My blog alleges I read 73 books this year, which seems surprising, because it felt like kind of a slow year reading-wise. Shout-outs have to go to the amazing HEART THE LOVER by Lily King, which I read in one short sleepless night; to I WHO HAVE NEVER KNOWN MEN by Jacqueline Harpman, a post-apocalypse book that makes you wonder why we don’t wonder more at this pre-apocalypse world; and Gail Goodwin’s VIOLET CLAY, which most expertly and unpleasantly flashed me back to my twenties.
Potentially though even more shout-outs have to go to non-fiction this year. I don’t know what’s happening: I never used to read non-fiction, and now second year in a row it’s been killing me. NOBODY’S GIRL by Epstein survivor Virginia Roberts Giuffre, which makes you ashamed of every time you have called something ‘too hard,’ the anonymously written A WOMAN IN BERLIN, the real diaries of a woman who survived rounds of gang rape when that city fell in WWII, and found the dignity and even the comedy in it; and Erik Larson’s THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY, about the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893 (I can’t believe this was even interesting, but don’t even get me going on how the Ferris Wheel was invented because I am a FOUNT of information). Some books I can tell I liked because I am just dying to tell unwilling audiences all about them. Don’t mention Peru or Spain or colonialism near me unless you really do want to hear a summary of Kim McQuarrie’s THE LAST DAYS OF THE INCAS, and don’t mention the Nile or Victorians or the Kama Sutra unless you are ready for my enthusiasm for Candice Millard’s THE RIVER OF THE GODS.
I also re-read PERSUASION this year, but I do not intend to insult Austen by including it on some ‘best of the year ‘ list, when it needs to be on some as yet un-written lifetime list.
These books so shaped and coloured my experience of the year it makes me wonder what it is like to be someone who doesn’t read. Of course non-readers must have as full a life as readers, but I wonder what their lives are full of? Their own thoughts? I honestly can’t even imagine. Anyway here’s the list:
- I DELIVER PARCELS IN BEIJING by Hu Anyan
- THE EVENING OF THE HOLIDAY by Shirley Hazzard
- THE LAST SAMURAI by Helen DeWitt
- THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN by Thomas Mann
- A MOTHER’S RECKONING by Sue Klebold
- PIRANESI by Susanna Clark
- STOP TIME by Frank Conroy
- TRAIN DREAMS by Denis Johnson
- DADDY ISSUES by Kate Goldbeck
- A SUPPOSEDLY FUN THING I’LL NEVER DO AGAIN by David Foster Wallace
- THE REST OF OUR LIVES by Ben Markovitz
- A WOMAN IN BERLIN by Anonymous
- BUCKEYE by Patrick Ryan
- NOBODY’S GIRL by Virginia Roberts Giuffre
- HEART THE LOVER by Lily King
- FAN SERVICE by Rosie Danan
- WHAT WE CAN KNOW by Ian McEwan
- BIRD BY BIRD by Anne Lamott
- JOURNEYS OF A GERMAN IN ENGLAND: A WALKING TOUR OF ENGLAND IN 1782 by Carl Philip Moritz
- YOU, AGAIN by Kate Goldbeck
- JOE CINQUE’S CONSOLATION by Helen Garner
- GHOSTROOTS by Pemi Aguda
- THIS HOUSE OF GRIEF by Helen Garner
- DOOMSDAY BOOK by Connie Willis
- ALL THE WORST HUMANS by Phil Elwood
- STARTER FOR TEN by David Nicholls
- THE FRIENDZONE by Abby Jimenez
- LIFE’S TOO SHORT by Abby Jimenez
- MARTIN DRESSLER by Steven Millhauser
- FINGERSMITH by Sarah Waters
- WORRY by Alexandra Tanner
- THREE CAME HOME by Agnes Keith
- AS I WALKED OUT ONE MIDSUMMER MORNING by Laurie Lee
- YOU ARE HERE by David Nicholls
- THE MISSIONARY’S WIFE by Tim Jeal
- I HOPE THIS FINDS YOU WELL by Natalie Sue
- I WHO HAVE NEVER KNOWN MEN by Jacqueline Harpman
- NAPLES ’44 by Norman Lewis
- THE HEART’S INVISIBLE FURIES by John Byrne
- BORED GAY WEREWOLF by Tony Santorella
- THE MOUNTAIN AND THE SEA by Ray Nayler
- LOVE AND SUMMER by William Trevor
- WE HEXED THE MOON by Mollyhall Seeley
- THE POWER OF NOW by Eckhart Tolle
- VIOLET CLAY by Gail Goodwin
- THE SAILOR WHO FELL FROM GRACE WITH THE SEA by Yukio Mishima
- MONKEY GRIP by Helen Garner
- GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL LIFE by Emily Henry
- ADELAIDE by Genevieve Wheeler
- THE PLACES IN BETWEEN by Rory Stewart
- KINGFISHER by Rozie Kelly
- OH THE GLORY OF IT ALL by Sean Wiley
- PERSUASION by Jane Austen
- FOURTH WING by Rebecca Yarros
- DREAMSTATE by Eric Puchner
- SAO BERNARDO by Graciliano Ramos
- PLAYWORLD by Adam Ross
- THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY by Erik Larson
- A STOLEN LIFE by Jaycee Dugard
- IN CHANCERY by John Galsworthy
- YOU, AGAIN by Kate Goldbeck
- HAPPY PLACE by Emily Henry
- FUNNY STORY by Emily Henry
- BOOK LOVERS by Emily Henry
- BEACH READ by Emily Henry
- ME AND YOU ON VACATION by Emily Henry
- RIVER OF THE GODS by Candice Millard
- YOU DREAMED OF EMPIRES by Alvaro Enrigue
- I’LL BE GONE IN THE DARK by Michelle McNamara
- SUMMER OF BLOOD by Dan Jones
- THE LAST DAYS OF THE INCAS by Kim McQuarrie
- BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA by Dorothy Allison
- FELICIA’S JOURNEY by William Trevor