Goodreads tells me I’ve read 114 books this year and so achieved my “target” of 60. Hurrah? I think? Look, I always find the target thing a bit funny with Goodreads and so I always sort of pick something a bit at random. One hundred! Twenty-three! Honestly, it means very little (unless you’re doing the Summer Reading Challenge and then it means EVERYTHING, have you seen those prizes??).
(Also, it’s going to be 115 by the year end: I’m halfway through the divine The Village by Marghanita Laski which I shall commend to you entirely now and do so again once I write the actual review).
So! We’ve got a year’s worth of reading here and I’d like to pick out some of my favourites for you, just in case you missed them first time round. Also, it’s not too late to buy yourself a bonus present for Christmas. You should do that. I’ll write you a note.
On a fashion history note I was very taken with British Vogue: The Biography of An Icon by Julie Summers, not only for how well researched it was but how it constantly sought to find a link between Vogue’s world and that of its readers. It really feels very much how a good non-fiction book should think about its topic. Similarly 1939: The Last Season by Anne De Courcy was a wild delight and something that I think would be rather wonderful adapted to screen, as would Supper Club by Lara Williams (feminine anger is something I think we’re yet to get right on screen).
Film reading encompassed David Niven’s incomparable autobiography Bring On The Empty Horses, the rather brilliant Women Vs Hollywood by Helen O’Hara (I am using it for research for a Mysterious Project as we speak), and several books which were turned into powerful films including: Killers of the Flower Moon by David Gann, the unsparingly detailed Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden, and Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Kenneally. I had an enormous amount of time for Tony Curtis’ rawly honest (and often quite unflattering) memoir American Prince and also enjoyed Kiss Me Like A Stranger by Gene Wilder despite its rather careful edges.
Unexpected discoveries have characterised a lot of my reading this year. I was delighted to discover A Day in the Life of a Caveman , a Queen and Everything In Between and Battler Britton was a slightly hysteria-inducing find (subtle is not his middle name…). I also finally came across some long looked for reads: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee details a profoundly awful story on almost every page but it is, I think, a profoundly important read.
For comics, we’ve got the remarkable Woman, Life, Freedom which was both fiercely illuminative and fiercely humbling. In many ways I’m yet to find the words for it but I’d give it to you in a heartbeat. I also loved the sparkily distinct Boss of the Underworld: Shirley vs the Green Menace; and a return to the ever glorious Corpse Talk with Ground-Breaking Rebels (perfect, although I do wonder when we’ll retire ‘rebel’ in titles). I adored every inch of Phoebe and Her Unicorn (perfect for your pony obsessed little ones. And big ones. And also everyone), and Loki was everything everybody said it was.
Favourites from the year? Well, as I look down the list and cross check it against my “perfect” shelf, we’ve got a couple of Shirley Hughes’ – An Evening At Alfie’s and Alfie’s Feet. Fingersmith, a book I seem to read every ten years or so, is there as well, as is the sweetly heartbreaking-yet-also-perfect Gobbolino the Witch’s Cat, the previously mentioned Phoebe and The Unicorn (divine), and the graphic novel adaptation of Lord of The Flies. In terms of perfect covers, well it’s Spent by Alison Bechdel; How to Kill A Guy In Ten Ways by Eve Kellman, and the iconic Riders by Jilly Cooper.
It’s been a good year. A varied one. I like Lord of the Flies existing in the same space as Alfie (and I think that it might find some rather interesting common space with Riders…). I am yet to write a picture book or comic of my own but find myself yearning to do so. Perhaps this time next year? Fingers crossed!
(And just a reminder: The Village – Marghanita Laski. Divine. Small villages, nuanced class discussion, set at the end of WW2, a society in flux, deliciously quiet, fiercely acute, a general dream).
Daisy May Johnson 