Cornflower Blues 2008 - part 2

  

   

  

     Trying to pick the choicest morsels from the literary chocolate box isn't easy. How to compare the light and fluffy with the dark and bitter, the soft buttercream with the rich ganache? You can't, as it's a matter of taste and the fancy of the moment whether you're reading literary or popular fiction (though distinctions can be invidious), something for the beauty of its prose or the skill of its story-telling, a work of rigorously researched fact or one of pure imagination.

    Over the year I've read the undistinguished and the outstanding, the perfectly passable and the prize-winning, but I'm reminded of a remark made by Barbara Taylor Bradford: when asked by an interviewer whether the lack of critical acclaim for her books bothered her, she said "Not at all. You see, I have these things called readers....". If a book works - on whatever level that may be - then it ought not to be dismissed,  and I'm wary when someone says, "Oh, X can't write" as they are so often taking a short-sighted view of X's strengths and damning them for their weaknesses alone, forgetting that there's more to a book than just a finely-turned sentence.

   But preaching over, offering you the books I've enjoyed most this year (and that's not a complete overlap with the best novels I've read in 2008, but is pretty close) is what this post is about, though I have had to omit some other excellent ones to keep it to a manageable length, and choosing has been very difficult.

First, an old favourite still delighting me after countless re-reads: Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm (with which I began the year).

Rosy Thornton's Hearts and Minds was a great treat of a book (though as with so many others, its cover does it a disservice). I wrote about it here.

In the comfort read category comes Adele Geras' Hester's Story (now that cover is spot-on!).

Linda Gillard's Star Gazing is here again and deservedly so (this was its first mention).

A great hit of the summer was The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer.

It's hard to single out one book by Alexander McCall Smith as they all give so much pleasure, but I'll plump this time for The Unbearable Lightness of Scones (you can get the gist here).

The writer's vast knowledge of and passion for her subject were evident in Justine Picardie's Daphne (my thoughts are here).

Next, an impressive first novel, Inside the Whale by Jennie Rooney (more in this post). 

Another misleading cover but a first class book - Deborah Lawrenson's Songs of Blue and Gold.

Then two read by the book group: Sue Gee's The Mysteries of Glass (it got my vote, if not everyone's) and just the other day The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham (a big hit).

Congratulations if you're still reading, but I can't leave out The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams, another outstanding first novel (which I've reviewed elsewhere).

That's it for now, though who knows, I may find something to add to this lot before the year is out!