The Love of Friendship
February 2, 2024
The month of February celebrates more than Valentines Day, which traditionally focuses on the love between romantic partners. In fact, February 15th is Singles Appreciation Day, a day to celebrate love in all forms, such as the love between friends, family, and self. Coincidentally, February 11th is Make a Friend Day. This reading list combines the celebration of these two lesser-known days, offering up books that celebrate friendship and/or singledom and the appreciation and love of self (no matter one’s relationship status).
Circe by Madeline Miller
Hailed by The New York Times as a “bold and subversive retelling of the goddess’s story,” Miller’s Circe is the story of a daughter who does not seem to equal the power and strength of her father, the god Helios, nor her mother’s beauty and allure. An outsider among her own, she finds companionship in the world of mortals. She also discovers she does indeed possess power – the power of witchcraft. When she is banished by Zeus to a deserted island, Circe must make her own way. In doing so, she finds empowerment and encounters many mythic figures, including Odysseus. Circe is the tale of a strong, independent woman who forges her own path, and Miller infuses the narrative with Circe’s emotional and moral complexity. A classic tale told through a feminist lens, Circe is a book that celebrates a woman’s strength, determination, and agency.
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
Dark and humorous, Carty-Williams’ titular character is a 25-year-old Jamaican British woman living in London. Frustrated by racial politics at the newspaper where she works and nursing the wound of a messy breakup, Queenie runs through a string of bad-for-her men and worse decisions – all of which cause her to question her actions, choices, and her own identity. Queenie explores what it means to be a woman who is true to herself in a world that thinks it knows best what women should be.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Described by NPR as “[a stunning] portrait of the enduring grace of friendship,” A Little Life follows the lives of four male university graduates who move from New England to New York City to establish their professional lives. Though the novel follows the lives of all four men across several decades, it is the life of Jude, abandoned in infancy and raised by abusive monks, that permeates all 700 pages of Yanagihara’s much praised book. A warning: this is not an easy read because the reader is immersed in Jude’s trauma and the abuse, self-harm, and suicidal tendencies that are associated with it. The novel is dark and bleak. And yet…there are many beautiful moments of light which shine through that darkness, and those illuminating sources originate from the bonds of friendship, love, and brotherhood the four men share.
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Honeyman’s witty and weird protagonist and narrator, Eleanor Oliphant, is a socially awkward and isolated young finance clerk living in Glasgow, Scotland. Eleanor keeps to a precise and altogether depressing schedule of work, crossword puzzles, solo vodka drinking, and dutiful weekend calls to “Mummy.” Despite all signs pointing otherwise, Eleanor thinks she is completely fine and focuses not on herself but on a local musician whom she believes she is destined to be with despite having never actually met him. She avoids almost everyone else around her until the day she and a new colleague named Raymond witness an elderly man collapse in the street. When Raymond and Eleanor take action to save the man’s life, it sparks the genesis of something Eleanor has been living without – friendship. Her bond with Raymond and the elderly man (Sammy) has unexpected and healing consequences for Eleanor, who suffered a trauma she has long suppressed. The relationships she forms open Eleanor’s life to the joy of friendship, kindness, and love. Honeyman’s novel is a moving, often funny story of one young woman’s journey out of loneliness and into a more fully lived and abundant life.
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, Walker’s epistolary novel about two sisters, Celie and Nettie, is ultimately a story about the bonds between women. When the sisters’ abusive stepfather marries young Celie to a man called Mister, the union leads to Nettie and Celie’s separation. As time goes on and Celie does not hear from Nettie, she believes her to be dead. Mister and his children misuse and scorn Celie, and her life is filled with hard work, pain, and loneliness until Mister’s longtime mistress Shug Avery comes to town. Shug brings joy, love, and hope into Celie’s life and discovers years’ worth of letters from Nettie that Mister hid from Celie. Emboldened by the realization that her sister is alive and by Shug’s support and encouragement, Celie forges a path the leads to her personal freedom. A Color Purple is a PBS Great American Read Top 100 selection and has recently been adapted into a musical film (released in December 2023) starring Fantasia Barrino (Celie) and Halle Bailey (Nettie).
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
Though this book is young adult historical fiction, readers of all ages will enjoy Wein’s tale of espionage, war, survival, and the power of friendship. When a British spy plane carrying two women, a pilot (Maddie) and a spy (“Verity”), crashes in Nazi-occupied France, one is lost to the wreckage, and the other is captured by the enemy. Forced to divulge her secrets or die, Verity chooses to tell her story, and it is one of courage, friendship, and dedication to the people and ideals which matter most. Set during World War II, Code Name Verity is a page-turning thriller that offers strong, capable female protagonists and a surprising and moving plot.
No One Tells You This: A Memoir by Glynnis MacNicol
Lauded by New York Magazine as “a rare and necessary perspective on the profound exhilaration of the untethered female life,” MacNicol’s memoir chronicles the journey of self-discovery she embarked on during her 40th year. Leading up to that birthday, MacNicol found that – despite being a successful writer and living a fulfilling New York City life – she had not accomplished what the world expected of her. She was not a wife or mother. Because there “was not a good blueprint for how to be a woman alone in the world,” MacNicol decided to create one of her own. No One Tells You This tracks her adventures, mishaps, and revelations in doing so. “A fearless reckoning with modern womanhood,” MacNicol’s memoir “is an exhilarating adventure that will resonate with anyone determined to live by their own rules.”
The Lonely Hunter: How Our Search for Love is Broken by Aimée Lutkin
Part memoir, part reportage, The Lonely Hunter explores the reasons why society refuses to accept that an increasing number of people (single-person households have more than tripled since 1940) choose to remain single. Through a year of intense research, a whole lot of dating, Netflix binging, and rumination, Lutkin chronicles her experience of being alone. Along the way, she exposes the biases against and misconceptions about the uncoupled. Described as “blazingly smart, insightful, and full of heart,” The Lonely Hunter is a book for anyone who values and celebrates walking their own path.
Untamed by Glennon Doyle
Reese Witherspoon declared Doyle’s memoir to be “packed with incredible insight about what it means to be a woman today.” Doyle spent years denying her own discontent until a moment of love at first sight changed everything. While speaking at a conference in 2016, Doyle looked out into the room, saw a woman, and said “There she is.” In that moment of clarity, Doyle realized that she’d been suppressing her own authentic voice to be who others expected her to be. Untamed tells the story of Doyle reclaiming her own identity, navigating divorce, a new marriage, a blended family, and using her authentic voice to call herself and others to action. “She quit being good so she could be free. She quit pleasing and started living.” In telling her own story, Doyle guides readers on a journey of their own self-discovery so that “each of us can begin to trust ourselves enough to set boundaries, make peace with our bodies, honor our anger and heartbreak, and unleash our truest, wildest instincts, so that we can become women who can finally look at ourselves and say ‘There she is.’”
Single on Purpose: Redefine Everything / Find Yourself First by John Kim
“The Angry Therapist” (John Kim) shares the story of his painful divorce and realization that – until that divorce – he’d never been on his own. Single on Purpose asks the question: “Why does being alone = being lonely?” and details the journey Kim embarked upon to discover the answer and to rebuild his relationship with himself. With his signature “no BS” tone and an honest depiction of his struggles and discoveries in singlehood, Kim shows readers how it’s possible to be alone and fulfilled and to have a more authentic relationship with oneself no matter one’s relationship status.