Books of 2024

Chloe Dalton and myself.

This year I'm going to buck the trend and not do a top 10 books of the year. I might have bucked the trend last year and not done a list. I can't remember, but then I'm old. I could look back I guess. I have. I didn't. So I'm really bucking my own trend here!  I do sometimes question the value of this exercise which many folk do with alacrity. I used to do it with alacrity in the days when I mistakenly thought that I was an okay blogger but now I wonder how a subjective list of books is of any interest or value to anybody? It feels like an expected exercise somehow in the tenuous world of social media. #booktwitter #bookstagram etc. Another thing I don't do is announce how many books I've read in the year. I've never seen reading as a competition. I've nothing against people setting themselves personal goals for whatever reason but I feel no need to do that for myself where books are concerned or shout about it. I think I'll just witter on about some of the books I've read. 

One big change this year for me has been the opening of an independent bookstore in my little town. We've been some years without one so I was overjoyed when Read on Sea opened. In addition to being the purveyor of fine books and a decent cup of coffee the shop has hosted some literary events that have introduced me to new authors. I've had copies signed, I've had photos with authors and I've listened to these authors talk about their work and read from their books.  I'm sure that dimension adds to my overall appreciation of their books. I've met Syd Moore, A.G.Brogan, Tim Burrows, Ashley Oakley, Fiona Cummins, Natalie Bennett, Debz Hobbs-Wyatt, Georgie Spearing and Chloe Dalton. Most are local authors. In addition to the events every Tuesday at about 11.00 am the owner reads one chapter from a random book. Today it was Jonathan Livingstone Seagull which I read years ago and it was great to hear some of it again. 

So what of the many books I read this year? Highlights? Well, there was a new Elizabeth Strout which is always a delight. And I treated myself to. signed copy. Although if I'm honest, I didn't engage with this one as much as I have with the other ones. I think perhaps I need to re-read it. I read Samantha Harvey's Orbital the Booker prize winner and was much impressed. I also enjoyed Ferdia Lennon's Glorious Exploits, a book that has garnered some awards including the Waterstones debut fiction prize award. 

Canongate Books sent me a copy of 3 Shades of Blue by James Kaplan a book for jazz heads. I absolutely loved it. I blogged about it.

https://bookphace.blogspot.com/2024/03/3-shades-of-blue-miles-david-john.html

Chloe Dalton's Raising Hare was a big favourite. I also got to meet her and she signed my copy as well as agreeing to a photo with me! It's an uplifting book and a must for nature lovers. What was great too was how the experience opened up the natural world to the author in a way that was quite transformative. 

I love it when you get hold of a book that you have no or few expectations of and it turns out to exceed all your expectations. I can say that of Debz Hobbs Wyatt's If Crows Could Talk. It was so good. Another book I did blog about.

https://bookphace.blogspot.com/2024/10/if-crows-could-talk-debs-hobbs-wyatt.html

I've done a few blog tours and read several proofs from Fly on the Wall Press over the years so when its founder and owner Isabelle Kenyon published her first novel I was intrigued to read it. A thriller set in Mormon country. Another book where I did not know what to expect. It's an impressive debut.

 https://bookphace.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-dark-within-them-isabelle-kenyon.html

Another writer who I was very aware of and had always intended to read was Fiona Cummins. And I had no idea she was so local! I met her at our local bookshop and very quickly devoured everything she's written. I love the character Saul Anguish who features in her most recent stories. All of Us are Broken is the first of her books I read to feature Saul. 

So far I've only mentioned about seven books. And as I look through my list of books I've read this year I could easily be here until next year talking about them!! There was only one book I DNF'd. It was called Leave No Trace:Festifell by Jordan McMahon and the reason I couldn't finish it was not because the book was bad it was because the print was way too small and gave me blurry vision. Might be an age thing. There were no books I didn't like. I blogged about many of them.

December Wrap Up

A less than average month this one. I read just five books. I don'y why that should be. Everything else has slowed up as I age, so maybe my 'readspeed' has too. It doesn't really matter except that as I grow older and time is running out I feel I need to speed up my reading! So many books, so little time.

I was always a Star Wars fan, right from the start. So the month begins with Carrie Fisher's The Princess Diarist that details her time filming the first movie from some journals she kept at the time. She's witty and open. The diary entries are accompanied by her observations of Hollywood life and the nature of celebrity.

Second up was the third part of a dystopian series by L.G.Jenkins. The series is called The Merit Hunters and this third book iOS entitled Quiet Echoes at Night. I blogged about this book.https://bookphace.blogspot.com/2024/12/quiet-echoes-at-night-lgjenkins.html

This next book isn't published until 21st February. you might want to note it on your calendar for it is a marvellous story that had me enthralled. Climate crisis and global warming at its heart it's also a book about love and calamity. I haven't reviewed it yet but I will do. 

Consolations II by David Whyte was extraordinary to experience. I started out by reading it as I would any book, starting at the beginning and intending to read through until I finished it........then on to the next book! But this bad boy had other ideas! So intense and absorbing were the ideas and thoughts contained within each 'consolation' that I found myself reading just one section a day. I needed to consider and absorb the beauty and complexities of the essays. It was uplifting and thought provoking and absolutely perfect for those who love words and their meanings. 

Finally Part One of The Memoir by Cher. I've often been critical of celebrities who pen a memoir while they are still relatively young and their careers appear to be in full flow. I always think that an autobiography or memoir is something you write retrospectively when you've been around for long enough! At 78 I think Cher has! This is very entertaining. Cher seems to be a natural raconteur. The book is honest and funny and I will look forward to Part Two. Do you need to be a Cher fan? Possibly not but I think it helps. 

Quiet Echoes at Night - L.G.Jenkins

 This story is the third in the Merit Hunters series. I read the first two, originally titled Crowned Worthy and Stolen Crowns but I believe they have been republished with different titles; Sun of Endless Days and Storm at Dusk respectively. 

I wrote about them on my blog.

 https://bookphace.blogspot.com/2021/04/crowned-worthy-lg-jenkins-blog-tour.html

https://bookphace.blogspot.com/2022/01/stolen-crowns-lgjenkins.html

Both of the previous two stories ended with the most infuriating cliff hangers! I say infuriating because I just had to know what happened next! And...... it's happened again!! Another ending that leaves you hungry for more. 

I would say that to fully enjoy and appreciate this book you do really need to have read the first two. I don't necessarily believe that to be a flaw. I would say the same of The Maze Runner and Hunger Games series, for example. But there is always a complexity to dystopian landscapes and regimes that begin to be established in the initial book and developed in subsequent titles. This has been done very effectively in this series.

We meet some old "friends' - Ajay and Genni for example - and some new. The dystopian landscape strikes a balance between those things we experience in our current, contemporary lives and can readily relate to and those fantasy things and beings that populate dystopia. Some of the desert creatures (Ooops, I really don't want to give too much away) derive from an oasis of imagination. 

The allegorical inference did not escape me either and I fully expect further exposition in the final book in the series. As the collection develops the reader can see the moral and political implications with a greater clarity. Something that I find delightful is how this author has grown and developed her craft. In terms of the quality of the writing and plotting I would say this book is the best yet. It's an engaging story where we are invited to engage and root for characters who may not always have behaved appropriately. Emotions are conflicted and the fragility of the human nature is exposed as well as the endurance of the human spirit and the strength of belief.  

I can't wait for the next book!!!!

 

November Wrap Up

 When I say it’s been an average month I’m NOT referring to the quality of the books I’ve read! No, I’m referring to the quantity. I average seven or eight books a month. So this month is ……….average! What is not average is the number of blog posts I've written. Counting this one - just two. 😞Clearly, it isn't because I'm not reading books. I just don't seem to be reviewing many. Perhaps my New Years resolution should be to up my game regardless of whether anyone reads them or not. Anyway..... to this months books......

 

First up is Georgia Spearing’s Soul. I had the pleasure of meeting this exciting young writer at my local bookshop. This was a book that I didn’t feel I read as much as experienced. It’s a very emotional book for a start. It put me in mind of several things. 

One it was very much like navigating a dreamworld, there were elements that made me think of my own dreams, that strange netherworld where people meander in and out and topography’s change and you have no say in it. 

Secondly, there were some passages that reminded me of some of those guided meditations where you are led into some deeply symbolic and spiritual landscapes. And finally, it took me back to the 80s; before Windows and before MacBooks, when computer games were so much less sophisticated than they are now. I remember loading the game data into the machine (a Sinclair Spectrum, okay so I’m old!) via a cassette player and it took ages! Because the graphics were limited the role-playing games relied on words and there were passages in this book which reminded me of those. And then, if you were playing the game, you’d be given a number of options to choose from which would determine the outcome and the next path that you took. And the main character, Dee, passes through doors which seem to dictate the course of her soul journey, for that is how I saw the story, someone mining the very depths of her soul to find the truths of her life and its outcomes. It’s almost a fictional self-help book!

Soul is the first in the Soulbound Trilogy. And Dee’s journey takes her through a labyrinth of doors and mirrors that reflect her life and open pathways in her heart and mind that help her to understand so much of her previous life AND understand the people closest to her. Luke, her lover and her soul mate is her Holy Grail in this fantasy romance that isn’t afraid to speak the truth and confront life changing issues. It’s a remarkable achievement for a debut novel.  And I understand, having met the author recently, that Book Two in the series looks at events from Luke’s perspective. It’s an exciting prospect. 

 

Next was Kate Atkinson’s Normal Rules Don’t Apply. I love Atkinson’s writing. I love her diversity. This book is a collection of short stories. Some with recurring characters and some linked in some way or another to previous stories. It was an absolute delight to read. The stories themselves were quirky and with unpredictable outcomes. They are imaginative and somehow otherworldly. So entertaining.

 

JP Delaney’s The New Wife was my only library book this month I’m ashamed to say. I have some reserved but I’m waiting on them to come to my local library. I used to be sent proofs and arcs of Delaney’s books back in the day. I loved them. Full of unsettling twists, unreliable narrators and psychological thrills. This one was apparently influenced by Du Maurier’s My Cousin Rachel. As always with his books I couldn’t put it down until I found out exactly what happened.

 

With a proliferation of detective duos in the crime genre it’s refreshing for an author to come up with a slightly different slant. Simon Mason’s is to give his two detectives the same surname but diametrically opposed personalities! A Voice in the Night is the fourth in the series and won’t be published until January so I’m sitting on my review until then. But….. it’s a corker! The two Wilkins have a new boss to answer to and she seems to have their measure.

 

Raising Hare was shortlisted for the Waterstone Book of the Year and just this week has been announced as the Hay Festival Book of the Year. And just this week too, I met Chloe Dalton when she spoke about the book at my local bookshop. She is a delight and so is the book. It’s not often that you can say a non-fiction book that he is unputdownable, but I really couldn’t stop reading this. It’s beautifully written. It’s an account of how a writer and political advisor found an abandoned leveret during lockdown and hand reared the baby hare. I’m one of those people who has never seen a hare in the wild. I’ve always wanted to, and this book has made me want to all the more. I’ve learned so much about these incredible creatures. What I also loved about the book was how transformative the experience has been for the writer. I’m always happy when people find a way to engage fully with the natural world.

 

Even though my TBR shelves are heaving and groaning under the weight of their numerous tomes I still browse in the charity shop bookshelves. I found this little book, AJ Pearce’s Dear Mrs. Bird. I’d heard of it but when I started tor mead it I thought I might have confused it with something else because it wasn’t what I was expecting. Nevertheless I read it and was thoroughly entertained by this tale of women and war and problems. It was amusing in places but also heartbreaking as one might expect with a war story.

 

I bought Miranda Hart’s I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest with You at my local bookshop on National Bookshop Day. It was very much an impulse buy, an ‘of the moment’ purchase. Had I not been caught up in the day I might not have bought it, reserved it at the library possibly.  It reads like a self-help book and perhaps that was the intent. There were some comic moments. My favourite was when Miranda admitted that she had thought Dua Lipa was a family car !

 

Samantha Harvey’s Orbital  won the Booker Prize this year and this was another impulse buy at the bookshop and I had actually reserved it at the library! It’s a deceptively slender volume but it exerts a power that befits a work twice its size. A team of six astronauts make a journey around the earth, philosophising, meditating and commenting upon the very essence of life on earth. It is quite beautiful.

 

Soul - Georgia Spearing

 

This was a book that I didn’t feel I read as much as experienced. It’s a very emotional book for a start. It put me in mind of several things. 

 

One it was very much like navigating a dreamworld, there were elements that made me think of my own dreams, that strange netherworld where people meander in and out and topography’s change and you have no say in it. 

 

Secondly, there were some passages that reminded me of some of those guided meditations where you are led into some deeply symbolic and spiritual landscapes. 

 

‘The trees are tall and bare, their bark adorned with leaves shaped like vibrant green birds that blended seamlessly with the branches. The sky above was a stunning sunset of oranges and purple, illuminated by two delicate pink moons that cast a serene otherworldly glow. The forest floor was alive with movement as flowers wandered on their stems, their petals fluttering shyly. The ground was soft and cushion-like, creating a gentle, living carpet underfoot. The air was crisp and cool, filled with the fresh foliage and the faint sweet fragrance of the wandering flowers.’

 

And finally, it took me back to the 80s; before Windows and before MacBooks, when computer games were so much less sophisticated than they are now. I remember loading the game data into the machine (a Sinclair Spectrum, okay so I’m old!) via a cassette player and it took ages! Because the graphics were limited the role-playing games relied on words and there were passages in this book which reminded me of those –

 

‘Its surface began to shimmer, undulating in mesmerising waves of liquid gold that seemed to breathe with a life of their own. Each ripple caught the light, casting golden sparkles that danced across the room, making the air feel electric and charged with anticipation. The mirrors glow grew stronger…’

 

And then, if you were playing the game, you’d be given a number of options to choose from which would determine the outcome and the next path that you took. And the main character, Dee, passes through doors which seem to dictate the course of her soul journey, for that is how I saw the story, someone mining the very depths of her soul to find the truths of her life and its outcomes. It’s almost a fictional self-help book!

Soul is the first in the Soulbound Trilogy. The cover blurb tells us –

 

‘Dee’s world shatters in an instant when a devastating car crash leaves her trapped in limbo, each door revealing a fragment of her past. Driven to reunite with her soulmate, Luke, she travels through heartfelt and haunting moments, confronting the defining events of her life. Dee must piece together her past in this surreal journey and face long avoided truths. Will she find her way back to Luke or remain lost in her memory?’

 

And Dee’s journey takes her through a labyrinth of doors and mirrors that reflect her life and open pathways in her heart and mind that help her to understand so much of her previous life AND understand the people closest to her. Luke, her lover and her soul mate is her Holy Grail in this fantasy romance that isn’t afraid to speak the truth and confront life changing issues.

 

It's a remarkable achievement for a debut novel.  And I understand, having met the author recently, that Book Two in the series looks at events from Luke’s perspective. It’s an exciting prospect. 

October Round Up

I started the month with another Ann Cleeves. This one was procured from a charity shop which pleases me greatly. Another Vera story. Entirely predictable but always enjoyable.

Next stop is a completely different kettle of fish. Nicola Dinan's Disappoint Me. It's not published until January next year. I have read it, obviously, and I've reviewed it but I'll keep the wraps on the review until nearer publication date. Suffice to say that I think this writer is somebody quite special. If you've read Bellies, you'll know what I mean. 

So, it's turning out to be a month of contrast! Nothing wrong with that. This paperback was republished to tie in with the screen version of the story. I reviewed it on my blog. https://bookphace.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-radleys-matt-haig.html

I won this in a Librarything giveaway. It's the third in a series. The series is called The Race is On. it worked reasonably well as a standalone, but I think reading the first two might have enhanced to my enjoyment of this one. It was an action packed rea,  very topical since quantum teleportation could mean the end of global warming! So it's dystopian and futuristic.

Fly on the Wall Press continue to publish interesting quirky collections and this is no exception. I wrote about the stories on my blog. https://bookphace.blogspot.com/2024/10/modern-gothic-various-authors.html

This next book was an utter delight. I began reading it with no expectations. I knew nothing of the author previously only that she was local and I met her in our local bookshop. But it's easily one of my favourite books this year. I reviewed it on my blog. https://bookphace.blogspot.com/2024/10/if-crows-could-talk-debs-hobbs-wyatt.html

If Crows Could Talk - Debz Hobbs-Wyatt

 

I sometimes look at the best sellers lists in bookstores, in papers and magazines. I see the latest celebrity to commit the minutiae of their life to paper, the author who already has an impressive oeuvre of best-selling work, the personality turned novelist selling books by the bucketful, the latest film/TV ties in. Then I look at the book I’m holding in my hand, and I ask – why? Why isn’t this book on those lists?  It’s every bit as good if not better than some appearing there. And then I understand that publishing is a funny old business these days. Quality doesn’t always equate with sales and success. 

On paper this book sounds like an anomaly – an Essex lass from Canvey Island writes a novel about America and civil rights? Yet it is so good on so many levels that it is easily one of my favourite books this year. 

 

Debz Hobbs-Wyatt is an award-winning writer for her short stories. So unsurprisingly, it's very well written. There’s an intriguing premise; the two main characters both share the same birthday, but they were born fifty years apart in the same town. George’s story is set over fifty years, April’s over a single year. The narrative yoyos between the two protagonists who initially seem to have nothing in common aside from their birthplace and birthdate. But as the story unfolds the astute reader can pick up the signs that there has to be some kind of link between the two. It’s so cleverly done it blew me away as I started to make the connections.

 

I think this is the best example I’ve come across of the leitmotiv technique in a contemporary novel. It’s used so simply, yet so subtly - here it’s an utter delight to experience. 

 

The story is an immersive one and you could be forgiven for believing it to be written by an American author with roots in the South.  It is so authentic. The research is impeccable from the USA school system to the rules of baseball! The dialogue so convincing it envelops you from the start and transports to you to Georgia and Florida. The atmosphere of those times for African Americans is palpable. The politics are there but it is not an overtly political novel, more a sociological one.

 

George is just such a wonderful character. He has his flaws, but it makes him so real. A man of dignity but hurting so much inside. Troubled teen, April, will tug at your heart. The amateur psychologist in you will try to diagnose but the truth will not be revealed until you near the conclusion of the book. All the characters have their roles to play and they do so very well. I loved Lydia, and I understand she features as a character in a previous novel which I’m keen to get my hands on! Molly is a beautiful character with her perception and understanding.

 

The denouement is heartbreaking and will perhaps remind you of similar events that have occurred in various places over time. Once understanding has been reached all the strands of this spider web tale are drawn together. I suppose if I’m honest I found the last few pages lacked the impact of the bulk of the book, I saw them as an attempt to tie all the ends up neatly and that goal was achieved with compassion and hope.

 

For inasmuch as some of the events in this book are shocking and upsetting there is redemption. It’s a multi themed book – racism, bigotry as one might expect from a civil rights story but there’s family and friendship and spiritualism and faith and hope and love abide and the greatest of these is love. 

 

But what of the crows, I hear you ask? Oh no, I’m not going to say. Best you read the book. 😉