What I’ve Been Reading Recently – Nicole’s April 2022 List

I’ve been really impressed by two water-based novels so far in my spring reading. Firstly The Odyssey, a wickedly funny modern satire set on board a cruise ship, and then The Swimmers, a tender and gently humorous New Zealand-based novel, about a young competitive swimmer contending with her mother’s wish for an assisted suicide (I promise this one is less bleak than it sounds!).

Cold Enough for Snow, from Australian writer Jessica Au, continues the Antipodean trend. Part novella, part auto-fiction, this exploration of the secrets and silences between a mother and a daughter as they holiday in Japan is written in wonderfully quiet, understated prose. Meanwhile Memphis by Tara Stringfellow is another fantastic debut novel that ticks all the family saga boxes, following the lives, loves and struggles of three generations of Black women living in the American South. It’s a perfect read for fans of The Vanishing Half and Girl, Woman, Other.

There are also two cracking novels from established authors which have more than lived up to the hype, Young Mungo – which needs no introduction I’m sure – and The Perfect Golden Circle, the latest offering from Benjamin Myers, which is already a surefire hit among most of the Mr B’s team!