Beloved,
Every year, I set a reading goal for the total number of books I want to read, and from that, I create a sub-list of must-reads, which I inevitably abandon in favor of indulging in my more frivolous passions – like cosy and questionable romance novels. In 2023, I had a goal of 24 total books and set aside 13 must reads. In hindsight, both these goals were a bit ambitious. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that I read three books and DNF’d one. But I learned from my mistakes. Last year, I set a more realistic target of 12 books, along with a list of 7 must-reads. And even though, in a feat that even surprise myself, I managed to read 22 books in total, I only managed to read four of the books I set aside and once again, in a show of consistency, DNF’d one. Still, slow and steady progress, I suppose. This year, after realizing that my bookshelves – which have masqueraded themselves as other random pieces of furniture – are overflowing with books I am yet to read (some even spilling onto the floor), I have decided the 7 must read read books of my 15 book goal should be physical books I own.
1. Anna Karina by Leo Tolstoy
Acclaimed by many as the world’s greatest novel, Anna Karenina provides a vast panorama of contemporary life in Russia and of humanity in general. In it Tolstoy uses his intense imaginative insight to create some of the most memorable characters in all of literature. Anna is a sophisticated woman who abandons her empty existence as the wife of Karenin and turns to Count Vronsky to fulfil her passionate nature – with tragic consequences. Levin is a reflection of Tolstoy himself, often expressing the author’s own views and convictions.
Throughout, Tolstoy points no moral, merely inviting us not to judge but to watch. As Rosemary Edmonds comments, ‘He leaves the shifting patterns of the kaleidoscope to bring home the meaning of the brooding words following the title, ‘Vengeance is mine, and I will repay.
I bought this mammoth of a book with no real intentions of ever reading it. I just wanted to be one of those literary girlies who have Toltsoy on their shelf – especially Anna Karina given how much it’s referenced. And then I thought to myself, what’s better than a literary girlie who owns a copy of Anna Karina? A literary girly who’s read it. Honestly I’m doing this for clout. I want to be able to flex the fact that I’ve read all 800+ pages of this book on people that will absolutely not care.
2. And the Mountains echoed by Khaled Hosseini
So, then. You want a story and I will tell you one…Afghanistan, 1952. Abdullah and his sister Pari live with their father and stepmother in the small village of Shadbagh. Their father, Saboor, is constantly in search of work and they struggle together through poverty and brutal winters. To Abdullah, Pari – as beautiful and sweet-natured as the fairy for which she was named – is everything. More like a parent than a brother, Abdullah will do anything for her, even trading his only pair of shoes for a feather for her treasured collection. Each night they sleep together in their cot, their heads touching, their limbs tangled. One day the siblings journey across the desert to Kabul with their father. Pari and Abdullah have no sense of the fate that awaits them there, for the event which unfolds will tear their lives apart; sometimes a finger must be cut to save the hand. Crossing generations and continents, moving from Kabul, to Paris, to San Francisco, to the Greek island of Tinos, with profound wisdom, depth, insight and compassion, Khaled Hosseini writes about the bonds that define us and shape our lives, the ways in which we help our loved ones in need, how the choices we make resonate through history and how we are often surprised by the people closest to us.
At my big age I still haven’t read Khaled Hosseini. Even my friend who exclusively reads nonfiction books read The Kite Runner last year. I am absolutely ashamed. Anyway, since I don’t have The Kite Runner, I’ll settle for this.
3. Ake:Years of Childhood by Wole Soyinka
“Aké: The Years of Childhood” gives us the story of Soyinka’s boyhood before and during World War II in a Yoruba village in western Nigeria called Aké. A relentlessly curious child who loved books and getting into trouble, Soyinka grew up on a parsonage compound, raised by Christian parents and by a grandfather who introduced him to Yoruba spiritual traditions. His vivid evocation of the colorful sights, sounds, and aromas of the world that shaped him is both lyrically beautiful and laced with humor and the sheer delight of a child’s-eye view.
It’s been two years and I’m still not over the fact that I did not finish this book. So, I’ve decided to gaslight myself into believing that the first time I attempted it, I wasn’t in the right headspace, which clearly affected my enjoyment (or lack thereof). Like I said, I honestly want to be one of those literary girlies that can say they read Tolstoy and Soyinka. Plus, I’d also like to read at least one non-fiction book this year
4. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under — maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther’s breakdown with such intensity that Esther’s insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic.
Not a lot to say here except, again, I want to be one of those serious literary girlies that reads Sylvia Plath.
5. Tar Baby by Toni Morrison
Ravishingly beautiful and emotionally incendiary, Tar Baby is Toni Morrison’s reinvention of the love story. Jadine Childs is a black fashion model with a white patron, a white boyfriend, and a coat made out of ninety perfect sealskins. Son is a black fugitive who embodies everything she loathes and desires. As Morrison follows their affair, which plays out from the Caribbean to Manhattan and the deep South, she charts all the nuances of obligation and betrayal between blacks and whites, masters and servants, and men and women.
Toni Morrison completely rewired my brain after I read Beloved, and now I want to explore more of her work. While I don’t expect Tar Baby to surpass Beloved—given that the latter did win a Nobel Prize—I do hope it leaves a similar visceral effect.
6. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Fifteen-year-old Kambili and her older brother Jaja lead a privileged life in Enugu, Nigeria. They live in a beautiful house, with a caring family, and attend an exclusive missionary school. They’re completely shielded from the troubles of the world. Yet, as Kambili reveals in her tender-voiced account, things are less perfect than they appear. Although her Papa is generous and well respected, he is fanatically religious and tyrannical at home—a home that is silent and suffocating.
As the country begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili and Jaja are sent to their aunt, a university professor outside the city, where they discover a life beyond the confines of their father’s authority. Books cram the shelves, curry and nutmeg permeate the air, and their cousins’ laughter rings throughout the house. When they return home, tensions within the family escalate, and Kambili must find the strength to keep her loved ones together.
Purple Hibiscus is an exquisite novel about the emotional turmoil of adolescence, the powerful bonds of family, and the bright promise of freedom.
When I realised that Chimamanda had just published her newest book ten whole years since her last one, I was mortified. What do you mean that in that decade I had not even read any of her long form work? Absolutely appalling behaviour. I am fixing that this year.
7. The Vanishing half by Brit Bennett
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ storylines intersect?
Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person’s decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.
This one is a reread. I’ve been meaning to come back to it for a while now only because I don’t think I properly appreciated this book in the moment as I read it. It took me weeks of thinking about it after I’d finished to finally convince myself that if a book was going to live in my mind rent free for half a month it deserved not only a 4/5 rating but a read somewhere down the line.
Anyway, those are my seven must reads for 2024. If I even get 4 of these out if the way, I’ll declare it a success. What are your reading goals, Beloved? Feel free to share in the comments.
