Month: January 2011

I read 100 books last year – most are fiction (52 were crime fiction), plus 12 non-fiction (mostly biography/autobiography). I read books by 45 new-to-me authors and 25 books off  my tbr lists.

Each month I decided which was the best book of the month. Some months I couldn’t pick just one book!:

• January – Black and Blue by Ian Rankin – I read this in January, very quickly, eager to know what happened next and intended to re-read it slowly – must do that sometime!

• February – The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey. It was first published in 1948 and it’s set in a post Second World War England reflecting the social attitudes of its time. It’s based on a real case from the 18th century of a girl who went missing and later claimed she had been kidnapped.

• March – A Fatal Inversion by Barbara Vine. I thought it a clever book, with clues dropped casually, so that I had to read it carefully. The plot covers a number of issues ‘“ family relationships, friendship, loyalty, race and class discrimination, the consequences of our actions and above all the nature of evil and guilt.

• also in March – Raven Black by Ann Cleeves. Another murder mystery, this one is set in Shetland. Family ties, heredity and personal relationships are important themes running through the narrative.  There is also a strong sense of location and terrific atmosphere – the landscape, the sea, the weather, and the circling ravens.

• April – Take My Breath Away by Martin Edwards. This is a legal mystery, featuring Nic Gabriel, a lawyer turned writer, who is investigating the death of his friend Dylan Rees. Like all good murder mysteries this is a complex book about good and evil, about power and manipulation, about secrets, lies and deception.

• May Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel – the story of Thomas Cromwell, the son of a blacksmith, and his political rise, set against the background of Henry VIII’s England and his struggle with the Pope over his desire to marry Anne Boleyn.

• June – Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin. Not about body-snatchers (as I wondered it might be), but about the cops who need re-training, including D I Rebus. To help them become team players they’ve been given on old, unsolved case to work on. But Rebus was involved in the case at the time and begins to get paranoid about why he is on the course. It’s a tough, gritty story and as with other Rebus books, there’s more than one investigation on the go.

• July – The Comfort of Saturdays by Alexander McCall Smith. What I find so fascinating about the Isabel Dalhousie series is that whilst not a lot actually happens, a lot goes on in Isabel’s head. Isabel is an ‘˜intermeddler’. She can’t resist appeals for help and tries to do the right thing. A variety of themes run through this book – justice, jealousy, guilt, and the nature of freedom.

• August – The Serpent Pool by Martin Edwards – a  terrific book. It has everything, a great sense of location, believable, complex characters, a crime to solve, full of tension and well paced to keep you wanting to know more, and so atmospheric.

• also in August – Thirteen Hours by Deon Meyer. It’s tense, taut and utterly enthralling. Moving at a fast pace the book follows the events during the thirteen hours from 05:36 when Rachel, a young American girl is running for her life up the steep slope of Lion’s Head in Capetown.

• September – The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie – a series of murders advertised in advance by letters to Poirot, and signed by an anonymous ‘˜ABC’. One of the best of her books!

• October – Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre. Another murder mystery. Investigative journalist, Jack Parlabane gets involved. It soon becomes apparent to the reader who did the murder and it is the motive behind it that needs to be ferreted out.

• November – Two Moons by Jennifer Johnston – a warm and intimate novel, portraying the problems of falling in love at all ages and the difficulties of  growing old and coming to terms with the disappointments of the past with great sensitivity.

• December –An Autobiography by Agatha Christie. I’ve written several posts about this excellent book and have yet to write a summing up post. It’s not just an account of her life but is full of her thoughts and questions about the nature of life and of memory.

Most of these ‘best books’ are crime fiction, but I think that of all them Wolf Hall has to be my ‘Book of the Year’. It is an exceptional book. What I found most enjoyable was the way it transported me back to that time, with Mantel’s descriptions of the pageantry, the people, the places and the beliefs and attitudes of the protagonists.