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One sure way to explore the world and travel across continents is through reading. But in a world where 2.2 million books are published every year, there’s the possibility of you missing out on some amazing and wonderful books you need to experience at least once in your life. That is why this book recommendation includes ten books that everyone should read at least once in their lifetime.
There are numerous reasons why the books collected on this list are here. From learning about diverse cultures and ways of life to following the lives of the characters in these books. But one thing is for sure, you are guaranteed a memorable reading experience that would leave a lasting impression on you.
Read our recommendations below.
EASY MOTION TOURIST
Author: LEYE ADENLE
Genre: FICTION
Easy Motion Tourist is a gripping thriller and crime story set in modern-day Lagos, featuring Guy Collins, a British hacker who accidentally wanders into the city’s murky underbelly. A woman’s mangled body is dumped outside a bar near one of Victoria Island’s biggest hotels. Collins, a bystander, is detained by police as a possible suspect. After being subjected to the brutal realities of a Nigerian police cell, he is saved by Amaka. As Collins learns more about the darker side of Lagos, such as the illegal organ trade, he gradually falls for Amaka, a tough female protagonist ready to face the Nigerian criminal world on her own.
FINDING ME
AUTHOR: VIOLA DAVIS
GENRE: NON-FICTION
Finding Me is Viola Davis’ memoir. Here, we read about a young girl who made a life-changing decision to stop running away from her past. In a deeply personal and brutally honest way, Davis shares her story of overcoming life adversities and her hero’s journey. Finding Me is a personal reflection, and a love letter to oneself.
PATSY
AUTHOR: DENNIS-BENN
GENRE: FICTION
This is a book that takes you on a roller coaster ride about Patsy, who in pursuit for a better life and love decided to leave Jamaica for America for that dream, which didn’t include her overzealous, evangelical mother or even her five-year-old daughter, Tru. Patsy weaves between the lives of Patsy and Tru in vignettes spanning more than a decade as mother and daughter ultimately find a way back to one another.
DEAR SENTHURAN
AUTHOR: AKWAEKE EMEZI
GENRE: NON-FICTION
Akwaeke Emezi takes readers through a terrain defined by familial tensions, Igbo religious systems, and an endless search for what it means to be free. Emezi depicts the development of a self and the unforgettable journey of a creative soul ascending to dominance in the human realm. Their story weaves through transforming decisions about their gender and body, their rapid rise to popularity as writers, and the upheaval of relationships on an emotional, romantic, and spiritual level, ending in a work that is as delicate as it is cruel. Dear Senthuran is a revelatory exploration of storytelling, identity, and survival.
TOMORROW DIED YESTERDAY
AUTHOR: CHIMEKA GARRICKS
GENRE: FICTION
It’s 2004 in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, during the peak of the kidnapping of oil workers in the Niger-Delta, when a kidnapping goes wrong, and four lives are reconnected. Douye, popularly known as Doughboy, is the militant responsible for the crime. Amaibi, the university lecturer and eco-warrior, who is accused of committing the crime. Kaniye, a lawyer turned restaurateur who attempts to get him off, and Tubo, an amoral oil industry executive.
Against a backdrop of corrupt practices, broken systems, and injustice, these four friends tell the story of oil in the Niger-Delta, as well as its consequences on local people and Nigerian society. Chimeka Garricks’ novel is an eye opener that uncovers the issues facing in contemporary Nigeria. It is an emotional roller coaster and an important read.
HOMEGOING
AUTHOR: Yaa Gyasi
GENRE: FICTION
Two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, are born in separate villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married to an Englishman and lives well in the opulent chambers of Cape Coast Castle.
Unknown to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned under her in the castle’s dungeons, sold into the Gold Coast’s thriving slave trade, and taken to America, where her children and grandchildren would be raised as slaves. This novel highlights Ghana history in such a vivid way that would stay in your memory for a very long time, and it shows how the way we live in the present tends to have effect on our future generations.
BLESSINGS
AUTHOR: CHUKWUEBUKA IBEH
GENRE: FICTION
When Obiefuna’s father witnesses an intimate encounter between his teenage son and the family’s apprentice, who has recently arrived from a nearby village, he sends him to a Christian boarding school with rigorous hierarchy and regularity, as well as horrific violence. Obiefuna, who is completely separated from the people he cares about, embarks on a voyage of self-discovery and maturing desire, while his mother Uzoamaka struggles to keep her favourite son, her truest friend, close. Blessings is an elegant and heart-touching story of love and loneliness that alternates between the viewpoints of Obiefuna and his mother, Uzoamaka, as they strive for a future that will embrace them both. Asking how we can live freely while politics pervades our hearts, lives, and thoughts.
THE FIRST WOMAN
AUTHOR: Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
GENRE: FICTION
Kirabo, Ugandan mythology’s version of Eve, is the protagonist of The First Woman, a multigenerational story told across multiple generations. Kirabo, smart, headstrong, and flawed, is raised by adoring grandparents in picturesque Natteria, rural Uganda. However, when she hits her teens, she begins to feel overshadowed by the absence of her mother, whom she has never known. The First Woman, which explores themes of identity, history, Uganda folklore, family secrets, femininity, and patriarchy, is the story of one little girl’s search for her mother, her discovery of what it means to be a woman throughout history, and the ramifications for her future.
THE SECRET LIVES OF CHURCH LADIES
AUTHOR: DEESHA PHILYAW
GENRE: FICTION
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies is a collection of short stories that tells the experiences of four generations of Black women and girls, grappling with who they want to be in the world, caught as they are between the church’s double standards and their own needs and passions. With their secret longings, newly found love, and forbidden affairs, these church ladies are as alluring as they desire, as vulnerable as they need to be, as unfaithful and unrepentant as they want to be, and as liberated as they deserve.
CHILDREN OF THE QUICKSANDS
AUTHOR: EFUA TRAORÉ
GENRE: FICTION
Simi, a city girl, is taken to be with her long-lost grandmother in a distant Nigerian community. There is no television, internet, or telephone. At night, the only sound is that of birds and animals rustling in the dark forest outside. Her witch–like grandma gives counsel and herbal medication to the villagers, but she keeps quiet about their family past. Something must have occurred, but what? Simi, determined to discover the truth, defies her grandmother and begins exploring. Her trip into another realm begins when she is trapped in a forbidden lake’s sinking red quicksand.