Review of the year 2024

 A busy year and some good reads amongst them.

On the non-fiction side I found Goodbye Globalisation thought provoking and helpful in understanding what is going on in the world. Also Salman Rushdie's reflections on his attack and its aftermath was interesting. Andrew Martin's book on the Paris metro had me hooked in a way I did not expect.

On the fiction side there was an interesting Booker prize but as ever my favourite -My friends- did not make the shortlist. Also enjoyed James and Enlightenment and Playground.

In other fiction Annihilation by Michel Houellebecq was good and the latest Jackson Brodie from Kate Atkinson was crazy but fun. I read Paul Auster's last book and his New York trilogy both of which I enjoyed. Again on the wacky side, was The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers guild but an enjoyable read. 

Crime has included a number of Maigret's and a series set in Hamburg by Simone Buchholz featuring a prosecutor called Chastity Riley. 

My best books of the year are probably My Friends and The Annual Banquet but a hard choice this year!

Maigret's Mistake

 by Georges Simenon

The lowly mistress of an eminent surgeon is found dead by gun shot to the head in the apartment paid for by the surgeon and in the same building as he lives in with his wife. 

Maigret spends a long time talking with everyone but the surgeon, who eventually contacts Maigret himself. Good story 7/10 

Goodbye Globalisation

 by Elisabeth Braw

Through various interviews, press publications and research this book traces the path of globalisation through the past forty years and examines why it may now be coming to an end. Actually, it postulates that it is coming to an end. It explores the rise of China and western businesses love affair with China which now is cooling significantly. It looks at Europe's interactions with Russia that came to a juddering halt after the Ukraine war started. You leave the book thinking, with the benefit of hindsight, how could we have been so naive as to think such massive growth could be achieved without harming the planet, to think that trade would trump ideological stances and desire for power or that people would think cheaper goods were fair recompense for losing their jobs. This is a very readable and thought provoking book 9/10 

The Stranger in the Seine

 by Guillaume Musso

A young woman is found in the river but escapes on her way to a secure hospital. DNA matches her to a pianist who died 12 months before. Who is she and what is her connection to an older police officer who has had a fall and his son? Enter Roxanne, a police officer with her own problems.

This is a fast paced thriller for which you have to suspend belief at times but doesn't stop you turning the pages. 6/10

Shy

 by Max Porter

Shy is a troubled teenager and this book covers one night of his life as he sets out from a special residential school with a rucksack full of rocks.

Max Porter's books are refreshingly different and this one is no different. It was a lively, sad, funny engaging story. Loved it. 9/10

Gliff

 by Ali Smith

Two abandoned children, a horse destined for the knackers yard, lots of red lines and a society under seeming totalitarian rule. Nothing is fully explained as we gradually piece together what is happening in two time slots five years apart and sometime in the near future. 

For all this I enjoyed this book, typically witty and playful but I was left frustrated by the unresolved endings. I wonder if Glyph will help when it is published. I am not holding my breath! 8/10

Cards on the Table

 by Agatha Christie

A Hercule Poirot novel centred around an evening of bridge at the murder victim's house. Which of the four players at table 1 killed him and which of the four sleuths at table 2 will uncover the killer. Good stuff 7/10

Metropolitan: An ode to the Paris Metro

 by Andrew Martin

Who could have thought that a book about trains could be so interesting and amusing.

I finished this book while on a short visit to Paris and I have to say that as a result of reading this book I was looking at trains and stations in a much more interested way. Martin takes us through the history of the metro before diving into a line by line description and it is readable at every stage-well maybe not the details about the different types of train. Loved it 9/10

The Waste Land: Biography of a Poem

 A voyage through Eliot's sources and his friendships and his marriage as he spends 1917 to 1922 developing what will become the Waste Land. 

I found it fascinating and at times a fraction overlong but a good read. There is much about Ezra Pound which I found informative and he also spends a considerable time on Eliot's attitude toward the Jews.

He is sympathetic toward Vivian and recognises how she and Eliot both struggled in their marriage. Well worth ploughing through 8/10

Scaffolding

 by Lauren Elkin

I like Elkin's writing and this, her first novel, is no different. The title refers to the scaffolding that surrounds Anna's Paris apartment for the duration of the novel-set in the year following lock down.

She is recovering from a miscarriage and has been signed off work. She is a shrink. The book explores through the lens of Lacan primarily, issues of desire and selfhood. The central section dwells on a couple from fifty years previous who lived in the apartment, who were exploring the same issues. There are various hooks that tie the two parts together. 

Did I enjoy it? I don't know. I found the characters very annoying and very middle class self absorbed twenty first century types -but I guess that is what Elkin was aiming at. It was interesting subject matter but at the end I was not quite sure it worked. I need to muse some more 6/10

City of light, City of shadows

By Mike Rapport

A history of Paris in the Belle Époque. Very readable, I found some parts flowed, whereas others-a long section on the philosophy of Bergstrom - dragged. 

It was at its best talking of the press and of the artistic scene. 7/10