2019 Best Reads

2018 Best Reads

2017 Best Reads

Let’s talk very quickly about all the books I gave 5 stars to in 2017 because YES and also because if you discount Handmaid’s which was a re-re-re-re-read, there were 10 of them which is a nice number for a round-up and also points to A Good Reading Year.

I’m going to keep this post pocket sized but shall also link back to where I’ve chatted about them previously so that I am not repeating myself. Mostly all you need to know is that THESE BOOKS ARE EXCELLENT.

The Mid Year Freakout Tag

So a thing that happened is that I realised that it’s almost August and I hadn’t done any kind of halfway-through-the-year-recap because I am apparently the most tardy ever. So I thought ‘hmm yes best get on that because better late than never, right’ and figured I’d do it now, and then I've seen this post doing the rounds and decided it was a tag I was just going to steal because it’s a fun twist on my usual Top 5 Books Jan-June. So pull up a chair and grab a cup of tea (or a gin if you’re that way inclined which I absolutely am) and let’s chat about the first half of the year in regards to all things bookish. What fun.

THE MID YEAR FREAKOUT TAG (and how I wish I could make the pretty graphics that all the other blogs have but whatever I can’t so let’s just move on).

Book of the Year 2015 (so far...)

Thursday again. Where do the weeks go? I guess this one seems shorter because I was travelling on Monday. I spent the weekend in Lewes with my pal Emma. There was baking and eating and walking and Netflix and it was generally just a really lovely time. It also means that this week is only a 4 day working week. Hurrah.

This week I’m throwing back Thursday in a different way, because we’re halfway through the year, so I’m going to talk at you about my Top 5 of 2015…so far! This year has been super actually from a bookish point of view, because I’ve read stuff I might not normally have picked up and pretty much all of it has been excellent.

There’s still some crazy exciting looking stuff on my TBR for the back end of the year too so as ever it will be interesting to see how many of these 5 books still make the cut at Christmas.

Naomi Novik’s Uprooted is a book I discovered via Netgalley, and that I was drawn to by the cover. I totally judge books by their covers, I’m not even ashamed to say it. Cover art is so amazing these days, how could you not? Anyway, I read it and loved it and have m own shiny bought-and-paid-for copy on its way to me because as marv as these e-ARCs are, I kind of feel like when I love a book, I ought to show that love by you know, buying it. So I did. Uprooted is amazing. It’s about this little village on the edge of an evil forest. The villagers are protected from the ways of the wicked woods by The Dragon who lives in a tower and who every ten years takes a girl from the forest to live with him as payment for his service. It’s amazing. Did I say that already? Italk about it in more detail here.

I cannot tell you enough times how much I loved The Gracekeepers. I already reviewed it, but, seriously: this book ticked all the boxes for me. It has it all. It’s just incredible and I love it and I wanted to read it forever and I swear to you if you are not reading this book then you are doing life wrong. It’s sort of part fairytale and part dystopia and completely utterly glorious.

Last Night in Montreal is a book I probably wouldn’t have read (yet) because let’s be honest, when you hear Emily St. John Mandel you think Station Eleven. Everybody has been all about Station Eleven for ages and I really really want to read it but I was sent a copy of Last Night in Montreal around about the time of the UK publication earlier this year and figured it was probably polite to read that one first. I’m so glad I did, because eurgh, so good. So very very good. It’s about this girl called Lilia who has spent her entire life leaving her life and the people in it, behind, never looking back. When she leaves her latest lover, he’s not quite so cool with it, and he follows a trail of breadcrumbs to find her only to discover there’s so much more to Lilias story than he ever thought. It’s so beautifully written and so intricate and there are all these threads to the story that weave together perfectly and it’s just a stunning piece of writing, and I talk more about why I love it so much in this post.

I talk all about Sarah Pinborough’s The DeathHouse here, but I’ll just tell you quickly again now that this book blew me away. It got right under my skin and broke my heart and just made me feel all the things and I absolutely loved it. Loved it.

And finally we come to The Girl WhoCircumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making which, well, I don’t really know what to say. I’m planning a proper post about the Fairyland books at some point, but basically: every person ever needs to read these books. This is the first in the series and holy smokes it’s been a long time since I fell in blooklove like this. Jen pointed me in their direction, I say pointed; it was more on a very insistent demand that I read them. Which I did, because Jen has yet to rec me a book I didn’t love, and I fell. I’m talking Alice levels of love here, I’m talking his Dark Materials, I’m talking Harry Potter. That’s how much I loved it. It’s amazing.

It’s all about twelve year old September who meets The Green Wind at her window one day and is taken on an adventure to Fairyland. Fairyland is being ruled by the fickle and mean Marquess and only September with her friends, A-through-L, the Wyvery (his Mum is a wyvern; his father is the library) and a wonderful mysterious boy by the name of Saturday, can save it.

The story is clever and moving and funny and playful; the language is all kinds of incredible, smart and pretty and whimsical; the characters are characters you want to put in your pocket and keep there forever( SATURDAY!!!!); and the illustrations, I WANT THEM ON MY WALL. There is so much going on in this world and it feels like a modern day Wonderland. This book, I swear. It’s like if Through the Looking Glass and His Dark Materials had beautiful perfect babies (and then read book 2, read book 2 and we’ll talk about Coraline).  I can’t wait til I have children and I can read them this book. It deserves all the accolades. It deserves to be on every bookshelf ever.  It’s so amazing it makes me want to cry tears of happy.

Top Ten Reads of 2014

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.

I’ll start with The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender which is so lovely that it kind of makes me want to cry a little bit. It’s a gorgeous gorgeous book, a blend of the certain and the impossible and prose so lovely that it makes you want to read it forever. I talk about it in more detail here.

“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.

The Girl With All the Gifts is one of those books that I likely wouldn’t ever have stumbled on were it not for Jen, and that utterly blew me away. It’s so good. Really really really excellent. I like that I went into it knowing nothing, which makes me not want to give away too much information for anybody that it yet to read it, but seriously. I read this in the summer and I am still not over it. This is what excellent looks like.

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.

I want to be friends with Sarah Hensaw. Read The Bookshop That Floated Away and you’ll see why. I don’t like to throw around the ‘perfect’ word really, but if I thought I might use it, then it just might be here. So much happiness in one fabulously eccentric little book.

Book of the Year: 2013

First of all, Nashville.

No, wait, first off all Happy New Year blogosphere. Here is to a 2014 that is super wonderful.

Second of all, Nashville. I know, I know, I am (always) a little late to the party but this show is immense. Everything about it appeals to my little country loving heart - why yes. I do have one of those. Of you even know how many Keith Urban albums are in my car right now? - and I can actually feel myself getting sucked right in. The story, the characters, the MUSIC. I need that soundtrack man. Even though I have only actually watched the one episode, suddenly the cancellation of Smash seems a little less tragic ;) If you need a show to watch, basically, then Nashville is currently being repeated.

I wonder what it says about me, how easily I get immersed in a fictional world. All the books. Nashville. Glee. Brothers & Sisters. House. Once Upon A Time. Lordy, Once Upon A Time, that show, though. I might even give it a blog post all to itself, because of Robert Carlyle who I have loved since his Hamish Macbeth days. Anyway, the point is that I have begun this year by allowing myself to be sucked into another television show because I cannot stop with the living inside of the worlds that are not real.  Alongside which, Helen and I have just begun The Great Ally McBeal Rewatch of 2014. Yeah, that’s a thing, a really amazing thing. Ally McBeal was such a great show and you know what’s funny? The DVD’s aren’t in widescreen, s’like instagram TV. Ha.

But but but, to the point, which is (thirdly) what were my favourite books of 2013 I hear you ask. Actually, I don't, but 2013 was a GOOD year and so I'm going to tell you anyway.

The Fault in Our Stars introduced me to John Green, who is not only a man who knows how to use his words but who also seems to be a genuinely awesome guy. I want to be his friend. Oh who am I kidding? I have a massive author!crush on the guy. TFiOS is incredible. It broke me, it broke me into more pieces than I can count, it made me laugh, it made me so sad my chest hurt, it made me cry so hard I had wet neck. It hurt, it hurt a lot. & I would recommend it to anybody in a heartbeat.

Wonder is a very special book, it is an important book. It is raw and honest and real. It's a book I am so glad I read and a book I urge you all to read. Now. Go, go, go.

The Night Rainbow is the prettiest book I have read on a long time, it's a re-read for sure.

The Uncommon Reader has left me wondering why it has taken me my whole life to get to know Alan Bennett.

And finally but never ever finally, Eleanor and Park. AMAZING. The other four are on no particular order but this is absolutely my number one. This book is so good I barely know how to explain it. I want to keep it to myself and I want the world to read it. It's a little piece of magic.

2014 has a lot of work to do if it wants to come anywhere close to any of these. So there, go forth and read. I promise they're worth the time.

in which it's a blustery day

I say blustery. I’m aware it’s considerably less blustery here than it is further south, and as such I am sending hugs and cookies to all the people that are not having a very happy Windsday.

I’m writing this from the point of almost-asleep actually, mainly because I had to get up at numbers starting with a 5 (a 5!!!) today to drop my boyfriend off at the airport. He’s gone to stop with some friends in Arizona for a week and you may colour me green. 
Can you believe the temperatures are in the high 80’s over there and I’m here wearing fleece lined leggings to the office because *brrrr* - not that I mind, really. I mean, I mind being cold and I am absolutely not a fan of the whole getting up in the dark and leaving work in the dark which is very nearly upon me, but I do love autumn. I love the colours and the smells; I love that I can dig out woolly jumpers and fingerless gloves (and fleece lined leggings); I love that somehow autumn just feels like fruit crumble and custard and reading under a blanket and getting ready for Christmas.  I just, I love it a little less when I am helping my boyfriend decide how many pairs of flip flops he needs to take on his holiday in the sun. (The answer was one, if you wondered. I swear that boy is actually Imelda Marcos – has anybody actually had eyes on her lately? No, I thought not….)

I think I’ll be doing a lot of reading-under-a-blanket whilst Ian is away this week. That is the plan at least. Pate on toast and reading-under-a-blanket. I have Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl on my Kindle which I have been saving especially for this week, and I’m very excited about it. Eleanor & Park is perhaps my book of the year this year, so I’m excited to see how Fangirl compares, especially as all I’ve seen of it suggests it might be a book I can relate to on several levels. Ha. Watch this space as I’m sure I’ll be back to tell you how much I adored/loathed it. 
First though, I must finish Caitlin Moran’s How To Be A Woman because I have a very bad habit of not finishing a book before I start a new one. Whoops. I feel a resolution coming on...

Ian’s autumn sun break is also the perfect opportunity to finish the scarf I am crocheting him for Christmas, it’s looking rather lovely if I do say so myself – a deep grey shade of aran weight wool made up of row after row of dc.  Lush. He will be handsome and snugly. I shall knit it up whilst watching lots of Once Upon A Time which is my current television love. I do love a fairytale re-telling and this show has Robert Carlyle popping up every so often as Rumplestiltskin which is awesome. I have a Pinterest board full of crochet ideas. It's my new love, I can see my house becoming overrun with wool if I'm not careful, and I already have at least 3 projects on the go: 2  scarfs and a purple and cream blanket for my bed. Again, whoops. 
I also have a big Granny Square project in mind, which might be my 'big thing' for 2014. Check me out with my 2014 plans already. Woop.

So, there we have it, my time boyfriend-less: a OUAT marathon; crochet; reading-under-a-blanket; a catch-up with my girls; and a beading workshop with my Mum and Granny. This week will fly by; he’ll be back before I even have time to miss him. 

Top 5 books of 2013 so far.

Can you even believe it's almost the end of  June already? Seriously, where does the time even go? I am loving the summer at the moment, now that it's actually here. We're just back from a glorious week in Portugal which was the most fun and this weekend we're off to Scarborough. It's Wimbledon fortnight (and Federer is out which makes my heart sad) and it's warm enough when I get home from work to be able to sit in the yarden with my Kindle and a packet of Drumstick Squashies (erm, yummy) and life is pretty good. Next week Jen is doing an event for More Weird Things in Cheshire and I have booked the day off work to go hang out with her. I shall have a lie in and then drive over and maybe we'll do lunch - Jen, are we doing lunch? - and then hang out with her in the bookshop in the afternoon. I am excited. I haven't seen her face in real life for over a year. Damn geography. Everything that matters is pretty darn rosy.

Anyway, to the point. Around this time of year I like to make a note of the best 5 books I've read so far and see how much the lists changes come December; are the books I read in the first half of the year better than the ones I read in the second?

Here I am, doing just that! So, the bestest books of 2013...so far.

     1: Eleanor and Park – which I talk about here

     2. TFiOS – again, already reviewed 

     3. The Night Rainbow: 

This all began when Maman came back from hospital last summer, but she didn't bring back a baby like she promised, she left it at the hospital, along with her happiness

The Night Rainbow makes my heart happy. It’s a little piece of magic, simple and beautiful and sad and perfect. I didn’t want it to end.

The story is told by Pea. She’s 5 and a half. Her Papa has died and her Maman is heavily pregnant and grieving both the loss of Pea’s Papa and a baby she recently lost. Pea and her sister Margot – aged 4 – are left to run wild in the French summer, they’re desperate to make Maman happy again bur she barely realises they’re there. The girls befriend a man from the village and his dog. He becomes exactly what they need but he has his own past that’s as haunting as the story told in the present. It’s beautiful I think because Pea’s account of her summer is so simplistic; her lack of understanding makes the story that much more poignant although never straying into over-sentimentality. Your heart breaks for Pea and for Margot, but it breaks for Maman too.

The beauty lies in the language. I wanted to read every page twice, just to savour it. You need to read it just to see, because I can’t explain it to you otherwise. To quote Jen ‘it takes you somewhere new’ and it does. What Clare King does with words in this novel just blows me away.

Here. Look.

"A blown kiss is not a proper kiss. Hugs and kisses should be hugs and kisses, not breaths of air. I am tired of breaths of air and not enough hugs and kisses."

 Also, it has a trailer; watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tqQuixgrmkI

     4. Wonder – which is reviewed here

     5. The Silver Linings Playbook:  Heartbreaking and heartwarming, like Perks for grown ups, this book is a good good book. I don't want to give too much away, except to tell you that Pat's search for his happy ending will stay with you for a long long time.

And I guess that's that? This post makes me happy inside; this year has been a good year so far, for books. I hope it continues. Also, if you have not read these books thne probably you should do something about that.

Book of the Year: 2012

Here we are again, another year over [and now I have John Lennon in my head, whoops] and another load of books I've read and a to-read pile that is still much higher than it should be. I am glad my to-read pile isn't an actual pile. I think if it was I'd be on the cusp of needing planning permission.

Anyway, here you go, have at it - my top 5 reads of 2012, which if you haven't read then you should. Probably.

1. Crush by Richard Siken. It's actually ridiculous how much I love this book, how many times I read it last year, how I carried a copy in my bag for months because I didn't want to be too far away from it, how it's now on my coffee table and I sometimes just have to open it at random and marvel at how the pretty pretty words still just get me right in the chest. Ridiculous. I did blog about it when I read it earlier in the year [here] so I shall refrain from waxing lyrical now but basically, in a nutshell, best book of 2012. Hands down. And who thought I'd ever say that about a poetry collection, right?

2. Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops by Jen Campbell because Jen is made of amazing and I love her and I am amazingly proud of her and because Jen aside, it's actually a damn good book and THE SEQUEL IS OUT THIS YEAR AND YOU ALL SHOULD BE AS EXCITED AS I AM [hint: a lot excited.]

3. Swimming Home by Deborah Levy, which I read towards the back end of the year and which I thought was just stunning. The use of language in this book is just incredible, I just, I really really loved it.

4. The Siege by Helen Dunmore which broke my heart and made me cry and filled me with a kind of hope. Set during the siege of Leningrad, in the grip of winter, it's a dark story of survival that got under my skin to the point I felt guilty for having enough to eat but at the same time it's a moving, wonderful love story. It deserves to be read, but you need to know it's going to hurt.

5. What's Left of Me by Kat Zhang. The 2012 Hunger Games for me I think. Could not put it down. Not happy about having to wait for the next in the series. I want more and I want it now. Please.

Special mentions to The Giver and The Borrower and Jen's poetry collection and the Stephanie Plum series [for making me laugh out loud on a train.]

The books of 2012...so far

I'm a little late really, considering we're well past the 'halfway through 2012' mark but as the saying goes, better late then never. That's not always strictly true, actually, because sometimes, if you can't be arsed to be on time then it's maybe better you don't bother but this is just a blog and the only person my tardiness will be bothering is me, mainly because nobody was expecting this post but me. I digress.

It always interests me, making a note of my top 5 books of the year in June, and then again at the end of December and seeing if they remain the same, and that's the point of this post: making a note of my 5 favourites of the year so far so I can make the comparison later. So here you have it and, drum roll please, the bestest books I have read so far in 2012 are.....:

1: Without a doubt the best book I've read this year is Richard Siken's Crush which I talk about here and which I love beyond words, almost. It totally got under my skin, and I've flicked back through it several times since I read it in May.

2. The Borrower By Rebecca Makkai which I don't think I ever blogged about because I've been lax this year, but which, if you're at a loss for something to read, is definitely worth picking up.

3. Annabel Pitcher's My Sister Lives On The Mantelpiece - you can read my thoughts on it here but I am warning you, it will hit you right in the feels.

4. The Siege by Helen Dunmore, which I won't talk about too much as I do plan to blog about it properly at some point, but which is incredibly incredibly moving and heartbreaking and inspiring. And which you should read. It will make you cry though, so don't say I didn't warn you.

5. The Stranger Next Door, by the wonderful Amelie Nothomb. I adored this. I love Amelie Nothomb anyway, I think she's incredible but this was far and away my favourite of hers. Amazing.

Apart from Crush which is absolutely at the top of this list, the others go in no particular order, because they were all super and I'm shit at making decisions. It's a character flaw, sorry.

Day 01 – The best book you read this year

Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘Never Let Me Go’ is my book of 2011 so far without a question.

I’ve actually read a lot of good stuff this year, so it’s testament to how good I think this book is that it steals this spot without any need for contemplation.
It’s haunting and achingly sad and so so beautiful and it’s one of those books that stays with you long after you’ve read the last page. I’ve gifted it twice this year already.

Amazing.

The Common Reader

I fell a little bit in love with a book this weekend. If you haven’t already, then please please go out and read Anne Fadiman’s ‘Ex Libris.’ It’s a book for book lovers, by a book lover and if class yourself as one of us, then it is absolutely a must read.

I read this little gem almost in one sitting, although I tried so hard to make it last longer: I just didn’t want it to end. It made me laugh, it made me nod my head vigorously in agreement and it filled me with a sense of relief: there are people out there who feel about books the way that I do. Sometimes I doubt that.

As I read Anne’s bite size snippets of the foibles of book lovers I felt utterly at home. I recognised myself on almost every page. I discovered that I am a courtly, not a carnal lover of books – a broken spine or a folded down corner makes me feel slightly nauseous and I said a silent prayer of thanks that Ian is not a book lover and we will never have to marry our libraries! I laughed my socks off at ‘Nothing New Under The Sun’ where Anne makes a footnote on almost every sentence but above all I loved how Anne shared the little quirks of her and her family, the little bookish habits that I could so relate too: I too read mail order catalogues and sleep with a book under my pillow and find myself proof-reading - I love a good error on a restaurant menu. I have duplicate books that I can’t bear to part with and I want to spend 7 hours in a second hand bookshop on my birthday. How amazing would that be? There is something comforting about reading how much somebody else loves something that you love. Funnily enough, coming from a long line of readers I was surprised and amused to discover the Fadiman family make my family almost look like book-haters so passionate are they, and the way Anne talks about her word loving father losing his eyesight is heartbreaking.

All in all this book is nothing short of a little bit of magic, and when I read the last page I was so tempted to go back to the beginning and start again. Wonderful. Go, find a copy, read it and come back and tell me all about your odd shelf.