Books of 2021

Wow, where did this year go? It does not feel like it is supposed to be the last day of 2021 by at least a couple of months, but apparently, here we are.
Apart from going pretty fast, this was not a year to remember for its good qualities in many respects. But book-wise, it was a pretty good year for me. I read a whopping 32 books, which is even higher than my already pretty high score of last year. I discovered a couple of great new writers but also reread some old favourites. 

 So my full list is:

1 Daring Greatly

2 The boy, the mole, the fox and the horse

3 The Luminaries

4 Focus aan/uit

5 No Bones

6 The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

7 Thinking in systems

8 Soul Tourists

9 Wish you were here

10 Life after life

11 Klara and the sun

12 The Three Musketeers

13 Utopia Avenue

14 Here we are

15 Weather

16 The Midnight Library

17 Summer

18 Beach Read

19 The Switch

20 Such a fun age

21 The Flatshare

22 Anxious People

23 Beautiful world, where are you?

24 Public Library and other stories

25 The man in the red coat

26 Normal People

27 Expectations

28 The Eyre Affair

29 Sweet Tooth

30 Mansfield Park

31 A Man called Ove

32 The Christmas Pig

So I (almost) started and finished the year with children's books. I read The Christmas Pig, J.K.Rowling's newest, during a feverish Christmas Day, so chances are I won't remember much about it in a couple of weeks. But it is a better note to end on than last year, when illness drove me to romantic drivel.

I had a couple of rereads when I wasn't really in the mood for trying new things, mostly during October (The Eyre Affair, Sweet Tooth and Mansfield Park). Rereads from earlier in the year were The Luminaries and Life after Life, two novels I loved but didn't really fully understand the first time I read them. Upoin rereading I liked them better than before; sometimes you have to go back after a couple of years and look at such stories with fresh eyes. Normal People was a reread after I was so very disappointed in Sally Rooney's newest novel.

Again, only 1 'classic' novel in The Three Musketeers. No Dutch novels at all. But a surprising amount of non-fiction, especially in the start of the year.

Best English novel

1 Wish you were here

2 Such a fun age

3 Utopia Avenue

So many great novels to choose from! I am really spoiled for choice here. But in a stark contrast to last year; my top 3 contains just 1 female author. I read a lot of books by female writers, but apparently they were not the greatest (and at least 3 of them were romantic summer reads). For example, I immensely enjoyed Ali Smith's Summer, but it was not enough to make the top 3. Maybe if I'd reread the rest of the quartet first, but now it just felt a bit too rushed and unconnected to make the grade.

So what did I love? Wish you were here took me four years to receive and read, but of all the novels I've read this year, it is the one that still sticks out in my mind the most. The whole atmosphere of the novel, with two people so at odds with each other and with the world for all the wrong reasons... I've just reread my original review from March, and apparently the novel really grew on me after that. The same is true for Such a fun age, which I apparently didn't even write about it when I first read it. But it paints such a pointed, accurate picture of current 'woke' times and the way people interact with others; careful to be correct while at the same time doing that mostly so others will think better of them. It is one of the few very American novels I read this year, but the whole American atmosphere only improves on the story it tells. Finally, I would never have thought that David Mitchell could write a novel that would not go to the top of my list that year, but Utopia Avenue apparently does the trick. I loved it, it is certainly in my top 3, but it is not his best novel. 

Best Dutch novel

Zero Dutch novels in the entire year, and just 1 non-fiction book in Dutch (which won't make any list, but it was a nice read on how to focus).

Best non-fiction

1 Thinking in systems

2 The man in the red coat

3 Daring greatly

So I read a lot of non-fiction this year, some of which was an overflow from last year, when a December illness drove me to reading soppy romantic stuff. Thinking in systems opened my eyes on how to see things in connection with each other. I rate highly on the 'system thinking' score in personality questionnaires, so this really spoke to me. The man in the red coat is by Julian Barnes, and at first I didn't realise it was a non-fiction book about an actual person, Dr Pozzi. But being Barnes, the language reads almost like a novel. That I read most of it during an Italian holiday probably also helped with setting the atmosphere of the belle epoque. Finally, Daring greatly is Brené Brown's famous book on how to overcome your inhibitions and dare greatly. I liked her writing style and was interested in reading more, but seeing her online personality as some sort of pep guru makes me wonder if this really is the thing for me.

Best short-story collection

1 Public library and other stories

I read only the one, by Ali Smith, but it was a beautiful read. She combines stories about libraries and books with eyewitness accounts of people's connection to a specific library, now that apparently they're being closed down all over the UK.

Best scifi/fantasy

1 Klara and the sun

I think this is the only novel I could realistically put in this category, although it perhaps fits better in a new sort of 'dystopian' category (but maybe it feels that way because I'm currently reading The Every and everything connected to tech feels somewhat tainted). Apart from that, it is a beautiful, haunting novel. I must really read some more Ishiguru (as I actually said in my original review, back in April...). 

Best 'new' author

1 Frederik Backman

2 Anna Hope

Frederik Backman is a Swedish author whose novels I've read in English. Apparently they've been pretty popular for a while, with films and series made after them. I discovered him through his newest novel Anxious People, which led me to also try some of the older ones. I like his style and his insights, even though the Swedish setting does not always translate well through the English language. From Anna Hope I read her newest novel Expectations, which was so much better than Sally Rooney's new novel. I am really looking forward to reading Wake, also an older novel that sounds really good based on the description and reviews.

Most disappointing novel

1 Beautiful world, where are you?

2 Here we are

3 No bones

So the first one should be obvious from what I wrote about it before: somehow Sally Rooney's third novel is plagued by the 'second novel' effect, in my eyes at least. Here we are is not a bad novel in itself, but after reading the profound depth of Wish you were here, it fell a bit flat on its face. Graham Swift can be a bit hit and miss apparently. The same is true of No Bones; after reading Milkman my expectations for this novel were so high, that they could only be disappointed.

Authors I read more than once:

Ali Smith (2x)

Graham Swift (2x)

Sally Rooney (2x)

Frederik Backman (2x)

Wish you were here

I waited at least four years for Wish you were here by Graham Swift. At least. I ordered it from my local bookshop, which called me a couple of days later saying it was out of print, but would be reprinted in a new edition. Would I like to be added to the waiting list? I would like that. I wrote about this experience in 2017, when Swift was number two on my list of 'new' authors. At least a year later I was in said bookshop collecting another title, when I realised I'd never heard about this book again. They checked; it was still out of print. The new edition somehow never came into being. So I put the novel on my wish list for birthdays and other celebrations and forgot all about it, until last Christmas when it suddenly came to me, wrapped up and innocent as if I could have just gotten it all that time ago.

The blurb tells us that Wish you were here works towards a "fiercely suspenseful climax", which is very true, but sadly the road towards that climax takes almost as long as it took me to actually lay hands on the book. It is slow going, this story about Jack Luxton and his dealings with mad cow disease, dying parents, an absent brother, a farm in debt and a new life on a caravan park. Slow going for a novel that actually takes place in a couple of minutes, half an hour at the most. All the rest is flashbacks.

So it took a long time to get into, but when the novel finally gripped me, I was completely captivated. It would never be the sort of novel I can read in one go; too many vivid descriptions of death and destruction which have to sink down in my mind before I can read on, but the last half of it was read in a couple of days, in contrast to the first half taking at least a month. It caught me in the end.

The language is beautiful, of course. Graham Swift is one of my favourite writers in that regard. You can feel the wind and rain lashing against a window, you can feel the wood of a casket beneath your fingers. The build up and plot are good too. Its not just Jack's story, for at the moments you really need to get the point of view from one of the other characters, Swift gives you an insight into their world, which is often radically different from what Jack assumes. 

However, I didn't find Jack or Ellie or any of the other main characters sympathetic in any way. I didn't really like them, personally. Maybe because I couldn't understand why they acted the way they did, even with all their experiences and emotions laid bare. Maybe because their reality is just so far removed from my own. But even in that final, captivation climax, when you cannot rip through the pages fast enough to find out what was going to happen, a large part of me mostly wanted to know the events, I wasn't really rooting for anyone.

So overall, a beautiful novel. A bit too long, maybe, with 430 pages in my edition. The pace could have picked up a bit sooner, the characters may have been a bit more accessible. But these are minor flaws in an otherwise great novel, with which I've officially 'rediscovered' Graham Swift, four years later than anticipated, as a great British author. Let's hope it doesn't take another four years until I read his next novel.

Books of 2017

Another year in books has flown by. After my book challenge in 2015, I've been keeping lists of all the books I read through 2016 and this year. As in previous years, I'm always surprised to find which books I read not even half a year ago; amazing how quickly you forget when it was that you read something. On the other hand, some novels I feel like I've just finished them while that turns out to have been more than a year ago.
No reading goals, just keeping up the numbers. I read 23 books this year, which is 2 up from last year. Mainly, I think, because I didn't tackle any big literary reads (like Anna Karenina last year) and there were some rereads, which are always faster. As always, some books have already been discussed at length, while others may have their first mention on this blog right below.

The complete list for 2017:

1 The High Mountains of Portugal
2 The Sellout
3 Juliet, naked
4 Black Swan Green
5 The Outrun
6 Last Orders
7 The Handmaid's Tale
8 How to be good
9 The Jane Austen book club
10 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
11 Hag-Seed
12 The Joy Luck Club
13 England and other stories
14 Mijn Meneer
15 The Light Years
16 The North Water
17 Marking Time
18 Here I am
19 Confusion
20 The Best of Adam Sharp
21 Cloud Atlas
22 Exit West
23 Casting Off

So, five rereads; Juliet, naked, Black Swan Green, The Jane Austen bookclub, Harry Potter, and Cloud Atlas, two of which are by the ever-popular David Mitchell. The Joy Fowler and JK Rowling were because there was a bit in the summer where I wanted to read but not invest actual brainpower into the reading, so I went back to some really easy rereads. Only one Dutch book, which is also the only non-fiction title on the list (although it is partly fictionalized, it is the autobiographical account of Ted van Lieshout's youth). Technically only one short story collection (England and other stories), although one could count The Joy Luck Club as short stories (I read one of the chapters as a 'separate' short story during my studies). No classics at all. I was going to say 'no Americans' until I realised both The Sellout and Here I Am are written by Americans; somehow they both disappeared from my mind pretty quickly. No new novels by Ian McEwan, or David Mitchell, or any of my other popular authors, simply because there weren't any. Actually, now that I think of it: no Ian McEwan at all this year. After the triple McEwan there may have been a slight overdose, but still; this must be the first time in about 10 years that I read no novel by Ian McEwan for a whole year. This will surely be rectified in 2018.

Let's break the novels that I did read down into some lists:

Best English novel
1 Exit West
2 Last Orders
3 The Handmaid's Tale
A difficult choice this year! Exit West is clearly the winner; another Mohsin Hamid novel that I dearly loved. It is a very contemporary novel, featuring a couple from a unspecified Middle Eastern country fleeing through one of the mysterious doors that keep opening up all over the world, leading to other places. It is both mystical and very realistic, and I'm sad it didn't make Man Booker this year, as it would have been a deserved winner (I've just started reading the novel that did win, and Exit West would beat it with its hands tied behind its back at this point). Do read something by Hamid!
Last Orders is Graham Swift's Man Booker 1996 winning novel, which gave me the combined emotions of a WWII novel and The Full Monty, with it's 'band of brothers'-like bantering and the emotions simmering under a surface of beer and beautiful language. Same goes for The Handmaid's Tale; it's old, it's great, I've written all you need to know when I read it. Funnily enough, both Last Orders and The Handmaid's Tale could count as my 'classics' this year; they are both over 20 years old, and still very current.

Best Dutch novel/classics
Non-existent this year. Strange, as I did get lots of new novels, and have a pretty long backlog in both these categories. They must never have been at the top of the to-read list.

Best non-fiction/best short story collection
Only one novel in each of these categories this year, so not really lists to speak of.

Best fantasy/scifi novel
1 Exit West
2 The Handmaid's Tale
3 The High Mountains of Portugal
Not a lot of these to go around either, but I would of course have put in Cloud Atlas and Black Swan Green if they hadn't been rereads. Two of these also feature in my Best English novel list, but The High Mountains of Portual deserves special mention. Yann Martel, like Mohsin Hamid and David Mitchell, can capture you with a world that is very much like ours, but than turns out to be slightly unlike ours in a magical way, and your suspension of disbelief just goes with that until you find yourself in their made-up world still fully believing that these things could really happen here and now. Realistic fantasy, a true escape into literature.

Best 'new' author
1 Elizabeth Jane Howard
2 Graham Swift
3 Margaret Atwood
Only Elizabeth Jane Howard is really a 'new' author for 2017, and I've written enough about her novels in my previous blog post. But Graham Swift and Margaret Atwood are some of my recent discoveries of whom I want to read more. I'd read my first novel by Swift, Mothering Sunday, as one of my last novels in 2016 and this year I continued with Last Orders and his short-story collection England and other stories. I'd have wanted Wish you were here on the list as well, but it went into reprint just as I ordered it, so that will have to go for 2018 (when I wrote about Last Orders in March it had also disappeared from view in the bookshop, so I'll have to look into that...). Margaret Atwood is not really a 'new' author for me, as I read Oryx & Crake during my English studies, but she is one of the authors I've put on my 'must read more' list. This year I read The Handmaid's Tale and Hag-seed, both of which are great in their own way. I got The Heart goes Last a couple of weeks ago, so she will also feature in the 2018 list.

Most disappointing novel
1 How to be good
2 The Sellout
3 The Outrun
(4 The Best of Adam Sharp)
Wow, this was really the easiest category to fill this year. Not a good sign. I was looking forward to How to be good, one of the few Hornby novels I'd never read, but it was thoroughly disappointing. Moralistic, full of angry relationship issues, with a wavering plot and unlikeable characters. The Sellout was the Man Booker winner of 2016, so naturally I read it, but I didn't like it at all. It is supposed to be a funny social commentary on contemporary America, but I can't remember finding any bit of it funny. The main character struck me as pathetic, his backstory was unbelievable and the plot even more so. The Outrun appeared to be good at first; girl returns to small town Orkney life after her big-city London life blows up in her face, but in the end it didn't really go anywhere, the character didn't come to life for me as in so many of these 'woman retreats to find herself' novels. Special mention for The Best of Adam Sharp, again a novel by Graeme Simpsion that disappointed. It felt like a slight do-over of The Rosie Project, with some High Fidelity elements thrown in. He really turned out only one good novel, his first, and I will now stop reading whatever else he writes until the recommendations tell me it really is too great to miss.

Authors I read more than once
- Elizabeth Jane Howard (4x)
- Margaret Atwood (2x)
- Graham Swift (2x)
- Nick Hornby (2x, one reread and one new)
- David Mitchell (2x, both rereads)

Books to go

A couple of months ago, I read an interview (I can't remember with who, or where) that has been haunting me ever since. It was with someone aged around 60, who had decided to only read new books, and about once or twice a year reread a book that he already knew he loved. Because, as he reasoned, he read only about 20 books per year, and as he had only about 20 more years to live (at least, that was the number he was aiming for) that made a grand total of 400 books left to read in his entire lifetime. He felt sorry that he hadn't read more great novels when he had the time (in his teens, twenties, and generally before he had a job or children) and now he wanted to make every book worthwhile.
Imagine that! I mean, it is a noble idea, of course, and great planning on his side, but the whole depressing thought of knowing how many books you're still going to read in your life, basically means saying 'no' to a lot of books, and closing the door on so many reading experiences. And when you read a new novel that you absolutely love, you automatically go 'aw, but I won't ever read you again, because I don't have enough slots left for rereads!' Horrible thought.

But still, the man had a point. I mean, my situation is not nearly as dire, as I am only 31, read 40 books per year, so with his projected life expectancy I would still have 2000 books to go, but I too have spent time reading novels I didn't enjoy, didn't think were going anywhere, or just read out of politeness to the person who lend it to me. I am terrible at not finishing a novel; once I've started, I feel like I am committed to finish it, no matter how awful I think it is. (Non-fiction is different, by the way, I have about 10 non-fiction books laying around with bookmarks stuck somewhere in the first 50 pages that I'm not sure I will ever finish.) But all those non-enjoyable books take up a lot of time. Even more time than the good ones, respectively, because I automatically read less when I don't like what I'm reading, so it takes more time to finish them.
So, time for a change.
In 2015, I gave myself the challenge of reading 52 books, and of only reading books I hadn't read before. I didn't make the number, but I did read all new novels. This is a great idea in principle, but some of those novels I did not enjoy. Still, I kept reading, to reach my goal. New rule from now one: if I don't like a novel, or feel myself avoiding reading, I will stop reading that novel and start something else.
Next up; rereads. I like rereads, especially during busy periods when my mind is too distracted to dive into a complex new novel; rereads are like a familiar warm bath that relax my brain and don't care if I miss out on some smaller details because I already know the main plot. During the renovation and move, I read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, for example. Which is great, but too many rereads get in the way of new novels. So; rereads are only allowed when needed.
Finally, I have several authors who are my absolute favourite and whose every new novel that comes out I read immediately. Examples include Ian McEwan and David Mitchell. There are also some authors who would probably make it onto that all-time-favourite-have-read-everything-will-read-every-new-novel-that-comes-out list, but who I keep forgetting about, until I by accident read another one of their novels, go 'this author is great, I should read more by them!' and then forget about them again. Examples include Margaret Atwood and Graham Swift. So, third new rule; read more novels by potential to-love authors.

As always with literature, I will probably break any rule I make within half a year, but they do give me some comfort with the depressing 'the end is neigh!' feelings I have been walking around with for a while. And if you'll excuse me, I will now get back to my John le Carré, a novel that I felt was sagging a bit in the middle, but did not put down, for, er... reasons.

Last Orders

As I am a big fan of Man Booker Prize winners, and discovered I really liked the writing of Graham Swift (I was sure I'd written a blog post about Mothering Sunday, but it turns out I only mentioned that novel in my 'Books of 2016' list, where it came second), reading Last Orders, the novel that won Swift the Man Booker in 1996 seemed like the most logical next step. It took me a while to get it, because apparently the Groningen book shop is not that big on Swift (I've been waiting for Wish you were here to come in for about 3 weeks now). But there it was at last, pint glass featured prominently on the cover. I'd already read somewhere that the Booker win was a bit controversial, as Swift seemed to have borrowed the main plot line from William Faulkner, but since I've never read As I Lay Dying (although now I want to), this didn't really bother me too much.

So, Last Orders. It's about beer, a lot of it, but it's mostly about men. Their relationships (friendships, fathers and sons, wives), their professions, their lives, their pastimes. The main plot takes place in one day, as Ray, Lenny, Vince and Vic drive from London to Margate to scatter the ashes of their friend and father; Jack. During the drive, each of them has a series of flashbacks to earlier events, mostly concerning the other three, Jack, their children, or their wives. It is as if Jack's death has brought upon them the need to take score of their lives, to see what life (and Jack) has brought them.
Now the perspective screwed me up a bit in the beginning. Some chapters are titled after the point of view character (Ray, Vince, Mandy), and some are named after the location the group is in. But all of those 'location' chapters are also voiced by Ray. It took me a while to figure that out, also because I tend to remember characters by the first letter of their name, and I kept mixing up Vic and Vince (same thing that happened with Jude and JB in A Little Life). Because of this, it took me a while to get into the novel. However, it feels as if Swift was prepared for that, because the relationships are confusing in the beginning, but gradually become clearer and clearer as we get to know the characters, their stories, and their relationships better. And there is a lot to know.
This is a very heavy, multi-layered novel, although it doesn't feel that way when you read it. However, I felt not everything was developed to the fullest. There are some interesting parallels; Jack the butcher and Vic the undertaker, both 'used to handling bodies', who have their shops on opposing sides of the same street. But this is merely a statement, something said in passing, but not taken any further. The same is true for all the children Jack seems to 'adopt' in his life; Vince is his true adoptive son, but he adopted Ray during WWII, and Lenny's daughter Sally in her childhood. But the connections between these people, or what they meant to Jack, are never really worked out. We get glimpses, and other characters' thoughts on it, but that's that.

Nevertheless, it is a great novel to read. The plot is pretty predictable, but that is not what such a novel is about. It's about the language, the hidden meanings, the short chapters in between that throw a whole different light on a scene, a person, or a memory. The whole story can tilt or shift with just one sentence. However, compared to Mothering Sunday, Swift had not fully developed the style of writing that I loved so much in the latter novel. This felt familiar, as Ian McEwan won the Man Booker with Amsterdam in 1998, which is also great, but no where near his masterpieces Atonement and Saturday in style and plot and nuance (I know I keep blabbing on about McEwan, but he just happens to be my favourite author). So in a way, this felt like discovering the roots of Swifts writing style, and I will now try to follow his development through to his last novel. That is, if the book shop decides to cooperate.

Books of 2016

In 2015, I set myself the goal of reading one book a week, or 52 books in a year. As you may remember, I failed at that, but still managed to read 41 books in total. The catch was that I could only read books I'd never read before, which put both a strain on my finance, and made me ache for some the books I wanted to reread, but wasn't allowed to. And also, I didn't really have the time to finish a book each week, with the size of the novels I was reading (The discovery of heaven just takes a couple of weeks, at best).
This year, I did not set myself any reading goals, but I did keep track of ever book I read. Just a short list at the back of my agenda, which worked well for me in 2015, and again so this year. I think this is a habit I will keep, as it is nice to see how much you've read, but also which novels. On one of the first days of this year, I made some lists about what I'd read in 2015, and as I'm pretty sure I won't finish any books in 2016 anymore, I will now do the same for this year.
In total, I read 21 books, which feels about right for a 'normal' year in which I wasn't trying to push any particular number. Looking back on the list I had some "wow, did I read that this year?" moments, for books which feel like they've been inhabitants of my bookcases for years. Other books I'd simply completely forgotten about. and some I will never forget about. Some I've written about extensively, others I've apparently never mentioned here.

This is the complete list for 2016:

1 Grief is the thing with feathers
2 The Art of Asking
3 Bonita Avenue
4 A God in Ruins
5 Pluche
6 As in tas
7 De verwarde cavia
8 Anna Karenina
9 Me before you
10 The Martian
11 Slade House
12 In the light of what we know
13 Magnus
14 A little life
15 After you
16 Northern lights
17 On Chesil Beach
18 Amsterdam
19 The buried giant
20 Mothering Sunday
21 Nutshell

Some differences from 2015: there are two rereads in this list (both by Ian McEwan), and there are more Dutch books, relatively speaking. Only three non-fiction books. Fewer classics.
So, to destill some lists (of just the newly read books):

Best English novel
1 A God in Ruins
2 Mothering Sunday
3 Nutshell
This was a difficult one. I read a lot of great books this year, and one would probably expect the much-praised A little life or In the light of what we know to be in this list too. However, this year has confirmed for me that I love two things in novels: small, intimate plots, and what we shall call 'literary' language. This explains for Mothering Sunday and Nutshell, which are both very small, very literarily written (yes, that is a word), and take place in the space of a single day or a single womb. And A God in Ruins (can you believe I'd actually forgotten I read that book this year?) is just beautiful. Kate Atkinson previously wrote Life after life, which was great too, but this (sort of) sequel is even beter. I cried when I finished it, probably the only book I cried about apart from Slade House (and Me before you, if I'm to believe what I've written before). I'd never expected two 'new' authors to jump ahead of my beloved Ian McEwan, but Nutshell just wasn't good enough for the competition.

Best Dutch novel
I'm supposed to put a list here, but really, I didn't like any of the Dutch novels I read this year. Bonita Avenue is hailed as some sort of magnus opus, while being a debut, but I didn't really see it. Magnus is by one of my favourite comedians, but it wasn't all that great. De verwarde cavia was just cheap. It was a sad year for Dutch literature in my list.

Best non-fiction (whichever language)
1 Pluche
2 The Art of Asking
3 As in tas
None of these were really great, but As in tas is really just cashing in on the author's father's dead, while I've written enough about what is wrong with The Art of Asking in another post. Pluche is the memoirs of one of my favourite politicians, and while not perfect, definitely the best of this lot.

Best fantasy/scifi novel
1 The Martian
2 The buried giant
3 Slade House
The Martian is definitely one of the best realistic scifi novels I've read in a long time. It is funny, dramatic, scientifically realistic, and as I'd already seen the movie, I kept picturing Matt Damon, which is pretty nice too. The buried giant is the most unlikely fantasy novel I've ever read, deeper and darker than I'd expected. I would not normally put a David Mitchell novel at the bottom of a list, but Slade House was just too short, and it felt a bit too rushed. Like he wanted to get a short novel out there before going on to one of his normally much lager ones. Let's hope we get one of those in 2017.

Most disappointing novel
1 After you
2 De verwarde cavia
3 A little life
Funny how much a book can disappoint you even when you aren't really expecting anything great from it. After you is the sequal to Me before you, and it doesn't get any more cliche. Really, don't read it. De verwarde cavia was self-published by one of my favourite comedians and non-fiction writers, so I had my hopes up, but it is really about nothing. fluff. Wasted time. I feel almost ashamed for putting A little life in this list, because it has been so acclaimed, and everybody loves it. And I loved it too, the first two-thirds of it. Then it just got too... not gruesome, although I've heard enough people say that too. It just got too lost in it's own plot. The author really wanted to complete the whole 'life', and as such threw in a lot of stuff that a good editor would have taken out again. Really, at 60% of the pages, a more condensed, focussed story would have made for a better novel. So this novel really became a disappointment as I was reading it, and if it hadn't been for the final 200 pages, this book would be at the top of my "Best English novels" list. Funnily enough, when I wrote about it earlier, I was far more positive about this novel, so apparently my opinion changed radically in hindsight.

And finally, because I put it in last year:

Authors I read more than once
- Ian McEwan (3x)
- Jojo Moyes (2x)
Like last year, one of my favourite authors is the most-read one (last year it was David Mitchell and Dave Nicholls). I could do a McEwan top 3 (On Chesil Beach, Nutshell, Amsterdam) but really, who does that sort of thing?