this is a post about book recommendations

As I'm writing this, I'm sitting on the sofa, sipping some green tea, and thinking about books. I'm also thinking about personal preferences, how each individual sees the world so differently through their own experiences, beliefs, and cultural socialization. Questions and thoughts on matters like these often float around in my brain when somebody asks me what I thought of this or that work of art, be it a painting, a movie, a photograph, or a book. The problem is, partly, that right now, sitting here peacefully, I might find something completely agreeable whereas yesterday, rushing through my daily schedule, I would've found it a bore.

I read a lot, and everybody knows it — which inevitably leads to people often asking me for book recommendations. I’m hesitant to give them for several reasons, the most obvious being that when it comes to art, we all have different tastes. Mine is diverse; I embrace fiction and non-fiction alike, going between genres and topics. Mine is also bound to have been affected by my particular circumstances, like being a voracious reader since first grade, and having studied literature at university. Does that mean my taste is super high brow? Well, yes and no. I know my classics, but have never appreciated the classics of the male canon much. Jane Austen, for me, was a taste acquired quite late in my reading career, whereas I read, and enjoyed, the Bronte sisters' work in my youth before entering the institution that has shaped my taste. I feel like I should love Virginia Woolf, but her fiction — not much. Her non-fiction, on the other hand, I keep returning to. While I do enjoy some 'low brow' fiction as well, I only read books that are beautifully written. If a bestseller is poorly written, language-wise, I will put it down after the first five pages.

For a long time, I struggled naming a favorite author. I wrote many a paper in uni on Canadian women's writing, which I'd discovered through reading the works of Margaret Atwood. But I couldn't really say that she was my favorite among the numerous novels I read. I loved the early works of Zadie Smith (On Beauty being one of my all-time favorite novels), but her later work, not so much. Today I am confident in saying that I do have a favorite writer, and he is Haruki Murakami. I never thought I'd prefer a male writer over the hundreds or thousands of novels by accomplished female writers I've read, but I do. The elements of magical realism, the way his prose is written... I just love it. If you don't know his writing yet, I suggest you start with something easily approachable like Kafka On The Shore, or Norwegian Wood. You won't regret it, I'd like to think; though my husband kind of did.

In case you're wondering, yes, I have been asked by several people to share book recommendations again, lately. As luck would have it, I have been keeping tabs on what I read since a few years back, writing down every book, fictitious or factual, that I read. As I'm sitting here with my notebooks in tow, I'm thinking of how to grade them (I've read well over a hundred books in the past three years). Looking through my lists, I had a light-bulb moment when, truthfully, I couldn't even remember some of the books at all. Instead of saying that one is bad and the other is good — who even does that with art these days? oh yes, critics — I'll list the books I've read that have been the most memorable. I figure they must have had an effect on me for me to remember them, and still feel like they were worth reading. I hope you'll find something you like here.

2017

Fiction:

Peter Høeg: The Elephant Keepers' Children

Emma Cline: The Girls

Clare Mackintosh: I Let You Go

Non-fiction:

Colin Beavan: No Impact Man (reread several times since 2010)

Naomi Klein: This Changes Everything. Capitalism vs. the Climate

Esther Emery: What Falls From the Sky

2018

Fiction:

Arundhati Roy: The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Françoise Sagan: Bonjour Tristesse

Haruki Murakami: A Wild Sheep Chase

Elena Ferrante: My Brilliant Friend

Donna Tartt: The Goldfinch

Irene Nemirovsky: Suite Française

Haruki Murakami: Killing Commendatore

Non-fiction:

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: We Should All Be Feminists

Michael Pollan: In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

Caitlin Flanders: The Year of Less

Brooke McAlary: Slow. Simple Living For a Frantic World

2019

Fiction:

Ayobami Adebayo: Stay With Me

Stef Penney: The Tenderness of Wolves

Hideo Yokoyama: 64

J.D. Salinger: Franny & Zooey

Pat Barker: The Silence of The Girls

Margaret Atwood: The Testaments

Kim Thuy: Ru

Kim Thuy: Vi

Leila Slimani: Adele

Non-fiction:

Matt Haig: Reasons To Stay Alive

Jeanne Damas and Lauren Bastide: In Paris

Catherine Price: How to Break Up with Your Phone

Virginia Woold: Diary (pt. 1 & 2)

I'll be happy to talk in detail and at length about any of the books mentioned, and tell more, if you're curious. I'm already looking forward to making a list of the books I read this year; so far, I've read some gripping prose that I've truly enjoyed reading. Have you read any of the books on my list? What have been your favorites lately?