2011 - Books of the Year

The Best of 2010 Countdown continues with the best books I've read this year. No attempts to categorise them into books that were published in 2010 or not... instead, a short countdown of my favourite non-fiction reads before we get onto the main event.

Click the links to read my full reviews. If you can be bothered.

My Top Five Non-Fiction Books of 2010

5. Adventures On The High Teas - Stuart Maconie

4. Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs - Chuck Klosterman

3. The Progressive Patriot - Billy Bragg

2. Good Morning Nantwich - Phil Jupitus

1. How I Escaped My Certain Fate - Stewart Lee

My Top Ten Fiction Books of 2011

10. World War Z - Max Brooks

9. Furnace - Muriel Gray

8. Room - Emma Donoghue

7. Started Early, Took My Dog - Kate Atkinson

6. The Hollow Man - John Dickson Carr

5. The Passage - Justin Cronin

4. Full Dark, No Stars - Stephen King

3. Seeing Stars - Simon Armitage

2. Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith

1. The Crimson Petal And The White - Michel Faber

It was a difficult list to judge this year, largely due to a couple of my favourite books suffering from huge flaws in their final acts. Justin Cronin's The Passage is prime example - in many ways, it's the most engrossing novel I've read this year... but it just doesn't know when to end. Child 44 was not so all-consuming, yet it was far more balanced and satisfying on conclusion. The top prize had to go to Michel Faber though, combining a cracking genre plot (a genre I'm usually not that interested in) with beautiful, witty and imaginative prose. The TV adaptation was fun, but not a patch on the source material.

What's the best book you read this year?

Book Review: The Courage Consort by Michel Faber

The Courage Consort, "possibly the seventh best-known a cappella vocal ensemble in Britain", are holed up in a rural Belgian château to rehearse the most complicated piece they've ever had to perform: Partitum Mutante. Forced to co-exist under the same roof for the first time, egos begin to clash and minds begin to fray. Relationship break down, strange allegiances form and... is that a ghost wailing in the woods?

Michel Faber's wonderfully observed satirical novella does for avant-garde classical music what Spinal Tap did for heavy rock. Although it's a short book, every sentence is a gem.

As for Dagmar, the most recent addition to the group, she'd stuck with the Courage Consort because they gave her fewer hassles than any of her many previous liaisons. After walking out on the Staatsoper because the directors seemed to think she was too sexually immoral to sing opera (her last role for them was Berg's prostitute Lulu, for God's sake!) she'd been a bit wary of these smiling English people, but it had turned out OK. They allowed her to get away with tempestuous love affairs, even illegitimate pregnancy, as long as she showed up on time, and this she had no trouble with. For nine months of ballooning belly she'd never missed a rehearsal: she'd given birth, prudently, during the lull between Ligeti's Aventures in Basle and the 'Carols Sacred and Profane' Christmas concert in Huddersfield. That was good enough for Roger Courage, who had sent her a tasteful congratulations card without enquiring after the baby's name or sex.

Extra marks for mentioning Huddersfield: we're proud of our Choral Society.

The Apple

Just before the recent TV adaptation aired, I reviewed Michel Faber's excellent novel The Crimson Petal And The White and predicted...

"For all its excellent cast (including the always watchable Chris O'Dowd, Richard E. Grant and - yay! - Scully), sparkling script, grubby period detail, kinky costume drama romping and acres of naked flesh and naughtiness... it's not a patch on the novel."

Well, I couldn't have been more right. As enjoyable as the TV version may have been, I still walked away unsatisfied. The pictures are always better inside your head.

Thankfully, that's when I discovered The Apple, a short collection of stories which return us to the world of The Crimson Petal, offering tantalising glimpses into the past and future of our favourite character's. So we learn how Sugar spent Christmas Day while she was still living in Mrs. Castaway's whorehouse, discover how a common housefly destroys Bodley's libido, and find out how young Sophie grows up to become a champion of women's rights. And while William Rackham grows old and bitter, Clara, his former maid takes to the street to survive and ends up involved in a darkly comic dalliance with The Rat Man, who insists she let one fingernail grow without being cut or chewed...

Imagination, revelation, wit, warmth and sparkling prose. If you enjoyed the novel, or even the TV adap, I'd recommend you track down a copy of The Apple.

The Crimson Petal And The White

Here's something you won't have read on this blog before - a TV preview. A review of a TV show that hasn't yet aired. The Crimson Petal And The White debuts on UK TV this Wednesday at 9pm, and though I haven't seen it, I can review it with confidence.

"For all its excellent cast (including the always watchable Chris O'Dowd, Richard E. Grant and - yay! - Scully), sparkling script, grubby period detail, kinky costume drama romping and acres of naked flesh and naughtiness... it's not a patch on the novel."

I say that without any fear of retraction because - having just finished reading the 830 pages of source material - no adaptation could ever do it justice. I've been a fan of Michel Faber for some time, and have read just about everything he's written - from his debut novel, Under The Skin, through to his most recent, The Fire Gospel, plus his excellent short story collection The Farenheit Twins and Whitby-based novella The Hundred And Ninety Nine Steps. Yet I've been holding off on tackling his most acclaimed text for two reasons... firstly the genre, a postmodern take on Dickensian Victoriana... and secondly the size. 830 small-type pages... I knew this was one I couldn't finish in a week.

But the news of its forthcoming BBC adaptation finally forced me to take action. And though it did take me the best part of a month, I relished every grubby period detail and wickedly complex character. The book tells the tale of Sugar, a teenage prostitute on the streets of 1860s London, and her gradual ascent and escape thanks to cunning, caring, and her relationship with a slimy rake businessman. It's earthy, bawdy, hilarious and horrifying, creating vivid mental images (which can only be flattened by the TV screen) and constantly switching the reader's affections, allegiances and sympathies between a wide cast of streetwalkers, society types and sociopaths. (From a writer's perspective, I found it both educational and inspirational.) It embraces the genre it subverts - by the throat - but does so through such a warm, welcoming narrative that I didn't ever want it to end.

"So there you have it: the thoughts (somewhat pruned of repetition) of William Rackham as he sits on his bench in St James's Park. If you are bored beyond endurance, I can offer my promise that there will be fucking in the very near future, not to mention madness, abduction, and violent death."