Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah
Gurnah won this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature, so his most recent novel Afterlives certainly deserves a place here, too. The novel follows two young men in East Africa whose lives are upended by German colonial rule at the start of the 20th century. The Guardian calls Afterlives a “compelling novel, one that gathers close all those who were meant to be forgotten, and refuses their erasure.”
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
An absolute rave review from Catherine Woulfe: “Like Doerr’s 2014 Pulitzer-winner All the Light We Cannot See, Cloud Cuckoo Land is a huge novel. Six hundred and twenty-two glorious pages, nearly 800g, five days of reading so good it picked me up and whooshed me away. It is one long story, the epic life story of a book, but the bits we zoom in on take place in 1400s Constantinople, Idaho in 2020, and sometime in the perilous future. I loved every part of it, fervently … Doerr breathes hope, and I hate the word ‘uplifting’ but really there’s no other word for it – the reading of this book lifted me up, left me more hopeful, more peaceful. It’s been weeks now and that feeling has lingered. It is exactly the book I needed.”
The Promise by Damon Galgut
Winner of this year’s Booker! The novel follows a white South African family and is broken into four sections, each a decade apart and based around a funeral. The judges called The Promise “a strong, unambiguous commentary on the history of South Africa and of humanity itself that can best be summed up in the question: does true justice exist in this world?”
A Cook’s Book by Nigel Slater
Its cookbook season, and Nigel Slater is one of the greats, mixing memoir with 200-plus recipes. You don’t just get a recipe for jam tarts – you also get Slater’s exquisitely-written memory of helping his mum make a tart for the first time, standing on a chair to reach the bench top. Sweet on two levels.
Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love by Yotam Ottolenghi and Noor Murad
Ottolenghi’s new book gives you a sneak-peek at his test kitchen. The Happy Foodie says, “OTK: Shelf Love is a recipe book that will teach you to fall in love with cooking intuitively from your cupboards and pantry, fridge and freezer. By cleverly using your kitchen finds, you’ll put a flavoursome, Ottolenghi-level dinner on the table any day of the week.”
Recipes include (All the Herb) Dumplings with Caramelised Onions, Spiced Semolina with Fried Corn, Peanuts and Coriander, and Upside-Down Lemon, Maple and Vanilla Pudding with Lemon-Maple Butter.
The Women of Troy by Pat Barker
Novel about the aftermath of the Trojan War, told through the eyes of women. The New Yorker gives a nuanced, not altogether positive review: “How to make something new out of the classics? The tension between novelty and the weight of tradition is one that many writers since Homer have felt … Like so many others, Barker wants to impose her modern concerns onto this very ancient material. But she’s not nearly comfortable enough in her Greek mode to fashion a work of real authority.” That must sting.
All Tito’s Children by Tim Grgec
A debut poetry collection, tagged with this wonderful recommendation from James Brown: “If you like Charles Simic’s poetry, Lloyd Jones’s Biografi or the film The Lives of Others, read this book. Tim Grgec renders the shifting surfaces of Tito’s Yugoslavia in a master class of exquisite writing. ‘The morning spread heavily, the hills forgetting which way to cast their shadows across the plains.’ His sentences feel effortless and perfect. ‘I ate frost to hide my breath.’ This is his family’s and Yugoslavia’s story, throughout which Tito’s voice pervades, toys with, chills. ‘You’re exactly the person I wanted to see.’ This is exactly the book you wanted to read.”
Silverview by John le Carré
Le Carré’s final novel, published after his death. An excerpt, which you can read more of in the Guardian: “With raindrops spitting up at her from the pavement, Lily kept going as far as Mount Street, where she hailed a cab and ordered the driver to take her to Liverpool Street station. Maybe she’d really meant to visit the school. She no longer knew. Maybe she’d announced as much last night, although she doubted it, because by then she’d decided she was never again going to explain herself to anyone. Or maybe the idea hadn’t come to her till Proctor squeezed it out of her. The only thing she knew was: she wasn’t going to visit any bloody school for Proctor’s sake. To hell with that, and dying mothers and their secrets, and all of it.”
