{"id":9062,"date":"2021-06-22T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9062"},"modified":"2021-06-21T20:43:45","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T00:43:45","slug":"talkin-bout-your-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9062","title":{"rendered":"Talkin ’bout Your Generation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Recently, in the UK\u2019s Guardian<\/a><\/em>, five authors attempted to identify the five books\u2014fiction, nonfiction, occasional poetry\u2014that shaped each generation since World War II. How well do their picks match your touchstone books? And are you a cross-generational reader?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baby Boomers<\/strong> (selected by Blake Morrison): Joseph Heller\u2019s Catch-22, <\/em>Jack Kerouac\u2019s On the Road, <\/em>Germaine Greer\u2019s The Female Eunuch, <\/em>RD Laing\u2019s Knots, <\/em>and Penelope Leach\u2019s Your Baby & Child. <\/em>True to my generation, I\u2019ve read a couple of these (first and last).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gen X<\/strong> (Chris Power, who notes a \u201ctension between earnestness, self-consciousness and cynicism\u201d in these picks): Alex Garland\u2019s The Beach<\/em>, Helen Fielding\u2019s Bridget Jones\u2019s Diary<\/em>, Naomi Klein\u2019s non-fiction No Logo<\/em>, Zadie Smith\u2019s White Teeth<\/em>, and David Foster Wallace\u2019s Infinite Jest. <\/em>Does seeing the movie count?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Millennials<\/strong> (Megan Nolan, whose picks, she said, convey \u201ca sense of cautious, questioning dread.\u201d Great.): Halle Butler\u2019s The New Me<\/em>, Leslie Jamison\u2019s essay collection, The Empathy Exams<\/em>, Ling Ma\u2019s Severance<\/em>, JM Holmes\u2019s How Are You Going to Save Yourself<\/em>, and Malcolm Harris\u2019s Kids These Days. <\/em>Hmmmm. Not part of my reading past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gen Z<\/strong> (Faridah \u00c0b\u00edk\u00e9-\u00cdy\u00edm\u00edd\u00e9): Chloe Gong\u2019s These Violent Delights<\/em> (a retelling of Romeo and Juliet<\/em>), Alice Oseman\u2019s Heartstopper<\/em>, Kelly Jensen\u2019s anthology of mental health-related essays (Don\u2019t) Call Me Crazy<\/em>, Aiden Thomas\u2019s Cemetery Boys<\/em>, and Adam Silvera\u2019s They Both Die at the End<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When time travel deposits you at this last generation, you find books have evolved not only in content, but in form and intent. The last five are, respectively, YA, a graphic novel series, an anthology of essays, a YA paranormal adventure, and \u201ca TikTok sensation.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quite obviously, I need to get out more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, in the UK\u2019s Guardian, five authors attempted to identify the five books\u2014fiction, nonfiction, occasional poetry\u2014that shaped each generation since World War II. How well do their picks match your touchstone books? And are you a cross-generational reader? Baby Boomers … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Talkin 'bout Your Generation - the touchstone books of the post- WWII generations. Where do you fit in?\n","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[40,267,126],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-non-fiction","category-reading-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2ma","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9062"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9064,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9062\/revisions\/9064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}