Greetings, readers! My name is Sareeta Domingo, and I’m an author and fiction editor. It’s my great pleasure to be bringing you a Book of the Week, each week here on Morning Mari.
 
This week, my selection is a novel that strikingly explores the complex lives of a mother and her son in dual narratives, set decades apart. It’s the dazzling first novel by award winning author Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, Harmless Like You.
 
In the book’s intriguing, deftly succinct Prologue, set in Berlin, we see a man who we’ll later learn to be one of the protagonists, Jay, meeting Yuki, a woman who, it transpires, is Jay’s long-estranged mother. We’re then transported to Yuki’s life in the late sixties and into the seventies as she navigates the bohemian, dangerous, sometimes repellent landscape of New York City. She develops a friendship with whirlwind glamourpuss Odile, and is reluctantly allowed to pursue her dreams of being an artist in the city when her parents return to their native Japan.
 
We also follow Jay in the present day as a grown man whose mother had abandoned him as a baby in search of these artistic pursuits. Jay is a recently new father who perhaps ironically deals in Asian artworks, the nature of which his estranged mother will herself be classed as creating.
 
Buchanan’s vivid use of language itself evokes a true artist’s touch, that really situates us in the perspective of Yuki in particular, but we’re also truly immersed in the peculiarities of Jay’s character through the humour in his own internal turns of phrase, and his utter devotion to his hairless cat, Celeste.
 
The interactions between the two central characters towards the books conclusion are tense and guardedly tender. We see a culmination of the impact of the years they’ve spent apart, and the expectation of familial connection, or lack thereof. Through this novel, Buchanan astutely explores the difficulties of being present in our own lives, and the inescapable nature of being where and who we are. It’s a beautiful novel, and that is why Harmless Like You by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan is my Book of the Week this week.

Greetings, readers! My name is Sareeta Domingo, and I’m an author and fiction editor. It’s my great pleasure to be bringing you a Book of the Week, each week here on Morning Mari.
 
It was my mother’s birthday earlier this week, which made me think of the stories my mum has told me of her childhood and the naughty shenanigans she’d get up to growing up in Sierra Leone. Those stories remind me of a novel that in many ways evoked the same feeling. So this week, my Book of the Week selection is the fantastic Annie John, written by Antiguan author Jamaica Kincaid.
 
The book is also set in Antigua, with shades of fictionalised autobiography from the author. It follows the titular girl, Annie John, as she grows up on the idyllic island, idolising her mother and navigating the challenges of starting out at a new school. Narrated by Annie’s character, we get to see the humorous escapades of this precocious young girl, her deep loyalty to and love for close friend Gwen, and then her burgeoning obsession with another child she names ‘the Red Girl’, whose freedom from chores and the seeming constraints of hygiene Annie admires greatly.
 
But as Annie grows older, we see her drifting apart from and starting to clash with her mother, and Kincaid shows us how the onset of adolescence and womanhood begin to challenge the once strong bonds between the two. There are also hints at the seeming benefits but also the cultural erosions that colonialism has caused for Antigua.
 
More than anything, though, the novel introduces us to a spirited, hugely engaging heroine with whom almost any of us who’ve experienced the transitional period between adolescence and early adulthood can relate. Kincaid makes us really root for Annie, and to hope that she will make it, as she sails off—literally and figuratively—into her future. It’s a classic, beautifully rendered tale, and that is why Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid is my Book of the Week this week.

Greetings, readers! My name is Sareeta Domingo, and I’m an author and fiction editor. It’s my great pleasure to be bringing you a Book of the Week, each week here on Morning Mari.
 
We’re edging towards Valentine’s Day, and although the notion of a day to celebrate romance has been a bit over-commodified and stripped of meaning, my Book of the Week selection this week is a truly astounding and achingly romantic debut novel that’s published in the UK today--Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson.
 
The book follows a young Black man who meets a beautiful and initially somewhat unattainable young Black woman in a South East London pub. As the two protagonists grow closer, we see them begin to connect while both pursuing their artistic passions, with him a photographer and she a dancer. The intimacy that develops between them is startlingly palpable on the page, with the hesitant conversation, and the deep unspoken connections that are evoked in lyrical yet economic language by the author.
 
But we’re also privy to the challenges that the young man who is our protagonist faces as a Black male in Britain today—the bone-deep trauma that comes from police interactions, and the difficulties in expressing vulnerability alongside Black masculinity. All of that plays into the manner in which the growing romance is navigated, in a way that feels so deeply personal.
 
The familiarity and soul-level emotional engagement of Nelson’s story is emphasised by the fact that the book is written in the second person (in other words, ‘you’ do this ‘you’ to that, rather than ‘I’ or ‘he’), a clever literary device that makes the book feel at once like an excavation of the character’s soul but also invites us as readers to experience the events not only with our eyes and brains, but our hearts as well. It’s powerfully romantic, and exquisitely written, and that is why Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson is my Book of the Week this week.

Greetings, readers! My name is Sareeta Domingo, and I’m an author and fiction editor. It’s my great pleasure to be bringing you a Book of the Week, each week here on Morning Mari.
 
Last week, much of the world breathed a collective sigh of relief as Joe Biden was inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States. So this week, I decided my Book of the Week selection should be Barack Obama’s A Promised Land, the first volume of the recent memoir of number 44, under whom Biden served as Vice President.
 
The book is an epic account of Obama’s first term in office as president, and also encompasses his initial, historic campaign for the nomination, and then for the role itself. It feels somewhat incredible now to think that the United States elected its first Black president on the basis of such positive ideals as hope and change, but the book serves as a welcome way of re-living the jubilation so many of us felt at that time.
 
Much of A Promised Land goes into sometimes perhaps overly-specific detail about policy making and the ins and outs of key decisions made over the course of Obama’s presidency. However, I was very struck by how much it laid bare the spinning plates he had to balance in terms of leading a country like the United States, domestically in terms of things like the huge economic issues after the sub-prime mortgage bubble burst, and in terms of vast and varied issues of foreign policy. In particular, his explanations of the issues of universal healthcare in the US really clarified the challenges he faced in galvanising the country towards what would be known as Obamacare in a way I’d never heard laid bare before.
 
The book truly comes alive in Obama’s skillful descriptions and evocative recollections— for example, giving, when we encounter them, quick descriptive sketches of a huge range of the people involved in his presidency, from world leaders to members of the White House staff, that really bring each scene to life.
 
His reminiscences of his concerns about the challenges facing his children and his marriage to Michelle Obama during his presidency are also affecting, as is his description of the emotional toll of not being able to be at his dying mother’s bedside due to his campaign. Despite its length, I’d highly recommend giving it a read (or a listen on audiobook like I did). It’s a skillfully written, fascinating account of Barack Obama’s first four years in office, and that is why A Promised Land is my Book of the Week this week.

Greetings, readers! My name is Sareeta Domingo, and I’m an author and fiction editor. It’s my great pleasure to be bringing you a Book of the Week, each week here on Morning Mari.
 
This week, my Book of the Week selection is Luster, the debut novel of author Raven Lelani. It’s a book that is published in the UK today, but I was so desperate to read it that I eagerly ordered an imported copy from the US, where it was published back in late summer last year. And I was well rewarded for my eagerness, because the book is a truly electrifying read.
 
The story follows Edie, a young African-American woman navigating the early rungs of her pseudo-career in publishing in an achingly white-dominated environment. Among the varied sexual partners with whom she engages is middle-aged suburbanite Eric, who is in an ambiguously open marriage to wife Rebecca. Despite Eric’s sometimes tedious, sometimes infantalising and sometimes downright violent treatment of Edie, she is still unable to reconcile a whiff or rejection from him, and finds herself turning up at his home. It is there that she runs into Rebecca, and so begins an awkward triumvirate of a relationship that as much involves the adults as it does Eric and Rebecca’s adoptive daughter, Akila.
 
On the cusp of teenagehood, Akila is a young Black girl, whose assimilation into life with her parents is coloured (no pun intended) by this fact. There’s a whiff of intention in seeing Edie as a solution to this challenge when, somewhat surprisingly, Rebecca invites Edie to live with them.
 
But the truth is more complicated, and Lelani’s evocation of this story and its awkward dynamics is equally nuanced. Her use of language is by turns poetic, hilarious and clever—lines jump out at you to be read again and again. With Edie at its centre, Luster depicts a multifaceted, at times painfully-relatable, messed-up, deceptively astute heroine who is seeking to understand the world outside her—a world shot through with the politics of race, gender and sexuality—but more than anything, she is seeking to be understood, and to comprehend her own sense of self. It’s a superb debut novel, and that is why Luster by Raven Lelani is my Book of the Week this week.

Greetings, readers! My name is Sareeta Domingo, and I’m an author and fiction editor. It’s my great pleasure to be bringing you a Book of the Week, each week here on Morning Mari.
 
This week, my selection is a book with a premise so enticing that every time I think about it, the author part of my brain is jealous I didn’t come up with something like it myself! So this week, my Book of the Week is Naomi Alderman’s brilliant, Women’s Prize-winning speculative fiction novel The Power.
 
The premise of the book is dazzling yet simple—women across the world develop the ability to generate electricity from their hands, allowing them to protect themselves and also to possibly harm, torture and kill men. The onset of this ability upends the patriarchal status quo of the world as we currently know it, as this power turns the tables on the dominance of men globally.
 
The book actually takes the form of a manuscript, apparently written 5000 years ahead of our present day by male author Neil Adam Armon to another author, slyly named Naomi. His book details the outset of the power. We meet a host of characters, including Nigerian journalist Tunde, one of the first to capture the use of the power on camera; Allie, a young woman who uses her abilities to kill her abusive foster father and later becomes the leader of a cult; and Roxy, the daughter of a mob boss who turns to Allie—later known as Mother Eve—for help controlling her powers, and they soon become close friends.
 
The scope of the novel is deceptively vast conceptually, but is cleverly and skilfully handled by Alderman, who uses humour and irony to great effect—at the book’s conclusion, the fictional version of Naomi even advises her male colleague to publish his book under a female pseudonym.
 
In exploring the potential of a shrewdly feminist ‘what-if’ scenario, Alderman never veers into territory that feels obvious or contrived. It’s a powerful concept and a powerful book that is certain to stay with you long after you close its covers. That is why The Power by Naomi Alderman is my Book of the Week this week.

Greetings, readers! My name is Sareeta Domingo, and I’m an author and fiction editor. It’s my great pleasure to be bringing you a Book of the Week, each week here on Morning Mari.
 
We’ve made it! It’s a new year, but we’re certainly not quite out of the woods in terms of the tough times. So for my first Book of the Week selection of 2021, to lift the mood I’m recommending a book that is both insightful and immersive, but also hilarious--Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins, by English actor Rupert Everett. It’s his first autobiography, published in 2004 (he has another coming this year).
 
This book charts Everett’s early life and career, following his transient episodes of living in environments as diverse as glamorous St Tropez, the sleazier side of Paris nightlife, and, of course, the bright lights of Hollywood. He has a wonderful way of highlighting both the aspirational excitement of the fantastic situations in which he finds himself, but is also under no illusion that pride can so often come before a fall, especially in the fickle world of cinema.
 
Everett is especially, and perhaps inevitably, astute in his investigations of the challenges he faced as a gay actor in an industry that only seemed to believe openly gay people as suitable for comedic fodder, while, as he puts it, “straight guys were better as the serious queers.” He’s also brilliantly erudite in his description of the challenges he faced as his promising acting career began to wane—his account of working on an obscure film with Sharon Stone made me laugh out loud.
 
Overall, Everett’s biography offers a deliciously honest, sexy and funny insight into the life of an actor who I’d consider to be an under-sung national treasure. The book reads like having a meal with an ideal dinner guest, and a great way to ease into the reading year. That is why Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins by Rupert Everett is my Book of the Week this week.

Greetings, readers! My name is Sareeta Domingo, and I’m an author and fiction editor. It’s my great pleasure to be bringing you a Book of the Week, each week here on Morning Mari.
 
So here we are at the tail end of this year, and my final book recommendation for 2020. It feels like a cliché now to reference just how turbulent this year has been globally, but what it has emphasised to me, as much as anything, is that you can never predict what is around the corner. However, much more significantly, it’s shown the importance of holding tight to the very concept of possibility. With that in mind, my last Book of the Week selection this year is one dedicated to that concept: For Every One by Jason Reynolds.
 
Reynolds is a prolific and multi-award-winning poet and author, primarily for young readers. However, For Every One is just that—a book for everybody. It’s a short, poetic piece written in the form of a letter, but it’s truly an amorphous meditation on motivation; a mantra that could be repeated—and read—again and again.
 
Written in bursts that are beautifully laid out on the page, the book describes both Reynolds own ambitions and the difficulties he faces in aiming to attain them—but it also reaches out with its words to us as readers, willing us on, supporting our struggles, and emphasising the importance of relishing in the act of striving. It is a piece of writing that is not necessarily about the destination of a dream, but the journey to it. For Every One is a book that’s sure to motivate any and all of us who have endured the tumbles and bumps of this unprecedented year, and I’d say it would make a wonderful gift. All we have to remember is that this has just been one stop along the way. As Reynolds writes: Dreams don’t have timelines, deadlines, and aren’t always in straight lines.
 
So, here’s to our dreams for the journey to come, and that’s why For Every One by Jason Reynolds is my Book of the Week this week.

Greetings, readers! My name is Sareeta Domingo, and I’m an author and fiction editor. It’s my great pleasure to be bringing you a Book of the Week, each week here on Morning Mari.
 
This week, my selection is a magnificently original memoir by writer and poet Yrsa Daley-Ward: The Terrible. The title of the book is apt in some ways, because, as she writes “God, there were terrible things” that happened to the author along the course of her life as a child and into early adulthood. She documents these things in a truly unique manner, straddling prose and poetry in short bursts of text that are economical, lyrical and striking.
 
Daley-Ward grew up in the northwest of England, initially with her beautiful Jamaican mother, Marcia and her beloved younger brother whom she calls Little Roo. Her Nigerian father was absent from their lives, and as she reaches puberty and gains unwanted attention form Marcia’s boyfriend, she’s shipped off to live with her strict, Seventh Day Adventist grandparents.
 
The book explores Daley-Ward’s burgeoning sexuality and how she attempts to navigate it as she grows older and moves away from home. This journey is empowering in ways, but also lays out dark, haunted passages that hint at deeper struggles. We see how the author grapples with how she’s viewed, particularly in physical terms, in the modelling industry, by her mother, by men and by herself—and how this impacts her mental health.
 
The text of the book itself is often experimentally laid out on the page, belying Daley-Ward’s engagement with the pithy Instagram posts that made her name as a poet. She has a truly wonderful sense of self-creation, of language delivery, and of creativity and writing itself. As she writes at the book’s conclusion: It takes six moments to write a thing. 1) you dream 2) you wake up 3) you sit down 4) you settle on the chair/bed/floor 5) you think what is happening? is this the day nothing’ll come? Is this the end of it? 6) then you grip your  heart, involuntarily and your soul comes up. Your soul comes up, I’m telling you.
 
 In this book, we truly see the author’s soul laid bare on the page. And that is why The Terrible by Yrsa Daley-Ward is my Book of the Week this week.

Greetings, readers! My name is Sareeta Domingo, and I’m an author and fiction editor. It’s my great pleasure to be bringing you a Book of the Week, each week here on Morning Mari.

Recently, I’ve been seeing some mesmerising teaser trailers circulating the internet for the incredible director Barry Jenkins’ next project—a limited television series which will be an adaptation of a truly brilliant book. So, I thought I would make it my Book of the Week selection for this week—Colson Whitehead’s astounding, Pulitzer Prize Winning 2016 novel The Underground Railroad.

The novel is set in the 19th Century in the United States. It focuses on Cora, an enslaved young woman who is an outcast on the plantation where she is forced to work, due to the fact that her mother, Mabel, escaped and left her behind. When fellow enslaved man Ceasar makes a plan to escape, he and Cora find their way out with the help of the Underground Railroad. While in reality, this was the term for a secret network of houses and clandestine routes to free states, and to Canada, in Whitehead’s novel the Underground Railroad is reimagined as an actual, physical rail transport system.

The story follows Cora and Ceasar’s dangerous, epic journey, the various places they arrive at or are forced to hide in, and the people they meet in dark, empathetic and sometimes tragic circumstances. All the while, they are being hunted by the evil so-called slave-catcher, Ridgeway, who is seeking vengeance for Mabel, the only enslaved person he’s been unable to capture.

The book is compelling and brilliantly written, with one of the most emotionally devastating twists I’ve ever read. But ultimately, the novel is a story of hope against impossible odds, and with the character of Cora at its heart we’re constantly willing her to succeed and so truly thankful for each victory, small and large, that she achieves. As Whitehead writes near the conclusion of the story – She Was Never Property. The novel is a truly staggering literary achievement, and that is why The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead is my Book of the Week this week.