☀️ Summer Reading 2024 ☀️ 8 Hot Book Recommendations for You! July 18, 2024 Reading Time: 9 min ShareTweetPin1Share1 SharesSkip straight to the list of books >>Looking for some good books to read over the holidays? Well, below you’ll find 5 fiction & 3 non-fiction books that I love. Escape into a fairytale, an epic adventure and love story, experience the World War II era, a deep exploration of friendship, what it’s like to be (all kinds of) Black and female in Britain, how modern China came to be, how Capitalism is dying and how and why the poor do NOT get by in Modern America.So, there’s something for everyone. And please comment below with your book recommendations!NOTE: The links below go to Bookshop.org (USA), so you can learn more about the book—and purchase online. I am now an affiliate for Bookshop.org! It’s a great alternative to Amazon as they give money back to small booksellers—and they also have a UK site.Although if you can I recommend directly supporting your local bookstore or buying second-hand through AbeBooks which is also good for our planet.Do you love reading—or listening to audio books?I’ve been an avid reader since I was young, and love to read every night in bed. My favourite time of the week is still a weekend morning, reading in bed with a great book and a good cup of tea. What about you?Books teach us about our world—and the people in it!Not only entertainment, pleasure or an escape from the stresses of life, fictional stories offer us insight into other worlds: different lives, cultures, times (past or future) or an entirely different world.And non-fiction gives us knowledge, ideas and inspiration! In particular memoir and biographies give us deep insight into other life experiences.Different to movies, books tend to be more immersive, connecting us even more deeply to characters because we literally see inside their minds: their habits, reactions, quirks and thought processes. And all this makes us more empathic and possibly even brainier! Reading novels enhances brain function, brain connectivity, and mental agility. Dr Irena O’Brien (cognitive neuroscientist)So, what’s not to love?Books make learning fun!From a Fierce Kindness perspective, if you want to make a difference, it helps to understand our world—and how it came to be. So, if you’re wondering about big topics like addiction, poverty, colonisation, racism or what it’s like to be gay or queer, one of the easiest and most enjoyable ways to educate ourselves is to read novels written by people with personal experience—or stories that explore collective history.And here are my Summer 2024 Reading RecommendationsStarting with 5 Fiction Books!Genre: Fantasy, Folk Tales, Coming of ageBuy on Bookshop1) Uprootedby Naomi Novik I loved this novel from the first page. It reads like a fairy tale (for grown ups) and takes elements of old folk stories yet blends them into something new. We have a feisty heroine who (eventually) grows into herself and manages to save the day (with help of course). But it’s also a love story (of sorts). And I love that Naomi also leans a little into environmental issues, just to keep it current.It’s beautifully written, thoughtful, yet still a light and enjoyable read. Perfect for the summer! (In fact I enjoyed it so much I just decided I’m going to re-read it myself)Awards: The 2015 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the 2016 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, and the 2016 Mythopoeic Award in the category Adult Literature. It was a finalist for the 2016 Hugo Award for Best Novel.Genre: Friendship, Cultural Heritage, AdventureBuy on Bookshop2) Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrowby Gabrielle Zevin I am currently reading this and loving it! The author has a wonderful way of writing about friendship and our human fears, shortcomings and frailties. Her writing style helps you fall right into the characters and instantly appreciate the unique tensions between them—and the complexity of human relationships.This novel itself centres around 3 friends and begins with an unusual computer game they create together that makes them wildly successful in the late 1990s. It covers a 30 year period and follows our friends and their the ups and downs as life does what it does. There are also themes and parallels drawn between games and life eg. how we might use games to escape life’s difficulties or how we have endless opportunities to start over…I also love that Gabrielle also addresses issues like appropriation, class, racism and much more in a deep, yet super accessible manner.Awards and Accolades: Winner of the Goodreads Choice Award, New York Times Best Seller, Wingate Prize Nominee, listed one of the 100 best books of the 21st century by the New York Times in 2024—and many more!Genre: Women, Family Life, African American, LGBTQ+Buy on Bookshop3) Girl, Woman, Otherby Bernardine Evaristo I love love loved this hopeful read that follows a number of inter-related, mostly Black, British women’s lives. Cleverly interwoven through different time periods, we explore what it means to live and love in modern day Britain. It also looks at gender, oppression and how we “other” each other. And it also reflects on colonialism and its impacts. This book is intersectionality personified, so if you want to learn more, this book is for you!For some reason, I didn’t love the first character/chapter. Maybe it was the character—or more likely the writing style which (for example) doesn’t use capital letters to start a sentence. But once I was into it, I was INTO it. A fast read. An easy read, that draws you into the lives of these very different women and their life experiences. Each woman is vividly drawn and so easy to imagine in real life. It’s a compulsive read.(BTW my husband loved this too!)Awards and Accolades: The 2019 Booker Prize (the author was the first black woman to receive this award) and shortlisted for the 2019 Gordon Burn Prize. It was a book of the decade for The Guardian, was identified as book of the year 25 times, Time magazine’s 100 must read books and many more.Genre: Historical (World War II), Family, Thrillers, Alternative HistoryBuy on Bookshop4) Life After Lifeby Kate Atkinson This novel took me a couple of chapters to get into. Because it has an unusual structure, as our protagonist Ursula Todd keeps dying in different ways and coming back to life (beginning with being stillborn). However, I got over myself fairly fast and was quickly absorbed in this novel in which Ursula, in amongst many other things tries to assassinate Hitler and avoid the war starting.It sounds much more far-fetched than it feels when reading the book. If you’re interested in the WWII era, it gives us a taste of life before, during and after the war. It’s also a fascinating look at family, what it meant to be a woman at the time, the choices we make, deja vu, the opportunity for second chances—and is all in a thoroughly entertaining read.To be honest, I’ve not read anything quite like it before—or since. And whilst it inspired me to read more Kate Atkinson, this is my favourite by far.Awards and Accolades: It won the 2013 Costa Book Award (Novel), was shortlisted for the 2013 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Walter Scott Prize (2014) and many more. Most recently it was listed in the New York Times Top 100 books of the 21st Century.Genre: Historical, Women, Action & Adventure, Love, Hispanic & LatinoBuy on Bookshop5) Daughter of Fortuneby Isabel Allende This was the first Isabel Allende book I ever read (I’m a big fan), and is still my favourite.We follow Eliza, a Chilean orphan adopted by a British woman in the 1830s, who keeps house for her two brothers—a businessman and sea captain. At 16 Eliza falls in love with a revolutionary, and with the help of a friend (Tao Chi’en, a Chinese doctor) stows away on a ship to follow her love as he seeks his future in the gold rush of California.Eliza is feisty, and once in California keeps searching for her love, disguising herself as a boy/man several times during her journey and enduring much misfortune—yet stubbornly surviving. Through it all, Tao Chi’en is a support and friend to her.Allende’s writing is passionate, well-observed, inspiring and well-researched. Through Eliza’s story we explore themes of greed (“gold fever”), freedom and love. Will she find her lover? And will he be worthy of her?Awards and Accolades: Daughter of Fortune was chosen as an Oprah’s Book Club selection in February 2000. Isabel Allende has sold more than seventy-seven million books, and in 2014, President Barack Obama awarded Allende the Presidential Medal of Freedom (America’s highest civilian honor).An absorbing and educational biography/memoir:Genre: Women, Memoir, China, CulturalBuy on Bookshop6) Wild Swans: Three Daughters of Chinaby Jung Chang This book is an incredible (but true) biography and autobiography that (in effect) tells a 100 year history of China through 3 women—beginning with Chang’s grandmother (a concubine who had bound feet), her mother (a revolutionary) and finally herself and how she ended up in England today.I had no idea, until I read this book the terrible violence that “China” went through to become the China we know today. Even in the early 1900s, much of what we now call China was still fiefdoms run by Warlords!It is a fascinating read. Engrossing. Much of it is hard to fathom—the injustice, the sexism/misogyny, the manipulation of a people, the bizarre and terrible bureaucracy, the fear and hateful violence, the rockstardom and mental illness (although she doesn’t call it that) of Mao.We see how communism was at first the saviour and then becomes the oppressor of the people. How power corrupts. How fear as a leadership style destroys faith and trust. And we see how an entire country can become brainwashed.This riveting true story is a must read!Awards and Accolades: Wild Swans won the 1992 NCR Book Award and the 1993 British Book of the Year. It has been translated into 37 languages and sold over 13 million copies.And if you’re looking for something more serious, two surprisingly easy reads that help us understand our society:Genre: Economic History & Theory, MemoirBuy on Bookshop7) Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalismby Yanis VaroufakisI am partway through this book as I write this: it’s one man’s view of what’s gone wrong with Capitalism. And while the author is an economist and professor, who (briefly) was the Economic Minister for Greece, thankfully this is not a ‘dry’ book. He has an easy writing style and doesn’t go into too much economic detail!For a long time I have looked at the enormous, unchecked power—a WORLD monopoly—companies like Google and Amazon have and wondered: How did we get here? How did our governments let this happen? Does anyone else see how incredibly destructive to our society, how toxic, parasitic and self-serving these companies are?Yes, these companies do some great things, but they do many, many terrible things as well. Crucially they control the flow of information for our world (Google manages 90-95% of the world’s internet searches). Which means they literally have the ability to shape our societies through the information we access. And they heavily influence what we buy—by controlling what we see (and what we don’t). And they manipulate and exploit us by learning about us, and then using that information to market right back to us. And that’s just scraping the surface!The author has written the book “to his father”, meaning he recounts conversations and questions asked by his father—and replies to them—and so the book is also part-memoir. It makes the topic more approachable, but I do sometimes find the “you” as he speaks to his father a little off-putting.However, if you’re at all interested in our world and how it works, read this thought-provoking book, that proposes Capitalism is dead—and we are now effectively back to being serfs in a feudal society where the big tech companies are our lords.Genre: Social Class, Poverty, Labour & Industrial RelationsBuy on Bookshop8) Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America (20th Anniversary Edition)by Barbara Ehrenreich The author (a journalist) went undercover for a year to “see whether or not I could match income to expenses, as the truly poor attempt to do every day.” And she literally did just that—taking jobs as a waitress, cleaner, maid and nursing home aide and trying to live on the wages she received.I first read this well over a decade ago and have never forgotten it. It’s a deep (and very real!) dive into how Americans in poverty live and try to survive on the edge of our society—and how the odds are neverendingly stacked against them. The American Dream that if you just work hard enough you can get ahead? Not for these unlucky souls.It’s an easy read (well, she is a journalist) and will change the way you see low-wage America.Awards and Accolades: In 2019, this 2001 book was on The Guardian‘s list of the 100 best books of the 21st century and has just (in 2024) been featured in the New York Times’ Top 100 best books of the 21st century.Get the Summer 2024 Reads on Bookshop.org Wrap-upSo, what books are you reading? Which books on this list have you read or inspire you?Share your book thoughts & summer read recommendations in the comments below!Liked these Summer Read Recommendations? You may also like:Last year’s Summer Reading Ideas (2023)5 Questions to Have Your Kindest Summer Ever! (Infographic & Printable)Curated Inspiration: Kindness, Passion & Fun from around the WebChange the world. Start with you!ShareTweetPin1Share1 SharesOne Comment Leanne July 28, 2024 Just finished Summer Island by Kristin Hannah. Loved it. ReplyLeave a Reply Cancel ReplyYour email address will not be published.CommentName* Email* Website Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.