I wasn't sure how I was going to cobble this together. Since summer I have been busy reading for a big list, one of those without any real time or content limits, so it was hard to determine what to share here...
Well, I couldn't break the streak, so basically, this is what isn’t in contention over there... In addition to all that reading, this year, I luxuriated in everything read out loud by Julia Reed and finally got into the sagas of Penny Vincenzi. I also listened to procedurals by Helen H. Durrant and even the Marco Pierre White memoir, basically anything read by Tim Bentinck, who I have known for years as the solidly-Middle English David Archer (as well author of his own, very good biography).
What to Wear
The Kingdom of Prep: the inside story of the rise and “near” fall of J. Crew (2023) Maggie Bullock
Part archeology, part anthropology, all about what J. Crew represented in closets across America at the turn of this century.
Counterfeit (2022) Kirsten Chen
A fun, frothy novel about two former college roommates teaming up to undermine the luxury handbag industry.
Fabric: The hidden history of the material world (2021) Victoria Finlay
Finlay mixes memoir and her close study of fabric making around the world in this masterful volume. I can't wait to read her book on Colors.
Getting Out of Town
A glimpse into the centuries-old industry of going abroad and all that it has come to represent ad involve.
Of course people went there. Mines fascinating primary sources accounts of those who went to Germany during Hitler’s regime.
First Person Stories
A standout memoir about addiction and recovery, with a surprising romance.
Fitzgerald’s semi-feral boyhood onwards, autodidactic response, and slough through the service industry are terrific fun to read about.
Gyles is a fixture on This Morning and in The Oldie; he is a true Renaissance man, and, after reading his wonderful biography full of gossip and name-dropping, I will never hear an Oscar Wilde reference or see a teddy bear without thinking of him.
Shifting the Frame
Becky (2023) by Sarah May
Thackeray’s Vanity Fair recast in frothy ‘90s English tabloid culture.
The Brother Karamazov in a midwestern ethnic restaurant, with siblings that feel like you know them.
In this expert gothic with a new bride held captive in a remote Upper Peninsula cabin, Abbott explodes many gendered tropes underpinning suspense.
Smith imagines the story behind Tichborne claimant, the long-lost heir that had Victorian England captivated, as engineered by his Caribbean manservant.
Some fiction, and one stranger than fiction
Two young doctors look like the perfect couple, but the upcoming wedding throws both the traditional Muslim parents of the bride and the arty elite mother of the groom into chaos.
When a young influencer’s fiancé appears on a crowdsourced list of wrong-doers, it throws their relationship and realities into conflict.
Literary jealousy made manifest when a hot young author leaves an identity-rich manuscript behind.
Now-historical fiction amid textile workers at a factory in Northern Ireland includes 1990s interreligious conflict, juxtaposed with the lure of the broader world.
Not usually a fan of things that play with timelines, but this Groundhog Day-esque book where a woman moves through time trying to understand the events that led to her son’s arrest was a treat.
A coming-to-New York story about a young Kenyan student finding her very sweet way.
A fascinating true story about the Florida pill mills feeding the opioid epidemic, their unique corportate culture and their downfall.
See favorites from the past fourteen years below:
