Best book you’ve read this year

[lastqueenofscotland]

Doesn’t need to have been released this year, just one you’ve read in 2019 and why.

I really enjoyed The Dust That Falls From Dreams recently, which was far better than its shitty title implied it would be

Also reread Oryx and Crake. Which is one of my all time favourites.

I loved....
Life, Death & Vanilla Slices by Jenny Eclair
Something to Live For by Richard Roper
Things We Never Said by Nick Alexander

And although it wasn't brilliant literature, as a Take That fan, I totally loved A Better Me by Gary Barlow

The Silence of the Girls

Tin Man by Sarah Winman- brilliant.

Emilie Pine - notes to self. Staggeringly good.

John Boyne - the heart's invisible furies. Also fab.

I am desperately trying to recommend The Five so this thread is a godsend! It's the story of the 5 victims of Jack the Ripper and is one of the best social history books I have ever read.

Fiction The garden of lost and found by Harriet Evans. Really adored this one and wasn't expecting to. A wonderful chunk of a book.

Non fiction The Easternmost house by Juliet Blaxland. A memoir about leaving on the eastern edge of England for a year. Really stayed with me.

This is going to hurt

The Brighton mermaid

Only book I read this year but thoroughly enjoyed it

The Dream Daughter by Diane Chamberlain.
And The Help which I wasn’t expecting to like but actually loved.

To Obama: A People's History.

Filled with letters people wrote to Obama, along with his responses.

I had to stop reading it to cry. So, so moving.

Sarah Moss & Grace McCleen - anything by these authors - they are fantastic & I could reread them for eternity

I love Sarah Moss, inthekitchensink, so I will look into Grace McCleen, as I have never heard of her.
I read loads of Sarah Moss this year - The TIdal Zone, Bodies of Light, Signs for Lost Children, Names for the Sea and The Ghost Wall - I had already read Night Waking (my favourite) and Cold Earth.

I’ve had a good year I think but the stand out was A Place For Us by Fatima Fahreem Mirza. A Muslim family in the decades pre and post 9/11 in the US. Just such beautiful writing.

Just discovered John Boyne and I'm delighted to discover he has written much!

Really enjoyed The Salt Path by Raynor Wynn, which was a surprise to me, as I was most reluctant to pick it up.

@Puppylucky: I entirely agree with you-everyone should read, The Five.

Can I have two, please? The Silent Companions and The Corset, both by Laura Purcell.

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie was really compelling, as was The Beekeeper of Aleppo - both made me really think about events that are in the news every day in a really different way.

Can I have a trilogy? The Tick-Tock trilogy by a new Irish author called David B Lyons.

If I can only choose one, it would be "Whatever happened to Betsy Blake" by the above author. Fantastic twist in it!

@ImportantWater She’s fabulous isn’t she - I’m so happy someone else has heard of her, nobody I know has! She is such a talent, and nightwaking is just extraordinary- should have been a booker winner. Grace McCleen is also wonderful - but only wrote three books if I recall correctly, which she wrote as catharsis after a difficult upbringing (religious cult) and mental ill health resulting in being institutionalised. She swore she would never write another book after those three, all written in her twenties. I hope she changes her mind. I hope you enjoy them

@inthekitchensink and @ImportantWater - they both sound really good. Thank you for the tips. Not heard of either of them.

@iklboo I love the Laura Purcell books too. Just about to start Bone China by her.

The Last by Hannah Jameson - about a group of survivors of a nuclear apocalypse, holed up in a hotel in a remote part of Switzerland. It’s pitched as a kind of murder mystery, but that’s really secondary to the horror of the end of the world - I regularly had to takes breaks from reading as it raised all sorts of horrible questions. The ending doesn’t quite live up to the early promise, but it is a very good read.

These are some that I've read recently and REALLY enjoyed:
Educated
Golden Child
My Absolute Darling
An American Marriage

Ooh I read The Last as well and yes it was very good - if very bleak!

@marmiteloversunite I'm just reading it. It's so good.