Economist Thomas Piketty refused to accept France's highest honor, the Legion d'honneur, saying government shouldn't decide who is honorable.
"I have just learned that I was nominated for the Legion of honour. I refuse this nomination because I do not think it is the government's role to decide who is honorable," Piketty told AFP.
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"They would do better to concentrate on reviving [economic] growth in France and Europe," Piketty added.
According to Reuters, Piketty was nominated for the honor on Thursday along with Nobel Economics laureate Jean Tirole and Nobel Literature prize winner Patrick Modiano. The Legion d'honnneur is awarded by President Francois Hollande.
Piketty's book Capital in the 21st Century, which addresses capitalism and income inequality, was a best-seller in 2014.
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Before You Go
The Winner in the Wrong Category
I Am Malala
By Malala Yousafzai, Christina Lamb
The Nobel Prize in Literature has gone to some pretty heavy hitters (think Alice Munro and Toni Morrison), but this year the Nobel Peace Prize winner also happens to be an author, whose memoir every American woman should read. The book's subtitle explains the main events of the painfully true story (The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban), but there are other compelling—and illuminating—reasons to pick up the book, such as the complex history of Pakistan, as lived by a seemingly ordinary family, and the relationship between a father and a daughter, both heroes for education and freedom in their own right.
By Malala Yousafzai, Christina Lamb
The Nobel Prize in Literature has gone to some pretty heavy hitters (think Alice Munro and Toni Morrison), but this year the Nobel Peace Prize winner also happens to be an author, whose memoir every American woman should read. The book's subtitle explains the main events of the painfully true story (The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban), but there are other compelling—and illuminating—reasons to pick up the book, such as the complex history of Pakistan, as lived by a seemingly ordinary family, and the relationship between a father and a daughter, both heroes for education and freedom in their own right.
The Winner You'll Be the First in Your Book Club to Read
Suspended Sentences: Three Novellas
By Patrick Modiano, Mark Polizzotti (Translator)
If you haven't heard of this year's Nobel Prize in Literature winner, Patrick Modiano, you're not alone. His books are relatively unknown outside his native France, but his portrayals of wartime France and the 1960s read like black-and-white photographs—haunting, wistful and unforgettable. Start with the prize winner's latest novel to be translated into English, Suspended Sentences.
By Patrick Modiano, Mark Polizzotti (Translator)
If you haven't heard of this year's Nobel Prize in Literature winner, Patrick Modiano, you're not alone. His books are relatively unknown outside his native France, but his portrayals of wartime France and the 1960s read like black-and-white photographs—haunting, wistful and unforgettable. Start with the prize winner's latest novel to be translated into English, Suspended Sentences.
The Winner with That Unexpected Twist
Godforsaken Idaho
By Shawn Vestal
This collection of powerful stories, by the ex-Mormon Shawn Vestal, was called a "slam-dunk debut" that "casts a cinematic shadow on the American West" by O magazine last year. This year, it won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction. Why you'll love it? The mix of everyday people struggling through everyday life (e.g,, a teenager seduced into robbing houses with his father) and fantastical fiction (e.g., a heaven with a cafeteria that serves every meal you ever had in your life). Or, as the O magazine reviewer wrote, "The doubters in these stories lose religion, but find that 'nothing that happens has to be real, and anything is possible.'"
By Shawn Vestal
This collection of powerful stories, by the ex-Mormon Shawn Vestal, was called a "slam-dunk debut" that "casts a cinematic shadow on the American West" by O magazine last year. This year, it won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction. Why you'll love it? The mix of everyday people struggling through everyday life (e.g,, a teenager seduced into robbing houses with his father) and fantastical fiction (e.g., a heaven with a cafeteria that serves every meal you ever had in your life). Or, as the O magazine reviewer wrote, "The doubters in these stories lose religion, but find that 'nothing that happens has to be real, and anything is possible.'"
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The Winner That Takes You to Another World
Cowboys and East Indians
By Nina McConigley
In Nina McConigley's winsome collection Cowboys and East Indians, expect characters as unforgettable as a tough, Western middle-aged man who dresses in drag and an Indian-born woman (from India) who feels more at home in a cowboy bar than at a Hindu festival. This smart examination at how two seemingly alien cultures mesh—or don't—won the PEN Open Book Award given to a writer of color. But the real achievement is the author's mix of hilarity and intelligence. A fresh and insightful read.
By Nina McConigley
In Nina McConigley's winsome collection Cowboys and East Indians, expect characters as unforgettable as a tough, Western middle-aged man who dresses in drag and an Indian-born woman (from India) who feels more at home in a cowboy bar than at a Hindu festival. This smart examination at how two seemingly alien cultures mesh—or don't—won the PEN Open Book Award given to a writer of color. But the real achievement is the author's mix of hilarity and intelligence. A fresh and insightful read.
The Winner That Will Make You Weep
By Richard Flanagan
Part love story and part survival story, this novel, about an Australian doctor who endured Japanese POW camps but remained haunted by his affair with his uncle's wife, is the kind of sweeping epic classic we all long for. This year it won the England's Man Booker Prize and instantly swept on the best-sellers lists. Our advice: After page 70, be prepared to cancel the rest of your life—there is no stopping 'til the end.
The Finalist Too Compelling to Put Down
Station Eleven
By Emily St. John Mandel
Though this novel begins with the death of a 51-year-old actor during a performance of King Lear, it quickly flips into a bleak, mysterious future in which most of the world has been killed off by a pandemic flu. Two young people, who now play instruments and act in the productions of a theatrical caravan called Traveling Symphony, walk from ad hoc town to ad hoc town, dodging doomsday cults and bandits, clinging to a certain comic book written by the actor's ex-wife—the last link to the civilization that vanished when they were almost too young to remember it. A finalist for the National Book Award, this imaginative, dazzling read is so eerily timely that it both terrifies and seduces.
By Emily St. John Mandel
Though this novel begins with the death of a 51-year-old actor during a performance of King Lear, it quickly flips into a bleak, mysterious future in which most of the world has been killed off by a pandemic flu. Two young people, who now play instruments and act in the productions of a theatrical caravan called Traveling Symphony, walk from ad hoc town to ad hoc town, dodging doomsday cults and bandits, clinging to a certain comic book written by the actor's ex-wife—the last link to the civilization that vanished when they were almost too young to remember it. A finalist for the National Book Award, this imaginative, dazzling read is so eerily timely that it both terrifies and seduces.
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The Winner the Whole Country Needs To Read (Right Now)
Redeployment
By Phil Klay
This "stunning, often brutal collection of stories that critically examine the complexities of war and the wounds inflicted both on the front lines and at home," won the National Book Award for fiction—an honor often considered the writers' writing award, or the most artistic of the national prizes. Phil Klay's spare, unflinching prose reflects his previous career as a U.S. Marine Corps veteran serving in Iraq. A fierce and heart-rending read.
By Phil Klay
This "stunning, often brutal collection of stories that critically examine the complexities of war and the wounds inflicted both on the front lines and at home," won the National Book Award for fiction—an honor often considered the writers' writing award, or the most artistic of the national prizes. Phil Klay's spare, unflinching prose reflects his previous career as a U.S. Marine Corps veteran serving in Iraq. A fierce and heart-rending read.