Inspire me with your best reads of the year (so far)! Listed in order of reading rather than enjoyment:
Best non-fiction
- Harry Mount's Odyssey, by Harry Mount Author travels around the Mediterranean and reflects on his failures in life. Funny and touching.
- Byron's Women, Alexander Larmen Group biography of the women in poet's life: mother, wife, lovers, daughters. Makes you deeply grateful for modern property law and access to divorce.
- A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived, Adam Rutherford Fun with genes.
Best fiction
- The Shepherd's Crown, by Terry Pratchett Perhaps enjoyed as a last fond farewell to the Discworld rather than in its own right.
- The Pumpkin Eater, by Penelope Mortimer Classic piece of women's writing. If not a wife or mother, who am I?
- A tie between Ghastly Business by Louise Levene and Field Service by Robert Edric Both set in the 1920s as society tries to move on after the Great War.
I also enjoyed Jodi Taylor's series about time-traveling historians and Angela Thirkell's comedies about middle-class life in the 1930s.