On the first of January 2019 I finished one of several books I had been reading over the tail end of 2018. 01/01/2019 was a grey day with a gentle drizzle coating all of the hungover souls who ventured outside for their customary New Year’s day stroll. I, on the other hand, was inside reading and drinking hot chocolate. This particular book had a vibrant red cover and writing to match: searingly honest, heartfelt, and full of warmth and humour. It was called ‘The Rules Do Not Apply’, a memoir by Ariel Levy, and it was bloody good. The book made me reflect on all the other books I’ve read over the past twelve months – fiction and non-fiction, poetry and memoirs – some brilliant, some not so brilliant. There have been ones that have really left an impression on me; the prose, scenes, and characters scorched into my memory, others were informative – opening up discussions about subjects I’d never considered before, some have taken me to faraway lands while in reality I was on the District Line heading to work, and several were simply pleasant to read on a suffocatingly hot summer day (because we had plenty of those). Here in no particular order are the books I enjoyed…

The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (I wrote a post about this incredible book, which you can read here)

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The White Album by Joan Didion

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

The Militant Muse: Love, War, and the Women of Surrealism by Whitney Chadwick

Transcription by Kate Atkinson

Returning to Reims by Didier Eribon

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

The House in France: A Memoir by Gully Wells

Ariel by Sylvia Plath (poetry)

Winter by Ali Smith

She Must Be Mad by Charly Cox (poetry)

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

The Last Girl by Nadia Murad

Slay in Your Lane by Elizabeth Uviebinené and Yomi Adegoke

A Movable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

And on my list for 2019…

God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Travels with Myself and Another by Martha Gellhorn

Around India in 80 Trains by Monisha Rajesh

Becoming by Michelle Obama

The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh

Normal People by Sally Rooney