Review of 2020

 Definitely a year for fiction. On the non-fiction side I finished a biography of Marx and read a damning analysis of the big tech firms called Surveillance Capital. Also a good biography of Clement Atlee. He led the Labour party for 20 years including as PM after the second world war and yet I knew hardly anything about him so very enjoyable.
On the fiction side it has been a crime laden year including all five Jackson Brodie books by Kate Atkinson.
The Booker prize was disappointing with my favourites not making the shortlist (Apeirogon and Redhead by the side of the road). The shortlist was full of misery and angst so much so that I could not bring myself to read the eventual winner Shuggie Bain, until after the result had been announced.
The final part of Ali Smith's seasonal quartet was released and was fun. It even managed to squeeze a covid reference in.
My favourite book of the year must go to The way we live now by Trollope. Amusing and insightful in equal measure. Roll on 2021.

Big Sky

 by Kate Atkinson

The fifth in the Jackson Brodie series and still full of wit amongst the darkness of a trafficking ring in Bridlington as well as a number of other incidents. It is all the other stuff that makes this book the weakest of the series, as the surrounding noise makes the story hard to follow and I found myself having to frequently go back over the story to work out who was being referred to. The question is, will we see Mr B again? 6/10

Nordic Fauna

 Andrea Lundgren

A book of six short stories published by Peirene.

A mixed bag. I particularly liked the other -wordliness of how things come to seem  and the bird that cries in the night. The others left me a bit cold. 5/10

The Sextine Chapel

 by Herve Le Tellier

This author won the prix goncourt prize this year. He is also a member of the French oulipo group and this book is an example of how they work, writing stories around patterns. So in this book each short story is about two people having sex but they work through the alphabet, so story one starts with Anna and Ben, story two is Ben and Chloe etc. When they have got through the alphabet the characters start turning up again with different partners. All very humorous. 7/10

Started Early, took my dog

by Kate Atkinson

Jackson Brodie at it again in a caper, almost in the style of the keystone cops where the good guys are kidnapping children and stealing dogs all against the background of Leeds and a crime committed 30 years before. She does seem to be able to tread this narrow line between humour and ugly drama. 7/10

The Magician's Wife

 by Brian Moore
Set in second empire France and the recently invaded Algeria this is a fascinating tale of a magician/inventor called upon to use his skills to help the empire, and of his wife. She in many ways sits outside the story and observes but she gradually becomes the story itself. I thought this was a great book set in a period of history I love 9/10

When will there be good news?

 by Kate Atkinson

The third in the series featuring Jackson Brodie and carrying the expected balance of humour, drama and intrigue to make it hard to put down. We also find out more about what happens to all the money Jackson inherited at the end of the first in the series. 8/10

Shuggie Bain

 by Douglas Stuart

The winner of this year's booker prize and something I had put off reading because of the subject matter.

Shuggie is growing up in Glasgow with his alcoholic mother and this is the story of their life together up until the point she dies. This is not letting out a secret as we find out this fact in the first few pages of the book. Despite the inevitable sadness of this book it sparkles with life and occasional humour. I enjoyed it far more than I expected and think it a worthy winner from the shortlist. It maybe got a little bit long in the last third of the book . 8/10 

Inhuman Resources

 by Pierre Lemaitre

A great dig at big corporates and a thriller which is implausible in parts but still tense until the last 30 pages which were a bit disappointing. 7/10

Still Midnight

 by Denise Mina

First novel featuring Alex Morrow. Enjoyable and at times great writing. Will definitely read more 8/10

Summer

 by Ali Smith

Final novel in the quartet and keeps up the current references including covid. It brings back characters from the other novels and is a really good read. Why didn't it make the Booker list? 8/10

Real Life

by Brandon Taylor

I found this a very hard read.
It started well enough in a lab developing nematodes but this is only the background to  the story of a black man in a postgraduate school that is predominately white. He is also gay and a victim of child abuse. The gay sex was difficult but what I really struggled with was the violence of all his encounters. The writing is good but this was not my type of story. As such it may well win the Booker this year 6/10

Don't Turn Out the Lights

 by Bernard Minier

The third novel in the Inspector Servaz series and Hirtman only made a fleeting appearance. This one was all about dodgy French astronauts with some twists in the tail. Good page turner 7/10

The Shadow King

by Maaza Mengiste

I may have enjoyed this more if I had known a bit more about Ethiopian history beforehand. As it was, I did get drawn into this story about the Italian invasion and occupation of Ethiopia in the late thirties. The story revolves around a woman called Hirut and a soldier called Ettore who becomes the photographer of a sadistic general. Hirut becomes a resistance fighter and ends up a prisoner photographed by Ettore. I found the characters a bit flat and difficult to relate to but by the end I was desperate to know how they all ended up. The shadow king of the title is a character in the resistance army who posed as the emperor to rally the ethiopians. 6/10 

Such a Fun Age

 by Kiley Reid

This book has an adorable toddler in it whose voice is caught brilliantly on the audibook I listened to.
The start of this book left me wishing it to end. It felt like what I imagine chick-lit to be and I was not enjoying it. The story unfolds around an incident in a food mall when a black woman baby sitter is held by a security guard for kidnapping a white child she is babysitting. 

It develops into an interesting and toward the end absorbing reflection on attitudes to race and identification. Look out for that Mrs Chamberlain!! 7/10

Apeirogon

 by Colum McCann

This book left me flummoxed even while I enjoyed it enormously.

It is the story of two men, one Palestinian and one Israeli, both who lost a daughter in the conflict between the two countries and both of whom are committed to peace and an end to the occupation of the west bank.
The unusual thing about the book is that it is about two real people, still living and yet this is not biography or politics or history but a novel. We know this because the subtitle says that it is a novel. But is it? In an author's note we are told that apart from some interview notes in the centre of the book, McCann has been given freedom to go where he wants. He does and produces a great book in the process 9/10

Burnt Sugar

 by Avni Doshi

The story is a mother and daughter story set in urban india. The mother is starting to suffer from dementia and everyone around is supportive and sympathetic. For the main protagonist this is not so simple. Every incident in the present takes her and us back to an episode in the past and a childhood / growing up that was not always good and times very  painful. The structure I liked but I never settled into the story and found the characters difficult to engage with. A great idea that did not work for me 5/10

Love and other thought experiments

 by Sophie Ward

An amazing book that is full of inventiveness. I found myself losing the thread and then picking it up again when I was on the verge of defeat. It will stay with me for a while because of the raw energy of the writing.
The last two chapters let it down for me but I wish I could be half as creative as this. 7/10

This Mournable Body

 by Tsitsi Dangarembga

This book is the third of a trilogy, a fact I only learned after reading the book.

This maybe why I struggled to come into land with it. Set in Zimbabwe the main character Tambu suffers from depression and clearly has a backstory which I presume is fleshed out in the earlier novels. Without that she is difficult to understand and the story becomes a set of cameos of Tambu at various places in life.

It is written in the second person and I am not sure that works. If I find time I would come back and read the earlier novels. 5/10

Redhead by the side of the road

 by Anne Tyler

A short book about Micah Mortimer.
Nothing much happens apart from a teenager turning up claiming to be Micah's son and Michah's girlfriend dumping him but this was a great book with characters drawn really well and that you wanted to engage with. 8/10

Citizen Clem

 by John Bew

This is a very readable biography of Clement Atlee.

He covers his life from childhood and makes a point of starting each chapter with a piece of poetry linked to the period in his life he is covering. He refers a lot to correspondence with his brother Tom who he was very close to. This despite the fact they had very opposing views on war and pacifism which must of dominated their lives in their early twenties and middle age when Atlee was deputy prime minister. I would have liked to see this explored in a bit more detail. However, that aside, I thought this was a very good insight into the life of a very private person, whom duty(?) drove to become prime minister of the UK and leader of the labour party for 20 years. This idea of duty and loyalty to country reminded me of DeGaulle and his sense of destiny. 9/10

Madame Bovary

by Gustave Flaubert

It was a long time ago I read this book and this time I listened as an audiobook.

I love the character descriptions and the chemist is almost Dickensian in his caricatured awfulness.

However, Emma is dreadful and impossible to have sympathy with given her overwhelming selfishness. She is the ultimate in anti-heroine, femme fatale. How would she fare in the twenty first century where she could indulge her whims without society's condemnation. Sadly, I think she would fare badly. It would always be somebody elses fault that she was unhappy.

If Emma is a character you love to hate her husband Charles is worse. How can he have no idea what is going on? He is either totally self obsessed or totally stupid. I like to think he was away in the countryside having a torrid affair of his own but that makes the end of the book a little more difficult to explain. Also why does he give up his finances so easily.

One last question. What happened to all the creditors baying for blood just before Emma's final act?

A great character study but a frustrating novel 7/10

The good, the bad and the little bit stupid

by Marina Lewycka

A crazy story about a couple who fall out on referendum night, their lovers and their children and about what happens when the husband wins (or think he wins) the Latvian lottery. A crazy caper across Europe follows. This is a light train or holiday read and funny at times. Not my favourite this year. 5/10

There is no Outside

Edited by Jessie Kindig et al

A collection of despatches from around the world regarding covid 19. Fascinating take on the global pandemic and changing views across the world in a small snatch of time 7/10

The Mirror and the Light

by Hilary Mantel

The third book in the Thomas Cromwell trilogy and a very long one! The writing is wonderful as you would expect and the characters are wonderful and of course fictional. Do we know more about the real historical figures. Probably not, but then who do we really know. Dominic Cummings may have an endearing side to him but we would never know it. Maybe, in four hundred years time somebody will write a sympathetic novel about his rise to power. Lets hope not. The book was I felt too long by two hundred pages or so but I expect it will still make the Booker shortlist and it was still a good read 8/10

The Way we Live Now

by Anthony Trollope

A fantastic slice of late 19th century life, with great characters and scattered with a dry humour throughout. The book does highlight how prevalent anti-semitism was in England at this time and makes for some uncomfortable reading in places. 

The rise of unscrupulous businessmen, a largely useless and penniless aristocracy and lawyers with ridiculous names makes you think that the book could be set in the present day. 9/10

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

by Shoshana Zuboff
This book is very hard to summarise in what is effectively my book list but it will stay with me for a long time.
On the negative side it probably labours its point by being a bit too long and having Google and Facebook as target number one without widening that out too much may put some people off, However, that aside this is a masterpiece. The laying bear of what the tech companies are about is relentless and breathtaking in its scope. In 1996 I thought google was the best thing I had ever seen. That naivety now lays in ruins.
The compare and contrast with totalitarianism is  excellent and the third section on where do we go from here was scary and very thought provoking. I would urge anybody interested in technology and/or the future of our society to read this book 9/10

You Would Have Missed Me

by Birgit Vanderbeke
Another moving story by the author of the Mussel Feast.
This story is told by a seven year old east german who on the face of it wants a kitten for her birthday but it soon gets darker than that. The ending was problematic for me but the tension through this short narrative and the humour were great 7/10

A Song for Drowned Souls

by Bernard Minier
The second novel featuring the French detective Martin Servaz and his colleagues.
This is again set in the Pyrenees and features Martin's nemesis, Julian Hirtman. What I like about this is the way Hirtman is a presence throughout the novel but not anything to do with the murder that is central to the plot. Lots of dead ends before the killer is unearthed but a great page turning read 7/10

One Good Turn

by Kate Atkinson
Another Jackson Brodie novel. This one is set in Edinburgh and Jackson has moved on. He now lives in France and has retired from his private detective business. He is in Edinburgh with one of the characters from the last novel but things are not going well. However, he witnesses a road rage incident one morning and is quickly drawn into the drama of the novel. I have to say this is a bit like Ian Rankin meets the keystone kops! However, it just about holds together and their is a lovely little twist at the end. 7/10

Actress

by Ann Enright
There is something about this book that is glorious. I cannot put my finger on what it is exactly but the way characters unfold and draw you into their lives is wonderful. The actress of the title is shown to us by her daughter and it is a wonderful tale of love in an almost any town, any family setting-apart from the shooting perhaps. 8/10

Case Histories

by Kate Atkinson
A crime novel that is normally positioned with literary fiction in the bookshops. This is the first novel to feature Jackson Brodie-a northerner living uncomfortably in Cambridge where he works as a private detective following his time as a policeman and soldier. He is a great character and the cases he works are knitted together perfectly but not necessarily solved. There is comedy and almost Dickensian caricature in places. Loved it 8/10

German Requiem

by Phillip Kerr
The third novel in the Bernie Gunther series. A private detective in post war Berlin who travels to Vienna on a case that brings him into contact with ex SS officers and other unsavoury characters. Did not enjoy as much as the previous two. 6/10

The Frozen Dead

by Bernard Minier
A French crime thriller set in a village in South West france close to the Spanish border.
A high profile horse killing leads to the investigation of a cold case. There are lots of twists and turns on the way. Look forward to the next in the series 9/10

The Picture of Dorian Grey

by Oscar Wilde
A spooky tale about a man who retains his youth while his portrait grows old. A vehicle for Wilde to include an overload of witticisms that became boring very quickly. Did not enjoy 4/10

The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau

by Graeme Macrae Burnet
This is supposedly a translation of a book by a forgotten French author called Brunet who wrote the book. The fact that this may be a tall tale is only revealed(or hinted at) by a lengthy translator's note at the end of the book in which we learn the author's life bears a remarkable resemblance to the main character.
The book is a crime novel where a waitress goes missing and suspicion falls on a non-descript bank manager who lives a very mundane life in a town close to Strasbourg. However, his life becomes by successive surprises more and more interesting. The book grew on me the longer it went on and I liked the ending. 8/10

American Dirt

by Jeanine Cummins
The story of a mother and son as they try to escape Mexico following the slaughter of 16 members of their family by a drug cartel. The story tells the tale of migrants heading North. It is harrowing in places and relentless in terms of pressure of the plot progression. I felt this was a well told story and would class is at one of the best reads so far this year.
The author has been castigated for writing this story because she is not Mexican and not a migrant. I have never heard such horseshit in my life. (Well actually I have, but to make a point etc lalala). This is a novel. The author spent 4 years researching and is married to somebody who was undocumented until their marriage. Yes, it may not be 100% reality and flaws can be found I am sure, but it is a novel. By definition, not real. If authors have to have lived a situation to write about it the novel will be reduced to memoir and the creativity of some of our great authors is lost. I say well done Jeanine for shining a light on a dreadful mam-made suffering and if it causes us to think about these issues then it has been a force for good. 9/10

A World to Win

by Sven-Eric Liedman
Finally, a year after starting this book I have finished this interesting and informative biography of Karl Marx. I found it heavy going in places but really absorbing in others. It is told chronologically and provides a great introduction to Marx's major thought and writings.
It had a useful but far too short summary of where Marxism has gone since Marx's death. It had the effect of sending me off to check things out elsewhere to try and understand alienation or commodity fetishism etc. Could influence my reading list for a while! 8/10

The Girl who fell from the sky

By Simon Mawer
I loved the Glass room but this book kept threatening to sweep me along in the tension of the plot but then left me feeling that it was running out of steam. The main character, Marion is a genuine complex character who I liked but the characters around her never quite fleshed out. It was a good page turner but the ending was sort of inevitable if not totally believable. 5/10

The Division Bell Mystery

By Ellen Wilkinson
A murder mystery written by one of the first women mp's in the nineteen thirties. Fascinating! 8/10

Confession with Blue Horses

by Sophie Hardach
The story of Ella and her family related to us by Ella herself.
The story moves between 1980's East Berlin and London in 2010 and relates the vents that led to and followed an escape attempt. Great story 8/10

Braised Pork

by An Yu
Set in modern day Beijing this is the story of Jia Jia and what happens to her after she finds her husband dead in the bath(suicide). He has left her a drawing of a fish man and it is this which drives the story along. It was very readable but has a good but somewhat open ending. 8/10

Barnaby Rudge

by Charles Dickens
Set around the historical fact of the Gordon riots of 1780 this is an enjoyable novel.
It tells the story of The Maypole Inn and those living in or around this village pub to the South of London. Barnaby is one of these characters and he gets caught up in the riots and their aftermath. It is witty and sad and as ever great story telling 9/10

Snow, Dog, Foot

by Claudio Morandini
A funny, sad, short book about a mans sinking into loneliness, madness or some indeterminate state high in the mountains of Italy. It can be read at one sitting and made me laugh but also made me think about loneliness and what drives it and what effect it can have on an individual and how it is perceived by others. 8/10

Germinal

by Emile Zola
I last read this book in 2007 and was reading in a relatively new translation,
It is the thirteenth book in the Rougon Macquart series charting second empire France.
This is the story of Etienne Lantier, the son of Gervaise from L'assommoir. It is a heartbreaking story of a family's and community's struggle through a mine strike. As ever the key characters are fleshed out wonderfully and Zola uses the contrast between the Bourgeoisie and the working class to great effect, It was a great read still and ties in very well with my reading around Marx. 9/10