Brinda Charry's 3 favorite reads in 2024

**LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024**

A story of love and astronomy told over the course of twenty years through the lives of two improbable best friends

'Gorgeous... Ethereal' GUARDIAN
'A book with cosmic reach' FINANCIAL TIMES
'A romance worthy of Emily Bronte' WALL STREET JOURNAL
'A genre-bending novel of ideas' TELEGRAPH
'Sarah Perry just gets better and better' INDEPENDENT

Thomas and Grace are fellow worshippers at the Baptist chapel in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits - torn between their commitment to religion and their desire for… show more.

Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people. He is an office worker with moderate ambitions and mild manners; she is an uninspired but dutiful wife. The acceptable flatline of their marriage is interrupted when Yeong-hye, seeking a more 'plant-like' existence, decides to become a vegetarian, prompted by grotesque recurring nightmares. In South Korea, where vegetarianism is almost unheard-of and societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye's decision is a shocking act of subversion. Her passive rebellion manifests in ever more bizarre and frightening forms, leading her bland husband to self-justified acts of sexual sadism. His cruelties drive her towards attempted suicide… show more.

From Rachel Kushner, Booker Prize finalist and two-time National Book Award finalist, comes a new novel about a seductive and cunning American woman who infiltrates an anarchist collective in France

'The most exciting writer of her generation' BRET EASTON ELLIS

'Reinvents the spy novel in one cool, erudite gesture' HERNAN DIAZ

'Compulsively readable... Kill Bill written by John le Carre' OBSERVER

Sadie Smith - a thirty-four-year-old American undercover agent of ruthless tactics and bold opinions - is sent by her mysterious but powerful employers to a remote corner of France. Her mission: to infiltrate a commune of radical eco-activists influenced… show more.