2021 Reading Challenge
Unless I finish ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ on the overnight train to Vienna next week, I think these 65 titles will constitute my reading for 2021.
I finally got round to some overdue classics including The Great Gatsby, Wide Sargasso Sea, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Jane Eyre, The Big Sleep; all of them honestly wonderful. To The Lighthouse, just not for me I’m afraid, sorry Vee Dub.
Memoirs I loved were by Irish women: Sinead O’Connor’s ‘Rememberings’, Edna O’Brien’s ‘Country Girl’. Both brilliant, sad, funny, outrageous. I was also compelled by Brett Anderson’s trembling descent into drugs in ‘Afternoons with the Blinds Drawn’.
It’s a good year for poetry when Andrew McMillan has new work out. On reflection ‘pandemonium’ is my favourite of his so far. Confidently understated, harrowing, precise. I also fell in love with Sinead Morrissey, Mark Doty, Li Young Lee, Paul Durcan and Ocean Vuong, all of which were massively overdue.
In historical writing I was blown away by James Shapiro ‘A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare’ which made him more real than anything I remember.
Special mention for brilliant books by brilliant friends:
Caleb Everett ‘The Moston Diaries’
Tawseef Khan 'The Muslim Problem’
Dave Haslam ‘All You Need Is Dynamite’
Maz Hedgehog (ed) ‘Tell Me Who We Were Before Life Made Us’
Recommend ALL of them without hesitation.
My novel of the year was Iris Murdoch’s ‘The Sea, The Sea’, Booker Winner from the year I was born, and just pipping Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘The Remains of the Day’ as my fave. Next year I will read more of both authors, I was really spellbound.
Non-fiction of the year is definitely Sarah Schulman’s layered, urgent and totally dynamic ’Let The Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP, 1987-1993’, a vital record and necessary ideological grenade for the fight(s) ahead. I also loved Gabor Mate’s ‘The Body Keeps The Score’ which helped me move into new self-acceptance, and Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Talking To Strangers’ for loving across difference.
How about you...?
https://www.goodreads.com/user_challe...
I finally got round to some overdue classics including The Great Gatsby, Wide Sargasso Sea, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Jane Eyre, The Big Sleep; all of them honestly wonderful. To The Lighthouse, just not for me I’m afraid, sorry Vee Dub.
Memoirs I loved were by Irish women: Sinead O’Connor’s ‘Rememberings’, Edna O’Brien’s ‘Country Girl’. Both brilliant, sad, funny, outrageous. I was also compelled by Brett Anderson’s trembling descent into drugs in ‘Afternoons with the Blinds Drawn’.
It’s a good year for poetry when Andrew McMillan has new work out. On reflection ‘pandemonium’ is my favourite of his so far. Confidently understated, harrowing, precise. I also fell in love with Sinead Morrissey, Mark Doty, Li Young Lee, Paul Durcan and Ocean Vuong, all of which were massively overdue.
In historical writing I was blown away by James Shapiro ‘A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare’ which made him more real than anything I remember.
Special mention for brilliant books by brilliant friends:
Caleb Everett ‘The Moston Diaries’
Tawseef Khan 'The Muslim Problem’
Dave Haslam ‘All You Need Is Dynamite’
Maz Hedgehog (ed) ‘Tell Me Who We Were Before Life Made Us’
Recommend ALL of them without hesitation.
My novel of the year was Iris Murdoch’s ‘The Sea, The Sea’, Booker Winner from the year I was born, and just pipping Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘The Remains of the Day’ as my fave. Next year I will read more of both authors, I was really spellbound.
Non-fiction of the year is definitely Sarah Schulman’s layered, urgent and totally dynamic ’Let The Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP, 1987-1993’, a vital record and necessary ideological grenade for the fight(s) ahead. I also loved Gabor Mate’s ‘The Body Keeps The Score’ which helped me move into new self-acceptance, and Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Talking To Strangers’ for loving across difference.
How about you...?
https://www.goodreads.com/user_challe...
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