As usual, here are the best books I read this year which were published for the first time in hardback or paperback, with a smattering of older books. Many of them are on my review page, and rather than individual links, have a look there for pieces on them.

Go straight to Fiction | Non-Fiction | Poetry | Education.

And here’s the annual round-up of other people’s choices.

Book of the Year

Katherine Rundell is some talent: in her mid-30s, she is already a bestselling children’s author (recommended by my daughter), and now comes her scintillating book on John Donne: Super-Infinite: the transformations of John Donne. I burned through this in a couple of days: a worthy successor to the great John Carey, Rundell writes brilliantly, bringing to vivid life Shakespeare’s contemporary.

Fiction

Deesha Philyaw’s The Secret Lives of Church Ladies is a fabulous début: a collection of short stories about Black women’s lives, it is funny, erotic and touching and, and it was a delight to read on a summer holiday beach. Sara Baume in Seven Steeples, her fourth book, confirms what a calm, controlled and excellent writer she is: a wise voice for our times. I read Ashley Hickson-Lovence’s Your Show because I’m fascinating by referees in sport, having once been one: here, the (still) only Black referee in the top English football division, Uriah Rennie, is recreated memorably. And two top-class short story collections by writers from Northern Ireland: Wendy Erskine’s Dance Move is full of pleasure, and the veteran Bernard MacLaverty is still on top form in Blank Pages, which is often so moving. I also caught up with Toni Morrison’s only short story Recitatif (now in book form with an essential essay by Zadie Smith): intriguing and powerful.

Non-Fiction

Fintan O’Toole’s magisterial We Don’t Know Ourselves: a personal history of Ireland since 1958 is essential reading for all Irish people, and shows the extent of the changes in Irish society in a relatively short period. And he knows how to tell stories. I compared it to my Book of 2021, Claire Keegan’s very short novel Small Things Like These. Neil Sentance’s Water and Sky and Ridge and Furrow moved me in their delicate sensitivity to changing life in a part of Lincolnshire I know very well. Tabitha Lasley’s Sea State was in some ways brutal, and fascinating in its evocation of off-shore oil rigs in Scotland, and the impact on people on shore. Jeffrey Boakye’s I Heard What You Said was insightful, especially about racism in the education system. Craig Bromfield’s Be Good, Love Brian may not be great literature, but it was hugely enjoyable: the sweet story of how a couple of boys were taken under the wing of Brian and Barbara Clough at the height of Nottingham Forest’s success. Patrick Freyne’s collection of personal essays OK, Let’s Do Your Stupid Idea is terrific. Ian Leslie’s Conflicted: Why Arguments Are Tearing Us Apart and How They Can Bring Us Together is just the thing for this moment (I subscribe to his Substack, The Ruffian, and he’s always sensible and interesting).

Poetry

Molly Twomey’s Raised Among Vultures is the first collection by a young Irish poet which went straight to the heart in writing about the aftermath of an eating disorder (it’s about far more, though). Another Irish poet, Victoria Kennefick, had a great and deserved success with Eat or We Both Starve. Not poetry, but on a poet: Roy Foster’s Seamus Heaney is slim and also somehow comprehensive. He writes the right thing again and again.

Education

Sonia Thompson’s Ron Berger’s An Ethic of Excellence is, appropriately, excellent, and it was great to meet and host her at researchED Dublin in October. Alex Quigley’s Closing the Writing Gap completes a vital trilogy for English teachers (following Vocabulary and Reading), and another extremely helpful trilogy, for all teachers, was completed in Walkthrus 3 by Tom Sherrington and Oliver Caviglioli (who also came to rED Dublin). Zoe Enser’s Bringing Forth the Bard: a guide to teaching Shakespeare in the English classroom was, of course, right up my street. Ollie Lovell’s formidable overview, Tools for Teachers: How to teach, lead, and learn like the world’s best educators, was full of rich insights.