Libras, you’re the ultimate balancing act. You’re forever a contradiction: equal parts introvert and extrovert, guided by a strong sense of justice yet drawn to deep emotion.
Symbolised by the scales and ruled by Venus, you’re really a romantic at heart who places high importance on the worlds of beauty and art. You’re the diplomat, the peacemaker, the mediator. You seek truth and authenticity whenever you go.
So, we’ve brought together these stories where art offers comfort, intense courtroom scenes deliver the drama, and protagonists hunt for the truth. Find your perfect literary balance here.
London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe
In keeping with Libra’s strong sense of justice, Patrick Radden Keefe’s latest extraordinary non-fiction investigates the death of Zac Brettler, a 19-year-old who posed as the son of a Russian oligarch before becoming embroiled with gangsters and London’s murky underworld. In 2019, Zac tragically – and under suspicious circumstances – fell from a high-rise block of flats on the Thames shoreline. Radden Keefe crafts a moving, crystal clear work of investigative journalism that brings humanity to a situation almost too insane to be true, all while treating the Brettler family’s turmoil and grief with the utmost sensitivity. Despite the complexity of the case, Radden Keefe never loses sight of the heart of this story – the meekness of the Metropolitan Police and the contrasting strength of a mother’s love. Libras will be glued to this tale until the final pages. (Watch Dua’s interview with the author on his book Say Nothing here.)
The Gorgeous Inertia Of The Earth by Adrian Duncan
Adrian Duncan’s The Gorgeous Inertia Of The Earth is a meandering, philosophical musing on the importance of art, people and religion – everything the contemplative Libra wants. John is a stone cutter and sculptor, and if he isn’t making statues, then he’s pondering and observing them. Despite his job working with immovable objects, he finds that it is the situations and people around him that are unsettlingly implacable. In the second half of the book, he settles in Bologna, but continues searching for answers in the streets, cafes and churches of the city. Duncan renders Bologna in gorgeous atmospheric detail, creating a melancholic, quiet and contemplative novel that moves unhurriedly, and is exactly what an artistic Libra needs as the antidote to the fast-paced courtroom scenes in this list.
All The Beauty In The World by Patrick Bringley
It’s notoriously hard to write about art in a way which doesn’t alienate about 95% of society. Patrick Bringley has cracked it in All The Beauty In The World, his memoir of finding solace as a guard in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. After his brother’s death, Patrick is adrift and purposeless. He packs in his glamorous job at the New Yorker and dons the dark blue suits of the Met guards. Artistic Libras will be hypnotised by this moving memoir, where Patrick takes us on an intimate yet accessible tour of the Met’s vast collection, sharing precious moments with us like the stillness of a morning gallery to himself, the quirks of the museum staff, and the beauty within the Met’s walls. It’s a book to treasure – and gift to your favourite Libra this season.
The Fraud by Zadie Smith
The Fraud is Zadie Smith’s first historical novel, and it’s perfect for justice-seeking, courtroom-drama-loving Libras. It’s based on the real Victorian ‘Tichborne trial’, the strange case of a working-class butcher from Australia who claimed he was the long-lost heir to a vast estate and is put on trial as the titular ‘fraud’. Zadie Smith’s kaleidoscopic style flips us between the storylines of Eliza Touchet, a housekeeper with literary connections (hello, Charles Dickens); Andrew Bogle, a former Jamaican slave and key witness; and the trial itself. She dissects race, class and empire through her propulsive novel, which seeks to redress the balance of who gets to be believed, or deceived. Libras are guaranteed not to object.
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
A powerful and devastating critique of the wrongdoings of the American education and justice systems in the era of the civil rights movement, Colson Whitehead’s Nickel Boys is an intense rollercoaster. Libras will find their sense of justice challenged by the sanctioned racism at the heart of the reform school system. It follows Elwood, an idealistic teenager inspired by the words of Martin Luther King, who is sent to The Nickel Academy – a so-called reform facility which claims to train boys up to become honest, honourable members of society. But behind this façade of morality lies abuse, torture and corruption. There, Elwood meets Turner – a sceptical boy who believes the only way to survive cruelty is by retaliating with even greater force – and their friendship forms the heart of this brilliant, bloodcurdling novel.
Intimacies by Katie Kitamura
If you’re born under the sign of the scales, Intimacies is a must-read. A Japanese woman moves from New York to The Hague to work as a translator at the International Criminal Court, and this backdrop creates the perfect novel for a Libra’s strong sense of justice, ethics and responsibility. She must negotiate intimacy in all its myriad forms: with her married lover and his sort-of-ex-wife, with the law, and with language. It’s a profound commentary on how people navigate the systems of power and truth, both at work and in relationships, and you’ll be hooked on the complex, messy social dynamics.
The Premonition by Banana Yoshimoto, translated by Asa Yoneda
In this gentle, beautiful and minimal novel, Banana Yoshimoto captures something a Libra is familiar with – living between two worlds. Just like the scales that define their sign, Libras are often performing a balancing act, and in The Premonition Yayoi is deliberating between her past and present. She has fallen into a melancholy mood, feeling that there is something essential she has forgotten from her childhood. In a search for the truth, she moves in with her eccentric aunt, Yuniko. This novel is a reflection on family and memory, and the taboo relationship at its centre will unsettle and provoke the kind of ethical deliberation any Libra will be drawn to in a book.
