My Top Reads of 2020 - Fiction

2020 may have brought mayhem and misery to the world, but while I certainly don't want to downplay all of that, I've actually read more, and more widely, than I have for years. 

For various reasons, I gave up my job (and I do know how lucky I am to have had that option) so the summer consisted largely of long country walks, gardening, reading and writing. Hence I have many titles recorded in my notebook, and of those these were my very favourite fiction books:

Joan Smokes by Angela Meyer

I was stunned by this apparently slight but immensely powerful story of a woman driven to recreate herself. With so few, but such evocative, words, Meyer makes us feel the pain and tragedy that has led 'Joan' to Las Vegas. The skill with which she is able to suggest an entire history with such subtle, spare writing is breathtaking. Joan Smokes won the inaugural MsLexia Novella Award: of course it did, it couldn't not. I can't recommend it highly enough. My full review is here.

The Village by Marghanita Laski

Written in 1952, The Village is the story of a family trying to come to terms with the new social order of the immediate post-war years. While Wendy, the mother, can't cope with her loss of status and money and is desperate to keep up appearances, her daughter Margaret, gentle, unassuming and downtrodden, flourishes.  Meanwhile the other residents of Priory Dean adapt, or fail to adapt. Some profit, some lose out, and even the newly affluent incomers to the village sometimes struggle to accept the changes that six years of war have brought.  Although its social observations are fascinating, the very best thing about The Village is the story itself.  Laski doesn't preach, and as a result we engage with every character. I reviewed this book here.

O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker

I would probaby never have read this book, which had been on my shelves for a while, if it hadn't fitted with my themed read of #projectplaces - which just goes to show how beneficial such projects can be, as this was one of my most unexpected finds of the year. It's about a dysfunctional family living at Auchnasaugh, a crumbling mansion in a remote part of northern Scotland, and in particular its doomed misfit daughter Janet, who actually dies in the first chapter. Barker (about whom I have been able to discover very little) then takes us through what has led to Janet's death. There's an eccentric Russian cousin, a strange hunchbacked gardener, two unpleasant siblings, and Janet's own lonely, misunderstood, but not always pleasant, character.  This is no story of a sad little Cinderella - Janet is strong minded, difficult. and determined to live life on her terms, which do not always make her easy or even nice. It's a mark of Barker's skill that we still end up rooting for her anti-heroine. My review is here. 

Black Forest Summer by Mabel Esther Allan

This is a children's book from 1957.  Four London children are left orphaned when their widowed mother dies. They have no money, and are unable to contact their wealthy artist aunt, who is off travelling somewhere. They are then invited to stay with their late father's brother, whom they have never met and who is a successful businessman in Freiburg  You can probably guess the rest, but I so enjoyed this story with its descriptions of life in post-war Germany, the comfortable domestic round in the German Hartriches' home, and the ways in which the two sets of teenagers eventually help each other. In a lesser author's hands this could have been very dull and twee, but in fact it is neither. This was another read for #projectplaces and another one that, but for that, would probably have stayed on my shelves. I'm so glad it didn't. My review is here.

The Future Homemakers of America by Laurie Graham

This book begins on an American Air Force base in East Anglia. It is 1953, the era of the Cold War, and Peggy, Lois, Audrey, Betty and Gayle are stuck in the middle of nowhere while their husbands serve the US cause. Graham evokes the isolated nature of the Fens very well; the flat wet misty fields, the drainage channels, the long straight roads and the lonely functional villages. The story follows the women as they do their best to pass their time on the base, and it also features Kath, a local girl whom they befriend, and through whom we learn a lot more about life in this remote area. Eventually the Americans return to the US or move elsewhere, with or without their menfolk, and, as the decades pass, have varying fates. Graham is an excellent storyteller; I found The Future Homemakers to be compulsive reading, so much did I want to find out what would happen to each character, and I have happy memories of sitting by the river with this book in the summer sunshine.

Selkirk FC Vs The World by Thomas Clark

This was another very unexpected find. It's a collection of stories written by Clark when he became the first ever Writer In Residence at Selkirk FC, a somewhat beleagured club in the very heart of Borders rugby country. There's everything from humour (lots) to tragedy (a little), with an excellent bit of science fiction thrown in (and I usually avoid that genre at all costs.) Brilliant, and very entertaining.

The Scribbler by Iain Maitland

Maitland's Mr Todd's Reckoning scared the life out of me. It was an outstanding debut about a psychopath in an anonymous part of Ipswich - again a genre I'd never have chosen, but Sara Hunt of Saraband encouraged me to try it, and I was as impressed as I was terrified. The Scribbler is Maitland's latest psychological thriller, and although I wouldn't have believed this possible, it's even more frightening. Maitland rachets up the tension like no other writer, and his shocks are electric - but he also keeps all of his characters real, so that you feel you might just bump into them in Tesco's.  I hope I don't (but maybe I already have...)  My review is here.

The Family From One End Street by Eve Garnett

I loved this series when I was a child, and read all three books many times. I was a little worried that I'd now find it boring or worse, but I'm relieved to say I enjoyed it as much this year as I did then. The Family From One End Street is the first book, and is really a linked collection of stories about this large working class family. The book was groundbreaking in its time in that it looked at the lives of ordinary children, a topic that Garnett had been keen to explore ever since 1927, when she had been commissioned to illustrate The London Child, a book by Evelyn Sharp. 

It being the 1930s (the book was published in 1937) the Ruggles children are easily able to go off on adventures of their own, but sometimes those adventures can be as domestic as the shrinking of a green petticoat with a too-hot iron, or the loss of a hat on a trip to the seaside. The Ruggles family is, for a change, a happy one. No serious disasters ever befall them, but Garnett's writing is so engaging that we can easily identify with the trials of Lily Rose, Kate, and their many siblings as they navigate life in Otwell-on-the-Ouse.

A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg

I don't usually like Christmas books - I find the run-up to Christmas bad enough without having to read about how it's apparently meant to be. This year, however, with much less pressure on my time and far fewer preparations to make, I decided to make a pile of books appropriate to the season (some were more about winter than carols, but I always enjoy a bit of snow.)  

My Christmas Books

A Redbird Christmas is a charming story set in a tiny riverside community in Alabama. It's about an unhappy man who visits for the winter and ends up staying, an unwanted child who ends up finding a family, and all sorts of other characters, including an injured (and rescued) redbird called Jack. So yes, it's cosy in parts, and none of it would probably ever happen, but it's beautifully written and I loved every word of it. Fannie Flagg is a great writer. My review is here. 

I haven't ranked these titles, but if I had to put one in top place it would have to be Joan Smokes. Have you read any of these? Did you enjoy them?

Next time, my 2020 favourite non-fiction titles.