年末，纽约时报推荐了年度十大好书，书荒的你可以约起来看看啦。纷繁的、浮躁的、不确定的世界，大家还是要沉下心来读读书。当你疲惫的时候，处于高原期的时候，都可以拿起一本书回归一下初心。
来不及读的，就先马住~
Following her 2016 debut, “Behold the Dreamers,” Mbue’s sweeping and quietly devastating second novel begins in 1980 in the fictional African village of Kosawa, where representatives from an American oil company have come to meet with the locals, whose children are dying because of the environmental havoc (fallow fields, poisoned water) wreaked by its drilling and pipelines. This decades-spanning fable of power and corruption turns out to be something much less clear-cut than the familiar David-and-Goliath tale of a sociopathic corporation and the lives it steamrolls. Through the eyes of Kosawa’s citizens young and old, Mbue constructs a nuanced exploration of self-interest, of what it means to want in the age of capitalism and colonialism — these machines of malicious, insatiable wanting.
继2016年的处女作《看啊，追梦者》(Behold the Dreamers)之后，马布气势磅礴而又令人隐隐悲伤的第二部小说始于1980年的虚构非洲村庄科萨瓦，一家美国石油公司的代表来到这里会见当地人，由于钻井和管道造成的环境破坏（休耕地、毒水），村里的孩子正在死去。这个关于权力与腐败的寓言故事跨度长达数十年，最终并不是我们熟悉的那种反社会大公司和被其掠夺的生命的大卫与歌利亚式故事。通过科萨瓦老少的眼睛，马布构建了一种细致入微的探索，关于利己主义，也关于在资本主义和殖民主义——这些恶毒的、无法满足的欲望机器——的时代，拥有渴望意味着什么。
behold及物动词，相当于look at, see，看，看见。比如，They beheld a bright star shining in the sky. 他们看到了一颗明亮的星在天空中闪闪发光。
the environmental havoc 环境破坏。havoc相当于destruction, damage等。记住两个关于它的词组，play havoc with，例：Continuing strikes are beginning to play havoc with the national economy.持续的罢工开始严重破坏国家经济。 以及wreck havoc on，比如，These insects can wreak havoc on crops.这些昆虫可严重危害农作物。
fallow休耕的；休闲的，比如，Farmers are now paid to let their land lie fallow.农民让土地休耕现在得到了回报。
clear-cut 意思是definite and easy to see or identify明确的；明显的；易辨认的，比如，There is no clear-cut answer to this question. 对这个问题没有确切的答案。
sociopathic反社会的（a person who has a mental illness and who behaves in an aggressive or dangerous way towards other people）
streamroll 用压路机碾,粉碎,压倒;以不可抗拒之力前进。
constructs a nuanced exploration of sth 细致入微地探索…
malicious意思是，having or showing hatred and a desire to harm sb or hurt their feelings 怀有恶意的；恶毒的 ，比如，malicious gossip / lies / rumours 恶毒的流言蜚语 / 谎言 / 谣言 &He took malicious pleasure in telling me what she had said. 他幸灾乐祸地告诉我她说的那些话。
insatiable表示always wanting more of sth; not able to be satisfied不知足的；无法满足的，比如，an insatiable appetite / curiosity / thirst 永不满足的食欲 / 好奇心 / 渴望。
In Kitamura’s fourth novel, an unnamed court translator in The Hague is tasked with intimately vanishing into the voices and stories of war criminals whom she alone can communicate with; falling meanwhile into a tumultuous entanglement with a man whose marriage may or may not be over for good. Kitamura’s sleek and spare prose elegantly breaks grammatical convention, mirroring the book’s concern with the bleeding lines between intimacies — especially between the sincere and the coercive. Like her previous novel, “A Separation,” “Intimacies” scrutinizes the knowability of those around us, not as an end in itself but as a lens on grand social issues from gentrification to colonialism to feminism. The path a life cuts through the world, this book seems to say, has its greatest significance in the effect it has on others.
在北村的第四部小说中，主角是一位未透露姓名的海牙法庭翻译，她的任务是密切关注战犯的声音和故事，只有她才能与他们交流；与此同时，她陷入了与一个男人的动荡纠葛之中，他的婚姻可能彻底结束，也可能不会结束。北村流畅、简洁的散文优雅地打破了语法惯例，反映了这本书对亲密关系之间痛苦边界的关注——尤其是真诚与强迫之间的边界。与她的上一部小说《分离》(A Separation)一样，《亲密》审视了身边人的可知性，这本身并不是目的，而是作为一个镜头，去观察从中产阶级化到殖民主义到女权主义等重大社会问题。这本书似乎在说，一个人的生命穿过这个世界的道路，其最大的意义在于对他人的影响。
tumultuous 表示骚乱的，动荡的；A tumultuous event or period of time involves many exciting and confusing events or feelings.比如，the tumultuous changes in Eastern Europe…动荡不安的东欧剧变。It’s been a tumultuous day at the international trade negotiations in Brussels. 那是布鲁塞尔国际贸易谈判中纷乱的一天。
for good相当于permanently永远地，永久地，比如，This time she’s leaving for good. 她这次走是再也不会回来了。
spare熟词辟意，表示 a spare style of writing, painting etc is plain or basic and uses nothing unnecessary〔写作、绘画等风格〕简朴的，不加渲染的。
knowability可知性。
gentrification: a gradual process in which an area in bad condition where poor people live is changed by people with more money coming to live there and improving it地区贵族化，旧区改造〔指破落的地区因为有富人迁来居住而改善了环境〕。
“The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois,” the first novel by Jeffers, a celebrated poet, is many things at once: a moving coming-of-age saga, an examination of race and an excavation of American history. It cuts back and forth between the tale of Ailey Pearl Garfield, a Black girl growing up at the end of the 20th century, and the “songs” of her ancestors, Native Americans and enslaved African Americans who lived through the formation of the United States. As their stories converge, “Love Songs” creates an unforgettable portrait of Black life that reveals how the past still reverberates today.
备受赞誉的诗人杰弗斯的第一部小说《W·E·B·杜·波依斯的情歌》(The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois)同时包含了许多内容：一个动人的成长传奇，对种族的审视，以及对美国历史的挖掘。它在20世纪末成长的黑人女孩艾莉·珀尔·加菲尔德的故事和她的祖先——生活在美国成型时期的原住民和被奴役的非裔美国人的“歌曲”之间来回切换。随着她们的故事交汇在一起，《情歌》(Love Songs)创造了一幅令人难忘的黑人生活画卷，揭示了过去的种种依然在今天回响。
celebrated著名的、驰名的、大名鼎鼎的。
sth be many things at once某物同时包含很多内容。
reverberate有长久深刻的影响；产生广泛影响，比如，Repercussions of the case continue to reverberate through the financial world. 这件事持续影响着整个金融界。
Lockwood first found acclaim as a poet on the internet, with gloriously inventive and ribald verse — sexts elevated to virtuosity. In “Priestdaddy,” her indelible 2017 memoir about growing up in rectories across the Midwest presided over by her gun-loving, guitar-playing father, a Catholic priest, she called tweeting “an art form, like sculpture, or honking the national anthem under your armpit.” Here, in her first novel, she distills the pleasures and deprivations of life split between online and flesh-and-blood interactions, transfiguring the dissonance into art. The result is a book that reads like a prose poem, at once sublime, profane, intimate, philosophical, hilarious and, eventually, deeply moving.
洛克伍德首次在互联网上获得赞誉是以诗人的身份，她的诗富于创造性且粗俗不堪——将色情短信提升到艺术品的程度。在2017年出版的回忆录《神父老爸》(Priestdaddy)中，她讲述了自己在中西部教区长大的故事。她的父亲是一名天主教牧师，热爱枪支，会弹吉他；她说发推是“一种艺术形式，就像雕塑一样，或者用胳肢窝发出的声音演奏国歌”。在她这本小说处女作中，她提炼了生活在网络和现实互动之间的乐趣和匮乏，将这种不协调转化为艺术。其结果是，这本书读起来就像一首散文诗，时而崇高，时而世俗，时而亲切，时而哲学，时而滑稽，最终又深深打动人心。
ribald：referring to sex in a rude but humorous way猥亵诙谐的。
virtuosity：a very high degree of skill in performing or playing(表演或演奏方面的)高超技艺，精湛演技，比如，a performance of breathtaking virtuosity 技艺令人叫绝的演出。
indelible也是相当于permanent，无法忘记的；不可磨灭的 ，比如，The experience made an indelible impression on me. 那次经历使我难以忘怀。Her unhappy childhood left an indelible mark. 她不幸的童年留下了不可磨灭的痕迹。
transfigure: to change the way someone or something looks, especially so that they become more beautiful使改观; 美化，比如，Her face was transfigured with joy.她高兴得容光焕发。
dissonance不一致，不和谐。
profane世俗的，profane love世俗的情爱。
hilarious: extremely funny极其滑稽的，比如，a hilarious joke / story 令人捧腹的笑话 / 故事。
Labatut expertly stitches together the stories of the 20th century’s greatest thinkers to explore both the ecstasy and agony of scientific breakthroughs: their immense gains for society as well as their steep human costs. His journey to the outermost edges of knowledge — guided by the mathematician Alexander Grothendieck, the physicist Werner Heisenberg and the chemist Fritz Haber, among others — offers glimpses of a universe with limitless potential underlying the observable world, a “dark nucleus at the heart of things” that some of its witnesses decide is better left alone. This extraordinary hybrid of fiction and nonfiction also provokes the frisson of an extended true-or-false test: The further we read, the blurrier the line gets between fact and fabulism.
拉巴图特将20世纪最伟大的思想者的故事巧妙地拼接在一起，探索科学突破带来的狂喜和痛苦，它们给社会带来的巨大收益，以及它们给人类带来的惨重代价。他在数学家亚历山大·格伦迪克、物理学家维尔纳·海森堡和化学家弗里茨·哈伯等人的指引下，探索知识最外层的边缘，窥视在可观察到的世界背后那个潜力无限的宇宙，一个“位于事物中心的暗核”，它的一些见证者认为最好不要去管它。这种虚构与非虚构的非凡混合也引发了一种对延伸是非题的悸动：我们读得越深，事实与寓言之间的界限就越模糊。
expertly熟练地，巧妙地
stitches together the stories 拼接故事
steep熟词辟意，相当于expensive过高的；过分的；不合理的 ，比如，£2 for a cup of coffee seems a little steep to me. 一杯咖啡 2 英镑在我看来有点贵得离谱。
frisson: a sudden feeling of excitement or fear〔突然的〕兴奋感; 恐惧; 震颤，比如，A frisson of alarm went through her.一阵恐慌传遍她全身。
Ditlevsen’s gorgeous memoirs, first published in Denmark in the 1960s and ’70s and collected here in a single volume, detail her hardscrabble upbringing, career path and merciless addictions: a powerful account of the struggle to reconcile art and life. She joined the working ranks at 14, became a renowned poet by her early 20s, and found herself, after two failed marriages, wedded to a psychopathic doctor and hopelessly dependent on opioids by her 30s. Yet for all the dramatic twists of her life, these books together project a stunning clarity, humor and candidness, casting light not just on the world’s harsh realities but on the inexplicable impulses of our secret selves.
迪特莱夫森精彩的回忆录于1960、70年代在丹麦首次出版，此次结集出版，本书详细描述了她艰苦的成长经历、职业道路和无情的成瘾：有力地描述了她为调和艺术与生活而进行的斗争。她14岁开始工作，20岁出头就成为了著名诗人，在两次失败的婚姻之后同一个精神病医生结婚，到了30多岁时又绝望地依赖阿片类药物。然而，尽管她的生活发生了戏剧性的转折，这三本书加在一起，展现了惊人的清晰、幽默和坦率，不仅揭示了世界的严酷现实，还揭示了人类隐秘自我难以解释的冲动。
hardscrabble: not having enough of the basic things you need to live艰难困苦的；贫困的；勉强维持，比如，a hardscrabble life / upbringing 贫困的生活；艰苦的成长。
join the working ranks：工作。
project熟词辟意，意思是to present sb / sth / yourself to other people in a particular way, especially one that gives a good impression展现；表现；确立(好印象)，例如，She projects an air of calm self-confidence. 她表现出镇定自若的神态。He projected himself as a man worth listening to. 他装成很有见地的样子。
For this timely and thought-provoking book, Smith, a poet and journalist, toured sites key to the history of slavery and its present-day legacy, including Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello; Angola, the Louisiana State Penitentiary; and a Confederate cemetery. Interspersing interviews with the tourists, guides, activists and local historians he meets along the way with close readings of scholarship and poignant personal reflection, Smith holds up a mirror to America’s fraught relationship with its past, capturing a potent mixture of good intentions, earnest corrective, willful ignorance and blatant distortion.
为了写好这本及时而发人深省的书，诗人兼记者史密斯参观了关于奴隶制历史及其当代遗产的重要地点，包括托马斯·杰斐逊的蒙蒂塞洛故居；路易斯安那州监狱安哥拉；还有一个邦联公墓。史密斯沿途采访他遇到的游客、导游、活动人士和当地历史学家，其中穿插了对学术研究的仔细解读和深刻的个人反思。为美国及其过去之间充满矛盾的关系树立了一面镜子，捕捉到了一种有力的混合：既有充满善意和真诚的纠正，也有刻意的无知和公然的歪曲。
poignant表示令人沉痛的；悲惨的；酸楚的 ，a poignant image / moment / memory, etc. 悲惨的形象、时刻、回忆等 ；Her face was a poignant reminder of the passing of time.她的容颜显示青春已逝，教人感伤。
blatant: done in an obvious and open way without caring if people are shocked明目张胆的；公然的，比如，It was a blatant lie. 那是个赤裸裸的谎言。
To expand on her acclaimed 2013 series for The Times about Dasani Coates, a homeless New York schoolgirl, and her family, Elliott spent years following her subjects in their daily lives, through shelters, schools, courtrooms and welfare offices. The book she has produced — intimately reported, elegantly written and suffused with the fierce love and savvy observations of Dasani and her mother — is a searing account of one family’s struggle with poverty, homelessness and addiction in a city and country that have failed to address these issues with efficacy or compassion.
2013年，艾利奥特为时报撰写了关于无家可归的纽约女学生达萨尼·科茨及其家人的系列作品。为了进一步扩展这个备受赞誉的系列，她花费数年，在收容所、学校、法庭和福利机构之间追踪报道对象的日常生活。这本书有着详尽的报道与优雅的文字，充满对达萨尼和她母亲强烈的爱和敏锐的观察，尖锐地描述了一个家庭在这座城市乃至这个国家是如何与贫困、无家可归和成瘾进行斗争，而这座城市以及这个国家却未能以效率或同情来解决这些问题。
searing常用来形容文字或者话语猛烈批评的，比如，a searing attack on the government 对政府的猛烈抨击。
This book weaves together history and memoir into a short volume that is insightful, touching and courageous. Exploring the racial and social complexities of Texas, her home state, Gordon-Reed asks readers to step back from the current heated debates and take a more nuanced look at history and the surprises it can offer. Such a perspective comes easy to her because she was a part of history — the first Black child to integrate her East Texas school. On several occasions, she found herself shunned by whites and Blacks alike, learning at an early age that breaking the color line can be threatening to both races.
这本书将历史和回忆录交织在一起，成为一本具有洞察力、感动和勇气的短篇作品。戈登–里德在她的家乡得克萨斯州探索种族和社会的复杂性，她要求读者从当前激烈的辩论中退后一步，以更微妙的眼光看待历史和它可能带来的惊喜。这样的视角对她来说很容易，因为她也是历史的一部分——她是第一个进入东得克萨斯学校的黑人孩子。有几次，她发现白人和黑人都回避她，所以她从小就认识到，打破肤色界限会对两个种族都造成威胁。
It’s daring to undertake a new biography of Plath, whose life, and death by suicide at 30 in 1963, have been thoroughly picked over by scholars. Yet this meticulously researched and, at more than 1,000 pages, unexpectedly riveting portrait is a monumental achievement. Determined to rescue the poet from posthumous caricature as a doomed madwoman and “reposition her as one of the most important American writers of the 20th century,” Clark, a professor of poetry in England, delivers a transporting account of a rare literary talent and the familial and intellectual milieu that both thwarted and encouraged her, enlivened throughout by quotations from Plath’s letters, diaries, poetry and prose.
为普拉斯写一本新的传记是需要勇气的。她的一生以及1963年30岁时自杀身亡的经历，已经被学者们彻底研究过。然而，这本经过精心研究、长达1000多页的传记引人入胜、出人意料，是一项巨大的成就。克拉克是英国的一位诗歌教授，他决心将这位诗人从“注定毁灭的疯女人”这样简笔描绘般的身后形象中拯救出来，“将她重新定位为20世纪最重要的美国作家之一。”他感人地描述了普拉斯这位罕见的文学天才，以及她所处的家庭和知识环境，这些环境既阻碍了她，也鼓励了她。书中还生动地引用了普拉斯的信件、日记、诗歌和散文。
meticulous 细心的；小心翼翼的，比如，meticulous planning / records / research 周密的计划；详细的记录；一丝不苟的研究 &Their room had been prepared with meticulous care. 他们的房间是经过细心布置的。
riveting: so interesting or exciting that it holds your attention completely吸引人的；引人入胜的。
posthumous: happening, done, published, etc. after a person has died死后发生(或做、出版等)的，比如，a posthumous award for bravery 死后荣膺的英勇奖。
milieu相当于background，具体意思是the social environment that you live or work in社会环境；社会背景。
感谢阅读~
