With a long year stretching out ahead of us and the first day of Autumn Sem crouching right around the corner instead of lounging on the distant horizon, it’s time to lessen the sting of looming responsibilities by sorting out our 2022 TBR lists.
To help us out, Norman the Bookworm connected us with two of the most inspiring booksellers on the planet: Marina Sano and Jing Xuan Teo, the co-founders of Amplify Bookstore.
Marina and Xuan grew up with a love of books and, like many readers of colour, rarely got to see themselves represented. Indeed, anyone that has spent more than a day in book world will know that the publishing industry has a long way to go before it fully reflects its consumers. So, Marina and Xuan decided to help change things themselves and launched Amplify in 2020 to make books by BIPOC authors visible and accessible.
Knowing that the experts had arrived, LitSoc’s Committee members hurled our favourite books at them and asked for similar recommendations. And so, the only reading list you can get genuinely excited about this semester was born!
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Content Warnings: emotional abuse, eating disorders, biphobia, addiction, drug abuse, alcoholism
Xuan and Marina say: You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat is a coming-of-age story of a young woman facing her trauma, fantasies and desires while torn between religious, cultural and sexual desires.
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Content Warnings: racism, homophobia, drug abuse, sexual assault
Xuan and Marina say: Rainbow Milk by Paul Mendez deals with his racial and sexual identities against the backdrop of growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness. It also explores the effects of the Windrush generation as a Black British man.
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Content Warnings: death of a loved one, child death, violence, racism, deportation, suicidal ideation, child abuse
Xuan and Marina say: The Last Story of Mina Lee by Nancy Jooyoun Kim is situated around a difficult mother–daughter relationship as the daughter comes to learn more about her mother’s past. It explores the differences between the daughter’s identity as Korean American vs the mother being a Korean immigrant.
Genre: Literary Fiction / Occult
Content Warnings: suicidal ideation, chronic illness, medical trauma, medical gaslighting, drug abuse
Xuan and Marina say: All’s Well by Mona Awad is very dark academia. They might even do some Shakespeare, but the cast is mutinous and wants to put on a different play.
Genre: Suspense / Thriller
Content Warnings: stalking, physical abuse, domestic abuse, death
Xuan and Marina say: The Woman in the Purple Skirt by Natsuko Imamura is a similar psychological-driven story, but it focuses more on voyeurism and our need to be perceived.
Genre: Non-fiction / Biography
Xuan and Marina say: A Nation of Women by Luisa Capetillo embraces the humanistic thinking of the early twentieth century and envisions a world in which economic and social structures can be broken down, allowing both the worker and the woman to be free.
Genre: Non-fiction / Sociology & Anthropology
Xuan and Marina say: Sister, Outsider by Audre Lorde is a collection of Lorde’s essential prose – essays, speeches, letters, interviews – that explores race, sexuality, poetry, friendship, the erotic and the need for female solidarity. It also includes her landmark piece, 'The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House'.
Genre: Short Stories / Folklore / Myths & Legends
Content Warnings: death, violence, war, bullying, body shaming, mention of sexual assault
Xuan and Marina say: Love in Colour by Bolu Babalola is an anthology of love stories by an author of colour.
Genre: Literary Fiction / Contemporary Fiction
Content Warnings: attempted suicide, violence, death, child abuse, sexual assault
Xuan and Marina say: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz tells the story of Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd, a New Jersey romantic who dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love.
Genre: Historical Fiction / Literary Fiction
Content Warnings: animal cruelty, animal death, miscarriage
Xuan and Marina say: Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen by Dexter Palmer tells a true story set in 1726, England, where a young woman confounds the medical community by giving birth to dead rabbits.
Genre: Fantasy / Romance
Content Warnings: child abuse
Xuan and Marina say: Once Upon a Time by Roshani Chokshi is a dazzling and wonderful fantasy stand-alone romance from a New York Times bestselling author.
Genre: Magical Realism / Contemporary Fantasy
Content Warnings: death, child death, violence, gore, emotional abuse, stalking, racism
Xuan and Marina say: The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina by Zoraida Córdova is a gorgeously written novel about a family searching for the truth hidden in their past and the power they’ve inherited.
Genre: Magical Realism / Fantasy
Content Warnings: bullying, mental illness, anxiety, child death, sexual assault, suicidal ideation
Xuan and Marina say: Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura is the ultimate story of friendship and learning to come together in a pretty whimsical environment.
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Content Warnings: anxiety, cancer, death, depression, suicide
Xuan and Marina say: The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams is a cosy and heart-warming and heart-wrenching read that shifts between a girl in her late teens and an elderly man.
Genre: Non-fiction / Memoir
Content Warnings: sexual assault, racism, misogyny, domestic abuse
Xuan and Marina say: Unbound by Tarana Burke is a powerful memoir about her own journey to saying those two simple yet infinitely powerful words and how she brought empathy back to an entire generation. From the founder of the Me Too movement.
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Content Warnings: misogyny, bullying, sexual harassment, mental illness
Xuan and Marina say: Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo gives readers a peek into the life of a standard Korean woman: the casual misogyny, the pressures of beauty and the trials and tribulations of motherhood.
Genre: Non-fiction / Memoir
Content Warnings: death of a parent, cancer, addiction, alcoholism, abortion
Xuan and Marina say: Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner details Zauner’s relationship with her mother (and her untimely death), her mixed-race identity and grief.
Genre: Young Adult / Mystery–Thriller / Magical Realism
Content Warnings: death, physical abuse, emotional abuse, self-harm, mental illness
Xuan and Marina say: The Grimrose Girls by Laura Pohl features four troubled friends, one murdered girl . . . and a dark fate that may leave them all doomed. The Descendants meets Pretty Little Liars in this story of four reimagined fairytale heroines who must uncover connections to their ancient curses and forge their own paths . . . before it's too late.
Genre: Fantasy / Epic
Content Warnings: death, drug abuse, drug overdose, violence, sexual assault, suicide, self-harm
Xuan and Marina say: Jade City by Fonda Lee is an epic tale of blood, family, honour and of those who live and die by ancient laws in a changing world.
Genre: Young Adult / Fantasy
Content Warnings: death, gore, violence, bullying
Xuan and Marina say: Forest of Souls by Lori M. Lee is an unrelenting tale of destiny and sisterhood. (Also a duology.)
Genre: Literary Fiction
Content Warnings: bullying, violence, suicidal ideation, self-harm, attempted sexual assault, death
Xuan and Marina say: Heaven by Mieko Kawakami is the international literary sensation’s sharp and illuminating novel about a teenage boy subjected to relentless bullying.
Genre: Short Stories / Contemporary Fiction
Content Warnings: sexual harassment, chronic illness/cancer, death, mental illness, war
Xuan and Marina say: Shoko’s Smile by Choi Eunyoung paints intimate portraits of the lives of young women in South Korea, balancing the personal with the political.
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Content Warnings: violence, alcoholism
Xuan and Marina say: Common Ground by Naomi Ishiguro is a bittersweet story about coming-of-age in a divided world, in the tradition of Tin Man or Black Swan Green.
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Content Warnings: sexual assault, abortion, torture, violence, war, death
Xuan and Marina say: Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa is a furious and beautiful book from an internationally bestselling author of formidable standing – on sex and power, persecution and resistance.
Genre: Short Stories / Literary Fiction
Content Warnings: racism, sexual assault, mental illness, xenophobia
Xuan and Marina say: Crossing the Mangrove by Maryse Condé is a mesmerizing novel from one of the most important writers working today, winner of the alternative Nobel Prize.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Content Warnings: animal death, fatphobia
Xuan and Marina say: Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh asks us to consider how the stories we tell ourselves both guide us closer to the truth and keep us at bay from it.
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Content Warnings: genocide, racism, torture, violence, death
Xuan and Marina say: Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens by Shankari Chandran flashes between present and past scenes in the thick of the Sri Lankan civil war.
Genre: Historical Fiction / Literary Fiction
Content Warnings: death, racism, ableism, animal death, attempted suicide, sexual violence
Xuan and Marina say: The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara tells a tale of community and healing set in the American deep south in the 1970s.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Content Warnings: natural disaster
Xuan and Marina say: The Color of Air by Gail Tsukiyama is set around the 1935 Mauna Loa volcano eruption in Hawai’i.
Genre: Fantasy / Epic
Content Warnings: genocide, war, drug abuse, racism, misogyny, bullying, animal cruelty/death, torture, death, sexual assault, violence, mutilation, human experimentation
Xuan and Marina say: The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang is an epic fantasy trilogy that we (and a lot of other readers) love. It features morally grey characters and explores empires and colonisation.
Genre: Fantasy
Content Warnings: violence, death of a loved one, gore, torture, drowning, child death, parental abuse
Xuan and Marina say: The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart is another high fantasy that you’d like if you loved The Jasmine Throne. It has multiple POVs and features a sapphic relationship.
Genre: Historical Fiction / Fantasy
Content Warnings: dysphoria, misgendering, homophobia, death, torture, ableism, child death
Xuan and Marina say: She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan is another queer fantasy reimagining the rise of the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty from a local Melbourne author. Gender and power is a big theme of the book.
Please note: the content warnings provided in this post are sourced from internet searches – they are not exhaustive and are meant to be used only as helpful starting points.
