by Thomas Hardy
A typical assortment of Hardy characters in Yeobright, Wildeve, Eustacia and Diggory Venn but one of the biggest characters is Egdon Heath where the story is set. Having visited the area this year the book captures the bits of scrubland near the coast beyond Weymouth and Lulworth cove brilliantly. The story is typically tragic and a bit drawn out but his language and detail is fantastic 8/10
by Georges Simenon
Maigret gets dragged to New York by a worried son and where he uncovers a blackmail plot and a sordid murder from long ago. Not the best as I prefer Maigret on French soil but still intriguing 6/10
by Katja Oskamp
A great tale of a woman who gives up her writing career to retrain as a chiropodist. Each chapter tells the story of one of her clients from the housing estates of Marzahn. I loved it 9/10
by Anthony Trollope
The third Palliser novel and not one I enjoyed that much. Lizzy is an abominable character and the narrator tells us as much at the start of the novel. The trouble is many of the other characters, Frank, Lord Fawn, Mrs Carbuncle and Mrs Hittaway to name a few, are all equally horrible. The novel does pick up pace a bit once the diamonds have actually been stolen but the book is too long for the tale it tells. The Duke of Omnium's brief appearances are great though. 5/10
by Claire Oshetsky
I am still musing over this book. It is no doubt a parable about living with challenging children be that by behavior or disability but this was a difficult read in places and yet fascinating and brilliant in others. I shall continue to think about the owl baby and there are some great musical references that I would urge any reader to follow up. 8/10
by J. Meade Falkner
A real swashbuckling tale in the style of Lorna Doone. Set on the Dorset coast near Swanage it tells the tale of John Trenchard and his life with the smugglers of that area. Good lively page turner although there is never a doubt about the outcome 8/10
by John Mullan
A good read looking at the way Dickens used certain literary constructs to achieve results and how these were often breaking the mould.
It was full of great quotes but it did use a lot of the same scenes over again which I thought was a bit lazy. There was also a lot of reference to Edwin Drood. 6.5/10
by Georges Simenon
Maigret has been retired for a couple of years when he gets an unexpected visit from an unknown old lady whose grand-daughter has apparently committed suicide. He can't help himself and gets drawn into a dark family history. Vintage stuff but we never did find out what happened to Maigret's aubergines! 8/10
by Dieter Helm
A thought provoking book examining whether we are on the right track to get to net zero by 2050 or not.
The basic premise of the book is that for the last thirty years (ie since the formation of the UNFCCC) we have been focussed on the wrong things and approaching it the wrong way in that the approach is:
1. Top down from the UN via the annual COP meetings.
2. Measures are aimed at producers and not polluters.
He backs this up with the evidence in the growth of ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere and the continued global growth in the use of fossil fuels, all of which stacks up and makes for depressing reading. One of his aims is to try and make sure we do not give up the drive for net zero as a lost cause. I admire his optimism but am still not convinced.
This being the case, however, he proposes a three-fold solution that would address the problem he has set out. These are that firstly the polluter pays. ie we move from a production based approach to a consumption based approach. This inevitably leads to some form of carbon tax which applies to consumption so it would need to be applied on imports. Interestingly, Europe is already looking at this and Macron raised it in his speech last week when France took over the presidency of the EU. He suggests that this is a simple straightforward affair and less prone to lobbying and corruption. I seem to recall the same things being said about VAT when it was introduced and that is now incredibly complex. However, I do agree that a tax on carbon has to be brought in. We will not pay for carbon voluntarily.
Secondly it is invoking the principle of public money for public goods. This applies to infrastructure and R&D. In particular he focuses on broadband and electricity infrastructures which should be built by public monies and universally available.
Thirdly there should be net environmental gain in anything we do to mitigate the effects of loss and cheating. I found this hard to seperate from the first point in that any net gain will have to be achieved through the polluter pays principle.
I liked the fact that the book does not shy away from the cost of this and even addresses the thorny moral questions of whether the rich industrialised countries should pay for adaptation measures in those countries most affected by climate change or whether we should have an obligation to accept climate refugees.
The final section of the book looks specifically at agriculture, transport and electricity. These were interesting but I got a bit lost in some of the technical arguments. All in all though a good challenging read to start the year. 8/10
by Anthony Trollope
The second of the Palliser novels following the fortunes of Phineas in love and politics over the five years he spends as an MP for his home constituency in Ireland. Very amusing in places and a great commentary on politics of the period. Our hero could be annoying at times but he gets there in the end you feel 8/10
by Abbe Prevost
I read this because of the operas by Puccini and Massenet. It definitely lends itself to opera, with a narrative that is both dramatic and absurd, but having said that I enjoyed it. The character of Des Grieux is much better drawn than Manon but he manages to invoke our sympathy for both. Like all good opera it does not end well! 7/10
David Spiegelhalter and Anthony Masters
Does what the title says with lots of graphs and charts showing how the virus has affected our lives up to June 2021. Written in plain english and with a light touch this is a very readable survey of the pandemic thus far. 8/10
A criminal year with 10 Maigret's, 2 George Smiley's and a French detective from pre revolutionary France.
The Booker list was quite enjoyable this year. I liked the winner but my favourites were probably Great Circle and A Town Called Solace.
However, my book of the year must be Orlando Figes' book, The Crimean War. It was for a layman like me so engaging and informative. A close run contender would be Desert by JMG Le Clezio.
by J F Parot
The first book featuring Nicolas Le Floch investigating the disappearance of a police officer. Set in the eighteenth century it is a great page turner. 7/10
by Angelique Villeneuve
A book about a family in 1918 Paris where the husband has returned from the war with his face half blown off. It gently tells the story of how they learn to live together again. It is set in bleak times but is told with a gentleness and an overriding sense of hope. I liked it 9/10
by Gohril Gabrielsen
A researcher on her own in the far North of Norway gradually unravelling. I didn't enjoy this even though it has a great if somewhat frustrating end to the book 5/10
by Lisa Taddeo
Not sure what I made of this. Our heroine/anti-heroine is Joan and she is depraved by her own assessment.
The book is her trying to explain to (for most of the book) an unknown character the reasons why she has turned out so. It is a brutal book and yet you do feel drawn to and repulsed by Joan in equal measure. She has so little empathy for others but there are mostly plausible reasons for this. It definitely kept me engaged 7/10
by Herve le Corre
This is an odd but interesting book. It is a love story, a police investigation into abduction, and a history of the Paris Commune or more particularly, it's bloody final 10 days. At times I found it a bit drawn out whereas at other times it fairly rattled along. It managed to portray both the horrors and the hope of the Commune and in some way explain why that hope has travelled down through the years. 7/10
by Stefan Zweig
A brief introduction to Freuds life and work, written during Freud's lifetime (1931). It was interesting but a bit dry in the delivery at times. 5/10
by John Le Carre
The second Smiley novel and very good. No spies in sight but a straight whodunnit in a posh english public school. 8/10
by Richard Powers
A wacky novel even by Powers's standard. It involves a 9 year old boy who has lost his mother and is brought up by his astrobiologist father. They spend evenings travelling to far away planets and days grappling with the loss of Ally (the wife/mother). I enjoyed it but not as much as The Overstory. 7/10
by John Le Carre
The first novel involving George Smiley which involves a number of murders involving the East Germans. What looks like a straightforward suicide is suspicious to Smiley who gets drawn into a typically complicated plot. Great stuff! 9/10
by Georges Simenon
by Anuk Arudpragasam
An interesting book that could easily win this years booker.
At one level nothing much happens. The carer of a grandmother in Colombo dies in the North of the country and the grandson goes to the funeral.
This simple premise is the canvas for some beautiful writing about the process of growing old and the working of memory. It is also an examination of how a country deals with civil war. In a particularly memorable section he writes about a documentary about two young women who are part of an elite suicide squad in the tamil tigers. This real documentary (that I have subsequently watched) is as haunting in his description as it is in the actual watching.
The only parts of the book that did not work for me is where the protagonist examines an old brief love affair he had. So what I felt. As for the rest 9/10
by Nadifa Mohamed
Based on a true story about a Somali Man, Mahmood, who is accused of killing a shopkeeper. He protests his innocence throughout.
He is a rogue but not a killer and the book catches that perfectly. At times, it meanders and gives a lot of padding (too much?) to the characters but a good read. 8/10
by Laura Elkin
A short book of notes made on a mobile phone while commuting in Paris.
Sharp and witty, as well as melancholic in places. Reaction to Bataclan is caught in how I recall the time, shock, despair, defiance. 7/10
by Sunjeev Sahota
A book set in India and the UK across two different times. A young second generation British Indian is trying to kick an opium addiction and is goes back to family in India to try and help.
His great grandmother was one of three girls married to three brothers at the same time, but none of the brides knew who their husband was. She is compromised by a series of misunderstandings and the story gradually unfolds for both her and the narrator.
I really enjoyed this book and would have liked to see it make the Booker shortlist. The judges felt otherwise! 8/10
by Mary Lawson
Set in a town in the far North of Canada the story is told through the eyes of three characters linked in tenuous ways but brought together by an old house and a cat and two traumatic events 30 years apart.
I really enjoyed this book and the balance between the narrators worked well. A special mention to Moses the cat! 9/10
by Karen Jennings
A short book and not one I found that interesting. The hero(anti-hero) Samuel, tells his life story from an island he lives on alone, and which is disturbed by the arrival of a washed up refugee. 5/10
by Damon Galgut
This could have a subtitle of 4 funerals and no wedding (or at least not one we are invited to.
This book traces the fortunes of the Swart family over 30 years by dropping in on various deaths in the family. I started reading this fearing the worst but the book grew on me as it went along. 8/10
by Rachel Cusk
Much more familiar Booker territory than my last entry.
A woman has an encounter with an artist's paintings in the Paris of her youth.
Years later she invites the artist to join her and her family on a remote salt marsh where they live. The book revolves around what unfolds during that summer and what maybe love and friendship means. Parts I enjoyed as good writing, much was very angsty. Not my favourite 6/10
by Maggie Shipstead
Unlike many Booker prize novels this was a gripping story from the start and that maintained that driving pulse throughout nearly all of its 600 pages, The story of a woman looking to make history in aviation by a round the world trip north to south in the 1950's.
The flight was never completed and our hero and her navigator were presumed dead as they were never found.
This is the story of her life and that of her brother and a childhood friend called Caleb. It was a great story and therefore in danger of not making the shortlist! 9/10
by Pierre Lemaitre
This was written in homage to Alexander Dumas and The count of Monte Christo.
It is a story of revenge and a definite feel of Lemaitre letting his hair down and having fun in this story set between the wars. Great fun 8/10
by Georges Simenon
Out to the west again for Maigret where he is investigating a death on behalf of a Paris judge. Nothing official and a very closed tight lipped community and a private detective who once worked for Maigret.
Maigret gets to the bottom of things but once again nobody is prosecuted, a recurring theme in his novels. 8/10
by William Boyd
Set in Brighton in the late 60's this is the story of three different people whose lives interact loosely around a film being made in East Sussex.
As ever the writing is compelling but this is not the best William Boyd novel I have read, bordering on farce at times. 6/10
by Jenny Offill
A novel that is everything Trollope is not, apart from being very funny in places.
Its a short novel capturing much of the angst of modern life. Very readable and lots of tips for surviving when the lights go out! 7/10
by Anthony Trollope
The first of the Palliser novels. A long book with lots of fun interjections from the narrator this is a book that introduces Plantagenet Palliser and his young wife who brings much wealth with her.
The title character is a cousin who is strong minded but changeable to say the least when it comes to love. Thankfully, things have changed in the last 200 years. I ended up forgiving her! 8/10
by Georges Simenon
A murder foretold is a little too convenient for Maigret as he sets about investigating the murder of a clairvoyant. Good fun 7/10
by Georges Simenon
For some undisclosed reason Maigret has been banished from Paris to the provinces. In a small town near Nantes a body is discovered in a house belonging to a retired judge and the judge is trying to dispose of it. Very strange goings on in rural France! 8/10
by Georges Simenon
A body found dead in the cellars of a posh hotel in Paris with fingers pointing clearly at one of the staff.
Maigret gets a trip to the South of France where he seems very out of place, as well as getting mixed up with a rich American before we finally discover the true murderer. 8/10
by Georges Simenon
A melancholy affair this one as Cecile should not have died and to some extent Maigret believes he is responsible. He gets to the bottom of it in the end though :) 8/10
by Juan Emar
A crazy book written by a chilean author in the 1930's. Very funny in places and totally bizarre throughout. 7/10
by Georges Simenon
Another strange case. Maigret has been retired for sometime and is living in the Loire valley near Tours.
His nephew, a policeman, does something stupid and is arrested for murder drawing Maigret back to Paris and his detective work.
I need to read around this as there are 55 more novels in this series and the next one has Maigret back in full detective mode so clearly not published chronologically. 8/10
by George Simenon
An interesting book with Maigret about to retire and a strange barge owner whose past catches up with him. Darker than some but really enjoyable 9/10
by John McGregor
A difficult but compulsive read. Robert, has worked for 30 years in Antarctica for several months of the year. On his last trip he has a stroke in the middle of a storm and further tragedy ensues. The large part of the book deals with the aftermath of these events and Robert's handling of his speech and mobility impairment. It also deals with his wife who holds a senior research post and the effect it has on her life. This gets lost toward the end of the book and I ended up musing on how this would pan out. Thought provoking stuff and written in a totally engaging style 9/10
by Gustave Flaubert
A book made interesting by its historical setting and the key events in the 1840's in France as it passed from monarchy to republic. The plot is limited, following the life of the main character, Frédéric Moreau. He is generally annoying but is in love with the wife of a man called Arnoux who is modelled on a real life character. His character drawing is good and some of Frederic's friends are at times funny, monstrous or to be pitied. I never felt any of this for our hero. 7/10
by Georges Simenon
Off on his travels again, Maigret is in Cannes and Antibes on the cote d'Azur. A man has been murdered. He is a foreigner but has lived in France for sometime and was a hero of the resistance. He appears to have fallen on hard times but there is more to it than that. Very enjoyable! 8/10
by Georges Simenon
Maigret gets shot while on his way to the Dordogne for a holiday.
He has to solve the case from his convalescent bed. Good policing mystery. 8/10
by Max Porter
A very short book telling the story of Francis Bacon's death through his supposed thoughts on 6 canvasses. I felt all through that I was close to seeing what Bacon and the author were grappling for but failed on both accounts. Maybe I needed to know more about Bacon or maybe.......5/10
by Kazuo Ishiguro
A story about robots set sometime in the not too distant future would not normally be my chosen reading but I did enjoy this. It uses the robot Klara to examine what love is and what is human and a playful examination of religious belief. As you would expect all really well written with a bittersweet and almost inevitable ending, 8/10
by Charles Dickens
In many ways a collection of stories but weaved together in a humorous way by the members of the club and Sam Weller, Mr. Pickwick's manservant. This is one of Dickens's funniest books with a whole host of amusing and sometimes unbelievable characters. Too long some would say, and they may have a point, but hugely enjoyable as a source of escapism 9/10
by Orlando Figes
This was a fantastic book. It manages to bring together official and unofficial accounts from all sides in a major conflict and put them in the context of European history at the time, and all in a highly engaging manner. 10/10
by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
This book took me by surprise. Firstly, by how vitriolic he was toward those he felt had let him down and secondly how right wing his views seem from the standpoint of the twenty first century.
What the book captures really well is how oppressive Western democracy/capitalism can be albeit in a different way to soviet communism. An interesting but long winded book. 6/10
by Patricia Lockwood
What to make of this book? First of all I needed an urban slang dictionary next to me to understand some of the language. Then, I ended the book in tears. The writing is fresh and engaging although some of the metaphors took some stretching of the imagination to work.
In the end it seemed to be an internet meets reality type of book and the writing about reality in part two wins hands down. 8/10
by JMG Le Clezio
This book is beautiful.
It follows a young woman called Lalla alongside the march of people in 1910 from South Sudan to Morocco where they were slaughtered by colonial forces. The echos of this event seem to haunt the book. There is a chapter where Lalla is walking through Marseilles after leaving her aunt which is mesmerising. The use of language-even in translation- is wonderful. 9/10
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
by Denise Mina
First novel featuring Alex Morrow. Enjoyable and at times great writing. Will definitely read more 8/10
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
