What were your favourite reads in 2015?
The Writer’s Festival in the grounds of the University of Western Australia is always a feast for me and this year’s selection in February, more than lived up to past presentations.
Liz Byrski spoke about her non-fiction book, ‘In Love and War,’ which I have only recently read. Her fear of the injured men who returned from the war, many with faces so badly burned that they appeared to the young Liz as almost inhuman, made me hesitate. I love Byrski’s fiction, particularly her ability to draw me into the lives of her characters. This latest book is nothing like them and I felt that it dragged a bit, but it was worth the effort to stick with her journey in revisiting the site and interviewing as many of the survivors and the nurses who cared for them, as she could find.
Graeme Simsion entertained his audience, just as he had entertained me and I’m sure every reader, with his book, ‘The Rosie Project.’ The main character, Don Tillman suffers with Aspergers which, before I read this book, I thought of as a huge problem for all those who have to deal with it. This and the follow up, ‘The Rosie Effect’ are amongst my best reads for the year. If you haven’t read them, please do so. You’ll laugh out loud while learning a lot about human nature.
Liane Moriarty won me with her down to earth attitude. She spoke about the little lies that we tell, to ourselves as well as others. Her massive readership convinced me that I should buy ‘Big Little Lies’ and ‘The Husband’s Secret’ to study her winning writing style. They’re not what I’d call prize winning literary fiction, but the kind of stories that you can’t put down. ‘What Alice Forgot’ is my latest selection and I’ll be reading more of Moriarty in 2016.
Another female writer I met for the first time at the festival, is Emma Healey. Her novel, ‘Elizabeth is Missing,’ deals with the aging problems of memory loss and not being taken seriously. Healey appears far too young to have any understanding of this stage of life, but I was very impressed by the convincing way she wrote about a topic which concerns me as I grow old.
I watched the interview with Hilary Mantel and dutifully downloaded ‘Wolf Hall’ to my kindle. About a quarter of the way into this saga, I gave up. Sorry, I know that it is regarded as superb by her vast readership but I found it tedious. The television version might have suited me better – it couldn’t possibly get bogged down in endless details the way the book did.
Having loved her story about Harold Fry and his ridiculous but amazing journey through England, we chose ‘The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy,’ by Rachel Joyce for our book club. I didn’t enjoy it as much, but it clarified some of the unanswered questions left by Harold. Both Harold and Queenie are eccentric and we meet an assortment of other lovable characters amongst the dying and their carers in the hospice. It’s a sad story but an uplifting one. If you decide to follow Queenie you must read right to the end.
My best read for 2015 is ‘All The Light We Cannot See’ by Anthony Doerr. Like my previous favourite, ‘The Book Thief’ by Marcus Zusak, this novel is about two young people coping with life during Hitler’s war–which might lead some of you to think I enjoy war stories. I don’t. Neither of these novels are what I’d call enjoyable, but the subject matter, the characters and the almost impossible situations that, particularly the blind French girl have to deal with, inspired me. This one is prize winning literature, of the standard to which I aspire but will never reach. I read this novel on my kindle, but it is so well written that I am trying to buy it in hard copy to read it again; to try to learn from his use of words, his sentence construction and his ability to transport me into the hearts and minds of his characters.. It was sold out in the two book stores I’ve tried so far.
These are my favourites and recommendations from 2015. Now I’m looking forward to Magda Szubanski’s ‘Reckoning: A Memoir,’ and ‘The Secret Chord’ by Geraldine Brooks. Because everyone except me seems to have read ‘The Girl on the Train’ by Paula Hawkins I’ll give that a try. Nelson Mandela’s story, ‘A long Walk to Freedom’ is an ongoing project, not the kind of story that I can zip through, but I’ll persevere with that too.
No doubt the 2016 Writer’s Festival will see me loaded up with books again and I hope that some of my favourite authors, as well as those I’m yet to discover, will be launching new stories for me.
I look forward to reading about your favourites from 2015 and for 2016.
Thanks Victoria – what an interesting list of favourites. Agreement over Marcus Zusak and Liane Moriarty, and I’m looking forward to reading The Secret Chord – I really admire GB’s work. But I’ll quibble about Wolf Hall – read it ages ago, then watched the series recently, which was excellent, and have now finished Bring up the Bodies, which forms part of the TV series. Loved it all. Also enjoying CJ Sansom’s Matthew Shardlake series and I’m looking forward to reading #6 (crime and history – magic!) Some other books I’ve enjoyed recently are Chasing the Light by Jesse Blackadder (about the first women to visit the Antarctic) and The Island House by Posie Graeme-Evans. (I also love time-slip stories!) And for non-fiction, The Middle Ages Unlocked by Gillian Polack and Katrin Kania gives an entertaining and fascinating insight into all things medieval.
Felicity thank you so much for your suggestions. Selling my own novel, ‘The Green Velvet Dress’ took most of my time and energy last year, so I probably should take another look at Wolf Hall; it needs more concentration than I could manage earlier. I’ve just started reading ‘The Secret Chord’ and already I’m hooked – love her work. I enjoyed studying medieval history at uni; will take a look at ‘The Middle Ages Unlocked’ and ‘Chasing the Light’ sounds interesting.