10) My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite Well this was quite a gear-change from anything else this year. I described it to my wife Katie as like a Netflix crime series spliced up for the millennial generation and repackaged into chapters. It is dark, darkly funny, funnily disturbing and disturbingly dark; not necessarily… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 10: My Sister, the Serial Killer
Category: Year 4
Year 4 / Book 9: The Pesthouse
9) The Pesthouse by Jim Crace I remember finding this book somewhere shortly after I'd been prompted to read it by Ronnie Hughes in an exchange under this blog post. That tells me that I"ve been hanging on to the book for more than a year, and it was worth the wait. Crace is a… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 9: The Pesthouse
Year 4 / Book 8: The Hunting Party
8) The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley I was excited about reading this; a bit of light, crime relief after some heavier reading. The premise was good too: a bunch of posh-ish friends going away for New Year's in a secluded country house somewhere in Scotland, and then a body is found as they find… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 8: The Hunting Party
Year 4 / Book 7: Ghost Wall
7) Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss This came from the Christmas pile of gifted books, and was added to the list after reading multiple positive reviews in the 'books of the year' round-ups. And bloody hell, does this book deserve it - it's an absolutely compelling novella, which gripped me from start to frenzied finish.… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 7: Ghost Wall
Year 4 / Book 6: Poverty Safari
6) Poverty Safari by Darren McGarvey The subtitle to this book is 'understanding the anger of Britain's underclass', which gives you some sense of what its pages contain. It is a journey (a safari, perhaps) through lives in poor communities, and particularly McGarvey's own in Glasgow - in that sense it is part-memoir, part-polemic and… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 6: Poverty Safari
Year 4 / Book 5: Brothers in Blood
5) Brothers in Blood by Amer Anwar This is a fast-paced thriller in which we are introduced to Zaq Khan (and later his friend Jags), who is plunged into the middle of a family feud which escalates rapidly into a tale that is darker, more violent and more complex than it first appeared. I struggled… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 5: Brothers in Blood
Year 4 / Book 4: Convenience Store Woman
4) Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata This was one of several books I got for Christmas, and I'd added it to the Santa list after reading quite a few positive reviews of it last year. And now I can see why: it's a wonderfully quirky, insightful, surprising short novel, quite unlike any books I've… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 4: Convenience Store Woman
Year 4 / Book 3: Family Life
3) Family Life by Akhil Sharma I picked this up at the local charity shop, I think having read about Akhil Sharma's A Life of Adventure & Delight (which is on the TBR pile) in some well-informed person's recommendations list at some point in the not-too-distant past. So I knew little or nothing opening the… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 3: Family Life
Year 4 / Book 2: Force of Nature
2) Force of Nature by Jane Harper I very much enjoyed Jane Harper's runaway bestseller The Dry (see my review of that from Year 2) with its tale of small-town murder in a parched, drought-ridden Australia. This follow-up, Force of Nature, finds the same policeman (Aaron Falk) working in the finance department, tracking down money… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 2: Force of Nature
Year 4 / Book 1: October
1) October by China Miéville First book of year 4 of this blog, and we were in St Petersburg for the New Year, so it felt appropriate to read a book about the Russian Revolution. In this case, a rewriting of the momentous events of the year of 1917 by Miéville, a writer best known… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 1: October
