I realise, as I started to compile my list of books that I most enjoyed reading this year, that a good sixty five per cent of my reading output is given to old books, mostly out of print, mostly written and set in the Thirties or Forties. Some of it is research as I’ve taken my passion for that period and started writing about it, but it’s also because I was obviously born a good seventy years too late.

Anyhow I did manage to read some new releases and these are the ones that I loved above all other.

Man at the Helm by Nina Stibbe

I adored Nina Stibbe’s memoir of her time as a nanny in 1980′s literary LondonLove, Nina: Despatches from Family Lifeso I couldn’t wait to read her first novel. Set in the 70′s, Man At The Helm is a funny but heartbreaking account of her parent’s divorce told through the eyes of nine year old Lizzie. Her mother and her two siblings move to a village and her mother, entirely incapable of fending for herself, ricochets from one unsuitable lover to another, though the children are convinced that everything will be all right once there’s a man at the helm again.

Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans

I read Crooked Heart in one greedy, four hour binge on the train coming back from Edinburgh. I’d previously read and loved Lissa Evan’s previous WW2 novel, Their Finest Hour And A Half, so I knew I was in for a treat with Crooked Heart and yup, I was not disappointed. When Noel Bostock’s great aunt Mattie, a former Suffragette, stricken with dementia dies at the start of the war, Noel is evacuated to St Albans where he’s billeted with down-on-her-luck Vera Sedge. She’s a hard-hearted scam artist and Neil is a lost but resilient little boy and somehow they’ve managed to find each other. There are lots of different kinds of love story and Crooked Heart is one of the best kinds.

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

Most of her novels scare the B’Jaysus out of me but a new Sarah Waters book is always a reason to cheer. The Paying Guests, set in the 1920′s, is a looooonnnngggggg tale, stuffed full of detail that builds and builds with a creeping menace. Expect the usual Sarah Waters tropes of bitter, repressed women past the first flush of youth, sinister houses and murder most horrid.

It’s Not Me, It’s You by Mhairi McFarlane

Third novel from the wonderfully funny and rude, Mhairi McFarlane. I think It’s Not Me, It’s You is my favourite of her books, but she writes romantic comedy like nobody else. Her characters are real and flawed but utterly likeable and I am hopelessly in love with both Delia and Adam West (who, in my head, looks like Tom Hiddleston.)

Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel

I don’t do dystopia. Nope, it’s not for me but I fell for Station Eleven hard. Had it sitting on my desk for ages but the blurb about a traveling theatre group roaming what’s left of the American MidWest twenty years after a killer flu pandemic, didn’t push any of my buttons. But then people started raving about it on Twitter and I read the first couple of pages and was hooked. The writing is beautiful and weaves through multiple narrators and a timeline that zips in and out of a world devastated and depleted by disaster.

Us by David Nicholls

One Day is a hard act to follow, but I think I preferred Us, though I way over-identified with the hapless Douglas as he embarks on a trip round Europe with his wife Connie and son Albie in a last-ditch effort to save his marriage. Though I don’t know why I way over-identified with a 50-something scientist.

August Folly by Angela Thirkell

Angela Thirkell was one of my big discoveries last year when Virago started reissuing some of her Barsetshire novels. I’m now reduced to buying the out of print ones for vast sums so I can read them in chronological order. (Anyone got a cheap copy of Northbridge Rectory I can have?) This is a review of August Folly that I wrote for The Guardian this summer. Oooh, get me!

NON-FICTION

My Salinger Year by Joanna Rakoff

I love J D Salinger so much that Franny from The Worst Girlfriend In The World was actually named after Franny Glass (of Franny and Zooey fame) and I’ve always been intrigued by Salinger, who withdrew from public life in the ’60′s. So Joanna Rakoff’s memoir about her time spent working as an assistant to Salinger’s literary agents in the mid-90′s was a must-buy. It’s not just about her relationship with Salinger and his work but a fascinating account of New York, publishing and being young and broke and making questionable lifestyle choices.

Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys by Viv Albertine

Viv Albertine was the guitarist in the iconic, all-girl punk band The Slits and this is her fantastic autobiography. She knew everyone from The Sex Pistols to The Clash to Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McClaren. But while she writes about her punk days and her life after The Slits, what I really loved were the earlier chapters which dealt with her wild teen years in my stomping ground of North London and how different life was back in the 70′s. One of my favourite bits is when Viv talks about trying to set up a band, in the days before a lot of people even had a landline, and it would take days of traveling around London to visit people and having to wait for them for hours if they weren’t in. I found this memoir hugely inspiring.