In this most difficult and disturbing of years my appetite for reading has unsurprisingly ebbed and flowed more than usual, and books have served many purposes, from aiding rationalisation of the world and local situations to providing much necessary insight, inspiration and motivation on a range of fronts. And considerable pleasure and perhaps a little escapism too. For what it's worth I share below the titles I chose to read, and as in previous years the crude rating system aims to give a measure of what I personally got from them. Any review is as much about the reviewer as the title, so I don't guarantee you will get the same from any given book but hopefully it is of some assistance...
📖📖📖📖📖 Truly Special, exceptional
📖📖📖📖 Very Good, and deeply rewarding
📖📖📖 Middling to Good, worthwhile but not special
📖📖 Poor and disappointing
📖 Dreadful
+ Plus half a rating
R denotes a re-reading
January
Genius and Ink - Virginia Woolf 📖📖📖+
The Baron in the Trees - Italo Calvino 📖📖📖📖
Ice - Anna Kavan 📖📖📖📖📖
Anna Kavan's hallucinatory apocalyptic masterpiece may be over 50 years old, but is so relevant it hurts, and leaves you rightly scarred. Approach with caution...
February
Girl, Woman, Other - Bernardine Evaristo 📖📖📖📖
On A Sunbeam - Tillie Walden 📖📖📖📖
Twelfth Night - William Shakespeare 📖📖📖📖+
Diversity rules, ideal leap year fare!
March
Land - Antony Gormley, Clare Richardson, Jeanette Winterson 📖📖📖📖📖
Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel 📖📖📖📖+
Jeanette Winterson always writes brilliantly about art (see her Art Objects) but in the small polished gem of Land, developed around five of Antony Gormley's exquisitely located statues photographed by Clare Richardson, she excels. You could rush through it in an hour, but linger, reflect, leave and return, be open to being moved, and the rewards multiply...
April
Short Life in a Strange World - Toby Ferris 📖📖📖+
Funny Weather, Art in an Emergency - Olivia Laing 📖📖📖📖
Strange times...
May
Lives of Houses - Kate Kennedy and Hermione Lee (editors) 📖📖📖
The Discomfort of Evening - Marieke Lucas Rijneveld 📖📖📖📖📖
Territory of Light - Yuko Tsushima 📖📖📖📖
The extraordinary explicit disturbing family meltdown of Rijneveld's debut is not for the faint-hearted, and cannot be unread.
June
Unquiet Landscape - Christopher Neve 📖📖📖📖
Between the Acts - Virginia Woolf 📖📖📖📖+
Bloomsbury in Sussex - Simon Watney 📖📖📖📖
July
Bring Up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel 📖📖📖📖+
Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood 📖📖📖📖
August
On the Red Hill - Mike Parker 📖📖📖📖+
The Man Who Went into the West - Byron Rogers 📖📖📖📖+
The draw of Wales...
September
Song at the Year's Turning - R.S. Thomas 📖📖📖📖+
Summer - Ali Smith 📖📖📖📖
The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter 📖📖📖+
A Shropshire Lad - A.E. Housman 📖📖📖
Pew - Catherine Lacey 📖📖📖📖
Magnetic Field - Simon Armitage 📖📖📖📖+
October
Fairest - Meredith Talusan 📖📖📖+
Selected Poems - Dylan Thomas 📖📖📖📖+
On the Black Hill - Bruce Chatwin 📖📖📖📖📖
On Connection - Kae Tempest 📖📖📖+
Chatwin's empathetic capture of Welsh hill farming life and hardship is unparalleled and quite beautiful; it was moving to read this while holidaying in the Black Mountains this autumn, walking the very hills, and past the particular farms, on which it is based.
November
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong 📖📖📖📖+
The Owl Service - Alan Garner 📖📖📖📖
The Mabinogion - Sioned Davies (translator) 📖📖📖
(though the message is pure five-star)
December
Behold, America - Sarah Churchwell 📖📖📖📖📖
The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again - M. John Harrison 📖📖📖📖+
Carol - Patricia Highsmith 📖📖📖📖📖
The Lost Estate (Le Grand Meaulnes) - Alain Fournier 📖📖📖📖+
Sarah Churchwell's deeply disturbing forensic book nails the history of the huge dark heart of the US up to World War Two, but it's glaringly obvious this persists to the present day (who can miss it in the news?), to the point where Trump can still tap into it to get 74 million votes after four appalling years as President.
After this my mood was wonderfully rescued by Patricia Highsmith's ground breaking lesbian romance from the 1950s, which took decades to achieve respectability after originally being released under a pseudonym. It's exquisitely paced and gradually builds the tension like the thrillers for which Highsmith is best known, and is so good I almost don't want to watch the recent film in case it spoils it (though I know the film is highly regarded).
Here's to continued great reading in 2021, in hopefully happier circumstances
See Also: 2019 Reading Choices & Ratings
