Best books of 2013

Holidays are a good time to read, relax and laze about, but still, time is limited. So I am making a list for you of the best books I have read in 2013. This year I have read over 90 books, an all time high. Not all were good, not all memorable but the following are definitively worth reading. Happy holidays. Aluminé

The Roundhouse by Louise Erdrich
Paint your Wife by Lloyd Jones
Mr Rosenblum's List by Natasha Solomons
The Sense of an ending by Julian Barnes
Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris
The cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
Serena by Ron Rash
The Cove by Ron Rash
How to stop a heart from beating by Jackie Ballantyne
One foot in Eden by Ron Rash
My Own country by Abraham Verghese
The Tennis Partner by Abraham Verghese
Infidel by Aayan Ali
On The Map by Simon Garfield
Blow on a Dead man's embers by Mari Strachan
Olivier and Parrot in America by Peter Carey
A History of food in 100 recipes by William Sitwell
Mortal Fire by Elizabeth Knox
The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult
Skylark by Jenny Patrick
The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel
Lottery by Patricia Woods
Navigation by Joy Cowley
The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman
The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
Love Wins by Rob Bell
The Other side of the bridge by Mary Lawson
Divergent by Veronica Roth
The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng
And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
Cutting for stone by Abraham Verghese
Can it, bottle it, smoke it by Karen Solomon
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Wake by Elizabeth Knox
Can it, bottle it, smoke it by karen Solomon

And the Mountains Echoed | Khaled Hosseini

If you are only going to read one novel this year, let it be this one.
Hosseini is the author of the famous Kite Runner, and then A Thousand Splendid Suns. And yet I think this is a much better book.
The structure of the book is masterful, he manages a whole screed of characters, interwoven with the main storyline in such a way that it is a fabulous read. It could have easily been a confusion, meandering mish-mash.

The story starts with Pari and Abdullah, two children in Afghanistan. They are with their father, a poor labourer who works tirelessly to be able to survive and keep his children fed. The three of them are walking to Kabul to see Uncle Nabi, who may have work for them.

We read between the lines and sense there is something more sinister going on, which remains hidden from the children until it is too late.

We follow the children as they grow up and this is where the structure of the book is so well managed. Pari and Abdullah's story is the hub of a wheel and the spokes are made up of other Afghanis who are expats or locals, living through the difficult history of that nation and who come in contact with the hub of the story.

Any more said would spoil the plot, but it is a  wonderful and incredibly well written novel. Thoroughly recommended.

Divergent | Veronica Roth

My teenage kids were raving about this so I gave it a go. I loved it, and rushed to read the second book in the series.
I think the new world created in the book is very believable and engaging. It is set in a future, post apocalyptic world where society is trying to recover form some devastating events (which are never explained). There are five Factions, everyone on their 16th birthday has to choose to be part of one faction. It can be the one they are born into or they can go to another, and be absorbed into a completely different lifestyle and role in society.

The Factions are:
Erudite (The Intelligent):  they are dedicated to knowledge, education, technology, research.
Amity (The Peaceful): they are the ones who nurture relationships, the pursuit of love, life and freedom. Their role is to grow the food for all the factions,
Abnegation: (The Selfless): they are all about being selfless in every act they do, thinking of others only, never themselves. Their role in society is to govern.
Dauntless (The Brave): they are the defenders, the aggressors, warriors and are fearless.
Candor (The Honest): the truth matters above all else. They provide society with law and it's keeping.

The main protagonist is Tris, who chooses to become Dauntless. She's a strong, credible heroine and the story is worth reading. Movie coming out soon.

You can also impress those teenagers around you by asking what faction they would belong to...Interesting conversations!

The Gift Of Rain | Tan Twan Eng

This gorgeous book is set on the island of Penang, just before, during and after the Second World War. My knowledge of that part of history is sketchy at best so I really enjoyed this book which brought it all to life.
The story is that of Philip Hutton, a half-Chinese, half-British boy living with his wealthy family on a beautiful estate. He meets and befriends a Japanese man who becomes his sensei. Philip struggles with his identity and place within his family and society as tensions mount between the Chinese, British and Japanese at the time of the Japanese invasion of Penang, Malaysia and Singapore.

The main thing about this book and Eng's later book The Garden of Evening Mists is the beauty of the language and the gentle way he tells a story full of conflict and tension.

I thoroughly recommend both these books as insightful, beautifully told stories.

The unusual pilgrimage of Harold Fry | Rachel Joyce

This story is essentially a very English story. A man sets out to post a letter to a long lost friend, but he keeps on walking rather than posting it. He doesn't know why, he just begins a journey. As he walks he starts to remember things he didn't know he had forgotten and tries to make sense of the last twenty years he seems to have lost. We are drawn in to his discoveries and thoughts, his piecing together of his marriage and what has gone wrong between him and his wife Maureen.

I read this in a couple of days and really enjoyed it.

The Garden of Evening Mists | Tan Twan Eng

This is a superb read. Very hard to describe as the beauty of the story lies in the language and imagery used.
This is a second novel by Eng, a Malayan writer who lives in KL and Cape Town. Both those influences are strong in the book which is set in three time periods significant to Malayan history. The time before World War Two, during the war and the Emergency period which ended in July 1960.

Yun Ling is the main protagonist, we meet her in all three time frames as she tells us her story.
We know she was born into a privileged family, Straits Chinese, who were very supportive of the British in the time of the occupation. Then we hear of her horrendous time in a Japanese concentration camp after the invasion of Malaysia. Then she returns to the Cameron Highlands at the time of the Emergency and meets the Emperor's gardener who is creating a Japanese garden in the middle of the jungle. Here, Yung Ling's worlds collide as she comes to terms with the hatred she holds for those who abused her and killed so many Malays, and the respect she has for Aritomo, the exiled gardener.

And finally we meet Yun Ling as an old woman, returning to the Highlands after she retires from being a judge. She moves into Aritomo's dilapidated house and starts regenerating the garden and trying to make sense of her life.

There are a mix of characters we meet. The Majuba Tea Estate is owned by a South African family, a researcher arrives from Japan interested in the garden, the local Malay, the communist terrorists in the hills, the nuns in a mountain monastery.

The beauty of the language is mesmerising as Eng paints pictures of the mists, the Highlands, the jungle, tea pickers working in the early mornings... He inserts into the narrative things like the aesthetics of Japanese garden design, tattoos, art, life...

Well worth reading, beautiful.

The Lost Wife | Alyson Richman

This is a deeply moving book, beautifully written and incredible to read.

A long time ago, I attended an exhibition in Christchurch (NZ) of the Paintings created by the Children of Terezin, a small concentration camp just outside Prague. Then, a few years later I went to Terezin and it was astounding to be there and see where so many people lived, worked and died. Of the 660 children who were taken there, 550 were killed. Their art lives on and tells their story.

This book is part of their story. We follow chapter by chapter the lives of Lenka and Josef, Jews from Prague. They meet before the war, they are separated at the beginning of the war and spend 60 years looking for each other. Lenka is an artist and is transported to Terezin where she becomes involved with the children's barracks where they are taught and encouraged to paint and draw. Josef escapes to America and searches for Lenka and eventually he is told she died in a concentration camp. Lenka reads that Josef's boat to America sinks and he is drowned.

The story is so well crafted, so beautiful in it's structure and telling that I would be spoiling it if I continue telling you more about it. Just read it. It will not disappoint.

The best book I've read this year.

Come Aboard | Eric Hiscock

This book was written in 1978 about Eric and his wife Susan's third circumnavigation of the globe. They sailed from New Zealand to England via the Indian Ocean and Africa and then home across the Pacific doing a bit of island hopping.

And this was WAY before GPS and all the modern toys used in modern sailing. They spend a lot of time alone at sea and having done this trip three times, their observations about the changes in the oceans, ports and people are very interesting.
There is a lot of sailing detail, more than I was interested about on some pages but these I skimmed through.
A lot about rigging, sail, making stuff on the boat when things break, how to supply your boat while at different marinas... For anyone who has been on a boat or anyone who enjoys long journeys this book is great.
I'm not sure how many people are out there having these amazing adventures nowadays but Eric and his wife make it sound like a wonderful way to live and be truly free.

Really enjoyed reading it.

Navigation | Joy Cowley

Since my children were young I have read Cowley's books. She has many titles used in schools to help children learn to read, enjoy what they read and have stories set in New Zealand rather than foreign settings most can't relate to.

So I was very keen to read this book which is a memoir. Not so much a chronological telling of her life's story but rather thoughts and stories about her life.

The thing that inspired me most about her is her generosity. The way she describes the people in her life, her journey as an author and her thoughts all seem to spill out of a generous, thankful heart.

She has travelled the world promoting children's books, children's reading and their capacity for storytelling themselves. There are many anecdotes where she meets children who struggle with reading, who have no books about their own cultures. Having first encountered this in New Zealand, she encourages them to tell their stories and write them down and read their own stores over and over again.

Cowley runs workshops all over the world and is still writing from her home in New Zealand

Lottery | patricia Woods

A well written novel, great characters and an unusual story.
The first sentence goes along the lines of "I am Perry L. Crandall and I am not retarded". Perry tells us the story of his life, piece by piece and it takes a while to get the whole picture. He was brought up by his grandparents who encouraged and gave him the tools to survive in the world. He has a lot of good common sense rules to live by, a job and his best friend Keith, a Vietnam Vet.

It gets quite tense when Perry wins the lottery and his brothers and long lost mother come in trying to get the money from him. I felt nervous every page they showed up! But Perry has a way of handling things and people which brings good to all.

Well worth reading, I hope this first novel is followed by many more.

The Astronaut Wives Club: a true story | Lily Koppel

I found this quite a sad book. It's the first time anyone has told the story of the wives of the astronauts in the USA space program. Loppel has met most of the wives and interviewed them to get a picture of what they went through while their men were being trained by NASA.

The immense stress, loneliness and pressure on the wives is the untold story, as at the time they were expected to put on a brave face, keep the home running and have a PR relationship with the media. No help, advice or training was given by NASA. It was the wives among themselves that figured out the best way to have a handle on living in the spotlight.

There were huge perks for the families ($1 a year Corvettes, visits to the White House, low mortgages) and yet they had to make ends meet on very low incomes.

Their husbands were being trained away from their homes in Huston, at Cape Kennedy. When they did make it home they were not supposed to be put under any strain or pressure. Most of the marriages broke up once the astronauts ended their missions. It was common for the men to maintained affairs and flirtations when training at the Cape. In Huston, they were expected to pretend all was well in the home.

The book is a candid view of the 50's, 60's and 70's in America. These wives went through a lot, most have survived, after suffering depression, anxiety, alcoholism and divorce. They still meet together, and support each other, as they have done for the past 50 years. It's the AWC friendships which are remarkable to read about and I thought it a fascinating look at life behind the scenes for those who flew for NASA.

Mortal Fire | Elizabeth Knox

ELizabeth Knox is a renown writer from New Zealand. This is her latest novel  targeted at Young Adults. It follows Dreamhunter and Dreamquake, both excellent books in their own right.

Mortal Fire was a joy to read and hard to describe.
In it Knox has created a landscape which almost seems recognizable and yet is full of magic and holds altered realities. The characters are strong and believable and we end up caring deeply for them and being drawn into their surreal world.

Canny is a girl of remarkable mathematical genius, in a blended family whose mother is of royal blood. Sisema's island nation is far off the mainland and is steeped in legend and mystery. She seems a strong and slightly detached mother to Canny. Sholto, Canny's step brother is a great guy who is a close companion for Canny. The stepfather is referred to as The Professor and remains aloof  and sketchy at best.

Canny, Sholto and Susanne (his girlfriend) are on holiday in a small town investigating the fire in a mine in 1929. They end up in a mysterious valley where the Zarene family have lived for centuries. Magic happenings, runes and forces of good and evil appear from nature and there is a mystery to be solved.

I really enjoyed the story because for as much as it is magical realism it doesn't stray too far from reality thus avoiding being a fairy tale set in a  kingdom with implausible characters.

Well worth reading this and her other two Young Adult books. Knox's most famous book is The Vintner's Luck.

Parrot and Olivier in America | Peter Carey

It's been a while since I read Peter Carey, having enjoyed him in the past, I somehow forgot about him! I found this book when I was browsing in the library and started it right away.
Carey is one of those authors I shouldn't forget about. He is such a good story teller with a huge diversity in topics and settings. Carey is Australian and has written the well known Oscar and Lucinda and True History of the Kelly gang, both set in Australia.

In this, he fictionalizes the extraordinary life of Alexis de Tocqueville, a French aristocrat.
In this retelling, Olivier is the aristocrat who grows up at the time of the French Revolution with all it's uncertainties and catastrophes. To ensure his safety his mother packs him off to America, at that stage a bustling Colony struggling for identity.
Parrot on the other hand is a young man who is a printer's son, orphaned and toughened in rural England. He eventually ends up in France  and is charged with looking out for Olivier. They have a love-hate relationship but end up quite dependent on each other.
The novel follows their lives to the end, and has a lot to say about the issues of the time, without being preachy.
I really enjoyed reading this book and recommended it. Carey is worth the investment of time and I will search out his other novels I haven't read as they are a guaranteed good yarn.

On Wings of Eagles | Ken Follett

I've just been on holiday for Easter, this book of 600 odd pages seemed a good book to take away as a holiday read. Follett assures the reader in the introduction that this is not a fictionalized account of events, which makes it all the more surprising.

The events took place in 1979 during the Iranian revolution. EDS executives Paul Chiapparone and Bill Gaylord were wrongly imprisoned as the Shah fled the country and  Ayhatolla Khomeini took over.  In the midst of the revolution on the streets of Teheran, EDS owner Ross Perot undertook to break out the guys from jail. All diplomatic avenues were thwarted, force seemed like the only way out. He set up a group of men led by a formidable retired Coronel to get Paul and Bill out overland through Turkey. Read the book for all the details and the ending.

I found it ok to read but not much more than ok. Too much like a movie, too much a song and dance to the greatness to the USA. Perot has unlimited funds which make everything a lot easier in this world. I was very interested in the 5-6 men who were the ones going into the revolution to help their colleagues  I felt that was the real story.
Not highly recommending this, maybe a good airport or beach read, but ended up annoying me more than anything else.

The Cove | Ron Rash

I heard someone on the radio rave about Rash, so I got a couple of his novels out of the library to try out. I started with Serena, a chilling story set in timber camps in the emerging USA frontier. I liked it well enough, beautifully written.

Then I read The Cove, and I was blown away by Rash's ability to tell a story, briefly and poetically. The Cove of the story is a narrow, godforsaken, shadowy valley where Laurel and her brother Hank live. Their parents have died tragically, Hank was injured in WW2 and has returned to patch up the farm so he can sell it and get married. Laurel is ostracised by the people of the nearby town because she has a birthmark and is seen as unlucky because of it and the fact she lives in the Cove.
One day she finds a stranger in the forest who is mute but plays the flute to communicate. Events develop, lives and fates are changed. The pace quickens and you try and rear back from the inevitable precipice you fear they are all going to go over. Superbly written. Not a happy ending, but those are highly overrated!!

Give Ron Rash a go, he is a poet who has written four novels beautifully. Great turn of phrase and handling of language.

For those who like Cormack McCarthy or Thomas Eidson, you will be familiar with the style and beauty of stories like this.

The cellist of Sarajevo | Steve Galloway

Superb! This is an excellent book, sad and moving and worth every minute I spent reading it.
I had heard of this book for ages but never got round to reading it. I'm pleased I did for a few reasons: it's very well written, Galloway captures the nature of the people living under siege in Sarajevo and it is amazing to think it happened in the 1990's. The city was under siege from 1992 to 1996.

On the 27th May 1992 mortar shells killed 22 people who were waiting to buy bread. For the next 22 days Vedran Smailović, a renown cellist, played Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor at the site of the deaths to honor the 22 victims. Although the book uses this as one of the main events, the rest is a fictionalized account of life in the city.

We have three narrators and their lives are incredibly well portrayed, you feel like you are right there, under siege. Arrow is a woman who is a sniper. Kenan, a father who is simply trying to get fresh water for his family. Dragan, an older man who is trying to cross an intersection so he can get some bread.

Arrow speaks of why she is a sniper and how she can kill the 'men in the hills' with a clear conscience, although she has rules and parameters in place for her own sanity. Kenan's walk to the water spring takes all day and he has to cross the line of fire repeatedly to get it. He speaks of his fear and his tiredness and the constant struggle against those who are making a lot of money on the black market selling goods to the trapped population. And Dragan, waiting two hours to try and get across an intersection. He just wants to get bread but is incapacitated by the knowledge that snipers may be waiting for someone to cross that street. Or maybe not. The uncertainty and  gamble that each step brings is incredible  He is torn as he sees people killed, does it make it safer to cross or increase the odds he will be hit?

It must have been  traumatic and exhausting to live through the siege and the destruction of the city. I would like to do some more reading about the conflict and its aftermath.
This book was a good place to start.

Gentlemen and Players | Joanne Harris

I found this an unusual book, having not read Joan Harris before I'm not sure if it is characteristic of her story telling or not. I was never quite sure what kind of story I was reading until well into the plot. I would call it a subtle who-dunnit.

It is set in an English private school (not state run) in a fairly typical small English town. The tension between the upper class and the lower public class is the main theme of the book. Our narrators are one of the Masters in the private school and Julian, who attends the State school although his father is the caretaker of the private school. 

Julian is drawn to the bookish, privileged life of the private school and through stealth infiltrates the system. He adopts the uniform (found in lost property boxes) and sits in on classes. He's smart and loves learning and loves being in control of this 'game'. 

As the story unfolds we discover Julian's infatuation with Leon, who is not currently around. It takes most of the book to discover what happened to him. 

The story moves between Julian's childhood and adulthood, a story which as it unfolds tends to weave and dodge. 

Overall I enjoyed this book although I felt a bit bogged down in the middle but once  through, the story gains momentum to a fast paced ending with lots of twists. The main twist is not hard to guess but how we get there is sometimes surprising. Worth reading. It's made me want to read her other novels.

Wulf | Hamish Clayton

What an amazing book! Newzealanders write extremely well about their own landscape and this is a great example. You can see the mists, smell the bush and feel the dampness in your bones.

This is the story of Te Rauparaha, a native chief who was in the North and South islands of NZ in 1820'-1840's. He was a fierce warrior and proud of his tribe ( Ngati Toa) and his land. In the story he persuades the captain and crew of the Elizabeth to carry his warriors from Kapti Island to Banks Peninsula to engage in slaughter and conquest. He also guised his people through the North Island's desert like landscape to settle further south. The descriptions of the landscape endow it with almost supernatural powers.

There is a lot of early NZ history in this book but not in a history-lesson kind of way. The main portrayal and telling of Te Rauparaha's life and conquests is chilling and mesmerising.
 Incredibly well written it is one of the best NZ novels I have read. Clayton is in his early twenties and a student, what amazing talent.

Can't wait to read more of his work.

The world we found | Thrity Umrigar

I really enjoyed this book. It gives the reader an insightful look into modern Indian culture and its juxtaposed with modern American life.
The story develops around four women who have been friends from childhood, have drifted apart in adulthood but are called together by Armaiti who is diagnosed with cancer. Armaiti wants the four to be reunited before she dies.
 Laleh is happily married to her college sweetheart. Kavita is a lesbian in a stable relationship and has a great career as an architect. Armaiti is the rebel who fled India to America and married an American. Nishta married her college sweetheart who has become a devout and strict Muslim and will not allow her to travel with the others.
The plot is simply the journey the four have to take to come to terms with their past and the suture they must face without Armaiti. It is well paced and interesting and the characters really are well developed. They each have an individual story to tell and they have a shared story that is evolving.

Mr Rosenblum's List | Natasha Solomons

What a great little book this turned out to be! Don't be put off by the cover (twee) or the comment by Paul Torday saying "charming"....It is a much better book than that. This one we won't judge by the cover.
Sadie and Jakob Rosenblum are refugees arriving in England fleeing from Nazi Germany. They have left their Jewish relatives behind and realize as news of the war unfolds that their families have been murdered in camps and ghettoes.
Upon arrival in England Jakob is handed a pamphlet with the title: While you are in England, Helpful Information. And it prescribes how to become assimilated into English life and accepted as an Englishman. Jakob sets his hear on this and follows the list meticulously, making helpful annotations and additions to the list as the years go on. The last item on the list is to become a member at a golf club. And this he cannot do as he is rejected because he is a Jew.
Parallel to his story we have Sadie's story which is one steeped in sadness and the inability to assimilate because she is a German Jew. She has lost her family and mourns them deeply, she has an accent and a funny turn of phrase given her first language is German and she cannot relate to the Englishwomen she meets. She is beautifully drawn in the narrative and I feelt saddened by her, wanting her to be able to come to some place of peace.
Jakob decides to buy some land and build his own golf course and the main part of the book is the going about of this venture. Sadie is dragged from London to the country and has to reintegrate herself all over again. She moves deeper into depression and grief which push her outside, literally. She discovers the garden surrounding the cottage, learns the seasons, rediscovers her mother's cookbook and puts herself back together through the gentle pace of living in the country.
Jakob creates the first few holes by hand, obsessed with Bobby Jones, the creator of Augusta. The locals object and oppose the golf course and shun Jakob and Sadie because they are Jewish but in the end come to admire the doggedness with which Jakob pursues his dream of becoming the member of a golf club, and the endless baking Sadie undertakes to work out her sorrows.
Yes, there is a happy ending of sorts which I felt the characters richly deserved.

I loved the experience of reading this book, it's not twee or charming or chick lit. It touches on many deep emotions, the plight of refugees and the deepest desire we carry in us of wanting to belong.

English Passengers | Matthew Kneale

I  have mixed feelings about this book. There is no doubt that is well written and that there  was a lot of research prior to writing the story, but...
The basic outline is that of a group of English passengers who charter a ship to sail from England to Tasmania in the 1800's determined to prove that the Garden of Eden was actually in Tasmania not the Middle East. The captain of the ship is involved in smuggling goods in his tailor made ship with secret compartments. And the third group in the story are the Aboriginal people who are invaded and subjugated by the colonials throughout Australia.
The story is told chapter by chapter by characters in the various groups and others (like the Governor's wife) who has a few chapters when the Governor is involved in the narrative.  The pace and voice of each chapter reflects the narrator and this got a bit tedious after 200-300 pages. It was like going over speed bumps when you just wanted to know what was going to happen next.
Although I think it's a good novel to have read, I don't think it will appeal to a lot of readers who would find it hard to keep going, especially through the mid section which is very slow. Could have been a shorter novel, and still told a very intriguing story.

A beautiful place to die | Malla Nunn

The first of the Emmanuel Cooper series, I was eager to see if I was onto another good crime series. Set in South Africa it encompasses many complex issues: apartheid, land ownership, white vs white conflicts  forbidden love, corruption...A bit of everything.

I have travelled in Africa and recognised the landscapes beautifully described by Nunn. The story has pace and kept me interested. I haven't read any more in the series but will try and get to it sometime soon. Not sure it has the stamina to reinvent itself sustainably as so many issues were touched upon in this novel. Will give it a try, the writing is great.

The Redbreast | Jo Nesbo

Nesbo is a crime writer of renown, no need to introduce him and his 10 or so crime novels. A few years ago I started reading crime novels as a break from 'real' reading. Even though I read them quickly and don't expect a lot from them, I try and find authors who can actually write well and tell a story.
I find Nesbo to be inventive and spinner of a good yarn. This one took about a third of the book to really get into the story but then it was easy to get hooked. This one and The Snowman are my two pick of his novels.
Set in Oslo, with Harry Hole as flawed main detective, we have two stories threaded through the book. One is set in WW2 where Norwegian soldiers defect and fight for the Germans. And in modern day a security assignment goes horribly wrong and implicates Hole.
A very specific kind of sniper amo is found in a forest and the rifle traced to an old man...There is a Neo-Nazi element in Oslo underworld who seem to be involved as well. The novel is written as a clever puzzle and kept my attention to the end.

The Snowman is another Nesbo worth reading. It involves, among other things, a snowman. You will never innocently look at a snowman again.

The invisible ones | Stef Penney

Stef Penney's first novel "The Tenderness of Wolves" is by far one of my favorite books. I was eagerly awaiting her second novel. It doesn't have the same zing to it that she managed in the first novel but it is still a great story.

Set in a Gypsy community in the UK, one of women of the Janko family has gone missing. They go to a Romani private investigator and ask him to find Rose. A lot of the Gypsy culture is explored and described, which I found interesting. It's not a traditional detective novel, more a story that features a detective in amongst a whole set of characters.

Great read, but Penney's first novel is still the better of the two.

Random Acts of Heroic Love | Danny Scheinmann

This is an interesting premise, two love stories separated by space and time. One in Siberia just after WW1 and the other in South America, modern day.

Both stories are semi-autobiographical, as Scheinmann's' grandfather was a POW and after escaping walked for three years to be reunited with his sweetheart. The second story closely mirrors the author's own grief at the loss of his girlfriend in a similar crash in South America.

So far so good. As we read on we discover how these two men are connected and how one story helps the other to recover from intense grief and guilt.

I liked this book immensely, it avoids cliches and is not trite although it touches on many themes we have read before. Well worth the time invested in reading it.

A Far Country | Daniel Mason

I've been waiting for Mason to write another book after reading The Piano Tuner a few years ago. I was so pleased when I found his second novel.

It couldn't be further removed from his first work which was set in Burma. A Far Country is set in...a far country! We are not told specifically where it is but to me it feels like a country in South America, Brazil or maybe Peru.
It doesn't really matter because of the way Mason describes it and makes us feel like we've been there, that we recognise the landscape. I found this really clever and caught me off guard a little as the story felt familiar whistle being totally new.

Basically it's the story of a struggling family who live in the countryside, far away from the big city. The way out of poverty for many is to send their young people to live and work in the city and send home the money they earn. This migration of youth in turn makes the rural areas poorer as there is no new generation coming though to work the farms.

One young man goes to the city and his sister who is left behind is devastated by the loss so decides to go and find her brother.  We journey with her to the city and discover it through her overwhelming experiences. The size and noise, the shattered dreams once she figures out cities are not rich and not everyone works and the realisation she has no way of finding her brother.

This is a beautifully written book, worth reading, as is Mason's first book The Piano Tuner (which he wrote while still a student at University).

The Grapes of Wrath | John Steinbeck

This is a true classic. One of the things I like most about Steinbeck's writing is that he can really tell a story.  His books are full of colourful characters who are not superheroes but ordinary people. The last time I read this book was in high-school so I wanted to re-read it to remind myself why it's held in such high regard.

The Grapes of Wrath deals with the dustbowl years. They were a hard and impoverishing time in the USA when the weather and politics combined to drive people off the land and into cities in search for jobs. Farmers watched as the wind literally picked up their top-soil and blew it all away. Hard working families packed up what they could and took to the roads, often in a southerly direction, looking for jobs.
There was great animosity towards these 'migrant' workers and this conflict is well captured in this book.
Steinbeck had the ability to draw people in such a way that we empathise with them  regardless which side of the argument they are in.

Yes, it's a classic and well worth reading every few years.

As an aside  my favourite photographer is Dorothea Lange who photographed this era and recorded the plight of the workers. Well worth checking out her photos.

Welcome 2013

Each year I keep a list of what I read, mostly to keep track and jog my memory! in 2012 I read 75 books of which 34 I rated as excellent. In the next few weeks I will be reviewing these 35 books and hope it will inspire you to read them.

Have a great year of reading.

Here are my 35 top books for 2012:

The grapes of wrath by John Steinbeck
A far country by Daniel Mason
Random acts of heroic love by Danny Scheinmann
The invisible ones by Stef Penney
The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo
The Snowman by Jo Nesbo
A beautiful place to die by Malla Nunn
Wulf by Hamish Clayton
The world we found by Thrity Umrigar
The leftovers by Tom Perrotta
Vaclav and Lena by Haley Tanner
Spilling the beans by Clarissa Dickson Wright
The different world of Fin Starling by Elizabeth Stead
Peacocks Dancing by Sharon Maas
Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
The Buddha in the attic by Julie Otsuka
Painter of silence by Georginna Harding
The chemistry of tears by Peter Carey
Never have your dog stuffed by Alan Alder
The other child by Charlotte Link
The Solitude of Thomas Cave by Georgina Harding
Sorry by Gail Jones
The trouble with fire by Fiona Kidman
The supermarket companion by Wendyl Nissen
El cuaderno de Maya by Isabel Allende
At home by Bill Bryson
The cat's table by Michael Ondaatje
The Wives of Henry Oades by Johanna Moran
Fred Hollows by Peter Corris
The Newlyweds by Nell Freudunberger
One Flat Coyote on the centre line by Karen Goa
Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese
The Roundhouse by Louise Erdrich