According to the (brilliant) goodreads, which I would heartily recommend if you enjoy tracking your reading, I have read 63 books this year. Over the last two years I’ve been a member of the site I have set myself a yearly target of 52 books; one per week the astute reader may notice… Both years I have surpassed the target, whilst at the same time finding new books and checking reviews and recommendations on other books. Being able to contrast friends’ ratings of the same book is also useful when umm-ing and ah-ing over the choice over the next book to read, or whether it’s worth buying a particular book.

Here, I have chosen the five books that I have read this year which I would recommend to anyone reading, no matter the genre of the book. I don’t think any of these books were published this year, though this is not necessarily important I don’t want people to be put off by these books being anything new. I tend to wait for books in paperback when they are cheaper and more reviewed, whilst I also have a large amount of books I am catching up with from the time I worked at Waterstone’s and liberally bought books with my discount. I do still buy books in large quantity, just generally second-hand; there are few books that I have felt the need to rush out and buy on release, and these tend to be parts of series. I’m also not going to make books i’ve re-read this year eligible for the list. Anyway, enough babbling, here are my choices and a reason why.

5. Robin Sloane, Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore

This is one of those books which I wanted to buy when I saw the title having been someone who worked in a book shop. I check out the blurb and picked it up cheaply in the kindle sales with the book not yet released in the UK and the reviews mainly positive.

The bookstore in the story, set in San Francisco and then moving to New York towards the climax, is not your typical Waterstone’s or Barnes & Noble bookstore, but one catering to a unique set of clients trying to break a secret code contained in a set of books restricted to the initiated of the society.

This was Sloane’s first novel and sometimes you can tell, particularly in terms of some of the characters being a bit too perfect for the roles they are required in or simply a little clichéd, but I would be more than likely to give whatever he writes next a go. The story is well paced and you can tell it was written by someone of a younger generation due to the convincing role technology plays through the story. I believe a brief prequel has been released filling in some of the backstory and past concerning the owner of the bookstore, Mr Penumbra himself. In short, this was a quirky, easy read, and one I would recommend checking out.

4. Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle, The Secret Race

Number four on my list, and by checking the three to come this book also wins Sports Book of the Year! I’ve become more and more interested in cycling, particularly the Tour de France, in the past five years of so. This has roughly aligned with the period British cyclists have come to the fore, but also included the return to cycling of Lance Armstrong. The appeal to me of le Tour is the endurance nature of it, and that like Test Cricket is something that you can dip in and out of over an afternoon; I can read a book or play games whilst having it on in the background, diverting my full attention to interesting passages of the race/match.

Doping has of course been intrinsically linked with cycling (and athletics) for the past few decades, with numerous big scandals such as those surrounding Festina and Balco. I had read Lance Armstrong’s book ‘It’s not about the bike’ a few years previously and expressed deep admiration for the man who has seemingly overcome cancer and become a cycling legend; as well as from the reading perspective seeming a decent chap. This book was run close by another book concerning drugs in sport, aptly athletics seeing as I have hinted towards the connection. ‘The dirtiest race in history’ by Richard Moore concerning the 1988 Olympic 100m final and the story of Ben Johnson is also very good, and unlucky to miss out to another brilliant book which explores similar topics and moral issues.

How wrong I was, and it is in this book which the real Lance is truly exposed, as we now know that not only Lance cheated, but that he coerced team mates into similar practices but also ostracised and bullied those who did not want to dope or were potential whistle-blowers. Hamilton was not innocent himself, but similarly to David Millar (who’s book ‘Racing through the dark’ is also a fantastic read), is a rider who simply felt that they could not compete cleanly due to how rife doping was in the peloton.

Hamilton’s book reads as a confession, and compared to Lance Armstrong, you feel that under it all, Hamilton is probably a stand-up guy who simply made a mistake. The book was enthralling, and one which I read in a single sitting on a rare English sunny afternoon due to me being unable to figuratively put it down. Compulsive reading which will appeal to any sports fan.

3. Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

Almost a century away from the outbreak of the First World War, and around 85 years since this book was released, yet this still remains one of the great anti-war novels. It is important to remember that although a novel, the story is heavily based on Remarque’s experiences of the war, and from my non-fiction reading on the topic rings through as a genuine telling of events but with some exaggeration and changing of names.

This book explores the true experience of war: the physical and mental exhaustion from the trials and tribulations the soldiers faced and the sheer horror they saw unfold in front of them (the part of the novel centring around the field hospital is particularly difficult to read due to the mortifying scenes the main characters experience and encounter); whilst the dislocation from civilian life and inability to truly discuss the realities of war (whether through state censorship or self censorship) with family members and people at home when on leave is one which I have also read about during the Second World War. The main character is Paul Baumer, and it his experiences at the front and at home which the novel focuses upon, and his emotions the reader empathises with.

There are also some more uplifting moments in the book as the men bond, particularly at the expense of authority figure and pre-war post-man Corporal Himmelstoss who seems more intent on having a power-trip than actually training the men and making them ready for war. The revenge which the men concoct for him is fantastic before they leave for the front, but after that the book becomes more melodramatic as the reality of war takes hold. Himmelstoss returns later in the book and gets caught in a bombardment with Baumer and his friends, and after originally dealing with the situation in a manner less dignified than a man of his rank should have, makes some amends for what he put the men through in training. In his story arch, there is a clear emphasis that like many others involved in the war, Himmelstoss was just an ordinary person dragged unwittingly into a horrifying conflict. Through the main characters, we learn that whether they lived or died, they had been robbed of something; if not their life, than their youth, their innocence, their friends, and had likely had their future compromised by what they had been through and the turbulence which followed the war, up to and after the time of which Remarque wrote the novel.

2. James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom

To call a 900+ page book concise seems oxymoronic, but to cover a topic as vast and complicated as the American Civil War, there is truly no better single volume account as this one. It is also one of those books, that although a hefty tome, is one that it is easy to fly through; McPherson expertly holds the reader’s attention with his battle descriptions and summations of the situations.

Despite being a history graduate, I had never really studied or read much into the American Civil War barring the general ideas of conflict over slavery as well as the role of Abraham Lincoln, one of the most revered characters in American history, if not the most. I would like to state that MacPherson’s blends the right mixture between historical/historiographical accuracy and depth of research with the ability to make his work approachable to those more casual readers, and even the more scholarly reader due to the length of this work.

A favourite passage from the book is this fantastically ironic one concerning one of the civil war battles: ”In an attempt to calm their [new recruit’s] fears the previous evening, two generals and a colonel had pointed out the high odds against any given man being killed in a particular battle. In the first wave of the Confederate assault the next day, all three officers were killed”.

1. Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

So we’ve come to my book of the year, and one which somehow managed to sit on my bookshelf (I say bookshelf but of course have more than one…) for multiple years without me getting around to reading it. This often happens when you buy books on impulse and then forget about older books you have bought, or perhaps buy the book but by the time you get to it you’ve moved to wanting to read about a different topic or setting.

The Book Thief is one of those books which truly moved me and contained a range of characters who I full empathised with. The main character is Liesel, a girl who has witnessed her brother’s death and burial in a snowy backwater and had to be sent into care by her mother. The story is narrated by Death, and is told from the book he has taken from Liesel which recounts her life and times with her foster-family, their guest and her times as the book thief.

After an understandable original reluctance, Liesel comes to form a close relationship with her accordion playing foster-father Hans who helps teach her to read the books she can’t resist stealing. Liesel’s friendship with Rudy Steiner, the boy who blacked-up to emulate his hero Jesse Owens in a conservative town in Nazi Germany furthers the story and Liesel’s book thieving escapades.

The narrative develops with the arrival of Max, a Jew fleeing for his life and the son of one of Han’s First World War comrades, the comrade who taught him to play the accordion and helped to save his life. Max arrives and lives in the basement, but soon comes down with a severe illness and must be moved out of the basement through the coldest periods, something which requires utmost discretion and teamwork. After some initial reluctance and fear, Liesel shares her passion for reading with Max. The relationship between the two providing some of the most heart-warming passages from the book. Max creates a book for Liesel from scratch using pilfered art-supplies which tells an allegory of the Holocaust.

I’ll go no further into the plot in case anyone reading hasn’t read the book, or wishes to watch the imminent film adaptation without spoilers, but it is a emotive story in a fascinating (to me anyway) setting, without the need to tie the end of the story up into one of those fairytale endings in which all of the characters you care about emerge in a necessarily completely happy position.

Anyway, I’ll finish with a quote from the book which to me sums up the emotive-ness of the story and almost how I felt whilst reading the book: “Somewhere, far down, there was an itch in his heart, but he made it a point not to scratch it. He was afraid of what might come leaking out.”

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