Tambourines to Glory by Langston Hughes

Novel form published in 1958

This is a rollicking good time.

Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison

Peapod Classics, 1952.

Another fairy tale for grown ups, this features the journey of a young woman as she encounters mythological creatures, is given a directive by none other than Odin himself, and makes her way in her life through uncertainty and into herself.

Mitchison’s prose is witty, scantly subversive, and delightful. Engaging as the tale is, the way its told is the real gem of this work, and I loved everything about it.

The Law of Dreams by Peter Behrens

House of Anansi Press, 2006

I was fetched by The O’Briens, so I jumped at the chance to take a journey with Fergus O’Briens from an earlier time. Behrens didn’t disappoint. 

Isolation, and the conditions which create it, are on full display as Fergus makes his way across seas, oceans, and continents, doing the best he can in the moment, and frequently wondering how he ended up in this or that particular state, only to decide quite boldly that the only thing for it is to do something completely different. 

I loved everything about this work, but I especially loved the writing. Behrens gets me.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Published by Penguin, 2014

I fell in love with Ng when I read Little Fires Everywhere, and I adored Our Missing Hearts, so when I learned that her debut novel had somehow missed me, I picked up a copy straight away.

This exploration of family, parental expectations, racism, and society is a brilliant and beautiful work. Ng really sets us up with the first sentence and never lets us go after that. 

Brilliant, deeply moving, and powerful. 

The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald

Published by Gerald Duckworth, 1978

I needed more books about books in my life, so I turned to The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald. Books themselves have very little place in the overall plot, and that’s all to the good, as well cheer our heroine on as she explores widowhood as an outsider in a tightly-knit, and often closed-minded, small community. 

The book is dryly funny, witty, and compassionate. It’s a fantastic romp while also being a treatise of the power of having enough gumption to follow a dream, even when that feels like an act of resistance.