The Top 54 from the Best Books of 2022 List of Lists

Presenting the 2022 Commonly-Agreed-by-the-People-Who-Publish-Best-of-2022-Book-Lists-Before-December-31 top 54 books.

(This is my annual community service to book-bloggers – a list of the books that appear most frequently on the 52 lists that I listed on Best Books of 2022 – A List of Lists – enjoy!). Continue reading

The Top 50 from the Best Books of 2019 List of Lists

This is my annual community service to book-bloggers – a list of the books that appear most frequently on the 56 lists that I listed on Best Books of 2019 – A List of Lists. Continue reading

I’m waiting for… 2019 edition

Seems there’s lots of good reading to be done this year (have I ever started a year not thinking the same…? No). Continue reading

Two books, both difficult to review

katherine-boo-elizabeth-mccracken

I’ve thought so much about two excellent books I finished this week – Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo and An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken.

They’re very different books – one is about the slums of Mumbai, in India; the other an account of the author’s pregnancy and subsequent stillbirth. Both books are painfully honest, emotionally raw and made me look away. Both tell the story of a death, yet the circumstances around those deaths couldn’t be more different. Both are confronting. Continue reading