Writers talk about books they love…
When world leaders are acting like that one guy in high school who took a shit in the girls locker room, it’s easy to feel disheartened. Monday afternoon ennui is creeping into Saturday morning. It’s also (still?) winter, the worst time of the year for those of us in the Northern hemisphere. I’m cold, my jeans are tight and the next season of The Great British Bake Off seems a lifetime away.
More than ever, literature feels like one of the only places that offers respite. Here are six books I’ve recently read that have made me feel hopeful again.
Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Jonathan Cape, 2023)
‘A love letter to our earth.’
This small and powerful novel tells the story of six astronauts and cosmonauts aboard an orbiting space station. The core timeline takes place within sixteen orbits – just one day. There’s a lot of well-researched and interesting stuff about what it’s like living in space: how they eat, sleep, exercise and poop without gravity, but there’s also the good stuff. Each character has their own reasons for conquering every conceivable obstacle to becoming a god. Within each of them is an untainted joy for the world they’ve left behind.
While this book is very much about climate change, it tackles a fatigued topic from a unique and refreshing angle. It says, look how beautiful this planet is. Look how it provides water and oxygen and gravity so our muscles don’t waste away. It’s a love letter to our earth, reminding us how precious it is and how it has evolved to uniquely meet our very human needs. Time seems to stop, morph and jump. Typhoons, droughts and war zones can be viewed from the windows of the station by people who have their own personal worries, like losing a mother or having an accidental erection. The micro and macro lenses are used simultaneously and the impact is simply gorgeous.
Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto and translated by Megan Backus (Grove Press, 2006)
‘I hope this book makes you feel warm.’
A friend gifted me this book with a very slanty hand-written note in the front: ‘I hope this book makes you feel warm.’ Mikage Sakurai loses her grandmother, and is contacted by Yuichi Tanabe, a young man who sold flowers to Mikage’s grandmother and had developed a special bond with her. Yuichi invites Mikage to come and live with him and his mother, a vivacious and kind trans woman who is also Yuichi’s biological father, in a generous act of comfort. They build an unlikely family.
The novel is deeply intimate, showing how late night tea and ramen can be the rituals upon which a family unit can be built, and ultimately, how to deal with grief. The romance between Mikage and Yuichi feels almost secondary to the story, an element I didn’t need, but it was sweet and comforting nonetheless.
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1937)
‘Should you read this book? Probably not.’
Don’t misunderstand me, I did not enjoy this book. Harry Morgan ferries illegal contraband and immigrants between Cuba and Key West, Florida. There are plenty of bar brawls, racial slurs and messy shoot-outs. The first half of the novel moves quickly and easily. The second half of the book falls into chaos with changing perspectives. It’s first person, then third person, and now in the final pages Hemingway has introduced brand new characters who are both wild and boring. The changing narrative doesn’t work, and the book drunkenly stumbles toward an unsatisfying end.
So why did it give me hope? Because in comparison to Hemingway’s characters, I am a good person. My sister, who I’d recently chided for not calling me back, is a good person. It reminded me that I’m surrounded by people who are doing their best. They may sometimes fail, but they’re no Harry Morgan. Should you read this book? Probably not, but if you do, be encouraged. You’re doing alright.
The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing (Picador, 2024)
‘Gardeny things.’
I hate gardening, and yet I loved this. During the lockdowns of 2020 onwards, Laing took to their garden. They dug up old roots and did other… gardeny things. Listen, I didn’t get hung up on the details. There were flowers names, bird names, types of soil and trees I’ve never heard of. I don’t remember any of them, but what I remember is this: that things grow.
Laing delves into the history of gardens and parks; how they can be elitist, colonialist, and controlled by the state. They write about gardens in Val d’Orcia that housed POWs and hid allied soldiers from the Nazis, about their own fathers garden, and how nature has healed us over and over again. I listened to the audiobook, which quickly became my own virtual space of rest. The Garden Against Time is meticulously researched and beautifully delivered, and left me in awe of both Laing’s determination and of the natural world around me.
The Idiot by Elif Batuman (Jonathan Cape, 2017)
‘In the process of figuring it all out.’
This book gave me permission to be lost. With a nod to Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, there isn’t much of a plot in this semi-autobiographical novel. Selin is a Harvard student and the daughter of Turkish immigrants, navigating early adulthood. She takes Russian classes, uses email (an exciting new medium) and vaguely dreams of becoming a writer. She also falls in love with Ivan, with whom she exchanges bizarre emails with in the middle of the night.
Like most books about university students, she is discovering who she is, but isn’t rushed in doing so. Selin’s obsession with language reminds me that communication is an ongoing battle, but worth it, if we can find just one person who understands us. She is so very normal – both comforting and disappointing. She’s lost, and Batuman tells us that it’s okay to be in the process of figuring it all out. Let’s just hope she isn’t only talking to eighteen year olds.
Our Class by Chris Hedges (Simon & Schuster, 2022)
‘Weeping at the power of art and listening.’
Chris Hedges, a pulitzer-winning author and professor, begins teaching classes at East Jersey State Prison on drama and literature. After reading and studying plays by Amiri Baraka and August Wilson, his students decide that for their assessment they’d like to write and perform a play of their own.
Recently I watched Sing Sing, directed by Greg Kwedar, which tells a similar story of transforming trauma into art. These feel-good stories can often feel self-aggrandising, but both Sing Sing and Our Class were carefully considered and honest. Hedges documents his teaching endeavours with precision and pathos, allowing these real life characters to powerfully take the stage. I’ve read this book twice, each time weeping at the power of art and listening. No doubt, I will read it again soon, when I need a reminder of good-ness.
SUMMER KENDRICK IS ONE OF THE MANAGING EDITORS OF MIR AND A RECENT ALUMNUS OF THE BIRKBECK CREATIVE WRITING MA. HER BOOK GROUP, CLITERATURE CLUB, CAN BE FOUND ON INSTAGRAM AT @clubcliterature,