For the fourth year, it is a great pleasure to share with you the books I’ve read over the last 12 months. Listing and remembering the stories links me into what was happening in my life and the rich layers experience I’ve had this year, not least, seeing Second Spring hit the bookshops in the spring. But given the kind of year it’s been, this is basically how I self-medicate.
The list is in no particular order and it includes the ones I couldn’t finish. Have you read any of them? I’d love to know what you thought about them. And what should I read next, fellow bookworms? Tell me what you’ve enjoyed (or not!) over at Instagram or in the comments, life is short, let’s spend it reading some great books!
If reading is your thing you may enjoy my book lists from 2019, 2020 and 2021 too.
Diary of a Void – Emi Yagi – a wry critique of the politics of pregnancy at work in contemporary Japan. Very dry, so that it wasn’t until I was half way through that I found I was completely smitten with clever Ms Shibata and her audacious deception.
Project Hail Mary – Andy Weir. A rare foray into sci-fi for me. I loved his enthusiasm and joy in the adventure and relationship with rocky the alien but skipped the science bits (hello jennifer Anniston). He must have a brain the size of a plant to be able to hold the complexity of the world he created.
Vesper Flights – Helen MacDonald. after the previous book I needed to ground myself back into my own world. It’s a collection of essays on natural history which draw parallels with our inner world. I gobbled them up like sweeties.
This Much is True – Miriam Margolyes. Interesting to understand more about the delicious phenomenon that is MM. fabulous showbiz and civilian anecdotes. I just wish that she used cunt as a term of admiration not as an insult.
The Stubborn Light of Things – Melissa Harrison. Collection of observations on nature in south London and Suffolk from her podcast of the same name. Full of wonder and longing.
We Begin at the End – Chris Whitaker. Billed as a crime novel, this was much much more. I wanted to finish it quickly because it was heartbreaking. It well deserves the sack full of prizes it won.
Around the world in 80 plants – Jonathan Drori & illustrated by Lucille Clerc. Perfect pre-sleep reading. Fascinating facts about the habits and adaptations of the plants delivered with a wry humour.
Taste: my life through food – Stanley Tucci. Who can resist a date with this charming, humble funny and beautiful man? And when food is involved, as he says himself in his joyous tv series ‘oh my god’ it is to die for.
Open Water – Caleb Azumah Nelson. Tender, truthful exploration of systemic racism from the inside and its corrosive affect on everything. I often struggle with gen-z novels about relationships, they seem one dimensional and lifeless to my second spring eye. But this (sadly) brief story describes a love affair so beautifully and with so much nuance, I could recall the early days of my own relationship.
Misfits: a personal manifesto- Michaela Coel. The brightest, most brilliant, genius in tv and film has written a book which somehow escaped me before. Expanded from her extraordinary McTaggart lecture she offers courage and cheerleading for anyone who has tried and failed to fit in.
Purple Hibiscus- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi. Stifling privilege, violence and control is contrasted with laughter books and, love. Written from the perspective of teenage Kambili it shares the power of silenced feminine.
Girl A – Abigail Dean. Beautifully nuanced tale of survivors of abuse, and how the adults deal with it or not. Beautifully drawn characters, we switch timelines between then and now. Dark. Human. Awful. Held my breath most of the way through. Definitely not to be read before bedtime.
Sugar – Bernice McFadden. Set in 1950’s Arkansas. Sex, awakening, prejudice, brilliant story telling and utterly believable characters.
The Swifts and Us – Sarah Gibson. Well written engaging exploration into the extraordinary and mysterious life of these birds. Now I like swifts but I like stories more and I gave up half way through. This says more about me than this excellent book.
Exit- Belinda Baur. Charming who-dunnit story set in the West Country with quiet, believably real, flawed characters overcoming their limits who feel like friends. I didn’t guess the end.
Penguin Bloom – Cameron Bloom and Bradley Trevor Greive. The real life story of a vibrant mother who became paralysed and depressed after an accident, lost and re-found herself with the companionship of the bird that accompanied her through her recovery.
The Cairo trilogy- Naguib Mahfoux. Gave up on this, I just couldn’t find live for the entitled men or their trapped female relatives.
Cycles of belonging – Stella Tomlinson. ALL the wisdom of the cycles, all of it. If you liked Second Spring you will love this too.
Between Psyche and Soma – Gerda Boyesen. I’ve waited nearly 30 years to read this book. Written by body-mind pioneer. She describes how she developed her revolutionary theories which are now mainstream and she remains unacknowledged. Again and again she describes how no one would listen to her.
The Dictionary of Lost Words – Pip Williams. Immediately felt I was in good hands from the first page, a heavenly mix of feminism and wordiness set over the turn of the century. Love, loss, ww1, suffragettes and 💗
Bird by Bird: instructions on writing and life – Anne Lamott. Validates every moment of the heaven and hell it took to write Second Spring. Every writer must read this.
The Sealed Letter – Emma Donoghue. Probably a unique experience of reading a fictionalised version of my family history. No one comes out looking good, which probably makes it plausible at the very least.
The Imagination Chamber – Phillip Pullman. I grabbed at this because I am still waiting desperately for the final part of the Book of Dust trilogy. Preordered with hope, it turned out to be some bits and bobs to keep us going till the main event. COME ON Pullman!! A book of duty bits.
Help. Thanks. Wow. The Three Essential Proyers – Ann Lammot. All about the power of prayer and frailty of humans. The title says it all, it is ronseal and does what it says on the tin; ask for help, have gratitude and awe.
Climbing in the Dark – Adeola Sheehy. Documents the break up of her relationship in visceral poetry helping us to understand our pain and trust that over time, we too can find safer shores again, knowing we are not alone. A magnificent creation.
Breathing Lessons – Anne Tyler. Exquisitely written peek into into the inside of a long relationship, the irritations, compromises and bitterness we all pretend does not apply to ourselves. Reads like wearing silk underwear.
The Night Watchman – Louise Erdrich. Eye opening exploration of generational trauma and the battle for Chippewa (and all Native American people ) for human rights as the U.S. government plan legislation to erase them. I loved how female relationships are depicted and it’s all wrapped up with a mystery and a love story, based on the writer’s family history too. How can one book hold so much goodness??
Wild Silence – Raynor Winn. The second book following the wildly successful Salt Path, in which Raynor shares her spiritual journey for connection. Tenderness abounds as she describes her inner life.
The Lost Child – Julie Myerson. As a parent with averagely wibbly boundaries, it read absolutely true, giving me the heebyjeebies. It gives a nuanced, real-life experience of a child addicted to skunk, mixed in with Julie’s research into artist Mary Yelloy who died in 1830’s. Potent with times passing and the sweetness of young children.
Both of You – Adele Park. pleasing mystery page-turner that unwraps the age-old issue of how to have it all. Domesticity and freedom, children and glamour etc etc. Spoiler alert…. you can’t.
The Stopped Heart – Julie Myerson. a study of grief and child loss cleverly woven together with the mystery of events happening from the past. Ghosts and echoes of abuse, grooming, violent death and recovery echo down through time. Utterly believable.
Marriage Material – Sathnam Sanghera. Fictional story based on ‘The Old Wive’s Tale’, following 2 generations of Sikhs moving from partition India to shop keepers in Wolverhampton. Full of the compromise, resilience and xx of putting down roots and flourishing in the endless racism in the newly multicultural Black Country of 70’s, up to today’s multicultural awareness.
American Dirt – Jeanine Cummins. I could not put this down until I finished it. Documents the refugee journey from Mexico to the U.S. in the hope of escaping drug cartels. Absolutely riveting.
Acts of Service – Lillian Fishman. Exploring sexuality and desire through our heroine Eve, who despite her perfect girlfriend, longs to fully explore desire with a polyamoyrous couple. It opens questions about control, free will, and I couldn’t make up my mind whether I thought it was too cheap or too deep for me.
One Day I Shall Astonish The World – Nina Stibbe. A delicious page turner following Susan and her best friend Norma’s life from teens to second spring in a functional Leicestershire university town. Beautifully written.
Bleed Between The Lines – Stephanie Farrell Moore. I soaked this up like a (menstrual) sponge, Sephanie’s poems brought me right back into the beautiful rhythm of my menstrual cycle, I haven’t this close since my last full bleed some years ago.
The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington – Joanna Moorhead. Memoir of the life of the best known of the women surrealists. Spans from upper class turn of the century in northern England through Paris in 20’s to Mexico City where she finally found her home and the appreciation for her formidable body of work.
What Seems To Be the Problem? Dr Laura Marshall-Andrews. Laura documents how she set up a GP practice in Brighton that put patients experience first and integrates western, complementary and social prescribing. Utterly inspiring. Full of beautiful stories of resilience, honesty and the fierce creativity of being in a human body and how to meet this with compassion and wisdom.
Love, Nina – Nina Stibbes. Real life letters from a 20 yr old who finds herself as an au pair smack in the middle of 80’s literary London. Witty, sweet observations of middle class life especially when the likes of Alan Bennet pop round for shepherds pie.
The Outside Boy – Jeannie Cummins. HC has the capacity to absorb a culture and digest it so thoroughly, we believe we are in it too from reading her words. Set in 50’s, Christopher, an Irish traveler boy, carries guilt and longing for his mother in this poignant story of belonging.
Shuggie Bane – Douglas Stuart. So grim I nearly gave up after 10 pages. I decided to persevere though as my sadness for these characters, and shuggie’s attempts to be ‘normal’ kept the pages going through alcoholism, abandonment, and betrayal in 80’s of Glasgow brought to its knees by Thatcher’s policies.
The Crooked Branch – Jeannie Cummins. Yes, it’s the 3rd Jeannie Cummins of the year and this is my least favourite of the three. Two parallel stories of new motherhood in Brooklyn and survival of the potato famine in Ireland read slightly stilted.
Lolly Willows – Sylvia Townsend Warner. Delicious interwar story of how spinster aunt Laura cuts ties with convention and learns her true nature. A new Second Spring sheroe.
Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of Life – Sharon Blackie. Utterly inspiring and much anticipated exploration of how to age and die in a female and age resistant world. Drawing on myth, natural history, inspiring women and sharon’s life experience she offers the possibility of really living. Absolutely bloody brilliant.
Bittersweet: how sorrow and longing made us whole – Susan Cain. Validating weepy movies sad songs, rainy days and doggy eyes as necessary precursor’s to compassion and a cohesive society. Fascinating. Reassuring. Validating.
The Binding – Bridget Collins – uses the ingenious premise that it could be possible to remove memories from the mind and preserve them in books. By following the experiences of young Emmet Farmer, in a time quite like later 19th century, we discover the consequences, exploitation and loss that follows.
The Natural Menopause Method – Karen Newby. Straight-forward, do-able nutritional and life-style advice with all the science to back it up. Beautifully designed and presented as you would expect from Pavillion Books.
