Books of the Year

It's our final post of the year, and as always, we've asked staff and students to recommend the books they've most enjoyed reading in 2023 ... 

Dr Harrison's suggestions take us from the 1890s to the 2020s ...
'Not new this year, but Robert Harris’ An Officer and a Spy really brings turn of the 20th century Paris to life with a fictionalised account of the Dreyfus affair from the inside, a look at French army life highlighting the politics of any large organisation interspersed with the effects of thoughtless casual racism.

Benjamín Labatut's When We Cease to Understand The World then traces a line through the immense scientific progress of the later parts of the century via cyanide, insect based dyes, mustard gas, general relativity and questions around the insanity of genius using accounts in the lives of Heisenberg, Schwarzchild, Schrödinger and Grothendieck. 

The line between fiction and fact is more blurred here, while Harris is openly fictional; you’re far less sure when Labutut is embellishing facts or when is he burnishing a story with the patina of real events. 

Kashmir Hill’s Your Face Belong Belongs to Us then bring us right up to date with a shocking expose of the company Clearview AI and you want their facial recognition tool to have been a work of fiction. Here the author weaves a history of artificial intelligence and machine learning with the development of an astonishingly effective system by three alt-right MAGA misfits with access to investors with deep pockets and a handful of public GitHub repos – and the ability to scrape the open web for billions of faces to train their models. 

We are asked to consider the deepest questions of our moment: who owns your biometric data, what rights do you have to be anonymous in the street and what happens when private companies and law enforcement (and countless shadier government agencies in the background) have access to almost countless numbers of images of our faces, many given willingly to Facebook, SnapChat and similar gaping maws, and mash them with endless processing power to make privacy a thing of the past.'

Luke Leventis recommends We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K Dick: 'his short stories are often better than his novels because of the brilliant ideas and concepts that he uses.'

Mr Lowes suggests Shockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima by Stephen Walker: 
'I read this after the author presented at Junior Prizegiving. This is a meticulous, gripping and harrowing account of the development, then dropping, of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. 

For those interested in another side to the story told by Oppenheimer this year, I thoroughly recommend it.'

Will Palmer opts forWar on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence by Ronan Farrow.

'A slightly depressing and harrowing perspective on what has gone wrong with Western diplomacy in recent decades, especially its militarisation. Although published in 2018, it remains starkly relevant today.'

Paul Belhomme has selected How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems by Randall Munroe

'A great sequel to a very funny book. A good mix of ludicrous hypothetical, witty humour and sometimes actually good advice.'

Mr Smith recommends How Big Things Get Done by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner.  

'It is a book about major projects, like building opera houses or nuclear power plants, and how they can go wrong through poor planning and political manipulation.  Windfarms are easy to get right and the Empire State Building was build ahead of schedule and under budget, but there was never any hope for HS2. '

Felix May suggests The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka: 'made me feel things like never before….😟'

Zac West has chosen Music in the Castle of Heaven by John Eliot Gardner: 'Bach's unflinching gaze is familiar to any of us who have seen him stare out at us from a score, or have encountered that same severity in the eyes of an imposing conductor. 

But what enabled this unassuming, deferential, slightly hedonistic choirmaster to create so many works of such extreme perfection?  I found this book to be a fascinating insight into the inner contradictions of perhaps the greatest artist in human history, penned by one of his most rabid disciples.'

Mr Staniforth would like to recommend Currowan by Bronwyn Adcock: 'this is "an insider’s account of surviving one of Australia’s worst bush fires, and how we live in a climate-changed world."

It is one of the most gripping pieces of long form reportage I have ever read, and is written wonderfully. It tells the stories of these communities with breath-taking humanity, and was an absolute stand-out read for me this year.'

Miss Cloke's book or series of the year this year is The Great Library Series by Rachel Caine. 

'Book one is called Ink and Bone and the premise of the series is that the Great Library of Alexandria never burnt down and is the main governing power across the whole world, with individual libraries in each country being the voice for the Great Library. However, no one can own actual printed books:  everyone has a kindle like device where they can read books, but the Great Library decides which books can be read and which ones are deemed too dangerous to be consumed by the general public. 

We follow Jess Brightwell, a young man who comes from a family of illegal book traders sent to learn the Great Library's secrets but who ends up, with some of his fellow class mates, trying to take the Great Library down, by building a printing press.  A fabulous YA series that really highlights that knowledge is power and what can happen when we start to censor and control what we can read.'

And on the subject of books about libraries, this year we had FIVE separate recommendations for the same novel, R F Kuang's Babel. Is it good? Too darn right it is, and here's Miss Muir to explain why: 

'In October, the ever-fabulous Mrs Cummings in the Library thrust Babel by R F Kuang in my hands, saying, "You've got to read it; you'll love it". Five days later, I'd read it, spoken to everyone about it, and bought a hardback copy. In short, Mrs Cummings was correct!

The novel is a Bildungsroman; the main character, Robin, grows up in Oxford, England, having been removed from his native country at a young age. Robin increasingly becomes aware of society's duplicity and the shortcomings of human nature and has to choose how he will respond. Alongside Robin's maturing, the novel deals with the problematic trappings of colonialism: social justice, geopolitical dominance and subordination, and academic elitism, to name a few. 

So far, so good. 

What sets this novel apart is its superb blend of certain literary tropes: Victoriana, colonialism, and magic realism, coupled with a thriller plot line. Also, from a linguistic standpoint, it grapples with critical questions such as: who owns language? Can translations ever be accurate? How do words shape our world? What is the power behind words, and how can we best wield that power?  

And that's where the delight in this novel blossomed for me. Being a literature student, I returned to my first year at Oxford, reading Victorian literature, translating Old English texts and asking the above questions. 

It's not just me who loved this novel. It's been on loan continuously from the Library and has won various accolades: The New York Times Best Seller list, Blackwell's Books of the Year for Fiction in 2022 and the 2022 Nebula Award for Best Novel.

Beware, if you don't read a copy soon, Ms Cummings may well thrust it into your hands when you're next in the Library - or I will!'

It's clear that Mrs Cummings knows how to pick a winner! Here are two more of her suggestions: 

'Tokyo Express by Seicho Matsumoto, translated by Jesse Kirkwood. Originally published in 1958 and only recently translated into English, this has a real Agatha Christie feel to it. 

In only 150 pages it has all the classic elements; a shabby local detective, deaths that make no sense and a remote location. All the clues are presented with just enough red herrings to make it fun.  

Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell

A few years ago Katherine Rundell wrote a little book called Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise. It seems very appropriate that she has now written a children’s book (publishers say 9+) which should be in everyone’s Christmas stockings. 

It is a classic quest story with fantastical beasts and appealing lead characters. I cried at the end.  It is winning every award and is going to be the classic book every child reads, and as the first in a trilogy, you may as well admit defeat and buy a copy now.' 

Mrs Wilkinson recommends I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys which was a Carnegie Shortlister this year. 

'Cristian has lived his entire life in the grip of a repressive dictatorship. The country is governed by fear. When the secret police blackmail him, Cristian has an impossible choice. Save the life of his sick grandfather by informing on his family, or risk his life - and all of theirs - by resisting?  At 17, Cristian dreams of being free but doesn't know where to turn. In this climate of constant suspicion, can he trust his best friend, his girlfriend or even his family? Closely based on the real events of the Romanian Revolution of 1989, this is a powerful, heart-breaking thriller from the author of Salt to the Sea, winner of the Carnegie Medal.'

Cosmas Karageorgis suggests The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

'The post-apocalyptic atmosphere and the emphasis on survival really makes the reader empathise with the daily struggles of the main characters, but the thing that gives the characters an extra dimension is the complicated, ever-changing relationship between the Man and his son, who only have themselves to turn to in a world full of lawless men.'

Mr John has two recommendations. 

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart

 

'Young Mungo is the second novel from Douglas Stuart, who won the 2020 Booker Prize for his debut novel, Shuggie Bain. Young Mungo tells the story of Mungo, a teenager who is navigating the realities of working-class life in 1990s Scotland. We follow Mungo as he grapples with his emerging homosexuality and the way this conflicts with familial and religious pressures. The novel tackles some powerful, mature themes (content warning for violence and sexual assault), and is at times a difficult read, but I was so enraptured by Stuart's story-telling ability that I found it difficult to put the book down. 

 

A Heart That Works by Rob Delaney

 

A Heart That Works is a memoir from comedian Rob Delaney, which tells the heart-breaking story of his infant son's death. Delaney paints an incredibly intimate picture of how he and his family navigated the illness and passing of baby Henry, and provides a harrowing portrayal of anxiety, grief and loss. Though at times a gruelling read, it is littered with examples of Delaney's signature dry comedy, adding moments of light to the re-telling of the darkest time in his life. '

Miss Dixon recommends The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler

'Catching inspiration from the current fascination with the intelligence of cephalopods and their distance from us on the evolutionary tree, Ray Nayler has written a fascinating book where the discovery of an octopus colony changes the way humans may understand, or fail to understand, the sentience and intelligence of alien species. It is not only alien animal minds which are explored but also those of artificial and augmented humans against a background of a corporate controlled future. The book can be enjoyed as an entertaining thriller but science-fiction should always makes the reader think and this was a fine example of the best science fiction. A study of possible consciousness and cultures; alien encounters without leaving Earth.

This was a book that stayed with me, a well written thriller with discussion of some deep questions and a pleasant feeling of having encountered a book that is worth revisiting and worth recommending. (This book has won the Locus Award for Best First Novel and was a finalist for the Nebula Award).'

Daniel Harden has two suggestions: 'The book I enjoyed the most (I think) that I have actually finished is Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin - I find it quite uncommon for a book to be actually unputdownable but this one did that. I found that I was very invested in all three main characters and they were very well portrayed. 

I found it funny in parts, deeply moving in parts, and altogether a cracking read that I would recommend (note some adult themes.). Honourable mention would go to Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro - I'm still reading this book so I wasn't sure if I should use it but it's shaping up to be very good!'

Miss McLaren recommends Cahokia Jazz, by Francis Spufford, a fusion of hard-boiled detective thriller and alternative history.

'Set in Cahokia, a fictional city in Prohibition era America, the novel imagines a US where the indigenous peoples weren't wiped out by smallpox, but survived with their customs and culture relatively intact. Piano playing detective Joe Barrow and his mentor, Phineas Drummond, investigate the brutal Aztec-style slaying of a minor civil servant that threatens to un-tilt Cahokia's delicate balance of 'red, white and black', and bring the Ku Klux Klan onto the streets.  Cahokia itself is really the hero of the novel - full of potential yet riddled with corruption, and examined on as many levels as David Simon's Baltimore. Spufford's style is undeniably baroque, but the novel is a fascinating exploration of history, segregation, religious extremism, power politics and music, with more than a hint of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.'  

Mr Gardner opts for poetry: If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho translated by Anne Carson

'A modernist aesthetic tempers a classical text to create something new and old and beautiful.'

The book Mr Fagan most enjoyed this year was Georgi Gospodinov’s Time Shelter. 

'A dystopian novel which won the International Booker Prize, it describes how a project to help dementia sufferers by providing a clinic of the past where they can spend their days in a time period most comfortable for them and their memories, gradually morphs into a world where healthy people choose to wallow in nostalgia rather than face the horrors of the present, and European nations vote in referendums for the decade they’d most like to return to. Convincingly written with surprise developments regularly across the pages, it was also a powerful commentary on current affairs and populist movements.'

And finally, a mighty FOUR recommendations from the High Master:

Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?/The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
'Having got drawn in by a new Agatha Christie biography by Lucy Worsley, I have challenged myself to read through all 66 of her detective novels, many of which I have read before, but conveniently forgotten the murderer! I have read 15 this year, so it’s going to take me quite a while… 

I also feel that going through her work this way shows how mixed it really is in terms of quality and acceptability for the 21st century. However, I am recommending, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? simply because it’s good fun with great characters (no Poirot or Marple) and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd because it’s a work of genius. 

I would have recommended Murder on the Orient Express, but many of you will already know that, so trying Roger Ackroyd might be more rewarding.

My second choice is A Storm of Witchcraft: the Salem trials and the American Experience by Emerson W. Baker.

I was able to visit Salem for the first time when in the US this October. It is now a very strange mixture of theme park and historical location, however, at the heart of this is a human tragedy caused by a perfect storm of politics and personalities. Baker’s account is not just of the events of the trials, but, more interestingly, everything that happened before and after them. It’s a really fascinating book which explains an unusual explosion of humanity and a subsequent cover up in a logical and compelling way.

Finally, I would like to recommend The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936, Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown.

I had had this book recommended to me by a number of friends and colleagues involved in the world of rowing, and it will be fascinating for anybody who is interested in that sport. However, it’s much more universal than that - telling a tale about a particular point in history and a real life underdog story. I’d recommend it, even if you’ve never rowed a stroke, but are interested in friendship, overcoming adversity and the importance of teamwork.'

Huge thanks to everyone who contributed to this year's post: we hope it's given you lots of ideas for holiday reading. Have a fabulous Christmas, and see you in 2024!