I think I read too many good books last year.
No really, I think I did. I think this because I have been really struggling to choose my Top 5 books of the year. I’ve been mulling it over for like, a week, which maybe I’m taking the whole thing just a little bit too seriously, but still.
After a week of mulling (both wine and my thoughts because if you can't do that when you're off work for the holidays then what, really, is even the point?) I have come to the following conclusion: of the books I read last year it is impossible to choose just 5, and so since this is my blog and I make my own rules I give you my Top 10 books of 2014 instead. Stop it, I know, I know, but really I can’t narrow it down. I’ve been trying.
“By this point Viviane Lavender had loved Jack Griffith for twelve years, which was far more than half of her life. If she thought of her love as a commodity and were to, say, eat it, it would fill 4,745 cherry pies. If she were to preserve it, she would need 23,725 glass jars and labels and a basement spanning the length of Pinnacle Lane.
If she were to drink it, she'd drown.”
Then there'sThe Love Song of Miss
Queenie Hennessy,
the companion to the marvellous The Unlikley
Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, (again, I blogged about this here)
Queenie’s story is wonderfully poignant and I am so glad I read it. I urge you
all, if you haven’t already, to acquaint yourselves with Queenie and Harold.From the other side of the door came a hoot of laughter. ‘Fuck me. I’ve won a camper van!’ The laughter was followed by a dour Scottish voice: ‘You have not read the small print. She has not read the small print.’
I also really loved Cassandra Parkin’s The Summer We All Ran Away, which really is very well written as well as being a super story. Loved it..
(When nineteen year old Davey finds himself drunk, beaten and alone, he is rescued by the oddly-assorted inhabitants of an abandoned and beautiful house in the West Country. Their only condition for letting him join them is that he asks them no questions.
More than thirty years ago in that same house, burned-out rock star Jack Laker writes a ground-breaking comeback album, and abandons the girl who saved his life to embark on a doomed and passionate romance with a young actress. His attempt to escape his destructive lifestyle leads to deceit, debauchery and even murder.
As Davey and his fellow housemate Priss try to uncover the secrets of the house's inhabitants, both past and present, it becomes clear that the five strangers have all been drawn there by the events and the music of that long-ago summer.)
One of the best reads of last year, for sure, I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.
Things I like: circuses and
fairytales. Oh hello there then, The Night Circus, let’s be
friends. And we are friends.
I lovedlovedloved this book. A circus that only opens at night and a fierce competition between two young magicians – what’s not to love? This is an extremely visual book, which I loved, I also loved the story and the narration and the whole shebang. (I love when I get to use words like ‘shebang.’) It has a kind of Niffenegger feel to it almost, in the way it sweeps you under it’s wing and takes you on this utterly implausible journey that feels as real as anything you ever felt before. It spans a decade in time and it explores people and love and pain in such detail, but more than that it’s a really good book about a circus.
Most maidens are perfectly capable of rescuing themselves in my experience, at least the ones worth something, in any case
I talk about More Than This here: What you really need to know for right now is that this book is excellent and you should read it.
THE BOOKSHOP BOOK. If I was
forced at knife point or under sleep deprivation torture or some such, to
choose only one book from last year then this is the book I would choose. I
still don’t know quite what to say other than this book makes me ridiculously ridiculously
happy. I STILL KIND OF JUST WANT TO KEYSMASH. Is it weird to fangirl over
one of my best pals? I don’t even care. THIS BOOK YOU GUYS.
Melanie thinks: when your dreams come true, your true has moved. You've already stopped being the person who had the dreams, so it feels more like a weird echo of something that already happened to you a long time ago.
Oh, Love, Nina, how I love you. This book, made up entirely of actual letters that Nina Stibbe wrote to her sister in the 80’s is a rare gem. I loved it so much more than I anticipated doing. It’s just…it’s delightful, it’s matter of fact and honest and so funny, and nothing happens really: it’s just the day to day goings on of a day to day family. Just thinking about it now makes me want to read it again, which is the sign of something good, wouldn’t you say? I talk about Love, Nina in more detail in this post
I am in serious book love
with A
Song for Issy Bradley, and having met Carys Bray last year can
attest that she is as lovely as her book. I devoured it in an afternoon, it
made me cry (lots of tears oh my word) and it made me laugh and it’s really
just a beautiful beautiful look at what it means to be a family. It’s the kind
of book you can’t read fast enough and that leaves you wanting to sit back and
just feel. Anyone can be brave for five minutes or an hour or two. The bravery no one talks about is the hardest bravery of all. When you get up in the morning even though you'd rather be dead, that's brave.
