If Barrack Obama can find time to read more than 30 books a year with his busy schedule, then you truly have no excuse not to read at least 12 books a year. Books allow us to escape to some beautiful destinations we’ve never been to and enable us to refresh our imagination while at it. Reading a good book feels like a warm hug and should be considered a love language. That hour or two (also known as the magic hours) spent getting lost in the pages of a good book should be something we all get to experience. And without further ado, check out this list of the 10 fun books you should try and read before the year ends and see how far into the world they will take you.
1.Take My Hand
Take my hand by the New York Times, bestselling author, Dolen Perkins-Valdez is a book inspired by true events that rocked the nation. It’s a profoundly moving novel about a Black nurse in post-segregation Alabama who blows the whistle on a terrible wrong done to her patients.
2. The School for Good Mothers
In Jessamine Chan’s taut and explosive debut novel, one lapse in judgment lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance.
This propulsive, witty page-turner explores the perils of “perfect” upper-middle-class parenting, the violence enacted upon women by the state and each other, and the boundless love a mother has for her daughter.
3. Yinka, where is your huzband?
Meet Yinka: a thirty-something, Oxford-educated, British Nigerian woman with a well-paid job, good friends, and a mother whose constant refrain is “Yinka, where is your huzband?”
This novel brilliantly subverts the traditional romantic comedy with an unconventional heroine who bravely asks the questions we all have about love. Wry, acerbic, and moving, this is a love story that makes you smile but also makes you think–and explores what it means to find your way between two cultures, both of which are yours.
4. Wahala
Wahala (trouble in the Yoruba language) is an incisive and exhilarating debut novel of female friendship following three Anglo-Nigerian best friends and the lethally glamorous fourth woman who infiltrates their group—the most unforgettable girls since Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda. Think Sex and the City but with Nigerian women in London.
5. Black Cake
Charmaine Wilkerson’s debut novel is a story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories and even names can shape relationships and history. Deeply evocative and beautifully written, Black Cake is an extraordinary journey through the life of a family changed forever by the choices of its matriarch.
6. Glory
“Glory centers around the unexpected fall of Old Horse, a long-serving leader of a fictional country, and the drama that follows for a rumbustious nation of animals on the path to true liberation. Inspired by the unexpected fall by coup, in November 2017, of Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president of nearly four decades, Bulawayo’s bold, vividly imagined novel shows a country imploding, narrated by a chorus of animal voices who unveil the ruthlessness and cold strategy required to uphold the illusion of absolute power, and the imagination and bullet-proof optimism to overthrow it completely.”
7. Book Lovers
One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn’t see coming…
Book Lovers is a rom-com lover’s dream of a book. It is razor-sharp and modern, featuring a fierce heroine who does not apologize for her ambition and heartfelt discussions of grief.
8. Bamboozled by Jesus
Insecure’s Yvonne Orji uses a modern-day Biblical blueprint to candidly and humorously share the twists and turns that led her to success—and to inspire and empower readers to live their best lives.
Bamboozled by Jesus, is a frank and fresh advice book. Yvonne takes readers on a journey through twenty life lessons, gleaned from her own experiences and her favorite source of inspiration: the Bible. She infuses wit and heart along with practical pointers—such as why being talented is not as sexy as being available, and how fear is similar to food poisoning—with the goal of helping others live the most fulfilling, audacious life possible.
9. Finding Me
Finding Me by Viola Davis is a deep reflection, a promise, and a love letter of sorts to herself. Viola says “My hope is that my story will inspire you to light up your own life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you.”
10. You made a fool of death with your beauty
Akwaeke Emezi’s vivid and passionate writing takes us deep into a world of possibility and healing, and the constant bravery of choosing love against all odds.
