By Sarah Gill
13th Dec 2023
13th Dec 2023
@sarahjessicaparker
What can we say? The woman clearly has taste.
Earlier this year, we looked into every book on Sarah Jessica Parker’s summer reading list, and now we’re back to provide a rundown on her top titles of 2023.
SJP posted her favourites to her 9.2 million strong following on Instagram, and as always, her grá for little old Ireland was evident at a glance. Among the 13 tomes, there are three titles from Irish authors; Michael Magee, Paul Murray, and Claire Keegan.
If you weren’t already aware, Sarah Jessica Parker has an imprint with Zando publishers called SJP Lit, which has been bringing sweeping, expansive, thought-provoking, and big-hearted stories from international and underrepresented voices to a wider audience, capturing the contemporary imagination and reflecting a wide-range of voices and experiences.
“In 2023 I have travelled in books to various points in Ireland, India, Uganda, my home of NYC, across the George Washington Bridge to Vauxhall New Jersey, Indiana and Iran, an Italian village, Colorado, Oakland California and England,” she writes. “I have spent time in the very distant past and in contemporary times. All courtesy of the extraordinary writers who authored the blissfully transportive and forever remembered books I have had the pleasure of holding, reading and sharing this past year.”
“As always, I’m incapable of picking a favourite, nor would I, even if I was so inclined. I could not compare, nor should they compete. They are all glorious, radically and wonderfully different from one another, and simply share one ingredient – supremely gifted authors.”
“Some are important new voices, some voices you might already know and love as I do. If you’ve not read the ones currently available I’m thrilled to introduce these books and in some cases perhaps, the writers,” she concludes.
Someone who clearly spends much of her spare time buried in books, SJP’s taste in books is truly impeccable. Outside of Ireland, authors that made the list include the ever iconic Zadie Smith, writer and educator Elysha Chang, and debut novelist Janika Oza.
Here are the three Irish titles listed among SJP’s top titles of 2023…
Close to Home by Michael Magee
A title at the top of my own favourites list from 2023 as well, this book is the very definition of unputdownable.
Close to Home begins with this sudden act of violence and expands into a startling portrait of working-class Ireland under the long shadow of the Troubles. It’s a first novel drawn from life, written with the immediacy of thought. It’s about what happens when men get desperate, about the cycles of loss and trauma and secrecy that keep them trapped, and about the struggle to get free.
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
From the author of Skippy Dies comes Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting, an irresistibly funny, wise, and thought-provoking tour de force about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person when the world is falling apart.
The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under?but rather than face the music, he’s spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife Imelda is selling off her jewellery on eBay, while their teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way through her final exams. And twelve-year-old PJ is putting the final touches to his grand plan to run away from home.
Where did it all go wrong? A patch of ice on the tarmac, a casual favour to a charming stranger, a bee caught beneath a bridal veil?can a single moment of bad luck change the direction of a life? And if the story has already been written?is there still time to find a happy ending?
So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan
A triptych of stories about love, lust, betrayal, misogyny, and the ever-intriguing interchanges between women and men. Celebrated for her powerful short fiction, Claire Keegan now gifts us three exquisite stories, newly revised and expanded, together forming a brilliant examination of gender dynamics and an arc from Keegan’s earliest to her most recent work.
Each story probes the dynamics that corrupt what could be between women and a lack of generosity, the weight of expectation, the looming threat of violence. Potent, charged, and breathtakingly insightful, these three essential tales will linger with readers long after the book is closed.
Imagery via @sarahjessicaparker
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