Last year I made a list of 13 books I wanted to read in 2023 – then proceeded to read only two from said list: one which was a poetry collection whose contents I barely remember by Emezi and a memoir by Soyinka which I fully remember but DNF-ed. Not only did I fail to read these 13 books, but I also failed to meet my reading goal of 24 overall books. I read 11. So this year I’m less ambitious. I’m aiming for a book a month. However, I do want to read a few things that are already on my tbr instead of just being pulled by whatever winds come my way. So here are 7 I’ve set aside for 2024.
1. The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary.
Tiffy and Leon share a flat
Tiffy and Leon share a bed
Tiffy and Leon have never met…
Tiffy Moore needs a cheap flat, and fast. Leon Twomey works nights and needs cash. Their friends think they’re crazy, but it’s the perfect solution: Leon occupies the one-bed flat while Tiffy’s at work in the day, and she has the run of the place the rest of the time.
But with obsessive ex-boyfriends, demanding clients at work, wrongly imprisoned brothers and, of course, the fact that they still haven’t met yet, they’re about to discover that if you want the perfect home you need to throw the rulebook out the window
I love the one bed trope so much, and from the synopsis, this book has that on steroids. I’m a pure romance girly and I’ve also had this on my shelf for a hot minute (not really though. I got it only a year ago unlike some which have been there for over a decade). Since I am trying to read more physical books this year I might as well add this too.
2. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.
Could you survive on your own in the wild, with every one out to make sure you don’t live to see the morning?
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.
I recently acquired a copy from Jacaranda Cultural Centre’s bookshop because, well the cover is cool. But I do remember fully enjoying both the book and the movie when I was in secondary school way back when. I’m hoping that now that I’m a bit older, I’ll be smart enough to understand the whole allegorical nature of it – and that my rereading doesn’t ruin the experience but enhances it. At the very least it is a cool book to have on my shelf. My friend recently gifted me Mockingjay and I’m hoping to go buy Catching Fire when I find a bit of disposable cash.
3. Beloved by Toni Morrison.
Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has borne the unthinkable and not gone mad, yet she is still held captive by memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. Meanwhile Sethe’s house has long been troubled by the angry, destructive ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.
Sethe works at beating back the past, but it makes itself heard and felt incessantly in her memory and in the lives of those around her. When a mysterious teenage girl arrives, calling herself Beloved, Sethe’s terrible secret explodes into the present.
I’m still ashamed that til this day, at my big age, I haven’t read Toni Morrison. Last year I thought I’d read Home, but as already mentioned that list went nowhere. So instead I’m going to try and read Beloved this year- mostly because I do have a physical copy of this one.
4. How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis.
How to Keep House While Drowning will introduce you to six life-changing principles that will revolutionize the way you approach home care—without endless to-do lists. Presented in 31 daily thoughts, this compassionate guide will help you begin to get free of the shame and anxiety you feel over home care.
Inside you will learn:
· How to shift your perspective of care tasks from moral to functional;
· How to stop negative self-talk and shame around care tasks;
· How to give yourself permission to rest, even when things aren’t finished;
· How to motivate yourself to care for your space.
I can’t remember which booktuber it is that I follow that suggested this but I know the way they explained it roped me in – which is saying something because self help books rarely interest me. However, this ones seems to targeted to help people whose brains work like mine especially in such an overwhelming world. Also, I think the title is brilliant and the cover is gorgeous.
5. Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer.
An instant bestseller that is poised to become a classic, Moonwalking with Einstein recounts Joshua Foer’s yearlong quest to improve his memory under the tutelage of top “mental athletes.” He draws on cutting-edge research, a surprising cultural history of remembering, and venerable tricks of the mentalist’s trade to transform our understanding of human memory. From the United States Memory Championship to deep within the author’s own mind, this is an electrifying work of journalism that reminds us that, in every way that matters, we are the sum of our memories.
I only know about this book because a friend of mine speaks so highly about it. It’s a memoir about memory I guess and as usual, I’m trying to read more non fiction. Honestly, I’m just want to find out what Einstein has anything to do with a famous dance move popularised by Micheal Jackson.
6. The Road by Cornac McCarthy.
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.
The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,” are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation
Last year I kept starting and restarting this book. I went through a hard rereading slump and this was one of the casualties. However, I did enjoy the first couple of pages and I’m hoping to actually finish this.
7. Seven Days in June by Tia Williams.
Brooklynite Eva Mercy is a single mom and bestselling erotica writer, who is feeling pressed from all sides. Shane Hall is a reclusive, enigmatic, award-winning literary author who, to everyone’s surprise, shows up in New York.
When Shane and Eva meet unexpectedly at a literary event, sparks fly, raising not only their past buried traumas, but the eyebrows of New York’s Black literati. What no one knows is that twenty years earlier, teenage Eva and Shane spent one crazy, torrid week madly in love. They may be pretending that everything is fine now, but they can’t deny their chemistry – or the fact that they’ve been secretly writing to each other in their books ever since.
Over the next seven days in the middle of a steamy Brooklyn summer, Eva and Shane reconnect, but Eva’s not sure how she can trust the man who broke her heart, and she needs to get him out of New York so that her life can return to normal. But before Shane disappears again, there are a few questions she needs answered…
With its keen observations of Black life and the condition of modern motherhood, as well as the consequences of motherless-ness, Seven Days in June is by turns humorous, warm and deeply sensual.
Honestly I haven’t heard a single bad thing about this book. Everyone I know that’s read it has nothing but good things and high ratings for it- and very rarely have I seen such from a romance so I just had to put it on this list.