My Books of 2016

First off may I express my gratitude to those who support my endeavours to spread the book love. Thank you to the publishers who provide me with the majority of books I review. Thank you to the wider book community, particularly my fellow bloggers, who so generously and enthusiastically share and retweet my posts. Thank you to my readers – some 30,000 of you this year – I hope that you have enjoyed and found value in my words. Thank you to the authors who enrich our lives with their art.

I write my reviews immediately after finishing each book that I may capture how it made me feel. In selecting this list of favourites from the 170 or so titles that I read and reviewed in 2016 I am choosing based on lingering impressions – the books that stayed in my head. I have not provided summaries here but if you click on the title you may open my review.

It has been a good year for readers, which is perhaps just as well given all that has gone down in the wider world. I felt somewhat ruthless whittling my list down to just these few when there were so many others that I enjoyed. Each of these titles went deeper than simple pleasure, valuable though this is. The writing and stories burrowed inside and have remained.

In no particular order, my fiction Top 11:

• Little Egypt by Lesley Glaister  (Salt Publishing)
• Feeding Time by Adam Biles  (Galley Beggar Press)
• Untouchable Things by Tara Guha  (Legend Press)
• Her Father’s Daughter by Marie Sizun (translated by Adriana Hunter)  (Peirene Press)
• The Black Country by Kerry Hadley-Pryce  (Salt Publishing)
• The Many by Wyl Menmuir  (Salt Publishing)
• Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (translated by Nancy Forest-Flier)  (Hodder and Stoughton)
• The Children’s Home by Charles Lambert  (Aardvark Bureau)
• The Bird Tribunal by by Agnes Ravatn (translated by Rosie Hedger)  (Orenda Books)
• The Nix by Nathan Hill  (Picador)
• Epiphany Jones by Michael Grothaus  (Orenda Books)

Non Fiction:

• Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari  (Harvill Secker)

And just for fun, what every coffee table needs…

• Spoon’s Carpets by Kit Caless  (Square Peg)

Please remember, should you choose to buy any of their books, it helps the small publishers if you order from them direct.

I wish you all a peaceful and happy 2017 enhanced by much good reading – sláinte.