12 Books at Christmas, by Catriona

I'm doing again what I've done before - since no one stopped me last time - and reproducing my year's reading here, then choosing a book of the month for every month. The books of the month are the ones that make me smile again, remembering reading them, or the ones I can't believe I read all those months ago because they're as fresh as ever in my mind, or the ones I wish I hadn't read so I could read them for the first time now. I should just say, though, that the only reason Linda Castillo isn't at least one of them is that I wouldn't know which of her Amish mysteries to pick. Same for Joshua Moehling's Ben Packard series. And I can't quite believe that Stephen King wasn't one. Nor Ashley Mullinger's memoir about being a professional inshore fisherwoman - she was knocked off by Delia Pitts. Anyway . . .

  

Right now, I'm reading:

TOM LAKE, Ann Patchett - and it's great. Of course it is.

December, 2024

WE USED TO LIVE HERE, Marcus Kliewer

EVERYONE ON THIS TRAIN IS A SUSPECT, Benjamin Stevenson

DAYS AT THE MORISAKI BOOKSHOP, Satoshi Yagisawa

WHERE THEY LAST SAW HER,  Marcie Rendon. Devin Abrahmson of Once Upon A Crime in Minneapolis has never hand-sold me a disappointing book. When I was in signing stock in September, I asked her for whatever she wanted to give me and she gave me this sometimes harrowing, sometimes uplifting, always absorbing novel about modern life on a reservation near the pipe line in northern MN, where young women are going missing. It's an own voices triumph by a native writer, clear-sighted yet optimistic, and plotty as hell. A great gang of fierce women at the heart of it too.

November 2024

THE BURNING, Linda Castillo

SCRAP, Calla Henkel

QUARTET IN AUTUMN, Barbara Pym

THE WIFE UPSTAIRS, Rachel Hawkins

TROUBLE IN QUEENSTOWN, Delia Pitts It's a new PI series! Yay! I could no more write one than I could sculpt one out of marble with a spatula, but I love them: Tracy Clark's Cass Raines, Kristin Lepionka's Roxanne Weary, Sara Paretsky's V I Warshawski natch, and now Delia Pitts' Vandy Myrick, a private eye with a heavy heart just trying to keep the lights on in a small town she knows far too well when a simple case of pre-divorce surveillance turns into something much darker. From the bar to the carehome to the hairdressers to the mayor's office - I fell in love with quirky old Queenstown.  Roll on book 2.

 ONE OF US KNOWS, Alyssa Cole

WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR IS IN THE LIBRARY, Mishiko Aayoma

LONG ISLAND, Colm Toibin

MY FISHING LIFE, Ashley Mullenger

October 2024

EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE, Benjamin Stevenson

FROM A BUICK 8, Stephen King

JACKIE, Dawn Tripp Right, so I was living in DC in interesting times and spending a lot of time in pretty old Georgetown, but even if I'd been at home in scruffy northern California or at home home in the plotching rain of Scotland, I think I'd have been swept away by this fictionalised account of Jackie Kennedy's life. It's beautifully written and - as far as I know - fills in blanks without changing any facts. I loved Curtis Sittenfield's American Wife (about Laura Bush) but this is something else again. Her surviving family might hate it, but I gobbled it up.

THE LAST PLANTATION, James R Jones

DEMON COPPERHEAD, Barbara Kingsolver

September 2024

THE WEDDING PEOPLE, Alison Espach. I was at the beach in Rhode Island, and I'd just written a book about a wedding. This novel is set at a beach wedding in RI - come on! But it's not a "beach read". It's bitingly funny and a bit bleak, the way it looks at life's sands running out and the disappointments only blessed lives escape. (But - SPOILER ALERT - don't worry; it's got a bit of beach read in there too.)

 SHAMED, Linda Castillo

HAPPY PLACE, Emily Henry

LONG TIME GONE, Joshua Moehling

SANDWICH, Catherine Newman

ANYTHING FOR A FRIEND, Kathleen M Willett

August 2024

BREAKING SILENCE, Linda Castillo

THE TAKEN ONES, Jess Lourey

BULL'S EYE, Shannon Baker

THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF THE ALPERTON ANGELS, Janice Hallett

BIG GAY WEDDING, Byron Lane Pure joy. I was standing in the queue to pay for my books at the Tucson Festival of Books in the Spring and saw this jacket face up on the table. Who could resist? Inside, it's basically Mamma Mia except it's set on a farm in Louisiana and it makes you cry more. 

July 2024

MISSING WHITE WOMAN, Kellye Garrett

A BOOKSHOP OF ONE'S OWN, Jane Cholmeley

SKELLIG, David Almond The twenty-fifth anniversary edition of a book I'd never read? See, it's a kids' book and twenty-five years ago I was already grown up and didn't read YA and juvenile fiction. (The bad old days.) It deserves all the years in print and every word of praise. The young hero has just moved house and his baby sister is desperately ill in hospital. When he should be helping unpack, he finds Skellig in a shed in the garden. Who is Skellig? Good question. A homeless man? A guardian angel? A personification of trauma? Brilliant stuff. 

YOU LIKE IT DARKER, Stephen King

THE BOOKSHOP WOMAN, Nanako Hanada

MOTHERWELL, Deborah Orr

June 2024

YOU ARE HERE, David Nicholls

THE SUSPECT, Rob Rinder

LONDON PARTICULAR, Christianna Brand

THE BLACK DRESS, Deborah Moggach

SHAKESPEARE: THE MAN WHO PAYS THE RENT, Judi Dench This book is lightly edited transcripts of conversations between Dame Judi and her frequent director at Stratford. The chats were meant to be saved as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's archive, but someone knew gold when they saw it. I would say that whether you'd enjoy this depends on how much Shakespeare you've seen. I found that the discussion of the plays I didn't know at all - Coriolanus; The Merry Wives of Windsor - didn't hold my attention, but the many that I knew were enriched and sometimes transformed by hearing how Dench approached her roles. And she's very funny too.

DEATH OF A BOOKSELLER, Alice Slater

CALL ME MRS BROWN, Brendan O'Carroll

THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS, John Wyndham

CAUGHT, Harlan Coben (reread)

OLD BONES LIE, Marion Todd (reread)

May 2024

STALIN ATE MY HOMEWORK, Alexei Sayle

CAUGHT, Harlan Coben

MUSIC IN THE DARK, Sally Magnusson

STRANGE SALLY DIAMOND, Liz Nugent

THE WINDSOR KNOT (Her Majesty the Queen Investigates), S J Bennett I picked this up for comfort (see also the re-reads in June). My dad had just died and there was nothing I wanted to read more than a clever story about how another big presence that had been around my whole life was still here and having a blast. I have no idea how authentic the depiction of palace intrigue and Whitehall shenanigans is, but it was convincing. I'll read the next one. And the one after that. RIP, your Madge.

THE GARDEN OF FORGOTTEN WISHES, Trish Ashley

BRIDGES TO BURN, Marion Todd

April 2024

THE KAMOGAWA FOOD DETECTIVES, Hisashi Kashiwai

FOOL ME ONCE, Harlan Coben

STUDIES, Jenny Colgan

THE TRIAL, Rob Rinder

LESSONS, Jenny Colgan

RULES, Jenny Colgan

CLASS, Jenny Colgan So I was packing to go home to Scotland, knowing what was coming, and I found out that one of my favourite writers had published a school story for grown-ups, closely modelled on the Mallory Towers series that were my favourites when I was a kid. Perfect. I read four of them, during some of the most unusual few weeks of my life so far. And if there end up being six novels - one for each year of school - I've got two to go.   

March 2024

AND THERE HE KEPT HER, Joshua Moehling

COMFORT EATING, Grace Dent

HOW NOT TO DROWN IN A GLASS OF WATER, Angie Cruz I loved this book so much. It's mostly Cara Romero, newly unemployed fifty-something, being completely unable and unwilling to understand what her employment counsellor is and is not there to help with. Her life is chaotic, ludicrous, heart-wrending and impossible to look away from, with all its feuds and estrangements and unbreakable bonds - often with the same people.   

SO LATE IN THE DAY, Claire Keegan

DON'T KNOW TOUGH, Eli Cranor

THE MOTION PICTURE TELLER, Colin Cotteril

CIRQUE DU SLAY, Rob Osler

BEING MORTAL, Atul Gawande

FINLAY DONOVAN IS KILLING IT, Elle Cosimano

Feb 2024

MY DARKEST PRAYER, Shawn. A. Cosby

WITNESS FOR THE PERSECUTION, E J Copperman

THE SAVAGE KIND, John Copenhaver

THE CASE OF THE MISSING MAID, Rob Osler (Jan 2025) Don't judge this book by the cover. Because this isn't the cover. This is the picture of Harriet Morrow that I drew on the front of the printed manuscript, proving that I should stick to words. Rob's words I heartily recommend. Harriet is the first woman detective at a Chicago agency in the 1890s, breaking rules as well as her case, as she bicycles around the city. There's a tender and nailbiting depiction of queer life in mortally dangerous times for non-conforming people too.

DEATH OF A FLYING NIGHTINGALE, Laura Jensen Walker (Aug 2024)

WHERE THE DEAD SLEEP, Joshua Moehling

THE MISTRESS OF BHATIA HOUSE, Sujata Massey

THE BELL IN THE FOG, Lev A C Rosen

January 2024 

HIDE, Tracy Clark

PRAY FOR SILENCE, Linda Castillo

LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY, Bonnie Garmus

YELLOWFACE, Rebecca Kuang Is it a thriller? Is it a satire? Is a reflection on white privilege? It's all that and more. A sly look at the worst of the publishing industry and an all-too-believable dark fairytale about what a very hungry debut author might do to get ahead. I read it with my shoulders round my ears from the cringing, but I read it in days. 

ALL THE SINNERS BLEED, S.A.Cosby

On the Air with Zoe Washington, Janelle Marks

Christmas Holiday 23-24

STAY ANOTHER DAY, Juno Dawson I always read a Christmas book at Christmas (it's Jenny Colgan coming up) and last Christmas it was this luscious family melodrama / rom-com set in posh Edinburgh in the run up to the 25th. It reminds me so much of my late teenage years I can't believe I didn't meet myself in one of the party chapters, but I'm pretty sure people who've never been to Scotland would find a lot to love here too. At the very least, this lot will probably make your home life feel tranquil in comparison.

The Last Remains, Elly Griffiths

Remainders of the Day, Shaun Bythell,

Holly, Stephen King,

The Christmas Appeal, Janice Hallett

The Raging Storm, Anne Cleeves

A Very Noble Profession, Nicola Beauman

The Last Devil to Die, Richard Osman

So there they are, my fourteen books - one for each of the last twelve months with a bit of added TBR artithemtical magic. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

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