A thread on some of the books that I enjoyed most this year. I did not find it as easy as usual to lose myself in a book this year, so special kudos to those that captured and enraptured me... 1/13

Edith’s Diary – Patricia Highsmith. Brilliant, chilling novel about a woman who balances the awfulness of real life by gradually fictionalising her diary. 2/13

The Order of the Day – Eric Vuillard. I’m still thinking about this book, which I read back in February. A series of fictionalised vignettes about key moments in the run-up to the Second World War, it’s fascinating, infuriating and ultimately devastating. 3/13

House of Glass – @HadleyFreeman. Hugely moving family history - never predictable, and always fascinating. 4/13

Findings @KathleenJamie A Neolithic tomb, a nest of peregrines, the Edinburgh skyline, a medical museum – these are essays like gusts of sea air, invigorating and life-enhancing. 5/13

A Start in Life – Anita Brookner. Anita’s first book, and an absolute corker – a funny, sad, desperate and succinct story of a young woman entrapped by truly awful parents. 6/13

Ghostland, by @edward_parnell – both a journey through landscapes that have inspired writers of the supernatural, and a memoir of a lost family, this manages to be both enormously sad and hugely entertaining. 7/13

The Fancy – Monica Dickens. A book of small things and small people: munitions workers during World War Two run a rabbit club. That’s literally the central premise of this novel, and yet I couldn’t put it down. A wonderful snapshot of a lost world. 8/13

Rewild Yourself – @simonbarneswild. A lovely, practical yet somehow magical book about how to get closer to nature. It contains an unexpected, yet deserved eulogy to waterproof trousers. 9/13

One Fine Day – Mollie Panter-Downes. Set on a single day, just after the war, this is a wonderful meditation on a changing world. It’s a bit like Mrs Dalloway, only readable. 10/13

Some Kids I Taught and What they Taught Me by @KateClanchy1 Perceptive, gripping, passionate, angry, witty, inspiring, informative, joyful – just go out and buy it. 11/13

House of Correction – @FrenchNicci. A knockout courtroom drama with a unique twist. A brick of a book that I read in a single day. 12/13

The Cazalet Chronicles – Elizabeth Jane Howard. A family saga, resolutely non-soppy and anti-romantic and steeped in domestic detail. I tentatively read the first chapter of the first book and then devoured the rest… 13/13