Books of the half year

 

    I keep a running list of books for the end of year posts in which I choose the best ones of the twelvemonth, and invariably there are a lot of contenders, too many to include them all, so some very good ones won't make the final cut. Since we are half way through the year now I thought I'd post what is currently on my list - some titles may be elbowed off by books I've yet to read, some may retain their place and make it through, but whether or not they feature in December, they are certainly worth reading.

    If you click on the authors' names you'll get to the posts on these books; so, in no particular order, but beginning with non-fiction:

Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England by Amanda Vickery

Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper by Alexandra Harris

The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance by Edmund de Waal

Now to fiction:

The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald

My Friends the Miss Boyds by Jane Duncan

I am the Blade by J.P. Buxton

The Blackhouse by Peter May

Kept: A Victorian Mystery by D.J. Taylor

House of Silence by Linda Gillard

Night Waking by Sarah Moss

Last Fling by Sue Gee

Half of the Human Race by Anthony Quinn

Gillespie and I by Jane Harris

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson