Well, everybody else is doing it so why not, I say. Unlike some people I have no idea how many books I have read this year -- the blog is no help as I've read far more than I've written about. But if I have written about them it generally means I liked them, so here's a very rapidly done whizz through the year. Links will take you to my original reviews.
Muriel Spark, Loitering with Intent. I haven't read a great deal of Spark but this is certainly the best of what I have read and I absolutely loved it -- I see I described it as "managing effortlessly to combine being witty and serious, entertaining and thought-provoking, extremely readable and highly intelligent". Lightly and delightfully post-modernist. Wonderful.
EH Young, Miss Mole. My first introduction to the great Emily Hilda Young, though I've read a couple more since. She's a terrific writer, funny and clever, and her work is astonishingly psychologically acute. This is a highly entertaining novel.
Barbara Comyns, The Vet's Daughter. Another writer I had a bit of a blitz on this year. I've loved all the books of hers I have read but this I think is my favourite. It's strange, certainly, and sometimes sad, but beautifully so. Hard to describe but hugely recommended.
Steig Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Yes indeed. I actually listened to this, and the two sequels, as audiobooks and was absolutely rivetted. The plots are exciting, of course, but it's Lisbeth Salander who makes these novels so extraordinarily good. Great thrillers with serious issues -- what's not to like?
Hillary Mantel, Wolf Hall. This was a long, slow read for me, but a hugely enjoyable one. I got completely sucked into the world of Thomas Cromwell and the richness and harshness of the Tudor world in which he lived. Will we get a sequel? I really hope so.
Dorothy Whipple, Someone at a Distance. Another author who was new to me this year. I'd heard so many people raving about her that I thought, perhaps rather perversely, that I probably wouldn't like her at all. But I did. This is mid-20th century domestic fiction at its best, quietly perceptive and highly readable. I still haven't read another of hers yet -- must remedy that in 2011.
JG Farrell, The Siege of Krishnapur. Oh how I did love this novel. It made me laugh out loud at times but it deals with deeply serious and difficult issues to do with colonialism and race in a story which is absolutely unputdownable. Superb.
Kate Atkinson, Started Early, Took my Dog. The fourth in Kate Atkinson's detective series, featuring the wonderful Jackson Brodie, this is crime fiction at its best, for me at least. I described it at the time as "intelligent, perceptive, thought-provoking, humane, witty" -- I guess I use those words a lot but they are what I most admire in a novel.
Annie Proulx, Postcards. A novel which manages a huge sweeping perspective of America through time (1940s t0 1980s) and space (Vermont through many other states) as well as a stunning and tragic portrait of an unforgettable character. A great novel by a great writer.
Emma Smith, The Far Cry. My most recent read and one by a writer I knew nothing at all about. A wonderfully perceptive psychological portrait of a troubled young girl and her equally troubled father and sister, all set in an India which is extraordinarily vividly brought to life. Fascinating, unpredictable, highly original
You might notice that only one of these (Atkinson) was published in 2010, one in 2009 (Mantel), one in 2008 (Larsson), and the rest any time between the 1930s and the 1980s. I would say that is pretty representative of my reading in general, as is the fact that all but two are by women.
