2022 Wrap Up

It’s that reflective time of year again; last year is old news, the new one has dawned, and I look back and think, “where did I put my body that whole time and what did I even do with it?”. Once more, the answer is, “went to work and read a bunch, mostly”.

Work was better this year than in those recently gone by on account of it all being in a job and environment closer to home and conducive to good spirits. Levels of stress and responsibility are appropriately sized, and I’m allowed to wear colour at work. I had no idea that would be such a big deal to me, but it turns out Old Library’s dress code of black, white & grey was a real downer! On commencing at New Library at the end of last year, I donated much of my old funereal wardrobe and replaced it with cute dresses, colourful cardigans, and an amazing collection of brightly decorative tights. It’s always a good day at New Library when I get to use the toolbox (I really love taking things apart and putting them back together) but it was an especially propitious day when I realised I had worn an outfit that matched its colours. And so began my ‘Who wore it better?’ game of dressing to match various furnishings. Colleagues have been very supportive, most significantly my official fashion photographer, who put in great efforts every day to help me find a suitable match if I didn’t have one in mind already. She quickly learnt my most and least flattering angles, contorted herself into various positions to get the perfect shot, and would then consult on which of the 30 or so images should make it to social media. Sometimes the bookshelves looked better, but I definitely gave the bins a run for their money. #Twinning!

Amusing hobbies aside, this time last year I was banging on about how I had completed half a Masters degree, which turned out to be an hilarious prank. Having completely misjudged the course requirements, I can more accurately report that I am only now halfway through a Masters degree. It was quite a realisation to arrive at when I was simultaneously gloating about my Last. Lecture. Ever! while also freaking out inordinately about my research paper and snapping at anyone who asked me how it was going. When it hit me that I still had another year left, I burst into tears at my desk and was cared for by the most motherly hush of librarians in Sydney. After a fashion I called the university, deferred the first half of next year, and promptly booked an overseas holiday. I’ll get back to it in July and finish halfway through next year, having enjoyed revisiting my social life, sleeping in on weekends, and will have inscribed Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore on the soles of my Doc Martens.

My book tally for the year reached 147, which I’m pretty pleased with given the amount of time given over to aforementioned research paper and other academic pursuits. I give this year’s crown to Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by R. F. Kuang. I tried describing its plot and appeal characteristics to my mum, and found myself doing a woefully inadequate job. The plot did not sound like something I or she would particularly enjoy, the characters were too nuanced to do them justice without giving too much away, and the real magic of the book is far greater than the sum of its parts. Please just take my word for it and acquire a copy from your library or favourite local bookshop – it really is one of those novels where the less you know going into it, the better. You can thank me later!

Second and third go to What We Do In The Dark by Michelle Hart, and The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak. The characters in both are fully formed without being predictable, and the writing styles of each sing with unpretentious lyricism. The Michelle Hart is bursting with one-liners I jotted down to revisit later, and Elif Shafak offers such a poetic sense of place that I was instantly transported. She made it into my top three last year as well, and it is my intention to dip into more of her back catalogue in the year ahead.

The trends in my reading habits this year included a greater number of graphic novels, and a smaller number of audiobooks. New Library boasts a thoughtfully curated collection of the former, and I found myself lacking the requisite concentration for audiobooks much of the time. Unless the words were in front of me, it was too easy for my mind to start turning over the finer points of Harvard Referencing. Seriously, I spent much of the year with my mind on citations and am sorry if you were unfortunate enough to receive even a single text with my thoughts on the matter. It’s been a wild ride.

On that bibliographic note, I give you what you’re actually here for! This is what I read in 2022:

1. Monkey Grip by Helen Garner

2. Heroes: Mortals and Monsters, Quests and Adventures by Stephen Fry

3. Fragile Monsters by Catherine Menon

4. Good Indian Daughter: How I Found Freedom in Being a Disappointment by Ruhi Lee

5. Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman

6. Mom & Me & Mom by Maya Angelou

7. We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza

8. China Room by Sunjeev Sahota

9. A Father’s Plea by Kamalle Dabboussy with Mic Looby

10. Intimations: Six Essays by Zadie Smith

11. A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasm

12. Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle

13. Truths from an Unreliable Witness: Finding Laughter in the Darkest of Places by Fiona O’Loughlin

14. No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood

15. The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

16. The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

17. My Desert Kingdom: Finding a Life in Saudi Arabia by Jill Koolmees

18. The Sunny Nihilist: How a Meaningless Life can Make you Truly Happy by Wendy Syfret

19. Manifesto: On Never Giving Up by Bernardine Evaristo

20. The Eye of the Sheep by Sofie Laguna

21. Three Sisters by Heather Morris

22. Moth by Melody Razak

23. Baghdad Without a Map: and Other Misadventures in Arabia by Tony Horwitz

24. Confident Women: Swindlers, Grifters, and Shapeshifters of the Feminine Persuasion by Tori Telfer

25. Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

26. Somebody’s Daughter: A Memoir by Ashley C. Ford

27. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

28. A Blank Canvas by Robert Hollingworth

29. Friends & Dark Shapes by Kavita Bedford

30. Ayiti by Roxane Gay

31. The Secret Lives of the Amir Sisters by Nadiya Hussain

32. Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes by Lun Zhang

33. The Power of Ritual: Turning Everyday Activities into Soulful Practices by Casper ter Kuile

34. How We Love: Notes on a Life by Clementine Ford

35. An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine

36. I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf by Grant Snider

37. Too Much Lip by Melissa Lucashenko

38. Woman World by Aminder Dhaliwal

39. The Labyrinth: an Existential Odyssey with Jean-Paul Sartre by Ben Argon

40. A Single Rose by Muriel Barbery

41. Memoirs of a Book Thief by A. Tota and P. Van Hove

42. The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris

43. Love & Virtue by Diana Reid

44. Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness by Kristen Radtke

45. The Promise by Damon Galgut

46. The End by Lemony Snicket

47. Cleanness by Garth Greenwell

48. Death: The Deluxe Edition by Neil Gaiman

49. Gogo Mama: A Journey into the Lives of Twelve African Women by Sally Sara

50. Love in the Time of Bertie by Alexander McCall Smith

51. Theroux the Keyhole: Diaries of a Grounded Documentary Maker by Louis Theroux

52. Kololo Hill by Neemah Shah

53. Wahala by Nikki May

54. Dropbear by Evelyn Araluen

55. A Bunch of Poesy by Michael Leunig

56. Dust by Yvonne Adhiambo Owour

57. From Burma to Myanmar: On the Road to Mandalay by Lydia Laube

58. Captain Cook Chased a Chook: Children’s Folklore in Australia by June Factor

59. When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo

60. Reunion in Barsaloi by Corinne Hofmann

61. Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

62. The Girls in the Wild Fig Tree: How I fought to save myself, my sister, and thousands of girls worldwide by Nice Leng’ete with Elizabeth Butler-Witter

63. You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat

64. Back From Africa by Corinne Hofmann

65. The Uncaged Sky: My 804 Days in an Iranian Prison by Kylie Moore-Gilbert

66. Gender Rebels: 50 Influential Cross-Dressers, Impersonators, Name-Changers and Game-Changers by Anneka Harry

67. Swallow the Air by Tara June Winch

68. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison by Michel Foucault

69. My Pen is the Wing of a Bird: New Fiction by Afghan Women

70. Language, Madness and Desire: On Literature by Michel Foucault

71. Latitudes of Longing by Shubhangi Swarup

72. Run Rose Run by Dolly Parton and James Patterson

73. Love Stories by Trent Dalton

74. Ten Steps to Nanette by Hannah Gadsby

75. Vann Nath: Painting the Khmer Rouge by Matteo Mastragostino & Paolo Castaldi

76. Booth by Karen Joy Fowler

77. Here Goes Nothing by Steve Toltz

78. The Comfort Book by Matt Haig

79. You Made a Fool of Death with your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi

80. Yerba Buena by Nina Lacour

81. Here Again Now by Okechukwu Nzelu

82. How to Have Feminist Sex by Flo Perry

83. Either/Or by Elif Batuman

84. Perfect Tunes by Emily Gould

85. Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo

86. Dream More: Celebrate the Dreamer in You by Dolly Parton

87. Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart

88. Triptych by Krissy Kneen

89. People Person by Candice Carty-Williams

90. The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting by Evanna Lynch

91. Bodies of Light by Jennifer Down

92. Be More Chill: The Graphic Novel by Ned Vizzini, David Levithan and Nick Bertozzi (illustrator)

93. No Land to Light On by Yara Zgheib

94. Why Patti Smith Matters by Caryn Rose

95. Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata

96. Complicit by Winnie M. Li

97. Bloom by Kevin Panetta and Savanna Ganucheau

98. Out of the Box by Izzy, Emmie and Kerry Silbery

99. Emotionally Weird by Kate Atkinson

100. The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah

101. Praying with Jane Eyre: Reflections on Reading as a Sacred Practice by Vanessa Zoltan

102. The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith

103. Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

104. Desire: A Reckoning by Jessie Cole

105. The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt: A Tyranny of Truth by Ken Krimstein

106. What We Do in the Dark by Michelle Hart

107. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J. K. Rowling (reread)

108. Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World by Rita Golden Gelman

109. Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir by Akwaeke Emezi

110. Cyclopedia Exotica by Aminder Dhaliwal

111. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

112. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

113. The Low, Low Woods by Carmen Maria Machado and DaNi (illustrator)

114. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling (reread)

115. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

116. Whole Notes: Life Lessons Through Music by Ed Ayres

117. I’m With Her by Victoria Midwinter Pitt

118. Runt by Craig Silvey

119. Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

120. Who Owns History? Elgin’s Loot and the Case for Returning Plundered Treasure by Geoffrey Robertson

121. Sunbathing by Isobel Beech

122. The Secret River by Kate Grenville

123. When She Was Good by Michael Robotham

124. Marriage of a Thousand Lies by S. J. Sindu

125. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling (reread)

126. Diego Rivera by Francisco De La Mora and José Luis Pescador

127. The House in the Cerulean Sea by T. J. Klune

128. Brazen: Rebel Ladies who Rocked the World by Pénélope Bagieu

129. Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree

130. Clarke by Holly Throsby

131. This One Summer by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki

132. Seeing Other People by Diana Reid

133. Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by R. F. Kuang

134. After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz

135. Best of Friends by Kamila Shamsie

136. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling (reread)

137. The British Museum is Falling Down by David Lodge

138. Sensible Footwear: A Girl’s Guide by Kate Charlesworth

139. Pinball: A Graphic History of the Silver Ball by Jon Chad

140. The Secret Keeper of Jaipur by Alka Joshi

141. True Stories: Selected Non Fiction by Helen Garner

142. The Boy with a Bird in his Chest by Emme Lund

143. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

144. Finding My Place: From Cairo to Canberra – the irrepressible story of an irrepressible woman by Anne Aly

145. The Gathering by Anne Enright

146. Maximum Security: the inside story of Australia’s toughest gaols by James Morton

147. Iranian Love Stories by Jane Deuxard and Deloupy

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List of the Year 2021

I didn’t have a great feeling about last year and I don’t have a much better one about the one ahead, but just quietly, things are looking ever so slightly up. The Plague is running more rampant than ever in my neck of the woods, the chumps in charge seem completely unbothered, and at this point it seems only a matter of time before we all catch it. I’ve never had less faith in our government (and I was not a great fan to begin with) but am also not completely surprised it has shrugged its shoulder and thrown up its hands. (I’ll get to the good bits soon.)

At risk of turning this into a diatribe on the many ineptitudes of the Liberal Party, I think it’s best I change the subject now. The year wasn’t a total waste, after all. I knew it’d be a hard year and didn’t want to look back wondering how I failed to enjoy any of it or achieve a single thing, so I set about accomplishing a couple of things: I went back to uni and am now the holder of a Graduate Certificate of Cultural Heritage & Museum Studies, and they’ve offered me a place in the Masters program which I am now technically halfway through so all being well, this time next year I’ll be insisting you all call me Master. I wasn’t happy at work and hadn’t been for a little while. Stress-baking got me through 2020 but I didn’t think it a strong enough salve to get me through another lap but am incredibly happy to report I am a few weeks into a new job and feeling much better already. I miss my old colleagues but the new lot seems like a pretty great bunch themselves, and I’ve never met a team of librarians I can’t win over with baked offerings. The one cake I’ve presented them with went down a treat. I also expanded my repertoire of savoury bakes; my lockdown hobby became making focaccias that look like public figures (for the full series please feel free to follow @foc_art_ccia) and after the inaugural bake of Gladys Breadejiklian I laughed at myself for a full week. She even won me a $50 voucher in a work competition. A pleasant perk is I have found it immensely satisfying to bake politicians I dislike then spend the rest of the week eating their faces for lunch. Whatever gets you through, right?

Travel options were of course limited and at one point curtailed to a 5km radius of my place of residence. My other new hobby became booking domestic trips I knew there was only the slightest chance I’d be able to take, lining up my annual leave, then cancelling the lot. Still, it could’ve been worse. I did make it to Brisbane twice and finally got to meet the newest little P-H at Christmas. I don’t know her very well yet but she is a very good baby and for sure one of my top two nieces. Wee Miss B (the elder niece, nearly three) had naturally grown and changed considerably since I last saw her in February. She is now at an age we can play together properly, read stories, sing and dance and even bake. She pronounced our focaccia “bad” but everyone else seemed to enjoy it, and I had fun showing her what to do and trying to convince her of the importance of resting time for dough and little girls alike. Young Master C is now a delightful 2.5 year old and likes dinosaurs and storybooks almost as much as I hoped he would. I’m not sure I’ll ever be Aunty of the Year given how infrequently I’ve been able to see my niblings, but I’ll take being Aunty of the Day every now and then.

My reading goal for the year was a vague one: to read more books by women in general, women of colour in particular. I think I’ll stick with it for at least another year because #Sisterhood, and also that same Sisterhood is releasing so much good stuff all the darn time! My total book count was 144, a reduction of 17 from the previous tally. I really didn’t think the number would be that high given how much time I spent with my nose pressed to uni readings and adjacent activities. It was a very long year though, after all.

My top pick is Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi, followed by 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World by Elif Shafak. Coming in third is Still Life by Sarah Winman (is there anything she can’t do?). If you’ve not read these, I encourage you to do so at your earliest convenience. Honourable mentions go to Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud and The Color Purple by Alice Walker. It took me way too long to get round to reading that one but boy am I glad I finally did. At the bottom of the pile is Going Loco by Lynne Truss, and I was disappointed by Haruki Murakami’s First Person Singular. I enjoyed it for a bit but he lost me completely at several points.

For your perusal, the entire list is below. Please let me know what your top reads have been and what you think I should hurry to read next. I’ve got a few goodies lined up, but you know me: sometimes I just can’t help myself.

  1. The Yield by Tara June Winch
  2. Fantastic Beasts: The Wonder of Nature by the Natural History Museum
  3. The Peppermint Tea Chronicles by Alexander McCall Smith
  4. The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans
  5. Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops by Shaun Bythell
  6. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
  7. The Story of a Goat by Perumal Murugan
  8. Public Enemies: Russell ‘Mad Dog’ Cox, Ray Denning and the Golden Age of Armed Robbery by Mark Dapin
  9. Topics of Conversation by Miranda Popkey
  10. Tiny Tales by Alexander McCall Smith
  11. Weather by Jenny Offill
  12. Sharks in the Time of Saviours by Kawai Strong Washburn
  13. Motherland: A Memoir of Love, Loathing and Longing by Elissa Altman
  14. Drugs, Guns and Lies: My Life as an Undercover Cop by Keith Banks with Ben Smith
  15. Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
  16. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  17. Cadence: Travels with Music – a Memoir by Emma Ayres
  18. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
  19. The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd
  20. Behind the Scenes at the Museum: Your All-Access Guide to the World’s Most Amazing Museums by D. K. Publishing
  21. When the Apricots Bloom by Gina Wilkinson
  22. Out of the Forest: The True Story of a Recluse by Gregory P. Smith with Craig Henderson
  23. His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie
  24. The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis
  25. What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez
  26. The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker
  27. The Death of Francis Bacon by Max Porter
  28. Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
  29. Your Inner Hedgehog by Alexander McCall Smith
  30. No Presents Please: Mumbai Stories by Jayant Kaikini
  31. Wild Women and their Amazing Adventures over Land, Sea & Air edited by Mariella Frostrup
  32. Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
  33. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling (reread)
  34. Warlight by Michael Ondaatje (reread)
  35. The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
  36. The One Hundred Year Old Man who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
  37. Lioness by Sue Brierley
  38. The Shepherd’s Life: A Tale of the Lake District by James Rebanks
  39. The Confession by Jessie Burton
  40. The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré
  41. The Best of Me by David Sedaris
  42. A Burning by Megha Majumdar
  43. Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
  44. The Archer by Paulo Coelho
  45. After Australia: After empire, after colony, after white supremacy… twelve diverse writers imagine an alternative Australian edited by Michael Mohammed Ahmad
  46. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling (reread)
  47. Fathoms: The World in the Whale by Rebecca Giggs
  48. The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020 by Rachel Kushner
  49. Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud
  50. Growing Up Disabled in Australia edited by Carly Findlay
  51. Actress by Anne Enright
  52. Emotional Female: A Brilliant Young Surgeon’s Journey through Ambition and Dedication to Exploitation and Burnout by Yumiko Kadota
  53. The Believer: Encounters with Love, Death & Faith by Sarah Krasnostein
  54. How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps her House by Cherie Jones
  55. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
  56. Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton
  57. Still Life by Sarah Winman
  58. First Person Singular by Haruki Murakami
  59. Beauty by Bri Lee
  60. Must I Go by Yiyun Li
  61. The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
  62. The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish
  63. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling (reread)
  64. Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty
  65. The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language by Mark Forsyth
  66. Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby
  67. The Happiest Man on Earth by Eddie Jaku
  68. Who Gets to be Smart: Privilege, Power and Knowledge by Bri Lee
  69. The Inland Sea by Madeleine Watts
  70. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
  71. Ghosts by Dolly Alderton
  72. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
  73. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
  74. The Islamic Republic of Australia: Muslims Down Under, from Halal to Hijabs and Everything in Between by Sami Shah
  75. Look Back in Hunger by Jo Brand
  76. The Clocks by Agatha Christie
  77. The Truths We Hold: An American Journey by Kamala Harris
  78. White Teeth by Zadie Smith
  79. Would I Lie to You? Presents the 100 Most Popular Lies of All Time by Lee Mack, Peter Holmes and Ben Caudell
  80. Going Loco by Lynne Truss
  81. Beloved by Toni Morrison
  82. Not the End of the World by Kate Atkinson
  83. The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane
  84. The School of Restoration by Alice Achan and Philippa Tyndale
  85. Iran Awakening: From Prison to Peace Prize: One Woman’s Struggle at the Crossroads of History by Shirin Ebadi with Azadeh Moaveni
  86. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
  87. Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown by Anne Glenconner
  88. Turns Out, I’m Fine: How Not To Fall Apart by Judith Lucy
  89. Saving Agnes by Rachel Cusk
  90. Clock Dance by Anne Tyler
  91. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson
  92. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
  93. Love and Longing in Bombay by Vikram Chandra
  94. The Arabian Nights (Bloomsbury edition)
  95. Last Shot by Jock Zonfrillo
  96. Stranger Country by Monica Tan
  97. All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld
  98. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
  99. Fake: A Startling True Story of Love in a World of Liars, Cheats, Narcissists, Fantasists and Phonies by Stephanie Wood
  100. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
  101. Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
  102. Mother Wound by Amani Haydar
  103. The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi
  104. Our Woman in Kabul by Irris Makler
  105. The Lost Boy: Tales of a Child Soldier by Ayik Chut
  106. Two Stories by Sally Rooney
  107. When God was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman (reread)
  108. The Idiot by Elif Batuman (reread)
  109. Operation Playboy: The Explosive True Story of the Surfer Playboys turned International Drug Lords, and the Cops who Hunt them Down by Kathryn Bonella
  110. White Fragility: Why it’s so Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngelo
  111. Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
  112. Salt and Saffron by Kamila Shamsie
  113. The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
  114. The Labyrinth by Amanda Lohrey
  115. The Deep Blue Between by Ayesha Harruna Attah
  116. From a Mountain in Tibet by Lama Yeshe Losal Rinpoche
  117. Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
  118. Azadi by Arundhati Roy
  119. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
  120. From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home by Tembi Locke
  121. 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World by Elif Shafak
  122. The Green Road by Anne Enright (reread)
  123. Animal by Lisa Taddeo
  124. The Luminous Solution: Creativity, Resilience and the Inner Life by Charlotte Wood
  125. The White Masai by Corinne Hofmann
  126. Prison Break: Shantaram to the Bangkok Hilton: The World’s Most Wanted Australians by Mark Dapin
  127. Second Place by Rachel Cusk
  128. Sunset by Jessie Cave
  129. See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Abuse by Jess Hill
  130. Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
  131. The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan
  132. Islands of Decolonial Love by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
  133. The Wrong End of the Telescope by Rabih Alameddine
  134. Two Afternoons in the Kabul Stadium: A History of Afghanistan through Clothes, Carpets and the Camera by Tim Bonyhady
  135. One Italian Summer: Across the World and Back in Search of the Good Life by Pip Williams
  136. A Promise of Ankles by Alexander McCall Smith
  137. Fathomless by Greig Beck
  138. Toksvig’s Almanac 2021: An Eclectic Meander Through the Historical Year by Sandi Toksvig
  139. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari
  140. The Fran Lebowitz Reader by Fran Lebowitz
  141. CSI Told You Lies: Giving Victims a Voice through Forensics by Meshel Laurie
  142. This Much is True by Miriam Margolyes
  143. The Enchanted Places by Christopher Milne
  144. Dracula by Bram Stoker

Hindsight of 2020

I have never been one for saying, “I have a good feeling about this year.” My feelings and Time don’t seem to have any kind of causal relationship, and global pandemics have not historically demonstrated any consideration for calendars either. I think 2021 will be last year’s encore, and marking the new year is a way to formally recognise the desperate need for better days. Such days will come along in due course: US politics show signs of improvement, vaccines are on their way, we have found and will continue to find ways to adapt; I just don’t think 2021 is going to bring the cathartic relief whose hope to which we’ve so desperately clung. Maybe in the latter half we’ll have reasons for optimism that are based on scientific progress, good leadership, improved relations all round, and each of us doing the right thing. I think it wildly premature to start celebrating any of that now.

Small victories are still important though, and I’ll continue to take them where I can. Although my overseas trip was cancelled, and numerous domestic sojourns too, I did manage to make it interstate. I celebrated my niece’s first birthday in Brisbane with her in January with no idea of what was ahead, or that I would be unable to see her again until she’s at least 2. My nephew’s twice-postponed baptism in South Australia was an occasion I became resigned never to attend, and it was a joyous surprise to be able to slide in between outbreaks and border closures. Christmas in Tasmania with my parents seemed like a sure thing until two days before departure, though we made it there with just hours before the border slammed shut behind us.

Things could have been worse. Things can always be worse.

With the extra time on my hands this year, I read more books than ever before (161 in total including one in another language) and when reading wasn’t doing it for me, I baked like a madwoman. How glad am I to have branched out with a new hobby that not only maintains my sanity but also tastes delicious AND increases my popularity!

My top book of the year is one I read early on – #25, Cherry Beach by Laura McPhee-Browne. I knew within pages that I was onto something special, and called it then as my favourite for 2020 unless something even more spectacular came along. Notable contenders attempted competition but never pipped it. It was as though Sarah Winman and Sally Rooney conspired to write a book just for me, which is about as high a compliment I can think to pay.

Where Reasons End by Yiyun Li is right up there, and if you need to feel sad with a book as your witness, this is a good one to accompany you. Avni Doshi’s Burnt Sugar completes my trio, and if I were on the judging panel for the Booker, I’d have gunned hard for its victory.

At the bottom of the pile we have How to Have a Beautiful Mind by Edward de Bono. I listened to this on audiobook while waiting for the book I actually wanted to listen to to become available. It was featured as one of the most popular downloads, and was quite short, and I was unimpressed by the whole thing other than its brevity. A more apt title would be How to Try and Trick People into Thinking you are Slightly Less Boring than you Actually Are. Read or listen to any other book and your mind stands a better chance of improving its substance and appearance. The Bat by Jo Nesbo also bottomed out for me, and I would not have finished it had I not picked it up to complete a work reading challenge in the first place.

I remember being asked a year ago if I’d try and beat my 133 total for 2019, and saying, “no, I didn’t really get anything else done.” Turns out I can read even more and also get a lot of baking done! Nevertheless, no attempts will be made on my part to outdo my-reading-self, and if this year we all have to stay home as much as we did in 2020, who knows what new hobbies I may incorporate? (I expect it will just be more reading and baking and jigsaw puzzles. In many ways I’d been preparing for lockdown my entire life and it wasn’t so bad after all.)

Here it is: Big Fat List of the Year 2020.

  1. Any Human Heart by William Boyd
  2. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari
  3. Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
  4. Home Work: A Memoir of my Hollywood Years by Julie Andrews
  5. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
  6. The River of Consciousness by Oliver Sacks
  7. The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
  8. The Smell of Fresh Rain: The Unexpected Pleasures of our Most Elusive Scent by Barney Shaw
  9. Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry
  10. Like the Flowing River by Paulo Coelho
  11. One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
  12. Gotta Get Theroux This: My Life and Strange Times in Television by Louis Theroux
  13. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
  14. Transit by Rachel Cusk
  15. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
  16. The Colossus of New York by Colson Whitehead
  17. Thirty Thousand Bottle of Wine and a Pig called Helga by Todd Alexander
  18. Vacuum in the Dark by Jen Beagin
  19. Dream Angus: The Celtic God of Dreams by Alexander McCall Smith
  20. Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharti
  21. The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
  22. The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto
  23. Couchsurfing in Russia: Friendships and Misadventures Behind Putin’s Iron Curtain by Stephan Orth
  24. Hit So Hard by Patty Schemel
  25. Cherry Beach by Laura McPhee-Browne
  26. Gifted by Nikita Lalwani
  27. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
  28. The Secrets She Keeps by Michael Robotham
  29. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
  30. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
  31. The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson
  32. The End of the End of the Earth by Jonathan Franzen
  33. Three Women by Lisa Taddeo
  34. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape by Peter Hedges
  35. Me by Elton John
  36. Outside Looking In by T. C. Boyle
  37. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
  38. Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat who Touched the World by Vicky Myron with Bret Witter
  39. Eggshell Skull by Bri Lee
  40. The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo
  41. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell (reread)
  42. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance
  43. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara
  44. My Man Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse
  45. American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
  46. Thinking About it Only Makes it Worse by David Mitchell
  47. 488 Rules for Life by Kitty Flanagan
  48. Lands of Lost Borders: A Journey on the Silk Road by Kate Harris
  49. False Impression by Jeffrey Archer
  50. It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War by Lynsey Addario
  51. The Gap: An Australian Paramedic’s Summer on the Edge by Benjamin Gilmour
  52. Normal People by Sally Rooney (reread)
  53. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J. K. Rowling (reread)
  54. Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen by J. K. Rowling
  55. In Between the Sheets by Ian McEwan
  56. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
  57. The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See
  58. After Dark by Haruki Murakami
  59. Phosphorescence: On Awe, Wonder & Things that Sustain You when the World goes Dark by Julia Baird
  60. The Prettiest Horse in the Glue Factory by Corey White
  61. Resistance: A Songwriter’s Story of Hope, Change and Courage by Tori Amos
  62. Being Light by Helen Smith
  63. Talking to Strangers: What we should Know about the People we Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell
  64. Even Cowgirls get the Blues by Tom Robbins
  65. Liberty by Garrison Keillor
  66. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
  67. The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
  68. The Penultimate Peril by Lemony Snicket
  69. Writers & Lovers by Lily King
  70. Between the Stops: The View of my Life from the Top of the Number 12 Bus by Sandi Toksvig
  71. Rats: A Year with New York’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants by Robert Sullivan
  72. The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald (reread)
  73. Coraline: The Graphic Novel by Neil Gaiman, adapted and illustrated by P. Craig Russell
  74. The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Alexander McCall Smith
  75. Come Again by Robert Webb
  76. A Time of Love and Tartan by Alexander McCall Smith
  77. Dishonesty is the Second-Best Policy: and Other Rules to Live By by David Mitchell
  78. Where Reasons End by Yiyun Li
  79. The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad
  80. How to Have a Beautiful Mind by Edward de Bono
  81. Your Own Kind of Girl by Clare Bowditch
  82. The Bat by Jo Nesbo
  83. The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero who Infiltrated Auschwitz by Jack Fairweather
  84. Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
  85. Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
  86. Miss-Adventures: A Tale of Ignoring Life Advice While Backpacking Around South America by Amy Baker
  87. Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of my Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman
  88. Mouthful of Birds by Samantha Schweblin
  89. Encounter: Essays by Milan Kundera
  90. Kudos by Rachel Cusk
  91. The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
  92. Ayoade on Top by Richard Ayoade
  93. Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler
  94. Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce
  95. In Extremis: The Life of War Correspondent Marie Colvin by Lindsey Hilsum
  96. Real Life by Brandon Taylor
  97. Here We Are by Graham Swift
  98. The Spy by Paulo Coelho (reread)
  99. Boys will be Boys: Power, Patriarchy and the Toxic Bonds of Mateship by Clementine Ford
  100. A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor
  101. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (reread)
  102. Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
  103. Gods and Demons: Behind the Tourist Veneer of Bali and Greater Indonesia: a Foreign Correspondent’s Memoir by Deborah Cassrells
  104. Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
  105. The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste
  106. One Day I Will Write About This Place by Binyavanga Wainana
  107. Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld
  108. Hurricane Season by Fernando Melchor
  109. Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore
  110. The Folk of the Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton (reread)
  111. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
  112. Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
  113. Apeirogon by Colum McCann
  114. Angel in the Mirror by Lumi Winterson
  115. Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi
  116. Couchsurfing in China: Encounters and Escapades Beyond the Wall by Stephan Orth
  117. Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker
  118. Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith
  119. Perseus in the Wind: A life of Travel by Freya Stark
  120. Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald
  121. All Our Shimmering Skies by Trent Dalton
  122. The Vegetarian by Han Kang (reread)
  123. Ghost Empire by Richard Fidler
  124. The New Wilderness by Diane Cook
  125. Just Ignore Him by Alan Davies
  126. Court Out (A Netball Girls’ Drama) by Deb McEwan
  127. The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld
  128. The Golden Maze: A Biography of Prague by Richard Fidler
  129. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
  130. Honeybee by Craig Silvey
  131. What Westerners have for Breakfast: Five Years in Goa by John McBeath
  132. Kokomo by Victoria Hannan
  133. A Theatre for Dreamers by Polly Samson
  134. A Thousand Ships: This is the Woman’s War by Natalie Haynes
  135. A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
  136. This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga
  137. The Sick Bag Song by Nick Cave
  138. Our Sunshine by Robert Drewe
  139. A Life on our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future by David Attenborough
  140. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
  141. Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
  142. Things I Learned from Falling by Claire Nelson
  143. The Erratics by Vicki Laveau-Harvie
  144. Around the World in 80 Trains: a 45,000 Mile Adventure by Monisha Rajesh
  145. The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray
  146. The Best Kind of Beautiful by Frances Whiting
  147. Heather, the Totality by Matthew Weiner
  148. Stories of Hope: Finding Inspirations in Everyday Lives by Heather Morris
  149. Amnesty by Aravind Adiga
  150. The Red-Haired Woman by Orhan Pamuk
  151. A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing by Jessie Tu
  152. Other People’s Houses by Hilary McPhee
  153. Quidditch Through the Ages by Kennilworthy Whisp (J. K. Rowling, illustrated by Emily Gravett)
  154. Almost Midnight by Rainbow Rowell
  155. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
  156. ‘Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas by Adam Kay
  157. More Than A Woman by Caitlin Moran
  158. The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
  159. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (reread)
  160. The Ickabog by J. K. Rowling
  161. The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson

Going Viral

You may recall that this time last week, I was up to my eyeballs in self-pity over my trip cancellation and the general state of the world. The balance has shifted somewhat over the intervening days, back and forth like the plates I used to ferry across a busy restaurant during my waitressing days. Turns out my travel insurance was absolutely useless, but with a partial refund of the policy and a printed product disclosure statement to use as toilet paper, things could, I suppose, be worse. I’m reminding myself regularly that I have spent time in hospital in a third world country with a pretty nasty virus, and on balance working from home is considerable step up.

Yes, working from home. I arrived at work on Monday morning, cancelled my annual leave, and began clomping and stomping my foul mood around the library with the view of getting a few hours’ worth of scowls out of my system before fronting up to the public. Turns out I could’ve scowled all I liked for all the difference it would make to the public, since minutes later staff were told we were closed until further notice. The unpleasant expression fell right off my face and was replaced with shocked bemusement. My mum had asked me only days before if I thought the library would close, to which I responded, “Mmm I don’t think so, not unless a confirmed case wanders through. They’ll probably close the branches first and try to keep us running.” Shows what I knew. Things got very real very quickly as I realised how much bigger was this beast than my foiled travel arrangements.

I think it was absolutely the right call. It seems like the rest of the world is shutting up shop, and our closure a week or so earlier than our hands would’ve been forced can presumably have done very limited harm, and instead kept us out of harm’s way. I still went in to Library HQ the next day before being told I’d henceforth be working from home, which gave me enough time to stock up on a few weeks’ worth of books and DVDs, and collect what I thought might be useful in my home office. When I say “home office” I mean dining table, which once belonged to my grandma and is still covered in the detritus of abandoned travel plans. It’s right next to my main bookshelf, which helps me feel like I still have one foot (or at least a toe) in the library, but otherwise bears little resemblance to my usual workspace.

At 8:30am on WFH day 1, I donned my lanyard and sat down at my laptop, thinking how this already differed from my usual school day. Obviously the lanyard was unnecessary. The public would not be sauntering through my apartment wondering who to ask for readers’ advisory or help with printing. Nor would I spend the next half hour tidying up the library and making sure a few shelves of books were in correct DDC order, which is the standard order of the half hour before opening. I won’t bore you with the details of my entire day, suffice to say only that I’m not used to sitting at a desk for so long, and certainly not in a room by myself. I’m quite sure I don’t like it.

I’ve since taken to a brisk walk before sitting down for the day, again during my lunch hour, and once more when the clock strikes 5. On WFH day 3, I phoned a friend at 5:06pm, and she declared what a diligent employee I was to wait until I’d officially clocked off before making personal calls. The way I see it, much as I’d prefer to be running around the library, I’m incredibly fortunate to have a job that will still pay me to do what I can remotely, so the very least I can do is be where I’m expected to be when I’m supposed to be there. A week earlier I had assumed we would be like the band on the Titanic, staffing an emptying library as the public ran for cover. Not because our bosses are unsympathetic or uncaring of our welfare, but because libraries have never been more important for keeping us all connected and informed. Turns out that teachers are the ones playing the violins, but that’s a conversation for another forum. I’ve no doubt that every teacher in the country would dearly love to switch places with me. I’ve caught a very lucky break, and I know it. That’s to say nothing of the other professions who are effectively jobless right now, like my younger brother the Qantas international pilot. My home library is quite the place to be.

All of that said, I never thought I’d miss my usual work environment this much. I know I was hanging out for my holiday, indeed it was what kept me going through all the arguments about overdue book fees, tech mishaps at events, extra desk shifts, general disgruntlement from impolite library members, and all my other regular complaints. I miss them though. I miss the ones who come straight to me for book recommendations, the ones who say a simple “thank you” when I help them with their printing, the ones who go about their business with no personal interaction from me. I miss my colleagues; the way they roll their eyes but chuckle appreciatively at my bad puns. Even if I’m at my desk and we’ve all got our heads down doing our own things, or I’m doing my best to fly under the radar and do my job without being asked any questions. Even if I’m hoping to avoid as many people as possible for the duration of the day, it’s still nice to feel like I’m part of something bigger.

Of course I’m still part of that bigger something, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last week (other than that I seem to really love touching my face) it’s that we’re all in this together. All my colleagues are doing the best they can with what they’ve got from where they are. With the exceptions of toilet paper hoarders, Bondi beachgoers, and Australian border security allowing planeloads of passengers to disembark and go on their merry way without so much as a temperature check, I think we all are. With no real precedent on which to base our next move, it’s hard to know how to best get on with things. But if the library’s group chat is anything to by, we’ve got each other’s backs.

Never has it been more important for us to remember…
We’re all part of something bigger, and we’re all part of it together.

Going Viral

Very very mad world.

I’m pretty cross with the whole wide world just now, Self included. Right now I should be itching with anticipation across my whole body and not just my feet. I should be adding the finishing touches to my Spreadsheet, packing my carry-on in the reverse order of which I’ll use its contents. I’ve already changed some money at the currency exchange at the worst rate it’s been in years, and it wasn’t necessary to begin with but I like to be prepared, and a poor exchange rate is worth the peace of mind of having a few dollars in my pocket. I started taking immunity boosting supplements, which won’t protect me from the Plague but will help against catching a common cold that is far more likely and just as disastrous when you present at a border crossing with a runny nose and mild fever. I should be counting down the hours to setting my out of office message that tells anyone who wants a piece of me they’re on their own until 20 April. This point of the week was going to keep me going for the rest of it, while I argued with library members over non-refundable room bookings and explained to the rest that no we don’t delouse every item that passes through the library’s returns chute. I even polished my boots. This time next week, Lou and I should be in Bangkok at the start of our latest adventure, and I’d be filled with relief that the tail-end of the trip would be spent on a lush Vietnamese beach where I’d surely be safer from germs than if I was at work. I’d even planned how to spend my self-isolation, if it came to that. Was rather looking forward to it, in fact. Not having to see anyone? Perfect. Food deliveries to my doorstep or handed over the balcony? Divine. It was going to be the holiday that kept giving.

Instead, Lou and I are having an emergency meeting to discuss how we go about getting our money back. We were supposed to be going to the Pixies concert, but of course that’s been canned, so we’ll be reading through 64 pages of travel insurance policy instead. The tour we were booked on has been suspended, as has every other tour with this company, and who knows what other bookings will be rescinded over the next week. My conservative estimate is, “just about everything except work.”

I get it; we all need to do our bit to stop the spread of germs and stay out of harm’s way ourselves. The decision has been taken out of our hands, and I just need to suck it up. I’m as fiscally prepared for this moment as possible, having taken out top cover travel insurance the day I booked the flights, and paid extra for the “cancel for any reason” add-on that is no longer available for purchase. There will be forms and bureaucratic nonsense to wade through, hours spent on hold to speak to overworked and stressed-out insurance representatives doing their level best to make silk purses out of sows’ ears. Hours that should’ve been spent playing, “I dare you to eat that deep fried insect,” down some anonymous alley in Cambodia. But thanks to my organisational foresight, that should all come good in the end, and there are worse positions to be in.

Organising this trip has been one international incident after another. Lou and I decided a year and a half ago, sitting by the pool of a hotel in Goa, that our next trip would be to Iran. A new Canadian friend asked if she could come too (obviously we said yes) and within a few months we had paid a $400 deposit. As the months went by and international conflicts progressed, we pulled the pin on that idea. I was terribly disappointed, but the whole thing was starting to sound riskier than it was worth, and as soon as we decided on where we might go instead, my excitement returned. Iran could wait til Trump was a distant nightmarish memory, and we’d have just as much fun in Southeast Asia in the meantime. When DFAT officially declared Iran a “do not travel” zone a few weeks ago, I was aglow with relief at our decision to re-route. I hadn’t considered that a global outbreak of the Plague would be the deal-breaker for ministries across the world, but my trip was safe. Just call me Smart Traveller Dot Gov!

My to-be-read shelf underwent an appropriate transformation, and I put down Persian biographies to pick up Southeast Asian travelogues and accounts of recent history. Every time someone was rude to me at work (about 80% of my customer interactions) I clung to the thought that in the foreseeable future, it would be a colleague’s problem. With so many staff absent the last few weeks, I was doing my dash, and the only thing holding together my sanity was my upcoming exit-strategy. When management added extra things to my perfectly planned calendar then asked why I hadn’t done this, that and the other, instead of yelling, “I’m not made of time!!” I bit my tongue and thought of the two hoots I would not give from Halong Bay. Let someone else figure out how to do my job while I’m off sipping drinks with colourful umbrellas through a long straw.

I realise now how I set myself up. All my eggs, and all my marbles, were being stored in one basket that now no longer exists. I should know better: every time I return from a trip, I unpack my bags then immediately start down an existential spiral that gets tighter and tighter until I start planning another sojourn. Usually by this point I at least have some fond recent reminiscences to look back on and a nice break under my belt. It gets me through the period during which I’m convinced my life has no meaning and nothing at all to look forward to. As I’m writing this, Lou is desperately trying to convince me the fun has not dissipated but is merely postponed. Points to her for trying. There’s not much else to be said really, even though we both know postponing your sanity is about as effective as being completely crackers.

I know I’m writing from a very privileged place. My current position threatens the lives and health of precisely no one, and insurance battles notwithstanding, I shouldn’t end up very much out of pocket. My health is just fine, I’m not stuck somewhere far from home with an awful virus. Indeed I’ve been in that position before, and must say that where I’m at right now is preferable. I’ll get over it, it’s the only thing to be done, and throw myself into planning the next trip once this worldwide calamity settles. I’ll plan fun things to do over the next month, small treats to look forward to week by week. I already know that every time I have to deal with something unpleasant at work, my first thought will be, “I’m not even supposed to be here!” but really, who is that going to help? It will just make my workdays that much worse. But now that I’ve voiced it, I might have a bit more control over what the next thought will be. Perhaps something like, “life has meaning and we grown-ups know what it is.” Allow myself to be more gullible than I am cynical.

I’ll calm down in a few days, most likely. I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll shut up about it, probably about 24 hours after everyone’s had enough of my whinging. For the good of friends, family, acquaintances and the general public, I probably should self-isolate. Anticipating that this won’t qualify me for sick-leave though…

…see you Monday.

Mad World

Big Fat List of the Year: 2019 Edition

Hello 2020, a pleasure to meet you. I say this in spite of the fact the whole year seems like a mockery of people with imperfect vision. I wonder if this bodes poorly for me and foretells a year of feeling out of place (or out of time?), but my tastes never left the 90s anyway so I’m confident whatever struggles lie ahead would probably have happened on their own. I’d better go to the optometrist at some point anyway though, if only so I can remark drily that this year, of all years, it’s particularly insensitive to tell someone their eyesight is anything short of 20-20, true though it may be. I’m sure SpecSavers are already looking forward to 2021 because of dad-jokers likes me.

2019 was rather a good one, all things considered. I’m better at my job now than I was a year ago (unsurprising, given I was only two weeks into the role at this point) and go about things with far more “I know what I’m doing,” than all out winging it. I did get yelled at by various members of the public for things beyond my control (and often within theirs, ie. their overdue book fees) and once got locked inside the library (not as much fun as it sounds) but things on the work-front have otherwise been positive. We’re trialing a new Readers’ Advisory program at the moment where members fill out a form about their reading preferences, and one of us will send them a list of personalised recommendations they can borrow from the library. I am living that dream job! And if nothing else I’ve enjoyed a full year of actual weekends; something which was not afforded to me in previous years of working in retail and/or multiple jobs. Paid leave has felt like a bonus too, even though I only took one day off sick and didn’t have enough annual leave to cover my month-long holiday. Nevertheless, to still get paid for any part of my travels felt like reaching a wondrous milestone of being a professional traveler – a very specious moniker, but one I’ll take all the same.

I met my niece and nephew for the first time and learned that, like the Tin Man, there’s been a heart inside me all along. There are two small children in the world whom I favour above all, which replaces my previous sensibility of staying well clear of anyone too young to talk books with. I don’t know what we’ll talk about when they’re older if they’re not readers, but we’ve done alright so far and they can’t talk at all, so have a feeling we’ll be fine. I can tell my niece about how when she was very small, her grandma and I went to Melbourne to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and it was magic on a stage. How not long after that, she sat on my lap during her other aunty’s wedding just outside of Edinburgh – until she made baby-noises I was ill-equipped to deal with, and handed her back to her daddy. How we holidayed together on the Isle of Skye and beyond, where I saw puffins in the wild AND caught her first laugh, so it was a big week all round. Then her grandparents and I roadtripped around Ireland having a marvellous time, and I’m not sure exactly what she got up to, but I’ll ask her to make up a story about it. My nephew arrived a couple of months after all this, at a similar point in my work roster, which meant I was sitting at my desk rather than playing out on the library floor, and my next-desk neighbour was at hers too, so she was the first person to be privy to the arrival of both babies. Because I was impatient to find out his name, and this announcement was still a few hours away, I decided to call him Hagrid and am still the only person to do so. I’m holding out hope the name will take root, although I’ll probably wait for him to tell me he doesn’t like it before I give up. I’ll also remind him that there was a point in his life he thought my singing was really something, and I introduced him to the first dog he ever met, which is an important part of any person’s life and I’m glad to be a part of it all. He’s a pretty cool little guy; I think he and I are going to be good pals.

Now that the rest of my year has been wrapped, I’ll get to what I read, which is why you and I are here in the first instance. I read 133 books, which broke my previous record (120 in 2018) and when I’ve been asked how, have answered very simply, “I don’t get out much.” My favourite 2019 releases were Saltwater by Jessica Andrews, and Lanny by Max Porter. Honourable mention to Horror Stories by Liz Phair, which was an unexpected literary joy. Some other favourites published in years gone by but new to me were The Green Road by Anne Enright, Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter, and Outline by Rachel Cusk. The biggest surprise to me was the Booker Prize co-winner Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo. I was bracing myself for a thankless task, since I read the winner each year out of a sense of duty borne from a desire to have an informed opinion on something that experience of Booker winners past suggests I probably won’t enjoy. But wonders will never cease: I thought it was very good AND I enjoyed it! That almost never happens. I wish it had won the award outright; I felt all at sea with Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments. I suspect a working knowledge of the TV series The Handmaid’s Tale would’ve benefited me greatly, but damned if I’m going to do any TV homework before attempting a reread. That book can stay on everyone else’s “you simply MUST read…” list.

  1. The Science of Harry Potter by Mark Brake with Jon Chase
  2. The Overstory by Richard Powers
  3. My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
  4. The Library Book by Susan Orlean
  5. The World was Whole by Fiona Wright
  6. My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
  7. Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper
  8. The Revolving Door of Life by Alexander McCall Smith
  9. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J. K. Rowling (reread)
  10. Never Mind by Edward St Aubyn
  11. Laura the Explorer by Sarah Begg
  12. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle
  13. Geisha of Gion by Mineko Iwasaki with Rande Brown
  14. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling (reread)
  15. The Dressmaker by Rosalie Ham
  16. The Distance Between Me and the Cherry Tree by Paola Peretti
  17. The Flaneur by Edmund White
  18. The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
  19. Persian Pictures: From the Mountains to the Sea by Gertrude Bell
  20. The Grim Grotto by Lemony Snicket
  21. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling (reread)
  22. The Green Road by Anne Enright
  23. The Librarian by Salley Vickers
  24. On the Come Up by Angie Thomas
  25. Knuckled by Fiona Wright
  26. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time – Part 1 by Akira Himekawa
  27. The Tao of Travel: Enlightenments from Lives on the Road by Paul Theroux
  28. My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
  29. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time – Part 2 by Akira Himekawa
  30. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
  31. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling (reread)
  32. Educated by Tara Westover
  33. Tales from the Inner City by Shaun Tan
  34. Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle by Dervla Murphy
  35. The Seventh Circle by Rob Langdon
  36. The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain
  37. One City by Alexander McCall Smith, Ian Rankin & Irvine Welsh
  38. Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson
  39. Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin
  40. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K Rowling (reread)
  41. The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit
  42. The Friend by Sigrid Nunez
  43. The Lost Child of Philomena Lee by Martin Sixsmith
  44. Searching for Schindler by Thomas Keneally
  45. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling (reread)
  46. Becoming by Michelle Obama
  47. Can You Ever Forgive Me? Memoirs of a Literary Forger by Lee Israel
  48. Outline by Rachel Cusk
  49. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell
  50. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (reread)
  51. Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe
  52. The Recruit by Robert Muchamore
  53. Ox-Tales: Earth by Various Authors
  54. Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan
  55. I’d Rather be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life by Anne Bogel
  56. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling (reread)
  57. No Friends but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Island by Behrouz Boochani
  58. Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
  59. Sunrise by Jessie Cave
  60. The Pun Also Rises: How the Humble Pun Revolutionised Language, Changed History, and Made Wordplay More than Some Antics by John Pollack
  61. White Oleander by Janet Fitch
  62. Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
  63. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
  64. Lanny by Max Porter
  65. The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer
  66. No Walls and the Recurring Dream by Ani DiFranco
  67. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  68. The Arsonist: A Mind on Fire by Chloe Hooper
  69. Mirror Sydney by Vanessa Berry
  70. The Valley of the Assassins: and Other Persian Travels by Freya Stark
  71. I’ll Be There for You: The One About Friends by Kelsey Miller
  72. The World’s Most Travelled Man: A Twenty-Three-Year Odyssey to and through Every Country on the Planet by Mike Spencer Bown
  73. Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta
  74. What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding: A Memoir by Kristin Newman
  75. An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma
  76. The Bertie Project by Alexander McCall Smith
  77. Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter
  78. The Birdman’s Wife by Melissa Ashley
  79. The Opal Dragonfly by Julian Leatherdale
  80. The Other Wife by Michael Robotham
  81. Tin Man by Sarah Winman (reread)
  82. Saltwater by Jessica Andrews
  83. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
  84. Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
  85. East of Croydon: Blunderings through India and South East Asia by Sue Perkins
  86. Exploded View by Carrie Tiffany
  87. I Built No Schools in Kenya: A Year of Unmitigated Madness by Kirsten Drysdale
  88. The Sparrows of Edward Street by Elizabeth Stead
  89. A Dream About Lightning Bugs by Ben Folds
  90. NW by Zadie Smith
  91. Good Girl, Bad Girl by Michael Robotham
  92. The Stationery Shop of Tehran by Marjan Kamali
  93. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
  94. Running Away from Home: Finding a New Life in Paris, London and Beyond by Jane de Teliga
  95. Destination Cambodia: Adventures in the Kingdom by Walter Mason
  96. The Dinner by Herman Koch
  97. The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joana Cannon
  98. Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi
  99. The Wind in my Hair: My Fight for Freedom in Modern Iran by Masih Alinejad
  100. Year of the Monkey by Patti Smith
  101. The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson
  102. The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan
  103. Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot’s Secret Prison by David Chandler
  104. My Life as a Traitor by Zarah Ghahramani with Robert Hillman
  105. Schadenfreude: The Joy at Another’s Misfortune by Tiffany Watt Smith
  106. The Nancys by R. W. R. McDonald
  107. The Embassy of Cambodia by Zadie Smth
  108. The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
  109. Elsewhere: One Woman, One Rucksack, One Lifetime of Travel by Rosita Boland
  110. Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris
  111. Horror Stories by Liz Phair
  112. Grand Union: Stories by Zadie Smith
  113. There was Still Love by Favel Parrett
  114. Confessions of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell
  115. The Weekend by Charlotte Wood
  116. About a Girl: A Mother’s Powerful Story of Raising her Transgender Child by Rebekah Robertson
  117. The Land Before Avocado by Richard Glover
  118. High School by Tegan and Sara Quin
  119. Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
  120. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: The Journey Behind the Scenes of the Award-Winning Stage Production by Jody Revenson
  121. Night Fishing by Vicki Hastrich
  122. The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein
  123. Part of the Pride: My Life Among the Big Cats of Africa by Kevin Richardson with Tony Park
  124. Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany by Jane Mount
  125. Girl by Edna O’Brien
  126. Spider and the Fly by Claudia Rowe
  127. Bridge Burning and Other Hobbies by Kitty Flanagan
  128. The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
  129. Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson
  130. Fly Already: Stories by Etgar Keret
  131. This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor by Adam Kay
  132. Dear Mrs Bird by A. J. Pearce
  133. Christmas Days by Jeanette Winterson

 

2019 list

Rather be Reading, Rather be Travelling

In quiet, slow moments at the library, usually when I’m out on the floor and trying not to think of all the work piling up that I really need to be at my desk to attend to, my mind wanders to some odd places. Usually towards useless hypotheticals that have no discernible use in the real world: Jasper Jones-esque “would you rathers” like, “would I rather slam my fingers in a door or get them caught in a toaster?” or “if I had to give up one, would I sacrifice reading or travelling?” I don’t know why I do this. The latter is a rabbit hole of despair just waiting for me to tumble down, and I can’t imagine a scenario where I’d ever have to make this call. But it does help pass the time and spur me on to read more books and plan further travels just in case.

Fingers being slammed in doors do not embolden me to get them caught in a toaster, but my reading and travel decisions do tend to inform one another. I read a string of Indian fiction and non-fiction in the lead up to that trip, and was quietly confident my first trip to the UK ten years ago would feel like a homecoming of sorts having grown up on a steady diet of Famous Five and Harry Potter. On the other favourable hand, reading can assuage some of the less achievable wanderings my itchy feet have in mind. I’ve read a few novels by Nigerian authors in the last few months, which has been enough to satisfy my yearning to hop a plane to Lagos. I’ll park that particular idea for the time being and focus on destinations that are more achievable and at least as enjoyable, and read a few books set in places I’m more likely to find myself. Redirect those itchy feet.

When we were in our early 20s, my older brother asked me why I spend so much time reading when I could be out in the world doing things. Possibly he was trying to justify his late nights out in relation to my being an absolute square, or maybe he really did think one day I would look back on those days with regret at having spent so many hours with fictional characters instead of real people. Probably he didn’t understand quite how much real people exhaust me, or the restorative power of fiction. My standard response was usually, “I do go out in the world and do things (author’s note: I didn’t) but I can’t actually go to Hogwarts or all of a sudden decide to scale Mount Everest.” I must’ve read a book about scaling Mount Everest. In any case, we’d stare at each other blankly for a moment and wonder how we could possibly be related, before turning on our heels: he to the pub, me to the library.

We’ve since reconciled these differences. He became a reader for a period when he was living just outside of London – too far from town and too short on cash to be doing anything “interesting.” I finished uni and took off out into the “world” to do “things.” We’ve settled more or less back into our original patterns, he working as a winemaker and me in a library. His life is pretty busy with the doing of things – the playing of sports and raising of family – but he does find time to read occasionally. Mine is filled with the reading of books and staying at home where it’s nice and quiet and nothing ever happens, but I save my money so I can blow it all on travel adventures now and then. We may yet be related after all.

While Paulo Coelho might’ve inspired a trip to South America and Arundhati Roy the Indian adventure, I decided when I was quite young that I would one day travel to Africa, and I’m sure this did not come from anything I read in a book. I went through a phase of being deeply interested in and curious about deadly animals, and living in Australia was apparently not enough for me. My parents gave me what I still consider one of the greatest birthday presents ever when I turned eight or so… remember Encarta CD ROMs? It was one of those, but exclusively about dangerous creatures. The African animals I found particularly interesting. I read every scrap of information therein until I could ace the quiz at the end. To this day, I know an inordinate amount about Great White Sharks, and did you know that hippos are responsible for more deaths than any other large land mammal? Eight year old I did! Then one day my father approached me for my considered opinion and some expert advice. He was off to London on a business trip, and had some time at the end before he needed to come home and be back at work, so thought he’d make a trip of it.

“Erin, if you could go anywhere in the world on any kind of holiday, where would you go and what would you do?”

“Well Daddy, there are lots of good places to go, but I would go to Africa and go on safari.”

That afternoon he booked himself a trip to Zimbabwe. I was not invited. You’re very welcome indeed. I decided then and there that one day I would go to Africa, go on safari, would not invite him thank you very much. It took another 14 years but I got there. I think it’s fair to say this decision and this trip were based on jealousy and defiance, but it did inspire me to read some books set in and about southern African nations in the meantime, which kept the desire alive.

As for 32 year old me, right here right now, I’m saving up my leave and my money for the next trip. My reading list this year has so far taken me to various corners of the globe, but if you have any glowing recommendations of books set Elsewhere, send them my way. In the absence of any substantial travel plans in the next few months, I need all the books to keep me going. These itchy feet won’t scratch themselves!

Travel books and HP

A Suitcase Full of Books

It’s coming up to that time again… time to fly! This time next week, I’ll be in a metal tube 10.668km (approximately) above the Philippine Sea hurtling towards Tokyo. After a few days there it’s on to Scotland, Ireland (Republic of AND Northern) then a couple of days in London before coming home to remind myself that these trips don’t pay for themselves and I rather need to return to work. After coming home from India, I found myself pacing my apartment for about 10 minutes in existential despair. I had a load of washing on, had separated gifts to others from gifts to self, restored my passport to its Safe Place, and it was throwing away my spreadsheet that began the spiral. What was I even doing with my life now that I wasn’t out experiencing the wider world? Sure, I had work the next day and a job interview in three. I was quietly confident about the interview (spoiler alert: I got the job) so change was already afoot and I had things to be working towards, but in my post-holiday blue, I wanted none of it. If my clothes hadn’t all been in the wash and my body in such need of a lie down, I’d have been sorely tempted to repack my bags and head back out the door. (Jokes! I knew darn well I’d have an even greater guilt complex about failing to show up for work the next day, and couldn’t trust myself in travel-mode without a spreadsheet.) Then I remembered there was another spreadsheet. The next trip was already booked, I had a thing to look forward to. In one relieving realisation, my life had meaning again. Please remind me of this in a month’s time when I’m back here experiencing an identical crisis – I’ve already booked part of a trip for this time next year. I haven’t started the spreadsheet yet, but that’ll give me something to do when it’s stupid o’clock in the morning and my jetlagged brain thinks it’s a good time to do some work.

With an overseas adventure imminent, the pressing question is a big one: what should I read while I’m away? I’ve read 32 books this year so far, which is an average of 2.667 per week. I’m away for 3.5 weeks, which means 9.3345 books. Invariably, I read less when I’m on holidays; apparently I need less distraction from the world when I’m not at work, and have greater interest in scenery when it’s not part of my commute. Oh, and am more inclined to talk to people when they speak with an exotically attractive accent. Let’s conservatively say I’ll need 5 or 6 books. Maybe even fewer if they’re particularly long.

I usually like to read a book or two set in the place I’m visiting. For India it was A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. Last time I was in Scotland, it was the first in the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. I’ve been prepping for Japan with The Geisha of Gion by Mineko Iwasaki, and Ireland with Roddy Doyle and Anne Enright. But what do I take with me? Fortuitously, my last trip to Scotland came not long after my 30th birthday, for which I was gifted a Kindle from my brother and his then fiancée. They’ve always been excellent and generous gift-givers, and since the upcoming trip was for their wedding, a Kindle was perfect. Naturally, it comes with me whenever I leave the house for more than a day, and now that I think about it, it has the next two Outlander books on it already. (As I recall, there was an Amazon deal at the time of purchase that meant it was cheaper to buy three books than just the first. Bit of a no-brainer, really.) Evidently I didn’t enjoy the first book enough to move on to the next, but part of me knew I’d be back in Scotland before too long, which might provide a prompt sufficient for me to continue the series. The books are also on the lengthy side, which is great when it’s all on Kindle anyway, and means lugging fewer physical books in my carry on.

Which brings me to the next criteria: I don’t think I’d know myself if I didn’t have a physical book on me. It has to be something long enough that I won’t finish it in one plane ride, but not so big I’ll be discouraged from carrying it with me. In previous years, when not reading my book of choice, I’ve wrapped the hefty tome in a jumper to use as a pillow. Having said that, my financial situation at such times meant I could not afford accommodation anywhere the pillow provided could be trusted not to give you bed bugs, so this last point is not the deciding factor it once was. My bookshelves are overflowing as it is, so I plan to take a book I can pass along to the next reader somewhere on the road to free up some space at home. For India, this was A Fine Balance, and the last Eurotrip was The Secret History by Donna Tartt. For this trip, I’m thinking a classic I bought secondhand – something like War and Peace or Crime and Punishment, something I can easily buy a cheap secondhand copy of again if I think I’m really going to miss it.

If I’m taking a classic, I probably want to balance it out with something contemporary, which is where you guys come in. What have you been reading? What might I like to read when the weather is European-mild but I’m nevertheless wearing three jumpers because that’s how I roll? What Amazon deal of the day has piqued your interest? What have I missed that’s come out of Scotland and Ireland recently? Note: I’ve read both of Sally Rooney’s already (loved them) as well as Milkman by Anna Burns (very “worthy” but also impossible for me to enjoy.) I should also point out I won’t be taking any library books with me. I’ve never had so much as a late fee (except for my cunning scheme within the university library, but that’s another post) and don’t intend to accrue any now. I also don’t have anything on my non-fiction TBR pile that’s burning to be read, so will gratefully accept any such recommendations.

I’m sure you appreciate the weight of such decisions, and I really would like some recommendations. Because I like to be proactive about such things, I’m now going to consult The Novel Cure, “a warm and passionate, witty and wonderful way to expand your reading list,” according to the blurb. And if I don’t see you before I go… so long, suckers!

Travel Books

2018: Quite a Story

Like any year, like any day, like anything, really, 2018 had its good and bad points.  I went skiing in Winter (as no year really feels complete without it) and to India with Lou in Spring, which was most definitely and easily the highlight. I finished reading my hundredth book of the year (A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry) in flight from Mumbai to Goa, a book which kept me company for much of the trip, including a 17 hour train journey. I might add that audiobooks were an additional graceful saviour during said journey. I read books aloud to Lou, even as she fell asleep and later swore she was enjoying it. Perhaps she was, so on those grounds I continued. I finished working at the bookshop for a full time job at the library – something I’m still figuring out and impatient to feel competent in. Three weeks in and I’ve not burnt the library to cinders, which I’m chalking up as a small victory. I’m still all about achievable goals. One of my brothers got married, and I’m to become an aunty in 2019.  With this pleasing news, I’ve been entrusted a child’s literary upbringing. Which is just as well, as it’s the only branch of adult guidance I feel naturally inclined toward and rather think I’m a good choice for the job. Any tips on auntying are otherwise welcome, if you please.

It hasn’t all been the fun of expansive travel horizons and career progression, and even my reading habits took a hit after Luke died. I think I said all I needed to for cathartic release in the previous post, so I’ll say no more about it here. I was happily distracted while in India but on my return picked up books I would ordinarily probably quite enjoy, then put them down for inability to focus. I turned instead to the comforting familiarity of Harry Potter rereads and even a Marian Keyes. Achievable goals, once again.

On balance, I think I’ve come out ahead. I read more books than ever in previous years. Highlights were Normal People by Sally Rooney, Take Nothing With You by Patrick Gale, and Lethal White by Robert Galbraith. I don’t tend to finish books I’m not enjoying, since there are so many good books out there that it just seems like a waste of time. I’m not sure why I stuck with Katerina by James Frey, since I didn’t enjoy it or find it well-written, and it’s not one of those literary buzz titles that I thought I needed a professional opinion on. I’m naming it as my least favourite book of the year, so I guess that’s something.

Without further ado, this is what I read in 2018:

  1. A Death in the Family by Karl Ove Knausgaard
  2. The Dry by Jane Harper
  3. Two Steps Forward by Graeme Simsion & Annie Buist
  4. My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent
  5. The Simple Act of Reading edited by Debra Adelaide
  6. Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
  7. One Day We’ll All be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul
  8. Indian Takeaway: One Man’s Attempt to Cook his Way Home by Hardeep Singh Kohli
  9. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
  10. The Power by Naomi Alderman
  11. The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
  12. The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell
  13. This House of Grief by Helen Garner
  14. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
  15. Night by Elie Wiesel
  16. The Inner Life of Animals by Peter Wohlleben
  17. The Epic City: The World on the Streets of Calcutta by Kushanava Choudhury
  18. Pobby and Dingan by Ben Rice
  19. The Course of Love by Alain de Botton
  20. Travelling with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd & Ann Kidd Taylor
  21. The Midnight Assassin by Skip Hollandsworth
  22. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
  23. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stane (Scots Edition) by J.K. Rowling, translaitit intae Scots by Matthew Fitt
  24. An Almond for a Parrot by Wray Delaney
  25. Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur
  26. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
  27. The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders by Stuart Kells
  28. Room by Emma Donoghue
  29. The Life to Come by Michelle de Kretser
  30. Denial: Holocaust History on Trial by Deborah E. Lipstadt
  31. One Life One Chance: A Story of Adrenaline and Adventures in the Most Unforgiving Places on Earth by Luke Richmond
  32. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
  33. The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart by Holly Ringland
  34. Our Homesick Songs by Emma Hooper
  35. The Giver by Lois Lowry
  36. The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton
  37. Saga Land by Richard Fidler & Kari Gislason
  38. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
  39. Circe by Madeline Miller
  40. The Moth edited by Catherine Burns
  41. Couchsurfing in Iran: Revealing a Hidden World by Stephan Orth
  42. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
  43. The Books of Magic by Neil Gaiman
  44. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
  45. An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
  46. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain
  47. Extinctions by Josephine Wilson
  48. Nine Lives by William Dalrymple
  49. Lovesome by Sally Seltmann
  50. Staying by Jessie Cole
  51. Transcription by Kate Atkinson
  52. Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller
  53. How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
  54. Sinning Across Spain by Ailsa Piper
  55. Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
  56. Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak
  57. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
  58. The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaur by Steve Brusatte
  59. Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver
  60. Daring Greatly by Brene Brown
  61. Broken Republic by Arundhati Roy
  62. We are all Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler (this one was a reread)
  63. The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin
  64. Cedar Valley by Holly Throsby
  65. Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
  66. My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem
  67. Around India in 80 Trains by Monisha Rajesh
  68. Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig
  69. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
  70. The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
  71. The End of the Moment We Had by Toshiki Okada
  72. Christopher Robin by Elizabeth Rudnick
  73. Shock for the Secret Seven by Enid Blyton
  74. Danger Music by Eddie Ayres
  75. A Year of Marvellous Ways by Sarah Winman (reread)
  76. The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth by William Boyd
  77. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling (reread)
  78. Take Nothing With You by Patrick Gale
  79. Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson
  80. Snap by Belinda Bauer
  81. You’re Just Too Good to be True: A Love Story about Lonely Hearts and Internet Scams by Sofija Stefanovic
  82. Less by Andrew Sean Greer
  83. Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
  84. Pretend I’m Dead by Jen Beagin
  85. Lethal White by Robert Galbraith
  86. Autumn by Karl Ove Knausgaard
  87. Journeys to the Other Side of the World: Further Adventures of a Young Naturalist by David Attenborough
  88. The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker
  89. Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon
  90. The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures by Louis Theroux
  91. How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran
  92. Katerina by James Frey
  93. Fatty O’Leary’s Dinner Party by Alexander McCall Smith
  94. Ignorance by Milan Kundera (reread)
  95. The Women in Black by Madeleine St John
  96. Any Ordinary Day by Leigh Sales
  97. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling (reread)
  98. Hippie by Paulo Coelho
  99. Normal People by Sally Rooney
  100. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
  101. Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
  102. People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
  103. Bertie’s Guide to Life and Mothers by Alexander McCall Smith
  104. Milkman by Anna Burns
  105. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
  106. Every Word is a Bird we Teach to Sing by Daniel Tammet
  107. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling (reread)
  108. Enid Blyton: the Biography by Barbara Stoney
  109. Making it Up as I go Along: Notes from a Small Woman by Marian Keyes
  110. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
  111. Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
  112. The Children Act by Ian McEwan
  113. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling (reread)
  114. Flights by Olga Tokarczuk
  115. Fantastic Beasts: the Crimes of Grindelwald – the Original Screenplay by J.K. Rowling
  116. Britt-Marie was Here by Fredrik Backman
  117. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by J.K. Rowling (reread)
  118. The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder
  119. Six Memos for the Next Millennium by Italo Calvino
  120. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling (reread)

 

 

 

Tribute to an Old Flame

The last couple of months have offered me a little bit of everything: some of the happiest, most hilarious, laughter-inducing moments served as a timely chaser to the most heartbreakingly sad, snot-and-tear-soaked moments I’ve lived through. You’ll hear all about my trip to India in due course I’m sure, not least because I finished reading my 100th book of the year while I was there. But this was prefaced by some terrible news and a funeral of such sadness, such complex layers of grief, that I’m not quite sure where to begin.

Luke was my on-again-off-again boyfriend, ages 15-29. In the interest of clarity, we were together less than we were apart; of those 14 years, I think I celebrated four birthdays where we were romantically involved, five or six where we were just friends, and during the rest we had little to no contact at all. I don’t wish to overstate my significance to him, but we were important to each other during our formative years, and seemed to orbit one another the rest. He introduced me to some of my favourite musicians: Tori Amos, Smashing Pumpkins, Bright Eyes, and he gave me the complete Nirvana collection for my 21st. More importantly, he got me onto some amazing authors. I doubt I’d have come to Milan Kundera on my own, and it would’ve taken me a while to reach Haruki Murakami but for his recommendation. When he worked at Borders, he’d borrow books he thought I’d like as long as I promised to read them carefully and within a week. Another time he bought me a book of Courtney Love’s letters and artworks, then hastily reneged on the gift: having miscalculated his finances, he’d accidentally spent his rent money and had to return it the next day. A very sweet gesture nonetheless. When he worked at JB Hifi he bought me wireless headphones and a waterproof Bluetooth speaker so I could listen to audiobooks in bed and in the shower. The dude provided books and encouragement to read them. Easy to love, right?

He was easy to love, but hard to be in relationship with for all that. He seemed to struggle to identify his emotional needs, making it damn near impossible to communicate them. He was a quiet boy and a private man, ill at ease maintaining relationships on his own mysterious terms. Much as I value quiet and personal boundaries, his were too rigid for me and I felt like the only one emotionally engaged, which obviously wasn’t true by his reaction when I’d then pull away. We’d break up, spend time apart, see other people, commit to other people even. One way or another though, our paths kept crossing and we’d end up back together. He was my dead-body guy: I lived with full certainty that if I showed up with a corpse in tow, he’d help me get rid of it. Turns out, however, that an eager accomplice does not a soul mate make: it would be far more helpful for the other party to discuss one’s options and diplomatically urge you to alert the authorities. Still, there’s something deeply comforting in the knowledge that there’s someone out there who will take your side no matter what. That doesn’t mean you’re right for each other though. And while I don’t regret getting back together with him time and time again, nor do I regret finally calling it quits. We weren’t really that good together, in the end.

He wanted to stay friends; I didn’t. It’s hard to bear helpless witness to such angst, and I didn’t have it in me anymore. I knew he’d sought professional help with his mental health since we broke up for the last time, and I was glad for him. Relieved for him. He had been struggling for as long as I knew him, reluctant to admit it and terrified to face it. As far as I can tell, he was doing well for a while. He went back to art school, something he had given up and longed to return to. But evidently it didn’t last. News of his suicide hit me like an iron-fisted punch, but it didn’t come as a total surprise. It wasn’t a fear I had entertained in recent years, but it fit the rest of the picture. And the fact that I first met Cate through him, who took her own life three and a half years ago, brings an awful sense of symmetry that seems too painful to be fair.

His funeral was a heart-rending reunion and outpouring of grief for the old gang, the worst reason for getting the band back together. Ellie took the day off work to accompany me and pay her own respects – she had been friends with him too, back in the day. I brought along a copy of When God was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman to give to an old school friend, Mia, who is a bookworm like myself. I had a feeling she’d like it (she did) and I wanted at least one of us to walk away with something other than a heavy heart. She rose to give me a hug, elegant in her sadness. I trod on her toe as my tears fell onto her shoulder. “I think I stepped on your toe,” were the first words I spoke to her in person in nearly a decade. “You did,” were hers to me. Then I said I had a present for her, which everybody thought was a feeble attempt at a joke. I reached inside my bag for the book and pulled out instead a half-eaten packet of chocolate pretzels I had brought for the drive then promptly forgotten about. I offered the pretzels around, which made everyone laugh more than it should’ve. I guess I wasn’t the only one worried about breaking the ice at such a miserable assembly, but I think I succeeded, albeit with spectacular awkwardness. I gave her the book, which she appreciatively accepted, and again offered around the pretzels, which were politely declined. Just as well, really, as I hadn’t offered any to Ellie and we were hungry on the drive home after all the grieving.

The chapel itself was adorned with relics from Luke’s life. Artworks, photos, his soccer shirt and year 12 jersey. His coffin was carried in to a Smashing Pumpkins song. For one last time, he was everywhere. The service was as sad as they come – it could never have been anything else. At its conclusion, we were invited up to his casket to share some final private moments with him. I was thinking Deep Thoughts in his direction while Ellie stood by my side. Things like, “I’m sorry for the parts that were my fault,” and, “I forgive you for the parts that were yours.” But because the coffin was positioned left to right rather than top to tail, I wasn’t sure if I was addressing his head or his feet. So I switched, which obviously didn’t solve the problem. Instead I directed my parting missive somewhere in the middle, which was probably right at his crotch, which I think he would’ve liked. So I laughed, because he would’ve laughed, but tears and snot were pouring from my face so it came out as a breathless choke, and that’s how I said goodbye to Luke.

I met up with his brother a couple of days ago. He hand-delivered a folder to me that had my name on it and was filled with half of Luke’s and my history: the half I cared less about, which was my own. I already knew the secrets hidden there, but was deeply moved by what he had kept. There was a photo of me aged about 15. One from his year 12 formal. The Valentine’s Day 2015 card I made him with a wry, brief attempt at poetry: “I love the way your mouth fits mine, will you be my Valentine?” – seriously, I’m not making this up. And letters. Lots and lots of letters. Letters that I had written, of course – he kept them all. I don’t have his replies anymore. He was never as wordy as me anyway. But it’s nice to remember the time when I still called and he still responded. And in the middle of it, a letter he had written me post-break up and never sent. That one was particularly hard to read. I don’t know what to do with these memories. Writing it out with sadness and fondness seems as good an option as others, any past hurts now so thoroughly eclipsed.

Luke: the boy who made me mixed CDs, the man who kept making them for me well into our 20s. The deeply flawed lost boy. The guy who would muscle his way to the front of a crowd so I could have the best spot at every gig. The only person ever to buy me a bouquet of cats. The boy who loved me first. The softest spot in my heart.

I hope the world sees the same person that he’ll always be to me.

Here we are, ten years apart. Age apparently did not help us look any less awkward.