2010 Reads
89) Frances Spalding: Vanessa Bell
88) Thomas Hardy: Far From the Madding Crowd
87) Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Long Winter
86) Laura Ingalls Wilder: By the Shores of Silver Lake
85) E M Forster: A Room With a View
84) Donald Sturrock: Storyteller – the Life of Roald Dahl
83) Jodi Picoult: House Rules
82) Noel Streatfeild: Saplings
81) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (re-read because of the film…)
80) Jane Austen: Northanger Abbey
79) Virginia Woolf: Night and Day
78) Rebecca Skloot: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
77) Charles Dickens: Bleak House – there’s loads of reviews for this so you’ll need to search the site should you wish to track down my tirades. Myself, I wouldn’t necessarily bother.
76) William Boyd: Any Human Heart
75) Eva Rice: The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets
74) Wendy Moffat: EM Forster - A New Life
73) Hisham Matar: In the Country of Men
72) Hilary Mantel: An Experiment in Love
71) Valerie Grove: So Much to Tell
70) Anita Diamant: Day After Night
68) Daisy Hay: Young Romantics
67) Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest
66) Julia Glass: The Whole World Over
65) Mary S Lovell: Bess of Hardwick
64) Graham Greene: Our Man in Havana
63) Anne Bronte: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
62) Lyndall Gordon: Lives Like Loaded Guns – Emily Dickinson and her Family’s Feuds
61) Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express
60) Susan Hill: Howards End is on the Landing
59) Anne Chisholm: Frances Partridge
58) John Lennon: In His Own Write/A Spaniard in the Works
57) Philippa Gregory: The White Queen
56) Betty Smith: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
55) Wilkie Collins: The Woman in White
54) Barbara Kingsolver: The Lacuna
53) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: The Best of Sherlock Holmes
52) Claire Messud: The Emperor’s Children
51) Alison Weir: Eleanor of Aquitaine
50) Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre (Man am I glad I have a decent book to put at this milestone. On second thoughts, it’s going to be a millstone, not a milestone. I’ll totally feel like a failure if I don’t get to 100 this year. I can see it now: a frantic attempt to read six books on New Years Eve; still reading when everyone else is dancing and snogging at midnight. )
49) Kathryn Stockett: The Help
48) Naomi Alderman: Disobedience
47) Michael Pollan: In Defense of Food
45) Maggie O’Farrell: The Hand That First Held Mine
44) Stieg Larsson: The Girl Who Played with Fire
42) Chris Cleave: The Other Hand
41) Jonathan Safran Foer: Eating Animals
40) Gregory Maguire: Wicked – the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.
39) Caroline Moorehead: Bertrand Russell. 550 pages of possibly the world’s most self-interested philanderer was heavy going in places and took a very long time to get going. Very interesting on conscientious objectors in World War I and some good stuff on principled people in public life. But not worth the week it took me to plough through it. Especially as he lived till nearly a hundred and the last eighty pages are taken up with everybody he knew dropping like flies around him.
38) Sarah Hall: Before Leonard: The Early Suitors of Virginia Woolf. If I ever went on Mastermind, the life and works of Virginia Woolf would be my specialist subject. So I didn’t really think I would get anything new from this. But it was very well done,thoughtful and extensively researched, without being dull, though some of the men were pretty tenuous as suitors.
37) Ian MacEwan: Solar. I thought this was rubbish at first, and would have given up except it was for book club. It gets better as it goes along, but honestly, I don’t see why people rave about Ian MacEwan. Apart from Atonement, and maybe Saturday, everything else is lame. 300 pages of perhaps the most disgusting protagonist in literature is really not what I am after in a novel. I don’t want to spend time with people like that in real life; I certainly don’t want to do so in my leisure time.
36) Robert Harris: The Ghost. Not really my sort of thing, but I fancied watching the film and I have a self-imposed rule never to watch film adaptations before reading the book. Good enough and kept me interested, though I don’t see myself becoming a regular thriller reader.
35) Zadie Smith: Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays. This book is a bit of a con. “Hmmm, I’ve already been paid once for this stuff, I wonder if I can stick them all together randomly and get paid again? Oh yes, I can”. That said, it’s very good writing. Some of the topics are a bit random – I skipped them, not being an expert on Nabokov or Barthes. But she is a surprisingly engaging film reviews. Just a shame all the films are from 2006.
34) Nancy Mitford: Don’t Tell Alfred. Needed some superficial light relief after the intense reading of late. Not as good as the earlier ones – story doesn’t stack up - but did the job.
33) Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. I read this because I was intending to go to the house in Amsterdam. For some reason, my school must be the only one in the world which doesn’t make their students read it. I have never read anything like it and was completely blown away by this unique story and exceptionally talented, self-aware, admirable teenager.
32) Susie Orbach: Bodies. As far as psychotherapist writings go, this is fairly accessible (and short) and an insight into the way that constant dissatisfaction with our bodies and attempts to reconstruct them impact on our mental health. But I’m not sure that she has any answers.
31) Jill Dawson: The Great Lover. Total meh. Read for book club and not my cup of tea at all. Partly because I am opposed to historical people being used as characters – it’s crass. (Wolf Hall being the exception that proves the rule).
30) Malcolm Gladwell: What the Dog Saw. I have read his other work, but not gone crazy over it like other people have – I think that mostly he has one good idea which doesn’t really stretch to a whole books worth of writing. This collection of essays were more my thing. The first section on quirky people wasn’t that good, but the rest of it was very interesting. He explains things like the Enron collapse in such a way that even I get it and has a lot of counter-intuitive ideas which actually do stand up.
29) JD Salinger: Franny. When he died, everyone seemed to go mental. I have read ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ three times, not because I enjoyed it, but because I didn’t and I kept wanting to see why everyone loved it so much. Still don’t get it. Anyway, I liked Franny more, but not enough to read Zooey, so I guess not all that much.
28) Hilary Mantel: Giving Up the Ghost. I read this memoir because I loved Wolf Hall so much. This is not lovable, but it is brave and disturbing and raw – the casual sexism of her early adulthood is all the more terrible because it affects not just her career but also helps ruin her health.
27) Natasha Walter: Living Dolls. Outstanding critique of today’s modern culture which sells porn and glamour modelling as ‘empowerment’ and ‘choice’. Must read this if you care about these things at all – especially as it is written in a very straightforward way, not academicy and high brow.
26) Colm Toibin: Brooklyn. Beat Hilary Mantel to the Costa prize last year, but I’d stick with Wolf Hall. This was good though, nice plot twist and strong female protagonist.
25) Jane Austen: Persuasion. Re-read because I love her. You know how sometimes you re-read books and can’t remember why you liked it so much? Well not this one. My second favourite JA of all time (I’m a Sense and Sensibility kind of girl).
24) Rachel Heath: The Finest Type of English Womanhood. Not much to say about this really, bought because it made the Costa shortlist last year but it didn’t stand out for me at all.
23) Julie Powell: Cleaving. Hard to know what she was thinking when she published this……I’m reluctant to say just cashing in on Julie and Julia but otherwise I seriously cannot comprehend why someone would choose to describe their interest in S and M, self-degredation through casual sex and the willful sabotage of their marriage all based on the thinnest of premises about butchery. Avoid.
22) Steg Larsson: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I’m not really into crime fiction but this is a perfect beach read.
21) Hilary Mantel: Wolf Hall. As outstanding as everyone says it is – believe the hype and buy it immediately.
20) Elizabeth Gilbert: Committed – A Sceptic Makes Peace With Marriage. A lot better than I had thought, surprisingly, though her publishers or someone obviously was looking to repeat the EPL success by getting her to talk more about herself – that’s quite tedious and a contrived way to talk about what’s actually an interesting topic – the sociology and history and meaning of marriage.
19) John Helleman: Race of a Lifetime – How Obama won the White House. Would have been better had it not been written in the style of an ominous voiceover (and if every chapter had not ended with a tedious sex scandal – though that’s not really the author’s fault I guess…) but pretty revealing, particularly on Sarah Palin.
18) Lynn Barber: An Education. Read it for book club; loved her style. Note to self: must not read chapters which I know contain deaths before work. It does not set me up well for the day.
17) Colm Toibin: The Master. A fictionalised autobiography of Henry James. Not how HJ is in my head, but cool nevertheless. A very relaxing read, where life moves slowly and lots is unsaid.
16) Angelica Garnett: Deceived By Kindness – a memoir of growing up with her mother Vanessa Bell and aunt Virginia Woolf. Which she rebelled against by marrying her father’s former lover. That is what we call the definition of messed up. Very good read though, an extremely perceptive writer who doesn’t shy away from analysing her own flaws and weaknesses.
15) Jodi Picoult: Picture Perfect – Oh, I know, I know, but I was sick and she is my guilty pleasure.
14) Lyndall Gordon: Shared Lives – Growing Up in 1950′s Cape Town. Really interesting insight into what it was like to be white, female and Jewish when wholescale apartheid was being imposed. A completely different world. Also very interesting on what it was like to be part of the last generation of women before feminism. Goes on a bit towards the end, but worth reading.
13) Erica Wagner: Ariel’s Gift – Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and the Story of Birthday Letters. Really good – remembers (as few do) that life and art are not the same thing and not every poem (obviously) is a literal retelling of factual incidents. Talks about memory, ambiguity, interpretation….great. And don’t need a PhD in literary criticism to get it, which is always nice.
12) Harriet Reisen: The Woman Behind Little Women: The Life of Louisa May Alcott. Takes a while to get going but ultimately very good. Hint: real life even sadder than Little Women (ie, you may need to put the book in the freezer – remember that?)
11) Vita Sackville-West:The Edwardians. Like Edith Wharton but less depressing.
10) David Sedaris: Me Talk Pretty One Day. Funny. Clever. Liked it.
9) Mary Ann Shaffer: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Read this for book club, can’t comment until group has met.
8 ) Jane Robinson: Bluestockings. A few dull but worthy bits; mostly really enjoyable.
7) Mari Strachan: The Earth Hums in B Flat. A teenager who thinks she can fly investigates a murder and uncovers family secrets in a 1950′s Welsh village. Unique. And I love Welsh names. Love them.
6) Anita Shreve: A Change in Altitude. Never has a book which apparently contains so many dramatic incidents been so deadly boring.
5) Mary McCarthy: The Group. How have I never read any Mary McCarthy before? Awe.Some.
4) Audrey Niffenger: Her Fearful Symmetry. Spooky, atmospheric, excellent.
3) Shirley Williams: Climbing the Bookshelves. Admire her greatly – bit too heavy on industrial disputes of the 1970′s for my liking though. A great read for politicos.
2) Haruki Murukami: What I talk about when I talk about running. Interesting, brief, worth a look.
1) Jodi Picoult: Handle With Care. Urgh, I can’t believe this was the first book I read this year
Some of the books which I have read this year (more to remind myself than anything):
In the Devil’s Garden: A Sinful History of Forbidden Food (Stewart Lee Allen) – bit erratic but v enjoyable – great for ‘Did you know’ dinner party fodder.
Stieg Larsson Dragon Tattoo trilogy – read the second one first, enjoyed it the most.
Lots of Screenwriting books including:
Adventures in the Screen Trade – William Goldman – Brilliantly written account of being a hugely successful screen writer – tries to talk you out of following in his footsteps because he knows his readers and doesn’t want them to suffer the indignities that he has.
Your Screenplay Sucks! -Wiilam M. Akers Basically a guide of what not to do, including the main reasons that scripts get binned. Very funny and useful.
Save the Cat – Blake Snyder Tackles problems such as how to hide exposition, how to make your leader character likeable etc.. Sadly the author died of a freak heart attack this year so people are talking about it a lot.
The Road – Cormac McCarthy – Read this in one sitting. Love a bit of misery.
Prep – Curtis Sittenfeld – If you like Glee and Enid Blyton you will love this book.
I feel Bad About my Neck and Wallflower at the Orgy – Nora Ephron. 70s low brow essays which are really charming and nostalgically wistful. You would love these for sure.
Caprice Crane – Forget About It. Weak Chick Lit. Don’t bother. But follow her on twitter.
Glen David Gold – Sunnyside. Haven’t finished this but it’s no Carter Beats the Devil.
The Emperor’s Children – Claire Messud – i loved this so much I have become very militant about making people read it.
Oh my GOD! You read SO much more than me…I feel ashamed!
don’t be ashamed – it just proves you have a shorter commute and much more fun than I do!