7 Books to Add to Your May Reading List

In our latest book recommendation, we’ve curated a list of seven books to enrich your May reading experience. From commemorating historical events to exploring upcoming releases, these seven books will keep you reading in the month of May!

Read our recommendations below.

THERE WAS A COUNTRY

May 2024 marks the 57th year since Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu declared the independence of the Republic of Biafra. The independence declaration sparked a crisis that led to a three-year civil war between Nigeria and Biafra. In his personal account, Nigerian literary icon, Chinua Achebe, masterfully relates his experience, both as he lived it and how he has come to understand it. He begins his story with Nigeria’s birth pangs and the story of his own upbringing as a man and as a writer so that we might come to understand the country’s promise, which turned to horror when the hot winds of hatred began to stir. The conflict was infamous for its savage impact on the Biafran people, Achebe’s people, many of whom were starved to death after the Nigerian government blockaded their borders. By then, Achebe was already a world-renowned novelist, with a young family to protect. He took the Biafran side in the conflict and served his government as a roving cultural ambassador, from which vantage he absorbed the war’s full horror. To read There Was a Country is to be powerfully reminded that artists have a particular obligation, especially during a time of war. All writers, Achebe argues, should be committed writers—they should speak for their history, their beliefs, and their people.