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by Paul Lynch
In 2024, I started my reading journey with the Booker Prize 2023 winner – Prophet Song, by Paul Lynch. The book presents a chilling and astonishing outlook of a nation sliding into authoritarianism while also painting a profoundly humane portrait of a mother’s struggle to keep her family together. I have not set a goal of the number of books to read in 2024, but this is an excellent first-day pageturner.
It all begins on a dark, rainy evening in Dublin when Eilish Stack, a scientist and mother of four, opens her front door to two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police. They are there to interrogate her husband, a trade unionist. Ireland is falling apart as the government is gradually turning towards tyranny. As her world crumbles and the people she loves disappear, Eilish faces the dystopian reality of her country. How far is Eilish willing to go to protect her family? And what, or who, is she ready to leave behind?
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by Kathleen Grisson
The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom was a book that I knew very little about who I took from our bookshelf. My wife had encouraged me to read it as it focused on the south, and she knew I ofter read both about that place and enjoyed history.
From the opening pages, It became a book that I could not put down.
Two characters narrate the book. One is Lavinia, an Irish girl orphaned and brought to the plantation by the master, a ship’s captain. She is assigned to the kitchen house to work with Belle, who is the illegitimate child of the master of the estate.
As Lavinia grows under the tutelage of Belle, the story highlights the struggles of a plantation. Lavinia finds family and love from the enslaved even though she is only indentured. The distinction that skin color would have on their lives is one that Lavinia only learns at the end.
Through the unique eyes of Lavinia and Belle, Grissom’s debut novel unfolds in a heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful story of class, race, dignity, deep-buried secrets, and familial bonds.
The Kitchen House is Ms. Grissom’s first novel and impressed me and inspired me even though I have no skills as a writer.
I strongly recommend this book.
by Honor Jones
“Sleep: A Novel” by Honor Jones captivates readers with its heartfelt narrative and deep insights into the human experience. This debut novel offers a genuine insight into the complex dynamics of motherhood and childhood, weaving together themes of love, secrets, and the vast array of possibilities that life can hold beyond silence.
Every parent exists in two families simultaneously: the one they were born into and the one they have created.
Ten-year-old Margaret, much like many of us, hides beneath a blackberry bush in her family’s lush backyard while her brother searches for her in a game of flashlight tag. Her childhood is filled with sunlit swimming pools, Saturday morning pancakes, and a devoted best friend. However, her family life requires careful navigation. Her mother can be as brittle and demanding as she is loving, while her father and brother embody familiar, if uncomfortable, models of masculinity. Then, late one summer, everything changes. After a series of confusing events, the simple joys of girlhood begin to fade away.
Twenty-five years later, Margaret hides under her parents’ bed, waiting for her young daughters to find her in a game of hide and seek. Newly divorced, she is learning to navigate her life as a co-parent while also discovering the pleasures of a new relationship. Yet part of her remains under the blackberry bush, frozen in time. As she strives to be a mother to her daughters and a daughter to her mother, she must confront the echoes and reflections of her past in light of her present. She grapples with what it means to keep a child safe and how much of our lives we experience in solitude.
Jones presents these emotional cycles with generosity and unflinching honesty, making the novel a compelling read that resonates on multiple levels.
Honor Jones, a senior editor at The Atlantic and formerly at The New York Times, brings her wealth of experience and insight to this novel. She lives in Brooklyn with her three children, a life experience that undoubtedly enriches her storytelling.
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by Halldór Laxness
In “A Parish Chronicle,” celebrated novelist Halldór Laxness weaves an essayistic tale about the unlikely miracles that keep a church—destined to disappear time and again—rooted on the same hillside. Laxness explores the minutiae of history, from the location of the ancient burial mound of national hero Egill Skallagrímsson to the end of the 19th century, where weak-sighted Ólafur and boisterous farmhand Gunna each play unexpected roles in the parish’s enduring survival.
1882. In the still of morning, Ólafur sharpens his scythe on the bone-dry pavestones that separate his farmhouse from the rest of Mosfell Valley, where life revolves around sheep. The sound of his hammer rings out like a high-pitched bell over the tussocky fields. Across the valley, perched on a hill that receives more sunshine than others, stands Mosfell Church. Nearby, the parish priest’s maid Gunna pours her “slosh,” a weak cup of coffee. Further afield in Reykjavík (“down south” as the locals say), the general assembly decides to revisit an old plan to cut costs by consolidating small parishes and calls for the demolition of Mosfell. Yet today a church stands on that same hillside—its sharp steeple silhouetted against the clouds, its crown bell hanging to the left of the altar.
This intimate tribute to life in Laxness‘s home valley also offers a thoughtful commentary on how the peculiarities of certain individuals can shape history. “A Parish Chronicle” is rich with life and detail.
Halldór Laxness (1902-1998) is the undisputed master of modern Icelandic fiction. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955, “for his vivid epic power which has renewed the great narrative art of Iceland.” His body of work includes novels, essays, poems, plays, stories, and memoirs: more than sixty books in all. His works available in English include Independent People, The Fish Can Sing, World Light, Under the Glacier, Iceland’s Bell, and Paradise Reclaimed.
Philip Roughton has translated the work of Halldór Laxness, Jón Kalman Stefánsson, Kristín Marja Baldursdóttir, and many others. He has twice been awarded the American-Scandinavian Foundation Translation Prize for his renderings of Halldór Laxness‘s work, in 2001 for Iceland’s Bell and in 2015 for Wayward Heroes. He also received the 2016 Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize for his translation of Jón Kalman Stefánsson’s The Heart of Man. He lives in Iceland. Translator Residence: Akureyri, Iceland
Salvatore Scibona is the recipient of a Mildred and Harold Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His first novel, The End, was a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the Young Lions Fiction Award. His second novel, The Volunteer, was called a “masterpiece” by the New York Times and won the Ohioana Book Award. His books have been translated into ten languages. His work has won a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, an O. Henry Award, and a Whiting Award, and the New Yorker named him one of its “20 Under 40” fiction writers. He is the Sue Ann and John Weinberg Director of the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.
Discover your next favorite book and dive into a world of curated, exciting reads by purchasing through my links. You’ll have access to a diverse selection of books I’ve personally vetted for quality and enjoyment. Additionally, by supporting these selections, you’ll help me continue to provide you with more personalized recommendations. I earn a small commission from your purchase, which allows me to buy and share even more books with you. Your support truly makes a difference!
by Benjamin Wood
Haunting, timeless, and stunningly atmospheric, Seascraper by Benjamin Wood explores the story of a young man whose quiet existence is dramatically altered in just one day. His circumstances confine him, yet he yearns for a sense of fulfillment that extends far beyond the world he knows. The novel has been longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize.
Twenty-year-old Thomas Flett lives a slow, deliberate life with his mother in Longferry, Northern England, working his grandpa’s trade as a shanker. He rises early to take his horse and cart to the drizzly shore to scrape for shrimp, and spends the afternoon selling his wares, trying to wash away the salt and sea-scum, pining for his neighbor, Joan Wyeth, and playing songs on his guitar. At heart, he is a folk musician, but this remains a private dream.
Then a mysterious American arrives in town and enlists Thomas’s help in finding a perfect location for his next movie. Though skeptical at first, Thomas learns to trust the stranger, Edgar, and, shaken from the drudgery of his days by the promise of Hollywood glamour, begins to see a different future for himself. But how much of what Edgar claims is true, and how far can his inspiration carry Thomas?
Benjamin Wood was born in 1981 and grew up in Merseyside. Seascraper is his fifth novel. His previous works were shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, the Commonwealth Book Prize, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the RSL Encore Award, the CWA Gold Dagger Award, and the European Union Prize for Literature. In 2014, he won France’s Prix du Roman Fnac.
He is a senior lecturer in creative writing at King’s College, London, and lives in Surrey with his wife and sons.
Discover your next favorite book and dive into a world of curated, exciting reads by purchasing through my links. You’ll have access to a diverse selection of books that I’ve personally vetted to ensure quality and enjoyment. Additionally, by supporting these selections, you’ll help me continue to provide you with more personalized recommendations. I earn a small commission from your purchase, which allows me to buy and share even more books with you. Your support truly makes a difference!
by Liane Moriarty
Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty is a novel that looks at marriage, siblings, and how the people we love the most can hurt us the deepest. The Delaney family love one another dearly—it’s just that sometimes they want to murder each other.
If your mother was missing, would you tell the police? Even if the most obvious suspect was your father? The four grown Delaney siblings face this dilemma.
This book is a page-turner. With all of the characters having issues unrelated to their mission mother, they have a life with many mysteries and rivalries. I sometimes wanted to know more about their lives instead of the missing mum.
Although I will not reveal the conclusion, it is clear how a missing parent could appear to be the crime of the century.
According to Goodreads,
The Delaneys are fixtures in their community. The parents, Stan and Joy, are the envy of all of their friends. They’re killers on the tennis court, and off it, their chemistry is palpable. But after fifty years of marriage, they’ve finally sold their famed tennis academy and are ready to start what should be the golden years of their lives. So why are Stan and Joy so miserable?
The four Delaney children―Amy, Logan, Troy, and Brooke―were tennis stars in their own right, yet as their father will tell you, none of them had what it took to go all the way. But that’s okay, now that they’re all successful grown-ups. In addition, there is the beautiful possibility of grandchildren on the horizon.
One night a stranger named Savannah knocks on Stan and Joy’s door, bleeding after a fight with her boyfriend. The Delaneys are more than happy to give her the small kindness she sorely needs. If only that were all, she wanted.
Later, when Joy goes missing and Savannah is nowhere to be found, the police question the one person who remains: Stan. But for someone who claims to be innocent, he, like many spouses, seems to have a lot to hide. Two of the Delaney children think their father is innocent. Two are not so sure―but as the two sides square off against each other in perhaps their most important match ever, all of the Delaneys will start to reexamine their shared family history in a very new light.
I recommend this book.
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