A question I’ve been asking myself with increasing regularity since 2020 is, how do you write about dystopia whilst living in one? Prosser not only manages to superbly craft a world just believably worse than this one, but manages to serve up a huge dollop of satirical humour and excitement beside the bleak imaginings of autocracy and labour camps. There’s extreme coincidences, conspiracies, a drug that may just allow you to see the future, road trips, and the egos of band members in their 20’s who had a successful album all vying for page space in this fun, frenetic, kaleidoscopic epic.

I had the good fortune of discovering Elizabeth’s writing through her talk at the bookshop in February. Before the talk, I’d never heard of The Lesbian Line, a helpline set up by a group of grassroots community activists in the 90’s, with the aim of offering advice, support, signposting and a listening ear to anyone who might be wondering or identifying as a lesbian. Drawing on a call-log book in which volunteers made notes about the contents of their chats, Lovatt imagines what working on the line might have been like, whilst also drawing on her own identity and journey with her sexuality. As well as a thorough exploration of the complexities of activism, queerness, gender, race and how things have changed (and haven’t) in the past 30 years, Lovatt also infuses this book with humour and humanity.

This is the book I have recommended most often this year, by a comfortable margin. It is a story about the last man left on a remote island in the North Sea, the last person who speaks his language – a mix of English, Scots, Norwegian and Shetlandic. When the owner of the land decides the man no longer serves any purpose (the
Clear of the title refers to the Scottish clearances) he enlists a messenger to deliver the news that the man must leave the only place he has ever known. Naturally, things do not go according to plan. A remarkable relationship begins to form, as does a new language. Davies’ writing is clean and elegant; it’s a novel that has so obviously had the kind of careful, attentive editing that I wish every book would receive. It is a joy.

France is always a good bellwether for crime writing. It tends to be treated there with more seriousness than we assign it.
Red Water was written originally in Croatian, but the slew of awards and glowing reviews won by the French translation is a good sign. I heartily agree with them. The novel begins in 1989 on the Dalmatian Coast, in what is now Croatia, but was then still Yugoslavia, approaching the brink of civil war. The narrative, which begins with the disappearance of a young woman, will be engulfed by the war. Characters will have their lives upturned – either by the war or by the disappearance, and many of them will find themselves recast in different roles by the time the novel reaches its conclusion. In the best tradition of crime fiction, we cannot trust what we see.

I loved Rebanks’s first book, The Shepherd’s Life,
with its compelling description of the relationship between the landscape of the Lakes and the humans and animals surviving on its beautiful but challenging terrain. Here, Rebanks is in yet starker territory – the remote Norwegian islands where the people have a long history of symbiosis with the Eider duck. Or rather, had. The tradition of making protective nests for the migrating ducks, and then collecting their down when they left, had created significant wealth for generations. In recent years the practice had dwindled to the point of vanishing, kept alive only by the dedication of the few remaining Eider women. It is two of these incredibly hardy souls to whom Rebanks turns for an understanding of the place, the people and the birds that form the basis of this near-extinct tradition. Part of the joy for us as readers is the slowly thawing relationship between Rebanks and his hosts. He is desperate to be useful, and to be recognised as such. They are suspicious, and disinclined to open up to the outsider, but the threat of their way of life being lost forever means they will consider taking the risk.

The Australian writer Helen Garner has made the bold decision to publish her diaries in her own lifetime. A long-term diary keeper, these volumes tally over eight-hundred pages; I have not yet finished reading but don’t think I will ever want to! Covering twenty years from 1978 it feels a remarkable privilege to have access to these entries that span the maturation of her daughter, a few marriages, and her identity as a writer. And whilst they are fascinating as an accompaniment to her fiction, they also elicit a reading experience not unlike that of a novel. Garner’s observations are clear and sharp, taking in an array of writers, bohemian friends and astute descriptions of strangers. There are countless humorous anecdotes, instances of spiteful self-loathing, flashes of epiphany and colourful vignettes of Melbourne and Australia in a pre-internet time I find hard not to romanticise! This is a guilty-pleasure read whilst still remaining
literary.

This new translation sees Tokarczuk return to the fragmentary style of her Man Booker prize-winning
Flights. The book’s setting is the region of Silesia, an area once mostly situated in Germany but given over to Polish jurisdiction after the Second World War. We meet a compilation of characters living on its mountains and valleys before and after the shifted borderline. There are Germans who return to see the streets of their childhood with place names in Polish, there is the life of a gender-fluid saint and foundation myths of towns that read like fables. The voice of a protagonist comes in and out, telling of her close relationship with her elderly neighbour whose mysterious behaviour aligns with nature and the seasons in confounding ways. The timelines of the stories are not clear and the effect is of a sprawling humanity, of the characters living amongst ghosts, of lives lived and gone, echoing and doubling up as time layers itself across this conflicted slice of land. A hauntingly beautiful book that has the feel of a classic.

Published by the Irish journal Paper Visual Art, this collection of essays showcases some excellent writing from Ali Smith, Michael Magee, Daisy Lafarge, Devika Ponnambalam, Maria Fusco and Maggie Armstrong, amongst others. From thwarted attempts to secure a network connection in order to pacify some young children with Netflix, to the capacity for film to capture and reflect the unspeakable experiences of growing up in a war zone, each essay offers a refreshing and insightful take on how cinema influences and infiltrates our lives. Thoughtfully edited, the distinct experience of each writer is elegantly drawn out making for an incredibly strong collection of essays that is both comforting and enlightening.

Yasmin Zaher’s debut novel is one without a neatly defined plot or purpose. Instead, we spend 225 pages inside the mind of our unnamed protagonist—and what a wild ride it is! The main character is a Palestinian woman living in New York who works with extreme care to methodically and diligently construct a clean, perfected life for herself, yet she is continually pulled toward the city’s dirty undercarriage. She develops a relationship with a homeless man, schemes to sell black-market Birkins and assigns her middle-school students increasingly existential tasks. Zaher’s tone is intimate and sharp, with a subtle undercurrent of tension that builds as past memories resurface, converging and contextualizing her present. Reviews have said this novel charts her gradual descent into madness but, in my opinion, the final pages read more like a justified reckoning with a mad world.

I read this in hardback last year and devoured it. Twice. If you haven’t been bitten by the memoir bug yet, just know you’re missing out. And if you’d like to stop missing out, The Position of Spoons is a wonderful place to start. Deborah Levy excavates her inner world through the lens of media, literature and artworks that have moved her– the building blocks that have shaped her very being. The range of topics she covers is vast and deep. You might even think there aren’t enough pages to hold it all, but they are deftly handled by Levy, who is an expert at intellectually engaging with life’s most difficult moments.

At Gloucester Road Books, we love to celebrate translated literature, and earlier this year we hosted
Translated By, Bristol–
an entire festival dedicated to the stuff. Our aim was to illuminate the often under-appreciated art of translation, the ‘invisible’ craft behind some of the best-selling books each year. Among the translators who joined us was Jen Calleja, whose book Fair has become one of the most personally impactful works I’ve ever read. Structurally, it is brilliantly arranged as a guided tour through a book fair/art fair/fun fair with various ‘attractions’ that we observe together. And through this observation, we’re invited to consider what it means to make art and to make a living as an artist, to question the fairness of translatory work, and to revel in the importance of punk and DIY cultures amongst other juicy wanderings. If you have ever found yourself back-seat driving when reading a translated work (think comments like: ‘I wish this had been more true to the original language’, ‘the translation was too modern/archaic’, ‘I could hear too much of the translator’s voice’) then this is the book for you. It’s also the book for you if you just like a damn fun read.

This unforgettable, striking short story collection pulls no punches in its examination of the lasting aftershocks of conflict, more specifically Northern Ireland’s recent past. Ní Chuinn’s characters battle the lingering traumas and disputes that are ever-present (Still Here) with dignity and courage. More often than not it’s women, mothers and what they forfeit for family and community at the heart of the stories. Linguistically it’s a real stunner, chock-full of quotable/memorable lines and phrases, meaning the aftershocks from reading it will be very close to ever-present, too. A stone-cold, verifiable, modern day classic.

A hammer blow of a novel that hits home with a directness and urgency that propels a riveting reading experience. Two East London teenagers scramble around looking for identity and purpose against a backdrop of online extremes, increasing violence and cultural pressures. What Padamsee excels at is showing how precarious young men’s lives are within the maelstrom of the internet’s dark reaches and how easily those same susceptible young men can become a danger to those around them and themselves.

Sarah Wynn-Williams’ account of her time working at Facebook/Meta from 2011 to 2018 and what it alleges is a stark read to say the least but, more importantly, a very timely and engrossing illuminator. She witnesses such a descent into an amoral mire – growing narcissism and greed; an increasing lack of humanity; an exertion of power and influence over elections and governments; wide exploitation of the vulnerable for commercial gain – that her initial idealistic belief in the company’s aim of ‘connecting the world’ undergoes a complete unravelling with severe personal cost.