In the ancient times, when I was old enough to know better but young enough to believe it didn’t matter, when LiveJournal was the central focus of my socialisation, at this time of year my reading feed was dominated by a popular end-of-year survey. The questions were fairly standardised, though there was some variation as people replaced or skipped those they didn’t fancy revealing. I was far more invested in reading people’s answers than I was in divulging my own tedious, samey responses, though I felt obligated to take part as some kind of payment; the kind of stupid, self-imposed rule I’m only finally beginning to escape.
This survey ran concurrently with one I found much easier: the results of the annual ‘Read 50/100 books challenge’, which I enthusiastically engaged in for a few years before throwing in the towel after reaching 49 and finding myself both annoyed and embarrassed that I should care. It’s not like when I was a kid taking part in the Pizza Hut sponsored reading programme when I was rewarded every month with a free personal pan pizza for something I was going to do anyway. I was also motivated to give up during a conversation with our friend, the late Martin Skidmore, when he noted that while he was proud to have accomplished his target of 100 books, he also admitted that he found it had become a frustrating slog that took some of the joy out of reading. Instead of choosing books based on recommendations, or a really enticing review, or what he just fancied reading at any given time, he was prioritising what he could read in a week or less to hit his target. So, I stopped keeping track of the books I read and, having gradually left social media platforms over the last decade or so, haven’t been writing about them either.
But I’ve found that keeping track is genuinely useful. Not to browbreat or reward myself for surpassing a set number, since I am a grown-ass human with my own shoes and money and good friends too (though if someone wants to give me pizza for reading, I’d be overjoyed), but because I love reading more than just about anything else (plus ça change!), and I want to rave about my faves and get recommendations. Unfortunately, due in no small part to being cast in the long-running horror show Peri: The Pausening, when asked, I have been blanking on everything apart from the last four or five books I’ve read.
I found last year’s list very useful for giving and receiving recommendations, and as I’ve recently joined Blue Sky, I have compiled this shortlist so I can signal boost my favourites. No marks awarded, and categories are provided simply to group themes.
Fiction – To Get Proper Stuck Into
The Fraud – Zadie Smith
I got lost right away in this excellent historical fiction, ostensibly about William Ainsworth and his bonkers-level output, but mainly about Victorian colonialism, as narrated by Smith’s always brilliant characters; while they couldn’t be more different, you do care about everyone very much, even when they are being complete tools or painfully naive.
The Patriots – Sana Krasikov
Why must you compulsively parade your loyalty to whatever cruel and indifferent master happens at this moment to be pressing his boot on your neck? Florence Fein flees her stifling and conforming life in 1930s Brooklyn towards what she knows will be a better future for a Jewish woman in the progressive Soviet Union. Years later, her son Julian returns to Moscow for a cagey business deal and to reconnect with his son. The interconnecting flash-back and -forward storyline is compelling and, like The Fraud, is driven by the at-times maddening but always relatable characters.
Fiction – I Needed to Laugh
The Husbands – Holly Gramazio
Every single sentence in this book is a frigging delight. I ate it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and was roaring with laughter throughout. With an engaging time-bendy plot, a lovable protagonist and enough twists and turns to keep you guessing, you’d have to be the strictest of fun-haters not to enjoy it.
All Fours – Miranda July
If The Husbands was the book I wanted, All Fours was the book I needed. It takes a hard dive from the obvious and gives tiny little sucker-punches of poignancy between the self-aware hilarity. I sincerely hope this book either kick-starts or is part of a new era of perimenopausal coming-of-age narratives.
Fiction – I Wasn’t Expecting That
I’m a Fan – Sheena Patel
This was the first book I read in 2024 and one that I was thinking about for a long time afterwards. The short chapters reveal someone anchorless, drifting through a fine art world that keeps her at arm’s length due to her race and gender, and the novel reads like the anti-social media face we do everything in our power to avoid revealing. I raced through it, hoping to meet other who also read it to get their thoughts – which are very mixed.
The Book of Days – Francesca Key
We bow to those who dispose our lives, we who have no power. This book is a testament to why I find it difficult to put aside a book as DNF, because I really was not on board for the first chapter, but I persevered because it had come highly recommended. The king, Henry VIII, and his religious reformations don’t make much of an impact on day-to-day life, apart from general annoyance that certain saints, prayers, and candles are proscribed, although folk like Alice mostly ignore it and focus on general survival. This is such a slow book whose intensity is rolled out so smoothly, that by the time it reached the apex, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. If I had to pick one book out of this lot as my favourite, it would this one.
Convenience Store Woman – Sayaka Murata
To say I read this book in a state of what can’t exactly be described as anxiety, but possibly high tension does not reflect my puzzled enjoyment. Keiko Furukura is a protagonist whom I felt a good deal of compassion towards, while at the same time I wondered if I was being emotionally exploited. In many ways this is my ideal narrative: the plot is somewhat tertiary to character development, and Keiko took me to places I was not expecting.
Fiction – Re-reads
Wyrd Sisters – Terry Pratchett
I usually re-read at least two Discworld books each year; Wyrd Sisters is probably the one I have read the most times. This book never fails to make me laugh but also revel in the world of Granny, Nanny and Magrat. If you haven’t read it in a while, I strongly recommend you do, and if you haven’t read it yet, it’s an excellent entry to the Discworld.
Paradise – AL Kennedy
A long time has passed since I first read this book, and it hit me in a totally different way this time around. I was far more able to appreciate the twisted humour in Hannah’s determination to self-annihilate while having more empathy for her constant stream of bad choices. And being AL Kennedy, the writing is fucking genius.
Fiction – By Writers Primarily Publishing As Poets
The Night Alphabet – Joelle Taylor
The stories-within-a-story are sometimes pretty bleak and hard-going, and as such it took me a lot longer to read this book because I had to take breaks from it. I would note there are a lot of content warnings, so it’s not for everyone, and in other circumstances I’d have not been able to finish it. But Joelle Taylor’s writing conveys such profound beauty in the face of brutality that despite everything, there is an overriding message of hope.
The Lodgers – Holly Pester
This book completely changed how I feel about the second-person POV. It is deployed perfectly here, with short chapters that, as in I’m a Fan, are laser-focused, intensive bursts of prose.
Poetry
Signs, Music – Raymond Antrobus
I am not naturally drawn to poetry or prose with a parent-driven narrative, but the exception is this excellent sequence that examines selfhood in relation to family, community, place and history. I found myself lingering on enjambed sentences, returning again and again to drink in the images and sounds.
Two Dying Lovers Holding a Cat – Luís Costa
I discovered queer publisher Fourteen Poems when taking part in a number of bi+ workshops last year and bought this pamphlet based on the title and cover image, and I was not disappointed. At turns rich in sensory detail and unflinching emotional starkness, I found myself blinking back tears more than once.
Non-Fiction
Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World – Naomi Klein
Oh Naomi, I wish you did not have to listen to hundreds of hours of Steve Bannon’s podcast to write this book, but I do appreciate it. As much as there is to be depressed about, approaching the increasing polarisation of society with the framework of a ‘mirror world’ examines this madness with a measure of pragmatism and self-compassion.
SPQR – Mary Beard
Having spent nearly a quarter of this year watching, thinking, and writing about I, Claudius, a holiday to Rome was inevitable, and reading this compendium of decades of scholarly research was always going to be in the cards. Like Mary Beard’s BBC programmes, SPQR is both engrossing and meticulous but also warm, accessible and quite often very funny.
Livia: First Lady of Imperial Rome – Anthony A Barrett
As much as I loved Siân Phillips’s portrayal of Livia Drusilla as a scheming, evil genius, I couldn’t leave her story alone, and this biography puts most of this villainy to pasture. Structured in two parts, with the first being a straightforward chronological narrative and the latter an examination of the societal context for her position and personal/family relationships, it’s a good mix of academic analysis of Tacitus, Livy, etc. and genuine personal enthusiasm for setting the record straight.
Have you read any of these, and if so, what did you think? Also, hit me up with some recommendations for 2025 :)