My Top 5 Books of 2024

As the new year begins, it's time for my annual round-up of my five favourite books from among all of those I read in 2024. I read 123 books last year — my highest total since the pre-pandemic times when I was still commuting regularly. Thrillers, mysteries and crime were my most-read genres, as usual. And I read almost of these on my Kindle, finally upgrading to the newest Paperwhite model after years of service from its predecessor.

My Top 5 Books of 2023

In the second of my end-of-year round-up posts, I'm highlighting my five favourite books from among all of those I read in 2023. It was — for me — a relatively slow year for reading. I read 77 books in total, including a couple of re-reads, and I wasn't feeling very inspired for much of the year. This meant I defaulted to my usual reading favourites: crime and psychological thrillers and books set in New York City (where the photo below was taken). Sometimes both!

Book Review: Kingsrise by Anne Mattias

DI Niamh Khalid, the protagonist at the heart of Anne Mattias's debut novel, Kingsrise, has had better Halloween nights: first, her beloved teenage brother Lance and his friends find themselves in trouble with the law and then a body shows up on the beach. It turns out that the man is critically wounded, not dead, but working out who he is and where (or when) he has come from proves challenging for Niamh and her team. And then a dead man dressed as a knight is found near The Gate, the stone arch on the outskirts of Niamh's sleepy town, and things become even stranger — and more troubling.

My Top 5 Books of 2022

Today, I am sharing my five favourite books from among those I read during 2022. I ended up reading fewer than 100 books in both 2020 and 2021 and to hold myself accountable, at the start of 2022 I started blogging every other month about my favourite books. I tailed off towards the end of the year due to a hectic travel schedule and getting stuck for a while on a few books I wasn't enjoying, but I still achieved my target and read 102 books in 2022. Read on to find out which ones made my shortlist, as well as my full reading list for the year.

My Five Favourite Books of July and August 2022

Another two months have passed (how?!), which means it's time for my bimonthly book recommendations. I read 19 books in July and August, taking my total for the year to date up to 78. I enjoyed so many of the books I read over the past two months and it was really hard to select just five favourites...but here they are.

My Five Favourite Books of May and June 2022

It's time for the latest installment of my bimonthly series where I pick my favourite five books from among those I've read over the past two months. My tally for May and June was slightly down (mainly because there were a couple in there that — were I less of a completionist — may well have been DNFs), but I still read 17 books. I'm up to 59 at this mid-year point, which means I'm comfortably on track to meeting my goal of reading 100 books by the end of the year.

My Five Favourite Books of March and April 2022

This year, I've been trying to get my for-fun reading back up to pre-pandemic levels and I've also been picking out and writing about my favourite five books every two months as a way to hold myself accountable. I read 20 books in March and April, taking my year-to-date tally to 42. Here are my five favourites from among the books I've read in the past two months.

My Five Favourite Books of January and February 2022

Just like in 2020, the number of books I read last year dipped below the 100 mark. For most people, reading 74 books in a year is still a lot, but in 2022, I wanted to try to prioritise reading for fun again. And to hold myself accountable, I'm going to write a post every two months picking out my five favourite books from among those I've read. So far, this is working quite well, as it's the end of February and I've already read 22 books. Here are the five that I most enjoyed reading.

My Top 5 Books of 2021

What with one thing and another, my 2021 end-of-year round-ups have been slightly delayed, such that it is now already 2022. In this post, I'm highlighting my five favourite novels that I read in 2021, as well as five more that almost made the shortlist. 

Lockdown Lit: Five Books for Your 2021 Summer Reading List

 1. The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris*

I was looking forward to reading Zakiya Dalila Harris's debut novel for many weeks, and I raced through it in a couple of evenings. In the novel, Nella is a 26-year-old editorial assistant working at a New York publishing house. She works hard, gets on well with her editor and hopes she is on track for a promotion in the not-too-distant future. She is also the only Black employee...until Hazel starts as a new editorial assistant. At first, Nella is pleased; she feels that some of her efforts to encourage the company to take diversity, equity and inclusion more seriously are finally paying off. But when Hazel makes in-roads with the editor Nella works for, and then their CEO, Nella begins to wonder if she should in fact feel threatened by her fellow editorial assistant. 

My Top 5 Books of 2020

This is the last of my 2020 round-up posts, and highlights my favourite five books that I've read this year. My reading habits changed as much as my travel habits this year, and I've read far fewer books than last year: 94, in total. I used to read for pleasure mainly on my bus ride into the office and when travelling. I've technically had more time this year, but I've tended to use it for other hobbies, like writing (my own novel is now technically finished after I wrote the final 30,000 words this year) and doom-scrolling. I also got stuck on Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light for several weeks, which I did enjoy but felt it should have been 200 pages shorter. Il Decameron is a pretty hefty read too, even in English, rather than the Italian original I studied at university, but its Black Death setting and black humour felt apt for this year. 

Spotted in Rye, Sussex

Lockdown Lit: My 5 Favourite Books of August 2020

The Vanishing Half — Brit Bennett
Blame Francine Pascal, whose Sweet Valley High novels I devoured during my tween years, but I've always had a certain fascination with novels featuring twins. Brit Bennett's The Vanishing Half, which tells the story of light-skinned Black twin sisters Desiree and Stella. Although parts of it are set in California and although Stella's daughter might not be too out of place in Sweet Valley, it's otherwise worlds apart.

Lockdown Lit: My Five Favourite Books in June 2020

1. Silver Sparrow — Tayari Jones

Like many people, I enjoyed Tayari Jones's acclaimed 2018 novel An American Marriage, and a friend recently recommended I check out Silver Sparrow, which was published in 2011. Silver Sparrow tells the story of two sisters, Dana and Chaurisse, growing up in Atlanta in the 1980s. They are the same age and have a lot in common, but there's a catch: their bigamist father James Witherspoon married Dana's mother Gwen out of state having already married Chaurisse's mother Laverne years earlier. And although Dana knows who her father is and spends time with him in private, this secret must be closely guarded. The asymmetry of information results in dramatic irony in the second half of the novel, when the narration shifts from Dana to a blissfully unknowing Chaurisse. 

Lockdown Lit: Five Fab Crime Novel Series

Like many people, my prime time for reading was on my commute, which gave me a total of 90 minutes to two hours per day with a book or my Kindle. I read 135 books in 2019, most of them on the bus, but when the lockdown was brought in in London, I found it hard to motivate myself to read initially. I had so much more time to myself but I couldn't quite tear myself away from the Sisyphean search for scintillating shows on streaming services, or random rabbit holes on the internet.

My Top 5 Books of 2019

Of the 135 books I read this year, there were many candidates for the top five and it was hard to narrow down my choices. As usual, I read a lot of thrillers, mysteries, crime and suspense, but my top five, and the further five on my longlist, are a little more diverse. And although I didn't pay attention to the gender of the authors when I was making my choices, all five of this year's top five, and four of my longlist, are written by women.

My Top 5 Books of 2018

One of the problems with being a serial reader is that none of your friends and family understand when you lament that you 'only' read 111 books in a year. But compared to the 148 I read in 2017 and the 200 I read in 2016, it does sound like a lot less. I blame my incredibly busy year at work, and my hectic itinerary in Peru didn't give me much chance to catch up on my reading.

Before I get to this year's list, I also want to celebrate two books written by friends of mine, which were published this year. Ingrid Alexandra's The New Girl is a dark and satisfyingly twisty psychological thriller about a young woman whose new housemate's strange behaviour threatens to awaken dark secrets from the past. Meanwhile, in his concise but comprehensive work, The Philosophy of Coffee, Brian Williams of Brian's Coffee Spot charts the global ascendancy of coffee and the rise of coffee shops, and shares his personal journey down the coffee rabbit hole. I'm really proud of both Ingrid and Brian, and Ingrid's publication has even encouraged me to recommence work on my own novel, which is now up to 60,000 words. 

Without further ado, here are my favourite five books of 2018: 

1. The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin. In the sultry summer of '69, the four young Gold siblings visit a travelling psychic who claims she can tell each of them when they will die. The rest of Benjamin's soaring novel glides through the next half-century, following each sibling in turn and asking us to assess whether — and if so, to what extent — the predictions influence the Golds' fates. The Immortalists is broad in scope, skipping from the 1970s San Francisco gay scene to a longevity research lab in the present day. It's also moving, thought-provoking and beautifully written.

2. Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan. Vaughan's novel — part psychological thriller, part courtroom drama — feels very timely in 2018. At its core, a prominent politician, James, is accused of a terrible crime. The story hits the press, the case goes to trial, and James's wife Sophie stands by her man. And Kate, who is prosecuting the case, is convinced that James is guilty. It turns out that some of the answers both Kate and Sophie are seeking lie in the past, where James enjoyed a fabled existence at Oxford University as the popular, privileged golden boy. Anatomy of a Scandal is smart, sharp and a real page-turner.

3. The Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggers. A must-read for coffee lovers — and anyone else who enjoys an inspiring and fascinating true story. Dave Eggers' book tells the story of Mokhtar Alkhanshali, the titular Monk of Mokha who goes on to found the speciality coffee company Port of Mokha. Eggers' beautifully written and hugely compelling book tells Alkhanshali's story with colour, wit and compassion.

4. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. There's a lot of heart in Honeyman's tale of isolation and loneliness. The unusual eponymous character leads an orderly but solitary life, steering clear of interactions with colleagues and others, and drinking her way through weekends. This makes for uncomfortable and sometimes devastating reading. But everything changes after Eleanor's chance encounter with a colleague outside work, as Eleanor — and Honeyman — highlight that there's no one 'right' way to live, but that it's never too late to find companionship and respect.

5. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz. A witty and impeccably plotted Agatha Christie-style murder mystery, Magpie Murders is really a whodunnit inside a whodunnit. Detective Atticus Pünd clamours to solve the mysterious murder of an unpopular housekeeper at a 1950s country house. But it's Susan Ryeland — the editor of the writer of the Atticus Pünd mysteries — who is left searching for clues both inside the manuscript and out. I read a lot of crime novels but this was one of the cleverest I've read all year and it's very well written.

And here are five more books that I loved and which didn't quite make my shortlist this year:

• Last Seen Wearing by Hillary Waugh. As I read so much crime fiction, I often like to return to some of the seminal works of the genre. In Waugh's 1952 police procedural, detectives are investigating the disappearance of a college freshman at a liberal arts college in Massachusetts. The novel is meticulous, understated and satisfying.
• The Witch Elm by Tana French. The novels in French's Dublin Murder Squad series are no stranger to my top fives, and her latest standalone novel is almost as good. Rather than focusing on a detective, French introduces us to Toby, the easygoing narrator, whose life of privilege and good fortune is about to come to an end when he becomes the victim of a crime. Dark, gripping and suspenseful, French's novel succeeds despite our uncertainty about how much we like — and trust — any of the characters.
• This Could Hurt by Jill Medoff. Set in a struggling research company, Medoff's novel offers up the stage to five members of the HR department, who jostle for position, schmooze, support and backstab. They share the hopes, fears, heartaches and back stories that underlie their ambitions and motives. Touching, warm and sometimes sad, This Could Hurt does what it says on the tin. You may never look at your HR team the same way again.
• Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. Epic in scope, Lee's multi-generational saga tells the extraordinary story of a family of Korean immigrants in 20th century Japan. Lee's novel is beautifully written, with rich, elegant prose that brings the complex story to life.
• Educated by Tara Westover. In Westover's memorable memoir, she describes her childhood in rural Idaho as the daughter of survivalist parents, isolated from mainstream society. She discovers a deep passion for learning and, after seeking solace in books, gets into college and eventually goes on to do a PhD. It was appropriate, perhaps, that I read this memoir while on the Inca Trail — about as remote a location as I've ever been — and Westover's quietly powerful prose and riveting narrative kept me gripped throughout.

The full list of books I read in 2018 is as follows (as usual, repeat reads are marked in italics):

• Dead Letters — Caite Dolan-Leach
• The Break Down — B.A. Paris
• Pachinko — Min Jin Lee
• What Happened — Hillary Rodham Clinton
• Lullaby — Leïla Slimani
• The Girl in the Snow — Danya Kukafka
• Anatomy of a Scandal — Sarah Vaughan
• Fire and Fury — Michael Wolff
• The Thirst — Jo Nesbø
• The Wife Between Us — Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen
• The Woman in the Window — A.J. Finn
• The Philosophy of Coffee — Brian Williams
• The Rooster Bar — John Grisham
• Death at La Fenice — Donna Leon
• The Monk of Mokha — Dave Eggers
• A Column of Fire — Ken Follett
• The Guilty Wife — Elle Croft
• The Perfect Stranger — Megan Miranda
• Now You See Her — Heidi Perks
• Macbeth — Jo Nesbø
• Ready Player One — Ernest Cline
• An American Marriage — Tayari Jones
• Friend Request — Laura Marshall
• The Late Show — Michael Connelly
• Call Me By Your Name — André Aciman
• The Travelling Cat Chronicles — Hiro Arikawa
• The Anonymous Venetian — Donna Leon
• Twins — Dirk Kurbjuweit
• A Little Life — Hanya Yanagihara
• Anything You Do Say — Gillian McAllister
• Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine — Gail Honeyman
•  Bring You Back — B.A. Paris 
• Death and the Virgin — Chris Skidmore
• Every Note Played — Lisa Genova
• Let Me Lie — Clare Mackintosh 
• Then She Was Gone — Lisa Jewell
• The Female Persuasion — Meg Wolitzer
• Crimson Lake — Candice Fox 
• Magpie Murders — Anthony Horowitz
• All the Beautiful Lies — Peter Swanson
• The Party — Elizabeth Day
• Everything I Know About Love — Dolly Alderton
• Clean — Juno Dawson
• Our Kind of Cruelty — Araminta Hall
• The Elizas — Sara Shepard
• The Good Liar — Catherine McKenzie
• The Perfect Mother — Aimee Molloy
• Sisters in Law — Linda Hirshman
• That Kind of Mother — Rumaan Alam
• Darling — Rachel Edwards 
• Paper Ghosts — Julia Heaberlin
• The Italian Teacher — Tom Rachman
• My Absolute Darling — Gabriel Tallent
• Fear — Dirk Kurbjuweit
• Social Creature — Tara Isabella Burton
• Last Seen Wearing — Hillary Waugh
• Pretty Girls — Karin Slaughter
• Providence — Caroline Kepnes
• The Favourite Sister — Jessica Knoll
• This Could Hurt — Jillian Medoff
• MEM — Bethany C. Morrow
• 1974 — David Peace
• Everyone Is Beautiful — Katherine Center
• The New Girl — Ingrid Alexandra
• Laura & Emma — Kate Greathead
• The Last Time I Lied — Riley Sager
• All We Ever Wanted — Emily Giffin
• Day of the Dead — Nicci French
• Last Breath — Karin Slaughter
• The Ensemble — Aja Gabel
• Girls Burn Brighter — Shobha Rao
• 1977 — David Peace
• The Last Enchantments — Charles Finch
• Warlight — Michael Ondaatje 
• 1980 — David Peace
• 1983 — David Peace
• Pieces of Her — Karin Slaughter
• Mean Streak — Sandra Brown
• All the Hidden Truths — Claire Askew
• The Surgeon — Tess Gerritsen
• If I Was Your Girl — Meredith Russo
• Fruit of the Drunken Tree — Ingrid Rojas Contreras
• The Mars Room — Rachel Kushner
• Friction — Sandra Brown
• Our House — Louise Candlish
• Educated — Tara Westover
• The Incendiaries — R. O. Kwon
• If You Leave Me — Crystal Hana Kim
• The Kiss Quotient — Helen Hoang
• A Spark of Life — Jodi Picoult
• China Rich Girlfriend — Kevin Kwan
• The Witch Elm — Tana French
• Rich People Problems — Kevin Kwan
• Number One Chinese Restaurant — Lillian Li
• The Immortalists — Chloe Benjamin
• Love Is Blind — William Boyd
• The Gunners — Rebecca Kauffman
• Sting — Sandra Brown
• The Death of Mrs Westaway — Ruth Ware
• Miss Ex-Yugoslavia — Sofija Stefanović
• The Anatomy of Dreams — Chloe Benjamin 
• Transcription — Kate Atkinson
• A Dark Time — Sophie Hannah 
• Home Fire — Kamila Shamsie
• Death and Judgement — Donna Leon
• Little Fires Everywhere — Celeste Ng
• The French Girl — Lexie Elliott
• The Flight Attendant — Chris Bohjalian
• Force of Nature — Jane Harper
• Give Me Your Hand — Megan Abbott
• Grist Mill Road — Christopher J. Yates

The bookshop featured in the photograph at the top is the wonderful Topping & Company in Bath.

Book Review: Lonely Planet's Global Coffee Tour

I couldn't have imagined a better book launch than the one I attended last week for a book about coffee and travel from my favourite travel guidebook publisher at one of my favourite coffee shops in London. The event was for Lonely Planet's Global Coffee Tour and took place at the original branch of The Gentlemen Baristas on Union Street, which I've been visiting for almost four years.

After enjoying a natural Ethiopian pourover coffee courtesy of The Gents and watching a latte art demo with one of the baristas, I talked with some of the friendly Lonely Planet team, including editor Karyn Noble, an Australian in London who was as delighted as I was to discover The GBs, which features in Global Coffee Tour, of course. I also got the chance to browse through the book, which is organised by continent and country and includes numerous coffee-shop recommendations, ordering tips (if I ever make it to Ethiopia — and I hope I will — I know now to say: "Nē buna ibakiwo ifeligalehu") and insights into coffee production, café culture and home-brewing.

It was a good sign when I opened the book at random on the Hungary section and came up with several coffee-shop suggestions to add to my list of cafés to visit when I go to Budapest next month. And I've already visited 23 of the listed countries on four continents, which meant I could compare their suggestions against some of my own lists. I concluded that the recommendations are very well curated, with some really great specialty coffee spots in cities from Paris and Mexico City, to Melbourne and Saigon. One thing I particularly like is that rather than just listing cafés throughout the world that will serve a high-quality but identikit flat white, the guide includes locations that will give you a real taste for the local coffee culture. There's a coffee plantation in Costa Rica, for example (not the farm I visited), while in Tokyo, the wonderful and historical Café de l'Ambra, features in the guide.

Lonely Planet's guides are usually my first port of call when I'm planning a trip (unless the region's guide happens to be very out of date), and I find the inclusion of cafés and coffee shops convenient for key sights in their 'pocket' city guide range very useful. Global Coffee Tour flips that around: several coffee shops are presented for each city, along with a few suggestions for other things to do nearby. This is perfect for people like me, who often plan their travels around the coffee (NB: I always do a lot of research when seeking out a city's best coffee spots), but feel like it would be a waste to visit a new city without seeing anything but the coffee scene. So if you're visiting Tim Wendelboe in Oslo (and you should), you'll know to visit the Munchmuseet and take dinner at Markveien Mat & Vinhus when you're all coffeed out.

The book has lots of photos and it's enjoyable both to browse for coffee-destination inspiration and to search for places for a specific trip. Colombia, Nicaragua and Ethiopia jumped even higher up my travel wish list. One small point for anyone hoping to visit Supercrown in NYC: alas, the wonderful Bushwick coffee shop and roastery has now closed. The only trouble now is that there are even more coffee destinations for me to visit. #coffeebloggerproblems

Disclaimer: Global Coffee Tour was published by Lonely Planet in May 2018. I received a free copy at the launch. The decision to write a review was mine and all opinions here are my own.

Book Review: The Monk of Mokha

Dave Eggers’ new book The Monk of Mokha tells the remarkable and inspiring story of Mokhtar Alkhanshali, a Yemeni American in search of a dream — until, after a few false starts, he stumbles down the rabbit hole of speciality coffee. After growing up in San Francisco’s tough Tenderloin neighbourhood, Alkhanshali knows he wants to do something more with his life but doesn’t have a plan. Then one day, a friend tells him to check out the statue of “a Yemeni dude drinking a big cup of coffee” opposite the fancy apartment building where he is working as a doorman. The statue — of a man who “seemed to be some mash-up of Ethiopian and Yemeni" — turns out to be located in the lobby of a building built by the Hills brothers, whose company had a key role in popularising coffee in the United States throughout the 20th century.

Intrigued, Alkhanshali begins to research Yemen’s role in the origins of coffee: the country is home to the first coffee cultivation and organised coffee trade, but its exports have since withered to a negligible level. At the same time, Alkhanshali learns about the intricacies of contemporary speciality coffee production and preparation. His training ground is first the Sunday morning cupping sessions at Blue Bottle’s Oakland headquarters and then Boot Coffee, where he becomes the ever-present, enthusiastic apprentice of Willem Boot.

And soon, the apprentice has a plan: he will create the world’s first Yemeni speciality coffee company, empowering farmers and growers and producing high-quality coffee beans, while maintaining high standards of ethics and transparency. To do this, Alkhanshali must first become a Q grader — a speciality coffee expert qualified to rate and score Arabica coffee — and pass a test of 22 parts, some of which “would seem to the generalist or everyday coffee enthusiast insane”, Eggers notes. And even then, starting a company in Yemen during a civil war was never going to be easy, and along the way, Alkhanshali must evade Saudi bombs, Houthi rebels and other dangers besides. I cannot imagine that anyone has ever gone through as much adversity to attend the annual Specialty Coffee Association conference as Mokhtar did.

Eggers’ narrative is beautifully written and hugely compelling. His description of the history of coffee is fascinating, entertaining and rich with colour, his language wonderfully evocative, from the coffee beans like “piles of red cherries like huge ruby-red beads” to the Ethiopian shepherd Khaldi’s over-caffeinated “jumping, prancing, braying” sheep. But most of all, Eggers conveys Mokhtar’s passion, drive and determination in his quest to make his dream a reality. It’s an inspiring story — one I didn’t want to end — I wanted to spend more time in the company of this incredible man who made his dream into a reality.

Naturally, the first thing I did after finishing the book was to Google Mokhtar’s company, Port of Mokha, and read more about what happened after the events depicted in the book. The coffee isn’t terribly easy to get hold of in the UK, but I hope that the success of The Monk of Mokhtar will make it more accessible. Otherwise, I hope to be able to track it down in the United States sometime. As for Mokhtar Alkhanshali himself, London readers can find him at an event to discuss the book and his story at Foyles, Charing Cross Road, on 5 March. I might well see you there!

Book Review: The Philosophy of Coffee

What do dancing goats, an Indian Sufi named Baba Budan and a City of London side street called St Michael’s Alley have in common? If you've read The Philosophy of Coffee by Brian Williams (AKA the titular Brian of Brian's Coffee Spot), recently published by the British Library, you should know the answer.

But if you need more of a hint, all three feature in Brian's fact-packed, whistle-stop tour of the history and global ascendancy of coffee as a bean, commodity and beloved beverage. Brian charts the rise of coffee houses and their ever-evolving role in society, shares some fascinating stories — including from his own personal coffee journey — and debunks a few myths and misunderstandings along the way (the oft-cited 'statistic' that coffee is the second most-traded commodity on the planet, for example).

In the journey from the seven coffee seeds of the Indian Sufi Baba Budan to the first, second and third waves of coffee, there are 'penny universities' (see also The Black Penny), petitions against the 'Heathenish Liquor called COFFEE', and more recent disrupters from Starbucks and the Friends coffee house, Central Perk, to speciality coffee companies such as Prufrock and Square Mile.

Although I've been on a coffee journey of my own since the turn of the millennium, I've never studied the history and evolution of coffee. Instead, I've picked up parts of the story along the way but Brian's book offers a wonderful overview, which draws together many of those loose ends. I found the chapters discussing the emergence, spread and culture of the coffee house — and its role as a forum, meeting place and socio-political hub — particularly interesting. I grew up in Oxford where I used to hang out at the Queen's Lane Coffee House, which is reputed to be Europe's oldest continually operating coffee house. My coffee tastes have changed since then but I used to enjoy reading or working there, surrounded by centuries of history, coffee-stimulated discussions and cultural connections.

The Philosophy of Coffee also benefits from some lovely illustrations and photographs from the British Library's archives — I'm a sucker for the adverts of yore, in particular. This isn't a book solely for coffee obsessives, however (although they will, of course, enjoy it): it is a fascinating read and very accessible to non-specialists.

Disclaimer: The Philosophy of Coffee is out now, published by The British Library. I bought my own copy from The British Library shop and although Brian is a friend, all opinions here are my own and, as always, completely honest.

My Top 5 Books of 2017

After my mammoth — but not always enjoyable during the home strait — effort to read 200 books last year, I decided not to strive for any particular total this year. Inevitably, though, as I neared the 150 mark, I did my best to reach this figure, although 'only' managed 148. Here are my five favourites, as well as five more that almost made my shortlist (some of these also featured in my summer reading list).

1. The Unseen World by Liz Moore. Meticulously plotted and researched, moving and thought-provoking, Moore's novel follows 12-year-old Ada Sibelius as her father David — a brilliant but eccentric pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence and a director of a computer science lab in Cambridge, MA — begins to develop signs of dementia. The race is then on for Ada to discover the secrets locked inside his mind, but it's more of a marathon than a sprint, as the novel edges through the 1980s to the present day, with a few hops back to the 1920s and 1930s. As someone whose day job involves the communication of science — including recent developments in computer science and AI — I found the themes covered here most interesting, but at its heart, The Unseen World is a complex, richly portrayed family drama with a fascinating mystery at its core.

2. The Alice Network by Kate Quinn. Quinn's novel weaves together the stories of two women connected through the real-life Alice Network — a network of about 100 female spies posted by the British Army and MI6 in northern France during World War One — in a compelling work of historical fiction. In 1915, Eve Gardiner is recruited into the network and posted in a small town in northern France. Eve is trained up by Lili — based on the real-life Louise de Bettignies, the so-called 'queen of spies' whose code name, Alice, gave the network its name. Her assignment is to gather as much information from the occupying Germans as possible and feed it back to her handlers, a perilous job in a town where collaborators and spies abound. Thirty years later, Charlie St. Clair, an unmarried, pregnant American student, comes to Europe with her mother, but takes off to search for her beloved cousin Rose, who went missing in France during World War Two — a search which soon connects her with Eve. Both Eve and Charlie make flawed but courageous heroines and once I got into The Alice Network, I was gripped by both stories.

3. The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo. Set mainly in the first decade of the 20th century in New York City, Santopolo's novel is a beautifully written, intense and often devastating love story. Columbia students Lucy and Gabe meet on 9/11 and, after a couple of false starts, fall in love. But Lucy soon struggles to compete with Gabe's all-encompassing desire to become a photographer, forcing her to make some very tough decisions. With convincing dialogue, and believable, if sometimes frustrating, central characters, The Light We Lost is a fantastic debut novel.

4. Quicksand by Malin Persson Giolito. I read a lot of legal thrillers and Persson Giolito's story about a teenage girl awaiting trial for her involvement in a mass shooting at her exclusive prep school was smart, gripping and satisfyingly twisty. If you enjoy novels with unreliable narrators, this fast-paced novel will keep you guessing as to whether our intelligent, knowing narrator Maja is indeed as innocent as she claims or whether we should believe a word she says.

5. Sourdough by Robin Sloan. A young woman from the Midwest — Lois, a gifted programmer — takes a job at a San Francisco-based robotics company but before long, finds herself becoming an obsessive sourdough baker in her spare time. So far, so standard. But if you've read Sloan's previous novel, you won't be surprised to find that the sourdough, and the novel itself, have been proved with a hefty dose of quirkiness and magical realism. Sourdough is a delightful, clever and unpredictable novel, which is particularly enjoyable for those who have lived in or visited San Francisco.

And now, here are five more books, which didn't quite make my top five this year but which I enjoyed a great deal:

• Startup* by Doree Shafrir. A darkly comic, smart and keenly observed cautionary tale set in New York's fast-paced, social-media-saturated tech startup world.
• The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter. An intelligent, well-plotted thriller about a small-town lawyer who is caught up in a violent crime that drags up memories of the violent crime that tore apart her own family almost 30 years earlier.
• This Is Going To Hurt by Adam Kay. Often funny, sometimes sad and always keenly observed and thought-provoking, writer and comedian Kay's memoir of his former career as a junior doctor is an absolute must-read.
• The Lying Game by Ruth Ware. Ware has a real knack for producing tense, twisty psychological thrillers and her latest, in which four women who were once inseparable during their boarding-school years reunite to prevent past secrets from becoming present-day nightmares, is no exception.
• Everybody Lies by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. One of the few non-fiction books I've read this year, Stephens-Davidowitz's work is an eye-opening dive into big data — and particularly the behavioural insights that can be gleaned from online search engines — making it essential reading for anyone who uses Google.

My full 2017 reading list is as follows (re-reads are in italics):

• The Parrots — Alexandra Shulman
• Big Brother — Lionel Shriver
• America's First Daughter — Laura Kamoie and Stephanie Dray
• The Couple Next Door — Shari Lapena
• Selection Day — Aravind Adiga
• Bloodline — Conn Iggulden
• Arctic Chill — Arnaldur Indriðason
• Geek Love — Katherine Dunn
• 4 3 2 1* — Paul Auster
• Midnight's Children — Salman Rushdie
• Hypothermia — Arnaldur Indriðason
• Any Human Heart — William Boyd
• Almost Missed You* — Jessica Strawser
• When She Was Bad — Tammy Cohen
• Seven Days — Deon Meyer
• The Memory Keeper's Daughter — Kim Edwards
• Cell 8 — Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström
• The Carrier — Sophie Hannah
• See Jane Run — Hannah Jayne
• The Three — Sarah Lotz
• High Crimes — Joseph Finder
• A Separation — Katie Kitamura
• See Jane Run — Joy Fielding
• The Kite Runner — Khaled Hosseini
• Lasting Damage — Sophie Hannah
• Little Deaths — Emma Flint
• Always a Bridesmaid (for Hire) — Jen Glantz
• Outrage — Arnaldur Indriðason
• Little Face — Sophie Hannah
• The Other Half Lives — Sophie Hannah
• The Truth-Teller's Lie — Sophie Hannah
• Everything You Want Me To Be — Mindy Mejia
•  The Point of Rescue — Sophie Hannah
• A Room Swept White — Sophie Hannah
• Kind of Cruel — Sophie Hannah
• The Telling Error — Sophie Hannah
• The Narrow Bed — Sophie Hannah
• Snow Flower and the Secret Fan— Lisa See
• The Idiot — Elif Batuman
• The Lake of Dreams — Kim Edwards
• Did You See Melody?* — Sophie Hannah
• The Death of Lucy Kyte — Nicola Upson
• Black Skies — Arnaldur Indriðason
• Kiss Mommy Goodbye — Joy Fielding
• The Mind's Eye — Håkan Nesser
• Half of a Yellow Sun — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• The Longshot — Katie Kitamura
• See How They Lie — Sue Wallman
• Now You See Her — Joy Fielding
• Flowers for Algernon — Daniel Keyes
• Japanese for Travellers — Katie Kitamura
• Missing Pieces — Joy Fielding
• Startup — Doree Shafrir
• East of Eden — John Steinbeck
• Five Star Billionaire — Tash Aw
• New Boy* — Tracy Chevalier
• Into the Water — Paula Hawkins
• Everybody Lies — Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
• Quicksand — Malin Persson Giolito
• My Husband's Wife— Jane Corry
• Strange Shores — Arnaldur Indriðason
• Woman No. 17 — Edan Lepucki
• Fingersmith — Sarah Waters
• The Burning Girl* — Claire Messud
• Good Intentions — Joy Fielding
• The Rules Do Not Apply — Ariel Levy
• The Keeper of Lost Things — Ruth Hogan
• Borkmann's Point — Håkan Nesser
• The First Time — Joy Fielding
• Don't Cry Now — Joy Fielding
• The Weight of Lies — Emily Carpenter
• Testimony — Scott Turow
• Camino Island — John Grisham
• The Edge of Lost — Kristina McMorris
• Tell Me No Secrets — Joy Fielding
• Life Penalty — Joy Fielding
• The End We Start from — Megan Hunter
• The Light We Lost — Jill Santopolo
• She's Not There — Joy Fielding
• The Dry — Jane Harper
• Sunday Morning Coming Down* — Nicci French
• He Said/She Said — Erin Kelly
• The Lying Game — Ruth Ware
• The Power — Naomi Alderman
• The After Party — Anton DiSclafani
• Place of Execution — Val McDermid
• Scienceblind —Andrew Shtulman
• Blood Sisters — Jane Corry
• Little Boy Lost — J.D. Trafford
• The Girlfriend — Michelle Frances
• The Informationist — Taylor Stevens
• My Brilliant Friend — Elena Ferrante
• Sometimes I Lie — Alice Feeney
• Don't Close Your Eyes — Holly Seddon
• Charley's Webb — Joy Fielding
• The Unseen World — Liz Moore
• The Good Daughter — Karin Slaughter
• The Good Widow— Liz Fenton & Lisa Steinke
• If I Die Before I Wake* — Emily Koch
• Beautiful Animals* — Lawrence Osborne
• The Locals — Jonathan Dee
• Lies — T.M. Logan
• Gather the Daughters — Jennie Melamed
• The Missing Ones — Patricia Gibney
• The Deep End — Joy Fielding
• The Alice Network — Kate Quinn
• Every Last Lie — Mary Kubica
• Close to Home* — Cara Hunter
• The Child in Time — Ian McEwan
• The Diplomat's Daughter— Karin Tanabe
• Lost — Joy Fielding
• Sourdough — Robin Sloan
• The Blackbird Season — Kate Moretti
• Never Let Me Go — Kazuo Ishiguro
• Her Every Fear — Peter Swanson
• Heartstopper — Joy Fielding
• Bluebird, Bluebird — Attica Locke
• The Last Tudor — Philippa Gregory
• Prague — Arthur Phillips
• City of Friends — Joanna Trollope
• Mad River Road — Joy Fielding
• The Vegetarian — Han Kang
• The Sparsholt Affair — Alan Hollinghurst
• Amsterdam — Ian McEwan
• Snow Falling on Cedars— David Guterson
• The Girl Before — JP Delaney
• The Dying Game — Åsa Avdic
• The Good Guy — Susan Beale
• Bonfire — Krysten Ritter
• Reykjavik Nights — Arnaldur Indriðason
• Saints for All Occasions — J. Courtney Sullivan
• In Between Days — Andrew Porter
• We Have Always Lived in the Castle — Shirley Jackson
• Two Kinds of Truth — Michael Connelly
• Still Life — Joy Fielding
• The Vanity Fair Diaries: 1983–1992 — Tina Brown
• The Vanishing Season— Joanna Schaffhausen
• The Ice House — Laura Lee Smith
• Ferocity — Nicola Lagioia
• The Secrets She Keeps — Michael Robotham
• The Marriage Pact — Michelle Richmond
• The Foster Child — Jenny Blackhurst
• This Is Going To Hurt — Adam Kay
• Good Me Bad Me — Ali Land
• Are You Sleeping — Kathleen Barber
• Since You Fell — Dennis Lehane
• Persons Unknown — Susie Steiner
• The Kitchen God’s Wife — Amy Tan

* Disclaimer: I received pre-release review copies of books marked with an asterisk from NetGalley. Receiving a review copy of a book influences neither my decision to review it nor my opinions of it in any reviews I do write.