This year I read 71 books, completed two I’d started late 2015… and I’ll be carrying over the now-always-carried-over Vanity Fair (begun in 2012; I’m hoping to restart it) and two others. I made a big effort on the general diversity front, aiming for more male writers, more writers of colour (a number I’ve noticed has gone down since I started blogging), more older books and more translated fiction. I have to admit that this time that latter category was boosted by review copies. Around early autumn I decided to start keeping numerical stats and applied them both to this year’s list of books and retrospectively. It’s proved a good decision so far – it’s reminded me to read my own books. I’m looking at writing a stats post for the past few years’ worth of books.

In forming this list I’ve had the opposite difficulty to every other year – each December I find myself with a lot of ‘best of the best’ books to choose from. Last year I had so many I decided to just list them all. This time, I’ve had trouble. Whether it’s due to a natural personal reading progress, particularly in context with reviewing, or whether it’s down to the books themselves… I’m inclined to think it’s a bit of both with an emphasis on my ratings. Have I given less books 5 out of 5 this year due to ever more experience? I think I may have. I do feel a lot more in tune with literature in general than I did 6 years ago, and then there’s the inevitable thing where when you’ve read a lot of books, new ones that tread the same ground won’t seem so ground-breaking. Whatever it is, the fewer books on the best of list are ones without compare, if I may use some flowery language, and I think they’re absolutely awesome.

As always, books that have been reviewed have a line underneath them and the title links to the review. Up until my personal favourites list, all books are rated as objectively as possible. If you’d prefer to skip all that, click here to view my personal favourites.

The Best Of The Best

Ayelet Gundar-Goshen: One Night, Markovitch – A man with an unremarkable face and his friend with the amazing moustache decide to join men heading to Germany to save Jewish women from the Nazis and bring them home to Israel. Full of humour, this is no less a book with a lot to say. It was even better than I’d hoped.
Cathy Rentzenbrink: The Last Act Of Love – The story of the event and aftermath of the author’s brother’s accident as a victim of a hit-and-run. A superb book.
Dan Richards: Climbing Days – Discovering his great-great-aunt was a mountaineer, Richards sets out to learn more and follow in her literal footsteps. Utterly superb.

5

• Linda Stift: The Empress And The Cake
• Keith Stuart: A Boy Made Of Blocks
• Marie-Sabine Roger: Soft In The Head
• Marie Sizun: Her Father’s Daughter
• Philip Pullman: Northern Lights
• Philip Pullman: The Subtle Knife
• Sara Taylor: The Lauras

4.5

• Abubakar Adam Ibrahim: Season Of Crimson Blossoms
• Andrew McMillan: Physical
• Dan Richards: The Beechwood Airship Interviews
• Elizabeth Fremantle: Watch The Lady
• Jessie Greengrass: An Account Of The Decline Of The Great Auk According To One Who Saw It
• Lewis Carroll: Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland
• Magda Szubanski: Reckoning
• Nicholas Royle and David Gledhill: In Camera
• Olumide Popoola and Annie Holmes: breach
• Paula Hawkins: The Girl On The Train
• Philip Pullman: The Amber Spyglass
• S J Watson: Before I Go To Sleep
• Samantha Sotto: Love & Gravity
• Sarah Ladipo Manyika: Like A Mule Bringing Ice Cream To The Sun
• Susanna Kearsley: Mariana
• Tahmima Anam: The Bones Of Grace

4

• Alex Pheby: Playthings
• Amy Liptrot: The Outrun
• Ashley Stokes (ed.): The End
• Benjamin Wood: The Ecliptic
• Bill Burnett and Dave Evans: Designing Your Life
• Elizabeth Fremantle: The Girl In The Glass Tower
• Elnathan John: Born On A Tuesday
• Frédéric Dard: Bird In A Cage
• Jonathan Ames: You Were Never Really Here
• Lucy King: Say It With Diamonds
• Mavis Cheek: Dog Days
• Max Porter: Grief Is The Thing With Feathers
• Midge Raymond: My Last Continent
• Rachel Elliot: Whispers Through A Megaphone
• Rowan Hisayo Buchanan: Harmless Like You
• Sue Gee: Trio
• Suzanne O’Sullivan: It’s All In Your Head
• Thomas Hardy: Far From The Madding Crowd
• V H Leslie: Bodies Of Water
• Zadie Smith: Swing Time

3.5

• Alan Titchmarsh: Mr Gandy’s Grand Tour
• Alice Dunbar-Nelson: Violets And Other Tales
• Cheryl Strayed: Wild
• Chigozie Obioma: The Fishermen
• Elizabeth Gaskell: Cranford
• Jemma Wayne: Chains Of Sand
• Kate Walker: Indebted To Moreno
• Kirsty Moseley: Worth Fighting For
• Louisa Young: The Heroes’ Welcome
• Pamela Hartshorne: House Of Shadows
• Paul McVeigh: The Good Son
• Robert Macfarlane, Stanley Donwood, and Dan Richards: Holloway

3

• Claire Watts: Gingerbread & Cupcake
• Colette Dartford: Learning To Speak American
• Elizabeth Chadwick: Shields Of Pride
• Helen Slavin: Crooked Daylight
• Holly Black: The Darkest Part Of The Forest
• Jo Bartlett: Somebody Else’s Boy
• Rick Yancey: The 5th Wave
• Shan Sa: Empress
• Xiaolu Guo: A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers

2.5

• Ben Fergusson: The Spring Of Kasper Meier

1

• Xiaolu Guo: I Am China

My Personal Favourites

This year has been very different. Happenings have resulted in my reading a lot more literary fiction, literary non-fiction, and so on. It’s made me think back to that first year I documented my reading, 2009, and those first couple of titles I read that were literary fiction – not knowing about that category at the time I labelled them historicals and I wasn’t keen. I didn’t understand them. It’s funny to think that I appreciate them now.

In regards to my retrospective stats, I’m going to write a comparitive post within a month or two so I won’t go into too much detail here, but my reading skewed towards women a little less this year which I’m very happy about and will be working to improve further this new year. New-to-me authors ruled the year; the vast majority of books I read were by authors I hadn’t read before. Some great new finds but I do feel I need more balance. The oldest book I read was Cranford – published as a serial between 1851-53. The newest book I read, Samantha Sotto’s Love & Gravity, is set to be published early February.

Quotation Report

I found it hard to write up this quote in my usual style, so here’s the extract from the book, The Subtle Knife, concerning Lyra’s first impressions of Will:

She tiptoed to the window. In the glow from the street lamp she carefully set the hands of the alethiometer, and relaxed her mind into the shape of a question. The needle began to sweep around the dial in a series of pauses and swings almost too fast to watch.

She had asked: What is he? A friend or an enemy?

The alethiometer answered: He is a murderer.

When she saw the answer, she relaxed at once. He could find food, and show her how to reach Oxford, and those were powers that were useful, but he might still have been untrustworthy or cowardly. A murderer was a worthy companion.

Do not tell Deborah of Cranford that women are equal to men because she will not listen – she believes women are superior. And if you join Joseclin and Linnet’s household, from Shields Of Pride, you will find yourself playing medieval football with a pig’s bladder and it will be messy.

Yaacov Markovitch of One Night, Markovitch is pleasantly surprised to learn his visa-wife is a fan of agricultural literature – she’d said she’d read a great deal about Israel’s oranges. What he doesn’t realise is she’s read a four-line stanza.

If you wish for people to not visit, take a leaf from Dan Richards’ relative – mentioned in Climbing Days and wear a hat whilst in the house so you can say you’re off out… though it might not work in our present day so much.

Getting beer in stock either for the babysitter or the kids is absolutely fine when you’re absolutely desperate for time away with your wife, or, at least, so thinks Matt from A Boy Made Of Blocks.

In the next few days I’ll be posting my film round-up and goals for the year.

What were your favourite books from those you read last year?

Happy new year! It always seems strange having this round up just before my yearly one, but without it a few books would get completely lost and – in many ways more importantly – I want to shed particular light on this month because the books were particularly great.

The Books

Non-Fiction

Fiction

Claire Watts: Gingerbread & Cupcake – Simon hoped to travel over the summer, Lily hoped for a last ‘summer of love’ but when both plans fail and Simon’s family tearooms take a dive in the ratings, they find themselves spending time with each other. A nice fairly short young adult book.

Rowan Hisayo Buchanan: Harmless Like You – After the death of his father, Jay must go looking for his absent mother; Yuki struggled with who she was meant to be, falling into bad relationships, always hoping to be a good artist. A good book about identity, art, race, and family.

Samantha Sotto: Love & Gravity – The cracks in the wall start happening in Andrea’s single digit years and although no one believes her she comes to look forward to the rare sightings of the historical boy, a budding scientist, on the other side of her wall. A great time slip/travel novel that makes use of a mystery box of letters recently found amongst Issac Newton’s possessions to tell its story.

Zadie Smith: Swing Time – A nameless narrator tells us the story of her life; her on-off best friend and their jealousies and triumphs, the work she did for a western celebrity with an idealised project for ‘Africa’, and a childhood with a mother determined to better herself. This book is a bit too packed full of subjects, structured in a strange way, and has a disappointing non-ending, but the reading experience is pretty awesome.

Being December, I had more time for older books and books from my shelves. I had been wanting to read Buchanan for a while and Sotto’s book, whilst a review copy, was one I’d been looking forward to ever since I finished her previous in 2011. Watts’ book, too, I’d looked forward to – I’m still to review her previous book, that should be happening February or thereabouts; it’s stunning. My favourite? The Sotto just about wins.

Quotation Report

None this time.

Here’s to good books helping us all get through that post-Christmas dullness!

Which of your last 2016 reads were favourites?

Phew! November done. Thus ends my oh-my-God-I’ve-so-much-to-read couple of months (though I’m writing this in advance so still crossing my fingers!) This month has been chocker block. When I’ve said to family and friends ‘I’m sorry but I have to read’ as much as it may have sounded like ‘I need to wash my hair’ to the non-readers, I meant every word. This month has seen our second literary event at The Notes Cafe, with nearing triple the promotion and time requirements, and included the reading and preparation for our Young Writer Of The Year award shadow judging. The short books balanced out by the tomes.

And I’ve loved every minute of it. Here’s what I crammed in but gave full attention to this month; I think this is the first time I’ve covered all three ‘types’ in one month – non-fiction, fiction, poetry:

The Books

Non-Fiction

Magda Szubanski: Reckoning – The star of Babe and Kath And Kim recounts both the story of her life and the way her Polish relatives fought back against the Nazis. Superb; Szubanski is a keen writer and there’s a lot of information about the Second World War in here that gets forgotten.

Robert Macfarlane, Stanley Donwood and Dan Richards: Holloway – Macfarlane takes a trip to visit a holloway with Roger Deakin and, after Deakin’s passing, visits the holloway again with Donwood and Richards in tribute. This is a very short book of what I can only describe as prose poetry, a love letter to nature, together with Donwood’s etchings; a lovely escape.

Fiction

Benjamin Wood: The Ecliptic – Ellie, an artist struggling to create something from the heart, lives at a creative refuge on an island off Turkey and everything is great until a much younger resident arrives with his very different ideas. A fantastic study of creativity but the ending’s a bit samey and the narrative quite anachronistic.

Elizabeth Fremantle: Watch The Lady – Penelope Devereux and her family support Scottish King James VI’s claim to the throne of England but they must go about it carefully, in the same way Penelope must go about her romantic relationships in a time when the monarch’s permission had to be sought in order to marry. The characters in this leap off the page, the plot, however complex in its political manoeuvrings, is secondary, and in this case that’s perfect.

Elizabeth Fremantle: The Girl In The Glass Tower – Lady Arbella Stuart’s life is controlled by those who would see her on the English throne and in rebellion she limits herself at meals and decides to marry who she will. This book looks at another of the possible successions; it’s a bit weaker than the above but still very compelling.

Jessie Greengrass: An Account Of The Decline Of The Great Auk, According To One Who Saw It – A collection of short stories based around the themes of intervention and choice. Super.

Max Porter: Grief Is The Thing With Feathers – When his wife dies, a man who is writing a book on Ted Hughes finds a Crow at his door, a bird who will help him and his sons through their grief. Poetry in prose.

Paul McVeigh: The Good Son – Growing up during The Troubles in Northern Ireland, Michael Donnelly attempts to work out who he is whilst war wages outside in the street. Not bad – it’s a particular book with a balance of profound and your average coming-of-age.

Poetry

Andrew McMillan: Physical – A collection of pieces on the male body and sexuality. Awesome.

It would be difficult to pick a favourite this month.

Quotation Report

None this time.

I can’t quite believe it’s only two weeks until I put the blog on its 2 week Christmas hiatus. Still a couple of books to recommend to you before then and that all important award result! (Our Shadow Panel winner was announced yesterday.)

What have you been up to this month?

Last time I said it was likely I would read more books in October than I had in September. And I did. I’m rather happy about that. I know on Twitter I’ve been saying I had 10 books to read – I did, just that I had a little more time than I’d thought for some of them and managed to finish some in September, so there isn’t 10 here. Anyway, this month has been one of if not the busiest, mentally, of my life. A ton of promotion for the first In Conversation event – as you may now know there will indeed be a second; we’ve Elizabeth Fremantle joining us in Southampton on 24th November – and a whole lot of reading. I feel like there was a reading slump involved at some point but this was one of those times where I absolutely had to read so it happened.

The Books

Non-Fiction

Dan Richards: The Beechwood Airship Interviews – Whilst studying for his MA, Dan decides to create a decorative zeppelin for his student union bar and as he starts the process he considers the relationship between artist and their space which leads him to interview various well-known people. A great book that defies categorisation.

Fiction

Alan Titchmarsh: Mr Gandy’s Grand Tour – When his wife dies, Tim decides to go on a few months’ long trip to continental Europe to take the sort of journey he’d always wanted to go on in his youth. There are a lot of devices and some repetition, but this is a lovely book full of summer. (My non-British readers may be interested to know that Titchmarsh is first and foremost a household name here due to his career as a TV gardener. His show was one of, if not the first, reality makeover series on our televisions.)

Jo Bartlett: Somebody Else’s Boy – When his wife dies in an accident at the theatre where she worked, Jack decides to move to the coastal town they both liked and in doing so he meets drama teacher, Nancy. Predictable in that good comfort-read way but a bit tell-rather-than-show.

Kate Walker: Indebted To Moreno – Rose left Nairo’s squat a decade ago, thinking he was a drug dealer, and when he shows up at her bridal store as a rich customer the real story starts to unravel. Including a sensitive look at anorexia, this is a pretty fair book.

Keith Stuart: A Boy Made Of Blocks – Alex has found relating to and dealing with his autistic son difficult and as the family reaches breaking point, young Sam discovers the video game, Minecraft, which Alex starts to find may be key to healing the rifts. A superb story with keen writing and a lot of heart, this book can be considered semi-autobiographical (the author is in the same position as main character, Alex) and is a lot of fun.

Kirsty Moseley: Worth Fighting For – When Ellie’s parents are involved in a car crash she leaves her new home in Britain to return to America and the boy who broke up with her three years before. Not a bad book but suffers from an overly oblivious heroine and a bit of info-dump.

Looking just at the books here, both The Beechwood Airship Interviews and A Boy Made Of Blocks were a joy to read. Stuart’s book finds me in a new situation: I’m aware that some of the references to Minecraft are not factually correct (which is odd when he’s a gamer by trade) but it’s such a wonderful book with an important message and lessons that I want to make it one of my ‘best of 2016′ books despite that. I’ll probably be thinking on it for a while longer. The Richards might make the list too, but I think one bent rule is enough for one year (to have two of Richards’ books would set a precedent).

Quotation Report

Getting beer in stock either for the babysitter or the kids is absolutely fine when you’re absolutely desperate for time away with your wife, or, at least, so thinks Matt from A Boy Made Of Blocks.

November’s looking pretty busy too!

How was your October?

Given what I said last week, it will come as no surprise that I haven’t read much this month! By the middle of September I had an immediate must-be-read-very-soon pile of ten books, mostly review copies, and had abandoned 3 books that had already been languishing on the ‘current’ list. I’ll pick them back up in due course; one of them is Helen Oyeyemi’s What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours which I was rather enjoying, it’s just that I couldn’t pay it the attention it requires. In regards to the list of ten I’m currently at 3 down, 1 on the go, the 1 being Dan Richards’ The Beechwood Airship Interviews, which needs finishing if we’re to have a more varied conversation. It’s just the sort of book you want when you’ve a deadline – funny and very unique. I’ve still a fair amount to do in regards to promotion so I’m happy several of the ten books are pretty short.

The Books

Non-Fiction

Bill Burnett and Dave Evans: Designing Your Life – A handbook for improving your career prospects and life in general based on the writers’ successful Stanford University course. Rather good.

Fiction

Helen Slavin: Crooked Daylight – After the death of their grandmother, three sisters put her cottage up for rent and strange things start to occur. A paranormal-magical realism tale; okay in itself, very promising as a start to a trilogy.

Jemma Wayne: Chains Of Sand – An Iraqi Jew hopes to leave Israeli whilst a British Jew yearns to live in Israel. A good premise.

Linda Stift: The Empress And The Cake – A young woman is asked to share half a cake with a lady wearing 1800s fashion; though she wishes not to, she accepts. Super.

My favourite this month was The Empress And The Cake, a bizarre, fab, book that’s just something else entirely. I also enjoyed Designing Your Life more than I’d imagined I would – no low expectations by any means but as I will be saying in my review, it’s the bookish equivalent of that situation where someone says ‘bear with me…’ and you wish you were somewhere else before they get to their point and you discover it was all worth it.

Quotation Report

None this time.

In theory, considering my introduction to this post, I will have a lot of books on October’s list.

What did you read in September?