{"id":21400,"date":"2023-12-28T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-28T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/?p=21400"},"modified":"2023-12-28T10:41:49","modified_gmt":"2023-12-28T09:41:49","slug":"poco-lit-s-top-5-picks-in-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/2023\/12\/28\/poco-lit-s-top-5-picks-in-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"poco.lit.s top 5 picks in 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The editors and some authors of poco.lit. share their favorite books of 2023 \u2013 five books by incredibly talented writers from around the world.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna: Crying in H-Mart by Michelle Zauner<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2023, I\u2019ve been getting more into food writing \u2013 literature that makes food its subject and goes far beyond recipes or cooking techniques. In her moving memoir Crying in H-Mart<\/em>, Michelle Zauner recounts the death of her mother and her subsequent grieving process, a time during which cooking brought her great comfort. When Zauner begins to recreate the dishes of her childhood and youth after her mother\u2019s death, the smells and tastes evoke memories of the good and the bad moments in the relationship with her mother, growing up mixed-race in a small town in the US and wonderful trips to Korea. I don’t just recommend this sad and beautiful book to foodies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lucy: Glory by NoViolet Bulwayo<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cynical bite and bizarre humour brought together in this Booker Prize shortlisted novel have stayed with me, and made it my top pick for the year. Sketching an unforgiving satire in the form of an animal fable set in the fictional Jidada (a barely veiled rendition of Bulawayo\u2019s home country of Zimbabwe), it is keen political commentary and formal innovation in one. In turns heartbreaking, horrifying and hilarious, this book might make you gloomy about politics while it makes you optimistic about the literary talent emerging from the African continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kathleen: How to be a Revolutionary by CA Davids<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A novel that is startling in its breadth and complexity, CA David\u2019s How to be a Revolutionary<\/em> nonetheless manages to retain an intimacy and carefulness in its development of characters, creating a rich tapestry of motivations. It is a complex story, succinctly described by the book jacket as \u201cconnecting contemporary Shanghai, late Apartheid-era South Africa, and China during the Great Leap Forward and the Tiananmen uprising \u2014 and refracting this globe-trotting and time-travelling through [Langston] Hughes\u2019 confessional letters to a South African prot\u00e9g\u00e9 about the poet\u2019s time in Shanghai [in the 1930s]\u201d. To find out how Davids elegantly holds it all together, you\u2019ll have to check it out yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Priya: The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I loved this book. Parini Shroff\u2019s debut tale of feminist revenge is a wild ride of a story. It takes place in relatively small, geographical space \u2013 a village and the surrounding areas – where a couple of murders happened. In spite of the abuse and trauma, this book is hilarious. Parini Shroff\u2019s talent shines through in her prose, which never feels crass or like gratuitous violence meant to seem artsy. She has a deft hand when it comes to wreathing in humour amongst the harrowing. If you like a story about freeing abused dogs, samosas poisoned with mosquito coils, and greetings like, \u2018Namaskar, <\/em>goat fucker\u2019 with barely intact polite tones, then this book is definitely for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Susi: Against White Feminism by Rafia Zakaria<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the publication of Against White Feminism, <\/em>Rafia Zakaria was accused of dividing the feminist movement in English-speaking regions. With her book, however, she shakes the foundations of a movement that has always been divided, wants to encourage people, but especially white <\/em>women to finally listen carefully to women of colour, and outlines the necessary steps for the future of the feminist movement. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The editors and some authors of poco.lit. share their favorite books of 2023 \u2013 five books by incredibly talented writers from around the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":21394,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1157,1176],"tags":[1991,1990,120,1688,694,1082],"class_list":["post-21400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-listicle","category-listicle-2","tag-1991","tag-favorite-books-of-2023","tag-feminism","tag-food-writing","tag-listicle","tag-poco-lit-s-favorite-books"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21400"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21439,"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21400\/revisions\/21439"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pocolit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}