Second Annual Books of the Year Author Round Up 2007

**15/12 (Further Update) Four more new additions at the bottom!!

After last year’s resounding success, we decided to do it all again, contributions for Books of the Year from some of our favourite authors at The Bookseller to the Stars.


A quick, capsule round up of names to start with and then we shall get to the contributions.

This year we have… Alain de Botton, Harriet Vyner, Peter James, Amanda Lees, James Miller, Adele Geras, Flora Fraser, Martha O’Connor, Justin Pollard, Justine Hardy, Sophie Hannah, Tracy Quan, Paul Vlitos, Adam Jacot de Boinod, Kirsty Gunn, Isabel Losada, Harriet Evans, William Dalrymple, Elizabeth Buchan, Oona Strathern, Emma Barnes, Sandra Howard, Mavis Cheek, Tracy Borman, Paul Torday, Mohsin Hamid, Jessie Childs, Anne Sebba, Carmen Callil, Suzanne Portnoy, Alexandra Gray, Christopher Fowler, David Downing, Anne Lambton, Tania Glyde, Alex Von Tunzelmann, Lewis Crofts, James Chambers, Julian Gough, Victor Sebestyen, Tim Butcher, Ben Illis, Kate Williams, Stephen Thompson, Phil Eade and Simon Sebag Montefiore.


Ok, here we go:

Tania Glyde is the author of two books. Junk DNA and Clever Girl. Her new book is called 'Cleaning Up' and is released in January.

"Imperial Life in the Emerald City - Inside Baghdad's Green Zone" by Rajiv Chandrasekaran is a prize-winning account of life inside the American enclave in the centre of Baghdad. The more I read, the more my heart sank at the vanity and arrogance of those charged with the job of getting Iraq back on its feet. The whole thing is a farcical frenzy of back-scratching, staggeringly inappropriate people given frightening levels of responsibility, and tactless, in-your-face pork barbecues. An excellent read."

Amanda Lees is the author of the ‘Kumari: Goddess of Gotham,’ the first in a new children’s series released this year. The second novel will be published in 2008.

“My favourite book of the year has to be Nicholas Booth's 'Zigzag - The Incredible Wartime Exploits of Double Agent Eddie Chapman.' Booth pulls off the trick of making this true story read like a thriller. The contradictory Chapman is laid out bare on the page in all his somewhat seedy complexity and the whip-cracking pace of the narrative is all the more exciting because the reader knows it's based on the (often unbelievable) truth. I love a good spy story and Eddie Chapman was the ultimate double agent - one of life's gamblers who can keep a cool head in a tight spot.”

Tracy Quan's first novel, ‘Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl‘, is being developed into a comedy series for HBO. Her sequel, ‘Diary of a Married Call Girl‘, is an international bestseller. Tracy lives in Manhattan, where she recently finished her third novel. ‘Diary of a Jetsetting Call Girl’ will be released in June 2008.

“My bedside reading in 2007 was all over the place, but two books stand out as compatible opposites. ‘In the Company of the Courtesan‘ by Sarah Dunant, is about a prostitute forced to reinvent herself in 16th century Venice. Fiammetta's pimp turns out to be a highly sympathetic narrator, and we see her life from his 'below stairs' position. Except that Bucino's not exactly below stairs, he's looking at Fiammetta's enterprise from beneath her skirt. It's a terrific story, and my sleep cycle was totally disrupted!

‘I'm No Saint: Memoir of a Wayward Wife’ by Elizabeth Hayt is about non-professional promiscuity in 20th century Manhattan. I have a soft spot for naughty wives. We need to hear that point of view more often. In this memoir, there's a lot of casual sex which -- on the surface -- resembles prostitution. But the stories and feelings that emerge from non-commercial sex are different. The search for physical love is a thrilling mess. It shakes up your world, your body, the lives of people around you -- makes you remarkably vulnerable and selfish. I found myself drawn to Hayt's frankness about all this and more, because she's also writing about everyday concerns -- money, mortgages, disastrous job interviews, her untidy confusing marriage.

'I'm No Saint' doesn't seem like an original concept at first, but she is funny and touching, realistic, refreshing, and braver than most of us. I think these books, together, will make for some quite lively reading group discussions.”

Tracy Borman is the learning director of English Heritage and also the author of ‘Henrietta Howard: King’s Mistress, Queen’s Servant,’ published in September 2007.

“My favourite book of 2007 is Alison Weir's ‘Katherine Swynford.’ By piecing together the fragmentary sources, Alison brings to life a figure from history who has always remained somewhat in the shadows. Katherine was one of the most important women in British royal history, being the ancestress of the Yorkist Kings and every other sovereign since. In this fascinating account, she also emerges as a very human figure, blessed by fortune and blighted by tragedy in equal measure. A remarkable achievement, and a compelling read.”

Sophie Hannah is the daughter of Adele Geras and an established novelist in her own right. Most recently penning two best-selling novels, ‘Little Face’ and ‘Hurting Distance’.

“My book of the year is 'The Thirteenth Tale' by Dianne Setterfield. It's a gripping, moving, gothic mystery that is impossible to put down until you've got to the end, and then you sigh and wonder if you'll ever read a better novel, and you wonder if there's any point reading anything else again ever. It's also so beautifully written that each sentence seems to be a work of art in itself. It's rare to find a novel that's so good that it makes you wonder if a human being could really have written it, but The Thirteenth Tale really is that good!”

Sandra Howard is a former model and wife of the ex-leader of the opposition, Michael Howard. Her latest book, ‘Ursula’s Story,’ is about a newly divorced woman who fights against remarriage, fearing the man she’s become involved with will soon move on. When her eleven-year-old daughter goes missing and he falls under suspicion Ursula’s love for him is tested and tried.

“Two books I’ve read this year had a particular extra dimension for me, those feelings of connection that mean so much. ‘On Chesil Beach’ by Ian McEwan is set at the beginning of the sixties and transported me back to that time. McEwan captures so incredibly poignantly, an age when peoples’ bottled-up emotions and inability to communicate could change the course of lives. Robert Harris’s ‘The Ghost’ is about an ex-Prime Minister and the political backdrop, the characters, it all felt very familiar! It is brilliantly spare and fast moving, a great read.”

Peter James is an award-winning crime writer and author of the Detective Roy Grace series, soon to be brought to life on the small screen. The books are ‘Dead Simple‘, ‘Looking Good Dead’ and ‘Not Dead Enough‘. The next in the series is called 'Dead Man’s Footsteps' and will be out in June 2008.

“Two books I have really liked this year are firstly, Andrew Lycett's ‘Conan Doyle - The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes.’ It was reading Sherlock Holmes as a teenager that first made me want to be a crime writer. This is the best biography of the man I have ever read - scholarly yet totally accessible it is a wonderful insight into the man who effectively created the crime fiction genre - yet wanted desperately to be known as a more serious writer. His success became his personal mill-stone, yet every crime writer on the planet owes something to him. Secondly Michael Robotham's, ‘The Night Ferry‘, was a wonderful and very compelling thriller, with a very original main character for a UK crime novel – a female Muslim police officer in London. He writes extraordinarily well and I’m delighted to have discovered him.”

Paul Vlitos is the author of ‘Welcome to the Working Week‘, a satire from the viewpoint of one man (all through email) who spends far too much time corresponding with friends. It really is the funniest book to be released this year. He has another out in the summer of next year. It’s called ‘Everyday is like Sunday’. I can’t wait.

“My book of 2007 is or was Alex von Tunzelmann’s ‘Indian Summer’, a compelling history of the end of the British Empire in India. It seems to me a matchless account of the ways in which the relationships between Nehru, Gandhi, Jinnah and the Mountbatten’s shaped the lives of millions of people. She writes with authority, scrupulous fairness, compassion, insight – and with great wit, which never detracts from the seriousness of her subject. If I had to choose my favourite single page of the year it would be page 128 of ‘Indian Summer’, which is the funniest page of prose I’ve read in the last twelve months while at the same time being quietly terrifying. It also has the most brilliantly understated use of the word ‘unfortunately’ I’ve ever encountered.

Paul Torday is the author of ‘Salmon Fishing in the Yemen,’ one of my favourite books of the year. I thought it was going to be something that I would cherish and recommend the hell out of at work, thus creating a secret and gradually growing readership that would eventually take over the world. Then it turned up on the Richard and Judy Book Club making the author a millionaire (probably) and spoiled my cunning plan. Paul’s next book is out in February, entitled ‘The Irresistable Inheritance of Wilberforce.’

“’The Domesday Book of Giant Salmon’ edited by Fred Buller, published by Constable, is a snip at only £50. This well researched and lavishly illustrated list of the largest Atlantic salmon ever caught has entries such as 'Major Piper Fraser and Chef Lagrue's 50lb Beauly salmon" - a fish jointly landed on the Beauly by a guest at Beauly castle and the French chef who somehow got in on the act - and 'The All Time Record Salmon weight 103lb from Scotland' which includes the comment (made in 1907) that the 'possession of the fish was fraught with a certain amount of danger to the captors' i.e. poachers.

That anyone should make the effort to research and compile such a book (adorned with photographs of enormous, hideous looking dead fish) fills me with admiration. Reading it, I am encouraged by such a testament to the dauntless English, Scottish and Norwegian sportsmen whose feats fill its pages, and to the marvellous eccentricity of the whole undertaking. Who needs fiction when there are facts around such as these?”

Oona Strathern is the author of ‘A Brief History of the Future,’ a "wise and witty" look at all the weird and wonderful people who have tried to predict the future and shape the way we live. She is a writer and consultant for one of Europe's leading future and trend consultants the Zukunftsinstitut, and currently lives in Vienna. Oona is also the daughter of the historian, Paul Strathern.

“My favourite book of the year is ‘The Vienna Woods Killer, a Writer's Double Life’
by John Leake, published by Granta. If this book were fiction it would be extraordinarily hard to believe. The fact that it is based on a true story makes it exceptionally hard to put down. The story is of a flamboyant Truman-Capote style writer who was "discovered" by the Austrian literary scene whilst serving a sentence for murder.Jack Unterwegger's early release "thanks" to the work of several high-profile writers enabled him to go on another gruesome killing spree. Whilst the murders are shocking what is equally shocking was the inablity of literati and the police to realise that he had fooled them all (Unterwegger even interviewed the chief of police for a national newspaper about the murders he was himself committing). In The Vienna Woods Killer, Leake recreates a complex and confusing string of events into a taut thriller of a reportage-style book.”

Martha O’Connor is the author of ‘The Bitch Goddess Notebook’, one of my Top Five books of all time. She lives in Marin County, California. Her next book, ‘Tink’ is a modern day take on the myth of Tinkerbell with gypsies and car chases and falling buildings and heartbreak and mystery and intrigue. I may have lied about the car chases and the falling buildings. It’s out in the States next year and is yet to find a home in the UK. Publishers reading, buy it!

"In ‘Lottery’, Pat Wood has created an altogether endearing character swept up in the most extreme of situations. A testament to the transcendence of friendship and the redemptive power of love, this startling novel is at once funny and poignant. Fans of Mark Haddon's ‘The Curious Incident’ and Daniel Keyes' ‘Flowers for Algernon’ would do well to pick up this captivating debut. I loved it!"

Editor’s Note: ‘Lottery’ by Pat Wood is already out in the states. It is released here in January 2008.

Mohsin Hamid attended Princeton and Harvard Law School and is the author of ‘Moth Smoke’ and ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist,’ the latter of which was short-listed for this year‘s Man Booker Prize.

“I never know what to say when someone asks me my favourite book of the year. So here I'll suggest two that not enough people have probably read. For funny and touching, I'd pick ‘Maynard & Jennica,’ a love story set in 2001 New York by Rudolph Delson. And for blistering power and freshness, my choice is Indra Sinha's novel about the Bhopal gas disaster, ‘Animal's People.’

Mavis Cheek is the author of twelve books including ‘The Sex Life of my Aunt’ and ‘Janet Gentle Gets Sexy.’ Her latest book is called ‘Yesterdays Houses.’ Her new book, ‘Amenable Women’ will be released in 2008.

“Well - I'm always looking for books to make me smile, or with luck, laugh - but which aren't just silly - sort of Mark Steel's of the book world really - so it was a treat to read ’Salmon Fishing in the Yemen’ by Paul Torday, ’The Uncommon Reader’ by the inimitably wonderful Alan Bennett and ’This Age We’re Living In’ by David Wilson all of which made me smile and laugh out loud. Only way was downbeat after those - so - the most brilliant, the most spare, J M Coetzee's ‘Diary of a Bad Year.’ Three-angle narrative that keeps you on your toes - moments of lightness but death comes in the end. My new discovery, the gritty, unfragrant George Pelecanos - ‘The Night Gardener’- American crime writing at its rawest. Apparently Stephen King thinks he's the best. About as far from Agatha Christie as Mrs Beckham is from cellulite. Engaging and fascinating social history in ‘Private Battles: How the War almost Defeated us.’ The intimate diaries of four ordinary people coping with daily life throughout the last war. Gives quite a different picture of the way we were during our darkest hours. Truly gripping.”

Lewis Crofts is author of 'The Pornographer of Vienna'.

“’The God Delusion’ by Richard Dawkins is as powerful and persuasive a book as you will pick up this year. It reads as though Dawkins is twenty seconds away from breaking out in expletives and head-butting a vicar. Of course it’s clever; but it’s also entertaining. ‘Jude: Level 1’ by Julian Gough is a mind-bending, exquisitely offensive romp through modern Ireland which pulsates like a 21st century Candide on steroids. Gough is at the forefront of making comic novels clever again. ‘The Curtain’ by Milan Kundera is a return to the Czech exile’s customary musings on what makes decent writing. Economic and insightful, every budding writer addicted to polysyllables and prologues should read it.”

Kirsty Gunn is the author of the acclaimed ‘Rain’ (1994), the story of an adolescent girl and the break-up of her family, for which she won a London Arts Board Literature Award and ‘The Boy and the Sea’ (2006), which received the Scottish Book of the Year at this year‘s Edinburgh Festival. Her latest book is called ‘44 Things’ and is currently serving as a professor of creative writing at Dundee Univesity.

“There are three books that have been a big part of my imaginative and reading life this year, and they take me right back to Scotland – where my own next novel is set…

First of all, there was Christopher Whatley's magisterial ‘The Scots and the Union’ that has taken me the whole year to read and has totally recalibrated my sense of Scottish history. Then there was (there always is!) some Neil Gunn- ‘The Other Landscape’, his last novel and, though dated in some respects, nevertheless vividly present and alive. And finally, and most recently, I loved Ali Smith's joyful and exuberantly written ‘Girl meets Boy’, an Inverness romance that makes the Canongate Myths project jump right into focus."

Justin Pollard is a much respected historical biographer and all round brainiac. Trust me, if you have a pub quiz team, give this guy a bell. He’s like a walking encyclopaedia, it’s rather unnerving. You will not be surprised to learn that Justin is a researcher behind the popular TV series, QI. His book, ‘The Interesting Bits’ is the perfect gift for Christmas for that smartarse in your life.

“’Sylvia, Queen Of The Headhunters: An Outrageous Englishwoman And Her Lost Kingdom’ by Philip Eade. History is not, in my opinion, a continuous progression of events leading to some form of conclusion but more of a random walk. Yet those events that seem to make sense get picked out and put in history books and those that don't get overlooked and this is I think a great shame. There is merit and magic in most of these lost tales and none more so than in Philip Eade's telling of the extraordinary life story of Sylvia Brooke, Ranee of Sarawak.

Born The Hon. Sylvia Leonora Brett, Sylvia Brooke came from an extraordinary family. Her father was the 2nd Viscount Esher, her mother was the daughter of a Belgian freedom fighter and one of her grandmothers was allegedly a bastard child of Napoleon. Sylvia kept up this impressive track record by marrying His Highness Sir Charles Brooke, the last white Rajah of Sarawak, and descendant of Englishman James Brooke who had been given the kingdom by the Sultan of Brunei. Their rule in Sarawak was an eccentric cross between British Imperialism and an upper class distrust of the state which led them to ban cannibalism as barbaric but also to ban Christian missionary work as intrusive and unwelcome.

In ‘Sylvia‘, Philip Eade brilliantly brings to life this vivacious, independently minded woman, loathed by the British Colonial Office for her outspokenness and renowned in the Far East for her lavish eccentricity. With wit and compassion he recreates the life and world of one of the 20th century's most exotic creatures, an Edwardian English woman ruling a jungle kingdom which only ended when her husband handed his country to the British in return for a good pension. As astonishing an historical biography as you could ever hope to find.”

Justine Hardy is the author of ‘Bollywood Boy’, ‘The Wonder House’ and ‘Goat: A Story of Kashmir & Notting Hill’.

“Perhaps it's a cheat to pick a book that has been reissued as a Penguin Classic, but as the Polish giant of despatches, Ryszard Kapuscinski, died in January 2007 it seems allowable to call the republished edition of his book, The Shadow of the Sun, one of the greats of the year. Perhaps it is impossible to match this man on Africa. As a reporter without budget he did not write from behind the high barbed wire compounds of the various dictators and men of power, but from the back alleys and villages. Across a period of 30 years Kapuscinski wrote from deep in the heart of Africa.”

Julian Gough is the author of ‘Jude: Level 1,’ and winner of this year's BBC National Short Story Award with ‘The Orphan and the Mob.’

“’Then We Came To The End’ by Joshua Ferris. A smart, funny, painfully accurate book about office life (and death). And he's written it from the collective point of view of all the workers ("How we hated our coffee mugs!") Technically amazing, a nd FABULOUSLY difficult, he makes it look so easy you forget about it after sixty seconds. A Great American Novel. Serious respect is due. ‘There Are Little Kingdoms’ by Kevin Barry. Vinnie Browne, in Charlie Byrne's bookshop in Galway, forced me to buy this. Ignoring my anguished protests that modern Irish short stories are shite and I hate them. Well, I don't hate these ones. Vinnie was right. This is the best Irish short story collection since Mike McCormack's ‘Getting It In The Head,’ which was the best since Frank O'Connor's ‘My Oedipus Complex.’ Small-town Ireland, given a good, loving, seeing-to, from behind.

‘The Uncommon Reader’ by Alan Bennett. The Queen joins a library, late in life, and, lost in literature, starts to neglect her duties. Her courtiers, concerned, take ever more drastic action… An utter, utter delight. I'm giving my mum a copy.

‘Paris Review Interviews Volume 2’ by edited by Philip Gourevitch: Writers from Isaac Bashevis Singer through Alice Monro to Stephen King discuss everything from their philosophy of life to their choice of pencil eraser. If you're addicted to this sort of thing, as I am, then this is a lucky bag full of fecking huge rocks of crack.”

Julian also added this in the comments below...

"Writing up my list, I totally forgot that Milan Kundera's The Curtain had been published earlier this year. I'd read it so thoroughly (several times), and it had sunk in so deep, that I'd vaguely assumed I'd had my bent, trashed copy for a couple of years. So add that to my list, Mark, please, if possible! Milan Kundera is one of the great thinkers about the novel, what it has done and what it can do. (And, as a gifted novelist, he's a lot easier to read than the most brilliantly original 20th century theorist of the novel, Mikhail Bakhtin, whose genius is muffled by godawfully impenetrable Russian Formalist prose). Kundera's key image is of the novel as a great forest, which writers have only just begun to explore. This book is enlightening, entertaining, intriguing, and reassuring. Especially if, machete in one hand and pen in the other, you happen to be trying to cut your own path through that forest."

James Miller teaches American literature at King's College and English A-level at various private colleges in South Kensington. He studied English lit at Oxford University (1st class honours) then MA at UCL and PhD in African-American literature at King's College London (special topic, James Baldwin and Civil Rights). His first novel is entitled ‘Lost Boys’ and is published in June 2008 by Little Brown. Look out for this one guys, he’s one to be watched!

“My book of the year, and possibly the decade, is Naomi Klein 'The Shock Doctrine.' Klein peels back the ideology of free market economics to reveal the terrifying truth beneath. She offers a fearful interpretation of key events of the last 20 years, joining the dots to show how free market reforms invariably involve massive violence, coercion and torture. Mind blowing stuff, and a very, very brave book by someone who has, I think, understood the deeper, metaphorical-psychological truth of our times.”

Jessie Childs lives in London and her first book 'Henry VIII's Last Victim: the life and times of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey' won this year's Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography. The paperback is out in February.

“Any book that sends me back to Flashman gets my vote. Saul David’s magnificent ‘Victoria’s Wars’ is full of tales of blundering generals, bloody battles and quite astonishing acts of heroism. A thrilling read. I’ve just finished and am hugely impressed by ‘The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street’ by Charles Nicholl. It deserves all the fabulous reviews it is currently receiving and the prizes it will surely win.

A novel about the adoption of two Korean babies by two Baltimore families may not seem the most promising material, but Anne Tyler is the mistress of making the commonplace exquisite and in ‘Digging to America,’ she has produced as sharp and witty a novel as I have read all year. Finally, a recommendation for Christmas: ‘The Bumper Book of British Sleaze’ by Richard Morton Jack and Owen O’Rorke is a hilarious exposé of chutzpah and hypocrisy in the corridors of power. Great stuff.”

James Chambers is author of ‘Charlotte & Leopold: The True Story of The Original People’s Princess’ and ‘Palmerston.’

“My favourite books of 2007. There have been several good books this year on Stalin and Russia, but before you read the others, read Orlando Figes’ brilliant ‘The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin’s Russia.‘ It is a dense, devastating description of the background against which the other stories are told.

These days, they say, history books have to be about household names. Don’t you believe it. Alison Weir’s ‘Katherine Swynford: the Story of John of Gaunt’s Scandalous Duchess’ is highly entertaining.

My favourite novel this year is ‘Tamara Drewe’ by Posy Simmonds, the presiding genius of the “graphic novel”. Every witty but compassionate picture says more about human nature than a thousand words anywhere else. The best reference book of the year is ‘How to Fossilise your Hamster’ by Mick O’Hare. It contains all those long forgotten school-day experiments and merry recipes, from making detergent out of nuts to making a big bang out of “a few household chemicals in the proper proportions”.

Isabel Losada is a broadcaster and the author of four books. They are 'New Habits', ‘The Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment’, ‘The Beginner’s Guide to Changing the World’ and ‘Men: Where the F*** Are They?.’ She is also the founder of the charity, Act for Tibet.

“My favourite genre is narrative non fiction - partly because this is what I write myself and partly because the old saying that 'truth is stranger than fiction', is an understatement. While I was busy this year trying to confirm whether available and interesting men over the age of 40 exist - Will Storr was busy looking for ghosts. His book 'Will Storr vs The Supernatural' is one of my favourite reads of the year and whilst I failed to find a source of interesting and available men for my girlfriends - Will, much to his surprise, found plenty of ghosts. A true story, Will's book is REALLY scary and I was careful not to read it when I was in the house alone at night.

Another brilliant piece of non fiction this year that I absolutely loved was Ed Hussain's ‘The Islamist’. I hadn't understood what was going on in parts of our Muslim community and how it was happening. And now I do. No small achievement for one book. But more that this Ed Hussain is very readable and writes with a wonderful humility of his love for the Prophet Mohammed - which he communicates with an erudite beauty in this story. This book left me not only better educated but also profoundly touched.

Finally another book that I really think is a small miracle is Blake Morrison's 'And When Did You Last See Your Father?' which was re-printed this year for the release of the film. This work is another supreme example of why I love non fiction. Blake writes about the difficulty that he had in his relationship with his father as a child, and then during and after his death. Without preaching he manages to write about the transformation of his own relationship thus indirectly challenging the reader to look at their own fathers with compassion and understanding. For my taste the film didn't do the book justice... but the book is utterly wonderful for anyone that has, or ever did have, a father - no matter how good or bad the relationship is or was."

Harriet Evans is a fiction editor for Headline and also the author of ‘Going Home’ and ‘A Hopeless Romantic‘. Her next book will be out in 2008.

“There are two books I read this year that gave me papercuts, so anxious was I to finish them. The first is ‘The Shuttle‘, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, beautifully reissued by Persephone Books, who bring back wonderful books like this into print. It's about the 19th century vogue for marriages between impoverished English peers and wealthy American girls - and the sometimes tragic results. Completely fascinating - and unputdownable, showing why Hodgson Burnett was the great novelist she was, not just for children but for adults as well.

The second has to be ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows‘. It's not my favourite of the series; it's a little 2-D in places, but no one else could have done what JK Rowling has achieved with these seven books. Thrilling, moving, funny, interesting and heartbreaking: I absolutely loved it, and was really sad when I finished. She should have pretty good karma for the hours of pleasure she's given to millions of people around the world.”

Harriet Vyner grew up in London, Yorkshire, and Sussex. She is a trustee of the Hoping Foundation, a charity she set up with Bella Freud (amongst others) to help Palestinian refugee children. She is the author of ‘Among Ruins‘, a semi-autobiographical work set in Northumbria and has just released the Jools Holland autobiography, ‘Barefaced Lies and Boogie-Woogie Boasts‘, which she co-authored. She is currently working on a second novel:

“Mine is ‘The Old Country’ by Sam North, which gives us a death, a birth, a funeral and wedding, and is set within the world of an increasingly impoverished upper class family. Michael Gough, the dowdy and ageing protagonist, displays the aristocratic habit of deliberate vagueness in the face of spreading disaster. He inspires fondness, amusement, pity, irritation and fondness again. I found him entirely true to life. The characters are all as wonderfully drawn and familiar, but the twists and turns of plot are unexpected and often shocking. I am delighted that it is to be made into a television drama – not only do I look forward to seeing this hilarious story on screen, but also it will bring the novel the nationwide popularity it deserves.”

Flora Fraser is the daughter of Lady Antonia and a much regarded historical biographer in her own right, as the author of ‘The Unruly Queen’ and ‘Princesses: The Daughters of George III.’ She is currently working on her next book.

“This summer I ate up ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’, a novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie that captured vividly the atmosphere of post-colonial East Africa and the Biafran war. More recently I have been enthralled by ‘The Tin Roof Blowdown’, the latest novel by James Lee Burke to feature his Iberia Parish detective Dave Robicheaux. The setting is New Orleans, in the grisly aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Robicheaux is searching for a junkie priest and vigilante among the sodden wreckage of hopes and humanity. The structure Burke imposes upon these sad contemporary events, his richly-drawn characters and the superb deadpan/dead man wit that pervades the book all made for a disturbing but immensely satisfying read.”

Emma Barnes is MD of Snowbooks, Small Publisher of the Year 2006 and Shortlisted for this year’s Young Publisher of the Year.

“I loved ‘Boomsday’ by Christopher Buckley: not only is the cover gorgeous but the story of generational warfare - is hilarious and touches all sorts of nerves. Searing and hilarious in equal measure.

It's Christmas again, and the struggle begins to find the perfect present. In a world full of self help books and endless advice from child rearing experts, interior designers and domestic goddesses, ‘How to Worry Friends and Inconvenience People’ is a refreshing blend of surreal humour, anarchy and mischief, perfect for people who need a dose of reactionary vitriol to see them through the festive season. How to Worry Friends... will show you how to embrace your inner mischief maker with advice about putting bubble wrap under your doormat to surprise guests or showing your appreciation when cars stop for you at a zebra crossing by running up and patting their bonnets. There's even advice on inexpensive ways to entertain your children, such as taking the kids to see the changing of the lights outside Buckingham Palace. Leila Johnston, the author is the founder of worryfriends.com.

Food is good. From the sweetest amuse-bouche to the stickiest pud, via the freshest soup and the finest steak, the culinary arts provide us with some of the richest sensual experiences that we are privy to. Booze is also good. From Beer to Whisky, from Absinthe to Zubrowka, man's multifarious methods of inducing intoxication run from the simple to the exotic - all with the same pleasurable effects. ‘Cooking with Booze’ by George Harvey Bone, therefore, brings together two of mankind's greatest achievements in an explosion of culinary genius. From beer-battered cod to plums in red wine, from champagne oysters to the perfect vodka jelly, Harvey Bone presents a range of drinks cupboard delicacies to entertain every palate, culled from sources across the globe, with easy-to-follow recipes for even the tipsiest of chefs. Cheers!”

Elizabeth Buchan is the author of The Good Wife, That Certain Age and The Second Wife, which was the sequel to her best-selling novel, Revenge of the Middle Aged Woman, which was made into a television film for CBS. She also reviews for The Sunday Times and Daily Mail.

“’The Raphael Trail by Joanna Pitman.’ A truly fascinating 'biography' of one of the Western's world great paintings, St George and the Dragon by Raphael. The author's detective work is remarkable and the detail she includes opens an window not only into the social context of any given age but also into the appetites of collectors and buccaneers. It is also a brilliantly easy read. Equally the reissue of Lucilla Andrew's ‘No Time for Romance’ is another small revelation. Ian McEwan has acknowledged his debt to her in Atonement and, again, it evokes another era whose mores and expectations seem to us unimaginably distant although it was only sixty years ago.”

David Downing is the author of 'Zoo Station' and the forthcoming sequel 'Silesian Station' (March 2008)

“Alan Furst ‘The Foreign Correspondent.’ Alan Furst’s early novels ‘Night Soldiers’ and ‘Dark Star’ wonderfully evoked the doomed romanticism of the European left on the eve of World War Two, but his subsequent books were all set in the war itself, and seemed to lack the moral complexity of their predecessors. In ‘Dark Voyage’ he even tried his hand at action-adventure, with less than complete success. Now, with this year’s ‘The Foreign Correspondent’ he’s back in pre-war days, trailing an exotic cast of anti-fascists around the mean streets of a hostile Europe. The story is engrossing, the history fascinating, the writing beautiful. Few English or American writers choose a combination of European settings and European characters. None do it better than Furst."

Christopher Fowler is the best-selling author of the Bryant & May mysteries, of which the latest is ‘White Corridor.’ He also has a newly released collection of short stories entitled 'Old Devil Moon.'

“'Michael Palin Diaries 1969-1979' - Palin's memories of the Python years are great for dipping into. Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road' is the best post-apocalyptic novel I've ever read, and affected me for days after. Equally chilling was 'Blackwater', Jeremy Scahill's examination of the erosion of American democracy. Alan Bennett's 'The Uncommon Reader' is a charming, simple story of the kind I usually hate. 'JG Ballard Quotes' selected by V. Vale and Mike Ryan prove that Ballard is the most prescient author working in Britain today. 'Summer Chills' edited by Stephen Jones set the benchmark for the best vacation horror stories.”

Carmen Callil is a former Director of Channel 4, the founder of Virago Press and the author of ‘Bad Faith: A Forgotten History of Family and Fatherland.’

“I was both fascinated and impressed by Virginia Nicholson’s ‘Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived without Men after the First World War.’ I would not have believed that one could learn more about the First World War, and most accounts, rightly, concentrate on the terrible deaths of so many men. The story of the women who had to struggle on through life, alone, because of these deaths, is one of those hitherto untold slices of history of the very best kind. This book is moving, very well researched, with marvellous use made of original sources. The voices of the women shine through its pages. “

William Dalrymple is a critically-acclaimed historian and author of best-selling works of non-fiction. His books include City of Djinns, White Mughals and The Last Mughal, which most recently won the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize for History and Biography.

“A good year for books about India . The book that impressed my most was Alex Von Tunzlemann’s ‘Indian Summer‘- unquestionably the best book I have ever read on the Independence and Partition of India and Pakistan, and pretty close to a flat out masterpiece. It is also by a long way the most amusing, and balanced account of the Mountbatten’s and their strange menage a trois with Nehru.

Very different and almost as good was Kathryn Tidrick’s iconoclastic ‘Gandhi: A Political and Spiritual life’ in which Tidrick locates the roots of Gandhi’s thought in the lunatic spiritualist fringe of late Victorian England among the occultists, high fibreists, mediums and the ectoplasm-seekers who flourished in late nineteenth century London. It is almost too good to be true that the huge, pompous Curzonian edifice of the Raj was undermined by ideas emanating from such wonderfully dotty sources, yet Tidrick makes her case very persuasively.

One book which did not get the attention it deserved was Linda Colley’s wonderful ‘The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh.’ This stunningly revisionist study of Britain’s imperial vulnerability is seen through the lens of one woman’s strange odyssey through the surprisingly globalised world of the 18th century. It follows its heroine’s journey from Jamaica to India via Portsmouth , Minorca and a period of captivity in Morocco . It is beautifully written, superbly well researched and reads a little like the adventures of a non-fiction Becky Sharpe.

I was also bowled over by a remarkable new translation of what was once the most popular oral epic of the Indo-Islamic world. The ‘Adventures of Hamza’ is the Iliad and Odyssey of mediaeval Persia world: a rollicking, magic-filled heroic saga, full of myth and imagination. It was originally composed in Iraq around the 9th century, but it was in India that the epic took on a life of its own growing to an unprecedented size, and absorbing endless Indian myths and legends. Remarkably, the translation which has just been published by Random House Modern Library is the first time the epic has been translated into English and is as close as is now possible to the world of the Mughal campfire those night gatherings of soldiers, Sufis, musicians and camp-followers that one sees in Mughal miniatures: a storyteller beginning his tale in a clearing of a forest as the embers of the blaze glow red and the eager fire-lit faces crowd around.”

Ben Illis is author of ‘The Tale of The Town Mouse and The Country Mouse, A Modern Retelling’ and works at Old Street Publishing.

“Rawi Hage’s ‘De Niro’s Game’ is a gut-wrenchingly good novel about the horrors of the Lebanese Civil War. No easy redemption here, as the protagonists cruise through their existentialist, bombed out lives in Beirut, looking for ways to move on up and out. Hage’s real skill lies in his deft use of language – images borrowed from and influenced by traditional Islamic poetry twist languidly through the explosive, cinematic, hard-edged narrative. Great stuff. Paul Torday’s ‘Salmon Fishing in the Yemen’ was another debut novel I much enjoyed, albeit one whose publication came surrounded by a little more hype. An excellent satire on political spin told effectively through emails, letters, diary entries and transcripts of interviews, it had a darkness I much enjoyed and proved a far more worthwhile read than anticipated.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s follow up to her excellent ‘Purple Hibiscus’ was one I was waiting for and which didn’t disappoint. ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ is, like ‘De Niro’s Game,’ not always the easiest of reads, but it does shed an extraordinary light on the story of Biafra’s short-lived independence from Nigeria and offers a rightly slamming indictment of Britain’s foreign policy towards this relatively little-known embryonic state. Beautifully described and characterised, this is a deeply moving and important book and a thoroughly deserving winner of the Orange Prize.

On the non-fiction side, I thoroughly enjoyed Brian Payton’s ‘In Bear Country.’ Payton weaves a beautiful and richly evoked narrative out of a series of journeys to explore the status of the 8 remaining bear species in their natural habitats around the world. Never judgemental, Payton allows the people he meets along the way to tell their own stories and, in some cases, utterly damn themselves by their actions. Exploring some heart-rending stories of too many species of bear sadly in too much trouble, he also expertly counter-balances what might otherwise be a depressing story of (yet another) species on the brink of destruction with some fascinating asides into different people’s folkloric relationship with bears and even the odd bit of good news on the conservation side.”

Anne Sebba is the acclaimed author of The Exiled Collector. Her new book is called Jennie Churchill: Winston’s American Mother.

“Lindy Woodhead's ‘Shopping, Seduction and Mr Selfridge’ not only has an exquisitely stylish cover and clever title, it's a fantastic read. What a story with a great high and an unbelievably sad end. Does this man's life explain the 21s t century addiction to spending money as a favourite weekend activity? Well partly, but I don't think Harry Gordon Selfridge can be entirely blamed. The social history crammed into these pages is riveting. Read it and you may find out why half the country is out shopping instead of reading.”

Anne Lambton is an actress, author and former bodyguard to Andy Warhol. Born Lady Anne Mary Gabrielle Lambton, she has appeared in The Witches, Mrs. Henderson Presents and Sid and Nancy. She will be appearing in the movie, The Edge of Love with Sienna Miller and Keira Knightley, released next year. Her first book of short stories was released this year, entitled ‘LA Mirage.’

“My favourite book this year was ‘What is the What’ by Dave Eggers an epic novel based on the true story of Valentino Achak Deng, a Sudanese refugee, one of the so called 'Lost Boys' who walked from certain death to uncertain safety. Grabbed and held from the opening paragraph set in Atlanta Georgia, where with superior cynicism, we see Valentino callously duped by first world thuggery. You are led back, simply and brilliantly through his eyes, to see and experience all that he did from the age of seven on. Friends and acquaintances massacred, devoured by Lions, be enlisted or worse by rebel armies. He even falls in love.

Inundated as we are by life's atrocities, this novel hits home, in a way that film, photojournalism or straight reporting has often lost the power to do. Horrified, amused and saddened by his journey, we witness first hand the unimaginable suffering, trials, and, ultimately the indomitable triumph of the human spirit complete with all its foibles.”


Alex Von Tunzelmann is the author of ‘Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire.’

“The book that has most haunted me this year is ‘Beslan’ by Timothy Phillips, an account of the 2004 North Ossetia school siege. It balances a compassionate, personal insight into the siege itself with a fascinating analysis of modern Russia. I’ve had very little time to read new books this year, but I’m making up for it over Christmas. I can’t wait to read Edna Fernandes’ ‘Holy Warriors,’ which explores various religious fundamentalisms in India. I’m also really looking forward to Patrick Bishop’s ‘3 Para,’ which follows the experiences of British troops in Afghanistan."

Alexandra Gray is currently writing her second novel. Her first was called ‘Ten Men’ and described as something for ‘those women still in mourning for Sex and the City’.

“For anyone who believes they have a novel in them, before sitting down to the lap-top, pick up Walter Mosley’s slim volume, ‘This Year You Write Your Novel.’ Mosley is a veteran who knows his subject. All of his advice is sound and could have saved me a lot of time: I took five years to write two books. Having just signed a contract to write a novel in a year, I aim to follow Mosley’s recommendation to write every day. As he acknowledges, discipline is only half of it. Trusting the process in which the apparently unknown, waiting to be discovered part of ourselves, will be revealed is also key. As Mosley explains, ‘The most important thing I’ve found out about writing is that it is primarily an unconscious activity… I mean that a novel is larger than your head (or conscious mind).”

Alain de Botton is the bestselling author of ‘How Proust Can Change Your Life‘, ‘Essays in Love’ and the more recent, ‘Architecture of Happiness‘. He produces really interesting and informative documentaries that simple people like me can really learn a lot from without feeling baffled:

“I much enjoyed Adam Thirlwell's ‘Miss Herbert‘. It's a completely mad idea, in this day and age, for someone to write 500 pages of closely argued literary criticism about translation - but Thirlwell is a brave man and he's turned in a book that's funny and erudite and hugely informative. This is the ideal Christmas present for the literary boffin in every family.”

Adele Geras is the author of over eighty books for children, including ‘Troy’, which was short-listed for the Carnegie Medal. Her first adult novel, Facing the Light, was published in March 2003. Her latest book is ‘A Hidden Life’, paperback next year, about a girl who bequeaths her grandfather’s backlist of novels and discovers a valuable relationship, as well as whole load of family secrets. The cover is beautiful too and certainly one of the best I have seen this year.

“One of the novels I've most enjoyed was ‘When We Were Bad’ by Charlotte Mendelson. It's much more than an account of a family falling to pieces and coming together and is written with great humour, affection and style. I have also to mention ‘Take Off Your Party Dress’ by the late and very much lamented Dina Rabinovitch. I am missing Dina both in print and personally and this book brings her voice back to me. It's not quite right to think of it simply as a cancer memoir. It's also a wonderful read and is fascinating about all sorts of things.. Every sale helps the Mount Vernon charity in the way Dina intended.”

Adam Jacot de Boinod is the author of ‘The Meaning of Tingo’. His second book about the extraordinary world of wonderful foreign translations is called ‘Toujours Tingo’ and is out now.

“My two books of the year are ‘Happiness’ by Edward Monkton and ‘Going Dutch in Beijing’ by Mark McCrum. They are both universal in their target and reach and un-judgmental and upbeat and highly enjoyable.”

Suzanne Portnoy has been an entertainment publicist for twelve years. Suzanne originally hails from Long Island, NY. Attractive and finally a size 12 after twenty years of yo-yo dieting, she is happily single and spends her spare time writing, having sex and acting as a one-woman car pool. Her first book, 'The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker: An Erotic Memoir,' is published by Virgin. Her new book is out in February and is called “The Not-so-Invisible Woman.”

“I've recently completed 'Paradise Lust' - Kit McCann's wry look at the bar girl scene in Thailand. Kit has a love/hate relationship with his subject matter. He is both completely enamoured of Thai women whilst simultaneously finding their 'here today, gone tomorrow' attitude both amusing and infuriating in equal measures. McCann lived in Thailand for many years and his knowledge of the subject matter is evident! A fascinating study into a way of life about which most Westerners know very little.”

Victor Sebestyen was born in Budapest and was only an infant when his family left Hungary. He has worked for many British newspapers, including the Evening Standard. He lives in London and he is the author of ‘Twelve Days: Revolution 1956. How the Hungarians Tried to Topple Their Soviet Masters’.

“’Legacy of Ashes’ by Tim Weiner is a devastating, well documented and stylishly written history of the CIA which reveals, occasionally in hilarious detail, the serial bungling of the USA's "intelligence" service over the last five decades. ‘Young Stalin’ by Simon Sebag Montefiore is an enthralling, magisterial, chilling study of the making of a Monster and ‘Absurdistan’ by Gary Shteyngart is an uproarious post-Soviet satire of oil-rich oligarchs and gangster's molls by America's finest contemporary comic novelist.”

Tim Butcher has just published his first book, 'Blood River – A Journey To Africa's Broken Heart' using his account of an epic expedition he endured across the Congo to tell the region's turbulent history. He has worked for The Daily Telegraph since 1991 specialising in reporting on awkward places at awkward times – Bosnia '94, Algeria '97, Sierra Leone '00, Iraq '03 etc. He works currently as the paper's Middle East Correspondent based in Jerusalem.

“William Boyd took me back to sweaty summer of '76 in his new novel ‘Restless‘, where an old lady living down a leafy Oxfordshire lane is found to have a dark WWII past. And he showed that the trans-Atlantic Special Relationship was not ever thus, describing the muddle when London had to use skullduggery to get Washington on side. I also enjoyed being steered through the chaos of eastern Congo by John Le Carre in ‘The Mission Song’ which was a wonderfully imaginative way of illuminating a region synonymous with darkness.''

Philip Eade worked for several years on the Daily Telegraph's obituaries desk and is the author of 'Sylvia Queen of the Headhunters: An Outrageous Englishwoman and Her Lost Kingdom'.

"I read Miranda Seymour’s memoir 'In My Father’s House' in a day. The author’s strange upbringing at Thrumpton Hall, a country house in Nottinghamshire, with which her father was obsessed, is beautifully described. The book is startling, funny, sad, often very moving, and its gripping narrative makes you want to keep reading until the end. Having picked it up I found its combination of honesty, eccentricity and extraordinary twists completely compelling. Highly recommended."

Simon Sebag-Montefiore is a British academic specializing in Russian History. He wrote 'Catherine the Great and Potemkin', a biography of Catherine the Great's lover and political partner. More recently, in 2004, he authored a lengthy biography of one of the twentieth centuries most powerful dictators, 'Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar'. Both biographies were critically acclaimed and his second book is being widely translated and reprinted. His new book, 'The Young Stalin' came out in May to much critical acclaim.

"'The Whisperers' by Orlando Figes. This brilliant chronicle of suffering and courage shows how the soviet people survived the horrors of Stalinism. everyone should read it. it is totally compelling heartbreaking and unforgettable. you will cry when you read it and wonder at how they survived."

Stephen Thompson was born in London to Jamaican parents. He is the author of 'Toy Soldiers' and 'Missing Joe' as well as this year's excellent 'Meet Me Under the Westway'. He has lectured in journalism and creative writing at Birkbeck College. His articles have appeared in numerous publications, including The Observer, The Idler, The Voice, The Scotsman and Arena Magazine. He regularly reviews for Scotland on Sunday and now lives and works in Edinburgh.

"For a brief period during the 70s the Biafran war was all over the news. Some of the images from it - of wretched-looking, half-starved refugees fleeing persecution - came to symbolise all that was wrong with post-independence Africa. In her emotionally-powerful second novel, 'Half Of A Yellow Sun', Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche revisits that now forgotten conflict and reminds us that the lessons of history are seldom learned. Highly recommended. This year also saw the 200th anniversay of the abolition of the Transatlantic slave trade. As well as all the TV and radio programmes, there were any number of books (published a little too conveniently for my liking) to mark the occasion. Of these, Simon Schama's 'Rough Crossings' was perhaps the most high profile and successful. And quite rightly so. Erudite, exhaustive, and highly readable, it's a tremendous achievement by an historian at the very top of his game. Writing of this calibre simply doesn't come around very often."

Kate Williams started working on 'England's Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton' in 2001, while researching her doctorate. Her work has been published in academic journals and books, as well as magazines and newspapers including Time Out and the Independent. She frequently lectures to historical societies and groups, as well as consulting for and appearing on TV programmes. She is 31 and lives in central London in a flat with not much furniture but a few thousand books:

"My Books of the Year are 'Leo Hickman: The Final Call, In Search of the True Cost of Our Holidays.' Written by the Guardian’s ethical living correspondent, this is a timely and thought-provoking exploration of the impact of our desire for cheap holidays in faraway climes and frequent mini breaks by air. As Hickman shows, the Alps are fast losing snow, most exotic resorts are desperate for water, workers are terribly exploited and ecosystems are wrecked. Weaving lively case studies with sobering statistics, Hickman provides a desperately needed counter to our ever-increasing passion to take ‘holidays of a lifetime’ – every year.

'The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow into Depressive Disorder' by Allan V. Horoitz and Jerome C. Wakefield. The Loss of Sadness is a crucially important intervention into the ever-increasing medicalisation of conditions that our ancestors saw as normal, if imperfect parts of life. As they argue, ‘sadness is an inherent part of the human condition, not a mental disorder’ and there should be distinctions drawn between ‘normal sadness’, particularly in response to upsetting events, and actual depressive disorder.
The authors are subtle about this point as their main aim is changing the practices of doctors, but the drug companies are instrumental in pathologising responses that are simply often a product of situation or even personality. Indeed, there is now a drug for shyness. The Loss of Sadness is a densely argued book, but it is required reading in an age when we say ‘I am depressed’ when we really mean ‘I am sad’ or even ‘I am bored’".

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