Today’s piece is for paid subscribers, and it’s too long for email so read the full version online. Receipt from the Bookshop - my free post - will be in your inboxes on Friday. A monthly subscription to Terrible at Titles costs less than a latte. Huge thanks to my newest subscribers, I can’t wait to write for you. If you enjoy reading my work please consider a paid subscription to access everything. You can interview me for that promotion here and celebrate my one year on Substack here. All Shares, Restacks and Recommendations are really appreciated. Now let’s get to it…
When you’re a famous writer, newspapers ask you for your ‘Best Book of the Year’. In some ways, the idea of only having to pick one book of the year is the sort of thing I could really lose some sleep over. What are the criteria for favourite and what I really mean by this is – how would the choice make me look? As I am not a famous writer, these recommendations won’t get printed in the weekend supplement next to a recipe for a dessert you won’t make even if you cut the page out and keep it for six years, so I can tell you as many favourites as I like, and I can do something mad like have nine of them, just so that I don’t have A Top Ten. I can tell you that these aren’t in any order, and they aren’t The Best Books of the Year – of course they aren’t; there ain’t no such thing. But I can tell you that when I look back over the scrawled list of titles I keep in the only notebook that I’ve ever got past halfway in, these are the books that I remember enjoying the most this year. Do with that what you will, but the links will, of course, help you purchase them and support my independent bookshop in the process. Merry Consumeristmas to me!