For Freedom and For One Another
Some books for after you vote (if you're in the US)!
November 5, 2024
I heard there’s something important happening today, so here I am with books because they have an extraordinary ability to calm us.
If you’re also in the U.S., please vote. I love you all. <3
Now, on to the books! The end of the year is upon us, friends. It is time for my final two picks of the 2024 Reading Challenge as landscapes bare and my patch of earth goes luteal.
For reference, here’s the post that started it all:
November’s theme: Author is a native Spanish speaker
I’ll be reading January, by Sara Gallardo. Mainly because I have a library copy and I’m trying to finish my library books so I can focus on alllll the books I’ve bought this year.1 This one is about a girl in the Argentine countryside and her self-actualization, her relationship to the land, her body, and the outsized influence of a Catholic mission nearby. Sara Gallardo wrote this one in the 1950s and it’s been required reading in Argentina for decades.
There are so, so many other books that could work with this theme—here are a few:
You Dreamed of Empires, by Álvaro Enrigue. The premise: What if the Spaniards lost? What if the Aztecs won? What would that mean for how the world operates today? Alternate universes aren’t typically my thing, but I bought this immediately.
Silver Nitrate, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. After I dropped off my absentee ballot on Saturday, I stopped by Barnes & Noble just to be in the midst of all the books. I plan to order a hardcover version of this one after reading the first page—absolutely fantastic prose and a bone-chilling narrative set in Mexico City in the 60s-70s. If you’re still feeling spooky season, this one could be a fit for you…
Still Born or After the Winter, by Guadalupe Nettel. I read Still Born earlier this year and wrote about it here. After the Winter came highly recommended by a girl in an ice cream shop two years ago and the owner of my Nashville indie bookshop a year after that, so I’ll be reading it (hopefully—grad school work pending…) in the next couple months.
Anything by Isabel Allende. I LOVED The Wind Knows My Name and it made my best of 2023 list. I also enjoyed A Long Petal of the Sea and Violeta (in that order).
December’s theme: A love story
I’ll be reading The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry. I picked this one up in the little bookshop downtown after reading the first page and not taking a breath until I got through the (lengthy) first sentence. An Irishman in the 1870s American frontier falls in love with the wife of a businessman. They run away together on horseback for freedom and for one another.
Here are a few other ideas that fit the theme too:
When We Meet Again, by Kristen Harmel. I stayed up until 2 in the morning to finish this book. Missed church and everything. A Nazi prisoner of war works on a farm in Florida and falls in love with the daughter of the farmer.2 They are separated at the end of the war and the novel recounts their attempts to find one another again.
Swimming in the Dark, by Tomasz Jedrowski. I read this one over the summer and it’s a forbidden love under a repressive communist government. It’ll probably be one of the best books I read in 2024.
Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel. This one conveniently fits both months’ themes if you’re feeling that soft life and only want one book to read until the end of the year! It’s also a beloved classic love story of girl-meets-boy and dreams to escape her family life. It’s becoming an HBO series by Salma Hayek!3
A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman. This one’s about platonic love between an elderly, depressed, grumpy man and his neighbors that befriend him. I loved A Man Called Otto and bought this not long after seeing it.
Use your voice, today and every day. The books will wait patiently and are eager to comfort you as the days shorten and we head towards the longest night. Here’s to cozy!
-S
Truly, my dining room table is covered in them and I still haven’t made it to IKEA for a shelf.
This one also talks about a very interesting dynamic in history that isn’t widely discussed. There were Nazi prisoners of war in the US mainly to work agricultural areas that were neglected when American men were sent to fight in WWII. Some of the German POWs said their first time having three meals a day was during their imprisonment.
And was already made into a movie in the 90s