I shall be rather sad to see 2018 go. While the world had its problems, for me 2018 was a wonderful year. I spent lots of time with loved ones, travelled to some beautiful places, and started a new job that makes me happy every day to go to work. Everyone I love is well and content and I am being supplied with almost daily photos of my one-year old niece – life is good.
My busy year cut into my reading time but I still managed to read (if not always review) some wonderful books this year. Here are my ten favourites:
10. Green Money (1939) – D.E. Stevenson
After reading more than three dozen books by Stevenson, I thought I’d read everything worth reading. Happily, I was wrong. I loved this Heyer-esque comedy about a young man suddenly saddled with a beautiful and dangerously ignorant ward. This is Stevenson at her most sparkling and confident, full of humour and warmth.
9. Anne of Green Gables (1908) – L.M. Montgomery
Is it fair to put a book I’ve read twenty or more times on this list? Possibly not (and sorry to Sword of Bone by Anthony Rhodes, which almost made my top ten but was bumped in order to include this) but I’ll do it regardless. Anne of Green Gables is perfect.
8. A Positively Final Appearance (1999) – Alec Guinness
Who knew an actor could write so well? This was Guinness’ third book but it is the first I have read (though certainly not that last). Covering the period from 1996 to 1998, his diaries are marvellously free of celebrity gossip and are filled instead with sharp observations about the world around him, a fond portrait of his family, and, best of all, insightful comments on the books he is reading.
7. Lands of Lost Borders (2018) – Kate Harris
After overdosing on travel memoirs last year, I restricted my intake in 2018 but thankfully still made room to enjoy this beautifully-told tale of a great adventure. Harris’s memoir of cycling along the Silk Road, from Istanbul to India, was a wonderful reminder of the joy of exploration.
6. Bookworm (2018) – Lucy Mangan
Mangan’s memoir of childhood reading was warm, funny, and stirred up wonderful memories of my own early reading. Intriguingly, there was very little overlap between the books Mangan loved and the ones I read as a child but that made no difference to my enjoyment. Mangan captures how it feels to be a child who makes sense of the world through what she can find in the pages of books and that is definitely something I can understand (as I suspect can most of you).
5. When I Was a Little Boy (1957) – Erich Kästner
A beautifully written – and illustrated – memoir of growing up in Dresden before the First World War, I adored this Slightly Foxed reissue.
4. The Fear and the Freedom (2017) – Keith Lowe
A superb look at how the legacies of the Second World War shaped the second half of the twentieth century. Lowe looks at so many things, including the inventions and institutions that were created as a result of the war, but I was most fascinated by the less tangible changes it wrought, the mythological, philosophical, and psychological shifts across the countries impacted. I found the chapter on Israel especially memorable, where the Holocaust survivors were initially treated harshly since their victim-status did not fit with the young country’s view of itself as a nation of heroes and fighters. The way the nation’s identity changed as survivors began telling their stories in the 1960s, from a nation of heroes to “a nation of martyrs”, is fascinating.
3. The Flowering Thorn (1933) – Margery Sharp
After a few hit-or-miss encounters with Sharp, this was the year she became one of my favourite authors. And that all started with this tale of a sharp young society woman whose life changes when she adopts a small boy and goes to live in the country. In another author’s hands, this could have turned into something unbearably twee. Instead, it is sharp and marvellously unsentimental yet still full of warmth. I adored it and am already looking forward to rereading it.
2. The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh (1996) – edited by Charlotte Mosley
Great wits and writers, Mitford and Waugh’s letters cover decades of occasionally hostile friendship, stretching from World War Two until Waugh’s death in 1966. Both rather competitive by nature, they saved some of their best material for this correspondence – sloppiness (like bad spelling) was called out. Full of fascinating tidbits about their own books as well as their famous friends, I was utterly absorbed by this book (and by Waugh’s awfulness).
1. The Unwomanly Face of War (1985) – Svetlana Alexievich
Without question, Alexievich’s ground-breaking oral history of Soviet women’s experiences of the Second World War was my book of the year. More than one million Soviet women served in the military during the war (half of them in active combat roles) and Alexievich captures the full and fascinating range of their experiences in their own words. It is a powerful and upsetting book and one I will not soon forget.
I love Anne of Green Gables too! Have you read the others in the series? They’re not quite as good… but the first one is such a classic 🙂
I have read them all many, many, many times. The first is certainly the best but I also love Anne of the Island.
I liked Anne of the Island too. Not so much the rest of the series. I’ve seen a TV version, which was OK.
Sounds like you had a wonderful year! I think I would enjoy Bookworm, based on what you said of it. I wonder how many of the books she mentions would dovetail with my own childhood reading.
I think every reader would enjoy Bookworm. I’ve always loved Mangan’s writing (it is my main reason for reading the Guardian) so to have an entire book entirely focused on books and reading habits is like a dream come true.
A great list of books! The Flowering Thorn is my favorite of Sharp’s books (of the ones I’ve read so far). I sat down with it the other day to re-read some favorite passages. I still need to get Bookworm.
Happy New Year! I hope 2019 brings all good things.
I just used some of the book token I was given at Christmas to buy my own copy of The Flowering Thorn so I can read it whenever I like. I bought my other two favourites (The Nutmeg Tree and Something Fresh) at the same time – happy reading for years to come!
Hurrah, your list is here! Unusually for me with your lists, I’ve only read two (Anne of Green Gables and Bookworm), but now certainly keen to try lots of these.
I’d heartily recommend A Positively Final Appearance, When I Was a Little Boy, and The Flowering Thorn. I think you’d really enjoy all of them.
Cheers to Dessie fans! I’m still trying to locate Peter West and Empty World.
I haven’t read those yet either (but also haven’t heard anything good about them so haven’t been looking for copies). When you do track them down I’ll be interested to hear what you think!
I haven’t read any of these ten, but I have just finished “The Cyclist Who Went Out in the Cold” having spotted it in one of your library loot posts. It was an entertaining travelogue, perhaps not quite as funny as Bill Bryson but still with some laugh out loud moments.
I’m delighted to hear that you had a good 2018, I hope 2019 is at least as good, if not better. It is always pleasing to hear about people who are happy in the their jobs, given that that is where we spend most of our waking hours.
Happy New Year to you and your readers.
Oh good, I’m glad you enjoyed the Tim Moore. I tried it but ended up putting it aside for now. There was far more time spent on technical specs in the beginning than I want or need in a travelogue. I might try it again and see if it catches my interest when I’m in a different mood.
All the best to you for 2019.
Congrats on the new job, Claire. I started a new one myself in 2018, and it is so wonderful to now spend my time at a workplace I enjoy. I really do need to get to Svetlana Alexievich’s work sooner rather than later. Happy New Year, Claire!
It is lovely to be happy at work – and that happiness is a good counterbalance to Alexievich’s books! Her books are marvellous but deal with some heavy subject matter. It’s nice to be able to escape from them back into a cheerful work and home life.
The Flowering Thorn sounds wonderful so I`ll be keeping an eye out for that one, Claire! Best wishes for a 2019 that mirrors all the contentment of last year.
It’s so, so good, Darlene! I know you’ll love it.
I always love discovering new to me classics, especially written by women, so I’m going to have to check out Margery Sharp! Have a great 2019!
She was a busy author, that’s for certain! My first encounters with her weren’t perfect but I read four books by her in 2018 and adored three of them (the fourth was fine but not as memorable). Even better, I see that Simon at Stuck in a Book read and enjoyed a completely different three so I have lots to look forward to.
Great list, Claire! I am particularly interested in reading Bookworm 🙂 Happy New Year!
Glad you enjoyed it! I hope you get a chance to read Bookworm this year – it’s quite wonderful.
Nice eclectic list. I’ve got Land of Lost Borders in transit from the library. I borrowed it some months ago, but didn’t get a chance to read it then.
I’m so pleased to hear that it’s on its way to you. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
I’ve never even heard of Green Money. I’m guessing that one is going to be hard to find.
I was only able to find it through the inter-library loan system but I’m so happy I did. It was a very fun read.
The Unwomanly Face of War and especially Keith Lowe’s The Fear and the Freedom are on my list to read. Glad they made your list!
They definitely deserve their place on your to-read list! I think you’ll find them both extraordinarily absorbing.
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