Blog:

Well, friends, it’s been a month. In the last post I said I’d read a lot – over 50 books – and that’s the case for March and April too, where I read 45 books. For January and February, this high number was due to a lot of travelling, and of course now it’s because of the exact opposite!

I’ve been doing a lot of comfort reading, and I’m also finding it hard to concentrate. So one thing that links all these books is that they’re compelling, though all for different reasons. All took me away from reality, which was exactly what I needed. If you also need a bit of immersive escapism, I hope these help:

The Emma Press Anthology of Love, various poets – I had a truly blissful morning, sitting on the windowsill with the sun shining on me, reading these poems aloud to my wife as she built a window-box for succulents. So many beautiful, funny, affecting poems.

Believe Me, J.P. Delaney –  This was such brilliant silly fun! The setup was a big draw for me: aspiring actress turned honey trapper turned undercover forensic psychologist. Exactly the escapism I needed.

The Temple House Vanishing, Rachel Donohue – Shades of Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Virgin Suicides, as it’s dark and dreamy and all about the murky inner lives of teenage girls.

The Deep, Alma Katsu – This novel has ships, a doomed queer romance, and creepy sea myths – all my favourite things! 

Goldilocks, Laura Lam – A hopeful space adventure. Laura Lam never gets it wrong, and this is her best yet.

Two Eerie Tales of Suspense, Paul Torday – It’s hard to describe exactly what I like about Paul Torday’s books. They’re so strange, and yet so familiar. I really enjoyed this, and immediately went and bought his novel The Girl on the Landing.

 

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What are the best books you’ve read recently?

I’ve read a lot of books so far this year – over 50, mostly due to travelling, being stuck in bed with a cold, and finishing up a lot of books I’d half-read last year. However, this list is a little shorter than usual, with only eight books I want to mention. Perhaps reading so much really highlighted the exceptional ones – or maybe it’s that I read too much, too fast, and the usual grammar of fiction began to grate, so only the most strange and beautiful stood out. Whatever the case, I’ve read a lot of good books lately, and here are the best.

The fiction below is all curious, dark, brutal, fantastical – and all by women writers. The non-fiction is clear-eyed and mind-expanding, with a depth that went far beyond their short page-counts.

Read on for the 8 best books I’ve read recently:

You Let Me In, Camilla Bruce – A glorious, pitch-black fairy tale of a book. Lush, strange and defiant. As soon as I finished it, I went straight back to the start and read it again.

Dark Tales, Shirley Jackson – I bow to the queen.

She Would Be King, Wayétu Moore – A magical-realist imagining of Liberia’s early years. Like nothing else I’ve ever read.

The Memory Police, Yoko Ogawa & Stephen Snyder (translator) – Beautiful, scary, sad, thoughtful. I’ve thought about it every day since finishing it.

Wilder Girls, Rory Power – Teenage girls at an island boarding school turn into half-animal creatures. It’s also a love story. More please.

Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage, Dani Shapiro – I don’t read much memoir, but I’m very glad I picked this one up. It’s tender and thoughtful; the sort of thing that can only come from many years of deep work and observation.

I’m Afraid of Men, Vivek Shraya – A slim but explosive book about masculinity and heteronormativity, and the way that they damage all of us.

The Science of Storytelling, Will Storr – Writers: you need this.

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What are the best books you’ve read recently?

What a year of reading! I’ve read some truly excellent, immersive, strange fiction. Some sexy, witchy, chant-worthy poetry. Some challenging and confronting non-fiction. Some unexpected and beautiful graphic novels. It’s been a great year of reading, and I can’t wait to see what fantastical worlds and delicious prose 2020 brings!

In total I read 237 books in 2019. Compared to last year, I read about the same amount of short story collections (31), poetry collections/pamphlets (12), graphic novels (23) and young adult/kids’ books (50). But I read a lot more novels/novellas (91, compared to only 63 last year) and a lot less non-fiction (30, compared to 85 last year). This is because last year I was researching a novel, so I read a lot (like, really a lot) of books about witches, the middle ages, northern myth, etc. I’ve been writing hard on that this year, so expect that in… late 2021 maybe? Writing is slow. This year I got to read a lot more for fun, and I also leaned into genre, reading types of books I don’t often pick up, like harder sci-fi, Mills & Boon romances, and translated graphic novels, all of which lead to some wonderful surprises.

In no particular order, here is my Top 40 of the year:

Books out in 2019:

Best Weird, Dark, Witchy Poems That I Want to Tattoo on My Heart: Witch, Rebecca Tamás

Best Queer Epistolary Spec-Fic Novella About Two Ungendered People Time-Travelling and Falling in Doomed Love: This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone

Best Impossible-to-Adequately Describe Book Featuring a Maybe Alien Maybe Sea-Witch: From the Wreck, Jane Rawson

Best Book About People Doing Terrible Things for Good Reasons and Good Things for Terrible Reasons: The Fire Starters, Jan Carson

Best Novella About Space That I Loved Even Though I Thought I Didn’t Like Books About Space: To Be Taught, If Fortunate, Becky Chambers

Best Book Where a Teenage Girl Feeds Bones to an Owl in the Wallpaper: Other Words For Smoke, Sarah Maria Griffin

Best Debate-Worthy Crime Novel: Take It Back, Kia Abdullah

Best Beautifully-Observed Book About Adolescent Girls in a Dysfunctional, Confined Setting: Oligarchy, Scarlett Thomas

Best Short Stories That Articulate the Feeling of Having a Nightmare: Mouthful of Birds, Samanta Schweblin, Megan McDowell (translator)

Best Queer YA Novel That Seems to Be a Love Story But is Really About Loving Yourself: Last Bus to Everland, Sophie Cameron

Best Book That Leans Right into a Weird Premise With Excellent Results: Jelly, Clare Rees

Best Poetry Collection About Feminism, Fairytales and the Body: The Girl Aquarium, Jen Campbell

Best Feminist, Sex-Positive Poetry Collection Inspired by Tarot: Fool’s Journey, Jane Flett

Best Graphic Novel About Murderous Teenage Girls Who Turn into Wild Cats: Man-Eaters #1, Chelsea Cain, Kate Niemczyk (illustrator) , Lia Miternique (illustrator)

Best Super-Cute, Super-Queer Graphic Novel: Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me, Mariko Tamaki, Rosemary Valero-O’Connell (illustrations)

Best Beautifully-Illustrated Book About Female Horror Writers: Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction, Lisa Kröger & Melanie R. Anderson

Best-Worst Book for Claustrophobes: Underground: A Human History of the Worlds Beneath Our Feet, Will Hunt

Best Book That Answered a Question I Didn’t Know I Wanted to Ask: An Ode to Darkness, Sigri Sandberg, Siân Mackie (translator)

Best Book That Should Be Assigned Reading: What We Talk About When We Talk about Rape, Sohaila Abdulali

I also had quite a lot of my own writing published in 2019 – I haven’t included them as part of my top 40, but I’d like to give them a shout-out here, because I worked hard on them and I’m proud of them!

The first is Things We Say in the Dark, my fifth book, a collection of feminist horror stories. I put my whole heart into this book and I think it’s the best, rawest and strangest thing I’ve ever written. It was reviewed in all the major papers (they even said nice things), a TV option was sold to Hollywood, and stories from it were published in many places and broadcast on the radio. It’s been a joy to see it popping up on so many people’s books of the year lists. Thank you to everyone who bought it, read it, talked about it, recommended it, came to hear me read from it, or even just didn’t get sick of me waffling on about it.

I was a part of a few brilliant anthologies and magazines this year – the editors all did brilliant work, and it was an honour to be published alongside so many talented writers.

Best Audio-Only Feminist Retellings of Fairytales: Hag, edited by Thomas Curry & Harriet Poland (contains my story ‘Between Sea and Sky’, about a forensic archaeologist who gives birth to a half-selkie baby while investigating old burials in a small town)

Best LGBTQ+ Anthology: We Were Always Here, edited by Michael Lee Richardson & Ryan Vance (contains my story ‘Stranger Blood is Sweeter’, about an all-female fight club)

Best Anthology of Beautiful, Confronting Stories by Women Writers: Disturbing the Beast, edited by Nici West (contains my story ‘Girls Are Always Hungry When All the Men Are Bite-Size’, about a mother and daughter conducting fake seances)

Best Magazine of Weird-As-Fuck, Impossible-to-Forget Stories: Extra Teeth #1, edited by Heather Parry & Jules Danskin (contains my story ‘Pig Tale’, about a woman with a cannibal fetish who lusts after an ugly butcher)

Best Scottish Gothic: Haunted Voices, edited by Rebecca Wojturska (contains my story ‘The Keep’, a modern retelling of Bluebeard narrated by ghosts)

 

Books Out Before 2019:

Best Book I Read During a Storm in Finland Before Wild-Swimming in a Lake: Moominland Midwinter, Tove Jansson

Best Book About a Woman Having an Affair with a Sea-Creature: Mrs Caliban, Rachel Ingalls

Best Funny, Gory Horror Novel About Two Women Who Work Really Damn Hard But Never Get Anywhere Because They’re Surrounded by Idiot Men: We Sold Our Souls, Grady Hendrix

Best Book About an Angry Woman From a Small Town Solving Crimes: Bonfire, Krysten Ritter

Best Lush, Bleak, Gothic Novel That Did Some Excellent Weird Stuff With the Text on the Page: Ill Will, Dan Chaon

Best Selkie Story With Prose So Delicious I Wanted to Eat It: The Blue Salt Road, Joanne M. Harris

Best Sinister, Haunting Horror That I Read in One Sitting on a Night Train: The Night Visitors, Jenn Ashworth & Richard V. Hirst

Best Dark, Strange Retellings of Fairytales That Gave Me Serious Writer-Envy: The Merry Spinster, Daniel Mallory Ortberg

Best Short Stories That Felt Like a Punch in the Jaw, in the Best Possible Way: Friday Black, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Best Short Stories Where I Had to Pause After Each Story Because They Were So Good I Forgot to Breathe While Reading: What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky, Lesley Nneka Arimah

Best Children’s Book With Hidden Depths and Surprising Resonance: Catching Teller Crow, Ambelin Kwaymullina & Ezekiel Kwaymullina

Best Unexpectedly Heartbreaking Children’s Book: Fire, Bed, and Bone, Henrietta Branford

Best Book About Miscarriage and Infertility: Waves, Ingrid Chabbert, Carole Maurel (illustrations)

Best Cute, Funny Old-Person Love Story as a Wordless Graphic Novel: A Sea of Love, Wilfrid Lupano, Grégory Panaccione (illustrator)

Best Urgent, Striking and Deeply Relatable Graphic Novel About Sexual Assault: Take It as a Compliment, Maria Stoian

Best Book That Was So Engrossing I Felt Like I Was Living Inside It: The Electric State, Simon Stålenhag

Best Book About Labyrinths But Also About Greek Myth, the English Midlands, the Colour Red, the Anatomy of the Inner Ear, the Brothers Grimm, and Forests: Red Thread: On Mazes and Labyrinths, Charlotte Higgins

Best Thoughtful, Heartbreaking True Crime Book: This House of Grief, Helen Garner

Best Rebuttal of Straight White Male Bullshit: Tori Amos’ Boys for Pele (33⅓ series), Amy Gentry

Best Book That I’ve Thought About on a Daily Basis Since I Read It: White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, Robin DiAngelo

Best Simultaneously Comforting and Challenging Book About Writing: Daemon Voices: Essays on Storytelling, Philip Pullman

What were your favourite books of 2019?

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This Autumn has been a real mish-mash of reading, with plenty of surprising and excellent books. I’ve fallen in love with glorious-prosed children’s books, sceptical non-fiction, queer graphic novels, tarot-inspired poetry and some very, very dark novels.

Read on for the 11 best books I’ve read recently:

Fire, Bed and Bone, Henrietta Branford –This is one of the most beautifully-written books I’ve ever read. As it’s aimed at children it’s brief in terms of page count, but the depth of character and complexity of theme is worth exploring for everyone.

Fool’s Journey, Jane Flett – A shiny-covered wonder. I’ve long been a fan of Jane Flett’s bold and brutal writing, and this poetry collection was one of my favourites of the year.

Desperate Characters, Paula Fox – A strange and uncomfortable read. It constantly eludes simple understanding and chucks in a bunch of dark humour just when you think it’ll slip into sincerity. I’ll be re-reading this.

Always North, Vicki Jarrett – A woman who might be a polar bear, a polar bear who might be a time traveller. This novel is just as surprising and odd as the cover image suggests.

Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction, Lisa Kröger – Will I ever tire of books about books? (Answer: no.) This one was great fun, and was a pleasant reminder of my favourite course during my English Lit undergrad, on the Female Gothic. I would have happily read this at twice the length.

An Ode to Darkness, Sigri Sandberg & Siân Mackie (Translator) – I read this in a pub in Derry with my girl Heather Parry after a Teenage Scream podcast recording, and it could not have been more perfect. It’s a thoughful, succinct book that had a huge impact on the novel I’ve writing for the past year – in fact, I’m understating it; this book made me realise what I’d been trying to say all along.

Mouthful of Birds, Samanta Schweblin – A short story collection that’s dreamy and nightmarish at the same time.

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me, Mariko Tamaki & Rosemary Valero-O’Connell – So cute! So queer!

Oligarchy, Scarlett Thomas – An intricate black jewel of a novel. Weeks later I’m still thinking about it.

Haunted Voices: An Anthology of Gothic Storytelling from Scotland, Rebecca Wojturska (editor) – Full disclaimer, I do have a story in here. But ignore that, because there’s so much to love in this book: a Lithuanian folktale about a girl outwitting the devil in a sauna, a story of shadow in the corner of your bedroom (yes, yours), and a midnight motorway urban legend that I now think about every time I’m on a nighttime road.

Strange but True: 10 of the World’s Greatest Mysteries Explained, Kathryn Hulick & Gordy Wright – This book gets straight to my sceptical, X-Files-loving heart. Also the artwork manages to be magical and spooky at the same time.

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What are the best books you’ve read recently?

It’s a bumper post of best books – not just the past two months, but the past three. And I tell you, I’ve read a LOT these past few months, and it wasn’t easy to pick the best. But I’ve tried to narrow it down, and by total coincidence we have another all-female line-up! (To be fair, two of the books are by male/female writing teams.)

Read on for the 16 best books I’ve read recently:

Take It Back, Kia Abdullah – Utterly addictive, confronting and complex. Without a doubt one of my crime books of the year.

What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky, Lesley Nneka Arimah – I read this while staying at novelist (and all-round incredible babe) Lisa O’Donnell’s house; as soon as I saw that compelling title on her shelves, I knew I had to read it. After every story in this collection I had to put the book down and take a moment to process what I’d just read; each story is that strong and affecting.

The Handmaid’s Tale: The Graphic Novel, Margaret Atwood & Renée Nault – I read this novel several years ago and I’ve also seen the TV adaptation, so I wanted to revisit the story. This graphic novel adaptation is a must-have: the artwork is beautiful and Atwood’s words are perfectly chosen. I was struck wordless several times while reading.

Insomnia, Marina Benjamin – A slim, stunning meditation on sleep (and lack of) and its meaning. Best read in those inevitable hours when it feels like all the world is dreaming except for you.

Man Eaters #1, Chelsea Cain & Kate Niemczyk –Teenage girls who become violent, uncontrollable big cats when their periods come? YES PLEASE. I love this comic book series and can’t wait for the next one.

The Fire Starters, Jan Carson – You know sometimes you finish a book and just think: WOW? The sort of book that casts a shivering, glittering spell over you? The sort you feel right in your bones? The sort you’re so consumed by that you literally can’t look away in the last chapters? This is that book.

Help Wanted, Richie Tankersley Cusick – I’ve read about 40 Point Horror books in the past few years for the podcast I co-host, Teenage Scream; but this is the first time a Point Horror has made it into a blog post! This one deserves it, though: it’s a fun thriller, and can be read alternatively as Patriarchy: The Novel.

Bury the Lede, Gaby Dunn & Claire Roe – Lovely artwork and colours, a diverse cast of characters, a complex and difficult heroine, and great LGBT and POC representation – I loved this.

This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone – You might not think you need a queer epistolary spec-fic novella about two characters called Red and Blue time-travelling and falling into doomed love. But trust me, you need this book in your life.

Moominland Midwinter, Tove Jansson – I’m just back from a fortnight’s writing residency in Sysmä, a small town in Finland, where I wild-swam in a lake, had nightly saunas, wrote 14,000 words on my novel-in-progress, and spent a few dreamy hours reading this book while a thunderstorm raged outside. And then I found out that Jansson wrote this book as a metaphor for her accepting her queer sexuality, and I loved it even more.

Catching Teller Crow, Ambelin & Ezekiel Kwaymullina – You might see the slim size of this book, or that it’s shelved in the children’s section, and think it’s lightweight. But it’s one of the most complex, affecting and intense books I’ve read in a while. I wish it was many times the length – not because it needs it, but because I want to spend longer in this world and learn more about the history and present of aboriginal people in Australia.

Ghost Wall, Sarah Moss – Wow. Just wow. I read this book in one sitting as I couldn’t tear myself away from it.

Bone China, Laura Purcell – I loved Purcell’s first novel, The Silent Companions, and didn’t think this could possibly be as tense or as creepy. Well, it is, with added watery atmosphere; and that’s all I’ll say as I don’t want to spoil the mystery. It’s horrible and I love it.

WITCH, Rebecca Tamás – One of my books of the year, without doubt. I read it over many months as I wanted to savour each poem. I wish I could tattoo it on my heart.

Sheets, Brenna Thummler – A super-cute graphic novel with gorgeous artwork and an uplifting message.

The Turn of the Key, Ruth Ware – The setting of a high-tech house in the Scottish countryside fits the themes of the book perfectly. This was a thoroughly addictive book and I read it over two nights.

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What are the best books you’ve read recently?