The best reads of 2012

As 2012 draws to a picturesque close against an ever-changing backdrop of clear blue skies and torrential downpours, I asked of the great online masses of Facebook and Twitter, “What have been your favourite reads of this year?”

Edward Greenwood

Umbrella by Will Self, a glorious, wiry 400-odd uninterrupted stream-of-consciousness modernist narrative on madness, psychiatry and family which stretches through the life of Audrey Death through the twentieth century, oozing with cultural reference and dripping with juicy verbiage. There, I said it.

Lisa Scott

Once again, Sebastian Faulks demonstrates his superior craftsmanship in a story that entwines two aspiring mad-doctors, Thomas and Jacques. Faulks traces their lives and careers masterfully from the ages of ten to 60 in Human Traces. A truly inspired piece of writing.

Anne-Marie Phythian

Among Others by Jo Walton is a beautiful, magical book about Mor, a young girl who grew up with her twin in Wales, who is still connected to the ancient fairy world. Mor is now 15 and her twin has died, she gradually reveals her story in diary entries and at the same time, we learn of her love of science fiction novels.

Warren Gardiner

This year, I read Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries by Neil DeGrasse Tyson. S**t was full of SCIENCE.

Louise Jones

Sadly, The Vampire Is Just Not That Into You by Vlad Mezrich is one of the few books I have bought this year with a view to reading for pleasure, and I feel I have to justify it a lot. “You’re a nineteen year old woman, Louise. Why are you reading a vampire love guide for teenage girls?” Because I’m doing it ironically? Because it was 3 for a pound in Poundland and I could only think of two friends to give copies to for a joke? Well, it was that disgustingly cheap it was too good to-

No, the reason I bought it and read it cover to cover (no shame) is because it was funny. The author, “Vlad” Mezrich, puts down the foolish young girls who rush to see the latest Twilight blockbuster and does it with flair. There is a double page spread on how a kiss from a vampire means different things depending on where he kissed you. Vlad continues to point out how very stupid a vampire-human relationship would be (“Have you ever considered what it would be like to introduce him to your mother?”) and at the end, explains that he’s off to see a girl who desperately should have read this book. Should have. How hilariously chilling. Also, I learnt a fair deal, such as the difference between vampires and humans. Who knew?

The content aside, another reason this book sticks out as one of my most memorable reads of the year is because it accompanied me on the train to my first ever visit to (and performing opportunity at) the Edinburgh Fringe. TVIJNTIY (what an abbreviation) reminds me of hastily caught moments of free time between flyering and sleeping, and despite the raised eyebrows from…well, everyone presumably, I would completely recommend this read. It’s so good for lazy summer lit and will completely put you off Edward Cullen.

You’re welcome.

Rachel Longhurst

Narrated by a teenage girl as she is fighting cancer who meets a boy in a very similar situation. Despite sounding depressing, and at points it’s definitely true to that, I found The Fault in Our Stars by John Green mostly to be the opposite and it turned out to be really quite an uplifting book in places and I do really recommend it! It’s no doubt an easier read than others and I think its classed as Young Adult, but I love his writing style as it’s just easy; there is flow and pace and it’s quite poetic at times. Sometimes an easy read is what an English student needs anyway… The characters are real, the character’s suffering doesn’t represent anything, it’s just honest and reminded me why I started liking books in the first place.

Jonathan Salter

So I started writing a hundred-odd words on my favourite book of 2012, but then I got a collect call from ALCOHOL and had to run to the platform to profess my undying love. On the way, I rekindled the faith of a struggling choir service, saved Christmas  and learnt that heroism can be as small an act as putting a coat around a young boy’s shoulders to let him know the world hadn’t ended, regardless of what the Mayans said.

The upshot of this is that I’m now sat alone in a station café, struggling to remember what I’d already written and wishing I still had a coat. I do vaguely recall, though, that I was going to write it as a resolution to ‘read more new books’.

See, I’ve never been much of a reader, and whilst I’ve read the occasional, freshly pressed book (Death at Intervals, 2008; May Contain Traces of Magic, 2009) , most of my collection are paperback compilations of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Conan-Doyle and Dahl, or that one bible I ate a pizza off. My problem seems to be a lack of time, or knowledge about what’s out there.

That’s what makes sitting by the rail, reeling from my fermented mistress’ parting kiss, so apt. I may not have read a new novel in the past twelve (read: definitely more than twelve) months, but for me, this has been the year of the commute – my first out of town job, which currently sees me wasting an hour a day in a carriage travelling between towns. To cope with the tedium, I took up reading again, and picked up a brand new BBC Wildlife Magazine, my first issue of which I found so compelling, I subscribed as soon as I got home. It was full of beautiful photography, fascinating Q&As, and enough thought-provoking content to see me engrossed, every journey, the whole month through. How lucky I felt to have found such a brilliant publication, so early in it’s run, and how privileged I was when, after my six-issue-subscription, they sent me a copy of their fiftieth anniversary issue. Oh.

So maybe I was naive in thinking that just because I’d never seen an issue on the stands before, it was new. It’s still a fantastic publication, and knowing it has such a rich history just makes wish I’d been reading it longer. I guess when it comes to the start of January and the season of resolutions, the standard, and inelegant, promise – ‘I will read more new books’ – is a bit lacking. ‘I will be more aware’, I think, ‘not just of new books, but of any already out there, perfectly suited to me, that I just haven’t noticed yet’.

Hmm, that’s definitely more than a hundred words…

Morenike Adebayo

For as long as I can remember, the question “Where are you from?” has caught me off-guard, reducing me to a mumbling mess as I hurriedly reel off the location lineage of my family of the past 70-plus years. Is where I’m from where I was born? Where I’m living now? Where my parents lived before their emigration from Nigeria to the UK, or after? It’s a minefield of a question that is not simple in answer. Within Black Gold of the Sun: Searching for Home in England & Africa, London-born Ekow Eshun charts his year of travelling around Ghana to search for his roots and to gain a sense of home. My house-mate recommended this book to me with a playful “I think you’ll really enjoy this book” and she was not wrong. The themes explored by Eshun resonated strongly with me and this will be a book I’m sure to read many more times.

Ben Ashley Hall

“This is not for you”  is the first literary line you shall find upon opening something severely more dangerous than Pandora’s little proverbial box. What is it? A horror story, a love story or the greatest satire of academic criticism of all time? Forget everything you know. Take all your existential woes wrap them in your nihilistic neurology of light, dark, real, fake, there is nothing to save and throw every philosophical theory of ‘I am’ in a blender and indulge in its splendour.

You will simply never read anything like House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski in your lifetime. The book follows the life of Johnny Truant, a lost-and-looking unreliable tattoo artist who rues the day he ever entered the apartment of the dearly deceased Zampano to unconsciously inherit his own end – The Navidson Record. The Navidson Record is a manuscript of a documentary film that follows the dimensions of time/space within a house. The circumstantial oddities that incur and the investigation forthwith of the house shall make you redefine how you look at life itself.

This is simply a book that will change your life.

The book took 10 years to write, and certitude suggests it shall take you the equal to comprehend. I personally think this is the greatest piece of art of the 21st century, and only scripture itself could make you feel at ease after completion.