Quiet weekend? Here's a perfect book series to snuggle up with.

It’s winter and it’s never a better time to get back into reading. We have asked our friends at Readings bookstore to recommend a book to immerse yourself in over the weekend. They suggested this great series. Happy reading.

Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels – beginning with My Brilliant Friend, then continuing with The Story of a New Name and Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay – are one of the greatest literary achievements of recent decades. This is not hyperbole on my behalf, but rather, a sentiment that has echoed throughout the book industry over the past 18 months.

Ferrante’s novels were first pressed into my hands by friends and colleagues, and then they began to pop up all over the place – written about in blog posts and news articles, mentioned on podcasts and literary panels. Suddenly, Ferrante fever was everywhere (and yes, there’s a hashtag: #ferrantefever).

I read the first three Neapolitan novels one after the other, in a big gulp, over the space of a week (the fourth and final book in the series will be released this October). They are everything I was promised, and more.

Originally written in Italian and translated into English, the series follows the complicated friendship of two women in Naples, from childhood through their teenage years and into adulthood and motherhood.

The first book, My Brilliant Friend, begins in the 1950s as the two girls meet and form the uneasy bond that will last them a lifetime.

The Neapolitan novels are smart, thoughtful, serious literature. At the same time, they are violent, suspenseful soap operas populated with a vivid cast of scheming characters. From the first chapters of My Brilliant Friend, I was completely absorbed into the dirty, difficult neighbourhood of Naples where everyone is struggling to make a better life for themselves (and often bringing others down in the process).

Ferrante’s novels are deeply personal and intimate, getting to the very heart of what it means to be a woman, a friend, a daughter, a mother. I have bought My Brilliant Friend for dear friends going through difficult times, and family members desperate for an absorbing holiday read. It has become my go-to book, a fail-safe suggestion I end up giving to every woman, young and old, that asks me for a book recommendation.

And so, now, I give it to you: if you haven’t tried Ferrante, let this weekend be the time that you start.

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