The best bittersweet books to help you seize the day

Developing alongside Afi Tekple through this book was like spending time with an inspirational cousin.

Despite being in my mid-thirties, I frequently feel like I’m just beginning to shake off external expectations and live my own life. Unlike Afi, my scenarios don’t involve marrying a man I’ve never met for the sake of my family. But constantly striving to “do the right thing” – as defined by others – has been an emotional burden.

I loved this sensitively written, funny, sensual portrayal of a woman locating her own inner compass. It helped me believe that speaking up for the contours of my existence – and even disappointing a few people along the way – is healthy. Inevitably, some things are lost as a result. But there’s also much to be gained.

This memoir is like a kaleidoscope: each time I re-read it from a new vantage point in my life, I see different colours.

Ariel Levy writes with brutal bravery about a series of personal losses. She brings a candid and unconventional perspective to marriage and motherhood, career and aging, and ultimately our inability to truly control our circumstances.

I think the heart of what this book tells me is: surrender is not synonymous with giving up.  It’s deeper and more hopeful than that. Surrender is learning that power and resilience come from gratitude and acceptance, even in the face of hardships.

Is One Day a modern classic? After the hype had died down, I bought a battered copy second-hand from a charity shop. Over a decade since reading it, I still mentally return to Dex and Em: what was and what could’ve been.

There’s also something in the beautiful narrative structure – where we see both sides of their story over time – that makes me ponder the way we can never fully know another person. Even when they are familiar to us. Perhaps especially then.

I bought this book when I was looking for something else: its title hit me between the eyes. The word “bittersweet” encapsulates everything I often feel; I was nodding along in self-recognition.

If I’m honest, I’ve probably internalised a certain amount of shame around my strong emotions. Definitely, I’ve longed to feel less viscerally about the highs and lows of life. Or, at least, to feel them sequentially – instead of jumbled together: wonderful things tinged with the sadness of impermanence; hard things somehow glowing around the edges with the feeling of being really alive.

What to do with all the emotions? That’s been my recurring question. This book answers – gently, but insistently – make art.

I love this book so much, I don’t know where to start. I’ve pressed it into multiple people’s hands, and I know not everyone feels the same way. But, for me, this novel is perfect. Genuinely perfect.

I find the understated unfolding of gradual self-awareness completely devastating. Here is someone – a butler known as Stevens – who has lived with steadfast adherence to his particular vision of how to make a meaningful contribution to the world.

And slowly, in the space of a few days spent reflecting on his career and life choices, his certainty quietly unravels. The ache and stoicism is just exquisite.