So this year I read 56 books, carrying 3 over to 2016. I read a similarly paltry number of non-fiction as last year however I’m surprised and quite pleased to say that I read a lot of translated fiction. Much more than I have in previous years. It’s down to the publishers I work with, yes, but I’ve been inclined to choose translated fiction anyway. I’ve been reading the back of every Murakami I see, trying to see if I can change my initial and lasting thought that I’d like to start with Norwegian Wood. I’ve been looking longingly at Shan Sa – Chinese fiction written in French – and reminding myself that’s it’s all right to re-read a book.
As always, books that have been reviewed have a line underneath them and the title links to the review. Up until my personal favourites list, all books are rated objectively. If you’d prefer to skip all that, click here to view my personal favourites.
The Best Of The Best
Adelle Waldman: The Love Affairs Of Nathaniel P – Detailing some of the many short relationships of a writer ensconced in the journalism and publishing industry, with a look at why things go wrong for him. This is a really, really, great book.
Anna Hope: Wake – In the first few years after the First World War, three women struggle, though they don’t always realise it, with the realities of life as it now is. This book is really superb and the fourth thread in it, that of the (fictionalised) story of the Unknown Soldier’s homecoming is very moving; if this book is ever adapted for film I will be very happy.
Bernhard Schlink: The Reader – At fifteen, Michael has an affair with an older woman and years later sees her once more, this time in a war trial. Fantastic.
E Lockhart: We Were Liars – Cadence spends every summer on her family’s private island but the younger relations start questioning the perfection. Phenomenal.
J K Rowling: The Casual Vacancy – The death of a parish councillor not only creates a rush to take his place, it also creates even more tension between those for and against the already-existing integration of a council estate. Loved it – as I said, a great book about awful people.
Kate Chopin: The Awakening – A wife and mother in 1800s America pushes against the social traditions that restrict her life. Absolutely excellent.
Nicola Cornick: House Of Shadows – A woman looking for her missing brother starts to unravel the mysteries her brother was working on at the time and finds out the house she’s always seen beyond the trees was destroyed years before she was born. Utterly superb.
5
Barbara Comyns: Our Spoons Came From Woolworths
Claire Watts: How Do You Say Gooseberry In French?
Irène Némirovsky: The Misunderstanding
James Rhodes: Instrumental
Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows: The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society
Meike Ziervogel: Kauthar
Sara Taylor: The Shore
Sarah Howe: Loop Of Jade
Stephen Hawking: A Brief History Of Time
4.5
Angela Thirkell: The Brandons
Elizabeth Baines: Used To Be
Eloisa James: Duchess By Night
Emma Healey: Elizabeth Is Missing
H G Wells: The Time Machine
Helen Lederer: Losing It
Laura Barnett: The Versions Of Us
Raymond Jean: Reader For Hire
4
Elizabeth Fremantle: Sisters Of Treason
G&slash;hril Gabrielsen: The Looking-Glass Sisters
Guy Ware: The Fat Of Fed Beasts
Judy Chicurel: If I Knew You Were Going To Be This Beautiful, I Never Would Have Let You Go
Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina
Mikhail Elizarov: The Librarian
Paula Lichtarowicz: The First Book Of Calamity Leek
Tracy Rees: Amy Snow
3.5
Aki Ollikainen: White Hunger
Annie O’Neil: Doctor… To Duchess?
Eloisa James: When The Duke Returns
Intisar Khanani: Sunbolt
Jo Walton: Among Others
Lisa Hilton: Elizabeth – Renaissance Prince
Nancy Bilyeau: The Tapestry
R J Gould: A Street Café Named Desire
Robert Merle: The Brethren
Sarah Govett: The Territory
Shannon Stacey: Taken With You
Téa Obreht: The Tiger’s Wife
3
Amy Stewart: Girl Waits With Gun
Erica Vetsch: The Cactus Creek Challenge
Georges Simenon: The Late Monsieur Gallet
Helen Oyeyemi: Boy, Snow, Bird
Horace Walpole: The Castle Of Otranto
Sunjeev Sahota: The Year Of The Runaways
2.5
Charles Dickens: Nicholas Nickleby
Jessie Burton: The Miniaturist
Shannon Stacey: Falling For Max
2
Melanie Shawn: Let It Snow
My Personal Favourites
I fell into a half-planned, half-accidental rhythm some time within the first few months, starting with Adelle Waldman. I found myself inclined to read literary fiction and suitable review copies arriving. It’s been a good thing because, as this website probably indicates, I enjoy literary fiction a lot even if I think the category itself odd. But there was still that lingering feeling of fear; where literary fiction involves much thought, I worried I wouldn’t be able to do it justice in my reviews. I know I sometimes miss elements when I get distracted by something that intrigues me a lot. That worry’s still there – it’s almost part and parcel with the genre I think, given the implied elitism – but it’s lessened. I suppose like anything, practise is key.
My reading was skewed towards women at 41 – I’m looking to balance it out a bit this year. Three books were non-fiction, 9 translated fiction. I read 5 bonafide classics, if you will (because I’d include Comyns and Thirkell myself), and the oldest book I read was the Walpole. Unsurprisingly there were a variety of new-to-me authors, 45 to be exact. It’s a fair number and, whilst I’m happy to be broadening my author horizon, it did indicate that I need to get back to the backlists of old favourites. Lastly, and I’m a bit embarrassed about this, it turns out I’ve been giving Mary Ann Shaffer an extra S in her surname ever since I reviewed her book in June…
Quotation Report
Striking somewhat of a chord is Nate from The Love Affairs Of Nathaniel P who comments on the way the numbers that may constitute a popular book would earn a television show the axe.
Aunt Sissie of The Brandons suggests staying in bed as a way to live longer, whilst Delia would likely not suggest anything due to her morbid fascination with death and disease. Being in the car with someone on their way to hospital for appendicitis is so brilliant after all, darling.
This said, there is no trouble talking about Among Others. In the book, Mori brings a smile when she says she’s going to keep Dodie Smith’s I Capture The Castle for a day she’s interested in a good siege. There is also this, showing double standards: ‘How interesting that what comes out as doing the best he could in a man looks like neglect in a woman’.
Gat from We Were Liars states that a novel should deliver a series of small astonishments, which is a lovely way to put it and surely what we often look for when we sit down with a book.
In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy makes a good point when he suggests that women lacked rights because of a lack of education and a lack of education led to a lack of rights. On a humorous note, he also points out that a man can sit uncomfortably in a chair but be happy enough as long as he knows he can move – if he knows he can’t move that same position will be impossible.
In the next few days I’ll be posting my goals for 2016 as well as my second film round up.
What were your favourite books of 2015?
2015 Year Of Reading Round-Up was published on and belongs to The Worm Hole.