It’s the dying embers of the Top 5 Reads of 2013 series, and joining me in watching it burn out today, is Pete Sortwell. Pete has had a monumentally successful year, with his bestselling (and extremely funny) series of Village Idiot Review books, as well as various novels and novellas which he has also self-published to great success. His novel So Low, So High (out from Caffeine Nights) is also a very widely acclaimed triumph. Of anyone, Pete deserves his achievements highly and I hope it continues and only gets bigger and better for him (that’s a tenner coming my way…). Here, Pete chooses his top 5 reads of 2013…

My favourite five books of 2013 Pete Sortwell

Before I start, I have to say this year hasn’t been a great reading year for me – I’ve had to listen to more books than I’ve actually read. This is mainly due to the amount of work I’ve been doing both in my day job and with my own writing. I’ve still been buying books and adding them to my TBR pile which is fairly depressing but still, if everything continues going the way it has been then I might, one day, be able to just do the writing and it’ll give me time to get through the ever growing list. I live in hope.

Feral Youth – Polly Courtney

This book had the same release date as my own novel, So Low, So High. Having known Polly since she was researching for her third novel, and having read them all since that, I was looking forward to seeing how she had migrated back into the world of self publishing. I started reading the book and ended up finishing it in audio form. The book tells the story of a young girl from London, with the back drop of the London riots, trying to make something of herself with the pull of both the streets and a teacher who sees promise in her. I enjoyed this book immensely and could definitely see that Polly had 100% control over this book and its story. It’s just as good, if not better, than the last books she self published, Poles Apart and Golden Handcuffs.

The Henry Root Letters – Henry Root

This book wasn’t released this year. In fact it wasn’t even released this century. I read it though and really enjoyed it. I heard about it in a couple of reviews on the Idiot Review series. People said the Idiot Reviews reminded them of this book. So really it would have been rude not to read it. It centres on an eccentric old guy who writes letters to anyone and everyone in power and the silliest things and then engages them in correspondence until they stop replying. I keep thinking I should do a Village Idiot emails. The problem is I’d have to keep waiting for people to reply.

The Drop – Howard Linskey

I’m a fan of fiction books that have the realism needed to make me think the story is true crime. It’s a hard thing to do but Howard has pulled this off in The Drop. I’m really looking forward to reading the two follow ups to this The Damage and The Dead.

The Bob Servant Emails – Neil Forsyth

I listened to this book, which is similar in ideas to the Henry Root letters, but this is an apparently older guy who replies to spammers in all sorts of hilarious ways, putting off and putting off what they are after, which is invariably money or bank account details. It’s like the book form of the old spambait website I used to enjoy reading where people would see how far the tricksters would go in order to get what they wanted.

Wasted – Mark Johnson

I’ve wanted to read this book for a while. It tells the tale of Mark as he goes from active drug addiction, and all it brings, to recovery and, likewise, all thate brings too. It’s like a real life version of my own book, So Low, So High. Again I listened to this on audio but I loved the realism of the story, which is always better when there is a happy ending. Mark now has a company, that he started with the help of the Princes Trust, doing tree surgery and such like. Even better he uses this company to help others who have come from a similar background to himself.