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In recent months, either due to our change in pandemic habits or because we have returned to recover wise customs, the number of people who have enjoyed a book in our country has increased. As far as we are concerned, we know that there is a love of reading, and a lot of it, among the readers of Elle.es. So we haven't thought for a moment when it comes to offering you this compilation of great works.

The topics about books are usually among your favorites in the Living section and, among them, the literary novelties and thematic recommendations cause special expectation. In the last year, some of your favorite articles were dedicated to the best books in history, the bestsellers of the year you were born or books on mental health.

Clearly, after lockdown is over, with the pandemic out there and winter looming, we are spending more time at home. And, in addition to dedicating it to watching Amazon, Netflix or HBO series, we can also spend some time reading, so we want to give you some good ideas. Specifically, very recent books, which have been published in recent months and weeks. Because it's very good to read classic books, but you also have to know what contemporary authors publish. You can buy all these books on Amazon in their paper version and they also have a digital version that you can buy on Kindle.

What do we start with? We start with three impressive proposals from three women. On the one hand, the Spanish Edurne Portela, who has just released a new novel, after conquering us with her wonderful 'Absence is better' and 'Ways of being far away'; his new proposal, 'Los ojos cerrados', takes us to a small town in Spain that has experienced many types of violence in silence. Also within our territory but on the islands, we recommend that you give Andrea Abreu's 'Panza de burro' a chance, a specimen that leaves no one indifferent.

On the other hand, with the Russian Anna Starobinets. The publisher Impedimenta publishes the shocking 'You have to look', a grieving and obligatory work in which the author recounts her real experience after being diagnosed with a serious illness in the baby that she was expecting. A terrible journey through clinics that tests the sense of motherhood.

The British Eley Williams, for her part, gives us a great debut, 'The Liar's Dictionary', which all lovers of letters will like for its ability to relate words to the identity of people and with your communication skills. Because we don't always know how to express ourselves, right?

In addition, we will continue with some novels set in the Franco dictatorship; with trips to a United States that oscillates between rock and religious sects; with innovative proposals such as Elif Shafak or Emilie Pine, some of the best female voices of their generation... As always, come and read.

1) 'The Legacy of Maude Donegal' and 'The Surviving Son'

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Siruela publishes these two mystery novels by Joyce Carol Oates, the veteran writer born in 1938 who continues to be around, year after year, among the great candidates for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Written with mastery and intelligence, 'The legacy of Maude Donegal' and 'The surviving son' (Siruela) hide clues to history and mystery in many of their words, which requires the reader to pay close attention to the text. In the first, which echoes the characteristics of gothic novels, we meet Clare, adopted at the age of two, who receives a call informing her that she has inherited property in Maine from a grandmother she didn't know she owned. In the second novel, 'The surviving son', the protagonist is Stefan, who was saved from a family tragedy: his mother killed his sister and then committed suicide.

2) 'Love Song'

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After the enormous success of 'Taxi', published in 2017, comes the new novel by Carlos Zanón, in which he follows his stark style, a love story and friendship sprinkled with good music. Without revealing their identity, three talented and somewhat successful musicians —a couple and their best friend— embark on a summer tour of campsites and venues on the Mediterranean coast covering songs only from 1985. Aboard an impeccable California Camper, driven by a driver vainly nicknamed Polidori, the band —made up of Jim, Eileen and Cowboy— launches into playing and running, enjoying and suffering, between pop compositions, fractured bones and difficult emotions to handle.

3) 'Mrs. March'

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We have seen great authors who succeed in bridging the very often narrow line between suspense and romantic books, such as Patricia Highsmith or those of Daphne du Maurier, and in you will enjoy that line 'La señora March' (Lumen, 18.90 euros), one of the recent literary phenomena. Virginia Feito has written a delicious and captivating novel that, let's not be surprised, will soon be made into a movie. Mrs. March is the wife of a successful writer; they both live on the Upper East Side (yes, the posh neighborhood in NY where 'Gossip Girl' takes place) so happily, until one day when she goes to a bakery and the saleswoman hints that her husband's latest novel would be inspired by her .

4) 'Brillo'

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There are many expectations placed on 'Brillo' (Blackie Books), the work of Raven Leilani that Barack Obama spoke so well of in his day and that he tries to explain what it is to be young today. Considered Best Book of the Year by 'The New York Times' and included in the recommendation lists of 'Time', 'The Washington Post' or 'The Guardian', among other media, it tells the story of Edie, a 23-year-old African-American girl years old, she is having an affair with Eric, a 41-year-old white man in an open marriage. When she is left without a house or a job, Eric's wife invites her to live with them. Edie then discovers that this upper-class progressive couple has an African-American adoptive daughter, and the home becomes something much more wicked than just a love triangle.

Release: February 16

5) 'Ceniza en la boca'

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After falling in love and shrinking our hearts with the wonderful 'Empty Houses' (which you will also see recommended later), the Mexican writer Brenda Navarro returns directly to shock us with his magnificent and devastating pen in 'Ceniza en la boca' (Sixth Floor). In it, she deals with issues such as identity, inequality or xenophobia and asks us if life is worth living... and what a life. It begins when Diego throws himself from a fifth floor; It's six seconds and his body crashes to the ground. The terrible image an image does not stop appearing in the head of his sister, who will be the narrator of their story: when they still lived in Mexico with their grandparents, when they arrived in Spain and passed through Madrid and Barcelona and finally back to Mexico to take his brother's ashes.

Release: March 7

6) 'Malaventura'

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Music journalist in El País and other media and scriptwriter for some films such as 'Verónica' and 'Bajo cero', Fernando Navarro makes his leap into the novel with ' Malaventura' (Impedimenta), a novel halfway between Cormac McCarthy, spaghetti western and Quentin Tarantino's films. Unusual and heartbreaking, the work takes place on several fronts: a barber woman caught up in a brawl, a bandit cruelly lynched, a mysterious massacre in an inn, the impossible love between a seer and an outlaw... A host of bizarre and deep in a novel that will be talked about a lot in 2022.

Release: March 7

7) 'Oh William'

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Do we really know each other as well as we think? Do we even know the person next to us as well as we think? Elizabeth Strout delves into identity and long-term relationships in this novel with her minimalist and natural language. 'Ay, William' (Alfaguara) is a new book starring his well-known character, Lucy Barton, who is now 63 years old and who, after decades at William's side, with whom she has two adult daughters, discovers herself at the side of a stranger who suffers from night terrors and who is determined to reveal a dark secret about his mother.

8) 'The Flight of the Kite'

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Another of the authors who will return in 2022 is Laetitia Colombani, with the continuation of her acclaimed novel 'The Braid'. 'The Flight of the Kite' (Salamander) is the story of an unforgettable and repairing encounter between two women and a girl in a troubled India. After the drama that has dynamited her existence, Léna decides to leave everything and embarks on a trip to the Bay of Bengal. Haunted by the ghosts of the past, she does not feel a bit of peace until, at dawn, she goes swimming in the Indian Ocean, where a girl plays with a kite every morning.

Release: March 3

9) 'Free Love'

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After the intense 'What Remains of Light' (also recommended a little later), in 2022 the British novelist Tessa Hadley will publish 'Free Love' (Sixth Piso), a work in which he takes us to the vibrant London of the 60s to introduce us to Phyllis, a woman to whom events make her consider everything she is as a woman, wife and mother. Nicholas, the son of an old friend of the Fischer family, comes to dinner and turns everything 'upside down' in the home where the housewife and her husband, Roger, a diplomat, live, who until now had not questioned anything about their common life. Throughout the evening, Nicholas will kiss Phyllis, unleashing a torrent of thoughts and feelings that may lead him to break everything.

Release: February 14

10) 'A House Full of People'

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Beautiful and wonderful; one of those novels that is hard to get into but then you want to read it little by little for fear that it will end sooner than you would like (it has 328 pages). 'A house full of people' was published in 2019 in Argentina, the native country of the author, Mariana Sández, and now comes to Impedimenta with the aim of dazzling as it did there. It tells the story of Leila, a translator and writer whose life revolves around books who, predicting that her end is near, leaves her diaries and photographs to her daughter Charo. An intelligent book with a dose of black humor and suspense that will move you and win you over with its vision of society and motherhood.

11) 'The World Is Yours'

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Martine Delvaux is one of the great French-speaking feminist authors; hers is 'The world is yours', recently published by Firmamento, a collection of texts in the form of letters that she dedicates to her teenage daughter. With all his love, he offers you a legacy of thoughts on women's values ​​and how to hold your own in a heteropatriarchal world. It is very well written and on each page is a wonderful message about the true meaning of motherhood. It explains how a maternity writer and teacher knew how to make her daughter the center of her life unconditionally. Beautiful and tremendously inspiring.

12) 'Los enanos'

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It is not a recent work, rather it won the Planeta Award in 1962, but we have been lucky in 2021 that the publishing house La Navaja Suiza has will recover. 'Los enanos' is a magnificent novel by Concha Alós that takes place in a boarding house in post-war Barcelona, ​​at the end of the 50s, where the characters of the work arrive trying to escape from the post-war period. It is about unfortunates that the most powerful will take advantage of, making clear the cruelty of an unfair and competitive society.

13) 'Los ingrates'

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Pedro Simón has given us a magnificent exercise in nostalgia and has written one of those books that makes you sad to reach the last page; you would like it to go on much more... 'Los ingrates' (Espasa) is a tribute to the generation of our parents and grandparents, who lived through the war and the post-war period and who used every last chickpea in their stew because they had been very hungry. The story takes place in a town, in 1975, where a new teacher arrives with her children: David is the youngest, who will have to adjust to his new rural life. A caregiver will forever change the course of his life. 'Los ingrates' has received the Spring Novel Award 2021.

14) 'The Strangers'

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We never tire of reading books by Jon Bilbao, one of the best writers (in the literal sense, one of those who write best) on the national scene. We are in luck and, after his fabulous western 'Basilisk', comes another novel, 'Los extraños' (Impedimenta, 17.25 euros), in which he addresses the issue of relationships, those who no longer know what name to receive when the routine begins to invade them. Jon and Katharina are spending the holidays in the north of Spain; she is pregnant but she doesn't know if it was a good idea. After seeing some strange lights in the sky, they receive a visit from Markel, who says that he is a distant cousin of Jon's (but he doesn't remember him) and his partner Virginia. Will they learn to live with these strangers?

15) 'The Story of Shuggie Bain'

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One of the best books of 2021 is about addictions, 'The Story of Shuggie Bain' (Sixth Floor Narrative), by Douglas Stuart. I already anticipate that it is not easy to read at all, it is raw and hard, but it is equally addictive and it is fantastically written. Heartbreaking and authentic, it takes us to Glasgow in the 1980s, torn apart by the whims of a Margaret Thatcher determined to end the rights of the working class. Agnes Bain lives in a working-class neighborhood with her three children and her taxi driver husband, but when he leaves her, she will try to support her family alone. The difficulties to achieve it will push him to drink.

16) 'Volver a donde'

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A new novel by Antonio Muñoz Molina is always great news for Spanish literature. On this occasion, the writer relieves us of 'back to school' with 'Back to where' (Seix Barral), a work in which the pandemic is very present. The author takes us to June 2020, when it seems that the city begins to wake up after months of confinement. The protagonist clings to the memories of his childhood, in a town where the elders are dying. It is the last one and with it all family memory will disappear, but COVID helps him reflect on all the bad practices that we could have gotten rid of but that, on the contrary, we have accentuated.

17) 'Hamnet'

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First it was Hamlet, then its author, William Shakespeare, and now it is Agnes, the protagonist of 'Hamnet' (Asteroid Books), who has come to stay in the history of literature. This record-breaking bestseller novel is an extraordinary and entertaining award-winning find centering on the woman who would marry Shakespeare. Agnes is a somewhat strange and independent girl who is good at creating herbal remedies.

18) 'The Garden of Glass'

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Anyone who thought that the magnificent prose of 'The Summer My Mother Had Green Eyes' was just beginner's luck should read the second novel by Tatiana Ţîbuleac, 'The glass garden' (Impedimenta), which she published in 2018 and which comes from the Impedimenta publishing house. Her extremely talented writing now takes us to communist Moldova, when an old woman rescues little Lastotchka from an orphanage. It is not an act of kindness, since he has bought her as a slave to collect bottles on the street while fleeing from the insistent requests of certain men. A painful exercise in child abandonment on wounds that never heal.

19) 'The Country of Others'

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The Moroccan writer living in France Leila Slimani, bestseller in 2016 with her Goncourt Award for 'Sweet Song', is now giving us 'The Country of Others' others' (Cabaret Voltaire, 22.75 euros), which starts at the end of the Second World War. A young couple settles in Meknés, under the French protectorate, and while he tries to condition the farm that she has inherited from her father, she is overwhelmed by the harsh environment of the country. It will be a decade until the independence of the country of others, a Morocco full of soldiers, peasants, exiles... who do not feel it as theirs. Especially women, who must constantly fight for their independence.

20) 'Calls from mom'

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Is it possible to address painful areas of the human being and the mother-daughter relationship and do it in a vitalist way, with optimism and a sense of humor? In 'Llamadas de mamá' by Carole Fives (Sexto Piso editorial) one of the protagonists is Charlène, the mother, who is over sixty and who every day leaves a message or calls her daughter, with whom she maintains an unbelievable relationship. more peculiar. Although deep down, she is a widowed woman who compensates her daughter by 'burning' her with calls... but she is diagnosed with cancer and depression and the fun times give way to calls with a lot of pain, nostalgia and fear.

21) 'Miss Marte'

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After the success two years ago of 'Malaherba', 'Miss Marte' by Manuel Jabois (Alfaguara) tells us about the strange disappearance of a girl during a wedding of his mother, the last celebrated by the church in the town. Something strange hides the family and the locals because when Berta, a journalist, approaches to investigate the case 25 years later for a documentary, she finds many inconsistencies and secrets. In this second novel, Jabois delves into small societies where everyone thinks they know everything and in the end everyone hides something.

22) 'The Happiness Store'

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There are many who consider that 'The Happiness Store' (Alfaguara) could have been the funniest book of 2021. There is no lack of merits, with an agile prose, an ingenious story and some characters and a frankly hilarious humor. Rodrigo Muñoz Avia has created Carmelo, a man who, to live, only needs a computer with internet, an online supermarket and a few telemarketers to discuss. But in an order error, he will contact Mari Carmen, from the customer service of the supermarket. The novel is made up of epistolary form, with e-mails, so the reading is very quick (and recommended for these days of stress).

23) 'El Evangelio' (Elisa Victoria)

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Elisa Victoria, one of the best current writers you should know, has already revolutionized the world of young Spanish letters with 'Vozdevieja' and now she's here his impressive new work. 'The Gospel' (Blackie Books) is crude, hard, sad, but also hilarious. Only such a talented writer can apply all of this with balance... to the world of religion, or rather, to the world of convent schools. Lali, a teacher student, lands in one of them to do her internship: an option she didn't expect, but one that will make her rethink everything in her life. Above all, what happens to what we teach children, how we get them into the system and at what point do they lose their innocence forever.

24) 'The Liar's Dictionary' (Eley Williams)

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