As September rolls in, here are some books I have appreciated and which come with rave reviews from readers. Irrespective of whether you read them in September or any other months, these books are classics you will enjoy reading in every season and a must add to your bookshelves.
Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck
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A war novel set in Sarajevo, during the Bosnian war it tells the story of one woman in bombed remains of a city. The novel is about Zora, a painter caught in the siege of Sarajevo, who experiences first-hand the tragedy, destruction, and helplessness of war. When violence finally spills over, Zora sends her husband and elderly mother to safety with her daughter in England. Reluctant to believe that hostilities will last more than a handful of weeks, she stays behind while the city falls under siege. As the assault deepens and everything they love is laid to waste, black ashes floating over the rooftops, Zora and her friends are forced to rebuild themselves, over and over. Theirs is a breathtaking story of disintegration, resilience and hope. It speaks of the experience of watching a city you loved become ravaged by war. It’s about hope and hopelessness. It’s haunting, provocative and an eulogy to a place and a community ravaged by war.
The novel is about four members of a nuclear family. Over the course of the novel, we get all of their perspectives, starting with the children and then the parents' perspectives. Each character is skilfully represented and portrayed. There is also a discussion about the climate crisis which has a feeling of inevitability, at a point where it is getting increasingly out of control, which is mirrored through the narrative structure. The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under―but rather than face the music, he’s spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife Imelda is selling off her jewelry on eBay, while their teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way through her final exams. And twelve-year-old PJ is putting the final touches to his grand plan to run away from home.
It reimagines the life of Shakespeare but doesn't ever mention the bard himself. The winner of Woman's Prize for Fiction, it is a gorgeous illustration and depiction of grief which will take your breath away. Hamnet tells an imagined story of Shakespeare’s family life, focusing on what is usually mentioned only in footnotes – his wife and children, including the death of his son Hamnet during childhood. It’s a story of love and grief, an illustration of passion and hard work. It is dazzling in its intricate and meticulous descriptions and what it is to lose someone or something.
The 2021 Booker Prize Winner, The Promise is a family saga spanning four decades, each of which features a death in the family. The book is told in four parts, each one is a funeral of a different kind, of a different religion or a different practice. The book is set in South Africa and it explores each character and the culture and societies that they inhabit. The Promise tells the story of the Swarts, a white family descended from Dutch settlers who came to South Africa in the 17th century. The three Swart children come of age as the country undergoes the abolition of apartheid, a system that formally segregated South Africans on the basis of race. The moral failings of the Swart family has been interpreted as being an allegory for post-apartheid South Africa, and the promise of White South Africans to Black South Africans.
It follows the love story of Greek Cypriot Kostas and Turkish Cypriot Defne, their eventual migration to London, and the impact of their past and their history on their daughter Ada, whose only connection to Cyprus is the fig tree in her garden. Set in Cyprus, it tells their story as they fall in love underneath a fig tree at a restaurant and we alternate between the time in which they first met and then later when they're married and when they have a daughter. Together they meet as teenagers in 1974 and the tree itself is a kind of character. It witnesses that whole love affair over the decades. It's a book about perseverance, compassion and the power of nature being our greatest teacher. The Island of Missing Trees is a beautifully written novel that takes readers on a journey through history, family, and love.
It is a historical fiction novel about the way 'Fallen women' were mistreated by the church. It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church. He slowly grasps the enormity of the local convent's heartless treatment of unmarried mothers and their babies (one instance of what will soon be exposed as the scandal of the Magdalene laundries). P.S.: Cillian Murphy is playing Bill Furlong, the main character.
One of the most important and culturally significant books of this generation, this changed the way that we talk about culture and society. It's very common now to hear people refer to things as Hunger Games-esque. Although written for a younger audience, it's universal, it is able to resonate with pretty much anyone. The Hunger Games is a televised show in which young people have to kill each other and the last survivor is the winner. Two contestants are put forward from each of the districts, as a reminder from the capital of their power. We follow Katniss, who volunteers to enter the games when her sister is randomly chosen, as she tries to survive the Hunger Games. It is followed by two books Catching Fire and Mockingjay and preceded by The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (before Katniss's storyline), all of which are riveting.
The book is in conversation with another book. My dark Vanessa is a modern response to the book Lolita, which gets it title from a different Nabokov book, Pale Fire. It is about a (highly inappropriate) relationship a young girl has with her teacher, when she is 15. Decades later the teacher has been accused of abuse by another fellow student. A journalist then asks the main character to comment on this and it creates a turmoil where she starts to realize that in reality she was the victim. She has spent her whole life believing, or at least trying to convince herself that it was love that she was experiencing and only now as an adult does she start to realize that actually it was something different and more sinister. It raises vital questions about agency, consent, complicity, and victimhood. My Dark Vanessa is an era-defining novel that brilliantly captures and reflects the shifting cultural mores transforming our relationships and society itself.
Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
The Promise by Damon Galgut
The Island of the Missing Trees by Elif Shank
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
It is a historical fiction novel about the way 'Fallen women' were mistreated by the church. It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church. He slowly grasps the enormity of the local convent's heartless treatment of unmarried mothers and their babies (one instance of what will soon be exposed as the scandal of the Magdalene laundries). P.S.: Cillian Murphy is playing Bill Furlong, the main character.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
Happy Reading
XOXO
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