A birthday arrives, a Christmas, Book Day..., and you don't know what story to choose for that special person who loves to devour books. Really, any time is a good time to give a book. Do you already know which one you would give, for example, to a good friend?
In this article we give you some suggestions. It is a diverse selection between classics of literature, bestsellers and works rescued from recent decades. It has not been our intention, but most are stories written by women. Check out; which one would you like to add to the list?
Valeria Saga
Valeria's adventures have acquired such notoriety among readers that this girl's life has been adapted to the screen in 2020 thanks to Netflix. With great public success among Valeria and the books by Elísabet Benavent (1984) there are also quite a few differences. They agree on the essentials, yes: a group of friends share their life, their love achievements and failures. The main character, Valeria, is a romantic writer. As much as for the plot as for the tone it is inevitable to recognize something of Sex and the City, but, instead of New York, our girls are in Madrid.
Some differences between the series and the books go through their characters. Nerea in the series has a different sexual orientation and channels feminism as a current issue. Valeria, for her part, in the television format experiences a creative block at first and has not yet published.
Valeria. Books
- In Valeria's shoes (2013)
- Valeria in the mirror (2013)
- Valeria in black and white (2013)
- Valeria naked (2013)
- Lola's diary (2015)
The Handmaid's Tale
Another great production has come out of the novel by Margaret Atwood (1939). Also with not a few differences between the HBO series and the book. The Handmaid's Tale (1985) is a dystopia set in a dark age. A group of men have taken over the power of what they used to call the United States. Gilead is an authoritarian country that bases its laws on the precepts of God. It is isolated from the rest of the world, and women have lost their family, their freedom and even their identity.
The premise is terrifying perhaps because we find similarities in our reality Forty years after the publication of The Handmaid's Tale. This is perhaps why audiovisual production has been so successful. This September comes the fifth season of the series.
Main differences between the series and the novel
- Offred's personality (Offred, in the original version), heroine of the story, is much more powerful in the series than in the book.
- The order of the story and the events are altered between the two formats. The novelAlso is much more descriptive.
- There are no black characters in the novel, because the racial restructuring of history prevents it.
- The HBO format expanded the plot we know. The story of the book was only continued by Atwood with Wills (2019), a perspective of Aunt Lydia after the events of the first book.
A room of your own
A room of your own (1929) is a classic essay that calls into question the total lack of independence that women have experienced throughout the centuries. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) claims the right to economic autonomy and a work space, in the case of women whose profession is writing. It is undoubtedly an intelligent text with a feminist perspective, but oriented towards the literary work of women.
It is full of realistic approaches in a very specific social and political context (remember that women's right to vote had been achieved a few years ago in England). Nevertheless, the text is fully valid. Determine something that everyone would like:
A woman must have money and a room of her own to be able to write novels.
Tristana
Tristana (1892) is a Spanish classic of realistic literature. Its author is one of the best Spanish-language narrators in history: Benito Pérez Galdós (1843-1920). Two great reasons to include this little novel (for short) in this list. The play was adapted into a film version by another genius, Luis Buñuel. The 1970 film starred Catherine Deneuve and Fernando Rey.
It is an allegation about the emancipation of women at the end of the XNUMXth century; therefore, it was a controversial and pioneering novel. However, Tristana's attempts to achieve her autonomy are sadly frustrated by the society of the time and the misfortune that surrounds her young life.
The male characters trap her, trick her, and treat her with horrific condescension. She lives in a kind of kidnapping and her dreams are ruined. Liberation never comes for Tristana, a dreamer and naive soul, who must learn to accept failure and loss..
Madame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert's (1821-1880) work published in 1856 is a realist work as well. It precedes others of this literary movement, such as Tristana. However, Madame Bovary its main character is a woman very different from the young Tristana. It is more cruel and capricious; and she gets carried away by superficial feelings and much less noble.
Likewise, the protagonist's edges are very interesting, since they portray the woman as a human character, with her lights and shadows. Since not being a woman would have to conform to a candid and kind personality, or completely evil. Because in the end, Madame Bovary is nothing more than a person in search of happiness or an existential meaning beyond what was proposed for a married bourgeois woman in the XNUMXth century.
Madame Bovary it is also a critique of the bourgeois society of that time. One of the best works of all time that caused a scandal at the time for such an unconventional protagonist.
boss of your life
This is a book for you to write. You will begin a journey of self-knowledge so that you are the one who takes charge of your life. boss of your life (2019) has the goal of bringing out the best version of yourself. It is oriented to a professional or personal level, that depends on you. Y all through paper and pen: yes, we are facing the revolution of paper therapy.
The book is designed by Charo Vargas (Charuca), a woman who one day decided to change her life and is now a leader of organization and healthy productivity. With her notebooks, her agendas and this book, offers you some keys and exercises to help you ground those projects and ideas that are only in your head so that you can take action and materialize them. It is a useful and fun book that you can rewrite whenever you need to.
We need to talk about Kevin
We need to talk about Kevin (2003) is a chilling story about motherhoodraised as a myth. It was born from the pen of the American writer Lionel Shriver (1957). Eva channels the trauma that she experienced with her family in the past through the writing of some letters.
Eva had long ago been a free soul, passionate about her career, as she was a successful travel guide writer.. And there was no question of having children at all. Now there is nothing left of her. She has lost everything. Maybe she only has the letters she writes to her ex-husband and father of her child. And maybe she's just trying to figure out what she did so badly that her son, Kevin, her son, a mystery to her, turned into a monster. Her character is a rag that reflects on evil, her role as a mother and the ability to love.
The film adaptation was released in 2011 and was directed by Lyanne Ramsay. In the novel, the epistolary narration distresses the reader in the same way that the film scenes leave you with a void that is difficult to explain. Yes, this is a macabre story that leaves you cold and speechless. What can be the motivation for what seems unjustifiable?
Modernita wonders: what is normal?
Modernita is the mini vision of the work of the artist Raquel Córcoles (1986), better known as Moderna de Pueblo. The content of this illustrator has had and has a great impact on networks thanks to her character from Moderna de Pueblo, a girl from the millennial generation who turns conventions upside down with a sense of humor.
It is a modern provincial that breaks with humor and irony with the archetypes traditionally created in society. It talks about the problems facing a whole generation in the big city. Those who call modern and who feel frustrated by the limitations of their age and generation.
Modernita wonders: what is normal? (2021) is a graphic novel that makes us question what we have been taught since childhood to be logical and natural. But children are naturally curious beings and they have a lot of questions. Modernita will discover that normal can be different for each person. This is a book for that friend in her thirties with or without children. For big and small.
