I gravitate naturally towards political and crime thrillers, and dark and suspenseful novels, and so these titles dominate my list this year, but I try to read more widely and to explore unfamiliar genres whenever I can. I have also noticed that switching to e-books means that I am less swayed by a book's cover, which has its pros and its cons. Here are my top five books of the year:
1. The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer. This is a story about a group of friends who meet as teenagers at a performing arts summer camp in the mid-1970s and who are tipped for Great Things. Thirty years on, however, and most of them are living much more ordinary lives than they had imagined. Wolitzer's novel is long but engaging: a tale of success and failure, friendship and betrayal, love and regret.
2. The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters. Set in my neighbourhood — well, Camberwell, so almost — in the early 1920s, Waters' novel paints a dank and repressed picture of post-World-War-I London. Frances, an intelligent woman in her mid-twenties, lives alone with her mother in a crumbling Camberwell manse until they take in the eponymous paying guests — a young, married couple — to boost their income. For a slow-burner of a novel, there are a fair few dramatic twists along the way, and Waters' portrayal of her heroine is complex and compelling.
3. The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion. I picked this book up on a whim at an airport and really enjoyed it — it is also the only novel in my top five with a male author. The Rosie Project introduces us to Melbourne geneticist Don Tilman. He has a successful career and enjoys his life, which is dominated by routines within routines, but flounders in social situations.
He decides it is time to find a wife and sets about the project in a ridiculously rigorous, scientific way. He doesn't count on meeting Rosie, however: a highly unpredictable young woman who wants him to help her find her biological father. Simsion's novel is often funny and sometimes moving and with a quirky but likeable protagonist. It comes as no surprise that the sequel is already out and the movie is in the works...
4. The Divorce Papers by Susan Rieger. Les Liaisons Dangereuses is on my list of all-time favourite books and I have always had a soft spot for epistolary novels and their futuristic spawn. Julie Schumacher's Dear Committee Members — another favourite of mine this year — is told entirely through the emails from an ageing university professor who is constantly asked by students, colleagues and rivals for letters of recommendation. The Divorce Papers, meanwhile, is about a young criminal lawyer in a New England law firm who is roped in to handle a divorce case for a rich power couple.
4. The Divorce Papers by Susan Rieger. Les Liaisons Dangereuses is on my list of all-time favourite books and I have always had a soft spot for epistolary novels and their futuristic spawn. Julie Schumacher's Dear Committee Members — another favourite of mine this year — is told entirely through the emails from an ageing university professor who is constantly asked by students, colleagues and rivals for letters of recommendation. The Divorce Papers, meanwhile, is about a young criminal lawyer in a New England law firm who is roped in to handle a divorce case for a rich power couple.
Rieger tells the story using emails, memoranda and other work documents written by her young protagonist — who is bright and hard-working, but insecure and occasionally unprofessional — and adds some heft to what could venture into chick-lit territory by including 'real' legal documents from the fictional state of Narragansett. The Divorce Papers really helped to fill my lawyer-envy void while The Good Wife is on hiatus.
5. The Bees by Laline Paull. There are plenty of dystopian young adult novel franchises kicking around at the moment, but Paull's novel adds a creative and well-imagined new dimension to the tiring genre. The Bees tells the story of Flora 717, a young bee assigned to the sanitation caste. She isn't allowed to fly and she certainly isn't allowed to breed, but she has special talents that, if discovered, but her life and the order of the hive in danger. Paull has also clearly done a huge amount of research on her apian protagonists. The book cover endorsement says it best: The Handmaid's Tale meets Watership Down.
As I always find inspiration in other people's end-of-year favourite book lists, I thought I'd also list the five books that didn't quite make the final cut:
The Outline of Love — Morgan McCarthy
Lush Life — Richard Price
The Centenary of the Crossword — John Halpern
Two Girls, One on Each Knee (7) — Alan Connor
Entombed — Linda Fairstein
Lipstick Jungle — Candace Bushnell
First Novel — Nicholas Royle
Y — Marjorie Celona
The Sealed Letter — Emma Donoghue
The Interestings — Meg Wolitzer
Sisterland — Curtis Sittenfeld
The Wolf of Wall Street — Jordan Belfort
Lionheart — Sharon Penman
Crazy Rich Asians — Kevin Kwan
The Smartest Kids in the World — Amanda Ripley
Precious Thing — Colette McBeth
Tampa — Alissa Nutting
The Art of Fielding — Chad Harbach
The Gods of Guilt — Michael Connelly
The Deadhouse — Linda Fairstein
Heresy — SJ Parris
The Woman Upstairs — Claire Messud
The Book Thief — Markus Zusak
The Life of Pi — Yann Martel
Death Angel — Linda Fairstein
American Dream Machine — Matthew Specktor
The Liars' Club — Mary Kerr
Think Twice — Lisa Scottoline
Reconstructing Amelia — Kimberly McCreight
The House Girl — Tara Conklin
Cutting for Stone — Abraham Verghese
Angela's Ashes — Frank McCourt
Lemon Grove — Helen Walsh
The Next Time You See Me — Holly Goddard Jones
A Thousand Pardons — Jonathan Dee
Six Years — Harlan Coben
The Monuments Men — Robert Edsel
Sycamore Row — John Grisham
The Goldfinch — Donna Tartt
Season To Taste — Natalie Young
A Heart Bent out of Shape — Emylia Hall
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves — Karen Joy Fowler
Winter's Tale — Mark Helprin
Be Careful What You Wish for — Jeffrey Archer
Prayers for the Stolen — Jennifer Clement
A Delicate Truth — John Le Carré
One Step Too Far — Tina Seskis
A Game of Thrones — George R.R. Martin
A Clash of Kings — George R.R. Martin
Thinking, Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman
The Lost Child of Philomena Lee — Martin Sixsmith
A Storm of Swords — George R.R. Martin
Thursday's Children — Nicci French
Think Like a Freak — Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
Beautiful Ruins — Jess Walter
David and Goliath — Malcolm Gladwell
Quiet — Susan Cain
The Circle — Dave Eggers
Paris — Edward Rutherfurd
The Invention of Wings — Sue Monk Kidd
Bittersweet — Miranda Beverly-Whittemore
The Fever — Megan AbbottThe Village — Nikita Lalwani
A Serpentine Affair — Tina Seskis
The Rosie Project — Graeme Simsion
The Fault in Our Stars — John Green
& Sons — David Gilbert
The Husband's Secret — Liane Moriarty
The Hurricane Sisters — Dorothea Benton Frank
Orphan Train — Christina Baker Kline
The Bean Trees — Barbara Kingsolver
Midnight in Europe — Alan Furst
Divergent — Veronica Roth
Insurgent — Veronica Roth
Allegiant — Veronica Roth
Terms & Conditions — Robert Glancy
Bonita Avenue — Peter Buwalda
Friendship — Emily Gould
Meeting the English — Kate Clanchy
The Marriage Game — Alison Weir
The Bees — Laline Paull
The Vacationers — Emma Straub
Sharp Objects — Gillian Flynn
To Rise Again at a Decent Hour — Joshua Ferris
Mambo in Chinatown — Jean Kwok
Euphoria — Lily King
Above — Isla Morley
A Feast for Crows — George R.R. Martin
The King's Curse — Philippa Gregory
Seating Arrangements — Maggie Shipstead
The Aftermath — Rhidian Brook
Panic — Lauren Oliver
Ciao, America! — Beppe Severgnini
The One & Only — Emily Giffin
Big Little Lies — Liane Moriarty
Americanah — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
All Fall Down — Jennifer Weiner
A Dance with Dragons — George R.R. Martin
My Brilliant Friend — Elena Ferrante
The Last Magazine — Michael Hastings
The Sense of Style — Steven Pinker
Arts & Entertainment — Christopher Beha
NW — Zadie Smith
Stuff Matters — Mark Miodownik
Station Eleven — Emily St John Mandel
A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing — Eimear McBride
Brain on Fire — Susannah Cahalan
The Company — Robert Littell
Us — David Nicholls
Gulp — Mary Roach
The Paying Guests — Sarah Waters
Lamentation — CJ Sansom
Some Luck — Jane Smiley
Serving the Reich — Phil Ball
Gray Mountain — John Grisham
The Children Act — Ian McEwan
The Edge of Eternity — Ken Follett
Pillars of the Earth — Ken Follett
We Were Liars — E. Lockhart
The Story of a New Name — Elena Ferrante
The Secret Place — Tana French
The Promise — Ann Weisgarber
Dear Committee Members — Julie Schumacher
The Splendid Things We Planned — Blake Bailey
Elizabeth Is Missing — Emma Healey
On Such a Full Sea — Chang-Rae Lee
Dear Daughter — Elizabeth Little
Hatchet Job — Mark Kermode
Lila — Marilynne Robinson
The Divorce Papers — Susan Rieger
Leaving Time — Jodi Picoult
5. The Bees by Laline Paull. There are plenty of dystopian young adult novel franchises kicking around at the moment, but Paull's novel adds a creative and well-imagined new dimension to the tiring genre. The Bees tells the story of Flora 717, a young bee assigned to the sanitation caste. She isn't allowed to fly and she certainly isn't allowed to breed, but she has special talents that, if discovered, but her life and the order of the hive in danger. Paull has also clearly done a huge amount of research on her apian protagonists. The book cover endorsement says it best: The Handmaid's Tale meets Watership Down.
As I always find inspiration in other people's end-of-year favourite book lists, I thought I'd also list the five books that didn't quite make the final cut:
- Precious Thing by Colette McBeth. A dark, twisty psychological thriller about a crime reporter and a woman who has gone missing; the pair were close friends when they were younger but drifted apart as their lives diverged.
- A Heart Bent out of Shape by Emylia Hall. The Swiss tourist board should be grateful to Hall, because her novel really made me want to visit Lausanne. Our naïve narrator Hadley is on her year abroad in the Swiss town and forms tentative friendships with fellow student Kristina and her professor, Joel. A Heart Bent out of Shape is beautiful and haunting portrait of love, loss and that fragile period between youth and adulthood.
- We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler. I knew nothing at all about this book when I read it on my iPad — I hadn't looked at the cover or read the blurb — and it is the kind of of novel where you want to avoid spoilers. Suffice to say, Fowler's novel, which tells the story of Rosemary and her unusual and memorable family, is clever, funny and delightful.
- The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. Epic in scale and scope, and beautiful in form, Tartt's novel has earned many plaudits, as well as attracting some detractors. The Goldfinch tells the story of Theo, a young teenager who is left alone after a devastating accident at The Met in New York. There are suspenseful turns, but Tartt often dials down the pace to focus on the detail. Yes, it's long but it's worth the read.
- Quiet by Susan Cain. The only non-fiction work on my longlist, Cain's book is for the introverts out there who would like to be reassured that it's OK to shun a bustling party in favour of a night in reading or spending time with a few close friends. It should also be essential reading for those who believe the only way is extrovert.
My complete 2014 reading list:
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