What is the best book you have read this year?

[TravellingSpoon]

Got a book voucher for my birthday so I am going to pop up to Waterstones and treat myself, but am lacking inspiration.

Hourglass - Keiran Goddard, Joan is Okay - Wang Weike, Berlin - Bea Setton, Delphi - Clare Pollard, The Odyssey - Lara Williams, Fight Night - Miriam Toews, One Day I Shall Astonish the World - Nina Stibbe.

@AtLeastThreeDrinks - great minds… 😃

I came here to suggest American Dirt too
and also (controversially) found Crawdads too slow…! My Bookclub almost evicted me 🤣

I do agree with (almost unanimous) bookclubs consensus on Hearts Invisible Furies by John Boyne, and inspired by that I’ve recently just finished The Absolutist by him too - brilliant

^

Ha. I meant the School for Good Mothers (not the Bad Mothers Hotel - although that could be a description of the plot, tbf.) Anyway it's by Jessamine Chan and I highly recommend.

Also, if you want a short book that packs a dense and powerful punch, Assembly by Natasha Brown is quite breathtaking.

Depends what you like to read, a lot of the books mentioned are quite YA/chick lit (nothing wrong with that of course) but you can get them cheaper in supermarkets so would use waterstones voucher for something else

my personal favourites

the great alone- kristin Hannah
Betty- Tiffany Mcdaniel
Pachinko- lee min-jin

The War on Women by Sue Lloyd-Roberts. Not a jolly read though.

Also The power of the Dog - the book and film are very good.

Another one that most of my Book Club really enjoyed was Beekeeper of Aleppo – but again I thought it was just ok (maybe I’m a bit picky?)

Would second the recommendation by PP though for A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, and also the Kite-Runner (these are old, but always worth suggesting to anyone who hasn’t read them)

Other old ones that I suggest are:-
We Need to Talk about Kevin

Sorry rest of my old(ish) but classic/worth reading list got deleted by mistake… will try and repost later when have more time

Oops… (butterfingers!)

im suggesting these older ones because as PP said better use of your Waterstones voucher than the current bestsellers/ light reads which you can get in the supermarkets cheaply

The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell, I love her novels.

Pleeease read I’m Sorry you Feel That Way by Rebecca Wait — a novel about sisters, mothers, partners and life’s madness that sounds a bit dull but it’s extremely funny and sharply written. It opens with a set piece at a funeral that made me laugh out loud (as did the ferret incident later on)! I’ve just finished The Followers by the same author: a single mother joins a cult in the Yorkshire moors, still witty but quite shocking — some bits are thriller-level tense — and so moving it made me cry.

Lessons in Chemistry
Still Life
Paper Palace

Top 3 of the year so far!

Yuganta by Iravati karve

Still Life (Sarah Winman) by a mile.
if you are anywhere near menopausal Unbecoming by Joanne Feder (not Jenny Downham) is marvellous.

Yes! Totally agree, brilliant, brilliant book!

For non fiction, I really enjoyed Shadowlands by Matthew Green. Fascinating and really well written it made me want to visit all the places.

Lessons in chemistry is the one that stands out for me

The Solitaire Mystery by Jostein Gaarder.

My favourite 2 books this year are The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin, and Last One at the Party by Bethany Clift.

Lessons in Chemistry for me too! Loved Elizabeth, Mad and Six-Thirty.

Lessons in Chemistry
Still Life
Small Pleasures
How to Kill Your Family

Non fiction The Year of The End by Anne Theroux.

Fiction Injury Time by Beryl Bainbridge

I had to stop reading the Beekeeper one because of its literary gimmick, where the last word of a chapter became ornately drawn as a stand-alone word on the next page, which started the chapter on the page after that. Just...why?

On the Marsh by Simon Barnes, which is a very readable and fascinating account of a year restoring eight acres of Norfolk marshland from a passionate wildlife enthusiast. He used to write wonderful articles in The Times - what shallow fools they were to let him go.