A Reading List For...

For all the grace beverly girls! Aka shredders?? Is that a thing?

I’ve found myself following Grace on instagram for years now and binging her podcast and literally enjoying anything and everything she puts out into this world . I’m a massive fan of TALA, the product and most importantly ethos behind it as well as LOVING her book Working Hard Hardly Working. She is a very productive and inspiration woman, whilst still being incredibly authentic and having a great sense of humour.

Through instagram I often see Grace reaching out about what to read next and has always been very clear about not being a Colleen Hoover reader, which I myself can wholeheartedly align with. I always look out for when she asks her following what to read next and what gets suggested secretly thinking to myself that I could put together a killer reading list.

So for a bit of fun, here are the books that I think would be most loved/best suited. 

Starting with fiction there are some new releases which I would add straight to the pile, Yellowface and Big Swiss being two of them, there has been a lot of hype over these books and for good reason. Yellowface follows June a white woman who steals the manuscript of her friend Athena, the book explores lots of big important topics but is hilarious and lighthearted at the same time. Big Swiss, a little less “popular” but equally entertaining a novel about Greta a transcriber for a sex therapist, she becomes infatuated with his client she dubs Big Swiss. Greta creates an alias and pursues a relationship with her. The satire is fantastic and it is an extremely layered novel. It’s also been picked up by HBO with Jodie Comer staring as Big Swiss. For something set slightly closer to home (London) I loved Maame, which was a fantastic debut novel following the growth of Maddie leaving her familial home, finding her voice in the work place, but most importantly working her way through an immense amount of grief and family pressure. I also really loved Wandering Souls (our first bookclub read) and feel that it really does offer a new way of delivery (imo) telling the story of The Vietnamese boat people and their journey to the UK.

For fiction that is slightly older I loved reading the Dutch House and Dominicana both powerhouses of novels, I loved that they are both (at times) set in New York City and I would imagine the main characters sitting unknowingly next to each other on the subway. They live a contrast life to one another and have very different experiences of the city and their coming of age. For something slightly different The Last house on needless street I thought was amazing storytelling. It is a book that you have to “stick with” as I thought the religious cat narrative hard to get my head around. However it is an incredible book, one that the ending really packs a punch the first time you read. 

Non fiction I always always push Lowborn into friends hands, written by Kerry Hudson who grew up in poverty in Scotland it is an eye opening book about poverty and what it actually means to be living hand to mouth. She talks about how that level of poverty never really leaves you as well as how the lack of representation in the government of people who have experienced true poverty means that the system put in place to “help” doesn’t work. I found Crying in H Mart extremely powerful, I loved the culinary experience that we are taken on by Michelle Zauner as well as the journey we are taken on with her grief.  

Obviously I could go on and on, there are so many more books that I could add, but I thought that this felt an exciting offering.

Have you read any of them? Or have anything that you would include?