The books I read in 2024

Svetlana Alexievich, Boys in Zinc

Eric Ambler, A Kind of Anger

Paul Auster, Baumgartner

Alexander Baron, The Human Kind

Dino Buzzati, The Singularity

Leonora Carrington, The Hearing Trumpet

Fernando Cervantes, Conquistadores

Len Deighton, Mexico Set

Len Deighton, London Match

Guy Delisle, Hostage

Guy Delisle, Jerusalem

Annie Ernaux & Marc Marie, The Use of Photography

Brecht Evens, The Wrong Place

György Faludy, My Happy Days in Hell

Agustín Fernández Mallo, The Book of All Loves*

Jon Fosse, Melancholy I–II

Jon Fosse, A Silent Language

Anna Funder, Stasiland

Eduardo Galeano, Football in Sun and Shadow

Waguih Ghali, Beer in the Snooker Club

Michael Gilbert, Games Without Rules

Robert Harris, Fatherland

Sheila Heti, Alphabetical Diaries

Chester Himes, Blind Man with a Pistol

Sven Holm, Termush

Bohumil Hrabal, Closely Watched Trains

Dorothy B Hughes, In a Lonely Place

Kazuo Ishiguro, The Summer We Crossed Europe in the Train

Claire Keegan, So Late in the Day

Stanislaw Len, The Futurological Congress

Alexander Lernet-Holenia, Baron Bagge

Alexander Lernet-Holenia, Count Luna

Alexander Lernet-Holenia, I was Jack Mortimer

Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here

Dick Lochte, Sleeping Dog

Amin Maalouf, On Identity

Colin MacInnes, Absolute Beginners

Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony

Groucho Marx, Groucho & Me

Seicho Matsumoto, Point Zero

Roger McGough, The Collected Poems

Will McPhail, In

Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe

Edogawa Rampo, The Black Lizard

Carlo Rovelli, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

Nicholas Royle, Shadow Lines

Olga Tokarczuk, The Empusium

Nigel Townson, The Penguin History of Modern Spain

Martin Walker, The Resistance Man

Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep

Seishi Yokomizo, The Devil's Flute Murders

* Book of the year

The books I read in 2023

Nuar Alsadir, Animal Joy

Yukito Ayatsuji, The Mill House Murders

Nicholson Baker, A Box of Matches

Thomas Bernhard, Old Masters

Richard Brautigan, A Confederate General from Big Sur

Richard Brautigan, In watermelon sugar

Richard Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America

Gerald Brenan, South from Granada

Natasha Brown, Assembly

Dino Buzzati, Catastrophe and Other Stories

Dino Buzzati, A Love Affair

Jen Calleja, Vehicle

Edward Chisholm, A Waiter in Paris*

Jeremy Cooper, Brian 

Michael Crummey, River Thieves

Claire Dederer, Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma

Len Deighton, Berlin Game

Len Deighton, SS-GB

Maureen Duffy, Capital

Victor E Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Mathias Enard, The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers’ Guild

CS Forester, Plain Murder

Jon Fosse, Morning and Evening 

Jon Fosse, A Shining

Jon Fosse, Trilogy

Willem Frederik Hermans, The Darkroom of Damocles

Willem Frederik Hermans, An Untouched House

Eduardo Galeano, Children of the Days

Chester Himes, If He Hollers Let Him Go

Florian Huber, Promise Me You'll Shoot Yourself

Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Anna Kavan, Ice

Claire Keegan, Foster

Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These

Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Time to Keep Silence

Thea Lenarduzzi, Dandelions

Norman Lewis, The Tomb in Seville

AJ Liebling, Between Meals

Léo Malet, 120 rue de la Gare

Léo Malet, The Rats of Montsouris

Adam Mars-Jones, Box Hill

Robert McLiam Wilson & Donovan Wylie, The Dispossessed

Laurent Mauvignier, The Birthday Party

Clemens Meyer, While We Were Dreaming

Jan Morris, Spain

Haruki Murakami, Novelist as a Vocation

Magdalen Nabb, The Innocent

Cesare Pavese, The Beautiful Summer

Rebecca Pawel, The Summer Snow

David Piper, Trial by Battle

Emeric Pressburger, The Glass Pearl

Edogawa Rampo, Beast in the Shadows

Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric

Ben Ratliff, Every Song Ever

Olga Ravn, The Employees

Derek Robinson, Goshawk Squadron

Joe Sacco, Palestine

Leonardo Sciascia, The Knight and Death

Leonardo Sciascia, The Wine-Dark Sea

Georges Simenon, Death Threats

Georges Simenon, The New Investigations of Inspector Maigret

John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men

Peter Watts, Denmark Street

EB White, Here is New York

Seishi Yokomizo, Death on Gokumon Island

Alejandro Zambra, The Private Life of Trees

Nell Zink, Avalon (67)

 

* Book of the year

The books I read in 2022

Matthieu Aikins, The Naked Don’t Fear the Water
Eric Ambler, The Mask of Demetrios
Kjell Askildsen, Everything Like Before
Caleb Azumah Nelson, Open Water
James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain
Dominique Barbéris, A Sunday in Ville-d’Avray
Julian Barnes, Elizabeth Finch
Julian Barnes, Keeping an Eye Open
Julian Barnes, The Pedant in the Kitchen
Kirsty Bell, The Undercurrents
Michael Bracewell, Souvenir
Jorge Carrión, Bookshops
Nick Cohn, Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom
Teju Cole, Open City
Moyra Davey, Index Cards
Christopher de Hamel, Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts
Claudia Durastanti, Strangers I Know
Geoff Dyer, The Last Days of Roger Federer
Brecht Evens, The City of Belgium
Jon Fosse, Aliss at the Fire
Camilla Grudova, The Doll’s Alphabet
Gregor Hens, Nicotine
Marit Kapla, Osebol
David Keenan, For the Good Times
David Keenan, Industry of Magic & Light
Karl Ove Knausgaard, Autumn
Martin Limón, The Joy Brigade
Cameron McCabe, The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor
Ross Macdonald, Meet Me at the Morgue
Seichō Matsumoto, Tokyo Express
Ana María Matute, The Island
Haruki Murakami, T
Magdalen Nabb, The Marshal at the Villa Torrini
PJ O’Rourke, Holidays in Hell
Musa Okwonga, One of Them
Pete Paphides, Broken Greek
Richard Powers, Bewilderment
Joseph Roth, Hotel Savoy
Julian Sancton, Madhouse at the End of the Earth
Philippe Sands, East West Street
Uwe Schütte, Kraftwerk: Future Music from Germany
Leonardo Sciascia, The Moro Affair
Richard Sennett, Building and Dwelling
George Sims, The Last Best Friend*
Natasha Soobramanien and Luke Williams, Diego Garcia
Natsume Sōseki, Sanshirō
Rupert Thomson, Barcelona Dreaming
Charlotte Van den Broeck, Bold Ventures
Janwillem van de Wetering, The Perfidious Parrot
Louise Welsh, The Cutting Room
Seishi Yokomizo, The Village of Eight Graves
Alejandro Zambra, Bonsai (52)

* Book of the year

All the books I read in 2020 and 2021

Kobo Abe, The Ruined Map

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

Svetlana Alexievich, Chernobyl Prayer

Svetlana Alexievich, Second-hand Time

Carlos Manuel Álvarez, The Fallen

Daniel Anselme, On Leave

Bernardo Atxaga, Nevada Days

Yukito Ayatsuji, The Decagon House Murders

Dorothy Baker, Young Man with a Horn

Julian Barnes, The Man in the Red Coat

Polly Barton, Fifty Sounds

Quentin Bates, Cold Comfort

David Bellos, Jacques Tati

Claire-Louise Bennett, Pond

Claire-Louise Bennett, Checkout 19

Matt Benton Rees, The Fourth Assassin

Laurent Binet, Civilisations

Cara Black, Murder on the Champ de Mars

Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, The Passenger

Kate Briggs, This Little Art

Craig Brown, One Two Three Four

Dino Buzzati, Poem Strip

Dino Buzzati, The Tartar Steppe

Jonathan Coe, Mr Wilder and Me

Joshua Cohen, The Netanyahus

Colin Cotterill, Six and a Half Deadly Sins

Gioacchino Criaco, Black Souls

Frédéric Dard, The Executioner Weeps

Frédéric Dard, Crush

Augusto De Angelis, The Murdered Banker

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard

Brian Dillon, Suppose a Sentence

David Diop, At Night All Blood Is Black

Garry Disher, Bitter Wash Road 

Garry Disher, The Dragon Man

Garry Disher, Port Vila Blues

Stuart Douglas, Shuggie Bain

David Downing, Jack of Spies

Geoff Dyer, See/Saw: Looking at Photographs

Mathias Enard, Zone

Annie Ernaux, The Years

Agustín Fernández Mallo, The Things We’ve Seen

Jon Fosse, The Other Name (Septology I-II)*

Jon Fosse, I is Another (Septology III-V)*

Jon Fosse, A New Name (Septology VI-VII)*

Jon Fosse, Scenes from a Childhood

Alan Furst, Under Occupation

Gaito Gazdanov, The Spectre of Alexander Wolf

Natalia Ginzburg, The Dry Heart

Rainald Goetz, Rave

Elizabeth Hardwick, Sleepless Nights

Phil Harrison, The Age of Static

John Hersey, Hiroshima

Andrew Humphreys, Raving upon Thames

Denis Johnson, The Stars at Noon

Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis, The Boy in the Suitcase

Ryszard Kapuściński, The Emperor

David Keenan, This is Memorial Device

Philip Kerr, Hitler’s Peace

Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle 6

Karl Ove Knausgaard & Fredrik Ekelund, Home and Away: Writing the Beautiful Game

Benjamin Labatut, When We Cease to Understand the World

Carson McCullers, The Ballad of the Sad Café

Javier Marías, Your Face Tomorrow 1: Fever and Spear

Javier Marías, Your Face Tomorrow 2: Dance and Dream

Javier Marías, Your Face Tomorrow 3: Poison, Shadow and Farewell

Seicho Matsumoto, A Quiet Place

Fernanda Melchior, Hurricane Season

Clemens Meyer, Bricks and Mortar

Leonard Michaels, The Nachman Stories

Joseph Mitchell, Up in the Old Hotel

Shigeru Mizuki, Showa 1926-39

Patrick Modiano, Missing Person

Haruki Murakami, Killing Commendatore

Haruki Murakami, First Person Singular

Magdalen Nabb, The Monster of Florence

Cees Nooteboom, Roads to Santiago

Howard Norman, The Northern Lights

James O’Brien, How to Be Right

Andrew O’Hagan, Mayflies

David Olusuga, Black and British

Eliot Pattison, The Lord of Death

David Peace, Tokyo Redux

Roberto Perone, The Second Life of Inspector Canessa

Philippa Perry, The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read

Leo Perutz, Saint Peter’s Snow

Arthur Phillips, The King at the Edge of the World

Chris Power, A Lonely Man

Ian Rankin, A Song for the Dark Times

Robin Robertson, The Long Take

Marilynne Robinson, Jack

Nicholas Royle, White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collector

Salman Rushdie, Quichotte

Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the North

Leonardo Sciascia, A Simple Story 

Anna Seghers, Transit

Jorge Semprun, The Long Voyage

Adania Shibli, Minor Detail

Soji Shimada, The Tokyo Zodiac Murders

Georges Simenon, Sunday

Georges Simenon, Death Threats

Maria Stepanova, In Memory of Memory

Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Masako Togawa, The Lady Killer

Olga Tokarczuk, The Books of Jacob

William Trevor, Last Stories

Janwillem van de Wetering, The Sergeant’s Cat

Hilde Vandermeeren, The Scorpion’s Head

Luis Fernando Verissimo, The Spies

Tarjei Vesaas, The Ice Palace

Enrique Vila-Matas, Never Any End to Paris

Katharina Volckmer, The Appointment

Peter Wahloo, The Lorry

Edmund White, The Flâneur

Timothy Williams, Big Italy

Qiu Xiaolong, Enigma of China

Seishi Yokomizo, The Honjin Murders

Seishi Yokomizo, The Inugami Curse

Shuichi Yoshida, Villain

Nell Zink, Doxology (120)

* Book(s) of the year(s)

Avian invasion

It's the harsh 'Sqruawck!' that often alerts you to their presence. Then there is the flash of fluorescent green in the sky. If they're perched in a tree, you may even get a glimpse of red beak.

As a resident of Richmond, I'm terribly proud of our parakeet population. A chance sighting during the day feels like a cheery greeting from the gods, a bright hint of good fortune and conviviality.

Now, Paradise Road, the 'extremely small' publisher behind writer Peter Watts's estimable investigation of Battersea Power Station, Up In Smoke, has produced The Parakeeting of London, by 'gonzo ornithologists' Nick Hunt and Tim Mitchell. A delightful trawl through the history and mythology of our cocksure neighbours, it's interspersed with many wonderful interviews with random passersby, whose views frequently stray into chance musings on immigration and belonging.

It's a terrific read and you can order a copy from Paradise Road, or ask your local bookshop to get it in.

Not so slight return

Gangway are back, back, back! The Danish pop group, who split up in 1998, release a fantastic new album, Whatever It Is, on 5 April. Fêted with multiple awards in their home country, their biggest moment in the UK probably came with dissolute single My Girl and Me (1986).

Gangway's first album The Twist, with its echoes of The Smiths, came out back in 1984; Whatever It Is feels appropriately like the follow-up to the band's final, seventh, That's Life (1996). In the spirit of experimentation on that album, Whatever It Is is completely contemporary - as if That's Life had been moved forward in time.

The songwriting is as lovely as ever, as evidenced on first single Colourful Combinations, augmented by some fascinating sounds: there's a great mix from track Whatever… to the penultimate Exit, with its sample reference to where they left off 23 years ago - a hiatus worthy of filmmakers Whit Stillman, Terrence Malick or Roy Andersson. Second single Don't Want to Go Home, reworked from songwriter Henrik Balling's The Quiet Boy side project, sits particularly well here (I love, again, the odd noise at the end).

The band intend to back up this tremendous achievement with a series of live dates throughout the year. You can find links to the album and more on the band's Facebook page.

New from the BFI

Some exciting news: I've contributed a piece about Georges Simenon to the booklet accompanying a new, dual format edition of 1967 film Stranger in the House. This adaptation of the Belgian author's novel Les inconnus dans la maison (1940) by director Pierre Rouve stars James Mason alongside Geraldine Chaplin and Bobby Darin. It's been released as part of the BFI's Flipside strand - you can read more about it and order a copy here. As the image on the booklet cover declares: 'A great Simenon becomes a great film.'