Alternative Books of the Year
Today, Waterstones announced their Book of the Year. So I thought I'd suggest some alternatives:
1. The Beresford by Will Carver
Everything stays the same for the tenants of The Beresford, a grand old apartment building just outside the city…until the doorbell rings…Will Carver returns with an eerie, deliciously and uncomfortably dark standalone thriller.
2. The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
Get Out meets The Devil Wears Prada in this electric debut about the tension that unfurls when two young Black women meet against the starkly white backdrop of New York City book publishing.
3. How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones
In Baxter's Beach, Barbados, Lala's grandmother Wilma tells the story of the one-armed sister, a cautionary tale about what happens to girls who disobey their mothers.
4. Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
A whipsmart debut about three women—transgender and cisgender—whose lives collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires around gender, motherhood, and sex.
5. Intimacies by Katie Kitamura
Deftly merging the personal with the political, Intimacies tells the story of a translator at the International Court at The Hague and how a confluence of circumstances forces her to question the morality of both her work and her personal life.
6. Brown Baby: A Memoir of Race, Family and Home by Nikesh Shukla
With humour and heart-rending honesty, Nikesh Shukla reflects on fatherhood, feminism, racial politics and how we become ourselves in this memoir that is as elegantly written as it is compassionate.
7. The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr.
A novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence.
8. Jews Don’t Count by David Baddiel
The comedian and author combines powerful polemic and personal testimony to investigate why, in an age of heightened awareness of the evils of systemic racism, anti-Semitism appears to have been neglected by those who consider themselves progressive and enlightened.
9. Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily R. Austin
A tender-hearted and hilarious debut all about the impending inevitability of death, Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead centres on a morbid queer atheist taking the unlikely job of receptionist at a church therapy group.
10. Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
The award-winning author of Say Nothing turns his penetrating gaze to the stupendously wealthy and influential Sackler family, probing the dark and murky methods they have employed to amass their fortune.
Honourable mention: I Belong Here: A Journey Along the Backbone of Britain by Anita Sethi
One woman's journey of reclamation through natural landscapes as she contemplates identity and womanhood, nature, place and belonging.
Have you read any of these? What would your book of the year be?
1. The Beresford by Will Carver
Everything stays the same for the tenants of The Beresford, a grand old apartment building just outside the city…until the doorbell rings…Will Carver returns with an eerie, deliciously and uncomfortably dark standalone thriller.
2. The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
Get Out meets The Devil Wears Prada in this electric debut about the tension that unfurls when two young Black women meet against the starkly white backdrop of New York City book publishing.
3. How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones
In Baxter's Beach, Barbados, Lala's grandmother Wilma tells the story of the one-armed sister, a cautionary tale about what happens to girls who disobey their mothers.
4. Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
A whipsmart debut about three women—transgender and cisgender—whose lives collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires around gender, motherhood, and sex.
5. Intimacies by Katie Kitamura
Deftly merging the personal with the political, Intimacies tells the story of a translator at the International Court at The Hague and how a confluence of circumstances forces her to question the morality of both her work and her personal life.
6. Brown Baby: A Memoir of Race, Family and Home by Nikesh Shukla
With humour and heart-rending honesty, Nikesh Shukla reflects on fatherhood, feminism, racial politics and how we become ourselves in this memoir that is as elegantly written as it is compassionate.
7. The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr.
A novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence.
8. Jews Don’t Count by David Baddiel
The comedian and author combines powerful polemic and personal testimony to investigate why, in an age of heightened awareness of the evils of systemic racism, anti-Semitism appears to have been neglected by those who consider themselves progressive and enlightened.
9. Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily R. Austin
A tender-hearted and hilarious debut all about the impending inevitability of death, Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead centres on a morbid queer atheist taking the unlikely job of receptionist at a church therapy group.
10. Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
The award-winning author of Say Nothing turns his penetrating gaze to the stupendously wealthy and influential Sackler family, probing the dark and murky methods they have employed to amass their fortune.
Honourable mention: I Belong Here: A Journey Along the Backbone of Britain by Anita Sethi
One woman's journey of reclamation through natural landscapes as she contemplates identity and womanhood, nature, place and belonging.
Have you read any of these? What would your book of the year be?
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