One sentence on every book I've read so far this year

Before we get started, I wanted to share two recent rogue columns. I wrote about how I was wrong about about both time and social media. I hope you enjoy them.

Now, onto the books..

*My top 5 are asterixed. 

Sally Rooney’s ‘Beautiful World, Where Are You?’ surprised and delighted me. It’s her best book yet. (An excerpt)

I read Michaela Coel’s ‘Misfits’ in a single evening. An important perspective on art, commerce and creativity. 

‘The Missing List’ by Clare Best was clear, powerful, important and at times, triggering. 

Felt hungry reading Michelle Zauner’s ‘Crying in H Mart’. It’s about korean food, the death of her mother and finding your way as an artist. (This interview with her is also great and here’s an excerpt.)

Read Katie Kiamura’s ‘Intimacies’ because it was the NYT’s best book of 2021. I was not disappointed. A beautifully crafted and evocative, if simple story. 

I’m so glad Tarana Burke got to write her own story. I can’t remember which podcast interview it was where she talked about publishers wanting her to have a ghostwriter. ‘Unbound’ shines through her unique POV. 

Read Maggie Smith’s ‘Goldenrod’ on a sunny Saturday morning on my couch. Beautiful collection, several poems are still knocking around my brain. 

Claire Keegan’s ‘Small Things Like This’ featured strongly on this list. I devoured it in one sitting on a lazy weekend morning in bed. 

‘Ten Thousand Hours’ by Oliver Burkeman made such a big impression that I wrote a column on it and my relationship with time.*

Then began my Melissa Febos season. I read ‘Girlhood’, ‘Abandon Me’ and ‘Body Work’ in quick succession, though not without allowing my brain to rest on something a little lighter. Febos is a master craftswoman. 

Emily Gould and Jia Tolentino both raved about ‘The Life of the Mind’ by Christine Smallwood. I liked it, but it didn’t live up to that high bar. 

I love how poet and essayist Claudia Rankine structures her work. An excerpt of ‘Just Us’ ran in the NYT under the headline ‘I wanted to know what white men thought about their privilege. So i asked.’ Got a lot from this book. 

Sophie White’s ‘Corpsing’ was a rich and vivid story about the horrors of the female body. As always, Tramp Press delivers. 

Brené Brown’s ‘Atlas of the Heart’ was encyclopedic and precise.

Natasha Brown’s ‘Assembly’ is short but hard hitting. If you want a quick read this summer, this is my recommendation. 

And so begins the series of books I read when I was sick.

I read 2 books about colours: Maggie Nelson’s ‘Bluets’ and Han Kang’s ‘The White Book’. ‘Bluets’ is a wide-ranging examination of the colour blue filtered through the lens of Nelson’s amazing mind. ‘The White Book’ is a structurally innovative take on grief and how life unfolds in its shadow. 

Downloaded ‘Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage’ after listening to this interview with Heather Havrilesky. It’s a memoir of her marriage in all its gritty complexity. Loved it. *

Vivian Gornick’s ‘The Situation and the Story’ wasn’t for me. It’s a book of literary analysis more than a book about writing. I found it needlessly dense and much too rigid. 

Chloe Caldwell’s ‘The Red Parts’ is about PMDD, falling in love and the hormonal roller coaster of women’s lives. Read it in one sitting. 

Read Pandemonium after enjoying this excerpt in the Irish Times. 

Patrick Freyne’s ‘OK, Let’s do your Stupid Idea’ is funny, nostalgic and occasionally poignant. 

By June, I was finally feeling better and two of my favourite books of the year. 

Stephanie Foo’s ‘What My Bones Know’ meant a lot to me. What a beautiful cover too. (An excerpt.) *

Kathryn Schultz’s ‘Lost & Found’ is a memoir of her father’s death and her experience falling in love with her wife. It’s about etymology, inter-generational stories and what it means to lose and find things. (An excerpt) *

I avoided reading Eve Ensler’s ‘The Apology’ for years, but am glad I finally have. It’s a worthwhile book even if I found it deeply unsettling in a lot of ways. 

Sinead O Conner’s ‘Rememberings’ is the best of what rock autobiographies should be. 

On holidays, I read four books. 

“I’m not a violent person,” I said to my girlfriend midway through reading Andreas Malm’s ‘How to Blow up a Pipeline’.

Devoured Lisa Taddeo’s dark and gripping ‘Animal’ on the beaches of Naxos. I rarely read a thriller but this captured me. (Though I also agreed with a lot of this review.)

Read Patti Smith’s ‘Just Kids’ by the pool in Santorini waiting for a flight. Exquisitely well written but too cool for me. 

Finished ‘Homegoing’ by Yaa Ghasi on the plane home. A towering achievement.*

I DNFed Susan Choi’s An Education and ‘Jews Don’t Count’ by David Baddiel.