at the living people in the abstract system and writes a "living institutional history", which shows a strong humanistic care.
Obscured "second shift"
"Working Moms Don't Leave Work"
Author: (U.S.) Allie Russell Hawksilde
Translator: Xiao Suowei waited
Edition: Life, Reading, and New Knowledge Triptych Bookstore
In recent years, with the prominence of gender issues on social media, the structural inequalities faced by women in the workplace and at home have attracted widespread attention. "Working Moms Don't Leave Work" explores a conundrum that has long plagued women: the shoulder-to-shoulder struggle between career and family. In the 1980s, sociologist Horksilde conducted an eight-year follow-up study of dual-career families in the United States, and she used informative and rich first-hand information to pioneer the "second shift" of working mothers who were obscured when they returned home.
We pay tribute to "Working Mothers Don't Leave Work", pay tribute to its empathetic and delicate analysis, echoing and illuminating the gender dilemma commonly faced by urban women of childbearing age. We pay tribute to Horkschild for her sociologist penetration, reflecting on and gaining insight into the deeper crisis of family care, providing a perspective beyond the gender framework for thinking about marriage, family, and intergenerational relations. "Working Mothers Don't Leave Work" tells us that revaluing the value of caring for labor and increasing men's participation in housework is not only related to the gender equality agenda, but also a social issue that needs to be faced urgently.
The fantasy poetry of ordinary life
"Walking Trilogy" - "Walking", "Camping", "River Tour"
Author: Da Wu
Edition: Puran Twenty-First Century Publishing Group
Children always have many question marks for the world, but in the eyes of adult reason, those question marks are full of strangeness. In fact, children often need not the most correct answers, but to feel the illogical but interesting poetry of ordinary life with them. In the "Walking Trilogy", the brother and brother are at first just a simple question and a answer, the world of the two people is a real and a fantasy, and in the third "Camping", the brother also follows the younger brother into his imagination, leaving a suspense for the reader to taste the fun of "continuing to expand the mind".
We pay tribute to the "Walking Trilogy", pay tribute to the "walk" that will not be accompanied by beautiful scenery because of the participation of children, compared with today's children's overly rich extracurricular life, it uses the simplest scenes to build a stage for children's expression, let go of imagination, and also remind those who are busy with running adults, never stop exploring the fun and poetry of ordinary life.
An artistic experiment to empower children
"Childhood Art Museum"
Author: Li Jie
Publisher: Lefu Culture Beijing United Publishing Company
This is a book that empowers children, and it is also a social art experiment that empowers children. If Montessori revolutionized the establishment of children as unique subjects of life in "The Secrets of Childhood", then Li Jie's iSTART Art Festival at the A4 Art Museum in Luhu, Chengdu, took this subjectivity a big step forward: children are not only unique, they are also complete, and they can become the subjects of certain rights. It is often said rhetorically that children can educate adults, but in Li Jie and his "Childhood Art Museum", children show the adult world their depth of thought, creativity and action with real and original works of art, and thus teach adults lessons.
We pay tribute to the Museum of Childhood. It pays tribute to the low posture of the book in front of children, which proves that rights can indeed be granted, even if it is ceded to children; it is also a tribute to all the children who show their works in this book, their sensitivity to reality, the pursuit of imagination, and once again prove the infinite possibilities of human beings. We also pay tribute to the author of this book, Li Jie, who is not a scholar of children's education, he is a true artist, and art is always committed to the challenge of order, and in education, this challenge is only the beginning.
Find the "spring eye" of the village
"The Natural History of Tahyuhama"
Author: Zou Hanming
Edition: Dafang CITIC Publishing Group
Tayuhama is both a geographical term that has disappeared and a spiritual coordinate attributed to literature. The author's panoramic look back and scanning of his hometown reaches the depths of time, which is especially precious at a time when the process of urbanization is advancing. Wooden bridgeheads, cement white fields, tombs within the walls, eight points, pig houses, swing fields, old people's lower, houtoutian, etc., the geographical architecture of villages is both "limited territory" and the beginning of "infinite roaming", and the seasonal festivals, natural customs, grassroots sentient beings, etc. reconstructed based on memory in the book outline a picture of natural life in the past - the reproduction of this paper village, which contains the story of the secular survival of man and nature.
We pay tribute to the Natural History of Tayuhama, as a non-fiction work, it reconstructs the history of the existence of Tayuhama, an old village in Jiangnan, from the perspective of almost rural fieldwork, leaving a well-documented spiritual historical material for the present and the future. We also pay tribute to Zou Hanming, who, with the acumen and insight of a poet, conveyed and recorded the traditional life of harmony between man and nature.
Magellan tour around the trees
"There is a Tree in the North"
Author: Ouyang Ting
Edition: The Commercial Press
As a writer who was born in the northwest region and later lived in the northern city of Beijing, Ouyang Ting set her sights on the "surrounding world" and used the four seasons of the north as the object of her writing, outlining the vitality of "natural Beijing" and its surroundings. Whether it is winter buds, ice and snow, lamei in winter, mountain temples in spring, scale hammer trees, or four azaleas, rainy days, small fish in summer, red fruits, blocks and clouds in autumn, this scenic journey about northern nature is spread out in the rotation of the seasons, this unique aesthetic space with ecological consciousness is full of heavenly truth.
We pay tribute to "There is a Tree in the North: The Four Seasons Following Nature", and also pay tribute to its author Ouyang Ting, who, at a time when the epidemic is still raging, the author leans over the natural phenology and records the gentleness and abundance of the "surrounding world" as a living person and an observer, this deep communication between man and nature, and a healing power to soothe the soul.
2021 Beijing News Annual Reading Ceremony
Live channels
—— Live Schedule ——
The live stream starts at 14:00 on Saturday, January 15, 2021
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