Lots of tempting paperback goodies to spend your Christmas book tokens on if you’re lucky enough to be given some this year, including several I’ve already read. 
Spanning a decade in Nigeria beginning in 2006, Chukwuebuka Ibeh’s’s Blessings is a poignant coming-of-age story in which a boy struggles to keep his sexuality under wraps in a deeply homophobic society. Obiefuna is enrolled in a seminary when his father catches him with a boy, his mother’s illness kept from him for the three years he spends there. At university, he falls deeply in love with an older man just before Nigeria enacts laws so draconian gay men begin locking themselves into marriage. Ibeh delivers his story in beautifully understated prose, drawing Obiefuna with compassion and sensitivity.
Hisham Matar’s eloquent Booker short-longlisted My Friends follows three Libyan exiles, all of whom were protesting outside their country’s London Embassy on April 17, 1984 when WPC Yvonne Fletcher was fatally shot. Khaled wins a scholarship to Edinburgh University where he meets Mustapha who persuades him to attend the demo where both are badly wounded when shots are fired into the crowd. Years later, he meets Hosam, beginning a friendship which will embrace Mustapha. When the Arab Spring erupts, Mustapha becomes part of the rebel force in Libya, while Khaled holds back, surprised when Hosam joins their friend. Decades after they first met, Hosam returns to London on his way to a new life with his family in America.
Opening in Oregon, Ashani Lewis’s Winter Animals sees 36-year-old Elen, evicted from the house she once shared with her husband, taken up by four young British people, whose only object in life seems to be skiing and enjoying themselves. Seduced by their shiny confidence, she agrees to join them in their latest squat, an abandoned ski resort above her small hometown. Lewis unfolds her story through Elen often perplexed by why she’s been picked out to join this group of ski bums whose way of life has been cobbled together by Luka, their tacitly acknowledged leader, from the writings of a nineteenth-century French philosopher. A novel I found absorbing, but much is left frustratingly unresolved.
Julius Taranto’s How I Won a Nobel Prize is a slice of academic satire with cancel culture in its sights. Helen, one of the brightest minds of her generation, joins her Nobel laureate boss at a research institute on a small island in the North Atlantic, where he’s been banished along with many other academics and assorted other transgressors, persuading her partner to spend twelve months there with her. Helen tells us her story, so immersed in her work that she can’t see the wood for the trees but brought up short by both events and her husband’s increasing anger. Taranto’s novel is very funny at times and even-handed in its skewering of both sides, although subtlety is not his strong point.
It’s its distinctly unusual structure that attracts me to Christine Coulson’s One Woman Show which tells the story of a wealthy woman in the style of exhibition notes. ‘Christine Coulson, who has written hundreds of exhibition wall labels for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, precisely distils each stage of Kitty’s sprawling life into that distinct format, every brief snapshot in time a wry reflection on womanhood, ownership, value and power. Described with wit, poignancy and humour over the course of the twentieth century, Kitty emerges as an eccentric heroine who disrupts her privileged, porcelain life with both major force and minor transgressions. As human foibles propel each delicately crafted text, Coulson playfully asks: who really gets to tell our stories?’ says the blurb appealing to my thirst for novelty.
That’s it for January’s first batch of paperbacks. A click on a title will take you either to my review or to a more detailed synopsis should you want to know more, and if you’d like to catch up with new fiction it’s here and here. Part two soon…
Chukwuebuka Ibeh is definitely one to watch. I loved Blessings. And the Hisham Matar has been on my TBR for a while. Thanks for reminding me. Though, as ever, your other three choices look worth a punt too.
You’re welcome! That last one might be a bit risky but I can’t seem to resist an unusual structure.
And why not? Challenge in our reading is good – from time to time.
Absolutely!
Thank you. All new writers to me, except Matar whose book has gotten great reviews this year. Still haven’t read it though. The book Butter is keeping me occupied now. It’s my pre Christmas book.
Are you enjoying it, Lucy? It’s one of those books I’ve been wondering whether to read or not.
Only started it so it’s early days. But the writing is good (translated well) and storyline is entertaining and insightful regarding Japanese culture.
Sounds promising. Thanks for letting me know.
Finished reading Butter this week. Its a very good innovative storyline and I learned a lot about Japanese culture including attitudes to women and food, relationships, and quality of life issues. Saying that the book is very long and dense in areas. A bit of trimming would have been welcome. Its 450 pages.
Definitely sounds worth reading. I’ll add it to my list.
I like the sound of the Taranto and Blessings. I’ve been wondering about Butter too.
It’s one of those titles where the hype holds me back but perhaps Lucy will help us out!
Thanks for doing this for paperbacks, I never remember when they’re coming out! Winter Animals sounds potentially interesting, a bit like Creation Lake.
You’re welcome. I’ve not read Creation Lake but Winter Animals was a bit mixed for me. Worth reading, though.
Blessings is a wonderful book.
I was very impressed by it too.
Hadn’t heard of One Woman Show at all, but what an interesting way to tell a story!
Isn’t it? Likely either to be a stand out success or fall flat on its face, I think!
Ha…I read How I Won the Nobel Prize…. One person sounded a bit like the Prez-elect!
Oh, dear! Most of them are pretty awful as I remember it.
Blessings sounds really wonderful. Thank you for the reminder!
You’re welcome! I’m not sure it had a huge amount of attention first time around. Hoping it will attract more in paperback.
How I Won the Nobel Prize sound like one that I’ll enjoy–I love satire and humour around the academia.
Me, too, particularly as I live with an academic. They’re very often written by people who seem to be getting something off their chest.
Ooh One Woman Show sounds really intriguing. I’m just going back over your recent posts and adding to my Amazon wish list. I’ve been reading the articles in the media about books to look out for, but your suggestions appeal to me much more!
I’m very pleased to hear that! I have hopes for One Woman Show.