Books Books Books

and more books

I don’t really do New Year at all, usually. I generally find it more overwhelming than Christmas. Having said that, currently I am not plunged into my usual funk. I am treading lightly with it and cynically wonder if it is because I have been so depressed recently that my usual funk is about fourteen feet under the rest of it. I think not, on reflection. I am quietly hopeful.

As well as not doing New Year I don’t do resolutions either. In the past I have found that they have given me a new stick to beat myself with and frankly, when you already have an extensive stick collection, it seems a bit pointless to add something else to the mix. Like Lent, I think a lot of resolutions are about penance and denial. They are very much focussed on taking things away rather than adding things to life and I have no need of hair shirts any more than I do of sticks. A life of abundance is what I am working towards, not one of abstinence.

It’s quiet here. All the world’s firework stocks were used up last night, so we now exist in a world of wet smoke and burst ear drums. The kids are in various states of hangover and comedown at party venues across the land. Jason and Derek are snoring on the sofa and I am relishing the emptiness.

One of the only rituals I keep at this time of year is looking at all the books I read and coming up with my top ten. I think it’s as good a way to reflect on a year as any.

I read 229 books in 2023. That’s a solid number. It’s been a strong year for reading and I have read a great many good books. Here are my top ten, in no particular order:

1. Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life and Sudden Death by Laura Cumming - this is exactly the sort of book that I like most in life. I love a book that starts out being about one thing and then wanders off all round the houses and then comes back to the beginning again. This is beautifully written. It made me think about Dutch art in a new way. It made me think about my own life in a new way. It’s tender and clever but it holds its cleverness lightly. I know a book is excellent when I start slowing down my reading because I don’t want it to end. This is one of those books. Also read this year and very nearly in the top ten for similar reasons to Thunderclap is Threads by Julia Blackburn)

2. Old Babes In The Wood by Margaret Atwood - I always say I don’t like short stories much, but that’s because short stories are notoriously difficult to write, being neither fish nor fowl. When a short story collection makes it into my top ten, you know it’s going to be a belter. This is exceptional. I read this in proof and then bought it for someone else. So good, I spent my own hard earned money on a copy. (The Pier Falls by Mark Haddon and The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter are also exceptional story collections).

3. In Memoriam by Alice Winn - I was one of the readers for the Waterstones’ Debut Fiction Prize at the beginning of this year. This was one of the contenders and there was already a huge buzz about it when my proof arrived. I was slightly put off by how hard it was being championed in certain quarters, but as soon as I started reading I was hooked. It was my pick as the winner and unlike last year when my pick (the magnificent Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus) didn’t win, In Memoriam did and deserves every success. Funny, tender, savage and beautiful this is a love story set across WWI. It made me ache with laughter and tears.

4. Went to London, Took the Dog by Nina Stibbe - oh, this was a delight. A bookend to the splendidly funny Love Nina, this takes place decades down the line and Stibbe revisits London for a year in the aftermath of divorce and attempts to figure out what comes next. She has such a great ear for dialogue and gossip and a wonderful way of mixing high and low brow content that seems casual but is beautifully artful. I hooted with laughter and was genuinely bereft when it was finished.

5. Family Meal by Bryan Washington - I discovered Washington last year with his debut novel, Memorial and grabbed a proof of Family Meal on the strength of it. Washington’s themes are queer life and the complexities of your biological family and your chosen family. Food features heavily in his work, which I really enjoy. A kind of mash up of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City but with a much sharper, darker humour and the film Big Night. Bittersweet, acute snapshots of lives and families that I find utterly moreish.

6. This Ragged Grace by Octavia Bright - I’ve given this a whole post of its own somewhere in the archives of this Substack. A superb memoir of addiction, grief and recovery that is elegant and brutal and an incredibly powerful read. Another one I read in proof and then went and bought with cold, hard cash. If this kind of thing is your jam, may I also recommend The Outrun by Amy Liptrot.

7. Big Swiss by Jen Beagin - This was another read for the Waterstones’ Debut Fiction Prize and was my second choice for winner. Dark, hilarious and deeply strange. I loved everything about this. It has the oddity of Tom Robbins’ Even Cowgirls Get The Blues mixed with some of the dark elements of the best of John Irving. I’m thinking of The World According to Garp here.

8. Small Fires: An Epic In The Kitchen by Rebecca May Johnson - I love books about food that are more than books about food. I love the memoirs, the digressions, the chatty bits of cookery books possibly more than cookery books themselves. This is original and exciting writing that is ostensibly about cooking the same dish over and over again and observing how it changes over time and in different circumstances. It’s thoughtful and smart and ticked all my food writing boxes. If you like this kind of thing check out Ella Risbridger’s Midnight Chicken and The Year of Miracles and M.F.K. Fisher’s The Gastronomical Me.

9. The Shadow Cabinet by Juno Dawson. If you love queer, urban fantasy, this is for you. This is the second in the series which begins with Her Majesty’s Royal Coven and you need to read them in order. I nearly didn’t include this in my round up because of that, but it was so damn good it couldn’t be left out. I was nervous when I picked this up that it wouldn’t be as good as the first book, but it was better. Now I am on tenterhooks waiting for the next one. Everyone who I have either recommended this series to or bought copies for, loves it. Impeccable.

10. Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld - I have read a few critiques of this in recent weeks. Something along the lines of serious novelist not staying in their lane. Also gripes about people who love this who wouldn’t usually deign to read romantic fiction getting all excited because finally a ‘proper’ author is here to save us from the usual romantic dross. I get why people who love romantic fiction get annoyed at the idea that the genre can only be legitimised if it’s written by a serious author, because frankly that’s bullshit. It’s not Sittenfeld’s fault though. That’s the snobbery of literary critics for ya, and they can go and boil their heads, frankly. This is a lovely, romantic comedy that reminds me a lot of 30 Rock and which I cast accordingly in my head. It’s light, frothy and charming. I enjoyed it immensely. I also loved Sittenfeld’s Eligible, which is a modern rewrite of Pride and Prejudice for similar reasons. On the romantic vibe I also thoroughly enjoyed Tia Williams’ Seven Days in June and the unconventional Shark Heart by Emily Habeck. Also, even though it’s probably heretical to say this is a romance book, Tom Lake by Ann Patchett.

Honourable mentions that almost squeaked into the top ten:

The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff - another contender for the Waterstones’ Debut Fiction Prize. Blackly funny situation comedy set in an Indian village about a woman who is rumoured to have bumped off her husband. This was really sharp, clever writing.

Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka - this was one of our Waterstones’ thrillers of the month. I read it because we are supposed to upsell our books of the months. I tend to steer away from thrillers for the most part because I usually find them deeply frustrating. This was one of those books that had me sitting up in the first twenty pages and then racing to the end. It’s dark and twisted, clever and brilliant and surprises you all the way through. It’s such an intelligently written book. It’s another one I bought for other people and thrust upon them. It has elements of The Collector by John Fowles. High praise indeed.

Kala by Colin Walsh - See above. Also one of our Waterstones’ Debut Fiction Awards reads. A kind of Donna Tart meets Ian Rankin and has a brilliant Irish baby kind of affair. A multi-layered, brilliantly handled coming of age type thriller.

Foster by Claire Keegan - Keegan writes perfect books. The only reason this didn’t make it into my top ten was because it is so slight it’s really a short story. Having said that, there doesn’t need to be anything else. It is flawless. A story of a girl’s summer spent with relatives while her mother has a baby. It’s sublime. I didn’t think she could get better than last year’s Small Things Like These, but this is as good, if not slightly better.