Books of the Year: 2017

I have written elsewhere about my children's books of the year, and have been reviewing more children's books than usual this year; most of my reading has been to do with the children's literature course I've been teaching, and I have enjoyed revisiting Lewis Carroll, J M Barrie, C S Lewis, J R R Tolkien, J K Rowling and others, and developing and tracing connections between them.

Here, then, are my three fiction choices for 2017:

Missing Fay by Adam Thorpe

A compelling, sensitive novel about the disappearance of a schoolgirl. Both intelligent, emotionally charged and gripping, Thorpe surely ranks as one of our best novelists. 

House of Names by Colm Toibin

Though it is difficult to turn the marbled horrors of Greek Tragedy into fiction, Toibin makes a good stab at it with this, in which Euripidean uncertainty treats the story of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra and Orestes, with shades of the Troubles in the background.

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

Gaiman's light touch imbues these icy, strange stories with new life, smooth and wry.

A book I managed to finish this year (all 1,000 pages or so of it) was Robert Tombs's magnificent The English and their History: a book which anyone with an interest in history or the way things have unfolded should read, all told in lucid, flowing prose. I've also been enjoying the Penguin Monarchs series, with a lively biography of Queen Victoria by Jane Ridley, and Tom Holland's evocative account of Athelstan. I look forward to more of these this year. 

I also recommend Bruno Bettelheim's study of fairy tales, The Uses of Enchantment, which has provided meat for much debate; and Patrick Leigh Fermor's account of his walk across Europe, A Time of Gifts, a book I have been meaning to read for years, and which I finished on New Year's eve, sitting before a fire, and about to set out on a journey.

Those of you who pay attention to my Books of the Year will remember that I have been reading Pepys for about ten years: I am still reading Pepys, though I have now got beyond the Great Fire. It's an excellent companion in the small hours: not much can be wrong with a world in which Pepys can be pleased with buying a new coat, or eating a particularly fine pie.

Literary Review Grand Poetry Prize and Tatler's Little Black Book Party

It's traditionally a sunny day on the day of the Literary Review Grand Poetry Prize (God must like books), and yesterday was no different, as hordes of ravening literary beasts descended upon Fitzroy Square for the annual luncheon.  (What's the collective word for authors? A ream? A rambling? Suggestions on a postcard please.)

Actress Samantha Bond (yup, Miss Moneypenny) sweetly read out the winning entry as authors looked on and ate the most delicious guinea fowl. I was delighted to meet my critical heroine Katherine Duncan-Jones, the august Shakespeare scholar, and to talk about family histories with Gillian Tindall. Tom Holland, the author of The Shadow of the Sword, a book about how the Koran was constructed, was there, without any bodyguards; Sarah Bradford, the royal biographer, in a red hat; explorer Sara Wheeler and many others. Alexander Waugh tickled the piano (and the guests), and gave a speech in which he remembered the 22 years of the prize. Founded by Auberon Waugh to encourage poems that rhymed, scanned and made sense - "it's had a profound effect across the world, even in China they're writing poems that rhyme and scan", the award was first given away by Alec Guinness but nobody recognised him, so they found someone more famous to do it the next year - Diana, Princess of Wales. He also recalled Peter Cook making a speech about (I think) a platinum bee.

It was a marginally different scene later in the evening at Tatler's Little Black Book party - although biographer Anne Somerset was in attendance, and memoirist Liza Campbell, though not there, is on the list. The photographers, however, were mostly interested in .... Nancy Dell'Olio, although maybe she was there by accident.

Hallowe'en Horrors

Hallowe'en encroaches. Lists are made. I thought I would put up a list (which, by pure chance, happens to consist of thirteen books) of the tomes which frightened me the most since I first began to read. Of course, I can't remember all of them: there are one or two which left a lasting impression on me, but which I don't think I'll ever find again: there was a book where a girl went on a journey with a gnome from her mantlepiece (it came alive); she went to a mountain covered in multicoloured snow, some of which was poisonous, and fought with a witch. And there was another, where a girl looked through the wrong end of a telescope and ended up on a strange, savage planet... But they will remain fragments of my memory, alas. So here is the list, in no particular order.

1. The Scarecrows by Robert Westall

This uses suspense to terrifying effect, as inanimate scarecrows encroach upon a house, perhaps possessed by the ghosts of some sinister people. It is also a brilliant psychodrama, and unsparing in its details of adolescent pain. I remember being absolutely gripped by it as a twelve year old; I gave it to a friend; he didn't like it; I thought less of the friend.

2. A Good and Happy Child by Justin Evans

A recent novel, this tale of possession I was not able to read alone. It sent me scurrying into the drawing room in the house where I was staying, panting with fright. In particular I found the idea of a 'beacon' - a soul that stood out from the others because of its propensity for possession - extremely disturbing.

3. Lord of the Flies by William Golding

What can I say: pig's head. Flies. The Beast.


4. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

A very successful pastiche, and yet also remarkably original. All the more creepy for its ambivalence.


5 & 6. The Seance by John Harwood, and The Ghost Writer by John Harwood

Australian writer Harwood is a master of the ghost story. The first, from different viewpoints, tells a Gothic story of ghostly monks, haunted suits of armour and decaying houses that has much more to it than meets the eye; the second tells of bitter family rivalries and secrets. Heavenly for winter's nights.

7. Uncle Montague’s Tales of Terror by Chris Priestley

Blackly broiling with psychological and actual fear, these tales, told from the viewpoint of snobby, cruel Edwardian children, are works of near genius.


8. A short story by Elizabeth Bowen (whose name I cannot remember)

In this tale a man on a bicycle happens upon a house, in which a woman weeps and the sound of a tennis match can be heard. But when he gets back to his friends, everything is thrown into confusion. Not so much terrifying as deeply affecting - and plausible.

9. Chocky by John Wyndham

As a child I found the idea of an alien intelligence infiltrating my head immensely scary - and yet, at the same time, I sort of wanted to be suddenly able to do maths, and paint alien landscapes, as the child in this story does.

10. Metamorphoses by Kafka

When his family throw an apple at the morphed K and it sticks under his carapace I was stiff with terror for weeks.

11. The Vampyre by Tom Holland

Read in one sitting, as a thirteen year old on a ferry from France to England. Pure escapism, and brilliant.

12. Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg

The Doppelganger is also one of the more skin-crawling ideas to have come out of folklore, and Hogg uses it with sinister panache.

13. Albion’s Dream by Roger Norman

A bit of a recherche choice: this was a children's book, a first novel, which was in my school library. I at the time was at an old-fashioned prep school; this was set in a similar place. In it the hero finds himself up against a truly sinister doctor: there's a moment at the end which is almost heart-stopping. Sadly out of print.

*LATE ADDITION* - and thank you to Suzi Feay of the Financial Times for reminding me of this:

14. The Ghost of Thomas Kemp by Penelope Lively

An incredibly eerie tale of a haunting: a ghost who can be capricious, mean and genuinely dangerous. Totally marvellous.

Oh, and while I'm here:

15. The Snow Spider by Jenny Nimmo

I think this gave me nightmares for years...