I’m a bit ashamed at how little I’ve read this year — just 24 books — though at least that’s better than last year’s pitiful 15. Here are the best — none of which were published this year, interestingly.
Yellowface, by R.F. Kuang
In my mid-year roundup I said this was “brilliantly funny, very gripping, and almost Nabokovian in its use of a detestable narrator”. I stand by that — and it’s still on my mind almost a year after I read it.
Black Swan Green, by David Mitchell
I previously said this “perfectly captures a very specific time of life, and is full of drop-dead gorgeous lines that permanently change the way you think”. A good reminder, for me, to always read the back catalogue of authors you love!
Cinema Speculation, by Quentin Tarantino
Back in May I said I “liked, but didn’t love” this. But the more I think about it, the more I like it. Tarantino is, unsurprisingly, an encyclopedia of film knowledge. I learnt a lot reading this — about old movies, yes, but also about Tarantino and why his films are the way they are. I’ve gained a lot of new appreciation for them from this book; that alone makes it worth reading.
On The Road, by Jack Kerouac
This is truly special. It’s both intimate and sweeping, propulsive and ponderous — I really adored it. I read “The Original Scroll”, which is uncensored and unanonymised, and I’m quite glad I did: I think the realism added to the magic.
Super-Infinite, by Katherine Rundell
I read this after enjoying Rundell’s appearance on Conversations With Tyler, despite it not seeming particularly up my street. But it’s great! I learnt a ton about John Donne, of whom I was almost entirely ignorant, who appears to have been both very funny and very … modern.
I also very much enjoyed A State of Fear, about the brutal years of Argentina’s “Dirty War” — which was in fact just a brutal military junta where it was very normal for random people to be abducted off the streets of Buenos Aires and murdered. Reading this in Buenos Aires was a trip — another win for Eland publishers. I did not enjoy the other Argentina-related book I read though, In Patagonia, which I found more than a bit overrated.
My other big trip this year was to India, prompting me to read the fun and interesting Loot (about Tipu Sultan) and The Anarchy (about the East India Company). I read Ways of Seeing in India too — interesting enough but didn’t shake me to my core or anything.
I also read a bunch of books about the history of the panorama/immersive art for an essay I never got round to writing (but might do next year): Panoramania was my favourite, but The Panorama, American Sublime and Deceptions and Illusions are all worth a skim too.
Quite a lot of sci-fi/fantasy this year, too. I read The Three Body Problem and its sequels The Dark Forest and Death’s End, all of which have interesting stories and ideas but pretty poor prose. I can’t really remember what happened in Rendezvous With Rama — nor The Ministry of Time. And The Poppy War, also by Kuang, sadly failed to reach the heights of Yellowface. The Secret History of Twin Peaks is very silly but a nice way to prolong my enjoyment of the show.
Other fiction included Circe (very good, particularly as an audiobook), I’m A Fan (decent but too didactic), and the oldest book I read this year, Rebecca (which feels pretty fresh given its age!).
Looking at my picks from last year: The Remains of the Day and Small Things Like These have stuck with me; the others not so much.
Essayant 