Best Holiday Reads 2022

Best Holiday Reads 2022

We’ve compiled a list of our choice of the 17 best holiday reads 2022 has to offer this summer. You’re finished term for the summer and you find yourself with little to do… Whether it’s a rainy day outside and you’re looking for a book to pick up to keep yourself entertained indoors or you want a good page-turner for when you’re sunbathing in the park, you should be able to find something that catches your eye in this list of our top must-read picks for this summer.  From informative non-fiction to heart-wrenching tear-jerkers and poetry, our list spans across a few genres. So, this summer why not have a read of something you wouldn’t normally pick up? Or, choose a popular genre like a thriller or a romcom to get you turning the pages all summer.

Best holiday reads 2022

Holiday Romance

An open book with two pages folded to create the shape of a heart

18-year-old Joel is faced with his heart suddenly stopping in the run-up to midnight on the eve of the millennium. After 20 minutes of CPR, his friend Kerry finally saves his life with her best friend Tim watching, frozen still. Seeing life and death from a new perspective changes the course of all 3 of their lives over the next 2 decades. Whenever these 3 – Kerry, Joel and Tim – believe they’ve found love, discovered their vocation, or simply moved on, their lives seem to collide with each other’s again. This is a gripping story about life, love and friendship.

Constance works in the local GP surgery, where a romance blossoms between her and one of the doctors there. She needs to keep it a secret, but for her, it all seems like it will be happily ever after. So when doctor Samuel starts to go a bit cold, Constance knows she needs to do what she can to hold onto him and hold onto love.  This is a love story gone wrong. As Constance becomes increasingly desperate, you might find yourself rooting for her even as you start to fear how far she will really go.

Released in mid-July, this romance is Chinelo Okparanta’s long-awaited second novel. Set in small-town Pennsylvania USA, this story revolves around a young white man with bigoted parents who he has begun to recognise as so. He has a burning desire to escape his life as he knows it and find somewhere a little more open-minded. He finds himself in NYC and falls in love with a Nigerian woman, and through her, he finally confronts some hard truths about his privileged upbringing. This is a tale about love, race and confronting one’s privilege.

Best holiday reads 2022

Non-fiction

A pile of books with the best holiday reads 2022

This is an inspiring non-fiction book that starts a conversation about women’s mental and physical strength and fitness which is refreshingly nothing to do with weight loss. The author, Poorna Bell faced her husband Rob dying and realised that she was very much relying on him in every way imaginable. Through the grieving process, she comes out a competitive amateur power-lifter and stronger than she’s ever been before. This is a great book to pick up for anyone who feels they need a bit of a kick to conquer some of their fears, or even just get some of those things you’ve always wanted to do finally ticked off your to-do list.

This fascinating non-fiction book is written by the Secret Barrister, who takes on a whistleblowing role here as they explain how our legal systems affects every single area of our lives throughout our lifetime. While we’re unfamiliar with the laws in place in our country, we are making ourselves vulnerable and we become susceptible to the media’s storytelling – we open ourselves up to misinformation. A lack of information can allow the powerful to corrupt our justice system without our knowledge. Fake Law reveals the stupidity behind some of the legal stories you might have already heard of. This book is an entertaining and informative defence of our legal system.

This is a harrowing but highly informative read. Empire of Pain looks at the international epidemic of drug addiction which has killed nearly half a million people to date. The book covers 3 generations of the Sackler family, one of the richest families in the world, even today. It explores their fascinating role in stories of the infamous pain relief medications Oxycontin and Valium after it emerged that the family were highly involved in the production and promotion of the Oxycontin painkiller, and their connections to Valium have been brought to light too. 

Best holiday reads 2022

Tear-Jerkers

Image of a cup of tea next to a bit of writing that's ready to be read with flowers on top

This is an inspiring non-fiction book that starts a conversation about women’s mental and physical strength and fitness which is refreshingly nothing to do with weight loss. The author, Poorna Bell faced her husband Rob dying and realised that she was very much relying on him in every way imaginable. Through the grieving process, she comes out a competitive amateur power-lifter and stronger than she’s ever been before. This is a great book to pick up for anyone who feels they need a bit of a kick to conquer some of their fears, or even just get some of those things you’ve always wanted to do finally ticked off your to-do list.

This is a Booker Prize-winning debut by Stuart, so it’s guaranteed to be a page-turner. Set in the 1990s, mother Agnes finds herself abandoned by her husband, left to cope with her 3 children in a small Glaswegian mining town without a breadwinner in the family to support the 4 of them. Her relationship with alcohol becomes even more troublesome and her children choose to abandon her too, primarily to protect themselves from watching the painful decline of their mother. Her son Shuggie struggles to leave her alone and decides that he will help her instead. He’s a strange boy compared to his siblings and the people of their town have noticed. He is determined to fix his mother and get out of the town in one piece. This a love story in part, but it also explores the heart-breaking theme of poverty. 

The Attic Child by Lola Jaye

This story shines a light on the Black British experience in 1907. 12 year old Celestine finds himself locked in the attic of a big house by the sea. The memory of his home in Africa is becoming more blurred – his mother’s face beginning to fade. He becomes unsure of so much but he is beginning to understand that he is a servant now. History is repeated decades later, when a young orphan finds herself locked up in the same attic, but for different reasons. She finds what Celestine left under the floorboards and uncovers his truth. This is a story about love and loss as well as family secrets.

Best holiday reads 2022

Poetry

An open book with a short poem on the page

If you’re not already a poetry lover, take some time to discover poetry over the summer months. 

This is a highly-digestible collection of poetry that’s a first for Bulley. Named Quiet, the link between these poems is that they all surround the concept of silence and how it plays out in our day-to-day life. This collection of poetry unpicks encounters with loved ones, friends and animals. These poems silently question womanhood with compelling observations on the world around us from a Black perspective. A favourite of ours is Pandemic vs Black Folk.

Best holiday reads 2022

Fantasy & Sci-Fi

An open book on the floor with some lights on in the background

This story finds itself in 2085 – a time when certain individuals have the ability to travel through time using particular objects that they have come to own. These ‘carriers’ stories are followed – in particular, a young woman who finds herself motherless and without the guidance she is needing as she figures out how to harness the powers she possesses as a carrier. A must-read for sci-fi fans.

 

American but Malaysian-born recent graduate, Jessamyn decides that the only option for her following her degree is to go ‘home’ to Malaysia, a country she doesn’t remember being born in but has a longstanding curiosity about. Broke and jobless, she’s not sure if she has anything to lose. Jess feels the spirit of her dead grandmother Ah Ma who worshiped a local god, the Black Water Sister, and when her goddess was threatened, Ah Ma wants revenge and will use her living granddaughter to get it.

Best holiday reads 2022

Self Care

A girl sitting with an old book on her legs while she has a cup of coffee

Behavioural Change Specialist Shahroo Izadi believes that there’s only one way to make a positive change really last – whether that change is around the mind, the body or relationship health. The Kindness Method explains all this in detail. The method was developed through a combination of the authors personal experience and professional training. Readers are saying that after reading The Kindness Method, they feel positive, empowered and ready to make a change for themselves through kindness, whatever that change means for them

This is a practical but powerful guide to rewiring your brain for joy. Mo Gawdat reveals that we can change the way we think by talking down the negative voice within ourselves. He believes that we can turn greed into kindness as well as transform apathy into compassionate action and create our own happiness. This book is full of brain exercises that draw on neuroscience studies as well as Gawdat’s own personal experience (he’s a past Google engineer and CBO).

You may have come across Gawdat before as a guest on podcasts like Joe Rogan’s or Diary of a CEO. He draws upon the life of his late son in an incredibly inspiring way.

Best holiday reads 2022

Crime & Thriller

As the title might suggest, this isn’t a light read. Couple Eden and Niall Paternoster spend their Sunday like they always do – but after the usual stop at the supermarket after the long drive they always do, Eden doesn’t come back to the car with the groceries. Niall finds no trace of her – no phone, she hasn’t made it home somehow, nothing from family or friends. He panics. Niall is then arrested on suspicion of Eden’s murder but when the main character DS Roy Grace is called in to investigate the case, he realises that, of course, nothing is quite as simple as it first seemed. You may have heard of or seen Left You Dead on TV. This is a compelling series of crime novels which have made Peter James an award-winning crime fiction writer.

Many believe their own families are dysfunctional, but the Darker family is something else. This crime novel is set on a creepy island estate at Nana Darker’s home, where this abnormal family decide to have one of their get-togethers for Nana’s 80th birthday celebrations. As the reader, you get caught up in the night, getting to grips with each of the family members’ strange ways. As the party unfolds, each of the guests is killed off one by one. This twisted story is a real page turner and perfect for crime and thriller fans. 

This is another gripping tale by popular thriller writer Fiona Cummins. 10 year old Sara spent 8 years in a children’s secure unit for crime for the murder of her parents, Dr Richard Carter and his wife. This story is set now, when Sara has a life and a family of her own. She finds that on the anniversary of the crime, one particular journalist, Brinley Booth, has managed to track her down in her new life. Sara’s sister Shannon knows Brinley well from when they were children, and the story unfolds as the group confront what happened all those years ago with a new adult perspective.

This is an international political thriller co-written by Hillary Rodham Clinton along with award-winning New York Times bestselling novelist, Louise Penny. Clinton uses her experience in US politics to inform this gripping tale. The main character, Ellen, acts as secretary of state when a new government comes into power. A terrorist organisation is causing chaos across the whole of Europe and Ellen slowly uncovers how the former president’s impact on international affairs has had a scarily detrimental effect. 

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