My Top 10 Books of 2016

The geeky act of making lists of favourite books is a pleasure I don't think we should deny ourselves. What better way to get a snap-shot of someone's reading tastes and pick up on recommendations for great books you might have missed over the year. I read 112 books this year, many of them newly published in 2016 and many of them highly enjoyable. However, these ten books all show great craft but also feel personally significant to me. Click on the titles below to read my full reviews of each book. You can also watch my BookTube video talking about these ten books: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7x_TPKvl7I&t=71s

The Man Without a Shadow by Joyce Carol Oates

Anyone who knows how Oates is my favourite author might think it is an obvious choice for me to put a new novel by her on my list, but this is truly an excellent book. The more I think about it the more layers it yields about the meaning of personality and romance. An unusual love story between a man with short term memory loss and scientist Margot that explores the elusive mechanics of the mind.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

I can't ignore the significance of this novel coming out in an American election year when a campaign fuelled by racism and anti-immigration helped a politically-inexperienced misogynist enter The White House. This story about an escaped slave named Cora who travels a physical underground railroad to arrive in different states of racism America says something so significant about the times we live in.

The Lonely City by Olivia Laing

The state of loneliness is a curious psychological phenomenon which seems natural to the human condition, but one which is only increasing in an age of so-called online connectedness. Laing's incredibly personal and well-researched non-fiction book looks at the lives and work of many great queer artists to see how loneliness manifests in different ways. This is an incredibly touching and moving book.

Solar Bones by Mike McCormack

Although it may seem daunting to read a novel that is one continuous sentence it comes to seem quite a natural thing as you enter the consciousness of its Irish protagonist. It's a significant reflection of the times we live in as much as it is as a moving story of family and the working life. Reading it is an electrifying experience.

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

Great survival stories are both thrilling and heartening. This is a tale of a girl who survives a brutal civil war only to discover that her natural desire to love women goes against the religious beliefs of her family and community. She faces a very different kind of challenge to survive as she's pressured to settle down into marriage with a man and gradually assert what she really wants in life. It's a brutally honest and inspiring story which suggests strategies for unifying disparate communities which are bitterly embattled.

Dinosaurs on Other Planets by Danielle McLaughlin

Creating finely constructed short stories that give the impact of a full-length novel is a difficult challenge. But this is something McLaughlin accomplishes consistently and beautifully in this memorable and significant debut collection. Even though I read it at the very beginning of the year many of these stories about people across all levels of Irish society have remained clear in my mind. You can watch me discussing this and other great books of short stories from 2016 here.

The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain

Tremain's tremendous artistry for plucking an uncommon story from history and making it come alive is unparalleled. Here she writes about two boys in Switzerland in the time immediately following WWII, but moves backwards and then forwards in time to show the repercussions of political neutrality and hidden love. This is a beautifully accomplished novel.

Autumn by Ali Smith

There's no writer more daring and inventive than Ali Smith. Not only has she bravely planned a quartet of novels based around the seasons, but she's reflecting in them what's happening in society now. This novel focuses on the country's mood in the aftermath of the 2016 Brexit vote and an uncommon friendship between young Elisabeth and a mysterious old man Daniel. In doing so she addresses the meaning of nationality, the state of the modern world and the nature of language. She does this with great flair, humour and passion.

Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien

Music has played a large part in many great novels this year – from Rose Tremain's novel to Julian Barnes' most recent novel “The Noise of Time” - but Thien skilfully shows how the art of composition and the compositions themselves fare under fifty years of living under the Maoist government. A girl follows her family's history in this complex, absorbing story which culminates in a depiction of the infamous student protests in Tiananmen Square. It's an epic novel.

The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss

It's always an immense pleasure to discover an incredibly talented author I've not read before and one of this year's great finds for me is Sarah Moss. This novel takes a potential family tragedy and expands the story to explore the messiness of ordinary life in such a tender and poignant way. It also reflects back to the past to consider the meaning of loss using such a disarming style of narration which totally gripped me.

Have you read any of my choices? Which are you most interested to read? Let me know some of your favourite books of the year. I'm always eager to hear about books I might have missed reading.

The Ten Best Irish Books of 2016

Here are my picks of ten great books of Irish fiction published in 2016 that I’ve read this year. I know there are a bunch of books by Irish authors that I missed out on so if you have a favourite Irish book which doesn’t appear on my list let me know about it in the comments below. I’ve always felt drawn towards Irish literature. I don’t know if this is because the entire mother’s side of my family are Irish-Americans or if it’s just because the Irish are incredible writers, but whatever the case I often read a high proportion of Irish literature. So here are my ten choices in no particular order and you can click on the titles to read my full reviews of each book.

The Glass Shore edited by Sinead Gleeson

It's wonderful that Gleeson has followed editing her tremendous anthology The Long Gaze Back with this new book which specifically focuses on women writers from the north of Ireland. The anthology moves by chronology of the authors' birth to span over two centuries of distinct stories – some of which relate directly to the region they come out of and others which are set other places. You can watch me discussing this and other great books of short stories from 2016 here.

Solar Bones by Mike McCormack

McCormack's style may be reminiscent of Samuel Beckett for artfully capturing the untamed thoughts of his character, but his voice is wholly his own. The novel gets the mood and perspective of an average Irish man at a certain time so perfectly that it's mesmerizing to read.

Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan by Ruth Gilligan

This absorbing novel tells three distinct stories set in different points of a century: a girl named Ruth whose family has newly arrived in Ireland, mute teenager Shem living in a mental health facility and journalist Aisling who considers converting to Judaism for her partner Noah. These tales are slyly connected and form a touching overall impression of the Jewish experience in Ireland. It's a forceful and intelligent novel.

The Lonely Sea and Sky by Dermot Bolger

I had never really considered Ireland's precarious political state during WWII before reading this, but Bolger's novel based on a real historical incident brings the issue poignantly to life. It's the story of a young boy who becomes a sailor out of necessity and how his ship chose to save German sailors stranded in the water one fateful day in 1943. It's a gripping, emotional tale.

The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney

It's a bit of a cheat choosing this novel which was first published in 2015, but it only came out in the States for the first time in 2016. This year has also really been good for McInerney as she won both the Baileys Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize. It's a tale of a group of loosely-connected individuals in modern day Cork whose lives are adversely affected by the country's social systems and religious traditions. It's a tremendously powerful novel.

The Maker of Swans by Paraic O’Donnell

Part of what makes new Irish fiction so exciting to follow is the ceaselessly inventive and daring writing style of its authors. O'Donnell's story of a remote grand house run by a mysterious Mr Crowe, his mute ward Clara and a butler named Eustace has its own logic. It's fantastically inventive in a way which gets at new meaning and poignant emotions not accessible in more traditional fiction.

All We Shall Know by Donal Ryan

Donal Ryan is one of the best writers working today. His stories are told with such precision that they make extraordinarily forceful reading experiences. This novel may be his most perfect yet as it relates the story of narrator Melody who has become pregnant by a younger man who is not her husband. It's a tale told with a lot of heart and wisdom that also shows a section of Irish society not often seen.

Inch Levels by Neil Hegarty

Things which are left unsaid in families have the ability to adversely affect individuals over a lifetime. This skilful debut novel about a terminally-ill man named Patrick and his troubled family shows how generations of silence conceal personal hopes and pain. Partially set against the violence of political change in Northern Ireland, this story is deeply emotional and quietly absorbing.

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue

The clash between old fashioned faith and modern thought creates a tense tale in this novel set in rural Ireland in the mid 1800s. English nurse Lib who trained under Florence Nightingale is charged with watching an adolescent farm girl who claims she no longer needs to eat because she can subsist on the manna from heaven alone. Lib is determined to prove the fraud, but the story gradually reveals her own complex past in the process. It's a finely-crafted and emotionally-charged story.

Days Without End by Sebastian Barry

Although Sebastian Barry is a very esteemed and established writer, this is actually the first book I’ve read by him. I was totally enraptured. The novel tells the story of a young Irishmen and his companion John who are both lovers and soldiers in the US military first fighting in conflicts with Native Americans and then in the Civil War. His narrative style is arresting, poetic and insightful.

Let me know if you've read any of these books, which you're most interested in trying to read now and if you have any other great Irish books you've read this year in the comments below!

The Surrender by Scott Esposito

I only realized in the past couple of years how dreadful many adults are about articulating what they really desire – also how dreadful I am at saying what I desire. Superficial desires might be easily expressed, but what someone really wishes to experience or become is often much harder to put out in the world because its buried under years of socialized behaviour. It's much easier to conform to expectations and slot into a category. In this short, powerful memoir “The Surrender”, Esposito describes his lifelong journey to giving into his desire to dress as a woman. At a certain point in his childhood he learned that his compulsion to dress girlish wasn't compatible with the masculine image imposed upon him so it remained secret and dormant for many years. Only through a surprising identification with Kiarostami's film Close-Up and gradually admitting to others his desire, does he begin to dress in a feminine way outside of the private sphere. This provokes Esposito to formulate a strikingly original meditation on the meaning of identity and desire in the modern world.

I was really struck by the profundity and beautiful simplicity Esposito has for articulating how burying what you desire is a grave dishonesty. He discovers “My needs were not compatible with the logics bred into my mind, and it was up to me to change them.” It takes a lot of patient reasoning and difficult confrontations with himself to truly understand why he fears his transvestitism being exposed. It also takes a lot of trust to confide in someone how he really feels, but how surprising and wonderful it can be to get a positive response to such a confession. He describes with heartrending emotion the feeling of being observed and why dressing openly as a woman was so difficult: “If personality is a performance, then there are certain parts of it that one only experiences in the presence of others. Shame, affection, desire, vulnerability; these are quantities whose experience in solitude is like the sound of a sonata heard by one faulty ear.” It takes many years for him to build up the certainty of character to allow his private self to be seen publicly.

One of the most touching things is the way Esposito describes the evolution of his identity in sync with the theory, literature and films he consumes. He meaningfully enters into a dialogue with those whose ideas feed into his experience helping him to better articulate his own desires. It made me aware of why reading feels like such a vital part of my life and how all the feelings produced from the things I read aren't just abstract concepts, but things that apply directly to my day to day life. I think this book makes a perfect companion to Maggie Nelson's “The Argonauts” which I only read recently. Both reflect strikingly on the dynamics of gender in a deeply personal and intelligent way.

The Ten Best Historical Novels of 2016

I'm not sure how much people are enjoying these lists, but I think it's fun to make them so I've picked out my top ten historical novels from 2016. These include a novel about a 17th century female aristocrat branded as mad, a star of Parisian opera houses who comes from humble beginnings, a dual tale with a mysterious painting at its centre, a talented Russian composer's struggle for artistic integrity, a fishery girl's reinvention of her life down under, a treacherous 19th century whaling voyage, neutrality in Switzerland, the victims of a South Korean uprising, a family saga set through Communist China and an inventive take on abolitionism in the American south. Watch me discuss these ten magnificent novels here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T2XcMqfcYQ

What makes a good historical novel for you and have you read any excellent ones recently?

The Ten Best Books of Short Stories from 2016

A new list today and I’m talking about short stories from this year that I’ve loved reading. These include an anthology that includes women writers from the north of Ireland, stories of personal change, satirical stories that give a lot of LOLs, icy tales of loneliness, fantastic tales that feel all too real, moving stories of Irish life, exquisitely-crafted tense gothic tales, highly inventive stories of transformation, the misguided adventures of people in Cape Canaveral and stories that give a new view of modern London. Watch me discuss ten exceptional books of short stories here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cdt7sHCSbQ

There have been many short story collections I’ve started this year, but not entirely finished reading so haven’t reviewed them yet. What have been some of your favourites?

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue

There are two gripping mysteries at the centre of Emma Donoghue’s new novel “The Wonder”. An English nurse who trained under Florence Nightingale named Elizabeth “Lib” Wright is summoned on a special job to rural Ireland in the mid 1800s. Only during the journey does she discover that she’s charged to keep watch over a young Catholic girl Anna O’Donnell who claims to have subsisted for many months without any food. The girl, her family and the village believe she’s being kept alive purely through a divine power. This has made her a wonder that many devoted people make pilgrimages to see. Is this a religious miracle or a fraud? Lib’s job is not to make the girl eat but just to observe her to independently testify that she truly doesn’t consume anything. However, this nurse who served in the Crimean War has a troubled hidden past of her own: “Everybody was a repository of secrets.” When her atheist views clash severely with this deeply-religious village, great conflict ensues. This highly intriguing atmospheric story intelligently shows a clash between new and old world sensibilities, the complicated nature of religious belief and the malleable nature of identity.

Hanging over this novel is the Great Famine in Ireland which had ended only recently in the early 1850s. The girl’s refusal of any food and gradual wasting away is a grim reminder of the near quarter of the country’s population who unwillingly perished. Lib is well aware of this enormous loss so it’s even more baffling to her that a girl would deny herself food and that her family/community/priest would support her decision. Lib’s opinion of the Irish falls as she spends time in the rural village and observes their customs. Not only are there intricate old-fashioned religious practices which sometimes elevates after-life glory over mortal wellbeing, but she shows contempt for their customs/manner of living, homes made of mud and unpalatable griddle cakes. It leads her to generalize “What a rabble, the Irish. Shiftless, thriftless, hopeless, hapless, always brooding over past wrongs. Their tracks going nowhere, their trees hung with putrid rags.” Her increasing bias throws into question who the reader should morally side with. However, an intelligent reporter from Dublin named William Byrne who is also a believer adds a bridge between this clash in national identity.

Donoghue includes a rich amount of period detail that makes this story richly alive. Not only are there compelling descriptions of the customs of village life in Ireland from this time, but also details about the nursing profession and medical practices. Many local physicians’ methodology was steeped as much in religious or misguided evolutionary beliefs as in hard therapeutic facts. Lib represents a newfound approach to medical care with a more rounded view of ways to support the afflicted: “what nobody understood: saving lives often came down to getting a latrine pipe unplugged.” This leads to a fascinating portrait of changing sensibilities within this time period. Donoghue also strikingly shows the subversive way people with misogynistic views could be manipulated through the way they underestimate women.

As in her well-known novel “Room”, the author shows a respect for the canniness and resilience of children. Donoghue remarks at one point “Like small gods, children formed their miniature worlds out of clay, or even just words. To them, the truth was never simple.” Rather than a pious simpleton, young Anna is gradually revealed to be a fascinating character with complex motives. The novel gains a swift momentum as the truth about both Anna and her vigilant watching nurse Lib are revealed. Donoghue explains in her author’s note how this novel was inspired by multiple cases over the centuries of fasting girls who reportedly survived for long periods of time without food. She has a great talent for condensing multiple instances of an irregular social phenomenon into a story that says something meaningful about our culture and the nature of being. “The Wonder” is a finely-crafted and emotionally-charged story.

Ten Great Books of Experimental Fiction from 2016

Continuing with my lists of the year centred around certain categories, here are great books of experimental fiction first published in the UK in 2016. I’m really excited by daring writing that breaks the mould and I think these books have pushed the form of fiction in interesting ways. They include a memoir told with a mixture of literary forms, a bleak tale of isolation and paranoia, a disfigured man waking up to the horrors of a warped reality, a detective investigation which shades into the philosophical, a wild road trip in search of a lost sister, a brilliantly innovative account of a difficult love affair, a radical re-visioning of Icelandic history, intriguing thoughtful tales of female experience, prostitution and rabid dogs in Spain and a hilarious/thought provoking take on standardized tests. Watch me discuss my top ten picks of experimental fiction here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQHC2fCUi_k

Have you read any books that intriguingly play with narrative form this year? Is so, let me know about them in the comments.

The Top Ten Debut Novels of 2016

Before coming up with an overall list of my books of the year, I thought it’d be fun to make different categories of favourite books I’ve read in 2016. I’ll make videos briefly discussing each book. I’m going to start by listing ten debut novels published in the UK during 2016 that I've loved reading. They include a historical novel about whaling, a story of introversion/artistic expression, a small town mystery centred around two charismatic girls, a teenager in a murderous 60s cult, vicious passion in Georgian London, tragic love in the Middle East, a family saga buried within a magnificent library, a father/son tale of emotional disconnection, an eerie remote fishing village and an absorbing novel about Soviet spies in mid-century Britain. Watch me discuss my top ten picks of distinctive & original new voices in fiction from 2016 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0Xz1Mra5pk

Have you read any great debut novels this year? Is so, let me know about them in the comments.

Margaret the First by Danielle Dutton

This isn’t your typical historical novel, but its protagonist Margaret Cavendish wasn’t your typical 17th century English aristocrat either. Attendant to Queen Henrietta Maria and married to William Cavendish, First Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, she could have spent her days reclining on a chaise lounge. Instead she engaged with the scientific, literary and philosophical ideas of her day by writing her own essays, plays and unconventional romances. Danielle Dutton has written an inventive fictional portrait of her life by delicately inhabiting this girl who grows up relatively care-free sketching stories and sharing a close relationship to her siblings. But she’s rudely awakened to the hard realities of the world when she experiences the death of family/friends, political conflict and torturous medical treatments that were meant to help her conceive after marrying. Gradually she’s inspired to make her thoughts and feelings known by publishing books which invigorate and challenge society. Showing a radical determination she declares: “I had rather be a meteor, singly, alone.” In pursuing her writing and ambition to be famous, this woman with a penchant for couture fashion achieved a level of notoriety and lasting influence on disparate groups of people over time – everyone from Virginia Woolf to Siri Hustvedt to animal rights activists.

Dutton tells Margaret’s story using a spare, impressionist style of narrative which recounts parties she attends and large societal shifts around her. While this feels at times confusing as it jolts through the ballrooms of history, it builds a meaningful feeling for Margaret’s developing sensibility and unique view of the world. She feels curiously estranged from her circumstances and seems to half live in a counter-world of her own creation (The Blazing World). Through depictions of her meditative writing process and desire for fame, Dutton shows how she strives to connect with the actual world around her. That she practically demands that everyone pay attention comes across as both brave and arrogant. However, the author clues the reader into the quiet centre of Margaret’s life through her distinct style of writing. So, even as the story rapidly progressed through the years, I felt wholly sympathetic for her struggle to be both seen and heard. This culminates in an emotional scene where Margaret became the first woman to attend a meeting at the Royal Society of London.

Margaret Cavendish who was branded by the public "Mad Madge"

It’s fascinating how Margaret’s relationship with William Cavendish is depicted. He’s a man who was thirty years her senior and she inhabited an unsteady social/familial position being his second wife. Although he’s renowned as a man of high social standing and wealth, she discovers he secretly struggles with enormous money problems. This obviously creates challenges for them, but he’s amenable to her desires and fancies. William supports her writing but he’s nonetheless susceptible to the misogynistic prejudices of the time. It makes it difficult for Margaret to reconcile her feelings about him so that sometimes “He appeared to her a stranger wearing her husband’s skin.” It could have been easy to depict William as a certain type of villainous character, but I admire how Dutton treats him with the same level of empathy as she does her charismatic heroine.

It’s interesting to think about this book in comparison to Alexander Chee’s recent novel “Queen of the Night” which also depicts a flamboyant society woman from history (the Comtesse de Castiglione). Both meditate on the degree to which cutting-edge fashion and an obsession with self-image present different aspects of these women’s unique personalities. However, where Chee is dramatically expansive and lingers on sumptuous detail, Dutton is intensely concentrated. Overall, “Margaret the First” is a lively creation which crystallizes the lavish interior reality of a historical woman and the challenges she faced to make her ideas known amidst stultifying social conventions. It spoke to me strongly about the tension between our inner and outer world, the challenge of bridging the gap between the two and the slow burning effects of ambition. At one point she ardently contemplates “I have made a world, she thinks, for which nobody should blame me.” This feels to me like an incredibly liberating statement because it radically declares the validity of our individual perspectives and private being apart from other people’s expectations and judgement. “Margaret the First” is an inspiring, joyous novel that pays tribute to the complexities of our interior lives.

The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

Even though I’ve read reviews and received lots of strong personal recommendations about “The Argonauts” since it came out in the UK earlier this year, I was still somehow unprepared for the surprisingly clear-sighted wonder induced by Nelson’s thoughtful revelations about love and family. She writes with such refreshing honesty about her lover-than-husband Harry Dodge – a relationship which is at once unique because Harry is transgendered and perfectly ordinary for their desire to create a settled family/home. Harry comes to the relationship with a young son and, after living together for some time, Nelson decides to become pregnant through IVF treatments. She records their personal transformations – Harry’s body changing through testosterone injections and her own body changing in pregnancy – and their development as a family unit. The result is an invigorating and deeply moving meditation on gender roles and sexuality in modern day society.

One of the most exciting things about reading Nelson’s writing is the fine-tuned artistry of her prose. Her sentences are concentrated and direct. There’s an intelligent precision used which is akin to reading Annie Dillard. She recognizes the fallibility and subjectivity of language “Words change depending on who speaks them; there is no cure.” Yet, she knows it’s the only means by which to communicate what she wants to say. She draws upon a huge range of theorists, philosophers and artists including Eileen Myles, Susan Fraiman, Judith Butler, Jacques Lacan, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Denise Riley, Sara Ahmed, Susan Sontag, Elizabeth Weed, Leo Bersami, Luce Irigaray, Anne Carson, Dodie Bellamy, William James, Michel Foucault, Mary Lambert, Julia Kristeva and Andrew Solomon. She also considers a range of authors who write about raising children. The quotes she selects from these writers are folded into her experiences and thoughts on her particular situation in society to give them immediate relevance. This makes her writing at once highly intelligent and wholly relatable.

Nelson recounts tense moments of confusion where strangers question Harry’s gender, being stalked by a disturbed fan of one of her books and the arduous process of giving birth. She considers how the ideas of some of the aforementioned writers sometimes help her process or conflict with her own unique experiences. Yet, for all the sophisticated references, there is also a wonderful light-heartedness and humour to this book. For instance, when considering a description of female genitalia by Ginsberg she states “I still don’t see the need to broadcast misogynistic repulsion, even in service of fagdom, but I do understand being repelled. Genitalia of all stripes are often slimy and pendulous and repulsive. That’s part of their charm.” This humorously levels all the physical differences of gender to find a commonality outside of sexuality while giving a light-hearted slap to the tendency gay men have for offensively sneering at the female body.

It’s interesting how what Nelson is essentially seeking to create is a rather traditional nuclear family unit through other means. She shows through their struggles and triumphs how every family is unique in its own way. The central metaphor of the book is a boat which is made of component parts that are being continuously replaced, yet it maintains its name. So, as their family undergoes change, the couple at the centre retain something essential about themselves despite superficial differences. The portrait Nelson creates of their experiences isn’t romanticized, but “The Argonauts” feels like one of the most romantic books I’ve read in a long time.

Grief Is the Thing with Feathers - Max Porter (guest review by Naomi Frisby)

As a final post about the Sunday Times/Peter Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of the Year award, here is Naomi’s review of Porter’s book. It was so interesting to hear Naomi talk about this at our shadow judges' meeting and reading her review since she knows Ted Hughes’ Crow so well and I’ve never read it. Nevertheless, I think this is an extraordinarily book that I also loved and you can read my review about it here. It's been a pleasure featuring Naomi's reviews here. Read more of her writing at TheWritesofWomen!

I’m going to set my stall out from the first sentence: Grief Is the Thing with Feathers is an extraordinary piece of work. Porter creates a scenario in which a woman has died suddenly leaving her husband – a Ted Hughes scholar – and their two young boys behind. Into their grief-stricken word arrives Crow, the Crow from Hughes’ collection of the same name, who rings the doorbell of their London flat a few days after her death.

One shiny jet-black eye as big as my face, blinking slowly, in a leathery wrinkled socket, bulging out from a football-sized testicle.

SHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

                                                                                                                                     shhhhhhhh.

And this is what he said:

I won’t leave you until you don’t need me any more.

The grief the characters go through is narrated by three voices: Dad who attempts to go to work, write a book on Hughes’ Crow and parent his children; Boys who speak as one voice and wonder what happened to the fire engines and the chaos that they feel should’ve been present at the death of their mother, and Crow who is slippery – is he the father’s therapist? A trickster? A myth? A bird feeding on grief?

There is no plot as such. Porter moves the characters forward as though they’re in fog or a timeless bubble. Things happen but grief colours almost all of their movements as they try to negotiate a world without a wife and mother. There are heart-breaking moments when Porter articulates how that grief feels without becoming mawkish.

Ill people, in their last day on Earth, do not leave notes stuck to bottles of red wine saying ‘OH NO YOU DON’T COCK-CHEEK’. She was busy not dying, and there is no detritus of care, she was simply busy living, and then she was gone.

She won’t ever use (make-up, turmeric, hairbrush, thesaurus).

She will never finish (Patricia Highsmith novel, peanut butter, lip balm).

And I will never shop for green Virago Classics for her birthday.

I will stop finding her hairs.

I will stop hearing her breath.

But there’s humour too. Crow is arrogant, obnoxious and sometimes cruel but he’s also very funny. The first time Dad brings a woman home and has sex with her, he finds Crow on the sofa ‘impersonating me pumping and groaning’. He also likes to show off in the bathroom, ‘performing some unbound crow stuff’ for Dad to believe he’s ‘hearing the bird spirit’

Gormin’ere, worrying horrid. Hello elair, krip krap krip krap who’s that lazurusting beans of my cut-out? Let me buck flap snutch clat tapa one tapa two, motherless children in my trap, in my apse, in separate stocks for boiling, Enunciate it, rolling and turning it, sadget lips and burning it. Ooh, pressure! Must rehearse, must cuss less. The nobility of nature, haha krah haha krap haha, better not.

Reviewers seem to have struggled with how to describe the form of the book; is it prose? Is it poetry? Is it a prose poem? I think that the form Porter’s chosen to take is one that suits the subject matter. Grief is impossible to define accurately. It ebbs and flows, visiting each of us differently. Porter’s words appear to be divided into phrases, sentences and paragraphs as he felt they should be as opposed to him attempting to force them into a standard or accepted format. That and the language he uses – which moves between Standard English and invented words – helps to portray a family out of sorts and an animal from literature which may be a figment of the father’s imagination.

Grief Is the Thing with Feathers is extraordinary for several reasons: the form and language; the vivid imagery; the integration of Hughes’ Crow (although you don’t need to know Crow in order to appreciate this work); the depiction of grief. Max Porter’s a very exciting young writer indeed.

How to Survive a Plague by David France

Growing up in the 80s I really had no awareness of the spread of Aids in America. One of my first memories of hearing about Aids was in science class at school where my teacher Mr Marble told everyone that it’s the gays who were responsible for spreading this disease. It was only during my teenage years in the 90s when I came out and befriended other gay people that I became more knowledgeable about the virus. It’s a sad fact that some of the people I was closest to in my younger years are now HIV+. With an estimated 35 million people having died from Aids and another 37 million people currently living with it, this is something which affects everyone but particularly people in the gay community. I was aware that for many years there was a huge stigma attached to it and I saw the documentary by the same name as this book, but only now having read David France’s masterful nonfiction book “How to Survive a Plague” do I fully comprehend what a courageous few activists and scientists did to help educate the public, change the policies of the government and pharmaceutical industry and bring together an afflicted community overrun by fear.

David France is a journalist who arrived in New York City at the end of the 70s just as the virus was starting to rapidly spread in the gay community. In this book he gives a detailed and comprehensive account of the spread of Aids and the way it affected society. He does this through many personal stories of doctors, activists, politicians, businessmen, researchers and HIV+ individuals which bring their struggle to life as they combat a system gripped by prejudice. It’s truly shocking how the institutionalized homophobia of the government and community leaders showed a blatant indifference to the thousands of gay men infected with HIV across the country who died over the course of the 1980s. France makes it vividly apparent how this led to innumerable personal tragedies from people who hid their status until their deaths to people so terrified of contracting HIV they became celibate: “In countless ways, survival, unexpected as it was, proved as hard to adjust to as the plague itself.” But he also shows how this galvanized parts of the community to come together to literally fight for their lives (albeit with many disagreements along the way).

France recounts how Reagan and his government maintained a shocking level of silence about Aids for many years. It was only when the actor Rock Hudson and an anemic boy who received an HIV+ blood transfusion went public about their status that the country at large started to take real notice and action about Aids. But, even then, an insufficient amount of money, time and expertise was being applied to combat it. It’s horrifying the lack of funding given to Aids research, care and prevention because of institutionalized prejudices. For instance, the negligence of mayor of NYC Ed Koch meant that “In the thirty months of plague, a time in which 1,340 New Yorkers were diagnosed and 773 were already gone, Koch had spent just $24,500 on AIDS. In the same time frame, San Francisco had allocated and spent more than $4 million on care and prevention.” Across the country policy was being shaped by the stigma attached to the disease and prejudices against gay people: “In 1985, twenty states debated legislation for quarantining or otherwise controlling people with AIDS and suspected carriers.” This book really makes it apparent how the institutional response set an example which turned people against trying to understand the disease and the gay community. It led to rampant homophobia which condemned huge groups of people who were already painfully suffering.

It was only through the concerted action from some of the people cited in “How to Survive a Plague” that society at large began treating people afflicted with Aids with compassion rather than scorn. In some instances, France recorded verbatim rousing speeches in public forums which came from a place of passionate personal emotion as much as from a place of clear-sighted truth about the outlandish bigotry of the system. This includes a heartrending and inspiring speech by Darrell Yates Rist which he delivered at a town hall meeting at a Methodist church in Greenwich Village. I know that his words are going to stick with me.

David France’s powerful and emotional book not only pays rightful tribute to the heroic acts of people who cared for those affected by Aids, but sets a benchmark for how we should all be active and engaged citizens. Have a look at this article to see why we still need to be vocal about combating Aids. Given the new conservative governments we’ll be living under in both America, Britain and other parts of the world, it’s more important than ever that we learn how to engage our politicians and decision-makers to look out for the welfare of all people – particularly those afflicted with Aids. Please don’t be intimidated by the length of this book; it’s relentlessly engaging on many levels. “How to Survive a Plague” reveals an incredibly important part of our history that should never be forgotten.

Books from 2016 still in my TBR pile

Help! I’m getting that end-of-year panicky feeling that I haven’t read enough this year. Yes, I read a lot but when the best books of the year lists start rolling out I’m consumed with guilt that I haven’t had time to read half the books I’ve wanted to. Does anyone else get this feeling? I know it partly comes from a worry that when I make my own best books of the year list at the end of December I’ll have missed out on some vital book everyone agrees is genius. I know I’ll have the rest of my life to read these books, but I do find it hard to fight the desire to lock myself in a room for months and not emerge till I’ve read them all. So have a good look at this photo of books published in 2016 and let me know which ones you think I should prioritize reading before the end of the year.

Some books such as Sarah Perry’s “The Essex Serpent”, Megan Bradbury’s “Everyone is Watching” and Mia Gallagher’s “Beautiful Pictures of the Lost Homeland” I’ve been purposely saving because I have a fantasy of snuggling up in a comfy chair drinking endless cups of tea reading them while the winter storms rage outside my window. But the truth is December always gets really busy with finishing work before the holidays and meeting up with friends - so I never get as much reading time as I hope I’ll get. My strategy is to finish my Christmas shopping early so I can stay inside reading while everyone else climbs over each other in the shops – we’ll see how well I do!

Please comment letting me know what you think I should read or what have been your favourite books of the year that I should definitely read.

I also made a video about these and a few other books I acquired recently:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sMGfPH4jjo

The Sunday Times/Peters Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of the Year 2016 Shadow Panel Winner

Who knew the first official shadow judging panel meeting to decide on our own winner for this fabulous young author award would be so bloody?!? Shouting matches, fist fights, eye scratching, hair pulling and that wild Simon Savidge even tore apart one of the books with his bare teeth in a Bjork-style fury! It was sheer mayhem. Actually, I’m kidding. It couldn’t have been more lovely. Our very organized and excellent chair of judges Dan Dalton kept us well in line. We sat chatting with cups of tea and slices of cake (a lemon-ginger layer cake with toasted marshmallow frosting I baked in honour of Naomi’s birthday) for two hours. We talked in detail and depth about the four totally diverse and absolutely fascinating books nominated for this prize. Honestly, everyone agreed they are all such strong books and all worth reading. But, since we had to choose one, after some well-reasoned arguing we selected our winner. Remember that this is only our shadow jury winner (a fan favourite, if you will) and the official winner will be announced on December 9th.

Fab group Charlie Place, me, Dan Dalton, Naomi Frisby, Simon Savidge & Kim Forrester

Our shadow jury winner is Jessie Greengrass for her daring and intelligent book of short stories “An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk, According to One Who Saw It”. We agreed that Greengrass is an extremely accomplished, interesting and promising writer. We were compelled by the frequent themes of loneliness and arctic weather in several stories. I particularly admire how Greengrass subtly challenges preconceptions of gender by purposefully leaving it obscure about whether the protagonist is male or female in several of her modern-day stories – similar to what Ali Smith does in her short stories but Greengrass' fiction explores such different ideas. Interestingly, we all had some favourite stories in the collection. Upon rereading many of the stories, I gravitated most towards the emotionally poignant ‘On Time Travel’ and the brutal humour of ‘The Lonesome Trials of Knut the Whaler’. There is such a rich diversity of ideas and subjects explored throughout the collection that I think Greengrass is an extremely exciting new author that you should all watch out for.

Be sure to check the PFD site where they’ve gathered lots of our reactions to all the books listed for the prize and where the official winner of the 2016 award will be listed on December 9th. Let me know your thoughts about our winner or any of the other nominated books!