2016 reads

by uzwi

Lots of Penelope Fitzgerald, especially The Bookshop and Offshore. Some Maeve Brennan, whose “I See You, Bianca” is one of the best short stories I’ve ever read. All of Tom Drury. Beast, Paul Kingsnorth and The Gradual by Christopher Priest tied with Maylis de Kerangal’s faction Mend the Living (tr Jessica Moore) as the best extended metaphors I reviewed this year. Turning Blue, Benjamin Myers, very grim & Yorkshire upland; Underlands, Ted Neild, very geology. Permitted and Forbidden Stories, Valeria Ugazio. The Messiah of Stockholm, Cynthia Ozick and–speaking of massively clever & entertaining–Adam Roberts’ The Thing Itself.

Books I meant to read but didn’t get round to: Ishiguru, The Buried Giant.

Most disappointing re-read, JB Priestley, Saturn Over the Water–loved that book when I was young, should have left it there. Best re-read, LP Hartley’s The Go Between, another blast from the deep past (of which I seem to have more & more these days). Opened out more and contained more and told me more about myself than it did when I read it in 1966 or whenever.

The most dangerous reads this year were women. The last few pages of Amy Liptrot’s The Outrun made me cry. The whole of Olivia Laing, but especially The Lonely City, reminded me of more things than I wanted to know. & if you haven’t read it yet, Lara Pawson’s This Is the Place to Be will leave you in shock–seriously, men haven’t written like this for decades. OK, she’s my friend, and we all know her here: but it’s true.

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