As the Service95 Book Club turns three, we’re celebrating reading the world differently together, across 34 Monthly Reads handpicked by Dua, by taking a moment to reflect on how books can guide you through every twist and turn life can bring.
We’ve asked some literary friends of Service95 to share the books that capture specific decades, from your twenties to your sixties and beyond. First up: Swiss author Nelio Biedermann, 23, picks the books that have spoken most honestly to his twenties so far.
Although my twenties only started three years ago, they have already been eventful enough to feel like a decade. What strikes me most is how quickly adult life creeps up on you. It can feel overwhelming, but the freedom that comes with it is also exciting. What has settled is the chaos of the teenage years. I was pretty lost during that time. Now, I have the feeling that I know who I am (as far as one can ever know such things).
One thing that has never changed is the importance of literature in my life. Even though writing is my job now, it hasn’t diminished my love for reading. I would even go so far as to say that every writer is, first and foremost, a reader.
It was books that made me want to write in the first place. The Stranger by Albert Camus made me want to try to create something as perfect as itself, though I suspect that’s hardly possible. I still remember vividly how I read it for the first time and how much it blew me away. I’d give a lot to read that book for the first time again.
Here are five more books I’d suggest to anyone entering, or living through, their twenties.
Some Rain Must Fall: My Struggle Volume 5 by Karl Ove Knausgård
The My Struggle series is a magnificent and demanding undertaking. But it’s also highly personal and, because of that, so very relatable. The fifth volume was always my favourite because it somehow seemed to contain my whole young world: my personal insecurities, the literary ambition, the trying and failing, and the banal, everyday life of young adults.
Stay True by Hua Hsu
I read this book shortly after I turned 20 and right after my first heartbreak. It was the best book I could have read at that time. It was comforting, it put things into perspective and it reflected my own life, as it is not just one of the most beautiful memoirs about friendship but also a collection of all the things that define your twenties.
Blood Book by Kim de l’Horizon
This book was a sensation in the German-speaking world. It’s daring, free, contradictory and relentless. It speaks about so many issues that concern us today. But most of all, it made me believe that it’s possible to write great literature, even from Zurich, where I’m from, and in your twenties.
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Although this novel was published more than 200 years ago, it still captures what it feels like to be in your early twenties. The hero of the book sets out on a quest to conquer the world, to make a living with art. He’s delusional, but also not ready to give up or settle for a compromising life.
Just Kids by Patti Smith
I read Patti Smith’s book for the first time a few weeks ago, right before meeting her in New York. At its core, it’s a book about friendship and art, but it’s also a book about people in their twenties. Kids and adults at the same time.
