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