A Newfound Love For Contemporary Literature

My Journey Beyond The Classics

I really enjoyed Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

Hello, my lovely bookish friend!!!

Welcome back to my little bookish corner of the internet where I talk all things books. Have you been reading this week?

Last week I visited my elder sister and of course, went scavenging through her bookshelf. She reads a lot of contemporary literature and has a good collection. I personally haven’t been reading much contemporary literature. So, when I saw them on her shelf, I took that opportunity to check them out.

I picked two from the lot, both of which I’ve seen around on Instagram and Substack– Anxious People by Fredrik Backman and Cleopatra And Frankenstein by Coco Mellors. I asked my sister about the books; she said she didn’t enjoy AP that much but loved CAF. So, I read AP while I was there and brought CAF home with me and am reading it at the moment. That makes it my fifth contemporary literature book this year. Earlier this year, I read Welcome To The Hyunam Dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum, What You Are Looking For Is In The Library by Michiko Aoyama and Before The Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. 

When I started reading again back in 2022, I started with the classics. I was enjoying them, and in general think of classic literature as having stood the test of time, and think of them as must reads because of their influence over modern literature. So I’ve pretty much stuck to the classics. I don’t think I would have considered these contemporary books anytime soon had I not been seeing them over and over again on the internet.

Reading them, they’re very different from the classics, but it’s not a bad difference. One of the major aspects of the classics that I enjoy is the escapism they bring. Since they’re set in times and societies very different from my own. But I actually also enjoyed reading stories where mobile phones and Instagram are a thing. I liked the ideas they’re exploring, the problems they’re addressing, the familiar style of the language. And it makes me happy in a strange way. 

I almost feel relieved to read these books and knowing that good books are still being written, books that make people feel things. It’s not something in the past. In my experience, people always romanticise things after they’re gone but not necessarily while they’re there. The classics we have now became classics over a long period of time. Art in general takes time to mature. As years, decades, centuries pass, and they remain relevant, continuing to make people feel things, their worth increases. We can’t know now which books from our time will manage to accomplish that, but some definitely will. Not in my lifetime, sure, I won’t be able to see it, but just knowing it will happen gives me a strange kind of happiness. 

Seeing books telling the story of the world I’m living in, with its goods and bads, and the people who are trying to make it work in that world, I feel like it’s a record of us, with a lifespan slightly longer than our very short human lives. I’ve found a new appreciation for modern literature and am definitely going to cherish it.

What about you? Do you enjoy contemporary literature? I'd love to hear about it!!!

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Also, if you’d like me to write for you, you can contact me at joyiewrites@gmail.com

That’s it for today, I'll be back in your inbox next week.

Until then,

Joyie 🌻