5 Books I love

Last year I had the pleasure of really reading the books I purchased. I think I have finally found a better balance of maintaining life while prioritizing the downtime to read, my favorite thing to do (and, of course, my brain thanks me majorly for the time away from the usual blue-light-screen-late-night-decompression-time). I am packing up my apartment, including all of my books, which gave me the opportunity to reflect on just how many wonderful books I read in 2024. I was surprised at how many phenomenal books I totally forgot about, hoping they are still tucked away in the abyss of my membrane somewhere. Without further ado, here are five books I really loved last year.

#1 — Clarice Lispector’s Complete Stories

• “It is because I dove into the abyss that I am beginning to love the abyss I am made of.”

Clarice Lispector was a new discovery for me, thanks to the CHANEL book club deliveries I sometimes receive throughout the year! There was a whole session dedicated to Lispector and I completely fell in love with her work. I am a huge fan of Ernaux and Woolf, so if you enjoy them too, you will heavily appreciate the themes, motifs, and storytelling Lispector conveys in her short stories and novels. Lispector has been referenced as Brazil’s Virgina Woolf. ‘Complete Stories’ is lovely since each chapter is a different short story (as you may be able to surmise from the title), allowing you to dive into various worlds, each compelling stories about motherhood, feminism, and the qualms of what it is to be a woman. Her work is layered with themes of intimacy, introspection, and expectations of society. Highly recommend.

#2 — Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

• “I don't know when we'll see each other again or what the world will be like when we do. We may both have seen many horrible things. But I will think of you every time I need to be reminded that there is beauty and goodness in the world.”

Perhaps a classic, last year I finally got around to reading this book and fell so deeply in love with the writing and the story. Watching the beautiful movie afterwards was the cherry on top. Offering a real in depth look at what it is to be a Geisha, though fictitious, ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ offers a compelling story about the history of being a geisha in pre and post World War II Japan. It is a book filled with love, lessons, and hope. Maybe the cheesiest, simpler books referenced here, but I soaked up every morsel of it. An easier read with a phenomenal story.

#3 — The Stranger by Albert Camus

• “I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world.”

Another classic which I wanted to reread. It had been years since I last read it and I was during a time where I was craving a little bit of brutalism or just existential thought (yanno, sometimes happens). Though slightly unsettling, ‘The Stranger’ provides almost a simple way of thinking, very human, very primitive. I find that sometimes reading novels like this to be comforting. You relate to the character, though not in his actions, but in the characteristics that drive him to his actions, and it feels sympathetic yet disheartening. There is a reason why it is a classic, and I love to revisit it time and time again.

#4 — The Lily in the Valley by Honoré de Balzac

• “A new soul, a soul with rainbow wings, had burst its chrysalis. Descending from the azure wastes where I had long admired her, my star had come to me a woman, with undiminished lustre and purity. I loved, knowing not of love. How strange a thing, this first irruption of the keenest human emotion in the heart of man! I had seen pretty women in other places, but none had made the slightest impression upon me. Can there be an appointed hour, a conjunction of stars, a union of circumstances, a certain woman among all others to awaken an exclusive passion at the period of life when love includes the whole sex?”

Ironic, romantic, beautiful, comical…all emotions you can feel when reading Balzac’s ‘The Lily in the Valley.’ When I read this book I was craving beautiful language and love, and though it offers extreme variations of beautiful language and love, there is a flip side to this novel which I didn’t see coming. There is deep irony, deep satire to the story, and you finish reading it with a smirk on your face like someone just whispered one long 300 page joke in your ear. I did love every second of it, and it was sort of an actual kicker to myself, to wake up sometimes and not be so overly romantic and sensual. Life can be romantic but also real and silly. One of the most beautifully written books I’ve ever read (if you appreciate nature, this one is for you too.)

#5 — Lady Chatterly’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence

• “It's no good trying to get rid of your own aloneness. You've got to stick to it all your life. Only at times, at times, the gap will be filled in. At times! But you have to wait for the times. Accept your own aloneness and stick to it, all your life. And then accept the times when the gap is filled in, when they come. But they've got to come. You can't force them.”

Along the theme of Balzac’s romanticism, ‘Lady Chatterly’s Lover’ is another beautiful, historical, romantic read. The language is lovely but also offers a heavily deep, honest, raw view on sexuality, love, and romance. This book, especially for its time, is so impressive in the way that it speaks of sex for women and men, the cravings of women and men, the differences in society and in status. There are many different morals and takeaways one can have from this book, but I will leave it up to you to decipher.