Madeleine Thien, author
Lately I have loved Dorothy Tse’s City Like Water, translated from Chinese by Natascha Bruce. It is an unclassifiable, sharp, ingenious, passionate novel in which the city that is dissolving is also one’s only home. I have been telling everyone to read Karen Hao’s Empire of AI so that we can understand the cost of the tools we’ve been told that we need. I re-read Hsiao-Hung Pai’s Scattered Sand: The Story of China’s Rural Migrants because it has stayed with me for more than a decade now. And I am reading Hannah Lillith Assadi’s moving novel, Paradiso 17, written in the weeks before and the year after her father, who was born in Palestine, passed away. Finally, Michael Ondaatje’s selected poems, The Distance of a Shout. This is a life’s work and a book to hold close.
The Book of Records by Madeleine Thien is published by Granta. To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com
Stephen, Guardian reader
Nonesuch by Francis Spufford an entrancing read, juxtaposing the atmosphere and privations of early wartime London with the increasingly weird magical events that unfold within it. The characters, particularly the complex and vivid Iris, are well defined, the scene-setting is cinematic, and the story propulsive. I usually hate mystic woo-woo fantasy writing, and I don’t even really remember why I picked Nonesuch up, but I’m so glad I did.
Sufiyaan Salam, author
Since moving to London (fairly recently) I’ve been trying to submerge myself in its endless histories. So, there’s me, dipping in and out of The Oxford Shakespeare, less so for the guy’s plays (which are obviously great), and more for the impression you get of him through the introductory essays – from the poems his contemporaries wrote about him, his court appearances, the fact he bought a house in Blackfriars for £140! Then, hopping forwards in time, I recently ripped through Monika Radojevic’s Strangerland, which follows her immigrant parents’ mad-dash, stranger-than-fiction love story as it (partly) unfurls across pre-smartphone London. Finally, the glue that holds it all together; I am obsessed with Alan Moore’s From Hell, which uses the 1888 Jack the Ripper murders to weave a magic spell binding together all of London’s most disparate parts, its past, present and future colliding in one big, beautiful, violent epic.
Wimmy Road Boyz by Sufiyaan Salam is published by #Merky. To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
Sue, Guardian reader
When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzén really touched me, and Sixten, the dog, stole my heart. It is a very moving and beautifully written story about the end of life and how we, and those around us, deal with it. That may sound like a grim topic but it’s not. Heartbreaking but also heartwarming. This is a book about how memories crowd into one’s mind as one grows older. It is about relationships, love and friendship. And it is about Bo’s love of his dog and the pain of parting with him. I have read this book twice and it brought tears to my eyes the second time. I have recommended this book to everyone.
