Mairi's top three of 2024

December is here and it's time to round up the Lighthouse team's favourite books of 2023! As usual, the brief is simple but strict (although there are those who find creative ways of expanding it…): three books you read, although they may not necessarily have been published, this year. The publishing schedule is swift and unforgiving and we also want to share the love with all those older books we fell in love with in 2024.

Here's what Mairi loved in 2024:

Elif Shafak's latest, There Are Rivers in the Sky, is a propulsive work of ecofiction, weaving together different periods and places - from Dickensian London to contemporary Kurdistan, from River Thames and the River Tigris - using water and the epic of gilgamesh as touchstones. It's riveting, and complex and quietly queer with characters to fall completely in love with. It'll make you think and feel differently and museums and archives, borders and duty.

Namesake remains one of my favourite books and I'll not apologise for adding it to another round up - Contemporary essays/ history, myth/ cultural commentary by Palestinian feminist and academic N S Nuseibeh. Her reflections span illness, borders, bodies and food, she unpacks islamophobia, conversion, belonging and so much more in the most visceral, gentle, self aware ways. Loved it, you'll love it.

Final pick is Alexis Pauline Gumbs's biography of Audre Lorde: Survival is A Promise. This was a book written with a smile - it's so rich with humour and humanity, mischief and reverence, respect and curiosity. It's made me reflect on Lorde's work in new ways, in the ways with which I pick up poetry or look at rocks, or in the ways I think about the physical places we build to nurture writers. I loved every page and have since returned to listen to favourite passages again on Libro.

Cheeky wee additions were Triple Sec (spicy poly romance) and Listen for the Lie (Feminist murder mystery with a sweary grandma)

Find more top three lists of 2024 from the team HERE