Lisa Ray Instagram – A particularly delicious reading spree comes to a pause as the start of a new school year takes precedence. But let me share my recent top reads… 1. Wednesday’s Child by Yiyun Li is a collection of delicately layered short stories that evoke fully realised complexities in a few pages. They are simply dazzling. I feel sheepish to admit I hadn’t previously come across this talented literary star who emigrated from China to the US to study immunology and took up creative writing to improve her english. It is through literature that she has found a way to reveal herself. “One lives more feelingly in a borrowed life,” she wrote in an afterword to her memoir. You bet I’m ordering more of her work. 2. Drifts by Kate Zambreno is a sublime and mesmerising anti-novel in which nothing much happens, but nothing goes unobserved. I also share a particular passion for Rilke with the author and her musings are like stumbling on an appendix of your own moods and creative awakening. Hypnotic. 3. The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese is rightly celebrated. It’s a remarkable feat of endurance for both writer and reader, meticulously constructed, beautifully written. A multi generational saga set in Kerala, I flew through the book on vacation and was glad for the leisurely time I had to soak up the ambience- it’s probably a tougher bedside read. Not flawless, a bit dramatic in parts but nonetheless I shed many tears. ‘Things have a way of coming back when we think they are gone forever.’ states one of the characters. Certainly in Parambil, the fictional village at the heart of the story, they do. 4. Fate and Destiny by everyone’s favourite mythologist Michael Meade is simply marvellous. That’s all. Thanks @harpercollinsin for my advance copy of Yiyun Li’s book.