Milk and Honey

Indian-Canadian poet Rupi Kaur's debut collection of poetry and prose is about survival, moving through violence, abuse, love, loss and femininity. Its four sections, each with its own purpose, run from the hurting and the loving to the breaking and the healing, and some poems carry her simple line drawings. Kaur writes in lowercase with little punctuation, echoing features of Punjabi, and shifts between first and second person. Unable to find a publisher, she self-published it in 2014; as her following on social media grew, Andrews McMeel Publishing reissued it, and it has been translated into 25 languages and had spent 165 weeks among New York Times best sellers by mid-2020.

Emma Watson picked it for her book club, Our Shared Shelf.