Madhouse at the End of the Earth by Julian Sancton

No matter how much I read about Antarctic exploration it’s a subject I find endlessly compelling, and Julian Sancton’s book illustrates exactly why. It follows a Belgian expedition – setting out in 1897 and containing amongst its crew a young Roald Amundsen – which became trapped in the ice and was forced to overwinter on this most terrifying of continents. The manner in which the captain and crew dealt with physical and mental health issues, morale, food supply and – most importantly – preventing their ship, the Belgica from being crushed by the ice, is a phenomenally interesting story, full of strangeness and wonder. The incredible ingenuity and the terrible darkness of humanity is on thrilling display throughout.

Tall Bones by Anna Bailey

This is a stunningly ambitious and brilliantly executed hybrid of crime and literary fiction. Set in Colorado in the small town of Whistling Ridge, it’s a brutally convincing examination of abusive power, corruption, prejudice and domestic dysfunctionality, rendered in prose of elegance and emotional power. When teenager Abi Blake goes missing after a party in the woods, the subsequent efforts to discover her whereabouts bring a myriad of toxic secrets to light, threatening to expose the hypocrisy of one generation and poison the future of the next. Although not always a comfortable read, this book expertly cracks the veneer holding a community together while still holding out hope of redemption.

The First Woman by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

This book is both a life affirming coming-of-age story and a superb examination of changing gender roles in modern Ugandan society. As our central character Kirabo grows up, sheltered by her prosperous family and the familiar surroundings of her village, she begins to question what path her own life will take and whether she really knows the truth about her closest relatives. Beautifully weaving together stories past and present and featuring wonderfully realised complex characters, the novel re-visits recent history to uncover a feminist narrative steeped in myth, folklore, and endlessly difficult choices.

The Fair Botanists by Sara Sheridan

I adored this historical novel, not least because the author’s vivid depiction of nineteenth century Edinburgh is a shining delight throughout. But this is far from the book’s only source of joy. Set in 1822, its central narrative involves the relocation of the city’s Botanical Gardens from their original site in Leith to their (still current) site on Inverleith Row. Against this backdrop the author’s central characters Elizabeth, a young widow traumatised by a violent marriage and Belle, a courtesan determined to maintain her independence at all costs, form a complicated friendship wherein the author examines gender roles, class, and social hypocrisy with a keen yet humorous eye.

Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins

This is such a superb psychological thriller; set in Oxford and centring around an apparently successful but highly dysfunctional family with nods to gothic fiction and a wonderfully tricksy potentially unreliable narrator, it’s an utterly fabulous read. A child has disappeared, and her nanny Dee is being questioned by the police; she seems like a sympathetic character but we’re seeing everything through her eyes regarding the family’s behaviour: how far can we trust her, plausible as she seems? Lucy Atkins’ writing is just so good; she has a brilliant eye for character, and she also evokes a great sense of Oxford as a city full of ghosts and often at odds with itself.

The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

This powerful novel is based on the true events of 1617 when the village of Vardo in northern Norway was hit by a sudden storm which drowned nearly all of the male population. Kiran Millwood Hargrave sensitively examines the lives of the women left behind through her central characters: fisherman’s daughter Maren and the new church commissioner’s wife, Ursa. Their relationship develops in the claustrophobic crucible of village life, as the growing agency of Vardo’s women comes into increasing conflict with the dictates of the church, bringing the prospect of danger ever closer. This important, moving story is wonderfully served by the austere beauty of the author’s prose.

Wanderers by Kerri Andrews

Kerri Andrews has curated a super collection of mini biographies of ten women for whom walking has formed an imperative part of their being. There are wonderful glimpses of social history by hearing these women’s voices through their diaries and letters. It’s fascinating the different ways walking offered freedom; not only escapism, exploration, and understanding of the landscape but also the opportunity for headspace to develop their thoughts and creativity. The author’s accounts of her own expeditions to retrace the routes these women roamed and hiked, offer powerful insights into changing social mores. Reading this has altered my own connections with the landscape, it has rooted me in my boots, focused the mind on the experiences of those who walked the path before me and emphasised the connection between physicality and creativity.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennet

Effortlessly compelling, The Vanishing Half charts the lives of twins Stella and Desiree, who grow up in a small southern black community until they run away at sixteen. As their paths diverge, Desiree and her black daughter find themselves back in her home town, whilst Stella cuts all ties to begin a new life, passing as white. But when their daughters’ lives collide, Stella’s careful subterfuge begins to erode… With a delicate touch, Bennett explores the complexities of racial prejudice and gender identity whilst weaving an intricate plot which kept me spellbound. Tender, incisive and thought-provoking, The Vanishing Half is a book you will be thinking about long after you put it down. 

Midnight at Malabar House by Vaseem Khan

This enthralling piece of crime fiction introduces us to one of my favourite new characters: Persis Wadia, India’s first female detective. Set in Bombay in newly independent India, we’re in a country alive with febrile tension; the new way ahead not yet clear and the scars of imperial suppression very much in evidence. Vaseem Khan skilfully weaves the story of a high-profile murder case, the roots of which are buried deep in complex political history, with Persis’s own personal family life and her burgeoning professional relationship with Scotland Yard criminologist Archie Blackfinch whose caution and deference are a perfect foil to her own pugnacious dynamism. The novel is supremely eloquent and convincing in its tackling of misogyny, corruption, and the toxic legacy of empire.

Empireland by Sathnam Sanghera

This is a very personal exploration of the legacy of empire, melding memoir, history and Sanghera’s excellent journalism, in an attempt to understand how Britain’s imperial past is still influencing our evolving present. His historical research is illuminating, and his journalism probes our disinclination to examine with honesty and discuss the effects of empire on contemporary multiculturalism. I cannot recommend the book highly enough; it supports the vitally important work of encouraging a dialectical approach to the study of our problematic imperial history; changing the narrative to give us a deeper more inclusive understanding of our past.

The Five by Hallie Rubenhold

This fascinating book reveals the disparate lives of five women, better known for the circumstances of their deaths. Although we may recognise their names, they have long been overshadowed by the cult of their killer, alias Jack The Ripper. Diminished in the face of sensationalism, dismissed as prostitutes and objectified as victims, I love the way that Hallie Rubenhold has reclaimed these women’s stories. Compelling, compassionate and immaculately researched, The Five resets the skewed perspective of history. Essential reading!

The Forager’s Calendar by John Wright

I know less than I would like to about wild plants and fungi – certainly not enough to eat anything more adventurous than the odd blackberry. So, I expected to find The Forager’s Calendar useful and informative, which it absolutely is, with clear descriptions and excellent colour photographs. Not only a superb practical handbook, it is also full of thought-provoking insights and sparkles with John Wright’s humour. Equally fascinating on conservation, nutrition and the relationship between foraging and the law, Wright will prove the best of companions on your forays into finding food for free.

The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths

I just loved this witty, literary take on a Gothic thriller, combined with pacey, contemporary police procedural. It’s a bold move on Elly Griffiths’ part but she most definitely pulls it off. The set-up is just perfect; an English teacher, Clare Cassidy is researching a Victorian writer, RM Holland whose ghost story The Stranger is the subject of one of her classes. However, real life intrudes in horrific fashion when bodies begin to turn up, murdered in identical ways to the victims in Holland’s story. So just how is Clare connected to the murders? DS Harbinder Kaur is assigned to investigate and immediately gets under Clare’s skin. Alternating between Harbinder, Clare and Georgia’s (Clare’s daughter) perspectives, Elly Griffiths creates a deepening mystery, with plenty of satisfying nods to the Gothic tradition, but which is also full of rather wonderfully sympathetic characters and a great line in warm, wise cracking humour. It’s an absolute delight.

Norwegian by Night by Derek B Miller

This is an incredibly gripping debut novel by an American writer who works for the UN and currently lives in Norway with his family. The idea of uprooting oneself and trying to assimilate into another culture is a prominent theme in this interesting book.

The novel, set in Oslo, has the plot and pace of a thriller with the central character rescuing a young boy after his mother has been murdered in his apartment block. However, its overriding concern seems to be with the effect of and attitude towards conflict at individual, family and national level. The main character Sheldon Horowitz is a veteran of the Korean War, and a large part of the novel concerns his seeking what he sees as atonement for the death of his own son in the Vietnam War. Meanwhile other characters have been involved both as aggressors and victims of the more recent conflict in the Balkans. By turns moving and comic this is that quite rare thing – a genuinely thought provoking thriller.

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

A reimagining of the last days of the Trojan war may seem unfamiliar territory for Pat Barker, yet in this outstanding novel her towering abilities as a writer are deployed with breath taking skill. Briseis, queen of Lyrnessus, has been captured and enslaved by Achilles; forced to survive as best she can in the Greek camp. This was the fate of a great many women in Homer’s Iliad, but we know this about them and little more. Here Pat Barker conjures in brutal, harrowing detail what such a life could have been: the lack of agency and equality cruelly distorting all relationships. One of Pat Barker’s great strengths is her ability to portray the physical sensations of her characters’ experiences and this she does to brilliant effect here; we feel Briseis’ terror, anger and confusion coupled with an emerging steeliness which enables her to survive.

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

This crime novel is a mind-bending tour de force, with a plot so complex you might want to make notes as you go along. With nods to both the ‘country house’ murder of crime writing’s golden age and another to the sinister speculations of dystopian fiction, this novel has its protagonist Aiden Bishop, inhabit a variety of different host bodies in a quest to discover the murderer of Evelyn Hardcastle. But who is Bishop? Where is he? And what tricks is time playing on him? This is a hugely entertaining, roller coaster of a read, which is at times genuinely poignant and at others shot through with a menacing undercurrent which seeps right off the page. Prepare to be dazzled.

​The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

The heroes of classical antiquity are brought alive by Miller’s sensual and original language as she follows the life of Achilles from childhood to his destiny in Troy. However, it is the figure of Patroclus who really takes centre stage at least for the first part of the novel. It is chiefly through this character that Miller finds a way of reinterpreting the classical world in a way which gives the book an emotional realism for the modern reader. It is a book, essentially, about decisions and destiny but is rich in the nuances of a developing relationship and contains some beautiful writing which makes the physical world the author describes vivid and affecting.