If fucking rains here 24/7 mate.
The pitches I usually run across on the way home during a training run are under water up to the crossbar.
I’m helping drain in an ecologically friendly way.
Writer Kevin Barry is reading a new short story of his on BBC Radio 4 in 45 minutes. 15:45 Mick time.
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I’ve gone on a spurt of reading over the week and I’m sad to say that Michael Harding’s latest offering “Chest pains, a stent and a camper van” is absolutely awful.
Rambling yarns that have a very thrown together feel to them and while the verbiage is sporadically of a high quality I got the feeling that having survived a heart attack he vowed to produce another book and this unfortunately is it.
Poor overall a 4/10 with the breeze at your back.
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Good job it wasn’t plugged in
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Have you been?
You reccommended a book on China there a while back. “We have been harmonised” or something.
Haven’t been able to get in it at all, does it get better as it goes on?
Sure the author could have made up any old story there and sold it as the truth.
No
1 Like
6 Likes
The 50 best books of 2019
The best novels and nonfiction, chosen by the literary team at The Times
Robbie Millen | James Marriott
November 22 2019, 5:00pm, The Times
Which book will be on your Christmas list?BRIDGEMAN IMAGES
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Thousands and thousands of new titles have been published this year. The literary team at The Times has tried to make life simple for you by choosing 50 books, fiction and nonfiction, that we think you may enjoy. We hope you find something enjoyable. You can also follow the links, given below, to our longer roundups of novels, thrillers and nonfiction books.
Let us know what your favourite books of the year are in the comment section at the end.
FICTION
Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout (Viking, 304pp, £14.99)
Elizabeth Strout won the 2009 Pulitzer prize for Olive Kitteridge , a novel (or rather a series of interrelated short stories) about the title character, a strangely vulnerable battle-axe. Ten years on, the awkward, large, outspoken retired teacher from Maine returns. A wonderful character study.
Late in the Day by Tessa Hadley (Jonathan Cape, 288pp, £16.99)
Tessa Hadley’s psychological insight is unmatched by anyone writing today. This story follows three middle-aged, middle-class friends dealing with the death of their fourth friend, a wealthy art dealer. As grief, sexual chaos and midlife crises unfurl, Tessa Hadley comes into her own.
Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan (Jonathan Cape, 320pp, £18.99)
A human-robot love triangle set in an alternative 1980s in which Britain lost the Falklands conflict, Tony Benn is prime minister and Alan Turing lived to pioneer powerful artificial intelligence. When useless 32-year-old Charlie blows his inheritance on one of the new lifelike robots he could never have predicted that his on-off girlfriend would fall for it.
Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (Wildfire, 392pp, £12.99)
Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s tale of a spoilt, self-pitying divorced man was the most talked-about book of the summer. At first sight Toby Fleishman looks like the sort of emotionally embattled horndog who could have walked straight from the pages of Philip Roth. As the story unfolds all the tropes of phallocentric American fiction are turned upside down.
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams (Trapeze, 400pp, £12.99)
She has been called the black Bridget Jones. But she’s better than that. Candice Carty-Williams’s heroine Queenie is a young black journalist who is thrown into the world of online dating and some horrible sexual encounters with creepy men. This is a funny and moving portrait of a young woman coming of age and looking for love.
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (Chatto & Windus, 432pp, £20)
Back to Gilead for this bestselling, Booker-winning follow-up to Margaret Atwood’s modern classic The Handmaid’s Tale . Although some critics have suggested The Testaments reads more like fan-fic than sequel proper, it’s undeniably page-turning stuff.
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo (Chatto & Windus, 432pp, £20)
Bernardine Evaristo’s novel controversially shared the Booker with Atwood’s blockbuster — many thought the prize’s first black British winner should have should have been allowed to enjoy the limelight by herself. This portrait of 12 mostly black women working their way through the postwar era is ambitious in its scope.
Girl by Edna O’Brien (Faber, 240pp, £16.99)
Age has not withered 88-year-old Edna O’Brien. To research this novel about the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram, she stuffed £15,000 in dollars into her underwear and headed to Nigeria. Written in spare, illusionless prose, O’Brien’s book makes for bleak, but powerful reading.
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett (Bloomsbury, 337pp, £18.99)
Ann Patchett’s latest is a moving portrait of an unusual house and the unhappy family living in it, which unfolds over five decades.
Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley (John Murray, 256pp, £12.99)
This “folk-horror” has the best closing line of any novel we have read this year. It’s a creepy tale of a grief-stricken couple in rural Yorkshire. Could Starve Acre, with its barren soil, the site of a former gallows tree, somehow be the cause of their unhappiness?
The Topeka School by Ben Lerner (Granta, 304pp, £16.99)
It’s official. Ben Lerner is America’s trendiest writer. For anyone looking to understand contemporary America this tale of toxic masculinity, resentful outcasts, rigged high-school debates and political disaster is a good place to start.
Serotonin by Michel Houellebecq , translated by Shaun Whiteside (William Heinemann, 309pp, £20)
The French provocateur strikes again: the ageing white, male narrator of his latest novel is suffering from a waning libido. Is it a metaphor for the decline of western civilisation?
For more great novels, see our full round-up of the best fiction of 2019
CRIME
The New Iberia Blues by James Lee Burke (Orion, 447pp, £20)
The latest case for Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux begins with the discovery of a crucified woman on a raft. His faithful sidekick Clete Purcel and writer-daughter Alafair help him to deal with a motley film crew and the reappearance of a terrifying hitman called Mr Smiley. James Lee Burke, now 82, is one of the giants of American literature.
The Border by Don Winslow (HarperCollins, 720pp, £20)
Third instalment of an epic Cartel trilogy about America’s ill-starred war against drugs. It follows a government agent’s fight against the Mexican cocaine gangs.
The Lost Man by Jane Harper (Little, Brown, 384pp, £12.99)
When everyone’s best buddy Cam is found fried to death on his family’s vast cattle station in the hottest part of Australia his two brothers have to decide if he was killed by someone or intended to die. Harper’s gripping third novel is her most accomplished yet.
For more recommendations, see our full round-up of the best crime books of 2019
THRILLERS
Metropolis by Philip Kerr (Quercus, 400pp, £20)
Philip Kerr died in 2018; this final volume of his Bernie Gunther series takes us to 1928, with his tough, laconic detective on the trail of a killer targeting the city’s most vulnerable. The decadence and volatility of the Weimar era leap from the page in this fitting finale for a classic series. Auf Wiedersehen, Bernie.
Joe Country by Mick Herron (John Murray, 352pp, £14.99)
Slough House is where MI5’s washouts are put out to grass — but underestimate the “slow horses” and their malodorous leader Jackson Lamb at your peril. Mick Herron’s sixth comic spy novel in this series features a teenage witness to a royal’s scandalous behaviour being chased round snowbound Wales.
Agent Running in the Field by John le Carré (Viking, 288pp, £20)
The master is back on form in this tale of Russian subterfuge and a middle-aged spy’s suspicious badminton partner.
For more recommendations, see our full round-up of the best thrillers of 2019
HISTORICAL FICTION
Will by Jeroen Olyslaegers (Pushkin, 349pp, £14.99)
Wilfried Wils was a policeman in Nazi-occupied Antwerp, with no desire to be a hero or a villain. He wants to keep out of trouble and survive. But his idealistic best friend tries to draw him into the resistance. A brilliant, uncomfortable exploration of the moral compromises necessary to live alongside evil.
Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield (Black Swan, 544pp, £8.99)
On a stormy night in rural Victorian England a man bursts into the Swan inn carrying a drowned child, pulled from the Thames. The girl astonishes them by coming back to life. Who is she? Diane Setterfield is an extraordinary storyteller and this vivacious and charming novel won this year’s Historical Writers’ Association gold crown award.
To Calais in Ordinary Time by James Meek (Canongate, 400pp, £18.99)
In early 1348 the Black Death was sweeping across Europe towards England. In this homage to Chaucer, three unlikely travellers journey across England to reach Calais. Their deeds and misdeeds as they take to the roads are told in three distinct and inventive voices.
Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver (Head of Zeus, 304pp, £8.99)
A demonic presence lurks in the Fens in this tale about murder, loneliness and an abusive relationship.
For more recommendations, see our full round-up of the best historical fiction of 2019
YOUNG ADULT
Bearmouth by Liz Hyder (Pushkin Children, £12.99, 317pp)
It’s hard to believe that this exceptional young adult novel is a debut. Set in a Victorian mine staffed with children, it’s a grim, brilliant insight into slave labour seen through the eyes of its child narrator. A Christmas Carol for 2019.
For more recommendations, see our full round-up of the best children’s books of 2019
BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Queen by Anne Glenconner (Hodder & Stoughton, 336pp, £20)
Lady Anne recalls a life at the heart of the eccentric British aristocracy and a friendship with Princess Margaret. An absolute hoot.
Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography, Volume Three: Herself Alone by Charles Moore (Allen Lane, 1008pp, £35)
The final part of this masterful biography charts Thatcher’s premiership from her third election victory to her disorientated years after being ousted.
Three Women by Lisa Taddeo (Bloomsbury, 307pp, £16.99)
The sex lives of three American women are explored in intimate detail.
On Chapel Sands: My Mother and Other Missing Persons by Laura Cumming (Chatto, 320pp, £16.99)
A beautifully written and touching memoir about one family’s secret.
The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero Who Infiltrated Auschwitz by Jack Fairweather (WH Allen, 505pp, £20)
The extraordinary story of a Polish war hero.
My Name is Why: A Memoir by Lemn Sissay (Canongate, 194pp, £16.99)
The poet and broadcaster records a miserable childhood of abandonment, abuse and foster parents who thought the Devil was working in him.
The World I Fell Out Of by Melanie Reid (4th Estate, 384pp, £16.99)
The Times columnist recalls how a riding accident left her tetraplegic and totally changed her life. This moving memoir is full of dark humour and honest observation.
The Man in the Red Coat by Julian Barnes (Jonathan Cape, 266pp, £18.99)
The Belle Époque is brought to life through three colourful lives in this sparkling account stuffed with top fin-de-siècle tittle-tattle.
The Making of Poetry: Coleridge, the Wordsworths and their Year of Marvels by Adam Nicolson (William Collins, 260pp, £25)
An absorbing account of the year that Coleridge and Wordsworth spent living within walking distance of one another: opium, radical politics and mislaid cheese.
For more recommendations, see our full round-up of the best biographies and memoirs of 2019
HISTORY
The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple (Bloomsbury, 522pp, £30)
The history of the first private company to become more powerful than a nation state has important lessons in our modern age.
Origins: How the Earth Made Us by Lewis Dartnell (Bodley Head, 352pp, £20)
The new Sapiens ? Lewis Dartnell explores how geology and the environment have shaped human history. It might explain the rise of Greek civilisation and why south London is poorly served by the Underground.
Who Dares Wins: Britain, 1979-1982 by Dominic Sandbrook (Allen Lane, 958pp, £35)
From the Falklands conflict to snooker and trashy television. It’s all here in this magisterial history of the early Eighties.
Crusaders: An Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands by Dan Jones (Head of Zeus, 592pp, £25)
Dan Jones offers a “tableau history” of the Crusades — a series of stories with wonderfully bizarre characters on both sides. It’s impossible to be cynical about Jones the historian; he’s enormously prolific, yet each book is impressively researched and beautifully written.
To War with the Walkers: One Family’s Extraordinary Story of Survival in the Second World War by Annabel Venning (Hodder & Stoughton, 336pp, £20)
One middle-class family from Devon are used as a prism to show how the privations and horrors of the Second World War affected civilians and soldiers.
The Darksome Bounds of a Failing World: The Sinking of the Titanic and the End of the Edwardian Era by Gareth Russell (William Collins, 442pp, £25)
The story of the Titanic and its passengers sheds light on the world in 1912; we learn about American antisemitism, Europe’s arms race, the divisions over Home Rule and much else.
For more recommendations, see our full round-up of the best history books of 2019
CURRENT AFFAIRS AND POLITICS
Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez (Chatto & Windus, 390pp, £16.99)
An eye-opening book that shows how often sexism is hardwired into society: from how heart attacks are diagnosed to how seatbelts are designed.
The Meritocracy Trap by Daniel Markovits (Allen Lane, 464pp, £25)
In this well-argued polemic Daniel Markovits shows that meritocracy isn’t a virtuous, efficient system that rewards the best and brightest. Instead it reinforces privilege.
The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity by Douglas Murray (Bloomsbury, 280pp, £20)
The conservative commentator Douglas Murray sallies forth against the dangers of identity politics.
For more recommendations, see our full round-up of the best current affairs and politics books of 2019
SCIENCE
The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson (Doubleday, 454pp, £25)
The Notes from a Small Island author is back on form with a witty and entertaining guide to the human body.
War Doctor: Surgery on the Front Line by David Nott (Picador, 359pp, £18.99)
David Nott has been a surgeon in some of the worst warzones on the planet; here he tells us about his life and career.
Transcendence: How Humans Evolved through Fire, Language, Beauty and Time by Gaia Vince (Allen Lane, 320pp, £20)
Hints of Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens in this fascinating account of human progress from cave men to iPhones.
For more recommendations, see our full round-up of the best science books of 2019
POP AND ROCK
Me by Elton John (Macmillan, 384pp, £25)
The flamboyant pop star’s sad, funny memoir reveals the insecurities that drive his needy behaviour.
For more recommendations, see our full round-up of the best pop and rock books of 2019
ART
The Lives of Lucian Freud: Youth by William Feaver (Bloomsbury, 680pp, £35)
The “reptile Freud” is laid bare in a biography that reads like fiction as it charts the painter’s wild, dangerous youth.
For more recommendations, see our full round-up of the best art books of 2019
NATURE
The Easternmost House by Juliet Blaxland (Sandstone, 208pp, £9.99)
Juliet Blaxland chronicles a year of living in a Suffolk house that will soon be lost to coastal erosion. S he also meditates on the disappearing England of hunting, farming and folklore.
Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert Macfarlane (Hamish Hamilton, 488pp, £20)
The literary critic Robert Macfarlane takes us on a subterranean journey across the world. He explores caves, underground rivers and submerged towns.
For more recommendations, see our full round-up of the best nature books of 2019
SPORT
Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump by Rick Reilly (Headline, 244pp, £14.99)
Rick Reilly, an American sportswriting great, has written a hilarious and shocking account of Donald’s Trump’s egregious behaviour on the fairways.
For more recommendations, see our full round-up of the best sports books of 2019
ESSAYS
Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino (4th Estate, 303pp, £16.99)
Searching essays about feminism, modern culture, the internet and… well, the whole of life from the New Yorker ’s star millennial. Jia Tolentino considers her experiences appearing in an early reality TV show as a teenager, weaves together a beautiful piece about drugs and God, and explores her childhood internet addiction
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Just finished a book I have had on the bookshelf for years.
“My Dad was almost James bond” by Des Bishop. Hard to explain but almost an autobiography for des and a biography of his Dad at the same time. Context being his fathers diagnosis with cancer up to his passing away.
Great book.
Cork man in love with man who wants to be from Cork. Where would you get it.
Cork?
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Zadie Smith - White Teeth
Ammmmmmm say He’s not from Cork🤷:sweat_smile:
Exactly
I have two good books on the go at the moment
Shoe Dog (audio book) which is the memoirs of Phil Knight, the founder of Nike. Almost more like a novel, very enjoyable and I find the stories of him dealing with Japanese manufacturers and their culture in the 1960s utterly facinating. I think someone may have recommeded it on here but the search function didn’t show it, possinly @gilgamboa
The other is Talking With Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell which is a surprisingly easy read despite the heavy enough subject matter which deals with how we default to truth when dealing with strangers as we need to in order for society to function. Reading the chapter about the Amanda Know trial I couldn’t help but draw parallels to Ian Bailey and how he was treated by the murder investigators.
I have ordered this and am looking forward to reading it in the coming weeks.
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I listened to the audio of gladwells, added to it i thought. Shoe dog is brilliant.
Just working through the latest best American sports writing book, Charles Pierce editor. One of the best collections ive ever read.
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