Oh, the agonies of deciding which novels will make the 'books of the year' list and thus which others will not! I've whittled down my long list of 24 to a more manageable dozen or so, but with my current reading looking as though it will join the chosen few, it's still 'fluid'.
I can give you the first batch now, arranged not hierarchically, but simply in the order in which I read them:
The Bookshop
by Penelope Fitzgerald - "A miniature piece of perfection", I called it when the book group read it back in January.
The Blackhouse
by Peter May - utterly gripping, this crime novel set on the Hebridean island of Lewis shows how the dramatic should be done.
House of Silence
by Linda Gillard - an intricately plotted story for which you'll put everything else on hold.
Night Waking
by Sarah Moss - "impressive and enjoyable in equal measure", a multi-dimensional, blackly comic novel set on a Scottish island. A writer to watch.
Half of the Human Race
by Anthony Quinn - a beautifully modulated, moving book set in the early years of the twentieth century. (The paperback
will be out in January).
Gillespie and I
by Jane Harris - an ingenious, bravura work about an artist and a lady who befriends him. All is not what it seems! (Again, the paperback
will be out next month).
State of Wonder
by Ann Patchett - I've been going on about this book, but so have many others; it's a work of integrity and clarity with compassionate intelligence behind it; it's a story which holds the reader long after the final page has been turned, and it poses questions of ethics to exercise the intellect. Wonderful. (I do like the paperback cover
- it won't be out 'til June, though).
The Lantern
by Deborah Lawrenson - a Jo Malone fragrance in book form, this novel about "the unquiet life of old houses" is a real treat.
That's enough to be going on with, but there will be more soon.
