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Welcome

I started this blog in 2013 to share my reflections on reading, writing and psychology, along with my journey to become a published novelist.​  I soon graduated to about twenty book reviews a month and a weekly 99-word story. Ten years later, I've transferred my writing / publication updates to my new website but will continue here with occasional reviews and flash fiction pieces, and maybe the odd personal post.

ANNE GOODWIN'S WRITING NEWS

My 12 favourite reads of 2021

10/12/2021

8 Comments

 
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I’m always loath to share my year’s favourite reads before Christmas, in case a cracker comes along before New Year’s Eve. But, having selected a neat dozen (actually a baker’s dozen as I slipped in one more as you’ll see below), I’ve decided to take the plunge. With themes of the climate crisis, slavery, the impact of unprocessed trauma, kidnap, hearing voices, the pandemic of 1918, refugees, unexpected love, nonconformity, dysfunctional families and painful group processes, you’re sure to find something to ask Santa to put in your stocking. Or, if you follow the Icelandic tradition of Jolabokaflod, to gift to friends and family on Christmas Eve.


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Most of these books are avaiable to purchase from bookshop.org by clicking this image (affiliate link)
The Living Sea of Waking Dreams by Richard Flanagan, published by Chatto & Windus, is a perceptive study of sibling dynamics and a powerful fable about our collective failure to address the climate crisis while deluding ourselves we can defeat death.

The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr, published by riverrun, brings a new perspective to the story of the transatlantic slave trade by focusing on the threat the love between two adolescent boys brings to both slavers and enslaved people.

In Harvest by Georgina Harding, a young Japanese woman goes to stay at her boyfriend’s home in Norfolk, unaware that the seed of destruction planted in his deceased father is about to germinate. A powerfully poignant novel about the repercussions of a trauma too devastating for words.

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Oxygen by Sacha Naspini, translated from the Italian by Clarissa Botsford and published by Europa editions, is an intelligent literary thriller about the impact of a disturbing anthropological experiment on both victim and the perpetrator’s family, beautifully related with a surprising and satisfying ending.

The Octopus Man by Jasper Gibson, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, is the most authentic depiction of someone who hears voices I’ve encountered in fiction. It’s an absorbing story narrated by an unusual character who is as endearing when communing with nature as he is in conversation with his personal god.

The Pull of the Stars
by Emma Donoghue, published by Picador in 2020, is a page-turning story about colonisation – of countries by occupying powers and women’s bodies by church and male-dominated governments – set in a Dublin maternity ward during the pandemic of 1918.

American Dirt
by Jeanine Cummins, published by Tinder Press, is a moving and tender story of a mother and son’s hazardous journey from Mexico to the USA, to escape the drug cartel that had murdered a dozen members of their family.

Suiza
by Bénédicte Belpois, translated by from the French Alison Anderson and published by Europa Editions, is an unusual, poignant and surprisingly plausible story of the redemptive power of love.

As We Are Now
by May Sarton, first published in 1973, is an intelligent and insightful novella about doesn’t fit in.

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In The Leftovers by Cassandra Parkin, published by Legend Press, a woman working as a live-in carer for a man with autism, is forced to re-evaluate her perception of herself and her family when forced to spend time with her estranged mother.

In Small Forgotten Moments by Annalisa Crawford, published by Vine Leaves Press, a painter with severe amnesia confronts the childhood trauma that haunts her artwork.

The Retreat
by Alison Moore, published by Salt, is about group processes on an artists’ retreat on a small island which, although less violent, put me in mind of The Lord of the Flies.

Although it doesn’t officially belong here, as I read it at the end of 2020 but posted my review of this month, I’m squeezing in one of my all-time favourite novels, Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections. Featuring an elderly couple and their adult children, is the perfect corrective to the hurry-home-for-Christmas myth.
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Most of my chosen books are avaiable to purchase from bookshop.org by clicking this image (affiliate link)
What have you particularly enjoyed reading in 2021?
Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
8 Comments
Norah Colvin
12/12/2021 11:05:05 am

What a great collection, Anne. Sadly, I haven't read any of them but thank you for the reminder. Perhaps, I'll put The Corrections to the top of my list.
You asked, so here are some of my favourite reads for the year, listed in no particular order:
Matilda Windsor is Coming Home by Anne Goodwin
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
Greenlights by Matthew McConnaughey
The Year the Maps Changed by Dannielle Binks (a middle grade)
Gods of Love by Nicola Mostyn
Tell Me Why by Archie Roach
The Happiest Man on Earth by Eddie Jaku
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Beyond Belief by Dee White (middle grade)
We are Wolves by Katrina Nannestad (middle grade)
Phosphorescence by Julia Baird
There, that's 12. I know there were a couple of others I passed onto other readers and I can't think of their names at the moment. I have thoroughly enjoyed most of the books I have read this year. :)

Reply
Anne Goodwin
14/12/2021 09:04:06 am

Wow, thank you, that's quite a list. Glad you enjoyed Gods of Love and, of course, Matilda Windsor.

Reply
D. Avery link
16/12/2021 07:34:17 pm

Wholly shift, Ms. Goodwin.
I just finished The Corrections. Thank you for the recommendation.
I didn’t like the characters at first but I liked the writing (and trusted the reviewer) and read on.
What a nesting doll collection of parables of wants and needs, micro and macro. And maybe that nesting doll analogy works for the characters too; their better selves were nestled within their façades and armors. Minor characters were adeptly used to mirror and reveal main characters. The author was pretty skillful too in handling time, sometimes taking one step back before sliding two steps forward, but it was never lurchy or abrupt.
Enid wasn’t the only one who wanted and needed that Home for Christmas scene played out, was she? That’s what the Hallmark holiday movies are all about, but this was so much more layered. (nesting dolls again) Caves and elixirs were fairly evident for all the characters, so yeah, heroes journeys, making this your kind of book.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
18/12/2021 07:53:00 am

Thanks for reading The Corrections and sharing such eloquent reflections. You've helped me see another layer of why I love this novel.

It's not about liking or disliking the characters for me, but I love them because they are so familiar and because their flaws aren't hidden on the page as they would be in real life. And you're so right about the nesting: everyone is doing their best, and getting it wrong. That's life's tragedy for many of us.

Who wouldn't want what Enid wants? But for some it's impossible. Better to give up the dream and enjoy what one can have.

Merry Christmas!

Reply
D. Avery link
18/12/2021 10:22:39 pm

Before I came around to liking the characters in spite of themselves (they had the same trouble, not liking themselves) I came to appreciate the way the author so honestly showed them raw and flawed. And yes, there was some familiarity. It was also interesting to see the provinciality of the different regions this family populated; none of it was the Midwest, but PA, CT and NYC were also quite different temperaments. This novel gave me pause as at this time differences seem more telling and tearing at our nation's fabric than similarities.
I can see why you like this book, there's plenty of mental illness to go around.
And yet they were really so normal. They had quite a Christmas and I think did as you say, gave up the dream and learned to live their lives more real.
Happy Holidays to you!

Anne Goodwin
22/12/2021 08:19:35 am

St Jude isn't the midwest? The blurb in my copy says it is. But yeah those cultural differences within the one country and the sadness for parents when their adult children reject their values. Here it would be class differences but there's also a north-south divide and the big cities being more diverse than small towns.

D. Avery
22/12/2021 02:15:37 pm

I apologize for a very poorly written sentence; yes St Jude is midwest, was the measure for all other locales the children inhabited. Just meant how not only did NYC, PA and CT not measure up to the Midwest, those three places were also different from each other despite being lumped as Eastern.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
22/12/2021 06:45:23 pm

I see, but maybe if I had a firmer grasp of the geography I would've got your gist. The midwest has always confused me as it's not really west. Maybe that says everthing about how the east dominates. Here it's the north that starts in the middle of England (and south of the UK)

Reply



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