Books of the Year
A further selection of the best and worst books of the year, chosen by some of our regular contributors
Another great read of mine in 2007 won’t officially be available until early 2008 — Duncan Fallowell’s long-awaited hedonistic masterpiece about his visit to New Zealand, Going as Far as I Can (Profile, £12.99). There is no nonsense about scaling glaciers or being polite about Maoris here. Instead we have passages of pure poetry on the crumbling Edwardian-era theatres, where Larry and Viv once played, and page upon page of justifiable fury at the country’s scandalous demolition of anything architecturally distinguished. Collections of European art — the Sickerts and Matthew Smiths — are hidden in basements and are not allowed to be exhibited, as it is deemed politically incorrect to upstage Polynesian tat. New Zealand comes across as a philistine hellhole, so Fallowell shuts himself in a motel to contemplate his knackers floating in the bath instead. You assuredly didn’t get that in Bruce Chatwin.
Thirdly, I relished Anne Fadiman’s At Large and At Small, a collection of whimsical essays, on butterfly collecting or the nature of ice cream, beautifully produced by Penguin (£12.99).
Charlotte Moore
Three fine and subtle novels, all concerned in different ways with the emotional aftermath of the second world war, were Thomas Keneally’s The Widow And Her Hero (Sceptre, £16.99), Penelope Lively’s Consequences (Fig Tree, £16.99) and Alan Judd’s Dancing With Eva (Simon & Schuster, £8.99).
The most striking memoir I read this year was Miranda Seymour’s absorbing, chilling account of life in the grip of her father’s obsessive delusions of grandeur — In My Father’s House (Simon & Schuster, £14.99)
Most enjoyable poetry of the year was Simon Armitage’s robust reworking of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Faber, £12.99).
Best discovery from the past was Independent People by Haldor Laxness, Iceland’s equivalent of Thomas Hardy. It’s a magnificent epic about a crofter family in the early 20th century, when life was so harsh that the sight of a dandelion was a cause for celebration (Harvill, £8.99).
D. J. Taylor
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M. R. D. FootChurchill’s Wizards, by Nicholas Rankin
Back to simplicity
Colin AmeryMlinaric on Decorating, by Mirabel Cecil and David Mlinaric
Of cabbages and kings
Jonathan BateGardens: An Essay on the Human Condition, by Robert Pogue Harrison
The end of old Labour
Alan WatkinsDowning Street Diary: With James Callaghan in No.10, by Bernard Donoughue
The pragmatic approach
Jonathan Sumption‘The Half’ is how actors refer to the half hour before their play begins, when they ready themselves, steady themselves, for their performance.
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Joe Mahoney
November 23rd, 2007 6:29pmYou have some good books I would like to read them all if I only had the time.