What I Read in 2015
Time to take a look at the books I read last year. According to my spreadsheet, I seem to have only read 70, which is considerably down on 2014’s 95 and 2013’s 92. No idea what went wrong, but it doesn’t really matter as long as I got something out of the ones I did read. And, by and large, I did. Once again, I’ve avoided any attempt at star rankings because they scare me, frankly, particularly when it comes to books by people I know (and, yes, I know those are the ones I really should be shouting about). Maybe one day I’ll screw up my courage and risk doing something like the Facebook friend of mine who perfectly honestly and with well-argued (albeit completely wrong – obviously) reasons gave me a one star review for Mrs Darcy. (She’s still, incidentally, a Facebook friend. I’m that grown up, people.)
Generally speaking, of course, my friends write wonderful books. That’s one of the reasons why they’re friends.
Anyway, here’s my list, with a few notes as to what made a particular impression this year.
Ali, Monica
Brick Lane
Amis, Martin
Heavy Water and Other Stories
Amis, Martin
Money
Blissett, Luther
Q
Borges, Jorge Luis
Fictions
Bray, Carys
A Song for Issy Bradley
Burchill, Julie and Parsons, Tony
The Boy Looked at Johnny
Cleave. Chris
The Other Hand
Coe, Jonathan
The Rotters Club
Conan Doyle, Arthur
The Valley of Fear
Crème, Lol and Godley, Kevin
The Fun Starts Here
Ewen, Paul
Francis Plug: How to be a Public Author
Fallada, Hans
Tales from the Underworld
Filer, Nathan
The Shock of the Fall
Fleming, Ian
Goldfinger
Fletcher, Tom
The Home
Frayn. Michael
Skios
Gallant, Mavis
Paris Stories
Garfield, Simon
Just My Type
Gawande, Atul
Being Mortal
Gebbie, Vanessa and Roberts, Lynn
Ed’s Wife and Other Creatures
Gee, Maggie
Virginia Woolf in Manhattan
Goldacre, Ben
I Think You’ll Find It’s a Bit More Complicated Than That
Gonzalez-Crussi, F.
The Senses
Hadley, Tessa
Married Love
Haig, Matt
The Humans
Harris, Joanne
Chocolat
Haynes, Steve (Ed)
The Best British Fantasy 2014
Healey, Emma
Elizabeth is Missing
Hersey, John
Hiroshima
Hilary, Sarah
No Other Darkness
James, Clive
May Week Was In June
James, Clive
North Face of Soho
Joyce, James
Dubliners
Kurkov, Andrey
Penguin Lost
Mantel, Hilary
Wolf Hall
Mantel, Hilary
Bring Up The Bodies
May, James
How to Land an A330 Airbus
McVeigh, Paul
The Good Son
More, Alison
The Harvestman
Mueenuddin, Daniyal
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders
Munroe, Randall
What If?
Murakami, Haruki
Norwegian Wood
Nadjaran, Nora
Ledra Street
Padua, Sydney
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage
Parkin, Cassandra
The Summer We All Ran Away
Parkin, Cassandra
The Beach Hut
Powell, Gareth
Hive Monkey
Pratchett, Terry
Making Money
Pryce, Malcolm
Aberystwyth Mon Amour
Pryce, Malcolm
Last Tango in Aberystwyth
Readman, Angela
Don’t Try This At Home
Rose, David
Meridian
Royle, Nicholas (Ed)
The Best British Short Stories 2014
Royle, Nicholas (Ed)
The Best British Short Stories 2015
Schlosser, Eric
Gods of Metal
Smith, Ali
Ali Smith’s Supersonic 70s
Smith, Ali
How To Be Both
Smyth, Richard
Wild Ink
Stoller, Fred
My Seinfeld Year
Swarup, Vikas
Six Suspects
Townsend, Sue
The Woman Who Went to Bed For a Year
Ware, Chris (Ed)
McSweeney’s Quarterly 13
Ware, Chris
Building Stories
Welty, Eudora
The Golden Apples
Wodehouse, PG
Jeeves in the Offing
Wodehouse, PG
Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves
Wodehouse, PG
Much Obliged, Jeeves
Wodehouse, PG
Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen
Wynn Owen, Andrew
Raspberries for the Ferry
Best books I read this year
The best pair of novels I read this year were Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. I’ve never been a big fan of historical fiction, but these, along with Q, were a revelation. Utterly gripping. The best short story collection, by a country mile, was The Redemption of Galen Pike. I didn’t quite engage with Carys Davies’ previous collection, Some New Ambush (perhaps I should try again now), but every single story in this one was a delight. And what I really loved was the slightly old-fashioned way in which she seemed perfectly at ease with the deeply uncool idea of a revelatory twist at the end. Several of these tales wouldn’t look entirely out of place in a Roald Dahl collection – particularly the title story. Both the graphic novels I read were excellent (I really should read more of these), but I’d single out The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage for particular praise – hugely entertaining as well as nicely informative.
Series
I got to the end of Jeeves and Wooster (I’m not going to count anything by anyone other than PGW), and while they didn’t quite hit the mid-period peaks of Code of the Woosters and Joy in the Morning (two of the best books ever written), they were all terrific fun. I should have read these ages ago. I read another Bond novel, which was OK, enjoying it more for making comparisons with the film than anything else. Hive Monkey was a terrific sequel to Ack-Ack Macaque and I’ve now got Macaque Attack to look forward to in the new year. Best new discovery of the year was Malcolm Pryce’s Aberystwyth Noir series, which was very funny as well as a remarkable exercise in world-building – even if the world in question consisted of a down-at-heel Welsh seaside town populated by a bunch of mad druids. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of these in 2016. The Best British Short Stories series continues to impress and I thought 2014 was particularly good, as was The Best British Fantasy of that year, although that series seems to have come to an end now, more’s the pity.
Nice surprises
The Rotters Club was the first Jonathan Coe I’ve read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, even if it was one of those dreaded “coming of age” novels (come on, you can play bingo with most of them). I’ve actually just finished the (even better) sequel, The Closed Circle, and if I read a better book in 2016, I’ll be very happy. Marvellous combination of pathos and humour, and a bunch of flawed characters that you can really care about. I would probably never have read Virginia Woolf in Manhattan if it hadn’t been for the fact that the lovely Maggie Gee was one of my tutors at Bath Spa last year, but I’m so glad I did, because it’s wonderful. Brick Lane was a marvellous read, too, although I would have loved to discuss the central character’s almost complete lack of agency with my tutors. Ed’s Wife was a bizarre and rather wonderful curio that entertained and disturbed by turns (actually, no surprises there really, knowing Vanessa – but the form of it was especially unusual). Having provided a blurb for Cassandra Parkin’s short story collection, New World Fairy Tales, I really shouldn’t have taken so long to get round to reading the two novels she’s written since, but I’m very glad that I did get round to it, because they were both absorbing reads and I’m looking forward to whatever she comes up with next. Cards Bray’s A Song for Issy Bradley was a lovely, touching story of loss. Finally, I read my first Murakami this year, and I’ll definitely be reading more.
Disappointments
There were a few. I’d never read anything by Martin Amis before (you’d be amazed by some of the gaps in my reading) and I thought I’d start with a short story collection that I picked up in a charity shop. I hated it. I asked Facebook for recommendations for something else to read by him and I ended up buying a spanking new copy of Money. Which I also hated. I may try once more, but then again, life is short. Of authors I usually love, I have to say that I didn’t get on with The Woman Who Went To Bed For A Year at all. And it really pains me to say that I found Making Money well below Pratchett’s best.
Best single short story
As with last year, The Best British Fantasy came up with the goods here, this time with a lovely, odd story called “Triolet” by Jess Hyslop. It’s worth buying the book just for that, but there are plenty more good ones in there.
Other things I enjoyed
I didn’t see many films in 2015, but Mad Max – Fury Road was easily the best. I didn’t watch much TV either, but I loved series 3 of The Bridge – every bit as good as the first two. I also discovered (late again) Twenty Twelve and W1A – I’ve been a fan of John Morton for years, and this is some of his best work yet.
Anything else? Probably. Oh yes. Gig of the year was (obviously) King Crimson at St David’s Hall in Cardiff. But you knew that already, didn’t you.
There are probably other books I should have singled out – feel free to add your thoughts below.
In the meantime, roll on 2016. And I really should get back to finishing writing that novel.
