book lover

9 Books That I Have Loved This Year (2024 edition)

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Hello beautiful cats! We are at the end of 2024 and what a year it has been! It’s been another busy year, and finding time to read has not always been easy, but I have tried to dedicate at least one hour of reading before bedtime. There were nights I succeeded and other times I didn’t quite make it and in these cases, I would open the book, find the page I was reading and promptly fall asleep, and I kid you not, once I even dozed off while still holding my place with my finger, or so my partner told me!

You know that I love reading. It’s one of my favourite things to do (otherwise, I wouldn’t work in a library!), and I strongly believe it improves mental health. It also has (more or less) obvious benefits, like better literacy and vocabulary and opening the mind to other perspectives. Similarly to last year, I thought I would share my favourite reads of 2024: I managed to read/listen to 39 books and not all of them were a “win”, but the ones that I enjoyed are definitely more than those that weren’t really my taste, so it has been difficult to make a selection. But here there are the 9 best (according to me) reads of 2024!

The Fraud by Zadie Smith

This was the very first book of 2024 and it was in eAudiobook format through the BorrowBox app. It was also my very first book by Zadie Smith, and what a treat this was! It was a great introduction to her writing and the eAudiobook I listened to was read by Zadie Smith herself.

This is a historical book, with the “Tichborne Trial” in the background and the two main characters being a woman and a former slave, it shows how the British Empire was built on the labour of slaves, the misappropriation of lands in far-away places (i.e. Jamaica) and how this has never been really acknowledged to this day. You can see how some people might find this book uncomfortable, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum

This book found itself in my hands one day while I was covering the main desk at work, and from the title I was expecting something different. After reading the plot, I HAD to borrow it.

It’s a book that touches on the experience of a second-generation Palestinian-American, so you understand why I wanted to read it. And it didn’t disappoint! It provides a glance into the world of a family that emigrated from Palestine to America in the 1970s, the culture clash between Arab Muslims and Americans, touching also on the Nakba. It is highly recommended.

Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? Julie Smith

Another eAudiobook, this time on Spotify.

A beautiful book of advice on how to live with more confidence and compassion (both towards others and yourself). Enjoying it as an audiobook felt like having a personal therapist offering valuable life lessons. While it’s not a replacement for professional therapy, it serves as a great resource for understanding your thought processes and discovering ways to enhance your well-being.

It also clarified which aspects I could tackle independently and where I might benefit from a therapist’s support. Get ready to put in some effort!

A Thousand Golden Cities: 2,500 Years of Writing from Afghanistan and its People by Justin Marozzi

This was truly eye-opening on a Country that is so full of history and yet has been relegated as being full of uncivilised people. Got it as an ebook on BorrowBox, and I’ll be honest it took me almost 2 months to finish because it’s around 1000 pages and full of excerpts from different books and sources: some I found were easier to read than others. There were many descriptions of the geography and the people by different authors in different times, from 200 BCE to 2000 CE, extracts (briefly) an ally to the West.

This book shows how, because of its peculiar location, Afghanistan has been used and abused by other empires.

It’s absolutely recommended.

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

This was just “Wow”. Another eAudiobook on the BorrowBox app. A kind of fantasy, but set in the very real Sri Lanka in the 1990s and its civil war, this is also a mystery book. A story of queer people, colonialism and corruption, it’s funny and sour. The idea of the seven moons as the time in the afterlife to make peace with oneself is so interesting, and the main character in the book uses this time to find who killed him.

It was easily one of my favourite books this year.

The Order of the Day by Éric Vuillard

I would have never chosen this book as it covers a time in history with which I can’t cope (WWII). It’s thanks to a friend that I read this book – I’m so lucky to have the friends I have!

While the book is promoted as being about various meetings of heads of state in the 1930s, I would argue that this is also a book clearly demonstrating how few families and companies own maybe not everything, but definitely a very good chunk of the economy. And they have always played major roles in politics too, by influencing events that at the time looked insignificant, but actually revealed themselves to be very important later.

It’s a short and (bitter)sweet book that should be read by everybody.

Paper Cup by Karen Campbell

A colleague suggested this book, she ordered it from another library for me and it took ages to arrive as that library was set to close soon and a lot of the stock was in boxed destined to other libraries, so I forgot about it and I didn’t have any idea of what the book was about until it arrived.

And it was absolutely brilliant! The main theme is homelessness, and this was another eye-opener. It’s set in Scotland in 2010s, the main character is a woman, and the book deals with her experience living in the streets for half of her life, but also an unexpected pilgrimage.

It’s a really sweet book, easy to read because of the beautiful writing but still heavy for the very real theme of homelessness.

I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest with You by Miranda Hart

This is the book I didn’t know I needed until I read it. Aside from the series “Miranda” (which I loved) by Miranda Hart herself, I didn’t really know her and her books. So I was happy to listen to the eAudiobook, read by Miranda, on Spotify. I couldn’t stop listening to it!

In this book, she shares her journey with chronic illness, detailing her struggles with being misdiagnosed multiple times and the reluctance of general practitioners to take patients—especially women—seriously when they seek answers about their symptoms. It’s such a close theme to me, that I felt so seen and understood (as I have been misdiagnosed twice, not been taken seriously after having been in and out of the GP practice for 4 years and now having been diagnosed with fibromyalgia) that I cried a few times while listening to it.

But it’s still Miranda Hart, and you will also get many laughs out of it!

Tyger by S.F. Said

Another eAudiobook on BorrowBox, again dealing with themes like racism and colonialism (is there a pattern? she asked rhetorically). It’s a fantasy book for young adults set in a similar world to ours, but with the British Empire still going strong, talking magical animals and a war of supernatural powers, where the themes of colonialism and racism are dealt with in such a sweet and delicate way, while at the same time almost presenting the reader with a call to action for the new generations (and possibly the older ones, too).

I’m a sucker for cats and here there is the gentle, big talking Tyger you can find in a YA book. It was so easy to listen to, I finished it in just a few days and who knows if there might be a sequel?

Conclusion

Looking at the list of books read this year, it didn’t really feel like I read a lot, but 39 books is not too bad. I am also aware that not everybody has the same time to read, the same attention span, etc, some people can read 5 books and some can read 150, we are all different and the main thing is to read whenever possible.

A couple of books didn’t make “the cut”: had to make a selection to bring you what I thought were the best reads for me, but I’ll leave you with the titles in case you want to check them out:

  • The Little Snake by A.L. Kennedy
  • All My Friends are Superheroes by Andrew Kaufman
  • How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell

I hope you have managed to read something this year and that maybe this post inspired you to read a new book. Or maybe you’ve already read one of these books, so let me know if you enjoyed them or not.

In the meantime, have a lovely night and cheers to the New Year!

Love,

TVCL xx

Book of the Month – Cat Out of Hell

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Hi beauties! I hope everything is well with you! For the second instalment of Book of the Month I wanted to share with you this book, which is a very easy read by author Lynne Truss (not to be confused with the new UK Prime Minister, and ex Shell employee, Liz Truss) – Cat out of Hell.

This is not the first book I’ve read by Lynne Truss: I started with Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (a book for grammar-Nazi, and I mean it with all the love as I feel very close to them) and I also read the sequel of Cat out of Hell, which is The Lunar Cats.

What’s in the book?

Clearly, I was drawn up to this book because of the title: it has “cat” in it and that was already a great selling point! And having read Eats, Shoots and Leaves I knew the writing would have not disappointed me.

It is also a short book, and the version that was readily available from the library was in large print, which made it even an easier read (not ashamed of taking a large print book and I encourage you to try them!).

The main characters are a librarian and two “evil cats”: the story follows some deaths connected to sightings of such felines and the librarian is going to solve these mysteries. Love me a story involving a smart detective librarian!

Truss has a very specific sense of humour that you can see in most of her books: it’s dry and very British, so it might not be for everybody. But it’s surely my favourite!

As for the genre, it’s a delicious mix of fantasy and mystery. If you like the idea of a fantasy/mystery book with the main character a detective librarian, there is also the series The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman (and will definitely feature AT LEAST one book of the series here).

Some Quotes

“Since Mary died, I have looked at people bothering about ridiculous things and I simply cannot bear it! How can they be ignorant of the fact that – in a second – we are gone? Any sort of cruelty or stupidity dismays me.” (p.75)

“The smell – well. WE’d noticed the smell, of course, but we didn’t realise it was coming from here. Some of the readers – well, you know what they’re like.” (p.82)

“I was so startled that I giggled. This man can’t have satanic eyeballs, I thought. He’s a librarian.” (p.170)

Conclusion

This is a very easy read and very funny and the writing is impeccable. The plot is perfect, especially for those who love libraries, librarians and cats. A great read for any time of the year, from a cosy Sunday afternoon with a blanket and cup of tea, or for the beach.

Whether you’ve read it or plan to, let me know your thoughts.

Love,

TVCL xx

Reading and my love for it

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I have been very lucky that since I was a child my parents have instilled the love for books and reading. My dad was already retired when I was born so he played an important role in raising me and I still remember him reading books on physics (and specialistic magazines on astronomy as well as computing). My mom was the one working every day and commuting and she loves reading and writing. Her commutes were a great time for her to get some time for herself and to read. Thanks to her work, one of the bonuses was that`1 she would get money in vouchers to spend in certain places, one of these was a bookstore in the city where she was working. It was always an exciting time when she was getting this voucher because she started taking me with her to buy the books for her and me. Oh! The books, the smell of that bookstore, paper and glue, the quiet buzz of people going there to buy stories but also to be in a serene environment away from the craziness of the city centre. I always enjoyed these visits and my mom never put limits on what we could buy (in terms of genre) and I think that’s a very positive way of educating kids as when you start imposing limits you’ll see that things like a taboo and eventually you might lose interest. Also, my little girl’s mind wasn’t going to be limited to “girly” books and if I were to choose an adventure or horror book, my mom would let me take it.

Now. You might think “But you are a librarian! You shouldn’t buy books, but you should go to the library!” I feel you, I really do and I wouldn’t agree with going to bookstores just for the sake of it, especially after my studies in Librarianship and having been working in a library for 4 years, I know that bringing kids to a library, making them understand the whole concept of borrowing things and then returning them. But these are peculiar situations: my mom was working till late and there was a small library in the village where we used to live with such reduced opening times that it was impossible for my mom to take me there; plus, the money was from the company my mom used to work for. So it’s almost a situation of “taking from the rich to give to the poor” kind of thing XD

On a Sunday we would all be reading something and it was such a relaxing time providing a break from the weekly madness of school visiting relatives and trying not to be bullied by schoolmates and the same relatives.

Reading has always been a pleasure. Except for those times when at school they forced us to read some authors or some books that I found utterly obnoxious – the authors – or extremely depressing – the books -: that was when teachers wanted people to read only those books that were deemed respectable enough: no comic books, manga, no Dork Diaries etc.

At the beginning of the school year, I would have been the second one to have read more books during the summer: no need to force me into reading. I would prefer the company of those fictional characters or learning about different species of animals to play with the other children. And that would also apply to holidays: every time we were going on holiday, whether for a few days or weeks, I had to bring with e AT LEAST ONE book: there would always be space for a book in my luggage. Probably now this is even more relevant because I tend to travel alone and having a book with me it means I am not really alone (not that I mind being by myself, but you know what I mean). It doesn’t matter where I go or for how long I am away, there has to be a book with me.

Benefits of Reading

Reading brings you to other words, it helps you develop more sensitivity and empathy when you read fiction, and it teaches you new things or strengthens your knowledge obviously, it might be that a book isn’t suitable for you (it happened that I couldn’t finish a book because it wasn’t for me or that I finished one but leaving me disappointed). This means that when you choose a book you’ll have to be careful because you’ll get into that world with those characters and you will be together for a bit. It is understandable when people tell me: “I don’t like to read, I look at the page and my mind goes blank” and I think that that’s because you haven’t found the right book. Yet. And with the book, I mean anything that is written because we are not all the same (otherwise the word would be pretty boring). Probably you have tried to read a fantasy while you actually would prefer romance, or you have been advised to read a history book when it is the latest anime that would make you happy. This is also part of the problem of the divide between readers and non-readers: some readers are too judgemental toward those who don’t read or what they read which makes the non-readers lose the will to read. We are all different and the main message here is we are all different: read, READ, read whatever catch your curiosity, whatever tickles your brain, because that will help you develop vocabulary, and grammar, it will help you relieve stress and more.

One of the books I read recently was the fifth book of “The Invisible Library” series which is not what you would expect. A beautiful fantasy with the main character a librarian but she’s a spy as well, if you want something fast-paced, with mysteries and intrigues, dragons and Faes and multi-worlds set in different periods in time, then this is for you. I always recommend it because Genevieve Cogman (the author) never fails to write a compelling story. Nice and easy read (might do a little review some time!).

To Conclude

Reading is one of the pleasures of life. Getting into other lives, other stories, learning new things. Don’t get discouraged by your past experiences and read all that you can.

Love,

TVCL xx