Hardcover , pages. Published November 13th by Penguin Press first published More Details Original Title. Other Editions 3. Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
To ask other readers questions about Windows on the World , please sign up. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Add this book to your favorite list ». Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Oct 02, Bluerose's Heart rated it really liked it Shelves: non-fiction.
Windows of the World is a simple, but inspiring book. Matteo Pericoli, with pen and ink, shows us those windows. This is a short book. Most Windows of the World is a simple, but inspiring book. They also get a page for their windows. I got the chance to travel around the world and see new people and new landscapes, all in such a short amount of time. Windows of the World is a lovely book! Feb 28, John Benson rated it it was amazing. I really liked this book for its meditative quality.
The author,an architect, drew the views from the windows of 50 authors from throughout the world, and then asked them to write a paragraph to a page on what that view means to them and their writing. It ended up being a very moving book in a very quiet way. Sep 21, Emily rated it liked it Shelves: essays , non-fiction , Genuinely a moving delight to read during the pandemic, even if it was conceived half a decade ago.
Inspiring book. Aug 31, Angela rated it really liked it. Loved the concept for the book. Really enjoyed the drawings and found some interesting new authors to check out. Dec 01, Jill rated it really liked it. This book collects contributions to a series of posts that began in The New York Times in August, , ran for a year, and then began again a year later in the Paris Review Daily blog. Fifty such pairings are included in this book. Readers will enjoy finding out about how and where authors work.
And Daniel Kehlmann interestingly mentions what his view does not include. The book also serves to remind all of us of how the simplest aspects of our surroundings affect us profoundly, but often we grow too used to them to notice anymore. As Pericoli observes in his introduction: "It is hard to pay close attention to those things that are part of our daily routines.
Pericoli shows us what a difference it can make to pay attention, and appreciate what we have before it is gone. Evaluation: This book would make a wonderful gift for yourself or others, and is especially recommended for those interested in finding out more about the creative process. Sep 22, Biblio Files takingadayoff rated it really liked it. Windows on the World is a slender volume. Fifty writers novelists, poets, essayists, etc.
He took photos of the view from their windows and talked with them about what they thought about their view from the desk. He made line drawings of the views and included a few paragraphs of the writers' thoughts. I found myself lingering over the drawings, so simple and elegant.
Each writer's view and thoughts take only two or three pag Windows on the World is a slender volume. Each writer's view and thoughts take only two or three pages, and Pericoli has arranged them geographically, so that we travel from Turkey through the Middle East, to Africa, up to Europe, through Asia, across to North America, then South America.
Some views are filled with city buildings and treetops, others are of suburban gardens or the house across the way. Published March 22nd by Miramax Books first published More Details Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Windows on the World , please sign up. Lists with This Book.
Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of Windows on the World. Aug 07, Paul Fulcher rated it really liked it Shelves: , mbi-iffp-winners. We know that none of the 1, people trapped on the nineteen floors above survived. Obviously, this piece of information removes any element of suspense from this book.
One of my reading resolutions for is to complete all of the past winners of the two premier prizes for literature in English translation - the Best Translated Book Award from the US and the Independent Foreign Fi We know that none of the 1, people trapped on the nineteen floors above survived.
Windows on the World, translated by the wonderful Frank Wynne terribleman won the IFFP, beating off competition from inter alia, two excellent books I have read - Orhan Pamuk's Snow, perhaps his finest work, and the lower profile but very strong Budapest by Chico Buarque. Windows on the World tells the story of a family trapped in the eponymous restaurant on top of the North Tower the first struck, but last to fall of the World Trade Centre on 11th September The story - of divorced Texan realtor Carthew Yorsten and his sons aged 7 and 9 - is told in chapters each representing a minute from 8.
I explain that France is a small European country that helped America to free itself from the yoke of English oppression between and and that, to show our appreciation, our soldiers liberated them from the Nazis in Indeed he muses that perhaps he has invented a new form auto-satire, since his own parallel story is unsentimental, at times blackly humorous, but also self-depreciating.
For example on the restaurant he writes: Windows on the World. My first impression is that the name is slightly pretentious. A little self-indulgent, especially for a skyscraper which houses stockbrokers, banks and financial markets. Sorry for that bout of black humor: a momentary defense against the atrocity.
The relationship between France and the US - culturally and politically - is key to Beigbeder's thoughts. His section of the novel is set in February , when French Fries were even renamed Freedom Fries: The largest antiwar demonstration for fifty years; it is February 15, Yesterday, the U. Security Council. Beigbeder comes down firmly on the side of American culture but not politics , proclaiming rather implausibly in my personal view even the superiority of its literature, but strongly against its sense of chauvinism.
In the nineteenth century, American poets spoke French. Anti-Americanism is in large part jealousy and unrequited love. Deep down, the rest of the world admires American art and resents the United States for not returning the favor.
What bothers us is not American imperialism, but American chauvinism, its cultural isolation, its complete lack of any curiosity about foreign work except in New York and San Francisco. As for the cultural exception to American cultural hegemony that is France, contrary to what a recently dismissed CEO had to say, it is not dead: it consists in churning out exceptionally tedious movies, exceptionally slapdash books and, all in all, works of art which are exceptionally pedantic and self-satisfied.
It goes without saying that I include my own work in this sorry assessment. The death toll must be 20,! I told you this would happen, I even wrote it. The actual account of Carsten and his sons is in some senses the weakest part of the novel from a pure drama perspective. But the real strength of this section, which builds on what we do know from transcripts of phone calls made by those trapped, is to make real the brutality of what those trapped suffered.
Beigbeder argues, reasonably convincingly, that much of this has been self-censored: Five minutes after the first plane crashed into our tower, the tragedy was already a hostage to fortune in a media war. And patriotism? Of course. Knee-jerk patriotism made the American press swagger about, censor our suffering, edit out shots of the jumpers, the photographs of those burn victims, the body parts. But already it was war; in time of war, you hush up the damage done by the enemy. But even he draws the line at some points: I have cut out the awful descriptions.
I have not done so out of propriety, nor out of respect for the victims because I believe that describing their slow agonies, their ordeal, is also a mark of respect. I cut them because, in my opinion, it is more appalling still to allow you to imagine what became of them.
His approach - brutal honesty over sentimentality - is best illustrated when the Beigbeder author character does, for once, take a heroic view of those who choose to jump: They are human because they decide to choose how they will die rather than allow themselves to be burned. One last manifestation of dignity: they will have chosen their end rather than waiting resignedly. But he immediately has his fictional character who actually witnessed events retort: Bullshit, my dear Beigbeder. Within seconds his derisory piece of fabric became a torch.
Jeffrey literally exploded on the plaza, killing a firefighter and the woman he was rescuing. She found out he was bisexual and that he was dead in the same instant. This case of character talking to author, is isolated, but he does allow his author to meet Carthew Yorsten's former girlfriend in a bar in New York The playboy character and unusual name of Carthew Yorsten is a rather odd feature of the novel, in that quite a lot of the narration is taken up in the rather seamy life of this one particular fictional character, but it felt as if Yorsten was n some senses a American version of Beigbeder, and a late and real-world revelation neatly justifies this interpretation and explains the choice of name.
The novel perhaps doesn't read quite so well, or quite so controversially, as when first released, due to the passage of time. In particular Beigbeder's proclamation that there is a communist utopia; that utopia died in ;there is a capitalist utopia; that utopia died in seems rather hyperbolic read in - if the history of the death of capitalism is to be written September is likely to figure rather more prominently than September albeit one could make a link that one was the consequence of the re-inflation of the economy following the other.
What else is there to write? The only interesting subjects are those which are taboo. We must write what is forbidden. French literature is a long history of disobedience. Nowadays, books must go where television does not. Show the invisible, speak the unspeakable. I am also obliged to concede that in leaning on the first great hyperterrorist attack, my prose takes on a power which it would not otherwise.
Overall, so much more than an imaginative recount of the events of that day indeed if it were only that it would be much less of a success - the actual transcripts of the calls from the Towers themselves published e.
View all 3 comments. Apr 01, Elizabeth rated it really liked it Shelves: I couldn't decide on what star rating to give this. This is, at once, the most horribly self-indulgent book I've ever read, and one of the most insightful looks into today that I've ever seen. The author is an asshole, who blends himself with the fictional character constantly. But I've been reading a ton of French philosophy and perspectives on America recently.
He's drawing a lot of it from that. This book is an attempt at the hyperreal novel. Where fiction becomes more real than reality. What c I couldn't decide on what star rating to give this. What can you say about that? I don't like the main character, or, honestly, any of the characters. But the philosophy, the philosophy is real. Beigbeder understands generation and thought and the reality of horror.
He deconstructs symbolism when the world is making nothing but symbols. He sees the meaning in meaning nothing. So I feel that it is worth reading. I would recommend it to anyone, especially those well read in French accounts of America -- Toqueville, Baudrillard, etc. It's a quick read, anyway. But how do I feel about it? I'm not sure. I think that I need to think about it.
In short: swallow his egotism. It is worth it by the time you reach Jun 28, Rima rated it liked it. First off, I did not know that the people who were stuck in the floors above the level where the plane entered were stuck there for 2 hours before the tours collapsed. I also did not know there were no attempts to rescue them thru helicopter, for example.
So, this book deals with the sinister story of what might have happened to these people. And of course, this being Beigbeder, he also deals with some personal issues typical of him, such as his inability to love, his feeling of guilt about being a mediocre writer, a failure in life, and not a good parent , and his interest in somewhat dirty and taboo erotic scenes that seems to be a French thing going in in literature in the past 10 years. Out of all these, I appreciate most the author raising the issue of the WTC attack in general.
Most Europeans have so much disdain for the US after the Bush years, that we sometimes forget the atrocity of this event. Especially a French author could have taken a much different approach. Instead, he reminds us that the people who were affected that day, could have been anyone, anywhere in the world. He starts the book by saying, "You know the end. Everyone dies", and concludes it with: "I do not know why I decided to write this book. Maybe because I saw no interest in writing about anything else.
What else to write about? The only interesting subjects are the ones that are taboo. We have to write what is forbidden[ So perhaps, what else to read about as a reader? If the only real, interesting issue of the last 10 years is perhaps this horrific event and day. I was in bed in a hostel somewhere in Harlem being woken up by lots of noisy helicopters. I had been to the top of the towers two nights before so much of the description in here has a chilling resonance.
He takes the story one minute at a time a device which works perfectly to reflect the horror and intensity of what it must have felt like. He also really captures the zeitgeist with wit and precision and you can certainly see the influence of Easton Ellis who is mentioned at least twice in here. Beigbeder tries to do something a little different, a little post-modern and he pulls it off really well. View all 4 comments. One of the disadvantages of preoccupying yourself seriously with writing is that the techniques start to shine through the art of the text, and you are constantly taken out of the fictional world the writer is trying to embed you in.
You find a phone on your doorstep, which you soon discover was owned by a woman called Anna, who has gone missing. A short video which she filmed shortly before her disappearance implies something evil is afoot, with glitches and jumpcuts in the video designed to unsettle you. All of the videos and images have these subtle touches. From interface to the selfie perspective videos, the attention to detail is amazing. Over time, you get to text her friends, go through her social media profiles, even speak to the people she was flirting with on a dating app.
You can pretend to be Anna, questioning her friends while trying to emulate what personality you can gleam from her texts, or be open, an honest voice in trying to search for Anna. While this slot could have been taken by a number of games from Hanako, Long Live The Queen is by far their most successful in every sense of the word. It puts you in control of a princess soon to be coronated and become the queen.
Oh, and she's just a kid. It sounds cute, but other people want that throne for themselves, and are willing to do anything to obtain it—including murder a year-old girl. With her coronation 40 weeks away, it's your job to guide her through day-to-day life and make sure she survives. Like Crusader Kings 2 or Dwarf Fortress, Love Live the Queen is a wonderful game for creating anecdotes as your run will almost certainly come to an end with a grisly but funny fate.
It's not necessarily about surviving the 40 weeks as much as it is filling in the pockets of subtext with your own imagination. VA Hall-A takes the perspective of a bartender in a dystopian future, giving you a unique view on life as you see people at both their best and their worst, their highs and lows. In Glitch City, corporations and the White Knights impose law through nanomachines and violence, a constant surveillance state where the mythologized independence of a virtual future left a long time ago.
The gossip, the personal stories, the fears and dreams and desires of the people. Because of this quite candid approach to storytelling, VA Hall-A isn't a singular narrative rather than a series of vignettes into the lives of dystopian dwellers. That window is impermanent, however, as each visit will always be overshadowed by the real possibility that they might never return. The Yawhg is one such game.
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