I have a degree in English lit – these are the 5 best reads | Books | Entertainment

Some of my fondest memories as a kid are in the library. My Mum used to take me at least once a week, and I would rush around picking titles at random. While I waited for her, I would sit on a beanbag in the corner and bury my nose in the first book on the pile, often getting half way through before my Mum said it was time to leave.

That passion for reading stayed with me all the way through my life, driving me to study English Literature at university. Although during that time I read mostly for work, it didn’t kill the passion and I’m still a voracious reader now. I will read almost anything – but this year five particular books really stood out to me. 

From sci-fi universes where time travel is woven into the fabric of life, to a bizarre woman who looks for the spirit of an imaginary child she once met in every baby she sees, these are my five favourite titles.

Monstrilio  – Gerardo Sámano Córdova

This book tells the story of a mother consumed by grief. After her son dies, she cannot reconcile with the loss and so cuts a piece of his lung to keep with her. When she hears a folklore tale of being able to reanimate lost loved ones, she decides to try it, desperate for some sign of her beloved son to show himself to her. This piece of her son then grows and becomes the tailed, clawed, flawed and deeply loved Monstrillio – later nicknamed « M ». Grief and love are inseparable throughout the book, and the story is split into four, each with a different narrator. Each orator of the story is deeply flawed, consumed by love and anguish and every chapter unfurls more, much like the titular monster. This book touched me deeply, and when I turned the final page all I wanted to do was forget it so I could read it all over again.

Say Nothing – Patrick Radden Keefe

This was one of my rare non-fiction reads. This book grabbed my attention at the first sentence and did not let go for the next 400 pages. This gripping and fastidiously researched retelling of The Troubles opens with the abduction of mother-of-ten, Jean McConville, before unravelling the political trauma, war and terror of the time period. Keefe flawlessly weaves the true story in a way that reads like fiction and does not shy away from any of the atrocities committed on both sides of the Troubles. As someone with very little prior knowledge of the time period, this book was a relentless gut punch – stranger than fiction in some parts and achingly recognisable in others.

The First Bad Man – Miranda July

This debut novel is small but mighty – and absolutely bizarre. It follows Cheryl Glickman, a strange, gawky woman in her mid 40s who seems to become obsessed with anyone who crosses her path – but in particular, her much older boss who she believes she has known in all of her myriad past lives. She is also obsessed with the spirit of a child she calls Kubelko Bondy, who she first met as the baby in the arms of her friend’s parents and has searched for in every infant she sees since. When her coworkers’ grimy, trailer park-glam daughter Clee is foisted upon her and into her obsessively austere home, Cheryl’s life becomes a living nightmare before changing into something equal parts sinister and strangely sweet. 

The First Bad Man is such a weird novel it feels odd to be recommending it, but the prose is addictive, and the characters are so absurd that I couldn’t put it down. It’s surreal without being entirely divorced from reality, and it will make you look twice at every unassuming woman you pass in the street.

I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning – Keiran Goddard

Keiran Goddard is a poet as well as an author, and that poetry shines through this novel. It follows Patrick, Shiv, Rian, Oli and Conor as they turn 30, with each of them getting their own chance to speak throughout the course of the book. Rian has moved away after becoming rich and the other four are stumbling through their lives as best they can after none of their dreams came to pass. 

Oli is a drug dealer, Patrick shares two kids with Shiv and tries to make ends meet by delivering takeaways on his bike, and Conor is on the brink after a marriage breakup. 

This book explores what happens when the dreams of childhood slip away, and the mundanity of life steps up to take its place. How much of our lives are chosen by us and how much of it is habit? And what do we do when a long hidden secret rears its head, and threatens to ruin everything?

This novel is quiet, bleak, melancholy and poetic. It’s a short read, only 244 pages but an all consuming one. Although the dialogue is sparse, you truly live inside these characters when you read this book and their worries, hopes and dreams all become yours.

The Other Valley – Scott Alexander Howard 

I don’t usually go for sci-fi, but I am so glad that I made an exception for The Other Valley. It’s set in a tiny, isolated town surrounded by mountains. On either side of the main town there are two others; one a version of the town 20 years into the future, and the other 20 years in the past. On rare occasions, people from the towns are permitted to travel between them to visit a loved one who has died in their timeline. These « mourning tours » are under the strict control of the Conseil and at 16 the main character Odile, is in training to become a member of this bureaucracy. However, when she spots one of the mourning tours in her town and recognises them as her classmate’s parents, come to visit him in a time before his death, she is thrust into an impossible situation. Does she try to prevent the incoming death, not knowing how or when it will occur? Or should time be allowed to run its course? 

Outside of the major conflict in the novel – to save her friend, or let him die – this book explores Odile’s at times caustic and challenging relationship with her mother, the unbearable pain of being a teenager in love, and the constant threat that your life may not turn out how you envisioned it. It’s science fiction, yes, but it’s also literary fiction and even though the concept seems complex it glides along perfectly in tandem. Time travel is a part of this world, as much as teenage love, lack of ambition and going to school hungover. I tore through this book while on holiday with my family, and then immediately gave it to my mother to read; she loved it just as much as I did, and I can’t wait to read it again.