Hi everyone, I'm here today to talk to you about my favourite books of 2019.
According to Goodreads I read 103 books last year but that's not quite accurate
because it was my last year judging the Somerset Maugham Award
so I think I read about 150 books, there were just some titles I couldn't catalogue
as I was judging the prize but today I've picked my favorite books out of all
of those books, I have 15 here to talk to you about and I've put them in a rough
order. All of the books apart from my favourite book of the year would probably
change places a little bit on any given day but I do have one standout book of
2019 that I love love love with all my heart. I will link all of the books in
the description box down below if you would like to go and find out more about
them and I would love to know what your favourite books of last year were in the
comments section down below. So let's go roughly from my least favourite favourite
to my most favourite favourite. Number 15 is this one here called Becoming
Unbecoming by Una and this is a graphic memoir. This book really surprised me and
by that I mean when I was reading it I hadn't realized just how much it had
taken hold of me, how much it got under my skin until towards the end of the
book. I was going to say it's subtle... it's it's not because it's very
unflinching and honest and brutal but the way that it's told is quite subtle
in that it can slowly weave all of these narratives together and it's not until
the end that you realise what a magnificent thing she has done. As I said
this is a graphic memoir it's set in 1977, Una is her pen name, she grew up in
Yorkshire at the time of the Yorkshire Ripper. Una had been sexually assaulted
herself though not by the Yorkshire Ripper and she was watching the way that
his crimes were being reported in the press, and there are extracts from those
reports in this book. The narrative surrounding violence against women was
so warped. You think at first that you're getting her personal story but
then as I said it expands into something so much bigger than that — not that her
personal story isn't itself extremely important,
it's like she's building her own court case and by the end you can't help but
just stand up and applaud what she's done. If you haven't read this book I would
really recommend it. I have been saying... what I've been saying when I've been recommending it to people is
that I would particularly recommend it to those who enjoyed or wanted to read
the nonfiction book Five about the women who Jack the Ripper murdered, which I
want to get to in 2020, because I think both of these books set out to do a
similar thing, just in a very different way.
The next book on my favourites list is this one here called Lullaby by Leila
Slimani and this is translated from the French by Sam Taylor. This one I'm
including in my favourites because it is very beautifully written, it is a subtle
crime/thriller and you really get inside the head of this nanny. It's more a
character study with very deeply disturbing... I was going to say undertones...
overtones, I suppose? If you'd like something like
the Dumb House by John Burnside, which if you've been here a while you know I do,
then you'll probably enjoy this, as well. Miriam is a French Moroccan lawyer
and she decides to go back to work after having two children and she and her
husband find this woman, Louise, who will look after their children
and at the beginning we read about Louise murdering these children. This
book is about the lead-up to that, as I said it is a character study, it's about
what Louise is thinking and I just basically inhaled this book. There are a
few things that I think made me love this book even more; I have read other
books that Sam Taylor has translated and adored them. I think if you're a
translator you also need to be a fantastic writer as well and Sam Taylor
is definitely that. I think I had also read this at
just after I finished watching Killing Eve which I loved and maybe I transferred some of
my love into this book. It's so hard to work out why we end up loving a certain
thing, sometimes the stars just align and it's a bit of a perfect time
to be picking up a book and I think that's the case of this one. It also
started my love of reading crime / thrillers. I read a lot of them after
reading this, and I went out I think it was it was
maybe not the next day but the day after that to buy her next book Adele [and read it that day] because
I needed to read more of her writing. It's not my favourite favourite book of
the year but I think it definitely deserves a space on this list. Next on my
list we have Fleche by Mary Jean Chan, and
this is a poetry collection. Mary Jean Chan grew up in Hong Kong and
now lives in London. The title of this book is a homonym, so in French fleche is
a move that's used in the fencing that is quite aggressive, but obviously it
also sounds exactly like the English word flesh, and a lot of this collection
whilst touching on fencing and also arguing and fighting is to do with the body and
queerness. It is the meeting point of all of these things, and it's also about
being bilingual, as well, and I mean that in two different senses: the literal
sense, so speaking Chinese and also speaking English, and speaking those
languages in different areas of your life, and she uses Chinese letters
throughout this collection to illustrate that in a similar way to Raymond Antrobus
using British Sign Language in his collections The Perseverance but it's
also about speaking and navigating different forms of language with regard
to who you are, so being in a space where you can talk about being queer with
people who accept you and then being in a space with people who either don't
know you're queer or who do but are not okay with it. So many poems in this stood out
for me and I have made a video where I have dissected one of my favourites so
I'll link that in the description box down below. This is a stunning collection
and I urge you to pick it up. Next on my list I have two that kind of go hand in
hand, even though they're very different I just wanted to highlight one
Persephone book because I had fallen in love with reading them
again this year. I didn't love every single one that I read but I
particularly loved these two and I couldn't choose which one to mention as
a representation of all of them so I'm going to mention
both. This is Doreen by Barbara Noble. It is about a young girl called
Doreen who was evacuated during the Second World War and it's about the
relationship she has with her mother who stays behind in London as a cleaner and
the couple that she was sent to in the countryside, who always wanted to have a
child and never had one. It almost becomes a bit like a custody battle and
they're vying for her affections in different ways. I'd never read an
evacuation novel like that and to be honest I don't think I'd ever really
considered what that would feel like: moving to somewhere you loved more than the
place that you left behind. I just really enjoyed this, it felt like a
warm hug. The second Persephone book that made my list is this one and if you're
confused by me mentioning Persephone that's the publisher, they publish
forgotten classics mainly written by women, I'll link their website down below,
so the second book of those that made this list was Daddy's Gone A-hunting by
Penelope Mortimer. This was set in and written during the 1950s, it's about a
housewife called Ruth who discovers that her 18 year old daughter Angela has
fallen pregnant and (Angela) isn't happy about that. It's one of the only books set
during this time and written during this time (that I've read) that discusses abortion in the way
that it is discussed in this novel, in that it should be a viable option for
women, it should be something that they're able to talk about, and it
shouldn't be illegal, which it is in this book. It also discusses the complex
emotions surrounding abortion, so Ruth, the mother, when she felt pregnant with
Angela when she was 16 17, she wanted to have these conversations with people but
nobody would open up and speak to her about it. She doesn't regret having
her daughter but she does lament the lack of options that she had. I found
this book so refreshing and I would very much recommend it if you're looking to
pick up a Persephone classic. The next book on my favourites list is
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata and this is translated from the Japanese
by Jenny Tapley Takemori. It is the tenth novel by Sayaka Murata
but the first to be translated into English; we will have more of her work
coming in 2020, which I'm really looking forward to. This even though it is small
it is mighty. It is about a woman called Keiko who works at
a convenience store and she enjoys working there because she finds it hard
to understand why people act the way they do, and her job literally gives her
a manual on how to communicate with people and she finds that extremely
comforting. To Keiko, society is one ever-changing mass, blurry at the edges.
She says that all babies are like stray cats, all people are like cattle. She
feels as though she is a piece of society's software that is being
rewritten all of the time depending on who she happens to be interacting with
and she calls this "being infected". It's essentially about feeling foreign in
your own country and when Keiko first came across the convenience store and
she saw it all lit up she said it looked like an aquarium, so taking that
imagery and the way that Sayaka Murata talks about the convenience store, we can
see how she's using it to show how stores are microcosms of society and
Keiko is our scientist who is studying the society for us and telling us about
it in her own words. I thought that it was wonderful, I know so many people have
read this but if you haven't picked it up it is well worth your time. Next on my
favourites list is Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters. Like with Lullaby and the
Persephone books, this is a representation of more than just Tipping
the Velvet, this being on my list is a representation of Sarah Waters as a
whole because 2019 was the year I read her for the first time, which sounds
ridiculous now that I say it as so many people had recommended her to me in the
past, so many people talk about her books, she's one of those authors I almost feel
like I have read via osmosis or something because she's talked about so
much, but obviously I had not. This was the first book of hers, I read
three and a half last year, I read Tipping the Velvet, The Paying Guests, Night
Watch and I am halfway through The Little Stranger at the moment, and this
is my favourite out of the four. I listened to all of them on audiobook and I would
highly recommend listening to them on audio because they are character driven
and atmospheric and quite slow-paced, therefore I think they work very well on
audiobook. Tipping the Velvet is about Nan who is an oyster
girl, she lives in Whitstable with her family and she falls head-over-heels in
love with Kitty who is a masher, so she goes on stage dressed as a man, that is
her act, and then the two of them decide to team up and have an act together,
that's the very beginning of the book, they move to London, the novel goes from
there. It's very Dickensian in style, you can predict a lot of the plot that's
going to happen because it's laid out so beautifully, it does feel like you're
reading serialized novel, which is why I say it's quite Dickensian, however this
is everything but I would love from Dickens that I never seem to get, so if
like me you have felt let down by Dickens but you would like atmospheric
Victorian books with great female characters and queer representation here
you go, enjoy this book! I loved it. The next book on my favourites list is
remarkable creatures by Tracy Chevalier. I also really enjoyed her latest book
which is called A Single Thread which came out in September, so if you haven't
read that yet I also recommend it but out of the two
this was my favorite that I read in 2019. This is a novel about Mary Anning, who
was a real-life person who was born in 1799, she was struck by lightning when
she was little, the person who was holding her died as did the people
surrounding her but she survived and she grew up to be a budding paleontologist,
she discovered some of the most important fossils on Lyme Regis beach,
including the icthyasaur. She sold her fossils to people such as William
Buckland and she wasn't really given credit for her work at all;
by the time her fossils reached the societies or the museums where they
were being displayed she was mostly forgotten about, so this book seeks to
give back the credit that she deserves.
It also examines her friendship with a woman called Elizabeth Philpott who
also enjoyed searching for fossils, it discusses class as well as friendship
and science. What I love about Tracy Chevalier's novels apart from everything
is that you leave having learned so much, though you learn it in a way
that doesn't feel like you're learning... she weaves fact in fiction together so
beautifully is what I mean [laughs] and I applaud that very very much. Next on my favourites
list is an American Marriage by Tayari Jones. This was my favourite novel from
the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist and it was the winner as well
which I was thrilled about. This is a deliberately chaotic novel that will
make you feel all of the things. It's about a married couple called Celestial
and Roy. When the book opens they be married about a year, they love each
other very much but they don't have the best relationship, after an argument
Roy leaves the motel room that they're staying in to go and get some
ice, on the way back he discovers a woman who needs his help so he helps her
because he's a decent guy, then later that night that woman is assaulted and
when the police come she identifies her assailant as Roy. We know he did not
commit this crime but the police take him away and later the court system sends
him down. This is about what it's like being at the mercy of the racist
judicial system in the States and whilst this novel is set in the present day it
fantastically mirrors the characters and events of If Beale Street talk which is
James Baldwin's 1974 novel. The characters make different decisions but
ultimately find themselves in the same place, to highlight how little has
changed in America when we're talking about race and prison. Because Roy is
sent down most of this novel is set with him in prison and it's an epistolary
novel, so most of its letters going back and forth between Celestial and Roy. It
is intentionally messy and heartbreaking, it is the book that stayed with me the
longest and moved me the most out of all of the Women's Prize shortlisted books
from last year. Next on my favourites list is a book that refuses to conform to one
genre, this is Mrs. Gaskell and Me by Nell Stephens. It is in part about Mrs.
Gaskell who Nell is researching and she's talking about a man that she was
in love with outside of her marriage, and it's also her talking about her
researching Mrs. Gaskell and her life, trying to figure out what she wants to
do with her life after her studies, what she wants to write about in general, and
how to reconcile the fact that she's in love with someone
who lives in another country called Max. It is about trying to find yourself, not
just in others, in searching for connections with people who are alive,
but trying to find yourself in history and trying to find the human aspects of
people in an academic way. If you like Sally Rooney I think you'll really like
this and there's something about this that also reminds me of Greta Gerwig, so if
you like those two people then I'm pretty sure that you will love this, I
thought that it was delightful. Another book that was delightful with Elisabeth's
Lists by Lulah Ellender and I toyed about where to put this because I read
this very recently and sometimes books either fade away or that you
remember them more vividly after a certain period of time... but I'm going to be
brave and put this in my favorites list because I adored it. This is a nonfiction
book where Lulah is looking at the life of her grandmother who's called
Elisabeth. Lulah was given a book of lists that Elisabeth had written by her mother,
Lulah also had access to Elisabeth's diaries so using both the diaries and
the lists she's written a book about her life,
but like with Mrs. Gaskell and Me it's not just about Elisabeth's life, it's
about Lulah's journey in discovering who Elizabeth was and talking about losing
her mother at the same time that she's discovering her grandmother. Elisabeth
was a fascinating person, she grew up in 1930s China, her father was a British
ambassador, she was shot in the forehead by the Japanese, rescued by a man who
later became her husband, and was a British diplomat, so she later travelled
all around the world, as well. She lived in Rio, she lived in Lebanon, she lived in
Madrid under Franco's regime, she also lived in the UK. It's about her
relationship with her brother which was particularly poignant and devastating
and it's about her mental health, as well; these lists are lists that she made to
try and organize her mind when she felt like she was losing control, as well as
just organizing her life, but it was a coping mechanism for her.
This book... I read it in about I think it was just over a day, if I hadn't
desperately needed to go to bed I would have stayed up and finished it, I just
couldn't help but read on and read on, and that doesn't happen so much with me
anymore, often I will read a little bit put it down, during commutes etc, I tend to
read in snippets but this was one book that I couldn't leave for a prolonged
amount of time. Next up was also a book that I read recently and this is Not
Here by Hieu Minh Nguyen and this is the second poetry collection that made my favorites
list this year. Not Here is an unearthing and the first poem in its collection
says "I know, I know it sounds strange, climbing inside a boy and crawling out
into yesterday's light" bit that's something that the speaker has to do, he has to go
back and explore all of these painful things in order to, as he says, "become a
braver kind of meet." The main relationship that is discussed in this
book is between the speaker and his mother who is absolutely not okay with
the fact that he is gay, and he's trying to reconcile that hurt with the fact
that he loves her deeply and how painful it is for her to reject that part of his
identity and then for him to say, well, I can't cut you out of my life because so
much of my identity is tied up in who you are. It's grieving for relationships
of all different kinds and it's also about people that he's lost literally, as
well, there is a devastating line in one poem that says "your funeral was like a
party you forgot to attend, it wasn't the same without you." I found this book so
incredibly moving and I would very much recommend it if you haven't read it yet.
The next book on my favourites is actually a series of books and I wasn't
sure where to put them but I'm putting them here because they just have been a
joy to read. They are not the best written books that I read this year but, as
I said they brought me so much joy. This is the Freida Klein series by Nicci
French. Frieda Klein is a psychologist and this is a series of books that
follow... I was going to say a week in her life, they don't, they're named
after days of the week but they follow several years of her life. The first one
is called Blue Monday and it's not just about her but it's about her friends and
the people in the police force that she gets to meet. Each book deals with one
particular case but there is an overarching storyline to all of these
books that comes to a head right at the end of the series. They kept me gripped. I
guessed a lot of the twists and turns but not all of them, so they also surprised me,
I think that's what you want in a thriller, right? You want to be able to
guess some of it but you also want to be shocked and I love a good reveal or a
good twist and it had plenty of those. I listened to them on audio, narrated by
Beth Chalmers and I think they work particularly well on audio, so if you're
looking for a new crime/thriller series to sink your teeth into
then please do give them a go. We're down to the final two.Number two on my list
is Spring by Ali Smith, this is part of her seasonal quartet where she's writing
novels that are very of the moment, reflecting our current political climate,
they have different characters but they are thematically linked because of the
project that she has set out to do. This one is the third one, you don't have to
read them in order but I would recommend all of them because I think that they
are all brilliant.This particular one is about art, it's about a man who has
recently lost his best friend, it's about how much she loved Katherine Mansfield
and looked into her life and how people had fictionalized her life, so it's where
fiction in fact meet. It's also about borders and refugees, it's about wordplay
and propaganda and how people play with narrative and the power that that holds.
I've done a whole review of this before for TOAST, which I will link in the
description box down below. Because it is a book that's so much about theme
and imagery, I think it's easier to write about it than to speak about it, because
plot is not the thing that holds it together. So go and read the review
if you would like to understand the book more fully. My favourite book of the is
probably no surprise to any of you and that is Lanny
by Max Porter. I was very nervous to read this because I adored Grief is The Thing
with Feathers so much, which was Max's first book. This is his second and I just
didn't know where he could go from there but it's even better, it's even better
than Grief and that's definitely not something that I
thought I would say going into it because, as I said, I loved Grief so much.
This is about a family that lives in a small town on the commuter belt outside
of London, the dad commutes into London every day, the mother is writing
questionable crime novels that she doesn't want her son Lanny to see, who is
left to run around the village, he loves getting his fingers in the soil, he loves
nature and he's made friends with an artist who lives up the road called Pete
who has started teaching him how to draw ...or actually Pete would say he's not
teaching him how to draw, he's just talking to him about art because he
doesn't think that young boys should be told what to do, he just thinks that they
should be communicated with. Tying all of these threads together is Papa Toothwart
Dead Papa Toothwart, who is a manifestation of everything that he has
ever overheard and everything that he's seen people do, he is the best and the
worst of humanity, this mythical figure that creeps through the village like a
gigantic green man, and he's fallen in love with Lanny,
he loves the way that Lanny talks, he loves his positivity, and as Dead Papa Toothwart
is, as I said, all of the horribleness of humanity, all of its
prejudices all of its pessimism, he is drawn to the innocence of Lanny and wants to
feed on it. I read this book in book form first then I listened to it again as an
audiobook, because like with Grief is the Thing with Feathers, this is is set out almost like
a play. The second section of the book is a chorus of voices. I would recommend
reading in book form first but I would recommend
revisiting it in audiobook form. I also saw Max and some actors read most
of this book of a South Bank which was a wonderful experience, they had a band, too,
so if that is ever performed again and you can get the chance to go and see it
then please go and see it. I also reviewed this in full for TOAST
so I'll link my review in the description box down below if you would
like to go and find out... well, basically, if you want to read more about me
gushing about how much I love this book then you can head over to that review
and read more. Those are my 15 favourite books of 2019, as I mentioned they're all
linked down below if you'd like to go and check them out.
Have you read any of these? Would you like to now you've heard me gush about
them in this video? Please let me know in a comment down below and also
let me know what your favourite books of 2019 were as well because I would love
to know. I will be back with another video soon, I hope you're having a great
start to the week, lots of bookish love. Bye!