Yesterday, Aug. 9, was Book Lovers Day — great for me, because I love books!
Literature as an art form is so dear to me because of the focus I need to create and consume it. Words are the only thing you have to focus on, and yet you have so much to gain. I’ve always loved books and reading because it helps me feel connected to the world.
Here are some of my favourite books I’ve read this year:
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
I join generations of young women when I say that reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time was a foundational experience. It was incredible for me at 13 years old to enter the mind of a smart young woman and to see myself in her even though she was created hundreds of years before I was born.
Austen is deservedly one of the most recognizable authors in English literature. Her timeless novels give a sense of agency to regency-era women — in romance at that.
Pride and Prejudice follows Elizabeth Bennet navigating her family’s expectations, the societal pressures that come with rigid class structures and a tumultuous romance with aristocrat Fitzwilliam Darcy as they overcome the novel’s namesake: their pride and prejudice.
Austen’s classic has spurred endless adaptations, but my favourite is an audiobook narrated by Karen Savage for Librivox.org. I listened to it for the first time this year and was instantly captivated. I’ve never been an audiobook person, but the plot of the novel lends itself to the medium so well.
The events of Pride and Prejudice advance, for the most part, through conversation with an important emphasis on the subtleties of conversation. Darcy particularly struggles in social situations, and I had so much fun listening to a narrator enunciate his failures.
Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
If I have done anything this year, it is becoming a James Baldwin fan. And if I am going to do anything else this year, it’s going to be trying to convince you to become one as well.
Baldwin was a prolific writer and orator during the 20th century, and was an important voice in shaping the sentiments of the civil rights movement. His groundbreaking novels largely followed Black and Queer men, challenging ideas of sexuality, masculinity, race, class and religion.
Go Tell It on the Mountain is a semi-autobiographical novel about John Grimes, a teenager in 1930s Harlem, New York, and his relationships with his family and church. The novel is set within a 24-hour period but contains a fluid narrative of the past 70 years, with points of view from different members of his family, all culminating on the day of John’s salvation.
Religion is the pervasive theme touching every character at every part of their lives. I adore character-based stories and Baldwin gives unique voices to every character facing real and compelling struggles, both internal and external.
Go Tell It on the Mountain is Baldwin’s greatest novel. It’s so striking and affecting because he knows his people. He knows Harlem, the segregated South, and the United States of America.
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
All art is political because it’s influenced by the systems of power it was created under, and Anxious People is good literary fiction set in our time, about us and for us.
The novel follows an ensemble of regular people at an apartment showing, gone wrong, after a failed bank robber accidentally creates a hostage situation. Nothing is as it seems on the surface, and Backman explores how messy life is with everything we can and can’t control.
I read the novel for the first time on my five-hour train home for summer break, and it helped me unpack all the existential emotions I’ve had about my life, career and relationships with others. Anxious People is an easy-to-read, heartwarming, character-based comedy that will keep you company for a few hours.
Life is hard, and compassion is free. We can make things easier for everyone.
Happy Book Lovers Day from one book lover to another!
Featured graphic by Alisha Velji/the Charlatan.
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