My pile of new and unread books is growing; Spring turns out to be a feast for beautiful books, from Anne Tyler’s French Braid to Douglas Stuart’s incredible Shuggie Bain, the surprise 2020 winner of England’s famed Booker Prize.

I don’t recall ever having so many wonderful books to read, mostly by women.

I didn’t put Tyler in my new list because I mentioned it a couple of weeks ago and have finished it. It is like all Anne Tyler’s books – elegant, restrained,  a brilliant portrait of ordinary people trying to be happy and sometimes succeeding.

There is little drama in Tyler’s books, no shootings, explosions, tragedies, yet the books are no less gripping for that. This is the story of a family that spans a lifetime.

I love every word she writes.

Tyler is an incredibly graceful and lovely writer. I love everything she has written. In her case, covering the same ground, again and again, is a gift. It never gets old or tiresome.

The book I’m most excited about (and have just started reading) is Shuggie Bain. This is the one that will defy my new sleeping schedule and keep me up all night reading.

Shuggie Bain was Douglas Stewart’s first novel. Based on the first chapter, I just ordered his second, Young Mungo, which was just published. I started reading the book yesterday, and it has jumped to the top of my list.

I will not be able to put it down.

Shuggie Bain is the story of young Hugh “Shuggie” Bain, a sweet,  lonely, and queer boy who grows up with his alcoholic mother Agnes in a shabby publishing housing project in Glasgow.

The story is about family, love, struggle, and courage. From the first, Shuggie struggles to take care of his troubled mother and is desperate to become the ordinary boy he wants to be.

Everyone around him knows this is impossible; they all see the secret he can’t see.

The book is being described as a masterpiece, and I’d enthusiastically agree so far.

The  Return Of Faraz Ali is the first novel by Aamina Ahmad, a playwright, and author from California. Her family emigrated here from Pakistan.

The story is about Faraz, a policeman returning to pre-war Mohala, in Lahore’s walled inner city, where he was abducted as a child from the home he shared with his sister and mother.

The abduction was at the direction of his powerful father, who hoped to give him a chance to lead a “respectable.” life.

His father has sent him back to Lahore as head of the Mahalla police station and demands that he cover up a young girl’s violent death.

I love the plot line, in which a once obedient man finds himself reckoning with his past  and the reader gets to wander in an exotic and beautifully evoked old Pakistani city.

I’ve not read the book, but the reviews are excellent worldwide. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this is a blockbuster, breakthrough year for female novelists.

One hates to think of all the books we never saw because publishers wouldn’t publish books by women for centuries.

The third book I’ve added to the pile is Four Treasures Of The Sky by Jenny Tinghui Zhang, who was born in China and now lives in Austin, Texas.

This is also her debut as a novelist, and it sounds like an exceptionally brilliant one.

I haven’t read this one yet either, but I was attracted by the storyline and the many excellent reviews. Several reader friends enthusiastically recommended it to me.

Daiyu was kidnapped when she was young and smuggled to America from China. She had no choice but to give up on her dreams and plans.

To survive, she is forced to keep reinventing herself. From a calligraphy school to a San Francisco brothel to a shop in the Idaho mountains, the book’s narrative focuses on her increasingly difficult journey to outrun the tragedy that seems to shadow her.

I’m in. I love the theme of rebirth and redemption in the face of pain and evil. And I want to read about Lahore, which sounds like one of the most fascinating cities in the world.

So that’s my reading list, which has grown to six or seven books. I better get down to it, more are coming.