8 best-selling philosophy books like Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form by Sianne Ngai

Cover of Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form by Sianne Ngai

Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

By: Sianne Ngai

4.12

Format: 416 pages, Hardcover

A provocative theory of the gimmick as an aesthetic category steeped in the anxieties of capitalism…

If you liked the philosophy plot in Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form by Sianne Ngai , here is a list of 8 books like this:

Cover of The Idiot by Elif Batuman

1. The Idiot

By: Elif Batuman

3.66

Format: 423 pages, Hardcover

A portrait of the artist as a young woman. A novel about not just discovering but inventing oneself… read more

Similar categories in Elif Batuman's The Idiot book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

"For a while now, I have been conscious of a tension in my relationship with you,"

-Elif Batuman, The Idiot

"Lighting a match felt exciting and a little bit dangerous, and when the flame came into contact with the paper, it made a sound like the needle coming down on a record player—like the music was about…"

-Elif Batuman, The Idiot

"For the first time in my life, I couldn't think of anything I particularly wanted to study or to do. I still had the old idea of being a writer, but that was being, not doing. It didn't say what you …"

-Elif Batuman, The Idiot

"Suddenly it occurred to me that maybe the point of writing wasn't just to record something past but also to prolong the present, like in One Thousand and One Nights, to stretch out the time until the…"

-Elif Batuman, The Idiot

Cover of The Wretched of the Earth by Jean-Paul Sartre, Richard Philcox, Frantz Fanon, Homi K. Bhabha

2. The Wretched of the Earth

By: Jean-Paul Sartre , Richard Philcox , Frantz Fanon , Homi K. Bhabha

4.32

Format: 251 pages, Paperback

A distinguished psychiatrist from Martinique who took part in the Algerian Nationalist Movement, Fr… read more

Similar categories in Jean-Paul Sartre's The Wretched of the Earth book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

  • theory
  • politics
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • sociology
"إن لجوءك إلى لُغة تكنيكيَّة معناه أنّك قرَّرتَ أن تَعُدَّ الجماهير جاهلة"

-Jean-Paul Sartre, The Wretched of the Earth

"Everything can be explained to the people, on the single condition that you want them to understand."

-Jean-Paul Sartre, The Wretched of the Earth

"The business of obscuring language is a mask behind which stands the much greater business of plunder."

-Jean-Paul Sartre, The Wretched of the Earth

"إن المناضل ليدرك في كثير من الأحيان أن عمله لا أن يقاتل القوى العدوة فحسب، بل كذلك حبات اليأس المتبلورة في جسم المستعمَر."

-Jean-Paul Sartre, The Wretched of the Earth

3. The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering

By: Norman G. Finkelstein

3.93

Format: None pages, Paperback

Controversial indictment of those who exploit the tragedy of the Holocaust for their own gain. In a… read more

Similar categories in Norman G. Finkelstein's The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

  • politics
  • nonfiction
Cover of Cruel Optimism by Lauren Berlant

4. Cruel Optimism

By: Lauren Berlant

3.54

Format: None pages, Paperback

A relation of cruel optimism exists when something you desire is actually an obstacle to your flour… read more

Similar categories in Lauren Berlant's Cruel Optimism book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

  • theory
  • politics
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • sociology

5. The Savage Detectives

By: Roberto Bolaño , Natasha Wimmer

4.48

Format: 334 pages,

New Year's Eve, 1975: Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima, founders of the visceral realist movement in p… read more

Similar categories in Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

6. The Technological Society

By: Robert K. Merton , Jacques Ellul

3.83

Format: None pages, Paperback

."..He goes through one human activity after another and shows how it has been technicized, rendere… read more

Similar categories in Robert K. Merton's The Technological Society book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

7. Metamorphoses

By: Ovid , David Raeburn , Denis Feeney

3.99

Format: 240 pages,

Metamorphoses (from Greek meta meta and morphe morphe, meaning "changes of shape"), is a Latin narr… read more

Similar categories in Ovid's Metamorphoses book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

Cover of The Passenger (The Passenger #1) by Cormac McCarthy

8. The Passenger (The Passenger #1)

By: Cormac McCarthy

3.58

Format: 385 pages, Kindle Edition

1980, PASS CHRISTIAN, MISSISSIPPI: It is three in the morning when Bobby Western zips the jacket of… read more

Similar categories in Cormac McCarthy's The Passenger (The Passenger #1) book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

"All of history [is] a rehearsal for its own extinction."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger (The Passenger #1)

"...do you think if you died drunk you’d sober up before you met Jesus?"

-Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger (The Passenger #1)

"The evil has no alternate plan. It is simply incapable of assuming failure"

-Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger (The Passenger #1)

"She asked the girl what she wanted to be when she grew up and she said dead."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger (The Passenger #1)

Cover of Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives by Siddharth Kara

9. Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

By: Siddharth Kara

4.37

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

The revelatory New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestseller, shortlisted for the Financial Times… read more

Similar categories in Siddharth Kara's Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

  • politics
  • economics
  • nonfiction
"Now you understand how people like us work?"

-Siddharth Kara, Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

"Nothing looks the same after a trip to the Congo. The world back home no longer makes sense. It is difficult to reconcile how it even inhabits the same planet. Neatly arranged mountains of vegetables…"

-Siddharth Kara, Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

"Cobalt mining is the slave farm perfected. The cost of labor has been nullified through the degradation of Africans at the bottom of an economic chain that purports to exonerate all participants of a…"

-Siddharth Kara, Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

Cover of Wednesday's Child: Stories by Yiyun Li

10. Wednesday's Child: Stories

By: Yiyun Li

3.75

Format: 256 pages, Hardcover

A new collection—about loss, alienation, aging, and the strangeness of contemporary life—by the awa… read more

Similar categories in Yiyun Li's Wednesday's Child: Stories book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

Cover of The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt

11. The Librarianist

By: Patrick deWitt

3.41

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

From bestselling and award-winning author Patrick deWitt comes the story of Bob Comet, a man who ha… read more

Similar categories in Patrick deWitt's The Librarianist book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

Cover of Immediacy: Or, The Style of Too Late Capitalism by Anna Kornbluh

12. Immediacy: Or, The Style of Too Late Capitalism

By: Anna Kornbluh

4.08

Format: 240 pages, Paperback

Why speed, flow, and direct expression now dominate cultural style Contemporary cultural style boo… read more

Similar categories in Anna Kornbluh's Immediacy: Or, The Style of Too Late Capitalism book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

  • cultural
  • art
  • theory
  • politics
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • criticism
  • economics
  • sociology
Cover of The Maniac by Benjamín Labatut

13. The Maniac

By: Benjamín Labatut

4.34

Format: 368 pages, Hardcover

From one of contemporary literature’s most exciting new voices, a haunting story centered on the Hu… read more

Similar categories in Benjamín Labatut's The Maniac book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

  • philosophy
"[...] si nuestra especie iba a sobrevivir el siglo XX, necesitábamos llenar el enorme vacío dejado por la huida de los dioses, y la única candidata viable para realizar esa extraña y esotérica transf…"

-Benjamín Labatut, The Maniac

Cover of Roman Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri

14. Roman Stories

By: Jhumpa Lahiri

3.80

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

Rome—metropolis and monument, suspended between past and future, multi-faceted and metaphysical—is … read more

Similar categories in Jhumpa Lahiri's Roman Stories book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

Cover of Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon

15. Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution

By: Cat Bohannon

4.32

Format: 624 pages, Hardcover

THE REAL ORIGIN OF OUR SPECIES: a myth-busting, eye-opening landmark account of how humans evolved,… read more

Similar categories in Cat Bohannon's Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

  • nonfiction
Cover of Minor Detail by Adania Shibli

16. Minor Detail

By: Adania Shibli

4.20

Format: 144 pages, Paperback

Minor Detail begins during the summer of 1949, one year after the war that the Palestinians mourn a… read more

Similar categories in Adania Shibli's Minor Detail book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

"Man, not the tank, shall prevail."

-Adania Shibli, Minor Detail

"Não há como descartar a probabilidade de uma conexão entre os dois fatos, ou alguma ligação oculta entre eles, por analogia às relações que os seres humanos encontram entre as plantas, por exemplo, q…"

-Adania Shibli, Minor Detail

"Desde que tive ciência da minha incapacidade consumada de me mover de acordo com os limites, resolvi, finalmente, permanecer dentro dos limites da minha casa, tanto quanto possível. Agora, uma vez qu…"

-Adania Shibli, Minor Detail

"Toch zijn er mensen die in die logica − dus dat je je concentreert op de meest futiele details zoals stof op een bureau of vliegenpoepjes op een schilderij − de enige manier zien om de waarheid te do…"

-Adania Shibli, Minor Detail

Cover of Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World by John Vaillant

17. Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World

By: John Vaillant

4.35

Format: 432 pages, Hardcover

A stunning account of a colossal wildfire that collided with a city and a panoramic exploration of … read more

Similar categories in John Vaillant's Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

  • politics
  • nonfiction
Cover of Second Place by Rachel Cusk

18. Second Place

By: Rachel Cusk

3.68

Format: 186 pages, Hardcover

From the author of the Outline trilogy, a fable of human destiny and decline, enacted in a closed s… read more

Similar categories in Rachel Cusk's Second Place book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

  • art
"Some people write simply because they don’t know how to live in the moment and have to reconstruct it and live in it afterwards."

-Rachel Cusk, Second Place

"Muutoksen ja toiston kaava on niin tiukasti yhteydessä tietynlaiseen harmoniaan elämässä, ja vapauden harjoittaminen on alisteista sille aivan kuin opinkappaleelle. Muutoksia täytyy annostella kohtuu…"

-Rachel Cusk, Second Place

"Joskus minun vain täytyy saada puhua jotta tuntisin itseni todelliseksi, ja toivoisin että sinäkin puhuisit minulle." Hän makasi vaiti pimeässä ja tuijotti kattoon. Sitten hän sanoi: "Minusta tuntuu …"

-Rachel Cusk, Second Place

"It struck me how the human capacity for receptivity is a kind of birthright, an asset given to us in the moment of our creation by which we are intended to regulate the currency of our souls. Unless …"

-Rachel Cusk, Second Place

Cover of Territory of Light by Yūko Tsushima

19. Territory of Light

By: Yūko Tsushima

3.59

Format: 122 pages, Paperback

Territory of Light is the luminous story of a young woman, living alone in Tokyo with her three-yea… read more

Similar categories in Yūko Tsushima's Territory of Light book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

"Why were children the only ones who ever got to melt down?"

-Yūko Tsushima, Territory of Light

"During the night, there had been a sound of water on the other side of the wall. In my sleep I was looking out from the fourth-floor bedroom at nearby buildings bathed in rain, gleaming with neon and…"

-Yūko Tsushima, Territory of Light

Cover of Tremor by Teju Cole

20. Tremor

By: Teju Cole

3.69

Format: 229 pages, Hardcover

A powerful, intimate novel that masterfully explores what constitutes a meaningful life in a violen… read more

Similar categories in Teju Cole's Tremor book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

"I had not noticed before how every stretch of this route contains personal memories, how the city is like one of those movies shot in a single take from the window of a moving car."

-Teju Cole, Tremor

Cover of Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity in This Crisis (And the Next) by Dean Spade

21. Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity in This Crisis (And the Next)

By: Dean Spade

4.38

Format: 152 pages, Paperback

Mutual aid is the radical act of caring for each other while working to change the world. Around… read more

Similar categories in Dean Spade's Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity in This Crisis (And the Next) book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

  • theory
  • politics
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • sociology
"In the context of professionalized nonprofit organizations, groups are urged to be single-issue oriented, framing their message around "deserving" people within the population they serve, and using t…"

-Dean Spade, Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity in This Crisis (And the Next)

"When we feel bad, we often automatically decide that either we are bad or another person is bad. Both of these moves cause damage and distort the truth, which is that we are all navigating difficult …"

-Dean Spade, Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity in This Crisis (And the Next)

"Burnout is the combination of resentment, exhaustion, shame, and frustration that make us lose connection to pleasure and passion in the work, and instead encounter difficult feelings like avoidance,…"

-Dean Spade, Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity in This Crisis (And the Next)

Cover of The Romance of American Communism by Vivian Gornick

22. The Romance of American Communism

By: Vivian Gornick

4.34

Format: 278 pages, Paperback

Writer and critic Vivian Gornick's classic exploring how Left politics gave depth and meaning to Am… read more

Similar categories in Vivian Gornick's The Romance of American Communism book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

  • theory
  • politics
  • nonfiction
"My father had a sister, Mady, who had married badly and ‘ruined her life.’ Her story was a classic. She had fallen in love before the war with an American adventurer, married him against her family’s…"

-Vivian Gornick, The Romance of American Communism

Cover of The Guest Lecture by Martin Riker

23. The Guest Lecture

By: Martin Riker

3.51

Format: 256 pages, Paperback

In a hotel room in the middle of the night, Abby, a young feminist economist, lies awake next to he… read more

Similar categories in Martin Riker's The Guest Lecture book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

  • philosophy
  • economics
Cover of Happy Stories, Mostly by Norman Erikson Pasaribu

24. Happy Stories, Mostly

By: Norman Erikson Pasaribu

3.77

Format: 151 pages, Paperback

Playful, shape-shifting and emotionally charged, Happy Stories, Mostly is a collection of twelve st… read more

Similar categories in Norman Erikson Pasaribu's Happy Stories, Mostly book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

Cover of On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint by Maggie Nelson

25. On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint

By: Maggie Nelson

4.01

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

Named a Most Anticipated/Best Book of the Month NPR * USA Today * Time * Washington Post * Vulture… read more

Similar categories in Maggie Nelson's On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

  • art
  • theory
  • politics
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
"Nothing stays avant-garde forever; you have to keep moving."

-Maggie Nelson, On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint

"As we think, we might remember that it matters not only with whom and what we choose to think; it also matters what spirit we choose to think with."

-Maggie Nelson, On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint

"This is one of the things I’ve learned about happiness: when you feel it, it’s good to say so. That way, if and when you say later in depression or despair, “I’ve just never been happy,"

-Maggie Nelson, On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint

"The reparative turn, as applied to art, is in many ways a continuation of the orthopedic aesthetic, with the difference being that the twentieth-century model imagined the audience as numb, constrict…"

-Maggie Nelson, On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint

Cover of The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society by Eleanor Janega

26. The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society

By: Eleanor Janega

4.07

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

What makes for the ideal woman? How should she look, love, and be? In this vibrant, high-spirited h… read more

Similar categories in Eleanor Janega's The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

  • nonfiction
Cover of Daughter by Claudia Dey

27. Daughter

By: Claudia Dey

3.95

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

In Claudia Dey’s Daughter, a woman long caught in her father's web strives to make a life—and art—o… read more

Similar categories in Claudia Dey's Daughter book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

Cover of The Iliac Crest by Cristina Rivera Garza

28. The Iliac Crest

By: Cristina Rivera Garza

3.65

Format: 200 pages, ebook

On a dark and stormy night, two mysterious women invade an unnamed narrator's house, where they pro… read more

Similar categories in Cristina Rivera Garza's The Iliac Crest book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

"An intimate and familiar deception was taking its usual place within me with the feeble movements of an elderly woman."

-Cristina Rivera Garza, The Iliac Crest

Cover of Like Love: Essays and Conversations by Maggie Nelson

29. Like Love: Essays and Conversations

By: Maggie Nelson

3.76

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

A career-spanning collection of inspiring, revelrous essays about art and artists Like Love is a… read more

Similar categories in Maggie Nelson's Like Love: Essays and Conversations book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

  • art
  • nonfiction
Cover of Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form by Sianne Ngai

30. Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

By: Sianne Ngai

4.12

Format: 416 pages, Hardcover

A provocative theory of the gimmick as an aesthetic category steeped in the anxieties of capitalism… read more

Similar categories in Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

  • cultural
  • art
  • theory
  • politics
  • research
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • criticism
  • economics
  • sociology
Cover of Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance Today by Claire Bishop

31. Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance Today

By: Claire Bishop

3.95

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

How technology and the attention economy has impacted contemporary art The ways we encounter conte… read more

Similar categories in Claire Bishop's Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance Today book and Sianne Ngai's Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

  • art
  • nonfiction

10 Top politics books like Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form by Sianne Ngai

Transform Your Habits

The Wretched of the Earth

Jean-Paul Sartre , Richard Philcox , Frantz Fanon , Homi K. Bhabha

4.32

The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering

Norman G. Finkelstein

3.93

Transform Your Habits

Cruel Optimism

Lauren Berlant

3.54

Transform Your Habits

Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

Siddharth Kara

4.37

View all the books

20 must-read fiction books like Tremor by Teju Cole

Transform Your Habits

Kairos

Jenny Erpenbeck

3.46

Transform Your Habits

The Maniac

Benjamín Labatut

4.34

Transform Your Habits

Wandering Stars

Tommy Orange

3.89

Transform Your Habits

Day

Michael Cunningham

3.57

View all the books

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