Summary
Book recommendations to put on your Christmas list this year.
Christmas gives us a lot of time to catch up on some reading, but what are the best books to ask for? I have selected some of my favourites to recommend for the holiday season:
1. If Beale Street Could Talk – James Baldwin
Now an Oscar winning movie, Beale Street is a moving story of family and perseverance. Set in 1970s Harlem, a pregnant Tish is separated from her lover Fonny who is wrongfully put in prison. It is about loving someone against the odds, and heavily focuses on flashbacks where the two fall in love and watch their futures unravel. Baldwin’s writing is often intense and captures the anger of a black man living in the confines of a racist society.
“Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind”.
Image credit: Penguin books
2. Lapvona – Ottessa Moshfegh
The newest book on this list is set in a medieval fantasy world, making comments on greed and the human condition. With supernatural elements, Lapvona covers local witches, peasants and satirical kings. This novel shows a fictional village battling bandits, droughts and mass murders, creating very funny and very intense moments. Oftentimes very weird, Moshfegh’s prose is incredibly sharp and full of humour.
“Love was a distinctly human defect which God had created to counterbalance the power of human greed”.
Image credit: Penguin books
3. A Handful of Dust – Evelyn Waugh
A bitingly funny satire, a serious tale of adultery and the decaying wealth of British socialites, A Handful of Dust is oftentimes claimed to be his early masterpiece. Inspired by Waugh’s own divorce, in this novel, Brenda betrays her husband Tony by cheating on a socially inferior man. Oftentimes shocking and bizarre, this novel spans from the cold and lonely English countryside to the Brazilian jungle, encapsulating the selfish and snobbish nature of 1930s aristocrats.
“According to their rules, any sin is acceptable provided it is carried off in good taste”
Image credit: Penguin books
4. To Paradise – Hanya Yanagihara
Split into three separate novels tied together by the idea of paradise, this novel is part historical fiction, part dystopian. Written during the Covid pandemic, To Paradise covers some major political themes such as government trust, colonialism and the worldwide response to viruses. The final dystopian section is the highlight of this novel, with each chapter building in suspense. It follows a woman, Cat, escaping the dubious government and living freely.
“It takes a special kind of cruelty to make a baby now, knowing that the world it’ll inhabit and inherit will be dirty and diseased and unjust and difficult”.
Image credit: Picador publishing
5. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous – Ocean Vuong
Written as a letter to his mother, this novel is endlessly creative and endlessly poetic. It focuses on blending genre’s, blending reality and fiction, and tells the story of the narrator, “little dog’s” life as an immigrant and his mother’s time in America. Following his healing from generational trauma and learning to be open as a human being, it is an honest tale of the queer experience and plays with language in a way no one has ever managed.
“They say nothing lasts forever but they’re just scared it will last longer than they can love it”.
Image credit: Penguin books
6. M Train – Patti Smith
Finally, this is a quiet and endearing memoir by prolific musician and writer. M Train follows Smith’s various travels, stories of her husband and bits of history that are of interest to her. M Train is heartfelt, simple and diarist-ic, and shows how your thoughts can keep you company. At its core, M Train is Patti Smith contemplating her life over some coffee and in this sense, it is quaint and enjoyable to read over the cold winter months.
“I’m not sure I could write endlessly about nothing. If only I had nothing to say”.
Image credit: Bloomsbury Publishing
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