Peggy Jenkins' 3 favorite reads in 2025

Life is hopeless but it is not serious. We have to have danced while we could and, later, to have danced again in the telling.

Tunde, the man at the centre of this novel, reflects on the places and times of his life, from his West African upbringing to his current work as a teacher of photography on a renowned New England campus. He is a reader, a listener, and a traveller drawn to many different kinds of stories: from history and the epic; of friends, family, and strangers; those found in books and films. One man's personal lens refracts… show more.

From the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature - 'a maestro' (Guardian). A captivating story of the intertwined lives of three young people coming-of-age in postcolonial East Africa

**Selected as a book to look out for in 2025 by the Guardian, Observer, Irish Times and BBC**
**A Time Book of the Year 2025**

'A poignant portrait of love, friendship and betrayal' Guardian
'Storytelling mastery' Observer
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Badar's story truly begins on the day when, aged fifteen, he is brought to Mistress's great house in Dar es Salaam - where he proves a quick learner, and gains the friendship… show more.

A sweeping novel about a single house in the woods of New England, told through the lives of those who inhabit it across the centuries—“a time-spanning, genre-blurring work of storytelling magic” (The Washington Post) from the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Piano Tuner and The Winter Soldier.

“With the expansiveness and immersive feeling of two-time Booker Prize nominee David Mitchell’s fiction (Cloud Atlas), the wicked creepiness of Edgar Allan Poe, and Mason’s bone-deep knowledge of and appreciation for the natural world that’s on par with that of Thoreau, North Woods fires on all cylinders.”—San Francisco Chronicle

New York… show more.