021. The Final Round-Up - Books Books Books
A bumper edition of things to read, or if you prefer pictures of books and my various nail colours throughout the year.
We are three weeks into the new year – how is it treating everyone? Gently, I hope? Freezing with me, but a dry and crisp and bright and blue and I scrounged two early bunches of daffodils for 50p and I feel like I’ve dropped a pill. Whichever party puts “blue skies and a minimum 14 hours sunlight per day” front and centre of their manifesto gets my vote this year (not the Tory’s, of course, they’ve done enough (derogatory))
The final round-up of last year is here, and it’s books books books. Maybe you’ll get a tonne of snow where you are this week, up over the doors, and you’ll get sick of watching the TV? Here’s your recs! Get them from a local bookshop, get them from Hive, get them from your local library, just try not to get them from Amazon! These aren’t all books released this year, just books I’ve read this year and loved, and maybe you will too.
Fiction.
The Satsuma Complex by Bob Mortimer
Gary lives a quiet life, until he’s thrust into adventure across South London after going for a pint with a colleague who then goes missing. Whilst trying to find out what has happened to him, Gary also tries to find out more about a woman he met in the pub who he’s called Satsuma, after a book she was reading. He teams up with his curious neighbour and a squirrel on what’s actually quite a cheeky little mystery! I just love Bobs brain and how he puts sentences together, along with the characters he builds. A funny, easy read.
An exceptional debut of ten short stories, centred around young women and girls coming of age and their budding relationships, even more intense friendships and the micro-dynamics behind every interaction that is felt at a visceral level whilst finding your place in the world. I read each one before bed and found myself still thinking about them for days after.
Another debut, worth every single one of the plaudits it’s won. Power dynamics, grubby social media, influencer culture and privilege are all laid bare in tight but blistering prose.
Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
Set broadly over two parts, the first part sees Sally Milz, a comedy skit writer (for what is implied is SNL) grappling with the intense hours and insanely fast paced world of late-night comedy shows whilst trying to have a semblance of a life outside of the studio. Then she meets Noah, a popstar renowned for dating models exclusively. Fast-forward two years and we’re in the pandemic, where Sally and Noah get back in touch, and we’re treated to late night email exchanges, pop star compounds and the lifelong question – can a relationship between one average looking person and one insanely hot person ever work out?
The Happy Couple by Naoise Dolan
Queer love quadrangles (squares?), concert pianists, city boys, recreational drugs, casual disdain for each other one second and rampant horniness the next, all hurtling towards the main event, the big day, the wedding. Will they or won’t they? Who cares, but we have a hoot finding out.
Leonard and Hungry Paul by Ronan Hessian
What a gorgeous antidote to cynical, divided times. Hungry Paul has his best friend, Leonard, over to his parents house where he still lives (much to his sisters exasperation) for regular board game nights and chats. Their routine is threatened when Leonard meets a woman at his (fascinating!) job of writing children’s encyclopaedias. But this is a gentle story, with kind, ordinary characters that reminds you that deep down, most people want the best for each other without theatrics and fireworks. Male friendship, spicy brains and tricky sibling dynamics which all make for a cup filler of a book.
Non Fiction
Couldn’t have Bob without Vic, could I?! Vic Reeves, or Jim Moir as he’s legally and artistically known, when he isn’t bird watching, can be found padding about his lovely house painting said birds. This is a collection of one hundred of his watercolours, and the closest I’ll ever get to owning a print without a career move that catapults me into another tax bracket.
Nobody Will Tell You This But Me by Bess Kalb
An astonishing look at the lives of four generations of women in the same family - another book I gulped in one sitting and am still thinking about months later. Bess keeps every voicemail her beloved grandmother leaves her, and after she dies, Bess tells the story of survival, to thriving, of the women who came before her. Deeply moving, I haven’t read anything quite like it.
Memoirs aren’t really my wheelhouse, but this feels different. A rumination on food and how it brings us all together, weaving recipes with stories from Clare’s childhood and how it brought two new families together after her parents separated, how her step-mother helped navigate Clare’s eating disorder, and how food has helped her forge friendships and relationships in later life. A beautiful, thoughtfully written book, like cawl for the mind.
Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux
Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Ernaux charts the two-year relationship she had with a younger, married man, where every moment is either spent waiting for him to call, desperately longing for him, or kicking her sons out of her apartment so she can fuck him. Dare I say, incredibly chic! A slip of a book you’ll read one sitting and then, if you’re like me, hunt for translations of Ernaux’s other work.
Poetry
It’s Hard to be Hip Over Thirty by Judith Viorst
She’s right, it is, and the collection is bang on the money.
Can highly recommend laying under a blanket and gently sobbing to these. This in particular.
How Beautiful the Beloved by Gregory Orr
Read it aloud, and in one sitting if possible. On loving and being loved, it manages to be both mystical and to the point at once. Gorgeous.
A Hundred Lovers by Richie Hofmann (I got my copy off eBay, the only other link I can find is Amazon for the UK)
A brief, sexy, collection of encounters.
And my book of the year
Trespasses by Louise Kennedy
A love story set in Northern Ireland in 1975 – the height of The Troubles. Cushla, a Catholic primary school teacher living just outside Belfast meets an older Protestant lawyer whilst picking up a shift at the family pub. Him being married is the very least of their worries (whom amongst us can resist an older, socialist lawyer with a mild alcohol problem?!) but they embark on an affair that would set the town alight if found out. The book opens in the current day, so we know tragedy befalls them, but the slow unfurling of their relationship set amongst the suffocating reality of village life with bomb scares, punishment beatings and British police intimidation makes for gripping reading. Kennedy conveys the reality of living your average, day to day life with an undercurrent of constant tension superbly. Pierce Brosnan to play Michael, surely?!
Irish writers are having a real moment aren’t they?! I’m trying to assess whether my anxiety will abate long enough to enjoy Prophet Song (probably not!) whilst languishing in The Bee Sting - this is the first time in such a long time that I’m not rushing through a book, I honestly don’t want it to end and feel like by starting the year with such a bang I’m setting myself up for 12 months of disappointment. I’ve got the latest Jilly Cooper and Slow Horses tee’d up next, but that’s not to say something else won’t turn my head and jump the queue in the meantime. I hope you’ve enjoyed my little round-up of delights over the last few weeks and if not, this tweet sums it up I’m afraid. Normal service will resume with a little chit chat about delights and a recipe soon enough, but in the meantime - what was your favourite book this year?
N xo