Books of the Year

Looking for something to read over the holidays? Then you've come to the right place - it's our annual 'book of the year' post.  We asked people to nominate the books they'd most enjoyed this year, fiction or non-fiction, and here are the results: many thanks to all those who contributed, and Merry Christmas from the book blog!

Miss Douglass's book of the year is The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden by Jonas Jonasson:

'This book had a very funny, but incredibly complex plot. I loved how it cleverly came together towards the end and the characters were so well written.'
Jonasson is also the author of The 100 Year Old Man who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared, enthusiastically recommended by Max Hatter:

'A humorous novel about a man who disappears on his 100th birthday, which effectively combines various events in the man's life with big historical moments such as the Franco-Prussian war or the discovery of the atomic bomb. Very funny and an easy and exciting read.'

Mr Cairns's first nomination goes to David Mitchell's eerie ghost story, Slade House:

'It is to Slade House, accessed via a tiny iron door in an alley, that twin soul-vampires Norah and Jonah Grayer lure their living prey. The book includes one scene in the upstairs room of a pub, during which - when it dawned on me what was happening - I felt a genuine shiver down my spine.'  Mr Cairns's second recommendation is Francis Spufford's novel Golden Hill, which is among this year's Costa Book of the Year nominees:

'A young man from London, Mr Smith, arrives in New York in 1746 with a bill of exchange to the enormous value of £1,000. For those who love NYC, it’s an evocative depiction of the city at a date when you didn’t really know it was doing anything. And the Dutch are very much still there, and not just in Breuckelen. Meticulous research worn lightly – and a delicious twist at the end.'

Ryan Williams chose a historical novel set in the more recent past, Decline by Tom Stacey.

'A story of father and son: one the owner of an industrial company, the other a student at Eton - symbols of the wealthy and powerful failing in the new and changing world, and the impact it has on their family. Set in the 90s, at the end of Thatcher’s premiership and in a world of competition and hatred, spanning from Eton to Wandsworth Prison via Bradford, Decline shows the strongest bonds are those formed from familial love and friendship.'  

Mr Copeman's recommendation,  John Preston's A Very English Scandal: Sex, Lies and a Murder Plot at the Heart of the Establishment, deals with the murkier sides of British politics in the 60s and 70s:

'If you think today's politicians are a motley crew, remind yourself of the Jeremy Thorpe affair and 'The Dog in the Fog' - a riveting, page-turning read.'

Caleb Webster enjoyed Donna Tartt's classy thriller set among the privileged elite, The Secret History: 

'One American student's search for beauty and authenticity through the classics, high society and murder. The characters Tartt introduces are entirely convincing as inexperienced members of the 1%  but remain fascinating in their complexity. The reader, much like the narrator, is pulled into a world which gets increasingly unsettling and real with each page.'

Mr Anthony opted for a recently rediscovered American author: 'my favourite book of the last six months is A Manual for Cleaning Women: Collected Short Stories by Lucia Berlin:

'Berlin received limited critical interest in her own lifetime, but since her death in 2004 and the publication of her collected short stories in 2015, she has acquired cult status and joined the ranks of Raymond Carver and Chekhov as a master of the genre; the New York Times has described her, quite simply, as a “literary genius”. Her stories draw heavily on her own life – her alcoholism, her abusive mother, her sister’s death – but through their dry, conversational tone and startling use of simile, the stories chart the beauty of the everyday with warmth and wit.'

Andrew Farry suggested Labyrinths by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges:

'It's a collection of short stories so they can be read in one sitting. Also they are mind blowingly strange, and force you to consider the nature of infinity and literature. Many are lit crit concepts distilled into interesting stories.'  Short stories were clearly popular this year.  Charles Cavalla recommended Herman Melville's 'Bartleby the Scrivener':

'Set in a Manhattan law firm, 'Bartleby the Scrivener' tells the story of a man's increasing reluctance and refusal to do anything and how the people around him respond. Melville's novel is an interesting depiction of the failure of human interaction and the use of a fallible narrator. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a short, thought-provoking read.' Daniel Savin's book of the year 'is Today I Wrote Nothing by Daniil Kharms, translated by Matvei Yankelevich, a collection of mainly short stories (most are less than a page long).'

'Kharms published only children's stories during his lifetime, and his adult work only came to light in the 1970s, some 30 years after his death. His plays preceded and foreshadowed the Theatre of the Absurd, but it is his short prose which really marks him out as unique. It is surreal, fleeting and abrupt. Very smart and very funny. My favourite stories are 'The Plummeting Old Women', 'Blue Notebook #3' and 'Events'. The Soviet state's censorship and repression of Kharms and his work (he starved to death in a Leningrad jail) seems to give his writing greater power. The stories are at once trivial and powerful. Characters die (sometimes literally) at the drop of a hat. Unquestioned literary conventions are torn down. Words are putty in the hand of this master.'

Levi Mattey suggests another classic of twentieth century Russian writing, The Master and the Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov: 'a great book, with fascinating thoughts on religion, hell and the afterlife, plus Soviet satire.'

Russia's imperial ambitions are the subject of Peter Hopkirk's The Great Game, which comes highly recommended by Mr Lowes:

'‘The Great Game’ refers to a shadowy cold war played out between the two great powers of the 19th century, Britain and Russia. To the participants it was anything but a game. It took place in the harsh wildernesses of Central Asia as Britain attempted to protect India, the jewel in its imperial crown, from the (perceived) avaricious advances of Russia. Peter Hopkirk does a fantastic job of narrating the various events that occurred, from meetings with savage emirs, to bloody battles in mountain passes and repeated disastrous attempts at occupying Afghanistan. I had never imagined historical non-fiction could be this readable!'

Joe Wyche has been revisiting a book he read when he was much younger, Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah:

'I recalled it being an amazing story, so I decided to re-read it at the beginning of this year. The writing style is simple and straightforward, and the story of the author as an unwanted child touches you through how she navigates through her young life, and keeps you hooked from beginning to end. Overall a great read.'

Mr Broughton has also been conducting a retrospective, immersing himself in the work of Alan Garner: 'over the past year I've read the complete works of this contemporary author, revisiting novels from childhood (his most famous book, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen) and young adulthood (the brilliant and complex Red Shift, which has no call to be marketed only for teenagers) and discovering his later works for adults such as The Stone Book Quartet, whilst exploring the Cheshire landscape which plays an integral part in all his novels.

'After Red Shift my favourite novel was Strandloper, based on the true story of a nineteenth-century labourer transported on trumped-up charges to Australia, where he promptly escapes and lives for many years amongst Aborgines before events lead to a deeply moving conclusion.

'Garner is a unique voice in fiction, writing in a style which is very pared-down but laced with idiom, dialect and song in a fascinating exploration of ritual, dreams, hallucinations, time, justice and colonialism.'

Mr Watkins recommends another novel about moving between different cultures: Brooklyn, by the contemporary Irish novelist Colm Toibin:

'Not new this year, but the recent film release prompted me to seek it out. It is a wonderful book about migration, and loneliness; but also about human frailty, and our capacity to cause pain without malign intent. The ending - the complexity and sadness of which the film ducks - is unbearably magnificent. Very affecting. Read this!'

For fans of science fiction and space exploration, Aaron Reyes-Bordado suggests Mars Crossing by Hugo Award winner Geoffrey A Landis:

'The third mission to Mars touches down on the red planet but from the beginning everything goes wrong, and the crew have the struggle of their lives to get back home.'  Some of the Physics Dept's books of the year -  the MaddAddam trilogy by Margaret Atwood (Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood and MadAddam) - also look forward in time:

'A delightfully different dystopian future, driven by real characters, believable motives and humanity at its flawed best. Atwood's writing is engaging and amusing, even when the storyline is dark, but also she possesses the master cartoonist's skill of drawing depth of character with a few simple strokes of the pen.'

They also recommend Cuckoo: Cheating by Nature by Nick Davies.

'A beautifully written tale of one man’s lifelong obsession with cuckoos. The reader is drawn in to the world of long, patient observation to try to understand how a cuckoo gets away with the absurdity of making another bird feed chicks which could swallow their foster parent whole. Hypothesis after hypothesis is suggested and tested against painstakingly taken field data but this is not a science geek’s book, but one that will charm any reader. A total delight.'

Miss McLaren was intrigued by Charles Foster's Being a Beast, definitely 'one of the more unusual books I've read recently':

'The philosopher Wittgenstein argued that if a lion could talk to us, we wouldn't be able to understand it.  Foster decides to challenge this assertion by living as various different creatures - including a badger, an otter and an urban fox.  By getting in touch with his inner beast, he hopes to establish whether humans and animals are actually as different in their perceptions as Wittgenstein assumes.  Not many fathers would take their eight year old son off to live inside an earth mound and eat worms, but Foster does, and his quirky commitment to his eccentric project makes for a fascinating read.'

Douglas Law makes a revealing confession about his choice, Submarine by Joe Dunthorne:

'I think this may well be the first book that has ever actually made me laugh. With glowing praise such as this, I'm sure you can't think of any reason not to read it. Although slightly weaker in its second half, you won't be disappointed by this impressive 2008 novel.'

Mr Jacoby recommends David Grossman's dark tale of a disintegrating comedian,  A Horse Walks into a Bar, 'a book not just about Israel', according to Ian Sansom in the Guardian,  but 'about people and societies horribly malfunctioning'.

You can read Sansom's review in full here.  Given recent events, and the forthcoming presidential election in France, it's hardly surprising that Dr Duits feels Michel Houellebecq's controversial satire about French politics and Islam, Submission, is 'a pretty pertinent read just now'. 

Mr Smith's suggestions kick off with Peak by Anders Ericsson: 'the mystery of how world-class performers get to where they are is explained by the world’s foremost expert on expertise. There is no such thing as talent – only gruelling practice leads to the top.'  

Pre-suasion by Robert Cialdini is 'the long-awaited follow up to his 1984 international best-seller Influence. The world’s most practical psychologist explains the power of the environment to influence our decision making just before we make a decision – without our ever being aware of it.'

Mr Smith also recommends Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed: 'from product design to evolution and medical negligence to air traffic disasters, Syed explores the way that some humans in just a few spheres respond to failure in a way that can forever make people safer.'

His final nomination is Flash Boys by Michael Lewis: 'conflicts of interest, secrecy, fibre optics and scapegoats are all present in a chilling tale of a truly immoral area of modern finance where you can never know who is ripping you off: high frequency trading.'

Continuing the theme of crime and corruption, Jasper Green thinks fans of classic 'noir' detective stories will enjoy The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. 'Private eye Philip Marlowe is caught in in pre-war LA: land of opportunity and cesspool of facades and betrayal':

There's a longer review of the novel here, on our detectives reading list. Felix Kwok recommends another classic, Carry on Jeeves by P G Wodehouse: 'read before bed while drinking tea to be whisked back to Bertie's sitting room in 1933' (and you can read Felix's longer review here). 

The only graphic novel nominated this year is a classic of the genre: Maus by Art Spigelman, suggested by Vasco Faria:

'The author, an American cartoonist, interviews his father about his life as a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor'.  Caspar Pullen-Freilich also recommends a novel which deals with the themes of racism and prejudice, and the relationship between a father and his children, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird:

Ned Ashcroft nominates another landmark of American literature, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck: 'an insightful and shocking insight into the Californian ‘Gold Rush’. Steinbeck never holds back in his revelations of the depths of human suffering man is willing to go to in following a dream.'

You can read Sebastian Erskine's review of the novel here.  To bring our post to a close, two books about poetry and one about music: Mr Shouler enjoyed reading Philip Larkin's Letters to Monica, 'the poet's significant other (or one of them) for over 30 years:

'This offers an insight into the Larkin’s life and work that is fascinatingly different both from the various voices both of his letters to others (previously published and also well worth reading) and of his poems. The little social and historical details of life in the 50s, 60s and 70s are fascinating, too.' Besides Larkin's letters, Mr Shouler's also found the new edition of T S Eliot's Collected Poems: 'awe-inspiring'!

The last word goes to Mr Toller, who describes Stalin’s Music Prize by Marina Frolova-Walker as 'the most interesting new music book I’ve read this year':

'It discusses the music prizes awarded in Stalin’s name between the years 1941 and 1953. A whole host of unfamiliar names processes through this book, tempting me to widen my listening horizons, and at the same time I was impressed by how objective and constructive so many of the judges were – the idea that recipients had to be ideologically sound is just a myth. Utterly fascinating for anyone interested in 20th-century music.'

If you'd like to recommend a book you've read this year, we'd love you to add it, via the comments option below.  In the meantime, many thanks once again to all our contributors throughout the year: your continued support is much appreciated!