Mythologies
1957 · 288 pages
A magazine cover shows a black soldier saluting the French flag, and Barthes explains what that image says about empire. His essays on wrestling and steak made every ordinary object readable as ideology.
★ 6.5
The Books canon
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Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
Sixty Stories
1981 · 451 pages
A balloon settles over forty-five blocks of Manhattan and New Yorkers read meanings into it. Barthelme's deadpan collages taught two generations of American writers that a story need not make ordinary sense.
★ 5.5