Sunday, December 7, 2014

My Favourite Books Of 2013

(repost from Dec 2013)
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Here are my favourite books of 2013, not all of which were actually published this year. If there's a theme, I think it might be possibly be walking or maybe the literary ascent of the extended Morrissey clan. (as usual there will be a separate list for crime fiction)
1. Red or Dead - David Peace. One of England's best writers uses the medium of Bill Shankly's tenure at Liverpool FC to reinvent what the novel can do. 
2. Autobiography - Morrissey. The Moz gets his revenge on anyone who's ever crossed him in this poisonously brilliant billet mal.
3. EdgelandsMichael Symmons Roberts and Paul Farley. Two poets explore the edges of civilization in a walk throughout England's shittier and lesser known byways. 
4. The Generals - Tom Ricks. Best history book of the year. An exploration of the decline in American generalship since the second world war. 
5. The Maid's Version - Daniel Woodrell. Yet another classic from one of America's best novelists. 
6. The Old Ways - Robert Macfarlane. Posh intellectual Robert Macfarlane goes for lots of walks in Britain and abroad and waxes lyrical about them. 
7. Parallax - Sinead Morrissey. Ireland's best young poet up to all her old tricks and some new ones too. 
8. The Luminaries - Eleanor Catton. A man walks into a bar and finds an Irishman, an Englishman and a Scotsman... and 9 other strangers. They've got a story to tell.
9. London Orbital - Iain Sinclair. Iain Sinclair and his hippy best friend decide to walk around the M25 motorway. Anti clockwise. JG Ballard gets invoked. A lot. This also is a very good thing. 
10. The Broken Road - Patrick Leigh Fermor. Part 3 of Paddy Fermor's journey a pied to Constantinople completed by sympathetic editors.