23 April is World Book Day.
Here is a selection of our top picks and new reads, inspired by The Book Lounge.
I Am Ella by Joanne Jowell
Ella Blumenthal is a powerhouse and her story tells the tale of resilience. She is a holocaust survivor that stayed in 3 different concentration camps. On the day she was sent to the gas chambers, Ella was one of the 200 women who had exceeded the quota of 500 women for the day and were then removed from the chambers. I am Ella tells her survival story of how she escaped death and built a new life for herself in South Africa.
Image credit: The Book Lounge
The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li
Winner of the 2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and named the Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, NPR, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Los Angeles Review of Books, Financial Times, San Francisco Chronicle, LitHub, Buzzfeed, and more, Yiyun Li’s The Book of Goose (FSG) has caused quite the stir in the literary community. It tells the fictional tale of Agnès who receives news that her best friend, Fabienne has died. Fabienne helped Agnès escape the war 10 years ago and now Agnès can tell their story. This is one of friendship, intimacy, loss, and obsession.
Image credit: Goodreads
Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry
Old God’s Time skillfully explores the disintegration of memory as a side effect of trauma, as Tom Kettle fragmentally recollects surviving childhood sexual abuse within Catholic institutions. Tom is retired from Garda (the national police service of Ireland) and wallows in his grief after losing his wife, June – who too survived sexual abuse. He spends his days looking out at the Irish Sea, in his wicker chair, smoking cigarillos. He is riddled with loneliness and yearns for the love and affection of his daughter, but settles for being needed by his former colleagues working on a case.
A Spell of Good Things by Ayòbámi Adébáyò
Nigerian-born author, Ayòbámi Adébáyò sheds light on the have-and-the-have-nots in Nigeria in this fictional rollercoaster. Eniola’s father has recently lost his job and since he is a boy and built like a man, he does what he can to make ends meet for his family: on some days that means he needs to beg on the streets. Wuraola, on the other hand, comes from a well-to-do family and is an overwhelmed doctor. Wuraola and Eniola’s paths cross and they find themselves wrapped up in sudden violence, highlighting the shared humanity between these two characters whose lives are so vastly different.
Image credit: The Book Lounge
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