Christmas crept up on me this year and a few reading intentions got lost by the wayside; nevertheless I’m glad for what I did get done and the relative quickness with which I was able to read what I read. I’m picking the remaining books back up again for January.

All books are works of fiction.

The Books

E T A Hoffman: The Nutcracker And The Mouse-King – A girl takes a liking to the nutcracker her relative has made for her. When her brother breaks the toy and she stays up to nurse it back to health, she finds herself amid a war between toys and her home’s resident rodents. A simple, lovely, story set in the days around Christmas.

Nancy Bilyeau: Dreamland – Reluctant heiress Peggy is summoned away from the regular bookstore job she loves to attend her family’s holiday, staying in a luxury hotel not far from the amusement parks of early 1900s Coney Island. The upper class stay away from the parks but Peggy can’t resist and when a girl’s body is found and she is amongst a crowd of onlookers, the distance between her circle and the families at the parks shortens considerably. This is a book with a tremendous amount of atmosphere, history, and a great mystery/thriller story line. It’s due to be published on 16th January.

Nancy Bilyeau: The Crown – In the time of the Reformation: when Sister Joanna is arrested for supposedly helping a condemned woman, she is offered freedom, as well as the freedom of her father, if she will search for the cursed Athelstan crown for Bishop Stephen Gardiner. Very good.

I enjoyed all three books in December but Dreamland was definitely the best. It was an absolute joy to read; I sat beside my Christmas tree for a lot of it and the book managed to make me feel like it was summer, which was rather lovely. Nancy will be on my podcast next week and my review will be posted in tandem.

Apart from the remaining 2019 reads (Sherry Thomas’ Delicious is my current read) I have a new review copy I hope to get to this January, Camilla Bruce’s You Let Me In which, if the press release is anything to go by, will require all the lights to be on.

What were your last books of 2019?

For today’s podcast, see the bottom of this post. A link to the transcript is included.

Many people are making lists like these and it looks like fun so I’m joining in (if you’re making one, too, do link to it below). I’m doing it now rather than any later because I’ve only a half-plan to read one more book from the decade before the year is out; my reading until January is going to be re-reads and a couple of 2020 publications.

I’m including my 5 star reads from each year and choosing ‘best of’ books from there, and, particularly because I don’t read all that many books in the year they are published, I’m including books no matter which year I read them in. Any future books read from this decade will not be included here; I’m not going to leave this post open to be constantly updated. Some years obviously have more competition than others given length of time since and review copies; the list is a reflection of my time blogging, particularly as I started blogging a couple of months into the decade.

Non-fiction and poetry have been mixed in with the fiction. I’ve used the very first publication date for all books except translations, for which I’ve used the first English translation publication date.

Finally, as there are 70 books here in total I’ve chosen to include covers for the absolute, in my opinion, cream of the crop for each year.

2010

• Ally Condie: Matched
• Asko Sahlberg: The Brothers (English translation: Finnish)
• Beth Hoffman: Saving CeeCee Honeycutt
• Catherine Ryan Hyde: Second Hand Heart

2011

• Elle Newmark: The Sandalwood Tree
• Erin Morgenstern: The Night Circus
• Gayle Forman: Where She Went
• J.B.: Zor
• Lauren Oliver: Delirium
• Louise Douglas: The Secrets Between Us

2012

• Ayelet Gundar-Goshen: One Night, Markovitch (English translation: Hebrew)
• Cheryl Rainfield: Parallel Visions
• Eowyn Ivey: The Snow Child
• Gillian Flynn: Gone Girl
• J K Rowling: The Casual Vacancy
• J R Crook: Sleeping Patterns
• John Green: The Fault In Our Stars
• Kate Forsyth: Bitter Greens
• Laura Navarre: By Royal Command
• Rainbow Rowell: Eleanor & Park
• Roelof Bakker (ed.): Still
• Sadie Jones: The Uninvited Guests
• Shannon Stacey: All He Ever Desired
• Shannon Stacey: All He Ever Needed
• Zadie Smith: NW

2013

• Adelle Waldman: The Love Affairs Of Nathaniel P
• Becky Aikman: Saturday Night Widows
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Americanah
• Elizabeth Chadwick: The Summer Queen
• Elizabeth Fremantle: Queen’s Gambit
• Helen Wecker: The Golem And The Jinni
• John Elder Robison: Raising Cubby
• Kate Forsyth: The Wild Girl
• Martin Wagner: Deutschland
• Meike Ziervogel: Magda
• Melissa Marr & Tim Pratt (ed.): Rags & Bones
• Pavarti K Tyler: White Chalk
• Taylor Stevens: The Doll

2014

• Anna Hope: Wake
• E Lockhart: We Were Liars
• James Rhodes: Instrumental
• Johanna Lane: Black Lake
• Meike Ziervogel: Clara’s Daughter

2015

• Cathy Rentzenbrink: The Last Act Of Love
• Claire Watts: How Do You Say Gooseberry In French?
• Meike Ziervogel: Kauthar
• Nicola Cornick: House Of Shadows
• Patrick Gale: A Place Called Winter
• Sara Taylor: The Shore
• Sarah Howe: Loop Of Jade

2016

• Colson Whitehead: The Underground Railroad
• Dan Richards: Climbing Days
• Keith Stuart: A Boy Made Of Blocks
• Kit de Waal: My Name Is Leon
• Helen Oyeyemi: What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours
• Sara Taylor: The Lauras
• Tom Connolly: Men Like Air
• Yaa Gyasi: Homegoing

2017

• Claire Fuller: Swimming Lessons
• Gail Honeyman: Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
• Nicholas Royle: An English Guide To Birdwatching
• Orlando Ortega-Medina: Jerusalem Ablaze
• Phillip Lewis: The Barrowfields
• Sofie Laguna: The Choke
• Weike Wang: Chemistry

2018

• Jessie Greengrass: Sight
• Raymond Antrobus: The Perseverance

2019

• Julia Armfield: Salt Slow
• Samantha Sotto: A Dream Of Trees
• Seishi Yokomizo: The Honjin Murders (English translation: Japanese)

What have been your favourites these last years?

Today’s podcast

If you can’t view the media player below or to see all the details and transcript, I’ve made a blog page here.

Charlie and Phillip Lewis (The Barrowfields) discuss planning out fictional houses, the detail and beauty of classical music, books about books, and how real life in all its ups and downs makes its mark on your work.

The podcast is also available on iTunes and Spotify.

November has been brilliant, full of books. I decided on the 30th to try and finish the 250-odd pages I had remaining of the book I was looking to finish next and spent the evening with it to success. I’ve also read a wider variety of books, which most likely helped.

The Books

Non-Fiction

Gabrielle Malcolm: There’s Something About Darcy – Malcolm looks at the continuing interest in Jane Austen’s Fitzwilliam Darcy, from early in its publication to the present day. This is a 50/50 book; the first half, which deals with Austen’s near contemporaries and extends just to the 1995 adaptation, is excellent, but the second half is all about fan-fiction, where books are summarised repeatedly.

Poetry

Raymond Antrobus: The Perseverance – A collection about the poet’s life as a Jamaican Brit, a person in the deaf community, and various related historical and contemporary stories. Utterly fantastic.

Fiction

Julia Armfield: Salt Slow – A collection of short stories about identity, mostly women’s, which takes concepts and realities to their extremes in order to look at them closer. A brilliant collection.

Nancy Bilyeau: The Blue – 1700s’ Hugenot descendant Genevieve is recruited by Sir Gabriel Courtenay as a spy at Derby Porcelain factory to steal for him the formula for the newest shade of blue; she has agreed because he promised to send her to Venice to train as a painter, but when she comes to know those involved and the reality starts to show itself, she has to make a few decisions. This book is chock full of research to good effect, and whilst the middle is pretty slow it’s worth it as the latter third picks up the pace considerably and the secrets and truths fly everywhere.

Phillip Lewis: The Barrowfields – Henry looks back on his childhood, his father who tried so hard to be a writer, his distant relationships with mother and sister, and his own attempts to be someone. Utterly fantastic.

Samantha Sotto: Before Ever After – Shelley’s younger-than-middle-aged husband died and a few years later a boy claiming to be his grandson turns up at her door. Brilliant story combining a mass of different genres.

Samantha Sotto: Love And 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 box of manuscripts found amongst Issac Newton’s possessions to tell its story.

Seishi Yokomizo: The Honjin Murders – A couple on their wedding night are murdered in the annex building of the family estate; a three-fingered man was seen around the place the night before and his hand prints are on the wall, but why did it happen? An excellent 1940s novella that is a lot more about the ‘why’ than the ‘who’.

Stein Riverton: The Iron Chariot – One evening, a little way away from his hotel, our narrator sees the forestry inspector leave the company of a woman the narrator admires, and a bit later the narrator hears the sound of chains rattling which a fisherman says precedes death; the next day a dead body is found. Not bad at all – quite of its time but there’s a lot to appreciate in context.

I don’t have a favourite this month – there are some 5 star reads amongst the above, all but the non-fiction are 4+, and I appreciated various things about every one. It has been a very good reading month all round.

In this last month of the year and decade I’ve a few books to get to that are yet to be started and I hope to finish up a few more; I’m not sure I’ll read as much – Christmas is almost here, after all – but it should be good.

What do you hope to get to in this last month, and what has been your favourite book of the last few weeks?

Breakthrough – I’ve read more this month than I have in a relatively long time. Adding to the month’s list one by one has been an excellent motivation and the fact that there was re-reading to do helped.

All books are works of fiction.

The Books

Jane Austen: Sanditon – When a carriage accident befalls the Parkers, they are taken in by the Heywoods and when better, they return to their seaside resort of Sanditon with the eldest Heywood daughter, Charlotte. I’ve read this twice now and it was just as good the second time, the promise of what could have been both wonderful to read and understandably a little sad as well.

Meike Ziervogel: The Photographer – To Agatha’s dismay, daughter Trude falls in love with a local photographer; when Agatha finds out the couple are listening to an anti-Nazi radio station she sees her chance to save her daughter by going to the police about Albert. A very well-written tale of the German experience of the war and its aftermath.

Naomi Hamill: How To Be A Kosovan Bride – Two young women prepare to marry as Kosovo looks to the future; one will find herself in a traditional marriage, the other, believed to not have been a virgin is returned to her parent’s house but finds freedom in her new status. A stunning look Kosovo post-war, its birth as a new nation, and the mixing of tradition, culture, and outside influences.

Nicola Cornick: House Of Shadows – Receiving a phone call from her frightened niece, Holly leaves home for the holiday house she owns with her brother, and when Ben doesn’t just turn up as everyone says he will, Holly takes up a meeting he had scheduled with an antiques expert who has the mirror that matches Ben’s reputed pearl. A timeslip novel that goes back to the 1600s and 1800s, this book is super – always compelling, well-paced, and just a joy to read.

Orlando Ortega-Medina: Jerusalem Ablaze – A boy sees a homeless man and envy takes him from onlooker to problem; a woman discovers a dead body following a storm and feels a sense of possession over it; a priest in training follows a prostitute to a bedroom not knowing the darkness that lies in front of him. The book is a collection of short stories, dark, sinister, and exquisite.

Samantha Sotto: A Dream Of Trees – As Aiden waits to die he is joined in his hotel room by a stranger, a lady who wants to help him by taking him to his ‘rooms’ in the period between life and death. It’s incredibly hard to sum up this book in one sentence, not least because there is so much mystery involved – it is an incredible and very moving fantasy/magical realism story of souls and unfinished business told with an immense amount of heart.

Sara Ramsey: Heiress Without A Cause – Lady Madeleine is a spinster and, bored of her role in society, has taken to acting in a theatre in a low-class area of London; when Ferguson, the owner of the area in which the theatre stands, recognises her he suggests she pretends to be his mistress to lessen any scandal that would occur if she were found out. The basic premise of this book is good and the characters are fairly well developed but the story is pretty thin which means there’s a lot of manufactured threads, repetition, and overuse of the idea that Ferguson is going to end up like his father.

Virginia Woolf: Mrs Dalloway – On the day it is to happen, Clarissa plans the finishing touches to her dinner party, musing about her life as she goes; the book also looks at the life of her old friend Peter and a couple whose day will make an impression on Clarissa later. I appreciated this but didn’t feel I ‘got’ it. A good book, just not for me.

Of the new books, my favourite was A Dream Of Trees. It’ll be on my best of list for the year, quite possibly along with a re-read or two – I’ll have to see where re-reads fit in the year round up.

November will involve a few more re-reads and potentially the completion of The Secret Commonwealth – I must admit I put it aside after 80-odd pages as this young woman just doesn’t seem like Lyra to me and I’m disappointed with the direction Pullman’s taken with this sequel as it just doesn’t line up with what Lyra was to do when she came back to Oxford at the end of The Amber Spyglass. So we’ll see. If I get to all the other books on my list, I’ll go back to it.

How was your reading October? (And I know a few of you are taking part in R.I.P – how is that going?

I’ve made a breakthrough in my reading – I read more than I have been recently. Part of it was intention, making more time for it, part was picking a good mix of books, and part of it was finally getting it into my head that my rabbits are perfectly happy for me to sit and read around them rather than actively paying them attention. My cats were never like that; there has been a learning curve.

Towards the end of the month, I found comfort in easy reading – the Eloisa James made it to this month’s list and I’ve three other books on the go, including Mrs Dalloway; now on my fourth attempt, I’m getting through it. I’m happy that the numbers are higher and it’s made a long week more positive. I spent the last evening of the month watching Enchanted April, the 1992 adaptation of Elizabeth Von Arnim’s book, and highly recommend it.

All books are works of fiction.

The Books

Eloisa James: A Kiss At Midnight – A Cinderella retelling, in a fantasy early 1800s, a young woman agrees to pretend to be her half-sister in order to gain a relative’s approval for a marriage; the relative is a prince. A fun historical romance retelling, with just a couple of devices to better align it to the original.

Maggie O’Farrell: This Must Be The Place – An American in Ireland struggles with his history, which includes two families and a dependence on alcohol; the various members of his families struggle with their own lives and pasts, including his second wife, a famous actress two decades before who ran away to Ireland in order to escape the life she hadn’t wanted. Difficult to follow at times but the literary elements are very compelling.

Nick Alexander: You Then, Me Now – Becky has been trying all her life to get her mother, Laura, to tell her about her father. She manages to get her mother to holiday with her where the romance started; Laura has always found the idea of telling her daughter the truth difficult due to the trauma associated with that time. The only thing that doesn’t work is the resolution which is contrived; this is a very good book in general with superb characterisation and theme work.

Sally Rooney: Conversations With Friends – Two lovers-turned-friends meet an affluent couple and become embroiled in their chaotic marriage. The story itself is average but as this book isn’t so much about story as it is everything else that makes up a novel, the whole is really rather good.

I enjoyed all four books immensely for different reasons. The James: an easy read and a very good book of its genre; O’Farrell: the use of literary styles and the playing with linguistics; Alexander: the way it went about depicting the impacts of emotional abuse on a young person, later resulting in sexual abuse; Rooney: the methods used to show feelings and the effects of depression.

Quotation Report

In Conversations With Friends, the narrator ponders the idea of kindness, whether it’s more about being nice in the face of conflict, and whether she only wonders whether she’s kind because she’s a woman. Whilst in This Must Be The Place, a teenager, new to the age group, discovers one of the changes that come with moving away from childhood, that lack of total oneness of self and the innocence of a child in regards to the rest of the world and life.

My immediate plan is to finish Mrs Dalloway which shouldn’t take too long given its relatively short length and my progress. I then plan to move on to a book that arrived in the post, and follow that with whatever takes my fancy.

Did you watch any adaptations this month?