Books Recommended to Me

A bit ago I asked for short books written by Not Men here and on Bluesky and this is what everyone came up with.

I confess that what I have done is not read any of them because I am the worst and I have issues with people telling me what to do. Instead what I read was some short story collections that were all 2.5* at best, a bunch of sequels to thrillers (including the sequel to The Plot, called The Sequel) and finished listening to the audiobook of The Mirror and the Light which, lowkey, makes all other books look bad.

I am now reading a backlist Patricia Highsmith novel called Found on the Street that I got for £1 in a charity shop. It contains a character called Ralph Linderman who seems to largely be a vehicle for Highsmith to express all her opinions on the modern world of 1986 and her opinions are very very bad.

If I hadn’t read Highsmith’s Wikipedia page and know that she was a vicious and unashamed racist, antisemite and misantrope who seemed to hate women as much as she fancied them I would assume that Linderman is an incel-type baddie character. Unfortunately, I have and I know that she was an awful human so I am mostly reading on in horrified fascination to find out whether/how this obvious self-insert character who keeps going on long tangents about how much he hate Black people, women, Jews and everyone apart from his dog is going to turn out to be the hero. I’ll let you know.¹

In the meantime, here’s some recommendations and my opinions on the ones I’ve read.

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An asterisk means it was recommended more than once.

Pointy brackets means someone recommended an author’s entire catalogue.

Links are to bookshop.org where possible. I don’t have an affiliate account.

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• Orbital - Samantha Harvey* (I confess this was too many vibes, not enough plot for me)

• The Rose Code - Kate Quinn

• The Outrun - Amy Liptrot

• Black Hole Survival Guide - Janna Levin

• The Artificial Silk Girl - Irmgard Keun

• After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie - Jean Rhys

• Pivot - Laura Lexx

• <Muriel Spark>*

• Girlfriend on Mars - Deborah Wills

• Western Lane - Chetna Maroo

• The Exhibitionist - Charlotte Mendelson

• Wandering Souls - Cecile Pin

• End of Days - Jenny Erpenbeck (trans. Susan Bernofsky)

• <Michelle Paver> (Love all her books except Wakenhyrst).

• The Expendable Man - Dorothy B Hughes

• Territory of Light - Yuko Tsushima

• We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson* (adore adore adore)

• Quartet in Autumn - Barbara Pym

• <Jeanette Winterson>

• The Serviceberry - Robin Wall Kimmerer

• Where the Wind Calls Home - Samar Yazbek (trans Leri Price)

• Mammoth - Eva Baltasar (trans Julia Sanches)

• Ghost Wall - Sarah Moss (loved this; perfect combo of vibes and plot)

• The Crane Husband - Kelly Barnhill

• Woman, Eating - Claire Kohda

• The Centre - Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi

• Becoming Duchess Goldblatt - Anon

• My Sister, The Serial Killer - Oyinken Braithwaite (enjoyed this)

• The Need - Helen Phillips

• Reynard the Fox - retold by Anne Louise Avery

• Convenience Store Woman - Sayaka Murata (enjoyed this; enjoyed Earthlings even more)

• Slow Days, Fast Company - Eve Babitz

• Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan* (cracking, if a little cold. Film bangs)

• Vagabonds! - Eloghosa Osunde

• How to be a Tudor - Ruth Goodman

• Beowulf - trans Maria Dhavana Headley (alright this; tho the “bro” thing wore off quick for me)

• <Elizabeth Strout>

• Coup de Grace - Sofia Ajram

• The Hotel - Daisy Johnson* (read this and, again, too many vibes not enough plot. Probably worked better on the radio)

• Last Words from Montmatre - Qui Miaojin

• My Death - Lisa Tuttle

• The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place - Kate Summerscale (really liked this)

• Butter - Asako Yusuki (this is the Waterstones Book of the Year and a temp told me it reminded her of A Little Life, if that is something that appeals to you).

• Diary of a Void - Emi Yagi

• Mongrel - Hanako Footman

• The Housekeeper and the Professor - Yoko Ogawa

• Our Wives Under the Sea - Julia Armfield (did not get the hype on this one; too much ennui, not enough monsters imo)

• Greek Lessons - Han Kang

• The Doll’s Alphabet - Camilla Grudova

1. Her one good opinion was that she was virulently pro-Palestine but as this derived from and fed a furious antisemitism about all Jews everywhere I am afraid it’s hard to count it.