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14<br />
support of others, whether that be family,<br />
chosen family, friends or colleagues. Fortitude<br />
explores the importance of having a sense<br />
of belonging, having a sense of control over<br />
your life, decision-making and whether the<br />
ability to lift ourselves up comes from experiencing<br />
trauma (spoiler: it doesn’t!), all backed<br />
up with thorough research. The ultimate<br />
message here is that our community is crucial<br />
for our wellbeing, and the people we choose<br />
to surround ourselves with can be our guiding<br />
light during hard times.<br />
FORTITUDE<br />
Bruce Daisley,<br />
CHF 19.90, Penguin<br />
Random House UK<br />
Travelling back to Scotland, in Landlines by<br />
Raynor Winn, a small family of two must<br />
decide whether they prefer to sink or swim<br />
when Raynor’s husband, Moth, receives a<br />
serious neurodegenerative disease diagnosis.<br />
They are left with only two choices: to await<br />
his inevitable death, or to try and gain some<br />
extra time together by revisiting the activity<br />
that had last improved Moth’s heath: walking.<br />
And so their epic journey begins, starting<br />
with the Cape Wrath trail all the way down to<br />
LANDLINES<br />
Raynor Winn,<br />
CHF 19.90, Penguin<br />
Random House UK<br />
their original home back in Cornwall. As they trek south, they are<br />
met with the most wonderful nature and biodiversity Britain has<br />
to offer. But beneath the seemingly peaceful beauty of untouched<br />
nature are the inevitable dangers of environmental devastation, climate<br />
change and the consequences of Brexit, all rendered beautifully<br />
through Winn’s magically haunting writing. With its beautiful<br />
prose, nods to nature and commentary on humanity, this painfully<br />
beautiful book gently touches on some of the timeless themes explored<br />
in The Covenant of Water, and as Moth gains resilience we are<br />
enriched by Landlines’ nature trail, too.<br />
In these last two books, the theme of resilience is one of their<br />
central aspects, relating to individual characters, families and humanity<br />
itself. But some would argue the word ‘resilient’ is now<br />
obsolete, and that to navigate those deep waters when the elements<br />
are tougher, we need more than just a simple inner quality that<br />
somehow keeps us afloat. Enter Fortitude, the first and only nonfiction<br />
book in our round-up, written by Bruce Daisley, ex-Twitter<br />
VP and workplace culture writer. Daisley builds on the idea that<br />
it takes a village, claiming that resilience is nothing but a myth and<br />
that what’s truly important to sail through troubled times is the<br />
“A book with deep<br />
meaning that will stay with<br />
you for a very long time.”<br />
Community and family are also the building blocks of Arthur and<br />
Teddy Are Coming Out by the wonderful Ryan Love. Seventy-nineyear-old<br />
Arthur finally finds the courage to come out to his family<br />
after a lifetime in the closet, pretending to be someone he is not. But<br />
while Arthur discovers the voice to speak his truth, his twentyone-year-old<br />
grandson is still struggling to share his full self with<br />
the world. They will both have to learn from each other as their<br />
relationships evolve, and the dual point of<br />
view, typically shared between love interests,<br />
is given a fresh new grandson-grandfather<br />
spin. Their relationship is heart-warming,<br />
with the two supporting each other as they<br />
both navigate life as gay men. While this is on<br />
surface a lovely and sweet feel-good rom-com<br />
(readers have all fallen for Arthur!), Love digs<br />
deeper into the genre, offering thought-provoking<br />
commentary on family tensions, homophobia<br />
and the reality of living in a small<br />
town where you feel you do not fit in.<br />
ARTHUR AND<br />
TEDDY ARE<br />
COMING OUT<br />
Ryan Love, CHF 24.90,<br />
HarperCollins<br />
Publishers UK<br />
Similarly to Arthur and his grandson, ten-year-old August also<br />
feels apprehensive about fitting in due to his physical appearance<br />
in the modern classic Wonder by R.J. Palacio. This book has stolen<br />
hearts, brought readers to tears and tugged at<br />
every possible heartstring, becoming an<br />
instant must-read for children and adults<br />
alike, and later a successful film starring the<br />
one and only Julia Roberts. The book begins<br />
with August starting a new school, Beecher<br />
Prep, where his parents hope he will quickly<br />
adjust after having been home-schooled his<br />
whole life. R.J. Palacio manages to capture the<br />
timid first interactions among children, their<br />
ability to be brutally honest, quite cruel but<br />
WONDER<br />
R. J. Palacio,<br />
CHF 15.90, Penguin<br />
Random House UK<br />
also incredibly kind and loving, as she describes August’s interactions<br />
with the other children who will learn to love him if they<br />
are able to go beyond initial first impressions and appearances. August<br />
is not just what he looks like, he has a world to share with others,<br />
if only they are sensible, open and unafraid enough to look. Wonder<br />
also offers a refreshing family dynamic, sharing the viewpoint of August’s<br />
sister, the older child overshadowed by her younger brother’s<br />
special needs. A sincere take on families, we see how none are perfect<br />
no matter how loving and accepting they may be, and get a glimpse<br />
into the everyday life of all characters, not just the star of the show.<br />
Everyday life is complicated, most of the time we do not feel in control<br />
of it, and even more often it’s not really a reflection of our wants<br />
and desires. That’s the case for Gosia Golab in Odd Hours by Ania<br />
Bas. Gosia is stuck in a dead-end job in a 24/7 supermarket, lives in a<br />
house share, her parents are not on speaking<br />
terms and plan to sell her childhood home,<br />
and her father is relying on an allowance that<br />
she can barely afford to give him. And as if<br />
all this was not enough, her ex-boyfriend has<br />
cheated on her, remarried and self-published<br />
a book about becoming successful, with<br />
multiple derogatory references to Gosia in it.<br />
Odd Hours is a story many thirty-somethings<br />
can relate to, depicting the life of someone<br />
ODD HOURS<br />
Ania Bas, CHF 27.90,<br />
Welbeck<br />
whose life did not go to plan and who is still on their journey<br />
to happiness and success.<br />
Success looks different to many people, but similarly to Odd Hours’<br />
Gosia, Anisa Ellahi in The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi feels<br />
particularly stuck in her career. Her biggest<br />
dream is to become a famous translator,<br />
but her only success has been subtitling<br />
Bollywood movies. Then she discovers an<br />
invite-only programme that, within ten<br />
days, teaches you to speak a new language<br />
fluently. She is sold. As she enters the<br />
programme, however, she realises that what<br />
she signed on paper was in fact too good to<br />
be true, and that everything comes at a cost,<br />
even a brilliant career.<br />
THE CENTRE<br />
Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi,<br />
CHF 29.90, Macmillan,<br />
Release Date:<br />
6 July <strong>2023</strong><br />
BOOKMARK 1/<strong>2023</strong> – ORELLFÜSSLI.CH
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