Reviewing my 2022 reading, I found I’ve read fewer books this year than in almost a decade, in part due to general life events occupying time and headspace, but partly, I suspect, because I’m still struggling to recover my pre-pandemic levels of focus. So many things fractured in 2020, and it feels as though those ripples are continuing to work their way outwards in ways we are still at the edge of comprehending. When I consider the books that stood out for me this year, they are in different forms, but perhaps unsurprisingly, exploring themes of breakage and connectivity.

I began the year diving into the mycelial world with Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake (2020). This is wonderfully engaging non-fiction, and an important book in nature writing, shining a light on a living dimension of our shared world which is little known, under-researched, and which we are barely beginning to understand. It is also one which has the potential to radically reshape ideas from how we make pharmaceutical drugs and package our goods, to philosophies of identity and selfhood.

The Living Sea of Waking Dreams by Richard Flanagan (2021) was a searing read, brutal and beautiful in equal measure, Flanagan’s prose like a burning torch. The novel explores our relationships with each other and with the more-than-human world, using allegory to depict the biodiversity crisis and sixth mass extinction. At its centre, in the relationship between Anna and her mother Francie, is the terrible proximity of cruelty and love. 

Maror by Lavie Tidhar (2022) was an epic ride spanning multiple continents and four decades of Israeli history. Tidhar’s superb skills as a short fiction writer are clearly in evidence as the novel dares you to invest in its large cast of sometimes recurring, perpetually imperilled characters, whilst the enigmatic detective Cohen is a constant, menacing presence at the centre. There are shades of Roberto Bolaño and James Ellroy in this masterful fragmented narrative about ideology, politics, power, and corruption.

The Movement by Ayisha Malik (2022) stood out for the care, nuance, and complexity with which its characters are drawn, exploring with devastating wit and panache how we (often fail to) navigate societal networks which are at once increasingly intersecting and polarised, both online and in person. It’s not often I come across a novel that makes me laugh as much as it makes me think. After finishing, I immediately looked up Malik’s earlier novels and thoroughly enjoyed This Green and Pleasant Land towards the end of the year.

Early in the year I read and admired Katie Kitamura’s The Separation, but it was her most recent novel Intimacies (2021), read in the autumn, which has really stayed with me. The personal and political collide in this deceptively slim and sparely written novel about an interpreter working in The Hague’s international criminal court. Kitamura is a master in what remains unspoken, shimmering between the lines, exploring the limitations of language and narrative to make sense of our world. 

Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet (2021) was a hugely entertaining read. Set in the 1960s and presented as a mixture of diary and biography, the novel follows a young woman who believes that a notorious psychiatrist, Collins Braithwaite, is responsible for her sister’s suicide. Exploring shifting identities and the nature – and societal constructions – of sanity, the novel is at once darkly comedic and increasingly unsettling, before offering a final, delicious twist at the close.

I spent the final days of the year immersed in Sarah Hall’s Burntcoat (2021). Hall is one of my favourite writers and this fierce, sensual, poetic novel about love, art, intimacy, grief and the intensity of lockdown is quite simply a stunning piece of work. As ever, I can’t wait to see what Hall writes next.

On the writing side, in September 2022 I published my fifth novel The Coral Bones with Unsung Stories, a book I had been working on since 2016. I’m hugely grateful to the readers, reviewers and writers who have engaged with the book and been kind enough to share their thoughts. I go into the new year with the inkling of a new project, hoping to be directing more time, headspace and energy to both reading and writing.

Here’s to the new year and the lightening days – wishing you entertaining and inspiring reading, health and happiness in 2023.

My favourite reads in – though as ever, not necessarily from – 2019.

Unsheltered – Barbara Kingsolver
Faber & Faber, 2018

Two families across two centuries navigate radically changing times – from the controversial new theories of Darwin to the social change necessary to tackle climate breakdown – and what it really means to be with or without shelter. Another masterpiece in social dynamics from Kingsolver. 

The World Without Us – Mireille Juchau
Bloomsbury, 2016

Amidst a mass dyout of bees, an Australian family face the possible end of their livelihood, while old secrets surface and threaten to break apart the fragile family unit. Juchau’s meditation on a fading world feels ever more poignant in light of the current, catastrophic bushfire crisis in Australia.

Zero Bomb – M. T. Hill
Titan, 2019

This fragmented novel set in a terrifyingly plausible near future explores the impact of new automation technologies which lie just around the corner. Simmering with foreboding, the tension ratchets throughout to a thrilling climax.

10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World – Elif Shafak
Viking, 2019

In the ten minutes after her death, the woman known to her friends as Tequila Leila recalls her most vivid memories from a troubled and turbulent life. Coalescing around mind, body and soul, Shafak’s latest novel is a beautiful paean to those who are let down by society and the redemptive power of friendship. 

Wilding – Isabella Tree
Picador, 2018

Tree’s account of the hugely successful rewilding project at Knepp in Sussex is a fascinating, inspirational journey – with unexpected outcomes from breeding turtle doves to the return of the nightingale. A blueprint for how new approaches to conservation could restore our brutally depleted countryside. 

Chernobyl Prayer – Svetlana Alexievich
Penguin Modern Classics, first published 1997

This extraordinary, haunting, deeply humane work gives voice to the ordinary people affected by the Chernobyl disaster. The testimonies recounted here were the inspiration behind many of the threads in this year’s superb television dramatisation. 

The Heavens – Sandra Newman
Granta, 2019

Kate falls asleep in twenty-first century New York and wakes in plague-stricken Elizabethan England, but with each return to New York her world changes a little more. This luminous, shifting, skilful novel is a superbly clever take on time travel (is it or isn’t it?) from the ever inventive Newman. 

Do You Dream of Terra-Two? – Temi Oh
Simon & Schuster, 2019

A gorgeously written coming-of-age tale follows a group of young people who have trained since children as they embark on a twenty year journey to lead the first mission to another planet, and gradually come to terms with the reality of their decision.

The Wych Elm – Tana French
Viking, 2019

After a devastating attack leaves him injured and with partial memory loss, Toby returns to his ancestral family home to look after his dying uncle. The idyll is broken when a skull is found in the garden. Gloriously twisty psychological thriller with a deliciously unreliable narrator. 

Bridge 108 – Anne Charnock
47 North, 2020

I was lucky to read an advance copy of the new novel from Arthur C. Clarke winner Anne Charnock. Set in the near-future England of Charnock’s first novel (A Calculated Life), Bridge 108 explores the consequences of an influx of climate breakdown immigrants from southern Europe. A tapestry of voices resonate around trafficked youngster Caleb as he battles to make a new life for himself in this superbly rendered world.

Happy new year all, and here’s to 2020 reading!

Once again December has crept up, and it’s time to look back on the past twelve months’ reading. For 2017 I set myself a goal of 50 books and at the time of writing I’m up to 46. In the meantime, here are a few recommendations of books I’ve loved this year.

The Natural Way of Things –  Charlotte Wood
Allen & Unwin, 2016

Ten young women wake to find they have been drugged and transported to a remote station in the Australian outback. Watched over by guards, they discover that what they have in common – and the apparent reason for their incarceration – is a past involvement in sex scandals with powerful men. A fiercely feminist novel which veers in unexpected directions, with a searing depiction of one woman’s descent into feral life.

The Swan Book –  Alexis Wright
Constable, 2015

An Aboriginal teenage girl, Oblivion Ethylene, is found in the roots of a eucalypt tree by an old woman who is fleeing climate change wars in the northern hemisphere. Alexis Wright’s prose leaps from surreal to luminous to mythical to deeply satirical, in an extraordinary exploration of the legacy of colonialism and impacts of climate change unlike anything else I’ve read. I can’t possibly do this book justice in few lines, so for a detailed review, take a look at the Sydney Review of Books.

Speak Gigantular – Irenosen Okojie
Jacaranda, 2016

Okojie’s debut collection weaves the familiar and the unknown in new and unexpected ways. The writing is bold, surreal, erotic, often disturbing and always original, and I loved seeing London anew through the lens of many of these stories, including an encounter between two Londoners haunting the Underground.

The Queue – Basma Abdel Azim
Melville House, 2016

A clever, subtle, Kafka-esque exploration of authoritarianism set in an unspecified Middle Eastern city in the wake of the Arab Spring. A cast of characters meet, share and conceal their stories while waiting in the eponymous queue for their requests to be granted by a sinister government.

Exit West – Mohsin Hamid
Hamish Hamilton, 2017

A bittersweet love story of two people fleeing war in an unnamed country. Hamid’s latest novel takes a speculative departure, with the guise of mysterious doors which allow people to move instantaneously between countries. Timely depiction of the refugee crisis with wonderful characterisation.

Stories of Your Life and Others – Ted Chiang
Picador, 2015

There’s so much to admire about Ted Chiang’s short fiction, but what has stayed with me about this collection is the way form is so perfectly aligned to subject matter in each of these immaculately constructed, evocative tales.

Open City – Teju Cole
Faber & Faber, 2012

An American psychiatrist of Nigerian and German descent is undertaking his training in New York. Rootless, trying to make his way in the city, he walks compulsively. From the first lines you know you’re in for a treat: this is a gorgeous, meditative read which has stayed with me all year.

You Will Know Me – Megan Abbott
Picador, 2016

Superb psychological portrait of teenage gymnast and Olympic hopeful Devon, and the toll her ambitious regime takes on Devon herself and the family pushing her to glory. Told from the perspective of her conflicted mother Katie, this is a cleverly plotted, compulsive read.

Annihilation – Jeff Vandermeer
Fourth Estate, 2015

One of my favourite reads this year, encompassing all the things I love in literature: great characterisation, luminous writing, an unreliable narrator and the mysterious, surreal setting of Area X. I enjoyed the rest of the trilogy very much but this remains the standout.

The Forty Rules of Love – Elif Shafak
Penguin, 2015

Shafak deploys the frame of an American woman trapped in an unhappy marriage, who is reviewing the novel ‘Sweet Blasphemy’ by a mysterious writer about the scholar and poet Rumi and his muse Shams of Tabriz. Their story is told by a large cast of characters including Rumi and Shams themselves, Rumi’s family, and the various people they encounter from fellow travellers to the local drunk. Glorious storytelling and I can’t wait to read more from Shafak’s (happily lengthy) backlist.

The Sixth Extinction – Elizabeth Kolbert
Bloomsbury, 2014

A lot of my reading this year has been research for the next writing project. If you read one non-fiction book this (or rather next) year, make it The Sixth Extinction – Kolbert’s reporting on the mass extinctions already underway is timely, informative, heartbreaking and imperative reading.

Sapiens / Homo Deus – Yuval Noah Harari
Vintage, 2015 and 2017

There’s been plenty of hype around Harari’s bestselling Sapiens and the follow up Homo Deus, and happily they live up to it. Immensely enjoyable, thought-provoking history which interrogates humanity’s place on the planet past, present and future. A new book, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, is due next year – I can’t wait. 

Finally, shout-outs to two superb novels, both of which I read in advance copies last year but were published in 2017: Anne Charnock’s multi-stranded Dreams Before the Start of Time and Nina Allan’s haunting The Rift are science fiction at its best.

Here’s to 2018 reading!

Looking back on the year’s reading, below are a few recommendations from books I’ve loved in 2016. The majority weren’t originally published this year and one which I’ve been lucky enough to read in advance is published in 2017. They’re all brilliant books and as usual it feels impossible to rank, so I’ve listed in the order I read them:

Do No Harm by Henry Marsh (W&N, 2014)

Life, death and brain surgery: a searingly honest account of Henry Marsh’s life and work as one of the UK’s most foremost neurosurgeons. This came with oodles of hype and lived up to every ounce of it. Heartbreaking and inspirational.

Speak by Louisa Hall (Orbit, 2015)

One of those novels that deserved far more attention than it seemed to receive. The multiple narratives span several centuries, from a young Alan Turing to a creator of artificial intelligence now serving a prison sentence, tied together by the voice of a discarded AI who has learned about humanity through the stories she has absorbed. 

The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall (Faber and Faber, 2015)

An eccentric landowner decides to reintroduce wolves to his estate in the north of England. This is a beautiful meditation on nature and landscape, and the most evocative writing I’ve come across about pregnancy. Hall’s language is always divine, and the final images of this novel have lingered with me all year.

The House of Journalists by Tim Finch (Jonathan Cape, 2013)

Dark humour abounds in this tale of a house for refugee journalists seeking sanctuary in London, having fled from oppressive regimes around the world. I loved the clever use of narrative that pulls together the different characters’ stories, and the novel’s themes feel ever more pertinent since it was first published in 2013.

The Boat by Nam Le (Canongate, 2009)

The opening of this collection, which takes a character with the author’s name attending a writing workshop in Iowa, subverts and satirizes the expectations of what a Vietnamese-born Australian writer should write about, and stakes the writer’s claim on the short fiction form. Seven marvellous stories located around the world in an explosion of startling imagery.

Central Station by Lavie Tidhar (Tachyon, 2016)

Fractured novel exploring the lives and loves of a cast of characters living in the shadow of a future space station in Tel Aviv. Tidhar creates a wonderful tapestry of moods and emotions with some extraordinarily powerful scenes such as a robotnik soldier’s memories of war. Hope to see this on some awards lists next year.

Dear Thief by Samantha Harvey (Vintage, 2014)

In the middle of the night, a woman begins writing a letter to her best friend who disappeared over a decade ago. A gloriously written exploration of betrayal and forgiveness and one of the best depictions I’ve read of the complexities of female friendship.

The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts (Gollancz, 2015)

Roberts combines philosophy and thriller in this clever, entertaining and enviably stylish exploration of Kant and the Fermi Paradox. The central narrative is interspersed with often heartbreaking accounts of characters caught up in the ramifications of the thing itself, and wonderfully written throughout. An absolute joy.

Dreams Before The Start of Time by Anne Charnock (47 North, 2017)

Charnock’s third novel is a beautifully nuanced exploration of future developments in fertility science. The science underpinning the narrative is subtle and unobtrusive, allowing the novel to shine on the neuroses of its large, three-generational cast of characters as they struggle to come to terms with the decisions of their parents. As with her previous novels, Charnock is marvellous at communicating a huge amount in a short space. Look out for this in April next year.

I set myself a goal of 40 books for 2015 and I’m at 43 at the time of writing. I’ve read some fantastic books, old and new, this year – here’s a few recommendations:

Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven lived up to the hype. I was drawn in by the concept: a post-apocalyptic travelling Shakespeare company, but what has stayed with me is the exquisite characterization and before-and-during transitions as the catastrophe unfolds. I don’t think I’ve seen a bad word about this book.

Also set against a post-apocalyptic landscape, I adored Genevieve Valentine’s steampunk Mechanique. Hands down the best circus-themed novel I’ve read.

Anne Charnock’s debut novel and Kitschies finalist A Calculated Life is a quietly mesmerizing coming-of-age tale which lingers after the reading. The (unrelated) follow-up, Sleeping Embers of an Ordinary Mind, has just landed on my doormat and I can’t wait to get to it over Christmas.

Another brilliant debut was Saad Hossein’s Escape from Baghdad!, a rollercoaster of a novel whose post-invasion Iraq setting is combined seamlessly with a hunt for the secrets of immortality. The dark humour emphasises rather than detracts from the seriousness of the underlying text. Surely one for next year’s Kitschies lists?

Two revelatory authors for me this year were Sarah Hall and Kelly Link, neither of whom I’d read before. I was blown away by the writing of Hall’s The Carhullan Army. At once fierce and lyrical, this is a dystopia which packs a huge punch in a short space. Her latest novel, The Wolf Border, is first on my list for next year’s reading.

Kelly Link’s collection Pretty Monsters left me green with envy; a note-perfect example of the use of the fantastical in contemporary settings. I’m really looking forward to her latest collection, Get In Trouble, currently out in hardback.

You can’t really write about Karen Joy Fowler’s We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves without giving the game away, but suffice to say I adored this: the self-aware narration, the careful consideration of moral conundrums, the humour and the tears. Gorgeous.

Ali Smith’s How To Be Both is published two different ways: I read the 15th Century painter Francesco del Cosso’s story first, followed by George’s present day narrative. This beautiful meditation is my favourite of Smith’s work to date.

Mohsin Hamid is an author I’d been meaning to get to for a while; I read The Reluctant Fundamentalist and immediately afterwards bought How To Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, the latter of which had me in tears at the end. Hamid is a superb stylist, able to convey volumes in the tautest of sentences.

In science fiction, I was happily surprised by how much I enjoyed 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson: a structural and philosophical delight.

Jennifer Marie Brissett’s Elysium was an incredibly clever use of narrative structure, and beautifully written to boot.

Sandra Newman’s The Country of Ice Cream Star left me somewhat divided: this 900+ pages epic is worth the read for the voice alone – the use of language is searingly good – but its relentless bleakness and somewhat meandering plot left me struggling a little towards the end.

I’d been challenged to read Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan, which I went into a little apprehensively, having no idea what to expect, and ended up enjoying immensely.

I’m still waiting for the paperback edition of Margaret Atwood’s The Heart Goes Last, but her new collection The Stone Mattress served as a perfect reminder of what a superlative writer Atwood is. Addressing the ageing process with wit and grace, this is dark humour at its best.

Hilary Mantel is another writer I need to read more of: her memoir Giving Up The Ghost is sharp, satiric, a linguistic joy and utterly heartwrenching.

I took Kate Atkinson’s Behind the Scenes at the Museum on holiday and was blown away to discover it was her debut novel. Like another of my favourite writers, Jennifer Egan, Atkinson has a wonderful gift for combining humour with serious subject matter; this was a joy.

Lastly, I used up my Jennifer Egan credit finishing the last of her backlist, The Keep. Towards the end I had one of those moments of sitting bolt upright and declaring out loud, ‘Damn, but Egan is such a ridiculously clever writer’. And she is. I’m now desperately waiting for whatever comes next from this phenomenally good novelist.

All in all, 2015 was a pretty brilliant year for reading. Here’s to 2016!

A few quick recommendations from recent reading:

The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide

This was my first read of the year, and with cats plus Japan it pretty much had my name on it. Quiet, thoughtful, a mystery that still has me wondering, and some truly delightful descriptions of cats and cat behaviour.

Station Eleven – Emily St John Mandel

I’d been looking forward to Station Eleven for months and I was so happy to find it didn’t disappoint. It’s exquisitely plotted, and most importantly wonderfully characterized. I’d been hooked by the description of the post-apocalyptic travelling Shakespeare company, but in the end what has stayed with me most is the before-and-during the breakdown scenes, the moments of realization for those characters, Miranda standing in front of the mirror saying ‘I regret nothing’. A gorgeous tapestry of a novel.

Mechanique – Genevieve Valentine

Mechanique is another book that had been on my to-read list for a while, and another one that didn’t let me down. Steampunk circus, an inventive narrative style that slowly unveils the hearts of the performers and the dark truths that lie at the centre of their troupe, this fabulous novel explores mortality, desire, ambition, and the beauty of flight.

A Calculated Life – Anne Charnock

I was first alerted to A Calculated Life via last year’s Kitschies shortlist. This is a story beautifully and simply narrated, the language economical but evocative, and it remains compelling without ever resorting to sensationalism. A coming-of-age tale exploring what it means to be human, it kept me gripped to the end.

Escape from Baghdad! – Saad Z Hossain

I zipped through Escape From Baghdad in under 24 hours, which says a lot as I’m generally quite a slow reader. For a start, it’s great fun – Hossain’s writing grabs you from the opening line:

“We should kill him,” Kinza said. “But nothing too orthodox.”

From this point on the action doesn’t let up, as three unlikely companions navigate alchemists, immortals and deadly intrigue against the backdrop of post-war Iraq. There are some extremely dark moments, and the humour is correspondingly so (see the torturer who complains he hasn’t been given sufficient time to do his work) but when Hossain wants to make a point he allows the prose to breathe and the emotion to come through. One not to miss.