What’s been your best read this year?

Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon. I loved the characterisation , the parallels with the present day and the last few words "...the world a wounded thing that can only be healed by story"
Like others I also really enjoyed The Women by Kirstin Hannah, All the Light We Cannot See and the first 2 books by Jo Callaghan. Looking forward to the 3rd by her

Inspired by this thread I have just about finished The List of Suspicious Things today! Got a bit stuck about halfway through a month or so ago but got fresh impetus to finish it, and have really enjoyed it.

War and Peace.

Signed up to do a slow read of this incredible novel with Simon of Footnotes and Tangents on Substack. You read a chapter a day and then have the option to join in with a thread discussion about the Chapter. Simon provides a weekly summary of the previous 7 chapters with his own thoughts and links to historical articles, poetry, art and maps.

I feel so totally immersed in this book and the characters now I’m going to be bereft when I finish on 31st December. It completely earns its status as a classic.

Tolstoy’s writing and themes has knocked pretty much everything else I’ve read out of the park. I highly recommend the experience. He’s running the slow read again next year.

I read this on Audible and found it gripping the way an ordinary family life can change bit by bit into totalitarian chaos.

It has really lived with me since.

Me too, and I only started somewhat reluctantly on a recommendation late summer and now I have to wait until May for more Carl and Donut time!

My favourite book of all time by a mile.

It’s not a new book but Pachinko by Min Jin Lee was by far the stand out book for me this year.

DS bought it for himself and loved it so much he bought me a copy as a gift.

Think it’s already been mentioned but the Women by Kristen Hannah, absolutely brilliant story about an army nurse in the Vietnam War. I have read a lot of her books and have always loved that she takes a time in history and writes from a women’s perspective. Took a little while for me to get into it but certainly one of her best books.
i enjoyed Raising Hare a lot more than I thought I would.
Got lots more now on my want to read list.

Lessons in Chemistry - I was given it, would not have looked at it on a bookshelf even in a charity shop but I absolutely loved it.

Honey bee by Craig Silvey has to be mine.

a story of a young run away boy and his friendship with an old man who has just lost his wife. They meet at a bridge one night both intending to end their lives and form an unlikely duo.

Such a great book

I loved this book too. So well-written and I really rooted for her.

I loved this one

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.

A novel about the real side to cowboys/ the wild west. Fascinating although sometimes quite gritty.

Not a new book but only just heard of it this year!

The Ministry of Time - Kaliane Bradley
time travel, very funny, sweet.

The Favourites - Layne Fargo
re-telling of Wuthering Heights in the world of ice dancing.

The Day The World Stops Shopping - JB McKinnon
non-fiction, considers the impact of overconsumption on people and the planet and it absolutely changed my approach to shopping!

The Story of a Heart - Sarah Clarke

Mine is possibly My Friends by Fredrik Backman. I love his writing style and the humour in it.

I loved The Eights. Very moving and compelling story with great characters. Looking forward to more from the author.

This is one of my stand-out ones too. Completely absorbing. I read comparisons to Never Let Me Go, but I don't think they were justified.

If I can only give one it has to be

Rosalind Belben - Hound Music

What it’s about - a close examination of a fox hunting family in the early 20th century - might seem less compelling than her truly extraordinary writing style, though the two are intertwined. I’ve never read anything like it.

And would have finished there had I not dipped into the first few pages of

Christina Stead’s The Man Who Loved Children

again after an interval of about thirty years. It’s still one of the greatest novels ever. It should be required reading for anyone on MN - reluctantly feminist mid-20th century author writing about a family with ‘too many children and too little money’. It’s nothing like anything one might expect.

Also - I have pre-ordered

Helen De Witt’s Your Name Here

which should arrive in a couple of weeks. She is a genius. (Someone started a thread about her recently.)

Lots of books I've loved listed above.

For Iris Murdoch I started with The Bell and wasn't disappointed.

This year hasn't been vintage but my top two were Sally Rooney's Normal People (charts the relationship of Connell, popular, humble background, and Marianne, loner, indepedent. Whimsical and an easy read) and Damon Galgut'sThe Good Doctor (set in a run-down rural hospital in post-apartheid South Africa. Nice literary prose, thought provoking and somewhat disturbing).

The Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett - two writers are forced to collaborate to tell the story of what everyone thought was a weird cult suicide, only to find that there’s more to it than that. Told through text messages, transcribed interviews, film scripts etc and cleverly done.

I loved Salmon Fishing in the Yemen too.

Prophet Song. Listened to it on BorrowBox - utterly compelling about normal lives gradually being pulled into chaos.

One of the following:
After Midnight by Irmgard Keun. The experiences of a 19yo the day Hitler came to town.
The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta. Ironically titled, parenting in mid century Nigeria.
The Women of Troy by Pat Barker. Feminist retelling of the end of the Trojan Wars.

All I can say is thankyou Penguin.

This - absolutely brilliant and still thinking about it. About a woman and three different versions of her life and the consequences for her family.