With just a week left until the VERVE office closes for the holidays, our editor Jenna is already planning her festive reading choices. Here’s her (highly aspirational) list so far…
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow tells the story of Sadie and Sam, two video-game-loving friends who achieve an almost unimaginable level of career success when they collaborate to create a video game while at college in the late 90s. The novel explores gender, race, physical and mental health, the reality of career success and human connection/loneliness through a fun and tender story, and you’ll probably have seen it all over social media earlier in the year. I’m already halfway through and am loving what I’ve read so far; I’m just waiting for a free afternoon to tear through the second half.
Taste by Stanley Tucci
I couldn’t resist picking up one of the last signed copies of this paperback when I saw it on a table in Waterstones Piccadilly. Stanley Tucci is iconic, for both his acting choices and his Negronis, and Searching for Italy, his food-centred TV show, is pure, joyful escapism, so I was always going to read Taste – his life story told through his love of food.
After buying this, I couldn’t help immediately dipping into the first couple of chapters, despite knowing I was in no position to be doing so – I was already reading Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow along with multiple books for work! So, sensibly, I set it aside to read over Christmas.
Hex by Jenni Fagan
This has been on my radar for a while and I finally ordered it last week, to arrive on my doorstep in time for the holidays. It’s a very slim novel that I’m certain I’ll read in one or two sittings, by the author of one of my favourite books, The Sunlight Pilgrims.
Hex sees protagonist Geillis Duncan, a convicted witch, recount the story of her arrest and trial in Edinburgh on the last night of her life, the 4th December 1591. It sounds atmospheric and oddly festive – the blurb makes me think of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol as it described how Geillis is visited by a ‘mysterious woman’ from the future, who warns her of the ongoing persecution of women in the present-day. Fagan is Scottish, and I love witchy books with contemporary relevance, so this promises to be a good read and is the one I’m looking forward to most.
Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
The first book of a buy-one-get-one-half-price offer I took advantage of last weekend, but it’s been on my reading list for months. It’s another one you’ll have likely seen across social media – a Sunday Times bestseller, shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2022 – but for me, the blurb sold it.
Sorrow and Bliss follows Martha Friel as she moves back in with her bohemian parents because she’s finding life difficult to cope with – everything feels broken, despite her seemingly successful career and love life. I love books about people who ‘should’ be happy but aren’t, and books about people starting over at difficult times in their life, so I’m prepared to devour this.
Matrix by Lauren Groff
The second selection of the aforementioned special offer, Matrix has a brilliant reputation and beautiful cover. I don’t actually know too much about it – and I’m trying to keep it that way because I enjoy being pleasantly surprised by books – all I’m sure of is that it’s about women’s agency and desire, and I’m excited to dive in.
Luster by Raven Leilani
Lent to me by a close friend after she read and loved it, this is another Instagram-famous novel that I’ve been meaning to get to, and now have a reason to. About a young woman struggling to navigate her career as well as a relationship with a man who’s in an open marriage, it sounds funny and current and a good novel to begin the new year with.
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
After seeing a reviewer draw a comparison between Arundhati Roy and VERVE’s very own author, Anjana Appachana, I knew I had to read one of Roy’s novels. The God of Small Things, her Booker-Prize-winning debut family drama about twins in 1960s Kerala, was the obvious choice.
Like Taste, this is one I started even though I knew I was too busy to commit to it, and now it’s been three or four months since I last picked it up. I’m just searching for the right moment to settle into it – then I think I’ll read it across one or two snowy afternoons.
Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami
Breasts and Eggs follows three Japanese women as they navigate complicated personal issues, each of which are somehow related to womanhood. It centres on Natsu, an unfulfilled thirty-year-old living in Tokyo; her older sister, Makiko, who has her heart set on breast enhancement surgery; and Makiko’s daughter, Midoriko, who has recently decided to stop speaking and communicates only through written notes and gestures.
This is a strange one. I started reading – and enjoying – it in July 2021 but have only been picking it up every two or three months since then. It’s very character-driven, and I think I need a good chunk of time – e.g. the Christmas break – to immerse myself in these women’s lives. I had hoped to do this last Christmas, but didn’t manage… And looking back over the length of this list, I realise I may be being too ambitious again!