My five favourite fictional titles that are published in the last 24 years are, 2005 Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, 2008 The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin, 2009 Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, 2014 Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, 2020 Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi.
Because these are some of my favourite novels, I care that if you ever get to read them, you have an unspoiled reading experience, so I want to say little about the plot. I’ve been thinking how to introduce them to you. I think I’ll read the first page or a few paragraphs from the early part of each novel, so you can get a feel of it. If it’s intriguing, you can carry on reading yourself. If you do, please let me know, I’d be delighted. If you’ve read any of the novels and you’d like to leave a comment about them, for the love of reading, please don’t put in any spoilers – thanks in advance. So grab a cup of tea, let me read you my favourite stories.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
I’m sure a lot of you have read this one. Never Let Me Go is a novel by British author Kazuo Ishiguro published in 2005. It’s one of those books I would give much to be able to read for the first time again. I wish I hadn’t watched the film before I read it. So if you haven’t watched the film and you like a quiet but impactful book – I envy you, what a treat. Do not read blurb or reviews or its Wikipedia page. Stay away from the film – it’s an excellent film but keep it for later. When I said I don’t want to spoil the novels, I specifically have this one in mind. Some books you can enjoy even knowing the ending, like Wolf Hall. It’s history, we already roughly know what happened. But this one is one of those that can be spoiled spectacularly and that’ll be a crying shame.
The novel doesn’t just tell a moving story, it asks crucial questions about life and being human. And it does it by weaving the questions through a young woman’s life story. It sounds very grand and abstract, questions about life and being human. But the author brings the issue close to my heart because by the end of the novel, it’s not about an abstract subject, it’s about the happiness of Kathy and I have got to know and love Kathy and her friends. I thought I knew what my answer would be, but after I read the novel, I’m not quite sure anymore. It’s thought provoking and it changed my thinking. It’s amazing when a book can do that.
The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin
The Three Body Problem is a novel by Chinese author Liu Cixin published in 2008. It’s the first book in the three-part series. It’s a wonderful work of hard science fiction, which means if you have a scientist’s mind you’ll particularly enjoy this one. But on the other hand, I nearly failed maths and physics in school and I still loved it! The science and technology elements are the foundation of the world building. The story exists, it’s urgent and weighty, it’s relevant to me, because of the incredible credibility of the science and technology elements of this fictional world.
Hard sci-fi is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic. The Three Body Problem is an actual physics problem. To put it simply, a three-body problem exists when three celestial objects with similar mass are in close proximity. They orbit around each other in a random unpredictable pattern.
The English translation of the novel starts with the Cultural Revolution in China. A disillusioned scientist, who after seeing so much pain and suffering, decides humans are doomed and cannot save themselves. She does something desperate and the result of her action takes us to the second setting, which is the current time, where the elite scientists, especially physicists of the world come to the unlikely but undeniable conclusion that science is broken. As the scientists are busy puzzling it out, a policeman is tasked with the investigation of the deaths of a series of scientists which are linked up by their involvement with a particular computer game, which takes us to the third setting, an alien landscape where the three body problem becomes a matter of life and death.
The three interacting settings lend itself fantastically to representation on screen. It’s now an excellent TV series on Netflix. I don’t feel as strong about this one whether you should read the books before you watch the TV series. Partly because I read the novels a few years ago I don’t remember enough to get too annoyed about the adaptation of the details (but I know some friends are); partly, maybe as a result, I think Netflix gets the vibe of the story pretty spot on. So it’s more a case of, if you watch the TV series, I think there’s little point reading the novels afterwards. However, my husband, who read the whole series in English, thinks it’s still worth reading the novels even if you do watch it on screen, partly because it’s rare to find such a brilliant series of sci-fi novels set in a non-western culture, and that’s an element that is sadly lost somewhat in the Netflix series. The original story has a Chinese protagonist and it’s set in China. Netflix sets it mostly in the UK and shares the plot line among a few non-Chinese protagonists.
The excellent English translation by Ken Liu was published in 2014. Just in case my word is not enough to convince you, that translation was the first novel by an Asian writer to win a Hugo Award for Best Novel; the third and last book of the Three Body series was shortlisted for Hugo Award for Best Novel as well. And the Hugo Award if you’re not familiar is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the sci-fi and fantasy world. I hope you’re now convinced!
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Wolf Hall is a novel by English writer Hilary Mantel published in 2009. It’s a historical fiction about the rise of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII. Who is Thomas Cromwell anyway, why do I care about his story. I had no idea who he was either, wasn’t much interested and it’s a big book. But it won me over by its sheer brilliance.
I loved it. This was my first reading experience where I don’t feel like the characters are actors in period drama costumes. They talk and think and feel like us. They do not know who lives who dies tomorrow, because they are not stiff portraits in history books, they are just living their lives and navigating in the midst of a hurricane. For me, Thomas Cromwell lives in that world even now. I open the pages, he’ll meet me there. That’s why I keep putting off reading the last book in the series, I know he’s executed in history, but he’s still alive as long as I don’t read The Mirror and the Light (the third and last in the series), and I’ve come to love him very much, I really can’t bear the thought of a world without him.
Wolf Hall won the Booker Prize in 2009 and one of the judges said it was a contemporary novel, a modern novel, which happens to be set in the 16th century. This way of presenting historical fiction is a lot more common in the last few years, the film Little Women, the TV series the Great and Emily Dickinson all do that now. But reading Wolf Hall was my first experience, it was so fresh, I was amazed. This was my favourite novel in 2019, and every time I opened the pages, I could get into the head of Thomas Cromwell, look at the Tudor court and love his love and hate his hate.
Both Wolf Hall and the second one Bring Up the Bodies won Booker Prize, The Mirror and the Light was nominated. And Wolf Hall was one of the five shortlisted for the Golden Man Booker Prize in 2018, which awarded the best of Booker winners over the last 50 years. One day, I’ll re-read Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies and eventually face The Mirror and the Light.
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Station Eleven is a novel by Canadian writer Emily St John Mandel published in 2014. I find the combination of the story and her writing style perfect and the result so beautiful. Her writing style is cold and clear, and often reminds me of a winter sky.
Again, I’ll try not to spoil the story. This is a dystopian novel about a world before, during and after a devastating pandemic. When the world as we know it is plunged into the dark, how would humanity respond collectively and what would individuals do to survive? What in the society and culture would disappear and what would remain? Would people who are born and grow up during the collapse still know King Lear? I felt so sad and devastated about ‘the collapse’ as it’s called in the novel, but magically, at the same time, I felt surprisingly hopeful.
It was my favourite novel of 2023. It triggered complicated feelings reading it post Covid. Some of the scenes are all too uncomfortably realistic – I wonder what she thought living through the 2020 pandemic six years after writing this novel. It brought to my mind once again the fear of uncertainty for the future, the fear of sickness and death – How much worse is this going to get? How much longer is this going to last? But there’s friendship, kindness, self-sacrifice, stories and music. It brought tears to my eyes. I had to pause often to savour the moment, just me and this sad wreckage but breathtakingly beautiful world.
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
Transcendent Kingdom is a novel by Ghanaian-American author Yaa Gyasi published in 2020. This is the latest in terms of publication date. This is probably also the least well-known. The protagonist is called Gifty. Chapter 1 gives us many hints: the novel is about mother daughter relationship, her mother’s mental illness and the impact on their life, Gifty’s sense of identity and self-knowledge rooted in both her native country as well as the US where she lives now, about her Christian upbringing as well as her work as a neuroscientist, and about her struggling forward through hardship in life. She opens up and tells me about her life since childhood and shows me her vulnerability and pain.
After I finished reading the book, I wrote a letter telling her how much I appreciated her sharing her story. I had never done that before and I haven’t since. I want to be her friend, give her a hug and tell her how brave and good she has been and she’s not alone, we can work it out together.
For all of them, if you’re vaguely interested, how about download a free Kindle sample to read a couple of chapters on the free Kindle app on your phone, and see if you like it. I hope you’ll find a new favourite. I’d also love to hear what are your favourite novels from the last 24 years.
A Day of Small Things 