10 “Gentle” books to read at the end of the year

Milagros Pochat is an artist and writer. Lectoras (Fera, 2024) is the journal that accompanied her as she prepared for her first solo exhibition, in which she painted 22 women reading, including a self-portrait. These works were her attempt to answer the question, “Why do I read?”

Through this fragmented narrative, we gain access to Milagros’s inner world: from her most intimate confessions and deepest frustrations to the day-to-day routine of her craft expressed through to-do lists and sketches. A tribute to art as a way of life in just over 100 pages.

Quote: “Beauty is a gaze that insists.”

If you haven’t yet, the end of the year is a perfect time to delve into Asian literature with Soy toda oídos (Fiordo, 2024), by Korean author Kim Hye-jin. Although it tackles challenging contemporary themes, this novel overflows with tenderness, with its close observations of small details and descriptions of the natural surroundings.

The protagonist, Haesu Im, is a therapist who’s “canceled” after making an unfortunate comment on television. During one of her night walks, the only time she dares to go out, she meets Sunmu, a wounded kitten, and Sei, a girl who suffers from bullying. Under the pretext of helping the animal, the woman and the preteen build a transformative bond.

Quote: “They cross the main street and enter an alley. The girl looks at her with an indescribably affectionate expression. What is this called? Friendship, connection, pure camaraderie. Those emotions, which can’t be defined in a single word, are already etched in her heart.”

Alejandra Kamiya is always a balm. The renowned Argentine short story writer captures everyday life with an eye for the small details that define everything. Her words comfort because she treats the harshness of life with tenderness.

La paciencia del agua sobre cada piedra (Eterna Cadencia, 2023), her third anthology, gathers stories in which animals take on human characteristics and become metaphors for exploring complex themes like relationships and the meaning of life.

Quote: “What one can do is always less than what one wants or ought to, always less because ‘less’ is the measure of the human.”

What better way to end the year than by reading about one of Argentina's most remarkable cultural figures? In Nací para ser breve (Sudamericana, 2017), Gabriela Massuh writes about María Elena Walsh, with whom she had a close friendship during her youth.

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Journalist and translator Massuh recalls memories shared with Walsh and transcribes an interview she conducted with her in 1981, when the poet was facing a terrible battle with cancer. This book is not only a portrait of one of Argentina’s most talented artists but also of a time and a culture.

Quote: “María Elena’s songs opened doors to my own existence, my doubts and anxieties, my shyness and my resentments. There was Argentina in them, a vast geography that included its people and spoke directly to them.”

One of the foremost contemporary autofiction writers, Belgian Amélie Nothomb, reconstructs the childhood and youth of her father in Primera sangre (Anagrama, 2023), giving him a voice in the first person.

The story begins when he’s facing a firing squad in Congo in 1964. Confronting death, he recounts his life from a place of innocence and wonder. We follow his childhood in a unique family during WWII, his love story, and his diplomatic career.

Quote: “Childhood has the virtue of not trying to answer the stupid question: ‘Do I like this?’ For me, it was about discovery.”

On a Chilean island that doesn’t even appear on maps, two brothers meet again after 50 years of silence, brought together by the pandemic. They’re twins: one left to see the world, the other never left. So begins El año en que hablamos con el mar (La Pollera, 2024), uniquely narrated in the plural first person by the town witnessing the reunion.

Beyond exploring relationships and life choices, this novel honors the art of storytelling and its impact on events. Andrés Montero’s sensitivity makes it essential to keep a pencil at hand for underlining phrases nonstop.

Quote: “We are barely red sparks against a red background, brief things that have to decide what stories to tell before dying and what stories to hear before dying, and maybe that’s all the bit of rope each of us can call a life.”

After publishing her hit Los sorrentinos, which tells the story of her Italian immigrant family who created that pasta, Virginia Higa moved to Stockholm, Sweden. Emigration pushed her out of her comfort zone, with unfamiliar experiences like ice skating and archery.

From there, she wrote El hechizo del verano (Sigilo, 2023), a collection of essays on linguistic and cultural differences, drawing on her anecdotes and challenges abroad—the place where she redefined authors like Manuel Puig and learned to embrace the unfamiliar.

Quote: “I don’t know why I think I know people; in reality, I just perceive what they generate in me. Perhaps knowing many different people makes you understand yourself much better.”

As the title suggests, in Las fotos (Paisanita Editora, 2020), Inés Ulanovsky collects images. Each photo shares, in her words, one common feature: “history has granted it unexpected prominence.” In just a few pages, she recounts their own, borrowed, or even invented stories.

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There are tales of those who disappeared during dictatorship, families separated by different circumstances, archives hidden for years, slides left on the street. Each anecdote underscores the role photos play in constructing our identities and memories.

Quote: “Those photos are perhaps all that remains of Tito and Ema. I won’t throw them away. I feel an absurd responsibility to preserve those moments of someone else’s happiness. Memories and photos are alike.”

Festival (Orsai, 2023) is, without a doubt, the lightest and funniest book on this list. Dani, a frustrated actor, receives an invitation from his best friend to a theater festival in Córdoba. He has only one reason to accept: to spend a week with Julieta, his first love, whom he hasn’t seen in 20 years.

Readers join in a modern and ironic hero’s journey, where the protagonist is called to adventure, faces trials, and returns transformed. Written by Carlos La Casa, this novel deservedly won the community prize in Orsai’s First Narrative Contest.

Quote: “Hell isn’t paved with good intentions; it’s paved with the sweat of independent theater companies.”

In 2023, Ediciones Godot marked its 15th anniversary by publishing Bibliotecas, an ideal book to relate to and keep close at hand. Here, 15 guest authors pay tribute with short essays to the most intimate and treasured possession of any reader.

The writers share not only their favorite editions and first books, but libraries serve as the perfect excuse to talk about their passions, moves, loves, and heartbreaks—a beautiful way to get to know them better.

Quote: “Libraries are a ghost, one that speaks loudly in silence, floating, present in spaces where it’s not, like right now, as I keep mine far away. But when we look at it, stand in front of it, and question it with our gaze, it says a few things. Always different. It’s an oracle. What we find may not be what we wanted to hear.”