Watch out Oprah and ascendant bookfluencer Reese Witherspoon, there’s a new literate celebrity in our midst. On March 8, Drake continued the promo tour he’s been on for the Nocta Hot Step, his new signature shoe with Nike, by posting a now widely-circulated Instagram story that saw him place the shoe atop a stack of notable literary works. Drake spamming his IG with reposts whenever he’s selling something is hardly news at this point—but Drake doing some light marketing while exposing a rarely seen literary side of himself? That’s a little something for everyone from the fashion world, to literary Twitter, and the hip-hop hypebeast community to react to, as a treat.
But onto the books, the nine titles he chose as sneaker support span a literary staple (Brave New World), a zeitgeist dominating novel (To Paradise), and a couple hotly anticipated upcoming works (Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies and Young Mungo). The authors are primarily young, and there’s a real emphasis on queer storytelling, too. Here’s a quick primer on Aubrey’s latest reads, should you run into him at a Toronto dinner party and need to make friendly, erudite conversation. It’s also entirely possible–likely even–that Drake will never crack open a single one of these books and this is simply for the ‘Gram, but let’s choose not to live in that world.
To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara: The first blockbuster novel of 2022, Hanya Yanagihara’s To Paradise topped book sales charts and ignited a wildfire of discourse in the literary community. The novel is something of a 700-page triptych, with three sections taking place in 1893, 1993, and 2093, it’s an alternate history of America that tackles queer love, the AIDS epidemic, and the creeping tide of fascism through Yanagihara’s painstaking, often bleak prose. Drake is no stranger to releasing polarizing work, so we eagerly await his thoughts.
Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield: Another 2022 entry, Julia Armfield’s first novel focuses on a woman whose wife returns from a failed deep sea mission as a completely different person and how it affects their home life together. Its surface description seems a bit similar to the early narrative of Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation. If nothing else, we know how much Drake loves being on the open water.
Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer: Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies isn’t coming out until the end of March—rappers love to flex all the things they get seeded early before us civilians, but casually bragging about manuscript access is a new one. Maybe he’s reviewing it for Lit Hub? The eagerly-awaited debut novel by Maddie Mortimer deals with an unexpected medical trauma and the ripple effects it has on both the protagonist and her family. Mortimer also had a charming reaction to Drake’s viral post.
Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart: Another advance copy. Not slated for release ‘til April, the second book by acclaimed Scottish-American novelist Douglas Stuart is sure to be one of 2022’s hot reads. Stuart’s debut, Shuggie Bain, was dubbed “this year’s breakout debut” by The New York Times, and both books deal with the intersection of queerness and the working class communities of Glasgow. Prior to his writing career taking off, Stuart had extensive experience working in fashion, so perhaps that’s part of what piqued Drake’s interest here.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley: Published way back in 1932, Brave New World remains one of the all-time great works of speculative fiction. The dystopian story of a ruthless, efficiency-driven society is a staple of high school reading lists, though it’s also been banned and challenged in some conservative locales. At times it can feel like it’s approaching the college freshman intellectual superiority tier of novels—embarrassingly, I did own a Brave New World graphic tee when I was 19—but Huxley was a tremendously gifted writer and hopefully Drake appreciates the book’s still-timely message.
Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder: Rachel Yoder’s 2021 debut novel received widespread praise for its central connection between motherhood and transmogrification. In short, the book’s pregnant protagonist turns into a dog. Anecdotally, I’ve talked to several people who have read it, but not had the book really click. (“It gets compared to Kafka. But like, Kafka is Kafka, you know?” a friend told me recently.) Drake’s relationship with his mother has always been a key throughline of his work–look at songs like “You & The 6” and “Look What You’ve Done”–and maybe now that he’s a father he has an interest in exploring parenthood through a magical realism lens. Maybe his next music video concept will be about a soon-to-be dad who becomes a…scorpion?
Tin Man by Sarah Winman: Referred to by The Times as “a literary three-hankie weeper,” Sarah Winman’s novel about the bond between two men in England who remain connected after a romantic dalliance as teens was widely praised for its tenderness and exploration of the importance of art. For Drake, it’s probably a cry now, cry later type of deal.
The Promise by Damon Galgut: This Booker Prize-winning family drama focuses on three South African siblings navigating life after the passing of their mother and during the end of apartheid. It uses funerals as the lens to reunite its main characters. The book earned tremendous praise in the British press, and we all know Drake is nothing if not an anglophile at heart.
This One Sky Day by Leone Ross: Drake’s love of Jamaican patois and all things Caribbean is well-documented, so it makes sense that he scooped up This One Sky Day, a novel with a fictional setting that nevertheless “is imbued with a Caribbean sensibility,” per The Guardian. Ross, a Jamaican-British writer with a history of blurring genre lines, does an excellent job world building here, telling the tale of Xavier and Anise, who live on Popisho, an island where each resident has a singular special ability.