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My old book club series was one of my favourite things to make on this blog. It combined lots of things I love, reading, illustrating alternative covers and sharing good things with you all. But this year I didn’t make any book club posts because I wanted to focus on slower work and the schedule of a series like that always draws me away from the harder more challenging stuff.

So instead, I decided to make one bumper 2020 reading list, of everything I read this year (well up until mid-December). It’s a version 2.0 of last year, now with sketched versions of their covers and a breakdown of my reading habits because I wanted to be more aware of how what I choose to read shapes how I end up seeing the world. 

This is my 2020 reading breakdown.

This illustrated reading list has taken a whole bunch of effort but I’m so proud of it and that I get to share some really cracking reads with you. Like last year, I’m starting off with some curated lists of favourites and then an unsorted list of other reads all reviewed and with a digital sketch of its cover for your enjoyment.

Recommended fiction

My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Ottessa Moshfegh

I can’t remember the last time I fell in love with a piece of fiction quite so hard. There was something about the protagonist that really resonated with me, her quest for solitude and routine, to just rest. But also her matter of factness. The way Moshfegh sets up a strange world as if it were completely normal for me echoed with the parts of A.M. Homes novels I love. I’m still thinking about it weeks later as I write this review. 

A Line Made By Walking

Sara Baume

This novel by Sara Baume had been on my reading wish list for a long time, but strangely I only got a copy through a mystery package from Mr B’s Emporium. I don’t think I’ve ever read something that has gotten so close to describing where I’m at with my mental health as well as this did. Between A Line Made By Walking and My Year of Rest and Relaxation, I’ve been feeling very understood. I really enjoyed the way Baume interweaves visual art, in both the photos she includes and the narrator’s challenges to remember pieces based on a theme or idea. It’s a really beautiful, quiet book that feels both honest and stylised.

Hashim & Family

Shahnaz Ashan

I quickly felt invested in every character in Hashim & Family, and by the end I was so invested that I felt righteously angry at some. Following their interwoven lives between London, Manchester and Bangladesh over decades I never felt hurried as the story moved between the years, instead it was an easy world to get lost in despite being years (and in the case of the years in Bangladesh thousands of miles) away from my own. 

Snow, Dog, Foot

Claudio Morandini

I devoured this in one day. Devoured feels like a fitting word for a book filled with hunger-fuelled madness whose reaching emptiness is balanced perfectly by the fullness of its alpine setting. I can see why Morandini, and this translation of the book, has received so many accolades. It felt at once real and hilarious but also filled with a magic you only find in the woods. It reminded me of both Train Dreams and Too Loud a Solitude, two books I love, and it will sit firmly with them as a secluded favourite.

Such a Fun Age

Kiley Reid

I loved and devoured this book, reading it in a single day. I don’t want to do it a disservice by saying it’s immensely readable, but that’s what it is. I was invested in the characters from the start, whether I liked them or not. When Reid raises questions about race, gender, class and privilege it feels completely natural and a driving part of a story. The big issues are in the fabric of every action, as they are in real life, so it never feels like commentary shoehorned in. I couldn’t have enjoyed this more, and will be recommending it widely and frequently.

Red at the Bone

Jaqueline Woodson

I loved this story of a family as told from the perspective of three generations as they reflect on their own part of the world they’ve created and been created by. Wilson tells a beautifully balanced story of growing up, growing old, race, class, love and sexuality. Each chapter is a deftly light touch, an individual memory, but together they come together as a deep family portrait. 

Recommended non-fiction

Born to Run

Christopher McDougall

I chose Born to Run in part because of how much I enjoyed Rough Magic last year, and the tale of an unseen 50 mile race through the canyons of Mexico seemed to have the promise of a similar kind of intrigue. The story of the race itself, its characters and terrain was compelling and engaging in a way that you would immediately know that McDougall was a journalist by reading it without knowing any background. But I think what will actually stay with me the most were the side dives into the science and anthropology of how we have evolved to run and why it might be great for us if only we could stop trying to over engineer everything. 

The Soil Will Save Us

Kristin Ohlson

This was just the right level of practical examples of how farmers can improve soil health to support the climate, environment and better farming outcomes mixed with the science of soil. Ohlson’s dive into soil acted as a great companion, for me, to Wilding which I read last year and piqued my interest into sustainable farming practices. It raised a lot of questions about how and why we’ve let these older ways of working go for the new and shiny, and how we can get them back. I will say that the audiobook has a number of questionable and unnecessary attempts at accents though.

Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century

Ed. Alice Wong

I loved this collection of first person accounts of living with disabilities. The focus on telling every day stories, rather than the typical media narratives of the heroic disabled underdog, were what really made it something to hold onto. I learned so much by seeing the world through the eyes of people with such different ways of experiencing, navigating and being in the world. In almost every one of the sections, there was a small revelation of ‘I’ve never had to think about it like that’ whether it was in how you get to the office or around a hotel, in how you view bowel control or what’s sexy, or just what it means to be able to have a voice in the world you inhabit. This should be required reading. 

English Pastoral

James Rebanks

This might be one of my favourite pieces of non-fiction for the year. Rebanks takes you through the history of his family’s farm and how (and importantly why) its management has changed over his lifetime. It’s at once a personal history and a pastoral one, covering the shifting in farming practice across the UK and, in some parts, the world. He argues for stewardship in farming, not the black and white intensive or untouched argument. A lot of his comments on rotational grazing partnered well with The Soil Will Save Us by Kristin Ohlson and added a lot of new perspective to Wilding by Isabella Tree which I loved last year, but which, by its nature, is from a place of much more security as the Knepp estate offers a financial safety blanket of which many farmers do not have the luxury.

My Name is Why

Lemn Sissay

As you would expect this memoir is lyrically, powerfully and heartbreakingly written. It’s a mix of Sissay’s memories, excerpts from documents written about him by the authority charged with his care and short poems. It’s a blistering indictment of the “care” system in 1980s Britain. But it’s also a tender exploration of what it means to have a childhood, a family and a home. The audiobook is brilliantly read and despite its often painful content I didn’t want to put it down. 

Braiding Sweetgrass

Robin Wall Kimmerer

This is a book about how to look with fresh eyes at the whole living world, as Kimmerer draws on her knowledge and experiences from her life as an indigenous scientist, a mother, and a woman. As with every book about nature I read at the minute, I felt like I learned as much about how I navigate the world as I am about how to see aster and goldenrod in a new way. It’s the book that’s shifted my perspective the most this year. I’m better for reading it and I don’t think there’s a bigger endorsement I can give.

Everything else, in no particular order

Little Deaths

Emma Flint

A quiet and unsettling thriller about the deaths of two small children. It plays on the power of stories over truth and unconscious biases well, and certainly pulls you in by the end. But I didn’t quite believe in the one sided infatuation between the reporter, Pete, and the mother who is suspected of murder, Ruth.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

Ocean Vuong

This was absolutely beautifully written and constructed. I loved how earlier memorie echoed through later ones, just as they do in life, although mine are never as poetically formed. It was as much a story of growing up as it was of growing in a relationship with their mother and history, but those are two things that are impossible to untie.

Landmarks

Robert Macfarlane

I loved the literary reflections in this. It was brilliantly written and read, and definitely made me think about how nature and our language not only shapes how we think about the outside but how we’re able to express what’s inside. In audiobook format, I have to say I struggled with the glossary lists, but I can imagine they made for brilliant reference material in the physical book.

Uncanny Valley

Anna Wiener

A lot of the descriptions in this one (e.g. offering support for a product you only just know the surface of) struck home for me as a woman in tech, even though I’m not someone in Silicon Valley. They way Wiener redacts the names of the companies creates an in-crowd feeling of being in the know that instantly makes her readers complicit. The money involved is terrifying but the story Wiener told was so familiar it was almost comforting. The terror is really in what comes next.

Dept of Speculation

Jenny Offil

This was beautifully written in vignettes. I raced through its heartbreak and gut wrenching true moments. It feels at once distanced from the central character and incredibly intimate.

The Undoing Project

Martin Lewis

I knew of the theories that Kahneman and Tversky had developed and I had definitely been affected by their impacts, but I didn’t know anything about the pair behind them or their friendship. As you would expect from Martin Lewis the story is compellingly told while remaining insightful about their psychological experiments. I was really invested in their relationship by the end. Although I would have liked to hear more about the detail of their work, reading about the experiences that shaped them was still fascinating.

A Weekend in New York

Benjamin Markovits

Markovits has a real skill for describing how people think – there were a few moments where I felt compelled by how accurate a description was that I had to share it. The passage on naps really struck home. It’s a book that does exactly what it says on the tin, it tells you the story of a weekend in New York. It’s both eventful and not. But it is always rich in psychological description without ever feeling like it naval gazes. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, but I have to admit I found it a bit hard to keep reading by the end. 

You’re Not Listening

Kate Murphy

As an interviewer and journalist, Kate Murphy does a lot of listening. I was drawn to reading this one because I wanted to know more about how to be a better more engaged listener, as both a researcher and a friend. There were a few moments of insight into listening (supporting rather than switching for example) but largely Murphy says that you have to listen but the only way to get good is to do it more. In that sense it was frustrating, but I guess also true. I share her annoyance that so many good listening guides are about looking like you’re listening rather than actually engaging.

Days of Awe

A.M. Homes

I’m not much of a fan of short stories, but I am a big fan of A.M. Homes. As I’ve come to expect from her writing everything was easy to read while being erudite and clever without being the kind of satire that puts me off. She’s particularly sharp on family dynamics and LA vapidity. But I remain on the fence about short stories, because I long for characters I can really invest in.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

Lori Gottlieb

This was an absolutely brilliant audiobook. I always find having something so personal read by the author makes all of the difference. Each of the individual stories that Gottlieb interweaves, whether it’s the TV exec or the young alcoholic or the lady with terminal cancer, stands alone and is incredibly engaging. I felt like I knew them all personally, and wanted the best for them. But the honesty in her narration is what really made this one stand out. Nothing felt sensationalised or overly structured (in a way you only get when something has been structured) that made it feel less like a conversation with a friend and more like a great conversation with yourself.

The Death of King Arthur

Simon Armitage

I haven’t really read any poetry, and I certainly hadn’t read any Old or Middle English literature, since I was at university. But I’d had this one on my shelf at home for a while and for some reason now felt like the time to pick it up. I’m so glad I did. It was such a change of pace in a way that gave me a fresh perspective on everything else I’ll read this year. Plus these are the stories that made stories. 

Kids These Days

Malcom Harris

There had been references to Kids These Days in quite a few of the non-fiction books I read last year, so I wanted to delve deeper into it for myself. I have to say it wasn’t as revelatory as I’d hoped. But Malcom Harris does explain clearly a lot of the invisible forces I’ve seen shaping my generation and perhaps not heard articulated altogether before. For anyone interested in this one, and learning more about millennials as a generation, this one is very US focused.

Ask Again, Yes

Mary Beth Keane

The jacket of Ask Again, Yes describes it as “a gripping and compassionate drama of two families linked by chance, love and tragedy.” That’s exactly what it is. It’s quietly profound and “literary” without being heavy handed, by which I mean it’s a great story well told. There were moments where I was frustrated by individual characters, but purely because I could imagine them so clearly.

Liar

Ayelet Gondar-Goshen

Liar was an easy read, a tv drama style page turner. I think to call it a moral thriller would perhaps go too far, while it did raise questions about lying and “he said she said” convictions, it never really went below the surface and the ending (if it was to be a moral tale) was sorely disappointing.

The Summer Book

Tove Jansson

This book was exactly as lovely as I thought it would be. Rather than a narrative it was a series of scenes and moments shared across a summer on a Finnish Island between a grandmother and granddaughter. Each vignette showed not only their relationship with each other but how that relationship was shaped by nature and the way they interacted with their environment. 

Speculative Everything

Dunne & Raby

Quite a lot of the design and research books I read, feel quasi-academic in a way that means I don’t feel like I can recommend them to friends. While Speculative Everything is incredibly well researched and is obviously told through a great deal of industry and academic experience, it’s also an incredibly accessible guide to speculative design. You definitely have to have an interest in the topic to get something out of it (as you do with most non-fiction) but with it’s engaging storytelling, short examples and visual aides I think it’s one that everyone could and probably should dip into.

The Mushroom at the End of the World

Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

If I’m honest, I really struggled with this one. I wanted to get into the deep dive on culture and mushrooms, but it was just so academic. The constant move into tangents made it hard to follow and the leaps to theory at times felt ungrounded because of that. I did learn a lot about matsutake and about the ways in which the fringes can offer alternative ways of being, but it just didn’t inspire in the way I hoped it would.

Weatherland

Alexandra Harris

It had been a long time since I read anything even vaguely resembling literary criticism, before I picked this book up. It had been sat on my shelf for at least 2 years, before my quarantine drought of reading material made me reach for it. I’m both sad I waited so long and pleased I saved it. Harris has a wonderful way of writing which balances tangible real life experiences with close reading, history and theory. It was a tour of the ages and the seasons in a way that was more like a spring walk than a trudge through slush and hail (as much lit crit is). This one has quickly become my got to for pulling out examples of great writers and the kind of work (I wish) I did at uni.

Girl, Woman, Other

Bernadine Evaristo

Girl, Woman, Other was so brilliantly written and brilliantly interwoven that I momentarily forgot my usual frustration with short stories and perspective switching. Each woman’s story was engrossing and complete while handing the baton over seamlessly onto the next voice. If we read to understand other people better, I left this book with a sense that my community had expanded in the most wonderful way.

Winter in Sokcho

Élisa Shua Dusapin

This was short but beautiful. I really enjoyed the way Dusapin used food as a mediator for experience and equivalent not only for art but for life. While there was no real exterior action, I never felt like it lacked movement or development. I enjoyed my own imaginative trip to Sokcho with its landscape and cuisine so different from where I am.

Gun Love

Jennifer Clement

“Told from the perspective of a sharp-eyed teenager, it exposes America’s love affair with firearms and its painful consequences.” Pearl’s world is so distinct that it feels real despite how absurd the situation she is in should be (or at least in my opinion, guns shouldn’t force someone so young into so many corners). There were moments that felt full and moments that felt blinked over. I think I would have preferred to spend more time in the first act of the novel, the later sections seem to race through. While the novel comes to a climax, it doesn’t feel like it ends, but perhaps that’s fitting, because there is no end to the real gun-laden story of real life Pearls.

Orkney

Amy Sackville

This was a book all about anticipation for me, every page was filled with waiting and held breath. I wasn’t sure if I would get on with Orkney at first. I was unsure about Richard, the narrator and one half of the “curiously matched couple” on their honeymoon on the Scottish island. But I agree with the other reviews that describe Sackville’s writing as hypnotic, particularly with the lulling force of the sea in this novel and all of the references to selkies and sirens.

Saltwater

Jessica Andrews

Reading Saltwater quite quickly after A Line Made By Walking it was hard not to see the parallels, a young woman leaving the unmanageable bustle to live in the house of a recently passed grandparent somewhere in more rural Ireland. I felt those parallels much more keenly than those listed on the jacket to Fleabag and Sally Rooney. The restaurant scenes also gave me flashbacks to Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler. Saltwater was enjoyable to read but hard to get into. I often struggle with narratives that jump back and forth and I found the tone of the lead character’s epistolary moments to her mother a little cloying. That said the way Andrews built her characters was incredibly real and grounded, and her depictions of working our how to fit in somewhere new only to find you’ve only made it halfway and no longer quite fit at home resonated with me. 

Unfollow

Megan Phelps-Roper

Megan Phelps-Roper’s story of growing up in, leaving and then learning to live after the Westboro Baptist Church is so tenderly and compellingly told it’s hard to put down. There’s a level of intrigue that comes with any tale from inside a group so well known for hatred. But Phelps-Roper’s memoir is a lot more than that, and really reflects on how each of us probably has beliefs we hold onto, unchecked with doubt, and the damage that can do. 

Women & Power: A Manifesto

Mary Beard

As you would expect from Mary Beard, this was well explained and carefully constructed. She weaves references from ancient Greece to the present to show how the issues of women and power shouldn’t just be discussed in terms of how women can shape themselves for power but how we can reshape our notions of power to be more empowering. I took a lot away from her interpretations of ancient myths as well as her reflections on her own experiences as a woman who has received twitter abuse for years. I think I would have liked to have heard more from her about these new shapes of power, but as she mentioned in the footnotes this is a book that was taken from two lectures and the question of what a more inclusive mental and social model for power might be would be a whole book in and of itself. 

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race

Reni Eddo-Lodge

Eddo-Lodge covers both the historical context of British racism but also plenty of examples that, personally, hit close to home for a modern reader. This breadth allows her to show the patterns that have been created and the structures that are in place that prevent equity and justice. I found her call at the end for white people to sit in their discomfort but use their privilege to support and amplify anti-racist work, not to lead it, and to have those hard conversations with their white peers hugely helpful. While Eddo-Lodge didn’t have to talk to so many white people about race, and I’m so glad for her clear explanation of the importance of boundary setting, I know my reading this year was enriched by her penning this. 

Good Economics for Hard Times

Abhijit Banerjee & Esther Duflo

The more I read, the more I had mixed feelings about this book and economics in general. I really enjoyed the focus on dignity in this exploration of economics for our times, and the ways that our real behaviour may not conform to what outwardly seems logical but that doesn’t mean it’s irrational. The closer case studies and some of the broader ideas for economic reform felt tangible and practical. But I left with a sense that the best economics was done by people who weren’t studying economics but had applied more social or behavioural thinking to the why of a quant measure, then tried to see what that means for what we consider economics. I guess that’s why the final rallying call of the book is that economics is too important to be left to economists.

Fleishman is in Trouble

Taffy Brodesser-Akner

This book is a brilliant character study and felt so apt for its time. Dealing with the fall out of a divorce, Fleishman is in Trouble deals with so much of how try to understand ourselves and our own insecurities and how we try to understand those around us and just how interwoven and poorly done both are almost always. I never felt the need to race through this one, but I was hooked throughout, or at least til about the last 30 pages.

Eileen 

Ottessa Moshfegh

After reading My Year of Rest and Relaxation, I was expecting to love Eileen and I did. Moshfegh has such a talent for writing women so specific that you can’t help but find a quirk in them, an anxiety or compulsion, that feels so real and relatable no matter how bizarre the setting. I would have questioned the classification of Eileen as a “thriller” had it not been for the last third, which genuinely made me gasp. The darkness of Moshfegh’s humour is balanced perfectly with the darkness of the plot and setting.

Between the World and Me 

Ta-Nehisi Coates

This was an incredible mix of raw description and poetry. I think because it was written as if it were just for Coates’s son, it felt intimate and loving even while it described the brutality of racism. The focus on “the black body” and the physicality of racism mixed with that intimacy are what makes it such an impactful read. It’s the emotional, real foil for statistics and histories that can feel distant. I don’t think you can read this and still be comfortable staying in “the dream” as Coates calls it of white comfort. 

On Chapel Sands: My Mother and Other Missing Persons

Laura Cumming

I have to say I was a little disappointed by this one. It’s a lovely story of trying to get to know your family and how difficult that truly is. Cumming’s mother’s (and grandmother’s) story is one that is filled with secrets and silence. But for me that silence felt too padded to turn this from an interesting story into something longer. Perhaps it was because I listened to the audiobook but while interesting the art history felt unnecessary and some adjacent musings too long.

Heartburn

Nora Ephron

Heartburn was every bit as witty and pacy as you’d expect from Nora Ephron. While it wasn’t filled with a twisting plot, I found myself just wanting to read more and more to hear her voice. It’s smart and sharp and tragically personal. The interludes of recipes and memories are brilliant and only add to the overall feeling of the novel rather than distracting from it. I would love to be able to turn any single moment of my life, let alone one so heartbreaking, into such searing copy.

Missed Connections

Tess Smith-Roberts

This short graphic novel was exactly everything I wanted it to be in this time of feeling alone and isolated. Filled with Tess Smith-Roberts’s signature shapes and colours it was funny and joyous whilst also being poignant and relatable. Recommended park reading.

Alias Grace

Margaret Atwood

This was my very first Atwood, and it was just as readable and engaging as I had expected. For most of the novel it felt like what I had wanted from XX, a fictional look into a real murder potentially enacted by a woman. Grace and Simon are each fascinating and the way Atwood sews the story together, like the quilts used as metaphors so often, between view points, styles and excerpts from other sources is masterful. I’m not sure how I felt about its conclusion, about some of the coincidences that drove the climax. But I definitely enjoyed reading it and almost didn’t notice that it was much longer than the usual book I pick up.

Ordinary People

Diana Evans

I can see why so many people have liked and recommended this book, the writing is smooth, the characters are relatable and it tells a story of growing up, in and out of love. But I really didn’t get into it. I wasn’t invested in Melissa, Michael or Damian and no point in the plot hooked me in. 

Dead Famous

Greg Jenner

I listened to Dead Famous as an audiobook, and I’m really glad that I did. Jenner is a brilliant reader and really brought the stories of fame throughout the ages to life. It’s one that I enjoyed while I was listening and may help me on a pub quiz, especially if there’s anything on old-timey actors or charioteers which I knew nothing about before, or even just to amuse friends in the future, even if it didn’t completely change my life (as is the bar for a great audiobook these days!).

Death in Her Hands

Ottessa Moshfegh

As I’ve now come to expect with anything written by Ottessa Moshfegh, I thoroughly enjoyed Death in Her Hands. I was invested in Vesta as much as I was the whodunnit, which didn’t really turn out to be a whodunnit. I don’t know if it was because I was enjoying reading it so much, or the pacing (I’ve found all of Moshfegh’s novels I’ve read start slow and then race to the end in the last quarter or less) but it felt like it ended halfway through. It was funny and dark and sad, but I wanted something more out of its conclusion.

Bringing Back the Beaver

Derek Gow

I had eagerly anticipated the release of this book. I loved Isabella Tree’s Wilding last year, and she had mentioned Derek Gow and his beavers and I was so excited to learn more. Beavers are such powerful creatures (in both physical strength and landscape impact) and yet I knew very little about them. This was a great introduction to what they can do, why their reintroduction is vital in the UK and the ways lots of smart people have been going about it. It was also a great introduction to the bureaucracy that surrounds wildlife in the UK, DEFRA are certainly the villains of the story. I’d highly recommend it as an audiobook because it reads as a great storyteller in a pub, telling you tales of a creature they love.

Hope in the Dark

Rebecca Solnit

You could tell this book had dated a little since its 2003 release. But Hope in the Dark’s core themes of there being hope in the uncertainty of the future if you’re actively working to shape it rang true. At a time where it’s easy to feel like things are just set to be bad, it was comforting. I think I enjoyed Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost which I read last year a bit more, but this felt almost like a philosophical companion to Bringing Back the Beaver which had a similar refrain of the only way things happen is if we’re doing the work.

Incendiaries

R.O. Kwon

Incendiaries was a compelling story of faith and fanatacism. It was easy to read and played a little like a movie for me. The perspective switching didn’t quite offer the depth of character I was looking for from the characters aside from the main narrator, Will. I know that was part intended as their perspectives are still told by him to an extent, pulled together from fragments, but where I had really wanted to get inside the cult at the centre of the novel, Jejah, I still felt like an outsider.

Persuasion

Jane Austen

My annual Austen was as comforting and fun a read as ever. Anne Elliot has a maturity that’s distinct among Austen heroines, although 28 certainly isn’t old, which was a particular joy. I would have liked a little less exposition of feeling and a little more display, but honestly these are classics you can’t go far wrong with.

Weather

Jenny Offil

In a similar vignette type style to Dept. of Speculation, which I read earlier this year, but I felt more connected to the narrator. The climate anxiety felt very real. I enjoy Offil’s writing but it always seems to wash over me, it feels so true to the moment that it’s part of it, rather than sinking in. 

What can a body do?

Sarah Hendren

This raised some really interesting questions about what our bodies can and can’t do with and without assistance, and what assistance really means. The mix of Hendren’s personal and professional reflections struck the perfect mix of informative and engaging. There are lots of things I will take away with me into my day to day life as well as my work including: the requirement and the gift of assistance being a fundamental part of being a human being, that scalability doesn’t have to mean homogeneity, that prosthetics aren’t just robotic arms and sometimes those robotic arms aren’t what’s really required and more than anything else that the range of lived experiences and expertise in the world could and should be tapped into to shape and keep shaping the world around us.

City of Girls

Elizabeth Gilbert

As I read City of Girls, I kept commenting that it felt like a TV show. Perhaps it’s because I was watching The Marvelous Mrs Maisel at the same time, but I think it’s more likely down to the vividity of the characters and the conversational tone that Vivian the narrator strikes up that really brings you into her world. I thoroughly enjoyed every page and could have kept reading for much longer, despite it already being one of the biggest books I’ve read this year. I will say that I think that the first half was stronger than the second, which in places felt like it was trying to round up and skip through to get to an end that wasn’t for the reader but for the premise of the epistolary set up.

Exit West

Moshin Hamid

The Guardian described Exit West as a magical vision of the refugee crisis and that’s pretty much perfect. Hamid envisions a world that feels a stone’s throw away from the one we inhabit today but also in an alternative, slightly magical, universe. It chronicles both the international impacts of a global refugee crisis and the consequences of a different form of migration for those who are moving and those who aren’t, alongside the very normal story of a relationship. It got me thinking but it didn’t draw me in. 

Golden Child

Claire Adams

Set in rural Trinidad, this family drama about a missing twin is taut with both drama and emotional turmoil. I raced through this even though it was tough in places. The setting is as much a character as any of the family members and really transported me.

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This is exactly what it says on the tin, a recount of every book I’ve read this year accompanied by a little illustrated cover inspired by the work of Lizzy Stewart who does an illustrated cover summary every year. I’ve put together this (very lengthy) list as much for my own memory as a chance to recommend some of the best things I’ve read this year. 

 

Next year I need to read more fiction again!

Recommended fiction

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin – This was a real page turner towards the end, it even got me wanted to get on the tube so I could finish it. It was a little obvious in its meaning at times but really did make me consider how I think about death and what it means to live.

The Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss – This was short and sharp. It was brutally disconcerting in places but brilliant, if a little heavy on the collecting of herbs.

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson – this tiny novella felt so profound it was almost a parable about creating a nation, a family and a life set against the wilds of the great American wilderness.

Recommended biographical writing

Becoming by Michelle Obama – There’s little extra I can add to the discussion of this book – brilliant, filled with insight and vulnerability. It offered a new look at a life I felt I knew from the outside as well as inspiration for pursuing what is meaningful for you and supports others. I’d recommend it as an audiobook particularly.

Rough Magic: Riding the World’s Loneliest Horse Race by Lara Prior-Palmer – I don’t like horses but I loved this account of how Prior-Palmer ended up riding in and winning the longest and toughest horse race, with very little training. It’s both a story of riding Mongolian ponies and a story of trying to ride to get out of yourself. It’s brilliantly written, poetic in moments, and avoids the long worn clichés of women in the wild.

Recommended non-fiction

Exposure by Olivia Sudjeic – This had the perfect balance in what I want in a personal piece of non-fiction, it was clever and well researched whilst remaining intimate and grounded in the writer’s experience. It had a clear rounding conclusion but didn’t preach answers. I really want to read Sympathy now as well.

Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff – This book changed the trajectory of my year and changed how I look at what I do in a profound way.

Stand out of our light by James Williams – I think this is the best primer on the attention economy I’ve read. It’s highly readable and quotable. Written as part of the Three Dots Prize, you can really tell the quality of both the personal and academic research that went into its writing.

Hello World by Hannah Fry – Algorithms shape our world but we know very little about them, because they’re shrouded in the mystery of being too technical for everyday people. Fry breaks down the big groups of algorithm by the kinds of goals they’re given and then offers examples that are easy to understand and to see both the pros and cons of their use.

Shackleton’s Journey by William Gill – I had coveted this book after seeing it on a friend’s shelf a few years ago, so I decided to treat myself to this illustrated wonder as birthday gift. It’s truly beautiful but so packed with information, I know it’s one I’ll dip into in quiet moments again and again over the years.

Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm by Isabella Tree – This book left me hopeful and inspired about what a shift in how we farm could mean not only for our planet, but also our own sense of how we exist in nature. The fact that the Knepp estate project is real and ongoing lends so much more weight to Tree’s account than had it been an abstract account of what wilding might do. She does use the phrase “the results were astonishing” a little too much but the results really are astonishing.

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo – An enthralling read, you could truly tell how close Taddeo had become to the stories and the women she was sharing on the page. The pacing and way it kept me hooked had a similar quality to In Cold Blood, if a very different subject matter and voice. It was really something to read about women’s sexuality in a way that was just that women’s own sexuality.

Everything else in roughly time order

Mixed Race Superman by Will Harrison – This short account of the power of having role models that look like you, when you don’t feel you fit in. It included lots of thought provoking perspectives and two of my favourites (Obama and Keanu Reeves) but felt very academic in places and lacked a real conclusion.

What if this were enough by Heather Havrilesky – There were a few brilliant essays in the collection. Havrilesky is clearly a brilliant writer, but again I wanted more of a pay off, not necessarily an answer, but a rallying cry.

How to be alone by Sara Maitland – The history of isolation and independence was great the workbook was less engaging. 

What a Time to be Alone by Chidera Eggerue – I enjoyed the Igbo proverbs but little else. 

The Good Immigrant – As a collection of short stories, some were better than others (as in every collection) but it was a good reminder to take step outside of my self and my own sense of belonging more.

Him & Me by Jack & Michael Whitehall – I had hoped this would be a light break of an audiobook, but it really wasn’t as funny as I thought it would be.

Milkman by Anna Burns – I found this one tough to get into but worth it in the end. There were some really interesting style choices with the removal of names (mostly) and the very myopic narrator. As someone who has thought little about the struggles in Ireland it offered an interesting historical companion too. 

The UX Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide by Leah Burley – This wasn’t as revelatory as I would have liked. There were a few good tips but it was largely an account of what I/my team do day to day.

Calypso by David Sedaris – I really liked the essay on his relationship with the Fitbit, it rang true. But I’m not sure that I’m going to be a big David Sedaris reader in the future although I do think he’d be an interesting dinner guest.

The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy – This was an unflinchingly honest piece of memoir – what does it mean to confront who you really are flaws and all and to walk away still whole after losing so much? 

My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite -This was so readable it felt like grown up YA, for want of a better description. It firmly planted me into another culture and set of social norms I’m not normally a part of though. 

Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez – This is a brilliantly put together account of how gendered gaps in the data we rely on to feed algorithms and make decisions perpetuate and exaggerate gendered inequality. It shone a light on a number of cases I never would have thought about otherwise. 

The Sellout by Paul Beatty – Clever and well written but I just don’t like satire. I’m sorry to the tutors who tried to teach me to like it, but I just really struggle.

Natives by Akala – Akala’s account of race and racism in the UK gives both a personal and an educational focus that, as someone privileged enough not to have experience racism, gave what he was sharing something tangible to hold onto. It lacked a real conclusion, but there is no neat ending to institutionalised inequality.

Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday – This is book of two asymmetrical parts. Both stories were interesting and very readable, but incredibly different. What engaged me with one was missing from the other and vice versa. The juxtaposition raised questions about asymmetry of power across groups, but because of my intense need for closure I was hoping they would join up more.

The Authentic Lie by Pandora Sykes – I think this Pound Project read pairs well with Exposure as another short read about the pressures on (particularly young women) to be “authentic” singular selves in a way that leaves us less able to be true to ourselves and feed our own needs.

A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit – This was beautifully written and a perfect read while on holiday walking. Some of the descriptions of paths and the distance in the introductory chapters will stay with me forever,

Duped by Abby Ellin – After being duped by a financé with a double life, Abby Ellin decided to investigate why people lie and why we’re so susceptible to being lied to. I had hoped this one would be a little more gripping, but the personal insights Ellin wove into her story and interviews held my interest.

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez – The cover drew me into this one. It’s a poignant tale of loss and friendship (both human and canine). As someone who has found solace in the unconditional quiet friendship of a dog it was a sentimental read that I loved enough to gift to a friend of my own.

Salt on My Tongue by Charlotte Runcie – Having enjoyed more than a few trips to the coast this year the exploration of what the sea means to us, and particularly what it has meant to women through the ages. I had hoped for a little more on the “women through the ages” but the reflections on motherhood woven in were a surprise hit. I don’t think I’ll ever think of coastal islands in the same way again.

Quiet by Susan Cain – I can’t count how many people have recommended this book to me over the years, so I’m not quite sure why it’s taken me so long to read it. As an introvert it was a reaffirming read that’s pushed me to own my own personality (more visibly if not loudly and) proudly. 

Anthropologies and Futures ed. Sarah Pink et al – An anthropology book that won’t be for all but I found some of the techniques used to get participants to think about the future fascinating. 

I Love Dick by Chris Kraus – This is a collection of writing that’s not really sure what it is and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I could tell why it had all of the praise it had but it left me a little cold.

My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent – This is a haunting page turner. I wanted the scenes out in nature to go on for longer but the ending felt right and true. It’s not for the faint of heart and it made me wish that novels relied on the trauma of children less. But I did swallow it almost whole.

Solitude by Michael Harris – Perhaps the best book on being alone and why we need to be on our own sometimes that I’ve read this year, and I’ve read a few.

Design Anthropology: Object Cultures in Transition ed. Wendy Gunn, Ton Otto, Rachel Charlotte Smith – “This book is written by anthropologists who actively participate in the development of design anthropology [providing an] introduction to the concepts, methods, practices and challenges of the new field” It was interesting to have a more physical approach to ethnographic research rather than the more digital work I do, but the academic methods it contained weren’t as inspirational or as cutting edge as I might have hoped.

The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr – Storr’s research into the neuroscience and psychology of stories led him to a character driven concept (rather than an action driven one) of how we engage with narrative. It’s a refreshing take on a well researched area, but it might be one where you can watch the TED talk and get enough out of that.

Yes Please by Amy Poehler – This book was exactly what I wanted it to be, a moment to have Amy Poehler laugh me into a kick up the bum to get going on what I want to do.

Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli – As much as this is a layered “vertical narrative” is about literature and translation and storytelling, it’s also about how we fabricate ourselves and the lives of those we encounter. It was a challenging read but had a few moments of magic hidden in there.

Brother by David Chariandy – “Brother explores questions of masculinity, family, race, and identity as they are played out in a Scarborough housing complex during the sweltering heat and simmering violence of the summer of 1991.” It’s well written and put me in a world so far away from my own. I have to admit I don’t think I was emotionally impacted as others who have read it.

The New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future by James Bridle – “As the world around us increases in technological complexity, our understanding of it diminishes. Underlying this trend is a single idea: the belief that our existence is understandable through computation, and more data is enough to help us build a better world.” Bridle unpicks that single idea well and highlights what we lose as we allow our understanding to wane, but doesn’t offer much in the way of a light to help. I guess I’ve got more reading to do before I come up with any solutions of my own.

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Oddell – This account of pushing back against the attention economy was fascinating as a read it and I found myself nodding along. But it’s one I’ve really struggled to retain much of, perhaps it needs another read next year?

Stranger City by Linda Grant – Set in contemporary London, with all of its Brexit fears, this felt like a book about belonging and how hard it can be to anchor yourself in the city. As someone who’s been researching immigration appeals for the past year, the portrayal of that particular uncertainty in fictional form gave a new perspective to my day job.

Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino – At once whip-smart and playful this collection of essays about growing up and into the internet age was worth the hype. I had this as a read by the author audiobook and I think it added so much.

The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene by Mark Maslin and Simon L. Lewis – For once I agree wholeheartedly with the google description – “an engrossing exploration of the science, history and politics of the Anthropocene, one of the most important scientific ideas of our time, from two world-renowned experts”. I think it’s the interplay of those elements science, history and politics which really sets this one apart.

See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt – This was a novel that was all about a murder that never really talked about the murder. On the one hand, the sense of a claustrophobic family and psychological trickery at play were well done and an interesting take on a well worn genre and story. But on the other hand, it felt like it was missing something at its core.

Talking to strangers by Malcolm Gladwell – This book included some interesting research pieced together well, particularly as an audiobook, but the conclusions Gladwell jumped to never landed for me. Only the first chapter about spies really felt like it held much true value.

The Education of an Idealist by Samantha Power – I’m not quite sure how I ended up with this book on my list, if I’m honest. I wasn’t all that aware of Samantha Power before I read it. But I found her varied and adventure filled life incredibly interested, as I did how she learned to balance her own mental health while pursuing such a high pressure career. As someone who isn’t that up on American foreign policy, the first half of her book about her younger days definitely resonated with me harder.

User Friendly: How the Hidden Rules of Design are Changing the Way We Live, Work & Play by Cliff Kuang & Robert Fabricant – As someone who works (in largely digital) design the overriding concepts of user-friendliness and they ways they shape our behaviour were already familiar to me. But what I found really interesting in this one was the way the authors built up the history of how those processes came to be the foundation of contemporary design for both better and worse.

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders – This book wasn’t quite what I expected it to be, despite going in with very few expectations. I found the cacophony of voices and quotations at once its strongest and hardest to follow feature. 

The Trans-Siberian Railway by Nina Cosford – I was so excited to kickstart this illustrated log of Nina’s journey by rail from Moscow to Beijing. It’s an absolutely gorgeous book that gives a sense of some of the biggest (and smallest) moments of her trip.

How to Draw Anything by Scriberia – I really want to get into more live sketching work, so I thought I’d read through this book by the masters. It’s pretty basic but it gave me some inspiration for my sketchnoting workshop.

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones – A harrowing and intensely intimate portrait of a newly wed couple pulled apart by a wrongful conviction. Brilliantly written and engrossing, but I have to admit I wasn’t a huge fan of the dolls.

The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli – This one went over my head a little if I’m honest. But it opened my eyes to how little we can perceive of the world with the senses we have at our immediate disposal and the fact that now is such a limited frame of reference. 

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It’s been such a long time since I caught you up with what I’m reading. There were so many brilliant potential picks for this month’s book club, because my summer has had a plentiful harvest of paperbacks. Stand outs have included My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent, which is worth all of the hype because I devoured it in about 2 days, Solitude by Michael Harris, which is one of the best books I’ve read recently about pursuing moments of a solitary life, and Hello World by Hannah Fry, which is a fascinating and accessible guide to some of the algorithms that shape our modern world.

 

But, today I want to write about Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli and translated by Christina MacSweeney. It’s a short book that I picked up, almost at random, off someone else’s shelf and that I may not have found otherwise. So I wanted to display it on my digital bookshelf, which is how I see this book club, so you might be a little more inclined to pick it up too.

 

Faces in the Crowd weaves between three stories. “In Mexico City, a young mother is writing a novel of her days as a translator living in New York. In Harlem, a translator is desperate to publish the works of Gilberto Owen, an obscure Mexican poet. And in Philadelphia, Gilberto Owen recalls his friendship with Lorca, and the young woman he saw in the windows of passing trains.” 

 

Each tale is layered on top of the other creating what the mother calls a “vertical narrative”. The layers are short fragments which could be anything from a line to a page long, which give the story an unsettling unstable position of narration. Stories disintegrate and disappear into one another. 

 

While Owen and the younger translator are characters in their own right, they also appear as constructions by the mother as she writes. At one point, the unnamed translator—who is a younger version of the mother and also a character in the mother’s novel—talks about her acts of forgery to an old man who asks: “So what does it matter if he [Gilberto Owen] never met Lorca or saw Duke Ellington play?” “It doesn’t, I’m just saying he could have,” the translator says. “Exactly,” replies the old man, “and that’s what matters.”

 

So as much as this is a book about literature and translation and storytelling, it’s also about how we fabricate ourselves and the lives of those we encounter. The novel is filled with glances across packed metro stations, where characters see faces in a crowd and turn them from mere faces into people who feel so well fictionalised they might just be real. They tell the stories that they want to hear, the stories that fit with their own personal narratives.

For this alternative cover, I wanted the layered text to mirror the layered narrative surrounded by individual fragments.

The outcome is something so surreal but at once so close to how we actually encounter the world. How we exist in our own heads is different to how we exist in the minds of others and vice versa. We are constantly retelling our own narratives in fragments, picking up memories, changing them slightly each time we do, and relating them to our present.

 

Faces in the Crowd is a challenging read. It can be heard to follow in places and it pushes you to add your own interpretations and fabrications into your reading. It’s probably not going to be a big beach side read. But if you’re prepared to work with Luiselli, there’s some real magic to be made in this one.

 

SOME QUESTIONS TO PONDER AS YOU READ…

  • As the book progresses, how do you know which storyline you’re in? Does it matter?
  • What are the points of similarity between the narrator and Owen? Where do they merge?
  • What is fact and what is fiction? How can you tell? Is your perception of the fabrication the same as the narrator’s?
  • What impact does telling the story in such fragments have on your perception of the told and untold aspects of the narrator’s life?
  • Have you ever caught a glimpse of someone in a crowd who you thought was someone else?

 

IF YOU WANT SOME FURTHER READING TRY…

  • The Observer heralds Luisella as an exciting female voice joining a new wave of Lating American authors
  • The Rumpus discusses Faces in the Crowd as a “haunted novel” filled with fragments of ghosts
  • Stephen Piccarella writing for Electric Lit writes that “it is here in these spaces that open at the end of the novel that the writing of fiction really begins”

 

IF YOU WANT MORE BOOKS LIKE THIS HAVE A LOOK AT…

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Last year I read 25 books total. This year I’d read that many by the end of April. I know for a lot of people that’s not a lot, and for others that’s a huge amount, but I think it’s just about the most I can do right now.

 

When I was little I loved to read. I would devour books. I could spend hours and hours reading. There’s a reason I studied English.

 

But ever since I finished my degree I’ve been struggling to really get into reading. I had to read miles of critical texts and source material every week. But I had to scan and skim and read with an essay in mind (not every well I might add). I had to stop devouring and slowly I feel like I forgot how to. I forgot how to enjoy reading.

 

But this year I wanted to make a conscious effort to get back into reading. And I think I’m doing okay so far.

 

So I wanted to share some of the ways I’ve overcome readers block.

Set aside enough time to read in gulps

It’s hard to really get into a book if you’re only able to read a few pages in a go, AKA the only time you have to read is the 2 minutes before you go to sleep and you can barely keep your eyes open. I’ve tried to go to bed a little earlier (although the BBC still thinks I’m an extreme night owl) to give me the time for an extra chapter. I’ve also tried to pick up my books in lunch breaks and tube rides, but more on that further down.

 

Build a varied reading list

One of the most rewarding ways I’ve been working to read more is changing what I’m reading. I’ve read more non-fiction, more biographies, more (non-literature) academic works than I have ever done for fun before. That range has given me so much more to delve into. I’ve had some hits and some misses, but I’ve always had something new to look forward to. I’ve not forced myself to read anything I’ve not fancied at that moment in time. I’ve looked for books I’m genuinely been interested in and then just given them a go.

 

But don’t be afraid to return to what you love

While I’ve added variety to my reading list diet, I’ve still turned to old favourite genres and writers. If I’m ever feeling like I’ve had a patch of books that I’ve not really liked, that haven’t left me wanting to read more, I’ve not been afraid to just read what I know I like. In my case, I love thrillers (I was a murderino before it was cool), I love a good romance, and on occasion I’ll even return to my truest love of all fanfiction.

 

Change up your reading media

I think the biggest change for me has been moving away form just reading paper books. As much as I adore how a ‘real’ book feels in my hands and smells when you thumb through the pages, it’s not always the most practical. I get motion sickness if I read on a train or tube, and my bag is often stuffed full. So I’ve started to download books on to my phone for quick breaks at work and to replace my endless scrolling. I’ve also discovered a new love of audiobooks, which I still class as reading no matter what anyone else says, and they have transformed my commutes.

 

Reading more has given me a power I’d forgotten. Sure it’s nice to say you’ve read however many books, but what’s really exciting is when those books start to join up in your mind. Now I’m reading again, I’m joining up dots and I’m starting to feel inspired to make my own work. When I say that I don’t just mean I want to make (I always want to make) but to push myself to make things that join up those dots and have that giddy feeling of literary power I’ve been feeling recently. I’m not sure I’ll ever live up to it, but it sure can’t hurt to try.

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Here we are in my 25th book review.

 

I’ve mentioned before that this year I’ve really been diving much more into non-fiction, and that includes memoirs for the first time ever really. The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy was a bit of  stand out in the pack, and a strong pick for a book club recommendation.

 

Without giving too much away, this quote gets right to the crux of the subject matter: “the truth is, the ten or twenty minutes I was somebody’s mother were black magic. There is nothing I would trade them for. There is no place I would rather have seen.” It’s a memoir and something of a cautionary tale about trauma, about privilege, about being a woman alone, as a mother and as a wife. As Levy writes about the unravelling of “all of her assumptions about what she [could] control are undone after a string of overwhelming losses” there’s something haunting about the fragility of what we have day to day. As David Remnick writes of the article which was the prelude to her memoir, “the world is full of personal essays. My illness. My divorce. My delight. They are everywhere. Arguably there are too many. Among the average ones, there’s a kind of grasping aspect to them. When they connect, as Ari’s did, there’s really nothing like it.””

 

The Rules is unforgiving. It’s unforgiving in its depiction of loss and of trauma. It’s also unforgiving of itself. While Levy no longer blames herself for the twists of fate that she was handed, she never lets herself off the hook for the mistakes she feels she made. The Rules feels like a long hard look in the mirror after a shower where you see yourself, truly naked, under no one’s gaze but your own and find yourself examining quite how you’ve changed.

 

That is to say that’s it’s a brilliantly written piece of self-analysis. While Levy touches on some of the forces that influenced how she behaved, how she viewed herself, it is a book that primarily turns inwards. It is a memoir after all.

I wanted to riff on the colours of the original cover for this alternative design. I’m not sure why but the simple ones always take me the longest to settle on.

Levy is a privileged white woman and I know some readers have found The Rules too solipsistic. That Levy’s constant centring of her own story, is an act of narcissism. That her take on feminism’s and neoliberalism’s claims that women can, should, and are in fact owed the opportunity to have it all, long out of date. I would agree with the foundation of all of those claims, but I don’t think they act to the detriment of the memoir.

Are we not all at the center of our own stories? If we were to write those stories, surely they would come out with all of the baggage and biases of our own various privileges?

 

As for the point of ‘does anyone really think they can have it all?’ most notably levelled by Charlotte Shane. My personal opinion is no we don’t logically believe it. We can all outwardly debunk it as a myth, as a dream. We can analyse and unpick why it’s a fallacy we’ve been presented to sell us anything and everything, just like we can point of photoshopping on magazine covers. But that doesn’t stop us privately hoping we might just be the one who the rules don’t apply to, that we could have a partner and a career and a family and still have adventures, even if we have to compromise a little. But perhaps that’s my own naivety and privilege showing too.

 

I raced through The Rules Do Not Apply so fast that I felt a little queasy at the end. It’s not a book for a poolside jaunt into escapism, it’s a book for an afternoon where you need to be shaken a little. Shaken out of your own day to have a moment outside of yourself to reflect and to analyse.

 

I’ll just leave you with the words that are one the jacket of pretty much every copy of The Rules I’ve seen. They seem to be the only words that quite do it justice.

 

“I thought I had harnessed the power of my own strength and greed and love in a life that could contain it. But it has exploded.”

 

SOME QUESTIONS TO PONDER AS YOU READ…

  • What impact does Levy’s privilege have on how you engage with her story? How do you think it shaped the story itself?
  • Knowing how The Rules ends, what impact does the closure it offers have on the messy trauma held within the rest of the memoir?
  • Levy describes her life as having been like a “movie” impervious to true loss before this memoir, how has the media shaped how you frame your own life?
  • The Rules was published a little after the American election that saw Hilary Clinton lose and books like Cheryl Sandberg’s Lean In lambasted, how does Levy’s memoir fit in this cultural climate?
  • Can we ‘have it all’? What does that question mean today?

 

IF YOU WANT SOME FURTHER READING TRY…

 

IF YOU WANT MORE BOOKS LIKE THIS HAVE A LOOK AT…