Page One Media's Favorite Books We've Read This Year

22 Nov Page One Media’s Favorite Books We’ve Read This Year

Posted at 16:05h in Team by Laci Durham

This holiday season, we’re taking a moment to express gratitude for our remarkable clients and our brilliant literary communities. We’ll do a full year in review in December, but for now we wanted to share some holiday book recommendations from our team. In addition to reading the incredible books that we have the privilege of working on, we’ve also had the chance to check out some other titles by authors we love.

Laura recommends: Absolution by Alice McDermott (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023)

I read an excerpt in Harper’s this fall and was immediately drawn into the lives of American wives living in Saigon during the early years of the Vietnam War. In part, this book is McDermott’s response to Graham Greene’s The Quiet American in which the narrator envies the “sterilized world” of the American women he observes. McDermott shows that the lives of these women were not simple or sterile (but certainly constricted) and delves into the complex inner workings of two expat American women, Tricia and Charlene. Both women serve as “helpmeets” to their ambitious husbands and form an alliance to help the poor and impoverished people of Vietnam, and yet even good intentions can have negative consequences. Absolution explores complex issues of family, religion, obligation, and sacrifice, but never with a heavy hand. Highly recommended!

Peter recommends: A Life of One’s Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again by Joanna Biggs (Ecco, 2023)

This beautiful book by Joanna Biggs expertly blends memoir and criticism to create a miraculous portrait of nine women writers (including Biggs herself) and their will to carve out space for themselves in the face of adversity. Written after going through a devastating divorce and moving across the Atlantic, Biggs turns to writers like Ferrante, Woolf, and Morrison to bring her comfort and solace. The result is a meditative, invigorating work that feels like spending the morning with Biggs at her bookcase, drinking espresso and gossiping.

Sarah recommends: Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston (Balzer + Bray, 2021)

I am so incredibly fortunate that my 12-year-old still lets me read to him. I know the days are numbered so we’re speeding through books this year. Amari and the Night Brothers was one of our favorites. Amari has never quite fit in. She’s bullied at the elite private school where she has a scholarship by both students and their entitled parents. Amari’s brother, Quinton, was one of the best students at that school before he graduated and she struggles to live up to the expectations he seems to have set for her in a world where Black kids from the wrong side of town are looked down upon. Quinton has a mysterious job and when he goes missing and the police claim there’s no work history for him at all and maybe he was doing something illegal, Amari and her mom can’t believe it. One night a “farewell briefcase” from her brother shows up and Amari is whisked away into a “wakeful dream,” a magical ride with the hologram of her brother, where she enters a whole new world or magic, elves, and fairies. She soon finds out that her brother has nominated her for an elite summer camp at the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs where her brother was a star investigator. Amari’s quest is to find out what happened to her brother, while continuing to stay in a camp where she is a rising star with an “illegal” talent, but there are multiple forces working against her. The more she learns in her classes and forges friendships that can help her, the closer she can get to finding her brother.

Isabella recommends: Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala (Berkley, 2021)

While searching for a cozy mystery in my neighborhood bookshop, I was delighted to discover Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mysteries. Arsenic and Adobo is the first in this charming and twisty series, cheerfully combining Filipino food with the very best tropes of a small-town murder mystery. After Lila Macapagal’s ex-boyfriend drops dead in her Tita Rosie’s restaurant, she must conduct her own investigation to clear her name, relying on help from her best friend, nosy aunties, and adorable Dachshund, Longganisa. It was a pleasure to find a mystery book that features a Filipina heroine and some of my favorite family dishes. Like a bowl of sinigang, this sweet and quirky book will warm you all winter.

Laci recommends: Happy Place by Emily Henry (Berkley, 2023)

Happy Place while marketed as romance alongside Emily Henry’s other titles, is less romance and more contemporary fiction. It follows two college sweethearts after they’ve called off their engagement. The two find themselves on a trip with their mutual friends, and instead of admitting to their split they decide to pretend they’re still together. This scenario leads to a fine romantic arc, but for me this book’s strengths came in its exploration of aging, acceptance of our own inner doubts and insecurities, and the beauty of relationships that can only be born from fully accepting someone for everything they are–the good and the bad. Henry triumphs in the latter through masterfully fleshed out characters within the friend group and their dynamic. This is a read I recommend to anyone looking for a book that will take on the realties of existence but leave them with a great sense of hope. To my complete surprise, I found in Happy Place one of those once-in-a-decade reads that will stick with me forever.

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