Books to reset your spirit

HOLIDAY READING: LIST THAT DOESN'T FLINCH FROM AMBITION, VIOLENCE, POLITICAL ABSURDITY

- Hein Kaiser

The end of the year flip flops really quickly into January and the holidays feel long and short at the same time.

In between the office parties, that then give way to family gatherings and New Year's Eve, the shopping and the frenetic pace of these holidays, take some time out.

Feed your mind and your spirit with some quality you-time, and pick up a book. Any book, as long as you enjoy it. Few pleasures are as fulfilling as reading can be. Here are a few recommendations that may tickle your fancy.

Set in New York's unforgiving fine-dining scene, Carnivore follows Kash, a Bangladeshi-born chef whose exotic-meat restaurant collapses under debt and bad decisions. Enter a violent loan shark that's of course demanding settlement.

It's then when Kash about an invitation-only supper club for billionaires and figures that this may be his last chance at survival.

To get the assignment, he plans to cook something no-one has ever tasted.

So far, so good, but things turn brutal when the loan shark cuts off one of Kash's fingers.

After that, the story goes to a dark place. It's a mix of ambition, how far anyone would go to meet their own ideals and what it feels like when there may be only one way out.

Carnivore is as dark as it is light, and it makes for totally immersive reading. It's provocative and can smack you sideways if you don't pay attention. An absolutely five-out-of-five star book.

This is a serious book. Make no mistake.