Tricky choice this week – I’ve already waxed lyrical about The Night that Changed Everything in the Easter post, where I also mentioned Jolly Foul Play which I’ve now finished and is part of a series I’ve already written about in various places (like here, here, and here). And my other favourite book last week was Broken Homes – book three in the Peter Grant series which I wouldn’t suggest you read as an introduction to the series and I’ve already written about Rivers of London and Body Work. So, I preface this by saying, go and read Wells and Wong if you like school stories, Peter Grant if you like magic and detective series and The Night that Changed everything if you like romantic comedies.
That all out of the way, the BotW has to be As If! An Oral History of Clueless. This is the inside story of the classic teen movies – with contributions from pretty much everyone involved – mostly from interviews given to the author. If you’re my age, you may have watched Amy Heckerling’s film on fairly hard rotation through your teenage years. Cher and Dion’s adventures through Beverley Hills are both funny and strangely universal despite their mega bucks wardrobes and swanky life style.
If you love the movie then this is a fascinating insight into how it got made, what was going on behind the scenes and what it was like working on the book. I found it fascinating – although I found that the style of putting in chunks of quotes from each contributor made it feel more like a stack of research notes in places rather than an actual book coming to conclusions. If you’re not a mega fan of the movie, then this probably isn’t going to be your bag – unless you have and interest in the behind the scenes machinations of Hollywood and the process of making a film.
It’s a fairly pricey paperback – so unless you’re a super-fan if may be one for your local library – but here it is on Amazon, Kindle, Waterstones and Foyles.
So, after gifts for him, her and children, for Part Four of my Christmas book recommendations, I’ve come to books I want for Christmas. As you know I read a lot of books and have a big backlog anyway, but this is my wishlist. Perhaps it’ll give you some more ideas for gifts – or maybe it’ll give you some ideas about what to ask other people to get you!
Fiction
I’m hoping to find some Deanna Raybourn in my stocking. I’ve really enjoyed her Lady Julia Grey series, and I’m hoping that Santa will bring me some of her standalone books – which are more expensive over here as they’re US Imports – like Night of a Thousand Stars, City of Jasmine or A Spear of Summer Grass (which after months of being c£7 for Kindle has dropped to £2.99 at time of writing, but I now can’t buy because I might be getting it for Christmas!) or the first book in her new series A Curious Beginning.
Another American import on my Christmas list is The Lure of the Moonflower – the final book in Lauren Willig‘s Pink Carnation series. I’m desperate to know what happens – I have the second last book sitting on my shelf ready to read, but I don’t dare start it because I know as soon as I read it I’ll want to read the last one *now* and then i’ll end up buying it before Christmas comes!
I’ve seen glowing reviews, but heard mixed word of mouth on Elena Ferrante‘s Neapolitan trilogy, so I’m curious to read them but can’t justify buying them myself with the to-read pile in its current state. So if anyone fancies buying me My Brilliant Friend, I’d really appreciate it! I’m also after the last in the Tales of the City series – The Days of Anna Madrigal.
Regular readers will know of my love of detective stories and cozy crime, so I’d be delighted if the latest Grantchester novel from James Runcie turned up on Christmas Day – Sidney Chambers and the Forgiveness of Sins is in a rather expensive US paperback edition or hardback (which would match the ones I already own better) at the moment. I’d also be happy to find the next book (that I don’t own) in the Tasha Alexander‘s Lady Emily series (Dangerous to Know), or one of Catriona McPherson‘s Dandy Gilvers that I haven’t read (like …and the Reek of Herrings),
Non Fiction
I don’t tend to buy myself a lot of non fiction, what with the pile being so big and so much of it coming out in hardback first, so Christmas is a a really good opportunity for me to get a few things that I can’t justify buying with the to-read pile in its current state!
I mentioned in my Gifts for Her post that I’m not big on Roman history, but I do quite fancy Mary Beard‘s latest SPQR, but hardbacks do tend to linger on my shelf somewhat, so perhaps her Confronting the Classics might be a better choice and likewise fill in some gaps in my education. Also on the history front, I really want to read Anita Anand’s Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary, especially after seeing the documentary based on it on BBC One a few weeks back – which is still on iPlayer for a few more days. I’m a big fan of Helen Rappaport‘s books (she’s a great speaker too) and I’d quite like her Four Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Romanov Grand Duchesses, even though I usually find the Russian Revolution too unbearably depressing!
From this year’s crop of celebrity autobiographies and memoirs, my picks would be Sue Perkins‘ Spectacles and Drew Barrymore‘s Wildflowers or maybe Grace Jones‘s I’ll Never Write My Memoirs which is about an era which I’m fascinated by and was hoping that The Boy would ask for, but he hasn’t! She’s not a celebrity in the traditional sense, but I’m an occasional reader of The Bloggess and Jenny Lawson‘s second book Furiously Happy is on my want list – I’ve read the kindle preview and am really interested by it. It’s only in hardback at the moment, but as I still haven’t got her first book, Let’s Pretend this Never Happened, I would be happy to receive that instead/as well!
Those who know me in real-life know that I don’t wear a lot of make-up. But despite this, I do watch a lot of YouTube make-up videos. And Lisa Eldridge is one of my favourites. Consequently I’d really like her history of make-up Face Paint, but can’t justify buying it for myself. Hint. Hint. At the quirky end of the book spectrum, I’ve got a fancy for How to Climb Mount Blanc in a Skirt, and either of Shaun Usher‘s Letters of Note books – the new one sounds fabulous
On the aspirational home front, I’d really like Marie Kondo‘s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying because I am a bit of a hoarder – even when it’s not books! I’m sure The Boy would be delighted if I could find away of jettisoning some of my stuff happily, although obviously he’d be even happier if I could stop acquiring the clutter in the first place!
Miscellaneous
I know my reading habit can intimidate people and scare them off buying me books (in case I already have it or have read it) but I’m always delighted to get a book voucher – be it a National Book Token or a Kindle voucher and I try to spend them on something I consider a treat – like a nice hardback or an ebook that’s over my usual price limit. After chortling over their Bad Sex Awards for years, I’ve been eyeing up a subscription to Literary Review but can’t really justify buying myself it!
What don’t I want? No cookery books please (unless it’s a Mary Berry I don’t already have) as I still haven’t worked my way through everything I want to cook from the ones that I already have and the cookery book shelf is getting full. Don’t buy me the Booker shortlist – I’ve got so much to read already, I’ll never get around to them – as my attempts to try and improve my award-nominated book hit rate show!
And finally, if you really want me to love you forever, you could pre-order me a copy of The Rogue Less Taken from Sarah MacLean – one of my favourite purveyors of smart, funny and sexy historical romance – and do it from her local Indie bookshop Word in Brooklyn, because I really want the US version (the UK one doesn’t match my collection, but I’ll link you to it anyway in case you want it for you), and Word will send it to me signed and with bonus goodies. But even nightshift brain can’t really justify spending $22 shipping a $7.99 book to the UK. Even if I did do it for Never Judge a Lady by her Cover last year – which is also not as nice in its UK edition, which is something I never though I’d say about an American edition of a romance book. But if you do, let me know, because I may yet weaken and buy it anyway, and it would be stupid for two of us to do it….
Finally something I can take a photo of! And US romance authors don’t really do UK signings!
So there you go, Books for Him, Books for Her, Books for Kids and Books for Me. And still to come from me before the big day will be a round-up of Christmas-themed reading. I know. I’m spoiling you.
After the Books for Men extravaganza yesterday, here’s the books for Her post. My mum and my sister both get books from me as part of their Christmas present, and it’s often tricky, because I pass them my favourite books through the year so I have to try and find something different! As with yesterday’s post, my links are to Amazon, because lots of these are 3 for £10, or reduced in some way – thus freeing up more money to spend on yourself other presents.
Fiction
I find fiction recommendations easiest, but some of this is depending on what sort of present your buying the book as. Most of my book purchases are as stocking fillers or extra presents, rather than the whole present – so I give a lot of “lighter” fiction. My mum’s asked for Anne Tyler‘s A Spool of Blue Thread for her Christmas book (I’m sure she won’t mind me telling you) and tells me that she just loves her other books, so if you know someone who’s read her Booker nominee from this year, it might be worth checking out the back catalogue too.
I’ve mentioned Beatriz Wiliams‘ A Hundred Summers in a BotW post and that’s definitely worth a look. I also have her latest – Along the Infinite Sea – on my to-read pile, but I haven’t managed to get to it yet.
In a shameless plug for a friend, I loved Kirsty Greenwood‘s Vintage Guide to Love and Romance when I read it on holiday earlier this year (back in my early days of reviewing for Novelicious and before I’d met the lady herself). Equally Lucy Robinson‘s The Day We Disappeared or Mhairi McFarlane‘s It’s Not Me It’s You would make great stocking fillers and although they came out earlier in the year (all on the same day in fact!) they aren’t summery books, so would be fine to give in December!
If you want to buy hardcover, I loved Laura Barnett‘s The Versions of Us (which I mentioned along with Vintage Guide in my Summer Recs list, but hey, when a book’s good, it’s good)- it’s Sliding Doors meets One Day and every bit as amazing as that sounds. The paperback is out on December 31st.
I liked After You so much I’ve posted it to a friend so she can read it
Also only in hardback or ebook at the moment is Jojo Moyes‘ much awaited sequel to Me Before You, After You. I read this last week, and whilst I didn’t love it the way I loved Me Before You (see BotW squeals here), it’s still a good read – and would be a gift option if you know someone who cried their way through Lou and Will’s story and wants to know what happened next. Another hardback option would be Paula McLain‘s latest Circling the Sun. I’ve just lent my copy to mum – who has been raving about The Paris Wife, which she finished last week.
I always find non-fiction harder to recommend. I’m a history graduate so a lot of my non fiction reading falls into that and I also find it easier to recommend fiction for women. Probably because I read mostly fiction, but I’m sure someone will say this is unconscious bias, the patriarchy etc. Still I’ll have a go.
Finally a book I still have! So I’ve taken a fresh photo of it and everything!
You may remember this from a previous BotW post – but I need to give another mention to The Astronaut Wives Club, which would I think would go down well with loads of people – Mad Men fans, history fans, Americana fans etc.
The Roman Empire is not my period (I like my history modern enough that I can identify with the people, so usually post c1450) but I found How to Manage Your Slaves both funny and fascinating. It’s got a lot of facts packed in there, but wears it lightly and is very readable.
And another one I still have! Hurrah!
I won a copy of Sali HughesPretty Honest last year, literally a day after I’d told my mum to buy it for me for Christmas. I haven’t read it cover to cover, but I have dipped in and out repeatedly and found it really good. I think this would work for a lot of people without being seen as being judgy. And if if you have a teenage girl to buy for and you want to do more than just buy a make-up gift set from Boots or the current books from the latest YouTube sensation, this could be just the job.
Boom. Three. Doesn’t this look well illustrated compared to the fiction section?
I have the paperback of Lena Dunham‘s Not That Kind of Girl sitting on my to-read pile, I haven’t read it yet, but I bought it because I’d heard a lot of good things about it. And if you know a Girls fan (I don’t have Sky Atlantic) then this might make a good choice, but watch out, because it came out in hardback for last Christmas. Also out in hardback last year and in paperback all over the place now is Amy Poehler‘s Yes Please which I really want to read and which might work if your giftee hasn’t already had it.
Miscellaneous
There are some people for whom a really pretty book is just the job. Foyles used to have a helpful section of this sort of book in the front of their old Charing Cross Road store – I’m sure there’s an equivalent in the new store (even if I haven’t spotted it yet). Virago’s VMC Designer Collection are great for this – they look gorgeous and the books are good too. They started coming out a couple of years ago so some of my favourites – like Barbara Pym‘s Excellent Women – are harder to get hold of, but new ones are still appearing – like Daphne Du Maurier‘s The Birds and Patricia Highsmith‘s The Talented Mr Ripley. Penguin also do a nice line in cloth bound classics – like this Sense and Sensibility.
My OCD tendancies are yet to find a satisfactory order for these, but they’re so pretty I don’t care!
I also love Bookishly’s range of prints – their Pride and Prejudice one would make a lovely gift – if you’re buying for a friend, several of the quotations you can chose from are not romantic. However exercise caution if you are thinking of getting someone an e-reader cover. I’ve been caught out on sizes and variations before – all the various kindles seem to be subtly different. There are some gorgeous ones out there though – I’ve bought one which looks like an actual book from Klevercase before, but check the model you’re aiming for very carefully.
So there you go. Coming next: Children’s book recommendations.
I am the person who gives everybody they possibly can a book for Christmas. My immediate family all get a book AND a “normal” Christmas present. I buy young relatives books as often as I can. I even gift myself a Christmas book. So I thought that I would give you suggestions for presents – on top of a post about Christmas-themed books. This is the first of four post which I hope cover all eventualities. Most of the links are to Amazon – because quite a few of the books mentioned across the various posts are in their 3 for £10 promotion, thus saving you money to use to buy yourself books on other things.
Non Fiction
Men can be tricky to buy for – or at least I find them hard. I often end up buying biographies of sportsmen. The Boy in my life is a massive petrol head – he devoured motorbike Guy Martin’s Autobiography this last weekend, which had been sitting on the shelf since last Christmas and is out now in paperback. He’s said he’d quite like Martin’s hardback, When You Dead, You Dead. Also on his Christmas list this year is ex-F1 driver turned World Endurance Champion Mark Webber’s book Aussie Grit. The annual Jeremy Clarkson book will have been a fixture on many people’s Christmas lists for years, but if you fancy a change, The Boy really wants And On That Bombshell – a behind the scenes look at Top Gear, written by Top Gear’s script editor Richard Porter, who I’ve been following on Twitter for years without knowing what his day job was!
I have had *such* headaches taking the photos for these posts. I could cry. Honestly I could.
Away from the motorsports books he’s a big Bill Bryson fan – so The Road to Little Dribbling may also turn up in his stocking. One of his favourite books this year has already featured here as a Book of the Week – but A Year of Living Danishly is so good that I think it deserves another mention – particularly as Hygge starts in January and moving to a new country is often one of those things that gets mentioned in New Year’s Resolutions.
Check out my attempts at artistic arrangements of the books. This was the best I could manage.
On the history front, I haven’t read Trumbo (yet) but it’s just been turned into a film and the McCarthy era is fascinating – particularly in the movie industry. I’ve also had quite a good hit-rate with Ben MacIntyre – my dad loved Operation Mincemeat, and Agent Zigzag and Double Cross have also gone down well with him and several other men of various ages that I buy for. His latest is A Spy Among Friends, about Kim Philby, which I haven’t read – but which may well end up in someone’s stocking this year.
Fiction
My Boy has got hooked (like me) on Janet Evanovich this year, so I’ve been on the lookout for pacey and fun thrillers for him. It’s tricky as it very often ends up with me buying books for me! I’m going to try and turn him onto the Fox and O’Hare series next – The Heist is the first one, The Scam is the latest. They’re basically Ocean’s 11 or White Collar but as a book. She’s an FBI agent, he’s a fraudster – but they have to work together to catch con-men.
Try not to look at the dents in the hardback spines, I know once you’ve noticed it’s hard to stop,but…
I’ve already mentioned The British Library Crime Classics series in the BotW post on Silent Night, but it bears repeating that there some really good titles in this attractive looking series which would make good gifts for an Agatha Christie fan looking for Golden Age Crime. And as the series is bring stuff back into print that’s been out of circulation for a long time, there’s much less risk that they’ll have read them already! On top of the ones I’ve already mentioned, try The Z Murders and Murder Underground. Speaking of Golden Age crime, Sophie Hannah’s Poirot continuation The Monogram Murders might also be worth a look.
Try and focus on the retro stylings of the book, and the shine of the table – which I polished specially
This is breaking my own rule about not mentioning stuff I’ve read for Novelicious before the review goes up there, but I’ve just finished reading TV historian Neil Oliver’s first novel Master of Shadows, and without preempting my review there too much, it is basically the novel version of one of those historical epic movies. Set in the fifteenth century. it follows a young man as he flees Scotland, becomes a mercenary and ends up entangled in the fall of Constantinople and the end of the Byzantine Empire. It was too gruesome for me, but if you have a Game of Thrones fan in your life, this could be a great choice for them.
The pile of book effect is wearing thin? I know. And this has foil on the cover so its a photo nightmare
My Boy has also expressed an interest in Timur Vermes’ Look Who’s Back, which has been sitting in my Library book bag for ages. In case you’ve missed it, this was a massive best seller in Germany – and tells the story of what happened when Adolf Hitler wakes up in 2011 Berlin. It’s already been made into a movie in Germany and Radio 4 have dramatised it over here. It’s meant to be laugh-out loud funny, but disturbing.
And finally, I’m not big on scary, but The Boy has film director David Cronenberg’s debut novel on his to-read pile. I don’t like recommending books that I haven’t read (or that people around me haven’t read) but Consumed has a good review average on both Amazon and Goodreads and pull quotes from Stephen King and JJ Abrams, so strikes me as a fairly good punt in a genre I’m really not very fluent in.
Still, at least I had enough books for this post to make a stack. Just wait til tomorrow…
Miscellaneous
If you want to give bookish gifts that aren’t actually books, then may I point you in the direction of American company Out of Print. They do the most gorgeous clothes with book covers printed on them and for each purchase they donate a book to a community in need. I’ve gifted their t-shirts to several men at various points – including The Boy, who loves them and stares wistfully at their website every time he sees me looking at it, but tells me he has enough clothes. The tees are soft, the print isn’t crunchy (if you know what I mean) and they wash well and hold their shape. If you’re in the UK I think we’ve already missed the cheap shipping international deadline, although they say you can upgrade, but TruffleShuffle stock a few styles, as do Amazon.
So there you are, hopefully I’ve recommended something for most tastes or situations – or at least provided a jumping off point. Coming next: Books for Her.
This week’s BotW is a rare (ish) non-fiction choice – Lily Koppel’s The Astronaut Wives Club. I’m not sure how I first came across this – but it had been sitting on my to-buy list for ages waiting for me to find an excuse to buy it – and the nightshifts came around…
The book is about the wives of the first several cohorts of US Astronauts – who they were, how their lives were changed when their husbands were picked and the consequences for them as their husbands went off into space.
This is quite a light read – it reads very much like a string of anecdotes tied together and because there are so many women you don’t get a lot of detail on any of them. But it is a fascinating glimpse inside the space bubble – I’m sure I’m not alone in that my knowledge of space exploration is fairly limited (the basic facts plus a viewing or two of Apollo 13 and a few documentaries) and I’m not massively interested in science. This book was perfect for me – it’s always the people that I’m interested in particularly the women who had to smile in front of the world’s media as they watched their partners blast into the unknown.
Lily Koppel has done her research and has spoken to some of the women and come up with a very readable book telling the stories of a group of women who managed to support each other whilst competing with each other and never wanting to show weakness. Well worth a read – if only to realise exactly how famous these men were and what a fishbowl their wives had to live in.
Tough choice for Book of the Week this week. An honourable mention goes to Trisha Ashley’s new novella A Vintage Christmas, but it’s quite short, and she has a new book out in October, so in the interests of keeping my powder dry, I’ll just leave you a Kindle link to it. Subtle right? There was another close contender, but I’ve reviewed that for Novelicious, so in the interests of not stealing their thunder, I won’t tell you what it is. Yet.
I Feel Bad About My Neck got the nod because, although it’s aimed at a slightly more mature lady than me, this collection of essays and general thoughts on life made me really laugh. In this, Ms Ephron takes a witty look at ageing, through the eyes of a baby boomer. I think my favourite is the one about maintenance – and how long women spend on upkeep!
Nora Ephron wrote the screen plays for two of my favourite films when I was a teenager – When Harry Met Sally and You’ve Got Mail and I laughed my way through her novel Heartburn a few years back. Heartburn is a fictionalised version of the break-up of her second marriage – and some of the themes from that reoccur here. This isn’t a long read, but it is a very fun one.
My enjoyment of this book was tinged with sadness – as Nora Ephron was already suffering with leukemia at the time that she wrote this, although almost no-one knew that she was ill right up until she died in 2012. I’ll be keeping my eyes open for more of her other writing and it’s a shame there won’t be any more.
This week’s BotW is a rare non-fiction pick – and has been a big hit in our house. I picked it out a couple of months ago and gave it to The Boy to read last weekend when he’d done too much Janet Evanovich in a row. He laughed so hard at it and enjoyed it so much that I promoted it to the top of my to-read pile and read it too. And it is just joyous.
The Year of Living Danishly is the story of author Helen Russell and her husband Legoman who move to Jutland in Denmark after he gets a job with the Danish toy giants. As the country is reputed to be one of the happiest in the world, she sets out to find out whether the hype is true – and whether living a bit more Danishly can help everyone. Ms Russell does have some reservations about the Danes – they seem to have a bit of a herd mentality and some of their habits are a bit … odd – so this is quite a balanced look at the pros and cons of Danish life as she experienced it.
I absolutely fell in love with this book. It’s witty and engaging and an absolutely fascinating insight into a country that I knew very little about. I finished the book thinking that Denmark wouldn’t be a bad place to relocate too – even if the winters are dark and glacial. The Boy has an auntie and uncle in Denmark – so he had some personal experience of a few of the experiences detailed in the book – he can confirm that Danish kindergarten is fabulous and laid back – he just joined in with a class of them in the park some time in the early 80s and the teachers didn’t even bat an eyelid.
Even if you’re not a big non-fiction reader, this is well worth a look. It’s not dry or academic, it’s warm and enthralling and will leave you wondering what pickled herring tastes like (but maybe not enough to try it). Meanwhile, The Boy and I are thinking about making a trip to see his relatives in Copenhagen soon!
This week’s BotW is a non-fiction book which has been on my to-read list since it was reviewed in hardback in the Sunday Times in October 2013 – and has been on the actual pile since soon after its paperback release in back in May. Which, to be honest, tells you all you need to know about the to-read pile…
But Rachel Cooke’s book – which is subtitled “Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties” – shouldn’t have languished on the pile for so long. It is really good. A series of essays about fascinating women that I’d never heard of, but who had lead fascinating and trailblazing lives. They’re not all tremendously likeable – Alison Smithson and her jumpsuit must have been very difficult to live with – but they all tried at least to live lives on their own terms, despite the constraints of the period. Not the greatest photo I know, but I'm on nights - give me a break!
The ten women worked in different fields and had differing degrees of success, but they all did something. They challenge the idea that after the war women went back to the home until the sixties came along and shook everything up. As I said when I reviewed Viv Albertine’s autobiography, I can live my life the way that I do because of trailblazing women in the past who were prepared to put themselves out there and stand up and be counted in a way that I know that I would be afraid to do.
Rose Heilbron was my favourite of the women – the first female barrister, the first woman to lead a murder trial – and part of the group that changed rules about rape so that the complainant could remain anonymous and not have to answer questions about their sexual history. The pictures of her show that she also looked impossibly glamorous in her wig and gown. Attagirl.
But all the women’s lives are interesting – if not always happy. Nancy Spain, Joan Werner Laurie and Sheila Van Damme’s ménage sounds completely fraught. But it is gripping reading. You can get Her Brilliant Career from Amazon, Foyles and Waterstones and you can even listen on Audible. Don’t leave it as long as I did to get around to it.
This week’s book of the week is the very wonderful and very funny Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. I have recently discovered the Dear Bitches, Smart Authors podcast – and through it the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books website. Now I’ve documented here in the past my slightly shamefaced addiction to US romance novels with the sort of cover I’m embarrassed to take out in public. Now whilst I stick mostly to historicals, these ladies have read the lot – and can dissect it brilliantly and hilariously. If you have a problem with profanity this may not be for you (Hi Mum!) but I just found it absolutely side-splittingly funny and totally on the mark.
My copy of Beyond Heaving Bosoms
As someone who has discovered the massive US historical romance market through Julia Quinn, Eloisa James and Sarah MacLean, I also got a lot of recommendations for old school authors to go back and read – to add to the massive book list I’m accumulating from the podcast.
I was reading this over the weekend whilst I was staying at my sisters – and had to keep stopping to read bits out to her – or pass the book over for her to read longer chunks. She’s not a romance reader – but she found it hilarious too.
My only gripe with the book is that in the chose your own romance novel section, I kept being too sensible and the stories ended too soon… Now I’ve got two days off this week and I’m off to read the new Sarah MacLean which has been sitting at the top of the to-read pile for weeks waiting for me to not have to leave the house!
It’s that time of year again – where I look at the list of books that I’ve read this year and reflect on what my favourites have been.
At time of writing, I’ve given 39 books 5 stars on Goodreads* this year – here are my favourite five.
The Rosie Project – I read this right back at the start of the year on my birthday holiday in Rome. I’ve since lent it to my sister, my parents and now my best friend from school. I can’t see how anyone could fail to fall in love with Don – and his quest to find love and help Rosie is truly laugh out loud funny. Certainly everyone that I’ve lent the book to so far has loved it. The sequel, The Rosie Effect, doesn’t quite scale the heights of the original, but it is hard to compete with genius.
A Hundred Pieces of Me – I may have been a weeping wreck by the end, but I loved Lucy Dillon’s story about Gina. I was very careful in my Goodreads review not to give too much of the plot away – because it really would spoil it – but this is well worth your time. In fact, this was one of the very first books I read this year (book 5 to be precise) and it’s stuck with me right until the end. Curl up in front of the fire – with a box of tissues – and a nice hot drink and enjoy.
Unfinished Symphony of You and Me – Lucy Robinson’s latest book nearly had me in tears on the train at several points – some tears of laughter and some… not. Sally’s journey to become an opera singer is unputtdownable – and Barry-the-mad-housemate is a hoot. Read my ravings about this from August here. Since reading this, I’ve read one of Lucy Robinson’s other books (also brilliant) and have her other previous book waiting on the shelf. I’m also really looking forward to reading her next book (The Day We Disappeared) when that comes out in March.
A Place For Us – This was another recipient of my overly emotional/sleep deprived ravings (find them here, here and here), but I seriously did love this book in its serialised form – the whole thing is due out in the New Year (January 15th) – and I really hope that it does fabulously well. The Winters are a flawed but fascinating family – and Harriet Evans does such a great job of making you care about all of them – even the ones who seem initially less appealing. This beat the final Cazalet book into this list – partly because it felt to me like a sort of modern successor to them.
Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys– Viv Albertine’s autobiography has really stuck in my mind since I read it. She is so honest about herself and her motivations – in a way that you often don’t get in memoirs. I picked it up because I don’t know much about the punk scene – but ended up being more interested in her post-punk life as she tried to work out what she wanted to do next and how she could balance her ideas and ideology with what society expected her to be doing. Women like her opened up so many opportunities for those of us who have followed – but this book wears that very lightly. Sad and difficult in places, it was fascinating and compelling.
Honourable mentions to Where’d You Go, Bernadette?, What Would Mary Berry Do?, Fanny and Stella, The Grand Duchess of Nowhere and It’s Not Me, It’s You all of whom could so easily have been on this list.
Today’s links are mostly Foyles – because these are books you want to have actual copies of that you can lend – but you can also find my five top picks (and some of my other favourite books, new and old) over on my My Independent Bookshop page where you can buy and support local indies.
* That works out to somewhere around 14 percent of what I’ve read this year getting top rating.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 