BEACHMAXX YOUR SUMMER WITH A SATIRE ...
Let's get critical this summer. Exercise the mind while we laugh. Read a satire - in the park, on the tube or on the beach - and tune in to the mad, bad world that surrounds us, chuckling while it's skewered. There's some amazing reads out there.
The satirical novel is alive, but it's under pressure. And we need it now more than ever. Satire is essential literature that shines a light on absurdities, injustice and moral hypocrisy in society. It encourages critical thinking, dissent and intelligent discourse without which society and democracy is diminished. Sometimes it leads to change.
Let's bring it back this summer.
The satirical novel is alive, but it's under pressure. And we need it now more than ever. Satire is essential literature that shines a light on absurdities, injustice and moral hypocrisy in society. It encourages critical thinking, dissent and intelligent discourse without which society and democracy is diminished. Sometimes it leads to change.
Let's bring it back this summer.
AUTHOR'S PICKS
I prefer my satire funny and cutting in equal measure, so it's Tom Wolfe for me. A Man In Full and Bonfire of The Vanities brought the house down as well as New York and Atlanta, the perfect blend of social critique and comedy; and Tom Sharpe's Riotous Assembly won the crown for the most absurd skewering of a hateful regime. More recently, Jonathan Coe's Middle England got my vote for capturing the lunacy of Brexit Britain, and R.F Kuang's Yellowface, with its of study of racial diversity in the publishing industry, reassures me satire is still breathing.
TOP SATIRES OF THE LAST TEN YEARS
The Sell Out by Paul Beatty (2016)
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Mossfegh (2018)
Severence by Ling Ma (2018)
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (2019)
Interior Chinatown by Charles You (2020)
THE GREATEST SATIRES OF ALL TIME?
Don Quixote, Gulliver's Travels, Candide, Erewhon, The Good Soldier Svejk, Brave New World, A Handful of Dust, Animal Farm, Ninety-Eighty-Four, Catch-22, The Master and Margarita, Cat's Cradle, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Bonfire of The Vanities, American Psycho, Small Gods, White Noise, The Sell Out, The Handmaid's Tale, Erasure.
I prefer my satire funny and cutting in equal measure, so it's Tom Wolfe for me. A Man In Full and Bonfire of The Vanities brought the house down as well as New York and Atlanta, the perfect blend of social critique and comedy; and Tom Sharpe's Riotous Assembly won the crown for the most absurd skewering of a hateful regime. More recently, Jonathan Coe's Middle England got my vote for capturing the lunacy of Brexit Britain, and R.F Kuang's Yellowface, with its of study of racial diversity in the publishing industry, reassures me satire is still breathing.
TOP SATIRES OF THE LAST TEN YEARS
The Sell Out by Paul Beatty (2016)
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Mossfegh (2018)
Severence by Ling Ma (2018)
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (2019)
Interior Chinatown by Charles You (2020)
THE GREATEST SATIRES OF ALL TIME?
Don Quixote, Gulliver's Travels, Candide, Erewhon, The Good Soldier Svejk, Brave New World, A Handful of Dust, Animal Farm, Ninety-Eighty-Four, Catch-22, The Master and Margarita, Cat's Cradle, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Bonfire of The Vanities, American Psycho, Small Gods, White Noise, The Sell Out, The Handmaid's Tale, Erasure.
If you'd like to join me in a calling for a satirical summer (and help sell my book), you can access the marketing materials below by writing to me in the contact section of this site. Here comes summer.
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