Name: Normal People
ISBN: 9781984822185

Normal People

At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers - one they are determined to conceal. A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other. Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.

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muststopmythsDec 2020

From McCarthy ? I'd start with his Border Trilogy which is 3 books sold together. Or just All The Pretty Horses if you want to dip your toes to see if you like his writing.

I've also enjoyed Elmore Leonard quite a bit recently. More pulpy I suppose, but well written. Out of Sight is a good one with a somewhat faithful movie version as well.

Normal People by Sally Rooney is something I read recently that I liked.

Unless by literature you actually mean classic literature, in which case I'm really not qualified to recommend anything :-)

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dinosaursDec 2019

I would love to know which books you’ve read in 2019 and which you would recommend.

Some of my favourite reads were:

Fascism: a warning (Albright)

Sapiens (Harari)

Normal People (Rooney)

I will comment with a full list of my recommendations.

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nephihahaDec 2025

Read them and buy them in physical form. Don't just feed the coffers of Amazon. I have read two backs in the last two days: Paul Laird's "Birth and Impact of Britpop: Mis-Shapes, Scenesters and Insatiable Ones" in hardback and Sally Rooney's novel "Normal People" in paperback. I'm currently reading a book about female Scottish painters.

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antasvaraJun 2025

>Lots of literary fiction is perfectly readable for normal humans. Lots of what isn’t accessible is just not that enjoyable to anybody.

The PIAAC surveys, while imperfect, indirectly address what percentage of adults can read and appreciate "literary fiction."

The first part of the definition of level 3:

>Adults at Level 3 are able to construct meaning across larger chunks of text or perform multi-step operations in order to identify and formulate responses. They can identify, interpret or evaluate one or more pieces of information, often employing varying levels of inferencing.

The first part for Level 4:

>At level 4, adults can read long and dense texts presented on multiple pages in order to complete tasks that involve access, understanding, evaluation and reflection about the text(s) contents and sources across multiple processing cycles. Adults at this level can infer what the task is asking based on complex or implicit statements. Successful task completion often requires the production of knowledge-based inferences.

The full definitions can be found here: https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/measure.asp

Based on the full definitions, understanding the use of metaphor in a longer text probably sits in Level 4. A simple metaphor might sit in Level 3.

Based on the recent survey results, only half of US adults read at Level 3 or above. Around 15% read at Level 4 or above.

I invite you to look at this PowerPoint of sample questions for each level: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjJ...

Based on that, what level of literacy do you think indicates someone capable of reading and enjoying literary fiction? I think the hypothetical cutoff is somewhere between Level 3 and 4.

Based on all of this, let's use Sally Rooney's book "Normal People" as an example. If we're being super charitable, at most 50% of people would be able to read and comprehend that book. If we're being less charitable with our definition of "comprehension," I think we're probably looking at closer to 30% of people really understanding it.

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mtmailDec 2019

List plain text (from https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2019-...)

    “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power,” by Shoshana Zuboff
    “The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company,” by William Dalrymple
    “Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee,” by Casey Cep
    “Girl, Woman, Other,” by Bernardine Evaristo (Booker Prize winner)
    “The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America From 1890 to the Present,” by David Treuer
    “How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy,” by Jenny Odell
    “Lost Children Archive,” by Valeria Luiselli
    “Lot: Stories,” by Bryan Washington
    “Normal People,” by Sally Rooney
    “The Orphan Master’s Son,” by Adam Johnson
    “The Yellow House,” by Sarah M. Broom (National Book Award winner, nonfiction)
    “Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland,” by Patrick Radden Keefe
    “Solitary,” by Albert Woodfox
    “The Topeka School,” by Ben Lerner
    “Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion,” by Jia Tolentino
    “Trust Exercise,” by Susan Choi (National Book Award winner, fiction)
    “We Live in Water: Stories,” by Jess Walter

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dredmorbiusDec 2019

1. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, by Shoshana Zuboff

https://www.worldcat.org/title/age-of-surveillance-capitalis...

2. The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company, by William Dalrymple

https://www.worldcat.org/title/anarchy-the-relentless-rise-o...

3. Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee, by Casey Cep

https://www.worldcat.org/title/furious-hours-murder-fraud-an...

4. Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo (Booker Prize winner)

https://www.worldcat.org/title/girl-woman-other/oclc/1127909...

5. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America From 1890 to the Present, by David Treuer

https://www.worldcat.org/title/heartbeat-of-wounded-knee-nat...