Best book you read this year?

The Collected Regrets of Clover by Mikki Brammer is my current favourite read of this year. It is about a New York ‘Death Doula’, Clover, who is still mourning her grandfather eleven years after his death. It’s a gently humorous story of secrets, regrets and life lessons.

Has anyone read this one? I noticed it sat on my bookcase earlier this evening. I only ever keep a few of my most favourites. I read it years ago. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2011 Deeply funny, moving, idiosyncratic and unforgettable, I can highly recommend it.

Oops! Yes - I did mean ‘Tom Lake’ Sparklefizz! . I have brain fog too just lately, like you Iam.

Thanks for the reference to Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake. I’ll get it on my kindle as I’m going away - otherwise I’d get the book. I still much prefer the feel of a book as I read.

I’m half way through Demon Copperhead. Two things to celebrate, one is starting a ‘proper ‘ novel after the fug brain over such a tough time. Secondly - what a book ! It’s such a great gripping read, Dickens in the 21st century

I did enjoy Demon Copperhead, but in a lighter read The Humans by Matt Haig is clever and funny and enjoyable.

I need to update.
Just finished In Memoriam by Alice Winn. This is now my favourite book of the year

Ladyleftfieldlover

Piranesi by Susannah Clarke. This was the book my book group loved the most in recent times.

I’m just reading that book. Very unusual, gets you thinking !

Urmstongran This morning I downloaded ‘Tom Ford’ the very latest novel by Anne Patchett and I can’t put it down. (Actually I don’t have to). Patchett's writing style is warm, poetic, rich and thoughtful. She is very perceptive.

Did you mean "Tom Lake" or has she written "Tom Ford" as well? (Both are watery titles )

I haven't had the pleasure of reading Demon Copperhead yet, but have read Lessons in Chemistry, and enjoyed it.

However, the book that has pipped the post so far this year is Remarkably Bright Creatures. It is wonderful. Don't let the fact that an octopus is one of the main characters put you off.

The Book Thief is one of the few books I've read twice.

Piranesi by Susannah Clarke. This was the book my book group loved the most in recent times.

I recently read the Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell. I preferred it to Hamnet. Peranesi by Susannah ? is also amazing.

... descriptive passages are a delight was what I didn’t finish saying.

This from the book:

"She could get more information across with an eyebrow than other people could with a microphone." (from "Tom Lake: The Sunday Times bestseller - a BBC Radio 2 and Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick" by Ann Patchett)

Iam64

Popping back in and still enjoying this positive thread. Reading - a joy for so many

Me too Iam! 😊
This morning I downloaded ‘Tom Ford’ the very latest novel by Anne Patchett and I can’t put it down. (Actually I don’t have to). Patchett's writing style is warm, poetic, rich and thoughtful. She is very perceptive.

She wrote ‘The Dutch House’ which I enjoyed very much ages ago.

I love novels about family dynamics. They are my favourite genre. And the setting is New Hampshire so the descriptive passages (short, thankfully, although evocative don’t get in the way of a cracking story).

So far I’m 30% in and this would be one of my ‘highly recommendeds’.
😊

Non fiction for me. Path of Peace by Anthony Seldon. A walk along the entire western front of WW1. Now an official walk open to all.

Sparklefizz you won’t be disappointed.

Sparklefizz - my favourite book this year (mentioned earlier) was also by Marcus Zusak.

I have only just come across him but will certainly be reading The Book Thief soon!

Grandyma

The Book Thief: Markus Zusak

A fantastic and very moving book.

There’s some great ideas for reading on this thread, thanks everyone! I couldn’t say my favourite as I have trouble remembering titles and read constantly late at night when the old brain is deficient in oxygen.

CanadianGran

BTW Fairiselcable, the Booker is just for books published in UK, Barbara Kingsolver is an American author and Demon Copperhead was first published in the US, so not eligible. It did win a Pulitzer, though.

Demon Copperhead was eligible for the 2023 Booker it just wasn’t longlisted. The criterion (which was extended in 2014) is any novel originally written in English, regardless of the nationality of its author, with a print edition scheduled for publication in the UK between certain dates as set out in the rules. There are automatic entries for authors who have been previously shorlisted.

www.theguardian.com/books/2023/aug/01/booker-prize-reveals-original-and-thrilling-2023-longlist

Eligible titles that did not make the longlist include Zadie Smith’s forthcoming The Fraud and Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead, which this year won the Pulitzer prize for fiction and the Women’s prize.

The Book Thief: Markus Zusak

BTW Fairiselcable, the Booker is just for books published in UK, Barbara Kingsolver is an American author and Demon Copperhead was first published in the US, so not eligible. It did win a Pulitzer, though.

Popping back in and still enjoying this positive thread. Reading - a joy for so many

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards. It is about making the wrong decision for all the right reasons and the repercussions of that.

If anyone's looking for something in non-fiction, I cannot recommend enough Chris D Thomas's Inheritors of the Earth: how Nature is thriving in an age of extinction.