As I said in my last post, The Literary Sisters is ten years old! I am going to be embarking on the very difficult task of choosing a favourite novel which I have read every year between 2013 and 2023. If you would like to share your favourites from any, or all, of these years, I would absolutely love to hear them.
2013
Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
From my review, which you can read in full here: ‘As a protagonist, June is an interesting choice. Many original personality traits can be found within her, and rather than being the make-up and fashion loving stereotype of a teenage girl, her hobbies and interests feel rather unique – for example, the way in which she likes to pretend she lives within the Medieval period, and her dreams of being a falconer when she finishes school. She and her sister are complete opposites, and June is somewhat lonely in consequence: ‘Greta got prettier and I got… weirder’, she tells us. June is a vivid and wholly realistic character in consequence. The novel is told in retrospect, and June is around one year older than she was when Finn’s death occurred. This present day narrative is woven with memories from June’s past.’
2014
The Ladies’ Paradise by Emile Zola
From my review, which you can read in full here: ‘I was so captivated by The Ladies’ Paradise from the outset. First published in France as Au Bonheur des Dames in 1883, the novel tells the story of the rise of department stores in Victorian-era Paris. In the insightful Oxford World’s Classics introduction, it is said that Zola was given the inspiration to write such a novel after witnessing the rise of Le Bon Marche, one of the city’s most famous department stores.’
2015
Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple
From my review, which you can read in full here: ‘I was beguiled from the novel’s very beginning. The opening chapter sets the tone of the whole wonderfully: ‘Widowed, in the house her husband had built with day and night nurseries and a music-room, as if the children would stay there for ever, instead of marrying and going off at the earliest possible moment, old Mrs. North yielded one day to a long-felt desire to provide herself with company. She answered an advertisement in the personal column of The Times‘. A young Frenchwoman, Louise Lanier, determined to spend the summer in England, is its author. Of her newest venture, Mrs North says the following: ‘”At my age, I don’t expect fun… But I hope it will be interesting. I’m too old to go in search of change, so I’ll try to bring change into the house. It’s too quiet as it is.””
2016
Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer
From my review, which you can read in full here: ‘Here I Am is a deep familial jigsaw, which has been incredibly well pieced together. The dialogue is wonderfully constructed, and there is a very dark humour to it in places, which adds a great balance to the whole. Above all, the novel feels very believable; the characters are lifelike, and their problems and interactions are very realistic indeed.’
2017
Thalia by Frances Faviell
From my review, which you can read in full here: ‘One of the other strengths within the novel – and there are many – is the sense of place which Faviell details. France springs to life immediately, and the minutiae which she displays, both in terms of the general region of Brittany, and within the home, are vivid. One feels present in Rachel and Thalia’s colliding worlds through Faviell’s stunning use of colour and scent. Rachel herself is startlingly three-dimensional; I would go as far as to say that she is one of the most realistic narrators whom I have ever come across.’
2018
A Guide to Being Born by Ramona Ausubel
From my review, which you can read in full here: ‘Ausubel is such an exciting writer, with a fresh and dynamic voice and imagination. Every single one of her stories here, which are separated into four sections – ‘Birth’, Gestation’, ‘Conception’, and ‘Love’ – feel energised, and electrically charged. Her prose throughout is beautiful, and has such a strength to it. As a conceptual work, A Guide to Being Born shocks and astonishes. Every single tale here is a miniature masterpiece; all are vivid, unusual, and memorable, and for the most part, they throw up a lot of surprises. A Guide to Being Born is such a polished collection, which feels nothing less than sumptuous to read.’
2019
Spring by Ali Smith (Seasonal Quartet, Book 3)
‘A very short review: ”Spring will come. The leaves on its trees will open after blossom. Before it arrives, a hundred years of empire-making. The dawn breaks cold and still but, deep in the earth, things are growing.’
2020
Bird Cottage by Eva Meijer
From my review, which you can read in full here: ‘Bird Cottage is a fictionalised account of the life of Gwendolen Howard, known as Len. Dissatisfied with her life in London, she decided to retire to the English countryside at the age of forty . In 1938, she purchased a secluded cottage in Sussex, from which she would be able to observe birds. From her new home, she found the peace, and the avian subjects, which she needed to author two bestselling bird books. With these, she managed to captivate a large audience ‘with her observations on the tits, robins, sparrows and other birds who lived nearby, flew freely in and out of her windows, and would even perch on her shoulder as she typed.’’
2021
Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns
From my review, which you can read in full here: ‘I so enjoy Barbara Comyns’ work; it is wonderfully strange, and sometimes a little horrifying, but it is always compelling, and surprising. Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead, which was first published in 1954, fits all of this criteria. The novel is set in a small Warwickshire village and, set over a short span of time, the story encompasses many strange things. After the river floods excessively in early summer, the villagers begin to change, exhibiting odd and frightening behaviours; these range from a ‘mad miller’ who drowns himself, to the village barber, who cuts his own throat in full view. These nasty and unforeseen ends are attributed to a peculiar illness, which spreads like wildfire through the village.’
2022
Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer
‘This lyrical debut novel is at once a passionate coming-of-age story, a meditation on illness and death, and a kaleidoscopic journey through one woman’s life—told in part by the malevolent voice of her disease.
Lia, her husband Harry, and their beloved daughter, Iris, are a precisely balanced family of three. With Iris struggling to navigate the social tightrope of early adolescence, their tender home is a much-needed refuge. But when a sudden diagnosis threatens to derail each of their lives, the secrets of Lia’s past come rushing into the present, and the world around them begins to transform.
Deftly guided through time, we discover the people who shaped Lia’s youth; from her deeply religious mother to her troubled first love. In turn, each will take their place in the shifting landscape of Lia’s body; at the center of which dances a gleeful narrator, learning her life from the inside, growing more emboldened by the day.
Pivoting between the domestic and the epic, the comic and the heart-breaking, this astonishing novel unearths the darkness and levity of one woman’s life to symphonic effect.’
Let me know your top fiction picks of the last decade!
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