Best book you read this year?

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey.

Baggs

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey.

I too read this a few years ago. Magical and ethereal and very unsettling.

Iam64

I still have Demon Copperhead by my bed. Bereavement seems to be limiting my ability to concentrate. I’m still on Ellie Griffiths, easy reading.

I was exactly the same, Iam. It took a year for me to regain full concentration but reading Elly Griffiths’ Brighton mysteries in the garden last summer got me back on track.

Demon Copperhead by far the best so far. So clever

Where The Crawdads sing By Delia Owens

Maytime2
I didn’t finish Shrines of gaity or the marriage one. Previously favourite authors have been disappointing

I absolutely loved Demon Copperhead, it was desperately sad, a bit grim but with laugh out loud humour. It encompassed everything I like in a book and felt it would definitely be a contender for the Booker.

I was shocked it didn’t even make the long list.

Needing some amusing reading as my tiny brain felt unable to cope with a serious challenge this month, I have thoroughly enjoyed the 'Constable Twitten' series by Lynne Truss. The plots are well constructed, the characters beautifully drawn, and the dialogue is what you might expect from her droll pen. The four books cover the summer months in Brighton, in 1957.

NotSpaghetti

Just read Bridge of Clay by Marcus Zusak.

Beautiful, tough, haunting, generous, rugged and lyrical.
Wish it wasn't over.

Agree with this. Really enjoyed it.

A Terrible Kindness and Lessons in Chemistry.. I’ve almost finished Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. I was sure I had read it already. So pleased I found it.

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.

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.

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

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.

The Book Thief: Markus Zusak

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.

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.

Grandyma

The Book Thief: Markus Zusak

A fantastic and very moving book.

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!

Sparklefizz you won’t be disappointed.

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.

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’.
😊

... 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)

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

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