Illuminating letters: behind the scenes

My favourite books of the year

Dear reader,

This is the last letter of the year, and it felt only fitting to end where we began, with reading.

Books have had a huge influence on this newsletter over the course of the year whether that’s as research material, as inspiration or providing new perspectives within letters. Often I find that whatever I’m reading at the moment has a tangential link to what I’m writing about, whether that’s because I’ve chosen it because it’s a topic of interest or it’s found its way into my subconscious.

I love, and have loved making, end of year reading lists to as a way to see what’s resonating with other people. So that’s what we’re doing today.

Before we jump into some book recommendations, because I take a lot of notes to see my reading patterns, here are a few of my reading stats for the year so far:

But what you’re really here for is the cream of that reading crop, which for me has included:

Favourite fiction

The Happy Couple, Naoise Dolan

Having recently read another book which discusses the perils of modern relationships and trust through the device of a will they won't they wedding, I might have been primed to have found The Happy Couple boring or uninspiring, but it felt incredibly fresh, in fact I enjoyed it more than Exciting Times. The structure led itself neatly to deep diving in to each character, giving them their own life but also a different perspective on the couple in question.

Goodbye Vitamin, Rachel Khong

This was such a lovely book. It really did feel like a diary, or a collection of reflections, you do end up collecting moments, memories and random facts that store up against one another and when they've accumulated they make a year or a life it's not necessarily that they happen in a rapid "and then" series, I felt that was the perfect way to bring Ruth's year with her family and her father as his memory begins to fade.

Death Valley, Melissa Broder

There were so many brilliant passages in this that caught exactly how I have felt at times whether that was being lost in the desert, an unwavering tiredness but a fear that you can't stop, the aching sadness in your chest, trying to relate and be better. I know I shouldn't relate to a lady with rock friends who almost goes out into the desert to die because she's so depressed but I do. It was hilarious too.

Yellow Face, RF Kuang

Yellowface lived up to the literary thriller hype. Having read both Disorientation and A Hell of a Book last year I was worried it would retread themes I had already explored and feel tired but this was so tightly formulated that it brought something additional to both of them. Kuang mocks and pokes at cancel culture, the fetishisation of ethnic minorities in publishing and the politics of the world of books in a way that feels accurate and never overblown, it would have been easy to push too hard, particularly on the yellowface of it all but I think because it comes from June's voice it never seems unbelievable.

The Green Dot, Madeleine Gray

The early scenes of Hera starting her new job, finding her way among new colleagues (good and bad) and new routines and seeing her adjust to the corporate dirge were my favourites. The central relationship felt real, and deeply frustrating as I read page after page and just willed her to make a different decisions. This was also the first pandemic book I've read and it felt so well done in that it was the setting but not too much more.

The Land of Milk and Honey, C Pam Zhang

The Land of Milk and Honey built its dystopian world from the ground up in its details. The descriptions of food were so sensory. I couldn't quite imagine the whole mountain but those scenes of eating were so visceral. It was a world I could see happening in the not so distant future, if there was a great smog or something in the environment that limits what we can grow.

Piglet, Lottie Hazell

The food scenes throughout had Nora Ephron and Dolly Alderton vibes but brought extra sensuality to the story without ever being distracting. I think there are so many women with such charged relationships with food, I know I too use it as comfort and celebration as a way to show I care. Piglet's family all felt so real in their concerns about money and appearances in their insensitive comments which were borne from wanting the best for their daughters but not knowing any other wayto express it.

Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar

This felt more literary and experimental than a lot of the novels I've read recent but was so well written and driven by such a bound plot, theme and well developed characters that I still raced through it. I loved how the different deaths and lives were brought characters together. The vignettes at the top of chapters which were either excerpts changed up the pace and gave extra layers of reality. It was a book about love and care as much as it was death and I think it will stay with me for a while.

How I Won a Nobel Prize, Julius Taranto

I loved the tone of How I Won a Nobel Prize, it was on the right edge of satire for me, playing on whether you can dividing a man (or woman) from their work. The image of the endowment on the island with all of the cancelled academics was hilarious but not so far from what would possible. The elements of physics, mainly because they played in metaphor and work imagery, really added something without making the novel too complex. The scenes with Helen's family were some of the most real feeling, perhaps because they were off the island, and gave a real grounding element.

James, Percival Everett

I got into this as it went on. Initially I was slightly off put by the use of dialect, which I often find quite grating but it was done with real purpose and so I warmed to it. There was loads of plot and not so thinly veiled metaphors and points about how slaves were treated and viewed. Percival Everett definitely has a distinct tone but also a set of themes and ways of highlighting racial injustice in the US, and I enjoy it every time.

Favourite non-fiction

Humanise: A Maker’s Guide to Building Our World, Thomas Heatherwick

I really enjoyed Humanise both from the perspective of learning more about the built environment and why the commons created between buildings is so uninspiring to look at, and from the perspective of how making the world more human at city, street and doorway level could be applied to my work. Heatherwick could have picked some different examples at times and does fall into the trap of “just dismantle capitalism” as a conclusion which I always find lazy. But it was a book that really made me think, so it’s in the list.

Follow the Money, Paul Johnson

I'm glad I read this book in an election year, it left me with a better understanding of the policies shared and where the trade offs might be. I hadn't thought about the power of fuel duty, the complexity of VAT or why funding decisions feel like they've gone so awry. I appreciated that even as an expert he gave personal anecdotes from things like his time in government and links to apprenticeships to ground the more theoretical discussions.

Show Me The Bodies, Peter Apps

A compelling and heartbreaking story so clearly told. This would be an engaging read even if I didn't already have a vested interest in Grenfell and wider building safety. It obviously comes with an agenda and point of view but the level of research and clarity of argument is often hard to argue with. The sections laying out both internal conversations, regulations and then their impacts sitting side by side with the breakdown of what happened in the tower that night to humanise the tragedy were particularly powerful.

Grief is for People, Sloane Crosley

I absolutely devoured this, which isn't what I expected from a book about grief but it's just so well written. Crosley has a real talent for nestling references and threads that pay off or come back at just the right time that you feel like you're in a friendship with long running in jokes, with humour and reflection on real tragedy always in balance. A gorgeous gorgeous book.

Favourite graphic novels

Killing and Dying, Adrian Tomine

Each of these short graphic stories was beautifully illustrated and so human in it's telling. The very specific premises that really brought something out of their characters. I loved how Tomine used subtle shifts in colour to indicate changes in time while maintaining all of the same details that made each panel feel at once completely everyday and special, a bit like Miyazaki's animations. In particular I think the title story Killing and Dying will stay with me, as will Amber Sweet and story about the intruder and the owls fan, so basically all of them.

Self-Esteem and the End of the World, Luke Healy

This was so funny and so cleverly put together. It felt really similar in tone and obviously in visual style to Americana but it was so much more ambitious in the way that it moved between the different times and levels of fictionalisation, a clever bit of graphic autofiction. My favourite characters might just have been the mice in the early chapter who added so much lightness and comedy to the scenes.

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As I mentioned at the top this will be my final letter of the year, and so I can take a little break over Christmas I won’t be planning another letter til February.

So, I hope you all have peaceful and joyfilled ends to your years whatever you’re doing and I’ll see you as we cross from winter into spring.

Write/draw again soon,

Natalie