While my free time has become somewhat rarer since then, I still try to always have a book on the go (Which is ideal since I now have to read 100 before I turn 30. Thanks for that, self), and love passing on the knowledge of a really good one to the people in my life I know will get it. That said, I find recommending books in general a pretty hard thing to do.
It's personal, isn't it? For example, I'm the only person I've ever met who didn't like The Book Thief. There are books I loved because of how I related that left other people cold. Taste is subjective, and it feels personal too when a book I loved doesn't hit the mark for someone else. The ten (five) books below, though, are the ones I love enough to always say give it a try. They're funny and sad and expansive and romantic and juvenile and deep and gorgeous, and they are the ones I come back to time and time again. So yes, recommending books is hard, but these are just some of the titles, in no order at all, that make it still-worth-doing. A list in two parts, because oops, it got wordy.
Let's start.
1. Christodora - Tim Murphy
In this vivid and compelling novel, Tim Murphy follows a diverse set of characters whose fates intertwine in an iconic building in Manhattan's East Village, the Christodora. The Christodora is home to Milly and Jared, a privileged young couple with artistic ambitions. Their neighbour, Hector, a Puerto Rican gay man who was once a celebrated AIDS activist but is now a lonely addict, becomes connected to Milly's and Jared's lives in ways none of them can anticipate. Meanwhile, the couple's adopted son, Mateo, grows to appreciate the opportunities for both self-realization and oblivion that New York offers.
This is a very new (like, last-week-new) addition to the list. One of the slightly clinical but cool things about reading on a Kindle is that you can see how far you've come, and I was 9% of my way through this book when I realised I was in. It's about legacy, relationships, addiction, AIDS, more legacy, love and New York City, and in every sense it is epic. I missed the characters when I wasn't reading it. I wanted so desperately for them to be ok. While parts of it were set in the 80s and parts in 2020, it did not feel dated (in either direction) at all. Things happen (lots of things happen) but it is a book about people, and as a person who falls madly in love with fictional people often, to see that done well is always a pleasure. One of the reviews called it Angels in Manhattan (which doesn't make sense 'cause Angels in America is... already set in Manhattan) but if you love that and want a (clumsy way of saying it but) more up to date version... it's this.2. Anna and the French Kiss - Stephanie Perkins
Anna is less than thrilled to be shipped off to boarding school in Paris, leaving a fledgling romance behind - until she meets Etienne St Clair. Smart, charming, beautiful, Etienne has it all... including a girlfriend. But in the City of Light, wishes have a way of coming true. Will a year of romantic near-misses end with a longed-for French kiss?
Young Adult romantic fiction? Am I joking? Um. I've read it more times than I can count and it still makes my stomach flip. Plus I was definitely in my 20s the first time, which makes me more-than-qualified to say the appeal of Anna goes far beyond teenage girls. For people who always seem to fancy their friends (me), people who can take a while to admit how they feel (so, me) and people who live for the could-actually-happen fairytale ending (guess who?) this book has it all. Also Etienne St. Clair is probably top of the list of characters-from-books-I-fancy, but that's another post. (Great idea, self. Write that one...). This book is my go-to comfort read. My literary happy place. Proof that romantic fiction can have substance and feeling. Ugh. I love it so damn much.
3. A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara
When four graduates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their centre of gravity. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he'll not only be unable to overcome - but that will define his life forever.
Y'know, this is sort of cheating. Of all the books on this list, A Little Life is the one I'm selective about recommending, 'cause I know very well it won't be for everyone. I picked this up because a woman in a bookshop told a friend of mine it was similar to The Secret History (I disagree, but I see why she said it). It's devastating (in a good way) and exhausting (in a good way), and one of the most gorgeous studies of male friendship I've read. Another one where character is the whole point (or at least it was for me. I found myself wishing away some of the action just to get back to how these men loved each other through it), I still miss Willem sometimes almost a year after I finished the book. If I recommend this one to you, it's considered. It means I see a bit of me in you, and think you'd love it in the same way I did, despite it being hard and painful and tiring. If I recommend this one, it's a compliment, and it means I want to talk about it. This book sparks real conversation. That's a rare and gorgeous thing.
4. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and for ever.
I know I said in-no-order, but this is my number one. I first read The Secret History when I was far too young (12? 13 maybe?) and it has been my favourite ever since. Contrary to most of the others on this list, I don't really like (or care about) any of the characters on any sort of deep level, although I simultaneously love them all. With this one, the magic is in the action (and the logic behind the action even more so). To create a world both so elitist and accessible? So compelling and alien and relatable? That's really something. Donna Tartt is a genius, and this book is dark, and rough around the edges, and an absolute classic. It's about using ancient Greek methods of transcending reality in the modern day, and the issues of morality that come with that. Sounds surreal, right? Well yeah, it is. And it also makes complete and absolute sense, and with that juxtaposition comes it's genius. You're gonna have to trust me on this one, 'cause I couldn't possibly articulate why it is so good. (If you don't fall head over heels for The Secret History, I am going to need to know why. In essay form).
5. Anything by David Levithan
In my early 20s, I heard David Levithan read from his book Two Boys Kissing. By that time, I had been intrigued by his LGBT cult classic Boy Meets Boy, completely floored by how thematically close his stunning Love is the Higher Law was to our own The 8th Fold, and called his collaboration Naomi & Ely's No Kiss List my favourite book for a long time, because I had never read anything that felt quite so much like holding up a mirror to my own life. David Levithan was already my favourite author, be it the poetry of The Realm of Possibility or the last pages of Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist which brought me to tears every time. And then I went to this reading, on my own, in the rain, and he said so many prophetic and wonderful things, but the one that stuck was that he always writes from a place of positivity, rather than despair. I felt like we were the only people in the room, in that moment. Like he was saying I think you do that too, don't you? And I did. And I do. Even when a subject is sad, I try my very best to come at it from a place of hope. There are some things that are not pretty, but with the right words in the right order, you can give them the greatest chance of becoming a lesson rather than something to be melancholy about. David Levithan is not a poet but his work is poetic. He understands humanity and what it means to love a person in (from what I've seen so far) almost all ways. Start with Boy Meets Boy. Beyond that, talk to me. Tell me what you love (what you need to read, 'cause I bet he has something that fits). Let me make you a list. Are his books my all time favourite books? No, I can't say that. Is he my favourite writer? Oh, God. Not even a question. Yes.
Have you read any of these books? Did you love them? Hate them? I want to know! Likewise, if you're going to now, please let's talk about it! Part 2 coming in the next few days.
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