10 fiction books you can't tear yourself away from

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Take note.

When, if not in winter, should you crawl under the covers and read a book? And let everyone watch TV series: we know how much drive and plot twists, topical topics and bold conclusions, daring humor and bright hope are in the books. We chose ten excellent fiction novels that are very difficult to put off.

1. "Her Body and Others" by Carmen Maria Machado

A collection of short stories that became a finalist for the Nebula Prize. The author Carmen Maria Machado is one of the main contemporary representatives of new experimental prose. Her fantastic collection of stories brings new perspectives on femininity and sexuality. Borrowing techniques from a wide variety of genres - from magical realism to horror - Machado explores the role and self-awareness of women in the modern world.

“Mara,” I say, “Mara, please, please don't.

And it doesn't stop, it goes on and on. For hours I jump next to her on the bed, the howl fills the whole room, I can't help hearing it, and the pure baby smell is replaced by something red-hot, like a burner on an electric stove on which there is nothing. I touch the little feet, and she screams, I snort in her tummy, and she screams, and something breaks in me: I am a continent, but I can’t take it anymore.”

2. "Vanishing Land" by Julia Phillips

Two sisters disappear in Kamchatka. The investigation comes to a standstill, and before us are unfolding the stories of 12 women involved in this incident. They want to rebuild their lives after the tragedy.

The book is only formally a thriller, but in reality it is a subtle psychological study. The author Julia Phillips managed to recreate the atmosphere of Kamchatka: for this she lived there for a whole year. The novel was a finalist for the US National Book Award and received rave reviews from critics.

“Marina herself was holding on. I went to work in the editorial office, wrote articles, and kept up small talk. If friends invited me to visit, I accepted invitations. I regularly called the police - what if there is news? But that was all she had the strength for, and sometimes even these rituals seemed impossible. Once she told fairy tales, knew how to joke, was a mother, and now she has become nothing. Alla Innokentyevna got the hang of organizing holidays after her loss, and Marina lost the meaning of life.

Someone called her. The hand is pressed to the chest. Under the back of the head there is a hard, prickly, unforgiving board. Marina remembered what she had prepared for Sonya for breakfast that day: oatmeal in milk with frozen berries. She peeled the younger one orange. Daughters' shoulders over the table. Fragile like porcelain cups."

3. Fleischman in Trouble, Teffy Brodesser-Ackner

One day, 41-year-old Toby Fleischman's wife leaves. And it doesn't just leave - it disappears after 15 years of marriage. Fleischman dreamed of divorce for a long time, but did not expect that two children would stay with him. This comedy novel with a serious message will help you take a fresh look at family relationships and modern ideas about life and love.

The novel was included in the longlist of the US National Book Awards and was named the best book of 2019 by The New York Times, Vogue, GQ, The Guardian.

“Your wife is not a supergirl or a girl friend that you decide to keep with you forever. This is something completely new. This is something that you create with her, and you are one of the ingredients in this business. She cannot be a wife without you. Therefore, to hate her, to be at enmity with her, or to tell your friends how she torments you is like hating your own finger. It's like hating your own finger, even if it gets gangrene. You cannot separate yourself from him."

4. "Troubled" by Lisa Ko

One day, 11-year-old Demin Guo's mother, Polly, a Chinese immigrant, leaves for work and does not return. In despair, the boy tries to understand: she got into trouble or left him? According to critic Galina Yuzefovich, this is a classic "romance with a secret": together with the hero we will seek the truth about what happened to Polly on that fateful day. But at the same time, we have before us a painful and emotionally accurate story about growing up, finding oneself, understanding, forgiving and integrating into a foreign world without losing one's own.

“Now he could swear as much as he wanted, but the words seemed rotten on his tongue. He tried to remember everything about his mother. How little time she belonged only to Demin. Mom tucked her jeans twice to prevent them from scuffing on the ground. She pulled down the sleeves of her sweaters like mitts. I remembered her laugh out of place, and how she pinched Demin by the fat on her hands and called him a meatball, and the delicate beauty of her features. The elusive charm of the mother had to be sought. The tenderness of the mouth - the corners of the lips were slightly raised, giving her an expression of slight amusement, and the eyebrows were arched, so that the eyes seemed animated - on the verge of delight."

5. “We are all beautiful for just a brief moment on earth,” Ocean Wuong

A partly autobiographical, deeply lyrical novel by renowned Vietnamese American poet Ocean Wong. An attempt to rethink the history of his family, who left their homeland due to the Vietnam War. A letter from a son to his mother is touching and full of memories that sometimes you want to forget forever. Wong talks about a life that, like the existence of a butterfly, is as tragic as it is beautiful. The book has received many prestigious literary awards.

“I read that beauty requires repetition - it happened historically. We multiply what we find aesthetically pleasing: a vase, a picture, a bowl, a poem. We recreate an object in order to preserve it, to prolong its existence in time and space. To admire what you like - a fresco, a snow cap glowing at sunset on a mountain top, a boy with a mole on his cheek - means to recreate this image, continue it in your gaze, multiply it, prolong it. When I look in the mirror, I create a replica of myself for the future, in which I may not be."

6. "Night Ferry to Tangier", Kevin Barry

In the Spanish port of Algeciras, two elderly Irishmen toil - Maurice and Charlie, longtime smuggling partners. They are looking for Charlie's daughter, who fled Ireland after her mother died. The novel is written in one breath and reads the same way. The dynamic plot flows like a jazz improvisation - from an intimate comedy to melancholic memories. The rights to film the novel were acquired by actor and film producer Michael Fassbender.

“A swell of energy runs through the building, and it gives off with anticipation - it seems that now the steam will leave or come up. Maurice Hearn pulls his restlessness from the bar into the waiting room. The times come when all you have to do is just live among your ghosts. Keep up the conversation. Otherwise, a wide field of the future will open up - and it will turn out to be nothing more than a huge void.

Think of the old fucking good times, Moss, he tells himself.

7. "Smells of Other People's Houses," Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock

This is Alaska: magnetically beautiful, harsh and dangerous. Ruth, Dora, Alice and Hank live here. And each hero tells his own story, woven of losses, hopes and smells. The writer Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock grew up in Alaska herself. Her novel won several awards and was named one of the best books for young people by the New York Public Library.

“This novel of growing up will be relevant in decades,” says Yulia Petropavlovskaya, editor-in-chief of the publishing house “MIF”. “It is comparable in scale to The Catcher in the Rye. The heroes here are written out in volume, among them there is not a single "typical type", they are all original. And this is a sign of real literature."

“My grandmother took me to the toilet and hissed through her teeth:

- So you think you're special, huh?

She took orange-handled scissors from her bag, and she probably always carried them with her in case something like this happened. The scissors looked like a bird with an iron beak. Very loud. I can still hear the sound with which this wild bird cut my hair. Grandma took me out of the closet and made me stand in the spot that Miss Judy had marked on the floor with a piece of duct tape. No one looked at me openly, but there was a mirror on every wall, so I saw the girls surreptitiously glancing at me. I also saw my hair sticking out in all directions, as if it had been swept over my head with a lawn mower. More curls did not rustle over the pack. I didn't go to the second lesson. And my grandmother never mentioned this day."

8. "One in a Million" by Monica Wood

As part of a scout assignment, an 11-year-old student has to help an elderly lady with the unusual name Una with the housework once a week. While the boy fills the bird feeders and tidies up the shed, Una tells him the story of her long life - she is 104 years old. Every Saturday she is immersed in memories. But one day the boy doesn't come.

This novel is about many things - about loss and loneliness, about fortitude and friendship. A book that will stimulate thinking about the value of everything we have, and will leave behind a bright sadness.

“He loved these people because they loved him. He loved them because they filled his black hole.

And only the boy understood this. The boy who filled his own hole with countless lists, which went to him instead of his father.

Something snapped in his chest, like stones were falling, and he doubled over to hold them.

There is only one boy among all people.

A boy who listened to music with bewilderment and pain. The boy who, armed with scissors and glue, carefully and tirelessly assembled his father's life from fragments, glued and stored, page by page, page by page."

9. "Five Lives" by Halle Rubenhold

Books about five women who were victims of Jack the Ripper. It is based on startling human stories, a dark portrait of Victorian London, and real facts that read like a gripping historical novel. The author of the book, the historian Holly Rubenhold, reconstructs the events of the lives of girls who have been accused of prostitution by many. She does not represent her heroines as saints, but shows the consequences of how limiting freedom of choice affects a person's life.

“Despite his injuries, a stitched throat wound and deep cuts all over his body, William Nichols recognized his wife. He recognized her small, thin features and high cheekbones. The gray eyes staring lifelessly at the ceiling were familiar to him, as was her brown hair, silvery in the years since their last meeting. There could be no doubt: in front of him lay Polly, as he called her, the very Polly he had married and whom he had once dearly loved. Polly, who bore him six children, cradled and nursed them, nursed them during illness. During the sixteen years of their marriage, they had all sorts of things, but laughter and joy still sometimes visited their home. He introduced her as a young eighteen-year-old bride, walking to the altar of St. Brides, arm in arm with her father. They were happy, although not for long."

10. Call to Memphis by Peter Taylor

A novel by the American writer Peter Taylor, who won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for it. The book, which has long become a classic, has only been released in Russia now. New York editor Philip Carver returns home to provincial Memphis at the request of the sisters. Their widowed father wants to marry a young woman, and the sisters are determined to thwart this event. A calm and self-controlled novel, the reading of which is like a leisurely savoring of port.

“At a relatively mature age, I was playing Peter Pan, planning to live among the Lost Boys, and blaming my father's unfathomable machinations for everything. While I was packing my things - not much more than would be needed for an overnight trip - and dressing - in everything normal, everyday - it seemed as if someone else was dressing and collecting me - or at least that I had no will of my own. I did not feel explicitly or consciously that my sisters were in control of my actions, but I felt that I was not acting on my own in everything."