Start January with books that ask us to reflect on who we are and what shapes us

The new year begins with a flurry of resolutions and contemplation about who we are and where we’re headed. This month’s reading list is anchored in stories of personal reckoning, emotional crossroads, and quiet transformation. These books explore identity not as a grand declaration, but as something shaped through relationships, choices, memory, and survival. Each title offers a deeply human journey, making them ideal companions for January’s inward-looking mood.

That Sense of Wonder: How to Capture the Miracles of Everyday Life by Francesco Dimitri, Anima 

This non-fiction book explores how to rediscover awe in ordinary life through observation, creativity, and mindfulness. It explores why the feeling of wonder is central to human happiness and how it often fades in adulthood. Drawing from philosophy, science, art, spirituality, and storytelling, Dimitri examines how wonder has shaped human curiosity, creativity, and belief systems across time. The book traces how modern life, with its emphasis on productivity and rationality, dulls our capacity for awe and leads to anxiety and dissatisfaction. Through reflective essays and cultural examples, Dimitri offers practical ways to reconnect with wonder in everyday experiences and how it can be a tool for living more fully, attentively, and meaningfully.

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai, Penguin Hamish Hamilton 

Kiran Desai’s The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, a 2025 Booker Prize shortlist, is the story of two young Indians whose lives span continents, cultures, and decades. Sonia, a homesick college student in Vermont, seeks inspiration and connection in a new world, while Sunny, a struggling journalist in Brooklyn, navigates the challenges of love and ambition far from home. Both feel the weight of loneliness, even as their families in India cannot understand it. In an attempt to intervene, their families arrange a meeting that only complicates their paths, keeping them apart before romance can take root. Across India and America, Sonia and Sunny confront questions of identity, happiness, and human connection, all while navigating the pressures of class, culture, and family expectations. Their journeys explore how personal desires collide with societal norms, and how love is shaped by circumstance as much as choice. Rich in emotional nuance and cultural insight, the novel captures the struggles and triumphs of belonging in a rapidly changing world. Ultimately, it is a tale of love, family, and the many forces that define our lives.

Red City by Marie Lu, Pan Macmillan India 

Set in a fractured, authoritarian city, Red City follows two young friends as they navigate survival in a world shaped by power, secrecy, and rebellion. The city itself is tightly controlled, divided by class and privilege, with danger lurking behind every rule. As Sam and Ari become entangled with each other, underground resistance movements, and gleaming rival syndicates, each is forced to confront moral limits. The novel blends political tension with personal stakes, keeping the narrative immersive. With an interesting premise of alchemy, the story explores the theme of identity formed in crisis and the cost of defiance.

Days of Light by Megan Hunter, Picador 

Days of Light follows Ivy, a nineteen-year-old woman whose life is reshaped during an Easter Sunday gathering in the English countryside in 1938. The novel unfolds across six days from six decades, tracing Ivy’s relationships, choices, and unanswered questions from the years before World War II to the end of the 20th century. As Ivy navigates love, marriage, loss, and changing social landscapes, the story returns to the significance of that first pivotal evening. Megan Hunter’s narrative spans time and place, capturing how small moments ripple across a lifetime. 

The Secret of More by Tejaswini Apte-Rahm, Aleph Book Company 

The Secret of More is set in colonial Bombay and follows Tatya, a young man who arrives in the city determined to build a life of ambition and success. Beginning in the bustling textile markets, he steadily rises through hard work, while his wife Radha navigates family life in a city caught between tradition and rapid modernity. Tatya’s fortunes shift when he enters the emerging world of silent cinema, where success comes swiftly but brings moral conflict. His growing involvement with an actress named Kamal threatens both his marriage and his sense of integrity. Moving between mill floors, film sets, chawls, and sea-facing mansions, the novel traces the costs of ambition in a city that famously promises everything.

Ripeness by Sarah Moss, Picador 

Ripeness moves between 1960s Italy and present-day Ireland, following Edith, who is sent by her mother to support her pregnant sister Lydia in the final weeks before childbirth. Tasked with witnessing the birth and making a decisive phone call that will determine the baby’s future, Edith becomes entwined in a moment that shapes the course of multiple lives. Years later, settled in Ireland and newly divorced, Edith is drawn back into the past when her friend Maebh is contacted by a man claiming to be her brother. As the two women navigate the implications of this revelation, the novel traces themes of family, displacement, and chosen belonging.

The Godmothers by Camille Aubray, William Morrow 

The Godmothers is set in World War II–era Greenwich Village and centres on four women who marry into a wealthy Italian family, only to find themselves running its affairs when their husbands are forced to leave during the war. Filomena, Amie, Lucy, and Petrina come from vastly different backgrounds, each carrying a secret past that shapes her place within the family. Bound together as godmothers to one another’s children, they build a life of shared responsibility and quiet power inside the family’s elegant New York home. As the war reshapes the city, their personal histories begin to surface. When they are drawn into dealings with notorious gangsters who control wartime New York, the women must rely on one another to protect their families and futures. In this novel, Aubray paints a richly layered portrait of female resilience, friendship, and ambition unfolding against a turbulent historical moment.

The Red House by Mary Morris, Doubleday 

Set in the Italian countryside, The Red House follows Laura, an artist whose mother, Viola, disappeared thirty years earlier, leaving behind only her belongings and a series of enigmatic paintings of a red house. Viola was never found, and her refusal to speak about her life before marriage left her family with more questions than answers. When Laura reaches a turning point in her own marriage, she returns to Italy—where her parents met after World War II and where she spent her earliest childhood—to uncover the truth behind her mother’s past. Her search leads her from Brindisi into the heart of Puglia, and further north to Naples and Turin, tracing Viola’s movements through postwar Italy. As Laura follows the trail embedded in the paintings, she uncovers long-buried family secrets and a lesser-known chapter of Italy’s wartime history. Blending mystery, history, and emotional reckoning, Morris explores how uncovering the past reshapes the present.

Lead image: Getty, Book images: Amazon 

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