A year in books

Looking back through the year is always interesting to me as patterns begin to make themselves known. I’m conscious, for example, that the end of the year has been a strange one in terms of books. I read a lot of things that did not quite agree with me and that I either put aside within a few pages or did not remotely remember once I had finished them. And then, suddenly, there were literary moments which remade everything. Books that were full of longing, of bigness, books that looked towards something else, that sought for it with every fibre of their being.

You never quite know what such books will present themselves. I wasn’t ready for Tulku in the slightest but then I read it and realised that yes, this was the sort of thing that I had been looking for all along. I was trying to think about the sort of thing that I would recommend alongside it to present day readers, like some kind of literary sommelier, and I think something like Tamar would be a good fit (and not just for alliterative purposes).

I also had a sweet run of celebrity autobiographies. I’m looking forward to picking up Cher: The Memoir, Part 1 (the best title ever, I think) but for now, I’ll point you towards The House of Hidden Meanings, a thoughtful and eloquent endeavour from RuPaul; Debbie by Debbie Reynolds, a sparky and lovely thing from start to finish (and full of such hard won candour and truth) and Ava Gardner: “Love Is Nothing”. I am, however, yet to come across a satisfactory biography of Gene Kelly and I do think that there remains a paucity of material about women in golden age Hollywood in general. Perhaps this is something I’ll work to address myself at some point.

In terms of comics and visual material, my attention was with the, as ever, deeply incomprehensible X-Men (I love them but really have very little clue as to what’s going on) but also with a richness of other titles. For older readers, the graphic novel adaptation of Speak is a remarkable thing and it genuinely left me breathless. The standout for younger readers was the delightful Donut Feed The Squirrels (a gifted copy from my publisher but this does not remotely impact my views – it’s just an absolutely chaotic, wonderful, delight).

I also loved the work of Nosy Crow who continue to produce nuanced, smart visual work for their readers – Destiny Ink was a joy and I’m looking forward to this reimagining of (the iconic) Unico coming from Scholastic.

In terms of the best covers of the year, my heart is absolutely with the Tom Swift books and I would like these as posters because I would buy all of them. The Angela Brazil reprints proved delightful things (particularly when we hit the sixties and everybody gets a beehive and a miniskirt) and the Noel Streatfeild cover to Gemma also proved to be a similar joy. In terms of more modern material, the cover of Bird Boy by Catherine Bruton is a cracker as is the cover of Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. I do always think that we should have more merchandise with covers on. Penguin is very good on this with their iconic book cover bags but I do think sometimes that the other publishers are missing a trick here.

One of the authors I have been taking a lot of pleasure in working through the last few years is Penelope Lively. She is incredible and I think her writing is a little bit like art to me, the sort of thing that you would place upon the wall and kind of stand back to witness and appreciate. Another author I’m finally catching up with is Sally Rooney who is similarly impressive to me, and I’m also taking great pleasure in working through Joe Sacco’s back catalogue of nuanced, smart comic reportage. I don’t know half as much as I’d like on half the topics he covers but I know I’m always impressed

The charity shops proved productive for me this year. I came across An Elephantasy there which satisfied my eternal craving for more translated children’s fiction and also H Is For Hawk by Helen Macdonald, a title I’ve had in my radar for some time. Sometimes those big radar books can prove disappointing but H Is For Hawk was the absolute opposite of that. I also came across Paul Theroux’s A Kingdom By The Sea which was a thoughtful, deliciously irascible thing about a Britain more familiar than forgotten.

I think the highlight of my year, however, was The Girl Book of Modern Adventurers. It’s not a particularly outstanding volume and it won’t ever be something I’ll reccomend to you for literary purposes but it caught my eye in the charity shop because it still had its compliments slip with it. And that appeals to me: the human touch. Books are about people when it comes down to it. Humans are everywhere within story, our touch is on everything. And that little compliments slip spoke volumes to me.

Plus, I was the only one to add it on Goodreads and that felt very on brand.