Here are my updates, 1/4 of the way through the year :)
28. Redhead by the Side of the Road, Anne Tyler
I've read bits of Anne Tyler over the years but this is the first of her books where I have come away thinking "Wow, that was clever" - and I think that has been entirely my fault and not hers! Her writing and plots are both so low-key that it's easy to miss just how much she has packed in, and how skilfully she puts it all together.
This is a short book about a quiet man. Micah lives alone, in a tidy apartment, which he cleans according to a rota. He runs his own business. He has a "lady friend" and a big loving family of sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces and nephews. Generally, he is content. One day a teenage boy turns up on his doorstep - he's run away from home and he thinks Micah might be his dad. The way that plot plays out can seem like a damp squib - Micah knows immediately that the boy is mistaken, the boy goes away - but Tyler allows the reader to learn things about Micah that he's not really aware of himself. In fact, she's doing that throughout the book, dropping little clues, throwaway comments and remarks, and it was only when I was coming towards the end of the book that it struck me what a rich psychological portrait she had created. I'm not always the most observant of readers and I might completely have missed the point of this book if I hadn't stopped to think about Tyler's choice of title - don't want to spoiler it, but it's totally typical of this book, a little insignificant detail which actually holds the key to everything she has chosen to write about.
So bravo, Anne Tyler, this is a gentle cosy little story which holds within it a huge, clever sub-story about people and humanity. I feel like I need to go back and find what I have missed in her other books now!
29. Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent and Navigating the New Masculinity, Peggy Orenstein
Saw this recommended on Twitter in the recent debates about sexual assault; as I have teenage sons I have been following up recommendations of sources of advice on how to talk to them and what to talk about. Orenstein is an American journalist who has written a number of books (and many articles) about families, young people and gender. This book is a companion to an earlier book Girls & Sex, which I haven't read.
Orenstein talked to a range of American teenage boys, and their words make up a significant part of the book - she starts with the boys' own words, then compares it to the work of psychologists and academics rather than the other way around. They talk about "locker room talk", about being sexually inexperienced, about consent, and shame, and the conflicting messages which they (just as much as girls) pick up from the media.
This was a useful and interesting read. I wish her choice of interviewees had been a bit wider - she concentrates on college students, and many of them are affluent and white. The most interesting interviews, for me, were the ones with young men of colour, whose viewpoint is tellingly different (quite distressingly so TBH - this is not a book about privilege but oh my, the white boys have no idea about the problems that they don't have to worry about). I'd be interested to know whether the attitudes that Orenstein finds in her subjects are similar to those of boys in the UK - certainly the US high school/college fraternity culture seems more toxic, more suffocatingly masculine, for these boys but maybe that's just my naivety talking. I will go talk to my sons (and yes, they will love that 
)
30. Love After Love, Ingrid Persaud
Previously reviewed and recommended here. After Betty's husband dies, she invites local teacher, Mr Chetan, to move in with her and her teenage son, Solo. Initially wary, the three of them gradually become an unconventional family, forming deep emotional bonds. Then one night, Betty and Mr Chetan share a few drinks and some secrets. Solo overhears them and, unable to process his distress at what he has learned, he leaves home to live with an uncle in New York (the book is set in Trinidad). This is a lovely and sad book, full of humanity and different forms of love. Also amazing descriptions of Trinidadian food which, as well as being mouthwatering in themselves, anchor the story and the characters powerfully into their landscape and Indian-Caribbean culture.
31. What Katy Did, Susan Coolidge
Classic American children's book, published in 1872, around the same time as Little Women. I loved this book as a girl and was interested to see how it held up. If you haven't read it, 12-year-old Katy is the eldest of six children; their mother has died and their father, a benevolent doctor, flits in and out of the household. The house is kept by their rather old-fashioned maiden aunt, and the children left to run rather wild in the orchards, barns and wilderness around their house. One day Katy, having been told not to use a new swing that has been put up, disobeys her aunt and ends up falling off the swing (turns out the reason she has been forbidden from using it is that it wasn't safe). The resulting injury leaves her bedridden, initially for a few weeks but eventually for four years, until at the end of the book she is able to walk again.
There's a lot of moralising and goodness in this book - Katy's long illness is a chance for her to learn lessons such as "patience" and "making the best of things". She is not to complain or be fractious when in pain, but to hide her own feelings and make her room a peaceful place where her siblings will come to share their joys or frustrations. This reads quite oddly to our modern sensibilities, and actively offends some readers, who see this as deeply anti-feminist (the pre-accident Katy is spirited, physical, and just starting to think about the attractions of husbands - is this why she has to be "taught a lesson"? Personally I don't get that impression, although certainly there is an expectation that girls will grow up to be measured, placid and good household managers).
If you can cope with the moral stuff, though, this is still quite a lovely book. The relationship between the siblings is charming and feels real 150 years later. Katy is a reader and a story teller, and even when she succeeds in becoming "good" she still feels like a real person and not just a cardboard cut out. And while the lessons in how to be good can seem very old-fashioned, actually some of what Cousin Helen teaches Katy chimes perfectly with the lessons that a lot of us have learned this year - if you can't go out, try to make your surroundings pleasant. Enjoy the company of your loved ones if you're stuck with them; take the time to get to know them. Re-frame - find the positives even (or maybe especially) when they are hard to find.