Quotes from my all-time favourite books
So, what are you reading this summer?
What are your all-time favourite books? is a question I ask my friends a lot. Books that gave you a certain high that you’ve been chasing ever since. Well, here are my favourites from the past few years. And look, maybe you’ll find them severely mediocre. It happens! I also read so many hyped-up, critically acclaimed books and thought, how is this a 4.3 on Goodreads?
I’ll stay graceful (I’ll try) and won’t share all the books I didn’t like. I mean, send me a message, and I’ll spill it all. But I guess just like any art form, reading is subjective, and every time I read something average—or just quite bad—I accept it as a sort of taste-training/tuning exercise, cause sometimes you have to read the bad to recognise the good. So profound on a Monday.
The Safe Keep by Yael van Der Wouden. I love thinking, reading, and discussing about social hierarchy in our very very capitalistic society. Especially what happens when people move through classes, and how they do that, and how their behaviour changes. As it turns out, a lot of people used Second World War to climb up. And I read a lot about the prelude to Second World War, and what happened before the camps, and at the camps. This book describes what happened after the war, how lives (and things) got stolen. And how someone can act as if they are part of a polished higher echelons of society but they don’t belong there. It made me think of that scene in Zone of Interest when the wife of the Auschwitz commandant puts on a fur coat that belonged to a Jewish woman. And you can tell… the coat doesn’t fit, she doesn’t know how to stand in it, carry it, cause she’s trying to be a sophisticated woman, and she’s not. It broke my heart, it made me feel sick, and angry, and I am so happy I read it. This book is also deeply sexy, so maybe that’ll convince you to read it.
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. Spring of 2020, aka peak of Covid, a woman talks about her coming-of-age romance with a boy who later became a huge actor. The whole book is set on a cherry picking farm, and her audience are her three adult daughters. Just like all Ann Patchett books, it’s calm and comforting. It puts attention on the lives parents had before their children were born. I started thinking of my mum. Who was she before she had me and my sister? What was her favourite dress, her first trip without her parents, her high-school crush, her going-out ritual, her favourite meal. Tell me everything.
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. I remember buying this book, and the salesman behind the till was so excited. This one is insane he said. It’s a time-travel thriller but there’s also a love story. And it talks a lot about climate change and race. And he was right. It’s electric, haunting, and, it just felt BIG. The kind of book where you say wow to the page. It was just fascinating to imagine what it would be like if you took a 19th century naval officer, and dropped them in present-day London. What would they think of the things we’ve gotten used to: heatwaves, birth-control, dating, 45-min flights, and not having a maid haha. Also, it made me think a lot about time-travel, and how you, kind of, can time-travel. Cause everything we do (and don’t do) impacts our future. It prompts a chain reaction. And if you don’t change anything in your life, if everything is just settled, decided on, and 100% stable, then the future sometimes seems so certain, that it almost feels like the past.
Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors. If you want a truthful depiction of sisterhood, this is it. My friend Emma and I have a bookclub, and Blue Sisters is our highest rated book. We are all girls in our late 20s and early 30s, and this is about four sisters in their late 20s and early 30s, so that says enough. We spoke about it for 3 hours. It’s just so well observed, so complex, and with a level of detail that never becomes too tedious. One of the sisters sadly dies (not a spoiler) and they are all returning to their family home in New York, and they need to deal with each other, their grief, and their difunctional parents. The dialogue is amazing, and so many times I thought, this is exactly how me and my sister speak to each other. I loved it. It ripped my heart out, and I re-confirmed that my sister is basically the love of my life. Nothing new there.
Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. This is my favourite book. A lot of people say it’s about video games, but video games are just a vessel that carries the story. It’s rather a multilayered coming-of-age story about a creative partnership between two childhood best friends. The whole story spans over decades, and it contains huge—huuuge—emotions. And maybe the most inimitable writing I’ve ever read. It portrays sisterly love, romantic love, parental, and grandparental love in such a magical way that I was underlining multiple sentences per page. Lots of vivid sensorial details that make you feel as if you’re there. I’m insanely jealous of anyone who hasn’t read this book and can experience the wonder of it for the first time. I also have some friends who are my soulmates, and who hated this book haha. So think of it what you will, while I’ll be thinking about the last paragraph of the seventh chapter.
Now what am I reading this summer? I will be gone for the next four weeks; work-trips, seeing my grandparents in Croatia, weddings in Spain, and hiking holidays (feeling very lucky) so I need books to keep me off social media on planes, trains and automobiles. My overall summer goal is to get screen-time to less that 1.5 hrs, so here are my solutions…
I heard good things about Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid so I just picked it up from my local bookstore during lunch-break. Then Skipshock by Caroline O'Donoghue got delivered to my house. I’ll also be doing a little Ann Patchett marathon, reading Bel Canto and The Dutch House, because I love Ann Patchett and somehow I still haven’t read her most famous books. I’ll also likely re-read Heartburn, because every girl in her late 20s and early 30s loves Nora Ephron, and I’m here to obey the rules. I’ll also be reading a lot of Vogue Adria haha cause I like nothing more than reading about fancy things in my mother tongue.
Thank you endlessly for reading! I have to go and pack now. I’ll share a little “how to always pack carry-on,” because the last time I checked-in my bag was four years ago when I moved from Lisbon to the Netherlands. And my friend Marta thinks I’m lying. I am not lying. Haha. I’ll show you how to do it. Lots of love, L.