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What is your book of the year so far?

93 replies

Sadik · 13/11/2018 21:39

One only, no cheating with multiples Grin (And I am totally asking this for Christmas present purposes)

Mine is Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer. It's not the best written book I've read this year (objectively it has lots of faults), but it's the stand out for me because of the world-building, endless ideas to think about, and good characters.

OP posts:
impostersyndrome · 22/11/2018 21:07

vanderlylegeek I loved Kavalier and Clay. I think I got it in a book people deal for Pulitzer Prize winners. So good on so many levels: especially early history of comic books.

My own favourite read is Amanda Craig’s The Lie of the Land, about a couple forced to live together after deciding to divorce due to austerity. It really opened my mind to rural poverty.

virginqueen · 21/11/2018 11:16

That should have said Furies

virginqueen · 21/11/2018 11:15

Totally agree with The Heart's Invisible Duties by John Boyne. Would also nominate The Last Hours by Minette Walters and The Sealwoman's Gift by Sally Magnusson.

Annandale · 20/11/2018 07:16

Red Plenty by Francis Spufford. A pastiche of fact and fiction, or a mix of reality and fantasy, about the Soviet Union in the late 1950s. The writing is astounding imo.

PepeLePew · 20/11/2018 07:12

Swan Song by Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott

Beautifully constructed telling of Truman Capote’s life and the women who loved him until he betrayed them.

BetterEatCheese · 20/11/2018 06:43

I absolutely loved The Keeper of Lost Things

WaterBird · 20/11/2018 06:37

Getting Rid of Matthew by Jane Fallon. Really liked it (though there is strong disagreement on Goodreads).

midsomermurderess · 19/11/2018 22:10

Days Without End: Sebastian Barry.

MercedesDeMonteChristo · 18/11/2018 22:26

My favourite this year was non fiction, Coolie Woman by Gaitura Bahadur. It’s brilliant, sad, hopeful and just incredible. It’s about Indian female indentured labour in Guyana told through her own family history.

(Breaking the rules, The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan was fabulous)

(Also So Much Life Left Over by Louis de Bernieres, best not as a gift as you either love or hate him in my experience).

Cherrypi · 18/11/2018 08:26

Home fire by Kamila Shamsie.

Ouchy · 17/11/2018 21:16

Elmet by Fiona Mozley

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 17/11/2018 21:10

Probably Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty, although I loved Huntingower by John Buchan too.

TheLittleFoxes · 17/11/2018 21:02

I've enjoyed a lot of Irish writing this year, some mentioned above:
The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne
Normal People by Sally Rooney
Last Stories by William Trevor

Plus The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

Cakemonger · 17/11/2018 18:56

Educated by Tara Westover

Creepyexgirlfriend · 16/11/2018 21:36

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. Really well crafted and moving.

Agree.

Also:
Normal People by Sally Rooney
The new Graham Norton.

Sallystyle · 16/11/2018 21:35

Furies!

Sallystyle · 16/11/2018 21:34

The Heart's Invisible Furries here too.

Dottierichardson · 16/11/2018 21:32

Sadik hope you like it, also seem to remember a lot of people into Antartic/Shackleton on the 50 thread, they might like David Grann's new book 'The White Darkness'
crimereads.com/david-grann-driven-toward-the-greatest-mystery-of-all/

ChessieFL · 16/11/2018 18:43

Bookworm by Lucy Mangan - I’m almost the same age as her so it was like reading my childhood!

Nuffaluff · 16/11/2018 17:52

Alice Mine is Winter by Ali Smith too! She’s my favourite living author.
It didn’t grab me right from the start - I found the character hallucinating a bit hard to deal with - but by the end I loved it.

ExileinGuyville · 16/11/2018 17:20

Favourite non-fiction book was Educated by Tara Westover, moving, scary, weirdly life-affirming.

Favourite fiction reads The Bear and the Nightingale and The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden, the first two books in a trilogy set in medieval Russia, full of politics, religion, talking horses.

Chickoletta · 16/11/2018 16:25

I’m reading The Heart’s Invisible Furies now - only about 100 pages in but loving it. I also loved Eleanor Oliphant and The Essex Serpent.

AgentProvocateur · 16/11/2018 06:18

Another vote forThe Heart’s Invisible Furies.

ElfrideSwancourt · 16/11/2018 05:10

Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine by Gail Honeyman is my standout book this year.

Methyl · 16/11/2018 05:03

You Think It, I'll Say It - a collection of short stories by Curtis Sittenfeld. Oh my god can that woman write! It is spectacular; loved each and every story.

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