Hello and welcome to the Book Club Review. I'm Kate. And this is the podcast about book clubs and the books that get people talking
another year has gone by, we've decked the shelves with boughs of holly and it's time to look back over our favourites from 2023 as ever we've sorted them into handy categories. Best New Release, best backness gem, best nonfiction best book club book and our favourite comfort read before we get to our overall book of 2023. We'll even mention a few books that let us down. That is not the season to dwell instead. This episode is a celebration of everything we love about books and reading. dialling in from New York is our dear friend and regular poor guest, Phil Chaffey. As usual, Laura is coming to us from Vancouver, and I'm here in London. And so let's get to those books tax. 2023 the year that prophets song by Paul Lynch won the Booker Prize here in the UK blackouts by Justin Torres won the National Book Award in America Shankari children's Chai time at cinnamon gardens one the Miles Franklin in Australia. Young Basa won the Nobel Prize. Yet another feather in UK publisher Fitzcarraldo is extremely feather recap. It was the year that books written by robots started to feel like a disturbing possibility. Cormac McCarthy died and Martin Amis also friends star Matthew Perry, his memoir, friends, lovers and the big terrible thing continues to appear on bestseller lists. 2023 was the year of the celebrity memoir, Britney Spears finally got to tell her side of the story with the woman in me while Prince Harry's memoirs spare turned out to be a surprisingly good read. Thanks to ghost writer Jr. Marina, as the challenges we face in the world increase. One thing that is a constant is the plentiful number of good books to read. So many that you may find it difficult to narrow them down. We're going to have a go though, Laura. Bill. I can't wait to find out your favourites. But first, shall we talk numbers? Not in a competitive way. Not about numbers.
Phil's gonna win. It's okay.
Worst Person A tracking my reading as well. And I just can't do it. So figuring out what I read this year for me has meant a frantic going through of our Instagram and listen back to old episodes and trying to figure out what on earth I read. But I did manage to compile a list. Maybe if I tell you mine first because I feel like Phil's is going to be more than what I came up with 94 Although I do keep remembering otherwise.
It's a problem. Or is ish?
How about you?
I have a preposterous number which is 166.
listeners. If you don't know if you don't know Phil reading every night into the wee hours but he's also just wandering around New York listening to audiobooks I think of Phil has having the dream life listening
to very sped up audiobooks, too. So they're going fast and I'm walking a lot two times or one point cycled through life somewhere between the two. Let's say
it's all the more
impressive because it's regular listeners will know you like a long read. You're not hoovering up quick fixes. Yeah,
maybe there's some short bucks in there, but there's certainly some very long ones, too. And
Laura, how did you get on with your reading?
Oh, well, I'm the straggler, but I think I read around 50. Like you, Kate, I'm not very good at recording them. I have a little note in my phone that every now and then I go back to an ad to but as I was going through my whatsapp chat with our London book club, there are books bubbling up that weren't on the list. So I think there's about 50 I'm happy with that.
I have been conscious I have read less this year. And I know why that is. It's because this is the year I started a new job. So of course we're reading time has gone down. What I do have now is the joy of a bit of a commute. So I get the lovely commute read, which is just I think it's such a nice time to read on your commute. Just feels all like Oh great. I'm off to work. I've got my book. I don't know. I just love it. I really like it to look around on the tube. And I'm very heartened by the amount of people reading real books and enjoying them. It feels like this real little literary scene that's thriving down there. Okay, let's get to our books. We've got a lot to get through and we are going to start with our favourite new release. So this is a book that was published in 2023. Laura, you want to go first?
Sure. One of the challenges I faced since moving to Vancouver and I talk about this a lot slash complain about it a lot to Phil and Kate is that we don't have any really amazing bookshops. in Vancouver. We have small ones and being a bit unfair. We have small ones. We don't have a foils or a big Waterstones like on Piccadilly, or even how was books in Portland or my favourite bookshop in the world Elliott Bay in Seattle. And so it can be really hard to find new releases, or just to have them on my radar at all. So I complain about this because it's hard for me to actually figure out what's being published without doing research. And then it's hard for me to find them. So I don't really feel like I've read a huge number of new releases this year, and certainly not ones that have surprised and delighted me. Now, my favourite one for the year then was not necessarily a surprise, but it was a delight. And that is August blue by Deborah Levy, which came out in June. I've read a few of her previous books, one novel, one memoir, and I just love spending time with her as a writer. And her characters is always something slightly uncanny about the story she's telling. Have you guys read August blue yet? No.
I have a copy of it, which turned up in my little free library, which I immediately snaffled. So I've actually read the first chapter. It's the
story of a piano prodigy who as a young child is adopted by a man who heads up a school for musical prodigies. And so she's sort of his ward. She's sort of a student. She's sort of his daughter. And it's in many ways, a positive relationship, but there's also a business aspect to it. And we meet her in her 30s, during COVID, wandering around Europe, she's just ruined one of her performances. She didn't play what she was supposed to play in front of an audience of, say, 1000 or so. And it was in Austria, and now she's kind of gone to ground and she's just teaching random students. And she also keep seeing a doppelganger everywhere she is, and as I say, this, this uncanniness to it. There's this interesting premise. I feel like Deborah Levy as a literary writer isn't afraid of kind of starting with something really interesting and chewy. It's not a perfect novel, but I really really enjoyed it and would highly recommend it. Phil,
how about your favourite new release, my
favourite new release just came out, I think both here and in the UK, is called the rainbow. I use an IRA Kawabata. It is, in a way a bagless, given that the original book was written 70 years ago in 1950, but it was just released this new translation by Hayden travel. Kobato was the first Japanese author to win a Nobel Prize for Literature. The book is set in postwar sort of goes back and forth between Tokyo and Kyoto in post war Japan, the story, it's very, very quiet and subtle. It's these two half sisters and their father. And there's a third half sister who they've never met the half sister to each of them. So the father had a child with three different women and trying to reconnect with that third sister, but also processing some of the things that happened during the war. It is absolutely gorgeous. He puts them in a series of almost like Hocus eye paintings, gorgeous Japanese temples and gardens. And it feels like very quiet on the surface, but there's a lot of emotion bubbling up from underneath. And in a way it really reminded me of, and I think it was an influence on Ishiguro generations later, I thought this was absolutely gorgeous, and just really stuck out for me.
I have read snow country by him, which I read when I was in Japan, and we were travelling around Hokkaido, and it was actually snowy. Yeah. So I feel like I had the optimal reading setting for experiencing that book. And although I don't remember the ins and outs of it, you know, I couldn't tell you the plot. But I do remember this very profound experience, the feelings and sensations evoked in me and thinking, oh, yeah, I see why this writer won a Nobel Prize. It was amazing. That's kind of a strange one, then I feel like you've slightly flummoxed me with your new
book, one thing I would say he said, it's a new translation. And I was just looking it up because it sounds so good. It's the first translation. So arguably, it is a new release. It's never been accessible to English language readers before. I
feel like by the strict parameters of the category it is. You want to mess with all of our heads the seller and that's absolutely fine. It's Christmas will allow it. I'm impressed at both of you managing to clearly and succinctly pull out one book or I don't know if you had other books that you were happy not to mention. I don't feel that way. I'm afraid I just have to throw in a few but I promise I won't go on at length, via rush by Jacqueline crooks was a favourite discovery from the Women's Prize list. I had not expected to be as engaged and interested in a book about the 1970s dubstep reggae culture as I was but that was a real find. Ducks graphic memoir by Kate Beaton that I read when I was visiting you, Laura out in Canada, and I was looking for a copy. I couldn't find it anywhere. And I think it's because it's only available in hardback and it's such a big heavy book. I'm pretty sure I left it there. I don't think I could face bringing it home yet. But I really recommend that that is an absolutely brilliant memoir of her time, trying to pay off her student loans and working in the Alberta Oil Sands and this very male dominated, misogynistic environment. And as you could easily imagine, she did not have a very good experience, but she documented it absolutely beautifully. And I have been really impressed at the way that that story has stayed with me and how much I enjoyed it at the time. About time, I remember almost not quite realising it, it crept up on me. But then at the end, I was really, really, really sad to leave her world and her way of seeing the world. And the one more I just couldn't bear not to mention is now is not the time to panic by Kevin Wilson, which is such a great story. It's sort of a little bit about art. It's about growing up in a certain period of time kind of pre internet age where these two teenagers end up making this piece of art that they do via photocopying, and then sort of pasting it around the town. And there's just something really delightful about that, that I loved. And it's a great story. It's not long, I really, really enjoyed it. But I think if I had to choose just one, I'm gonna go for kick the latch by Katherine Scanlon, which is a funny one, because it is fiction. She describes it as fiction, but it's based on a series of interviews that she did with a real life racehorse trainer. And it's about this woman's life, and her experiences, growing up in sort of poor part of America and making this career for herself, but always sort of scratching it out. And also being a woman in a man's world, and how she managed to overcome the various challenges. It's a quiet story in lots of ways. You know, this is not a big, glamorous, exciting life. And yet it is so eventful and full of drama, and it's told so beautifully. And when you finish it, you sit back and you think, wow, how does she do that? There's such a magic hit, but you can't really tell. And that's why for me, it felt like such a special experience reading it. It's not like anything else I've read. I really, really loved it and I can't recommend it highly enough kick the latch by Katherine Scanlon.
I know what some of you are thinking Hang on a minute, when some of those books published in 2022 keen air listeners, you are right. I only realised when I was doing the editing. I thought, shall I take them out, but they're such good books, I wanted you to know about them. So I've left them in. While I've got you. Let me also quickly tell you about the book club reviews Patreon, where you can support the show and get some extras on the side membership includes my weekly Saturday snippets newsletter themed around book recommendations, and you'll also get access to our just launched library catalogue spreadsheet with book listings and notes. At the higher tier. You also have the opportunity to join our monthly podcast book club with the recordings posted to catch up with if you can't make the live zoom. We've got exciting plans for 2024 with a brilliant range of books I can't wait to get to. You'll find all the information at the link in the show notes. All go to patreon.com and search the Book Club Review. Okay, lots of books still to come enough with the sidebar. Let's get back to it. Okay, favourite backless title, Phil.
I'm going to pull a cake. Because it's very hard to decide on this one.
I want to hear about the whole surrounds. And I think our listeners do too. Well, I'm
gonna give you a tie. One I think I was raving to you too about which was I finally read it's been sitting on my shelves for years and years are still it's WG Sebald. It just blew my mind. I then went out and read more say bald. For those who don't know, I think it came out in 2001. It starts very tangentially, with this conversation with this man who's called as Stirlitz in the Antwerp train station, and the unnamed narrator and him have long I mean 100 Page discussion about architecture and history of European imperialism. And ultimately, then you find out the history of this man. He was as a boy, I can do transport to take into Wales from his family in Central Europe and dives into the ultimate origin of that it's in a way very bleak, but in a way just so creative. So exciting. I just blew me away. It's a novel but obviously grappling with a lot of history. The other backlist was just titled My book is The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston, which is a 1976 memoir from this Chinese American woman. It's a memoir about her relationship with her mother, but also about her mother's life in pre Communist China. And she gets in via a lot of Chinese folktales, which are woven into the memoir, her as a child imagining herself in these folktales, again, thematically, was doing so much and was really brilliantly written, and really moving. That
sounds amazing. I haven't heard of that second one. That's new to me. For me, it came down to two actually, similarly, it's a problem, isn't it that often things we read the very beginning of the year, you know, it could be the most extraordinary book you've ever read. But by the time you get all the way around to December, you're kind of like, oh, you know, there are things that maybe you read more recently that have stuck with you more powerfully. But going back through my list, I remembered a book that I absolutely love, which is called Charlotte, by French author whose name I've never got around to checking how you pronounce so I'm going to mangle it here as I always do whenever I talk about this book on the podcast. If it's Daveed think he knows when he knows, it tells the story of the artist Charlotte Solomon, I was not familiar with her work, I didn't know anything about her. So I think one of the reasons this book meant so much to me was just this discovery of this extraordinary art that she made. It really is incredible. But I didn't know that a story is a very tragic one because her family were Jewish. And so she didn't survive World War Two. And you know that quite early on because of the way the story is told. And what he does is he takes you back into her life and her experiences, and you follow her through her story. It sounds like it would be a really sad, depressing read. I think the extraordinary thing about it is the degree to which it isn't that it was somehow joyful and uplifting. And the pleasure comes from the way that he has preserved her story brought her back into the light, you know, holding her up so that you can witness her witness her life experience her art, there was something so magical about that, that really was a delight. And I felt very happy to have read it, it meant a lot to me that book, so I urge you to seek it out. And the other is a month in the country by JL Carr, which is a real classic, I had never read it, it's not long, it tells a story of a ex soldier who goes to this small village in Yorkshire, where he is going to be in charge of restoring a mural that's been painted over on a church wall. And so you get the mechanics of him going there. And he's got his tools. And he's setting about doing these things. And we learned that he's got a form of posttraumatic stress from his experiences in the war. And there is another man there who's doing some kind of archaeological excavations, who similarly is suffering from flashbacks and trauma, and has his own story, which gradually is uncovered throughout the novel. But what it really is, is a book about memory and about time, and it's captured so beautifully, in a way that it just really gives you something. It's like this sort of jewel of a book. And it gives you this sense of the idea that we live our lives and we have these experiences, but the time is always in notion. And so even if you could go back, if you could return to some point in your life where perhaps you had a particularly meaningful experience or you were particularly happy, it wouldn't be the same because everything has changed. You have changed. And this book really recognises that and there's something really so moving and meaningful about that. It's just so wonderful. It was such a beautiful book that I really treasured and recommend it to people since I was so glad I read it. People I mentioned it to people know about it, I think I feel like I was one of the last to discover it. People always say oh man, the country is so great. It is it is really great. And so that has been my favourite backlist read of 2023. How about you, Laura?
So in the all surrounds, I was very pleased with myself to get to Hilary Mantel's, a place of greater safety, which is her in 1992 novel about the French Revolution, but really about the lives of the major players, George Dantooine, Camille de Mulan and Maximilien Robespierre, because it starts with their childhoods, and then leads up to Ward's some very interesting events that took me by surprise.
I remember some don't know much about the French Revolution, actual stages of the French Revolution.
There is a moment where I turned around, I finished this book on an aeroplane back from work event, and my boss was sitting behind me and she's a huge reader anyway. And I turned around, it was like, did you know this happened in the French Revolution? So very different reading experience. If you don't know anything? I love Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy. And so what's interesting about this book is seeing the germination of that because it is a really disorienting read when people complain about Wolf Hall and the other books in that series are often like I don't know who's talking in a place of greater safety. You do not know who's talking it's very confusing, or who is who, but I still loved it and the hood have washed over me. The other backless title that was in the also ran category was black Narcissus by rumour Gordon, which Kate you have read, published in 1939. And it's about nuns kind of going mad on the edges of the Himalayas. She was a Irish nun Scottish nuns, English nuns, and they've been sent to create a convent in this traditional building. And they will go a bit crazy. It is great to have you read that. No, I really want to, you need to, you know, just as like a little sliver of delight because it's so perfectly crafted, and I have a real soft spot for anything on mountains, it would appear, but particularly the Himalayas. And so I just love that. But I think the one that's going to take it all is the ginger tree by Oswald wind, which was published in 1977. And recommended by my friend Caitlin, who's in my London book club with me and Phil. It was on her radar because don't book sent it out as part of her monthly subscription. It's the story of a young Scottish woman who is married off follows her husband from Edinburgh To the Chinese mainland, where he is working as a minor bureaucrat, and it all goes slightly pear shaped when she has an affair with a Japanese diplomat in the area, and she becomes pregnant. And so then follows her life from there, and you move to Japan. And it's just this extraordinary portrait of pre war, Japan and her life thereafter. To your point, Kate, I read this actually, in January last year, I had admittedly somewhat forgotten it, but when I saw it on my list, I was like, oh, yeah, no, that was a clean one. And a real discovery. Yeah, I
have a copy of it waiting for me because I then got it began. Oh, yeah. Sounds like right. I haven't got around to reading. I read a little bit because it's letters, isn't it? It's told in letters.
It is an epistolary novel. Yeah. Okay,
favourite nonfiction. So I get mine out of the way.
Sure. What was your s?
I made it sound like I was already to go wasn't my options because I love nonfiction. Actually, this year has been the year of memoirs and biographies. So I love very Maga Louise's memoir this much is true, which I was surprised how much I enjoyed that that was a great read. And also because you can listen to the audiobook and have her read it to you, which enhances the pleasure. I also love. I picked up a copy of a book of letters and book reviews and articles by Penelope Fitzgerald called a house of air. I had read her novel, the bookshop, I'd reread that and I loved it so much more this time. I always loved it. But rereading it I was really like this is such a perfect book, I just want to read more. And so went through a real Penelope Fitzgerald phase of dipping in and out of this wonderful compilations of big thick books, she wrote a lot. And I felt like just being instructed in the art of fine writing and also fine criticism. She referred to herself as a common reader, she didn't feel that she was some almost like sort of lofty academic type. And yet, she was very rigorous, thoughtful critic, and I felt I had a lot to learn from that. So that's been a real delight. But it came down to a couple one I raved about on the pot at the time. And that is the palace papers by Tina Brown. Tina Brown popped up when the whole Harry and Megan thing was kicking off just as the only person I thought with anything sensible to say about the British Royal Family, she really caught my attention when I saw her on one of the morning shows. Oh, yeah, that is an interesting point. And so when the book, the palace papers came out, I picked up a copy. And it is such a great read, you would not think the British royal family could be this interesting because actually, the ins and outs of their daily lives are fairly boring, I think, when it comes down to the actual mechanics of what they do. But she just managed to weave together this brilliant analysis of the way the British class system works. The political function of the Maliki the British Royal Family, the actual then human details of their lives and relationships and this crazy goldfish bowl that they will have to live in, which actually is pretty inhuman, the way that they're expected to live. So constantly in the public spotlight, and just some really interesting insight into the way that things may go now that Harry and Megan have gone off to the states and leading separate lives. And so now all the pressure is on William and Kate, and that marriage, and how's that gonna last? It's such a great read, I really recommend that. But just quickly, I'd love to book called How to talk about books you haven't read by Pierre ber French academic. This obviously appealed to me as a person who spends a lot of time talking about books, but knows that there are far more books in the world than she will ever get to read. And I often feel quite frustrated about that. And so what I loved about Pierre bales book is that he really lets you off the hook. He takes different figures from literature, or other cultural icons. There's even a chapter that takes Bill Murray in Groundhog Day as its jumping off point. And he weaves this delightful series of arguments about why it's actually okay. And sometimes even preferable, he would argue, not to have read the books that you're trying to talk about. This is a whole book that makes case for the fact that that's actually quite a helpful thing. And I loved it. I was delighted by it. I found it very refreshing. And I urge anyone who thinks that they might enjoy something along those lines. To give it a try. It's a real delight. So how did you go about books you hadn't read by Pierre bale?
What about you? Do you read a lot of nonfiction,
I do read a lot of nonfiction. And I was actually trying to decide between several massive history Tomes, and I'm not going to put those on my top one. I think the one that really has transformed how I think, and I've kept thinking about it, since reading it in May, is a preposterous ly titled book, called Carmageddon by Daniel Knowles, who is the Midwest correspondent for The Economist. He's a Brit who lives in Chicago. And this book is basically about the many ways that cars are destroying our world. This is a screed. It's an argument but it's also incredibly backed up. He has lived all over the world so he's not just focused on chickens. I go in the developed world, but also what cars are doing the developing world. And not just their environmental impact, including the awful environmental impact of electric cars, but also talking about the safety implications. Where it really transforms is thinking about all of the ways, our cities and our will infrastructure is set up to enable cars and as a sort of strident pedestrian, who has an expired driver's licence, and basically avoids ever getting in a car. This is particularly on my long walks around New York City and elsewhere. It's really transformed how I think about everything, and I can't recommend this book enough. Does he
have a solution? Does he propose a way forward? Or is it really about analysing all the ways in which they're awful?
No, he certainly has solutions. I mean, the one of the most fascinating chapters is his chapter about Tokyo, which is basically an entire city of set up post for Tokyo, not around cars, and has some of the lowest car ownership rates in the world and car usage rates in the world. Obviously, not all cities can become Tokyo tomorrow. But he has a lot of solutions on sort of how to shift policy over. It sounds dense and heavy, it is also a page that's a really good read, probably certainly
nailed it with the title.
I can read that as someone who doesn't read a lot of nonfiction. I to eight cars, I have one now in Vancouver, but I moved downtown so that I could walk to work and have a car free life, the only thing that gets in the way of that is the pouring winter rain at the moment, then cars can be quite nice. As I say, I don't read a lot of nonfiction. So we're definitely in memoir, land for me for this category, my best nonfiction of the year would be free by Leah ypy. It's her memoir of life in Albania amid the collapse of communism. She was on the cusp of adolescence when communism fell in Albania. And so this memoir is about what she was told and what her understanding was about her family and her culture and the politics in her world through the lens of childhood. And then all that knowledge is undermined and transformed by the potential for her parents to actually tell her truth with the fall of communism, and also her transitioning into adolescence as a real loss of innocence from what she understands to be the truth in the first half and her recounting of her family life and experiences. And then this loss of innocence halfway through. And it does get quite dark and depressing because you're with her right? You've seen it through one lens. And then the flip side of that, as well as the collapse of Albania. Economically, post communism is really devastating, fantastic memoir. I think we loved it as a book club book. And we had a great discussion the three of us, it's
so good, isn't it and the way she makes ideas that might see quite abstract political theory through her eyes, you actually live it and you experience it and it doesn't seem abstract anymore. Suddenly you think, Oh, right. I see why this is important. It's such a good book. I love that one to see. Masterpiece, that book. Well, that brings us on nicely to our favourite book club read of 2020. Through this is the year I said goodbye to running my own book club. As we started our podcast book club with their blessing, I might add, we had a lovely summer get together and I pitched it to them. I basically was gonna ditch them for a group of people that I would only know through the internet and they were surprisingly fine about it. They were very nice. So now we have the podcast Book Club, which is very quickly become something that I really look forward to at the end of every month. It's so great. And I have this group of what I think of as an invisible book friends that I get to meet up with once a month and talk books with with my old book club. This year we read free by Lea EP, seven and a half by Crystal sulcus Australian author. It was a surprising book from an author that I have in the past really admired that was it felt quite a challenging read, super infinite the transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rondelle so late in the day by Claire Keegan monsters by Claire Deidre and most recently time Shelter by Yagi gospel enough, which won the Booker International Prize this year. Tough to choose from that lot. But for me, it came down to free by Leah EP and super infinite the transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rondelle, which was such a surprise because I suppose having studied the poetry of John Donne, way back my A levels in school, I had quite an idea of him as sort of this quite dry, boring sort of long afternoons dozing off over the flee in warm classrooms. And so I hadn't really expected to be that interested in this book, but it won the Bailey Gifford prize, which is an excellent nonfiction prize, very reliable, you know, they know how to pick them. And so I suggested that we read it. And it is such a fantastic page turner, it is so gripping and she manages to do this incredible thing of making this poetry that was written so long ago feel relevant and vital and inspiring and really electrifying. She manages to convey all that and it's a lot to do with his writing. She's very, very good at drawing Bring your attention to the bits that are those electric bits. Because it's not true of every single John Donne poem that every line is going to sear into your soul. You know, some of them, you really have to sift out a lot of other stuff. But also she conjured up this period 17th century, almost in the way that Hilary Mantel is able to really bring the tastes and sounds and smells, and really what it must have been like to live in that time, vividly back to life. So Catherine Rondelle has the same ability. And it was magical read, it was really inspiring. It led for a fantastic discussion. We all really enjoyed it. And the other very nice thing about it was that it led us on then to talking about poetry more generally, which is not something we've previously discussed. And then we had a wonderful discussion about poems that we have found meaningful people were reading out poems that they remembered or brought along poems that they wanted to share and that felt like a really special compensation that I was really glad to have had. So for lots of reasons, that has been my favourite book club read of 2023.
Phil and I are both in two book clubs. For the purposes of this episode, we're just going to talk about our shared Book Club, which I call our London book club, because most of the people are still in London, but not all work spread out all over now. We were slightly embarrassed before we started recording to realise we haven't read a huge amount of books this year, which isn't just kind of on me, kind of on the books we selected. The first on the list was free by Leah hippy victory city by Salman Rushdie the years by any or no Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, our wives under the sea by Julia Armfield, and we're just now reading Arturo's island by Elsa marandi. Phil, what's your favourite from this list?
This was neck and neck for me, between free and the years, I'm gonna go with the years because we already discussed free. For years. I think we raved about it on this podcast. It's just the perfect book club book. It's very short, succinct, but she packed so much in there. For about the history of France and her own experience. This is a memoir, basically by Annie or No, but it's written in the collective first person, as this memoir of a generation, I thought it was so structurally ambitious, and not just indigenous but successful at doing a completely new thing, at least new to me, I can't think of any book comparable, and it's resonated with me, I'm going to be giving it to people for Christmas, I'd put that phrase up like, that's my pick for the year to.
One thing I would add is, I still think about the very first chapter, which doesn't feel like a memoir, it almost feels like a standalone essay about the nature of time and memory and how it's handed down. through generations. It transformed how I think about human history and human memory and generational memory before then turning into this extraordinary collective memoir. She's a Nobel Prize winner. And I'm always slightly daunted by Nobel Prize winners. And then certainly in this case, you read her and you're like, Well, yeah, obvious. Well, prize winner. And why do I not only read Nobel Prize winner,
because interesting, talking about time shelter, with the podcast Book Club, which is also a book about memory, it's exploring the idea of creating environments that recall specific eras in time and what people experience when they go into those environments. And actually, it was really helpful that I had read the years by Annie I know, because the two are, it was interesting, the two are investigating some of the same ideas, but in very different ways. And I love the way it for me having read both that they complemented each other. And one very nice thing about that discussion was that what we ended up with was this really nice list of follow on or complimentary readings. This idea of memory and time is obviously something that interests a lot of writers. And actually, it can make for a really nice theme for a reading stack. I think so yeah, I added in a month in the country, and it's great. Favourite comfort read hasn't been the easiest of years, I think, the point of which I got to my six, incredibly downbeat book, a book and I just wanted to curl into a ball and hide under the bed, I was really struggling and it's not easy. And also obviously difficult things happening in the world that are distressing to hear about and think about, we can't ignore them. It's really important that we don't but it's about finding that balance, isn't it and being able to pay attention and face up to things without at the same time just going to pieces ourselves. And so for that, you've got to line up your comfort read so this is the year that comfort reading has really meant a lot to me. And I was very happy to see that Nina stubby, who wrote a book that's one of my classic comfort read books. It's called Love Nina. And it's another epistolary book series of letters that she wrote home from when she was nannying in London, and the person she was working for was Mary Kay Wilmers, who is the editor of the London Review of Books. So what you get in love Nina is this brilliantly observed very comic recounting of the ins and outs of the everyday domestic arrangements in the spa. Emily, but also all of these brilliant funny behind the scenes asides about all these very high level literary folk that she's interacting with, again, when you see the very ordinary domestic side of their lives, that was a real gem. I love her voice. She has since written many successful novels. But this is another diary of hers very recent, it tells the story of probably it was last year, maybe 22 that she spent living in London, and she rents a room in the house of the author, Deborah mortgage, who wrote the Marigold Hotel, I can't remem the name of the film. It was a Best Exotic
Marigold Hotel, right?
That's right. Thank you, Phil. Yes. And also Tulip Fever, I think was another very successful book of hers, a well known, well connected novelist. And so again, you get this thing about everyday life living in London, she's writing and she's observing life around her sprinkled with all these little delicious asides about literary folk that she's interacting with. And also because she's now a well known person on the literary circuit herself, so she's going to book festivals, and she's doing readings and she's doing a pub quiz with Nick Hornby and hanging out with Kathy ruins of Brexit, and there's just a lot of fun. I really enjoyed spending this time in her company and I love that went to London took the dog. I also really enjoyed a book called The Grove and nature Odyssey in 19 and a half front gardens by Ben dark. I didn't really know anything about him. But he turns out to be quite a well known gardener, and he wrote this lovely book about all the front gardens that he passed when he was walking around with his baby in the pram. Yeah, all babies discovered quite early on that if you take them out and push them around, there's something about being out on the fresh air and they do usually conk out. So this is a well known tactic. And he was noticing all these guns that he passed and all these really everyday things like privet hedges or cherry trees or magnolias, or garden roses, buddleia. They're all very, very, very familiar London plants. And each chapter gives you a little bit of a history and explores almost like the backstory. And I love that. And what I particularly loved is it really made me look at London with new eyes. Now, when I'm wandering around, I see these things, I think, oh, yeah, that was that thing that was written really beautifully as well. I really enjoyed that. But my top comfort read was a new discovery. But I know, I just know this is going to be a book that I will go back to again, and again, it's set in a bookshop. It's called Once upon a tome by Oliver dark shear. And it tells of his time working in the antiquarian, bookshop, southerns, which has been going for a long time, sort of 200 years or something, I think, and is in this little side street in Piccadilly near where I work. And he just tells the story of what it's like working in the shop. But the thing is, I've never actually been there. So I can't verify this. But the way he describes it, it's such an otherworldly place. And there's something so enjoyable about that. It's almost like it's got kind of like a fantasy element, you know, where you expect there to be goblins or some kind of pit or you open a door, and you're gonna go through to a parallel dimension, it's written in this very whimsical way. And yet, what's brilliant is that all of this stuff, as far as I can tell is absolutely true. The people that he works with are incredibly strange and eccentric, the customers are even more eccentric. And the books that they want are fascinating. And it's all very funny. It's very quirky, it's very delightful. I haven't read anything like it before, I really, really, really enjoyed it. And at the end, just as you couldn't think it would get any better. There's a choose your own adventure style game, where you can practice running your own bookshop, where you have rent on your shop is due in 10 days. So you've got to sell some books, and then you've got scores for money, time and patience, and you roll your dice and you can play out your day at the shop and see how it goes. And once you've read the book, you've had the training, so I would expect you to do very well. I love it so much. It's such a wonderful read once upon a tome it's called, I
was slightly embarrassed by how much comfort reading I did when I was totally like I mean, comfort reading, I mean, yes, it's a good category and I'll come to that but I mean even like, what is comfort reading? Why do we read? Is comfort reading something to be embarrassed about or No, I don't Oh, I don't think so. No, I know but even like putting it in a category, I would say some people only comfort read. But anyway, I mean, one of the reasons I'm in Book Club is to keep me from quote unquote only comfort reading. Now that said I finally this year have discovered Eva Ibbotson, who has been recommended to us on the podcast in the past by Elizabeth of crib notes newsletter as her comfort go to author and I read three Eva Ibbotson in a week I read the first one was like great read the second one great that came to my detsky square. It is a comfort read, but it's also not as escapist as her other novels. I would highly recommend anyone as a historical novel, while also just being a delightfully moving sweet package all wrapped up. It's about a dressmaker. You In Vienna, pre World War One thing oh gosh, one of the World Wars. She has a very successful thriving dressmaking business overlooking the Dead Sea square. And so the novel is about the inhabitants of that square. It's also about her relationship with a high ranking military officer who dips in and out of her life. He has his own married life very separate to hers and their relationships, very secret, and it's about change that is coming because there's plans to remake Vienna, and to put through new thoroughfares and that will destroy my density square. I really love this book. I will read it again. But as he score takes a lot, but I would just say that embarrassingly, I have read romantic comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld twice since it came out in March. I think what I liked about the book the most, though, is that the two protagonists one is female staff writer on the equivalent of Saturday Night Live, and the other are love interest is a very famous musician, and they meet on set of Saturday Night Live, which is called something different. But that first third is just so great as an introduction to how those shows are produced in one week in the process of creating sketches and getting them up on stage and having the actors and or famous people dip in. That was pretty fun, too.
I got a copy of that in the school Christmas fair. I was doing the bookstore. And the brilliant thing about doing the bookstore is that you get first pick up all the books. And I sniffled that one so fast. I'm saving it for that post Christmas low. I'm really looking forward to it. Phil, how about you? Are you a comfort reader?
Actually, I struggled with this. So I don't think I am certainly not to the extent Laura is the thing that I think would win this category. Although again, it's stretching what is a comfort read as I sort of wanted something I was guaranteed to know I would love. I've been working through magayo Farrells backlist and notes from a heatwave her 2011 novel was just absolutely great. A novel about this Irish British family falling apart in the mid 70s, the three adult children and their parents and their secrets in the family attic. She goes around through the family all the different perspectives. So there's this amazing perspective, the youngest daughter, aefi is dyslexic, but it's basically never been diagnosed and therefore has never learned to read. And she feels deep shame about this. And her chapters are just astonishing. It's a family drama. It's just a well written Maggie O'Farrell. I'm sure I've praised her before, but I'd really vibe with her descriptions and her characters always seem immediately flushed out. That one in particular jumped out at me, for a more typical genre comfort read, I was gonna go with this book going zero by Anthony McCarten. And this is a pure thriller. I think he is a screenwriter, the premise of this book is that there's this evil tech billionaire who has this company beta, which is trying to show off their new all seeing technology called Fusion, which can track people anywhere. And so they select 10 people to go off the grid and try to not be detected by the evil tech company. There's various machinations and the ending isn't quite as good as the setup. But that was a very fun, gripping page turner that I've had a lot of fun with. My man,
that sounds great. All right. Well, I
almost didn't put this category in. But I thought, Well, maybe it's interesting. This is just let's not dwell on it. But the book didn't quite meet our expectations. I read the Thursday murder club. I'm on record as being very dubious about that book, although I continue to go back to is it unfair of me to be negative about a book that so many people have really loved and enjoyed. And I suppose on those terms, it's obviously touching something in people. What was more interesting to me was when you take away the marketing hype, and the fact that he himself is a very charismatic, likeable person who has a big profile before he started writing novels, when you come down to the actual mechanics of the book and what it was and what it did, you know, did it really succeed? That was the element of my disappointment really, was that I just felt like on that level, it didn't really deliver what I would have wanted a crime, even Posey crime to do, which was a bit of a twisty turny plot and not being able to figure out who did it. It felt to me like a lot of that stuff was telegraphed really early on, and also this pose, yeah, angle of it. I did love the whole thing about the sprightly four Oh, EPs who are the crying busters. And that's a brilliant idea. And there's nothing not to love about that. And they are good, interesting characters. It was just sort of the side characters. That depiction of old age was often incredibly downbeat. These are people who have really lonely, often grieving, often ill and depressed and suicidal. And I found that as an insight into old age, and almost like what many of us have got to look forward to really soul crushing me depressing. I found that really hard to read. I think that's also why is there's a slight level of bafflement for me what it is that people love about these books, but it's a juggernaut, isn't it? Phil, I believe you saw him speak in the New York bookstore.
I did not go to saw that he was
Yeah, but he was doing a talk with Harman Kardon and it's just interesting that in the UK that probably would have been completely marked whereas I think in America what was it sort of bonded over or something? You know, he was just quietly doing his thing and no one was paying much attention
to the crowd but it was not a packed audience.
Funny how about you guys any disappointments this
year? I gonna have fun here and try and keep Phil Knight from going off track. And don't take this personally, Phil, but Phil recommended to me Birnam Wood by Eleanor cash. And he's like, I raced through it, it was really enjoyable. And it was like tastic, I picked up a copy. I took it on holiday with me. To be fair, I read it in about 72 hours. What a ludicrous Good lord, the characters so it said New Zealand's and there's this group of young 20 Something gorilla gardeners slash gorilla farmers and they're looking around Auckland for places where they can plant vegetables and so forth. They're kind of off grid, they're not really doing any damage. There's a bunch of politics within this group of activists. And the central relationship is between these two young women. And one wants to leave the group but she hasn't quite said it yet. The other one knows, the main leader, the one who knows and wants to keep her friend in the mix finds out about this property that's been left untended up in the mountains, because of a landslide that's come down and isolated this town, she goes out there to suss it out and then moves the group out there to guerrilla farm this land. At the same time, there's this evil Elon Musk character who is doing something very dubious on that land to do with extraction. It just gets crazy, Phil. And to be clear, if it was a regular thriller, I would expect it to be somewhat ridiculous. But this is by Eleanor Catton, who's won the Booker in the past, I almost threw the book across the river at the very end. So it did not live up
to expectations. Interesting, because many people have really enjoyed it. And it's certainly I think it was on the New York Times, maybe not like it was Yeah. I don't think it was notable. But yeah,
I mean, in its offence, if you give expectations like going zero, sort of similar plot with the evil tech billionaires, obviously, the Eleanor Catton has more literary pretensions, but on its basic level of being a thriller, and being a page turner, I think you have to agree you turned those pages? I think
I do. And that's why the category is that books that didn't quite live up to our expectations. If my expectations had been different, I might not have read it first of all, and two, I wouldn't be so critical now.
It sounds like it might be good for book club.
I mean, I would enjoy ranting about it. The GCSEs young people talking about the state of the world. I think Phil, you said you'd like to that. Whereas I was just like I roll. Oh, yeah, I literally
was fun. Mine. Last year, I had a very long rant about the Hanya Yanagihara book a little life this year, was just sort of a mild disappointment that made me sad, which was this book woman of light, by Callie fire Hado. And Stan was her first novel, I had loved her book of short stories called Sabrina and Karina from 2019, which was this very sharply delivered gorgeous stories set around Denver, Colorado, with these various Mexican American and indigenous communities telling these stories and showing this world that these I did not know much about, I highly recommend that book. This first novel of hers women of light is historical novels that endeavour in the 1930s. And there were some interesting plot, there was some interesting setting and history. But the characters all felt flat and slightly cliched. And it just made me very sad. I had been very much looking forward to this first novel, and it just didn't quite stick the landing. But I'm just going to turn this into a recommendation for Sabrina and Karina are 2019 book of short stories, which is gorgeous for anyone who has not read it.
Yeah, that's a new author to me. I haven't heard of her at all. All right, well, just before we get to the final overall book of the year, the book of 2023. I wanted to fit in a few recommendations from the Patreon book club who've been letting me know some of their favourites. The only show with the Patreon is that often I don't know people's real names, I just know them by their user names. And it might sound slightly odd sometimes the first one just queue the Patreon member notice queue. They let me know that some of their favourite reads were a book called loot by Tanya James Historical fiction Based on a real toy Tiger from Mizel that's currently housed at the v&a Museum here in London. The novel follows a fictional Indian apprentice and explores the term loot historically to the present day. I looked it up Lauren Groff calls it a wild, dazzling 18th century romp across continents with profound things to say about invention and self reinvention, class and fate and the deeply human hunger to create family. Anything to us by her I'm always interested in Q also mentioned factory girls by Michel Gallin Irish novel about a young 1819 year old woman coming into her own during the troubles characterised by very dark humour and a matter of fact quality about the great political issues. Also Cider House Rules a classic by John Irving. It was very enjoyable and the subject feels timeless and relevant today. And cursed bunny by Bora Chung, which I had heard of. This is a collection of short stories that are infused with a bit of magical realism and folklore. influences from Korean and Russian cultures. The stories have a wide range of memorable characters, we'll get to know about that. That is one that I have heard of, it's sort of slightly on my radar so I was interested to hear your views on it. Nicola Pulaski does I feel compelled to add another category down on the brilliance. So this is reads from New Zealand and Australia and I know we do have many listeners there. So hello to all of you. Stand out. She says from my 2023 Reading List, we're the Aspen's carnival by Katherine cIgi, which apparently is narrated by a magpie not now not ever 10 years on and the misogyny speech edited by Julia Gilad, I looked up that speech, which she gave in the Houses of Parliament in Australia, and it is absolutely electrifying. If like me, you didn't know about it, I suggest you give it a watch. It's absolutely credible. So I imagined that's a really interesting way. And all that's left unsaid by Tracy Lee and in a Vietnamese immigrant community in Sydney, Australia, a woman investigates her teenage brother's murder, which sounds to me like it would be a powerful page turner, and she flags up as a favourite read. Burnham would buy it. So maybe we will do it with the podcasts. Or you can come along and you too can duke it out. But I'm very intrigued to read it myself and see what I think Caroline V let me know I loved fire rush reading the Women's Prize shortlist was a wonderful way to find books I wouldn't have chosen free is definitely on my top 2023 reads. Picking to favourites is hard. I know it's so hard, isn't it? So she says I'm going to go with the ones that stayed with me and they were reversing the home by Elena Shara. She says it's an exploration of what it means to be free. This novel is that following emancipation in Barbados, as a formerly enslaved woman takes on a difficult journey to find her children. She says she found it heartbreaking and hopeful. And Charlotte Kinsley finally message to say, my favourite comfort read was the boy and the dog by sea shoe hasay A wonderful tale about the journey of a dog through contemporary Japan. He's taken care of by various different people, including a thief and a prostitute and we hear their stories. It sounds like it would be cheesy, but it's not. It's brilliant and heartwarming. Her favourite backless title was cakes and Ale buy some more which made me laugh Laura because I just remembered one book we did at the podcast one time that you really struggled with. She says this addictive story of writers is barely dated at all favourite from the podcast the mermaid of black conch by Monique Rafi. I have been listening to back episodes of the pod she says to get book recommendations and this one just swept me away. Beautiful and strong writing with a profound message. Our favourite book club read was with her local village book group and it was called machines like me by Ian McEwan. It's about a highly sophisticated robot and how it interacts with its human owners really compulsive read and very thought provoking ideas it made for a brilliant discussion, and her favourite nonfiction was free by Leah EP. Overall favourites. She says this is tricky but overall I love death and the penguin by Andre Kirchhoff and the 16 trees of the song by Lars missing the first because it was offbeat and surprising. The second because the plot was so compelling and intricate. So thank you to all the lovely pioneers for messaging me. Let's come to it. Its final moment our overall book of the year. Who wants to go first bill, do you want to take the lead?
I feel impossibly pretentious because this is gonna be my third Nobel laureate book. But I finally got around to reading after being surprised but not knowing who he was when he was awarded Yan fusses, Scientology, which came out a couple years ago. He wrote it after giving up alcohol 10 years ago and converting to Catholicism. My friend Sam came on the Fitzcarraldo podcast and this was his recommendation. I've never read a book like this, on the surface level. It's just this old man giving a stream of consciousness description of the book, which was published as seven books in three volumes, but which I haven't read it just one volume basically spends a week and this man talks about very banal things, going and getting groceries and meeting a friend. And at the same time, while he's having this very banal surface level thought, and very repetitive thought, it captures both the pace but also the repetitive, almost boring nature of our stream of consciousness, but at the same time, it becomes meditative. Ultimately, then you also get his whole life and you have these various doppelgangers that fossa is playing with there's another version of this man who he is friends with. It's unclear if this is a real person or not. Who has this parallel life but has not given up alcohol? And two starts the novel Allah defines them passed out on the street, and he brings them to a hospital, the ultimate version and even his wife, the protagonist name is Ocilla. And his wife's name is awesome. Just like two letters switched, a s e l versus as L E. And everything is just little twists of his own consciousness almost. There's other doppelgangers throughout. And it was just one of the most astonishing, exciting books I've read in years, I would say. And so moving it ultimately is about grief and mortality. And God, a lot of these books within the larger book, and with prayers. I've never read anything like this. And it blew me away.
I wanted to read something by him. And when he won the Nobel, the person who was presenting the prize, did little piece to camera where he recommended he said, Oh, if you're thinking about trying your enforcer, you should try this early work by him at school, morning and evening. And it's not long, and I read it. And I have to say it's one of the most extraordinary books I've ever read in my life. It only didn't make my final top books because it's so slight. It's barely even 100 pages less than that. But it was just the most extraordinary story about that almost like slightly liminal space between life and death and memory and experience and all packed into this tiny book. And I was just like, Oh my goodness. Okay, fine. Yes. Now I see why the Nobel Prize, you should absolutely have one that.
Were What was yours. My
Book of the Year and perhaps somewhat influenced by proximity is stay true by Hua Zhu, which I read on holiday, a few weeks back now. He was on my radar. I think Phil, you had already messaged us about it over WhatsApp. And then I was on the Big Island of Hawaii. And Seneca was my husband and we drove up into what I'm going to call the highlands, this town, Waimea and it had the best coffee shop, surf shop with a selection of books. And Kate, they're all the kinds of books you would love perfectly curated nonfiction and memoirs. I mean, this is the kind of thing where Kate's gonna turn to her husband and be like, we got to go to the big islands because I shop I
have been to Hawaii. This is pre children. There's any chance of us ever going back.
And there it was waiting for me a stay true by ha Soo, which won a Pulitzer Prize this year, which Phil had mentioned. And so I picked it up and took it back and read it for the duration of my holiday. It is a memoir by wha Su, who is now a New Yorker staff writer. And he went to college at Berkeley in the mid 90s. He's the son of Taiwanese immigrants that came from the 1970s. And he does weave in their story. But the focus was really his time at Berkeley and the friendship that emerged between him and another young Asian American man named Ken Ishida. Now, in many ways, these two young men had nothing in common other than society, putting them together as Asian Americans was family. As I said, we're Taiwanese can family were Japanese, and had been in America for decades before. And he was either third or even fourth generation, who is also I mean, and I love this portrait of himself so much. He's just incredibly pretentious between the ages of 19 or 18, and 21. And everything is going to stage and and thought through and he's obsessed with music. And in some ways, he's very annoying. And this is the narrator describing himself as a young man. And then there's Ken, who's this charismatic, charming, thoughtful, frat boy. And when he first encounters them, he doesn't like him at all. But this friendship emerges, which I think is really driven by Kevin's compassion and empathy for people, and who I feel seen by this young man in a way that he could never have expected. And then we know from the very beginning from the back, that Ken is murdered in a really brutal carjacking. It's described as a carjacking, but it's actually more complex and disturbing than that. And so this is a memoir about friendship, the Asian American experience and how unique that is to different individuals. And then it's about love. And it's this portrait of this incredible young man, there's this little scene at the very end, and it's so small where who Aussies can? In Nordstroms I think he's selling shoes, and just this moment of human connection that he witnessed. That is a real tribute to Ken's character. I should also say that because I'm younger than WOSU and Ken by probably 10 years, and nonetheless, it's a portrait of the 1990s and music and there's so much dt and zines. Kate, you'd mentioned a zine earlier. You know, they're like creating their own campus culture. There's no internet really, as yet. I think there was email and he talks a little bit about what that means at the time. A fantastic book and I think one that has a lot of attention already, but everyone would really love to read and potentially not to be cliche, but be changed by
a book also made me sob. It is very heartbreaking on top of everything but gorgeous little
stack of books that I Want to read that I didn't manage to get through this year that I queuing up for the beginning of next year. And that is absolutely on it. I'm really, really, really looking forward to reading that one. My overall because a year, oh my goodness, it's so hard. I just wanted to pick up a few that were amazing how to read now by Elaine Castillo is a really, really, really interesting essay collection. That's looking at the idea of reading, as in reading books, sure, but it's also looking at how to read now as in the contemporary culture, and the world that surrounds us, I found it really dazzling. And actually her mind works on such a level that I had to really work quite hard to keep up, I liked that I really wanted to meet the challenge. And it really significantly changed my thinking and a lot of my assumptions about things, particularly the idea, she's got a very good chapter on the expected reader. Our own background is her family from the Philippines. But she grew up in America, she realised quite early on that she was not the expected reader for a lot of the things that she was reading. And it's really interesting on assumptions about race and culture and identity. So that I wanted to just flag up as a very, very, very worthwhile book to seek out Soldier Sailor by Claire, Kilroy is the most astonishing and beautifully written novel about the early days of motherhood. I feel like there's a lot of books about this and often tackling it in a really interesting way. And so I think one of the things I really loved about Soldier Sailor was the way that it felt like she had a really fresh, really interesting take on it. It's a wonderful read, I really, really enjoyed it, I would recommend it to everyone, whether you have had children, or whether you don't have children in your life, that doesn't matter. This is a really, really wonderful book about human experience with a pleasing edge to it that I really enjoyed. I have to mention the vast worlds the new book by Lauren Grove, which is extraordinary. It's absolutely extraordinary. It's a kind of breathless rush of a read that follows young girls flight from a early colonial settlement in America. She is on the run. And as the story unfolds, you learn why it's about survival. It's about the wilderness that she is moving through, but it's of course about a lot more. It's about the nature of being human and existence. And Lauren Groff I thought This is absolute extraordinary. It's incredibly depressing read, it's really quite hard to deal with and process which is maybe why it's not my top fav. But I absolutely think it's worth seeking out and I have been surprised that it has not had more attention because the quality of the writing is just exceptional. But my top book, my favourite book of 2023, I thought, you know, this is the book I have had the most conversations with people about this is the book that I have recommended the most. This is the book that I have read twice. I've talked about it with the podcast book club. It's just felt like it's been a very rich, rewarding read for me and that is monsters of fans dilemma by Claire Deidre, which is her exploration of what we do with our feelings about art made by and they are invariably men with complicated, problematic real life biographies. So Roman Polanski as a starting point, Woody Allen, she talks about she looks at figures from literature like Hemingway, she looks at Picasso, there's a really interesting, slightly doesn't seem to quite fit chapter on Nabokov. But I thought she explores him and his writing and Lolita in a really interesting way. It looks at some people from contemporary culture, Michael Jackson, different figures, but all very familiar, and will spark lots of ideas and questions. And I love that it's very open ended. And she's not trying to answer this problem. She's more exploring some different solutions and some different ways of thinking about it and inviting you to consider the matter and go off and talk about it come to your own conclusion. And I just love that I thought it was so refreshing and fun. And yeah, it's nonfiction. But it's a great page turner. It's written really beautifully. And I really, really, really enjoyed it. And it was Sparky and provoking and encapsulated a lot of what I love about book club, which is my love of open ended discussion and debate. It's all there.
I feel like we've given listeners three very different best books of the year for them to do what they will with
your church. And how about looking ahead to 2024 Have you got any plans? Or was the book that you're dying to get to that you didn't manage to finish in 23 are reading resolutions? I'm
quite excited by Arturo's island by all summer auntie, which is my next book club book. That was Phil's recommendation. I've only just started and I can't quite put my finger on the tone and where it's going to take me there's something almost Dickensian, this description, Dickens on a small island off the coast of Naples. I don't know seems great. How about you, Phil,
I have another bug group we've now worked through to have a search for last time the first six volume set so hopefully this coming year I will be finishing that and we'll see if I'm a wiser person after I'm not sure I've enjoyed the first two volumes. I
feel a pulled special coming on. When you've got to the end of that, I've got the little stack here of things that I didn't manage to get to this year that I can't wait to try and read next year, August blue Deborah Levy, Miss Benson's beetle by Rachel Joyce, which has been recommended to me by a couple of people as a comfort read, Fight Night Miriam toes Cahokia jazz by my beloved Francis Bob, but I didn't have time to read my list. Yeah, and apparently is good. I hear good things, too. As you call I don't quite know how to pronounce his name tremor. I read a review of this in the times, and it sounded fantastic. So I ordered that without knowing too much about it, and the maniac by Benjamin latitude. His previous book was one of my absolute favourite things I read last year. So I was really excited that he's got a new one out, and then I haven't had a chance to read it. But yeah, I'm looking forward to get into that. And I am going to keep a better record next year. I don't know how I'm going to do it. But I am going to try and do it. So that when we come to the end of 2024, I won't be scrambling around trying to figure out what on earth I read. It's going to be a new me. Well, I'm looking forward to lots more reading and lots more conversations about books, which are such a joy. Yeah, really, I think my very favourite things that I get to do in this life is to talk books with you guys. So thank you.
Thanks so much. Thanks,
listeners for listening in 2023 and hope you'll be around in 2024
Don't say that sounds like there's gonna be some terrible apocalypse.
Stick around.
The sentiment is good. Thank you listeners.
That's nearly it. For this episode, you'll find all the books listed in the show notes plus a transcript of the episode page on our website, the book club.co.uk. You'll also find our archive of over 150 episodes, all of them good. And so have a browse. Find out how to support us via our Patreon account@patreon.com slash the Book Club Review, where you'll also find the extras you get in return. One free way to support us of course is to rate and review the show by your podcast app, which helps other listeners to find us lower and I really appreciate it. Between shows. You can catch up with what we're reading on Instagram and threads at Book Club Review podcast. We wish you a wonderful year of books to come in 2024 Thanks so much for listening and happy book club
