Today is review day, but since it’s the list time of year and I’m off on holiday for a few weeks, I thought I’d list my favourite fiction and non-fiction reads for this year (my personal reading year, not publication year).
Firstly, there was a cluster of world war books. These were character-driven stories of the people (soldiers and civilians) affected by the two world wars, rather than frontline battle stories. Starting with The Book Thief and ending with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, in between I read Pat Barker’s truly wonderful Booker-winningRegeneration trilogy, Regeneration, The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road, the heart-breaking A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry, and Birdsong by Sebastian Faulkes (though Charlotte Grey didn’t do it for me).
Favourite genre books this year were the sequel to The Lies of Locke Lamora, Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch, Never Let me Go by British-Japanese writer Kazuo Ishiguro, The Confusion by Neal Stephenson, and Making Money by Terry Pratchett.
Favourite general reads included the light French-village comedy, The Matchmaker of Perigord by Julia Stuart, the classic Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome (to say nothing of the dog), and Ishiguro’s gently mournful but touching Remains of the Day. Plus a whole bunch of Jenny Crusie’s backlist.
I had an excellent year for non-fiction: A Friend Like Henry, the story of an autistic boy brought out of his shell through the determination of his mother and the love of his dog; Oliver Sacks’s chemical-focused memoir, Uncle Tungsten; The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale, the story of the development of detective myths and fiction in the context of a Victorian-era middleclass murder-mystery; Bury Me Standing by Isabel Fonseca, who explores Gypsy culture and history in Eastern Europe; Friends Like These by the UK master of such stunt ‘boy projects’ (as his now-ex calls them), Danny Wallace; and The Ballard of the Whiskey Robber: a true story of bank heists, ice hockey, Transylvanian pelt smuggling, moonlighting detectives and broken hearts, a funny and tragic account of the Hungarian ‘Robin Hood’ (though he only passed his loot on to the poor through the means of gambling, whoring and drinking…) by Julian Rubinstein.
No posting for a few weeks. Have a good holiday period, everyone, and see you in the new year.
Ah, I enjoyed “Bury Me Standing” immensely. A tragic tale, yet also giving fascinating insight. I still need to write in gypsy-type characters into a novel at some point.
It was truly fascinating, especially the Holocaust parts. The Gypsies call it ‘The Devouring’ (so chillingly apt) and yet its impact on their culture and people is barely acknowledged even by them.
[...] 18, 2009 11:50 am As with last year, these are my favourite books of my personal reading year, regardless of publication [...]