I always enjoy seeing your favorite books of 2024. Today, I’m excited to see Rosemary Kaye’s list of books. Thank you, Rosemary, for taking the time to work on it and write it up!

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My favourite reads of 2024

When I thought about writing this list, I really wondered if I could come up with a
decent number of books – I do feel my 2024 reading experiences have been mixed
to say the least.

But I was surprised, when I looked back through my reading journal, to be reminded
of some excellent stuff, both in fiction and non-fiction. So here is my top 10.

Nora Webster by Colm Toibin

I first heard Nora Webster read by the wonderful Sioban McSweeney (Sister
Michael, for those of you who’ve seen Derry Girls) on BBC Sounds. For me
McSweeney has the perfect voice for Nora, and I heard it throughout my reading of
the hard copy. Nora is a young widow in 1960s Enniscorthy, slowly navigating her
way through grief, single parenthood, Irish politics, extended family, and, eventually,
healing. Bookmarks described it as ‘a subtle meditation on grief, home, family, and
memory by an internationally respected writer at the peak of his craft…a meditation
in prose that is curiously flat and seemingly empty but that reflects, with perfect
clarity, the fullness of life.’

Leaving Alexandria by Richard Holloway

Richard Holloway grew up in Alexandria – not in the exotic Egyptian milieu of
Lawrence Durrell and co, but the rather more mundane town of the same name in
the Vale of Leven, where his father was a textile worker.

He entered the Episcopal church, and after working in all sorts of parishes (including
time in Africa, and two stints in the USA, where he met his wife Jean), he became
Bishop of Edinburgh. But Holloway had doubts, and as some Episcopalians became
more and more entrenched in their traditionalist, anti-LGBT views, and their
opposition to the ordination of women, he could no longer reconcile those doubts
with his calling. He resigned as bishop in 2000. Since then he has become a prolific
author, public speaker, broadcaster and reviewer, and a very popular activist. He was
one of the founders of Sistema/The Big Orchestra, which brings community and
hope to some of the poorest and most drug-ridden places in Scotland. He now
describes himself as ‘an after-religionist with a strong faith in humanity.’ He
frequently attends Old St Paul’s church in the Old Town in Edinburgh (one of my
daughters sings in its choir) – he was once rector of OSP, which is in some ways
very High, but has always had a very liberal and inclusive ethos, and has done a
great deal to support the homeless and troubled in this otherwise affluent area.

I think he is a wonderful person, and I found Leaving Alexandria extremely
interesting, often entertaining, and always very readable.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

I think many of us have read and enjoyed this excellent story about Elizabeth Zott,
research chemist, single mother, TV cook and confronter of 1960s’ sexism. I liked it
much more than I expected to.

Country Girl by Edna O’Brien

Edna O’Brien’s autobiography is a fascinating and often shocking account of her
brave and uncompromising life. Leaving her oppressive, traditional home in County
Clare as soon as she could, she moved first to Dublin then London, where she lived
for the rest of her life. A brilliant, fearless writer, her first novel incurred the wrath of
the Catholic Church (priests burned copies in the street) and the fury of her own
mother, but she ploughed on, addressing the real lives and sexuality of 1950s’ Irish
women, and winning numerous awards along the way. She was forced to leave her
jealous and controlling husband, only regaining custody of her sons after a bitter
battle. She lived a glamorous life in Chelsea, mixing with many celebrities of the day,
but her heart was always partly still in Ireland, and she is buried on Inis Cealtra in
Lough Derg, Co Clare.

Carrie’s War by Nina Bawden

Carrie and her brother Nick are evacuated from Blitz-bombarded London to the wilds
of rural Wales, where they are billeted on the terrifying shopkeeper Mr Evans, and
his kind but cowed sister Lou. A fellow evacuee, Albert Sandwich, is sent to live with
Hepzibah, the housekeeper at Druid’s Bottom, the old and delipidated home of the
Evans’s older sister, who married the mine owner, lived a luxurious life, but is now
old, widowed and dying, and loathed by her bitter brother.

Carrie and Nick start to visit kind Hepzibah and gentle Mr Johnny, a special needs
distant cousin who lives with her; they have a wonderful time at Druid’s Bottom. It is,
however, through Bawden’s skill as a storyteller that we are able to see beyond the
children’s perception of the situation, and to understand why Mr Evans has become
the mean zealot that he is, a man who makes the children walk up the edges of the
stairs to avoid wearing out the stair carpet.

As the children prepare to return to their mother in London, a terrible event leaves
Carrie with a lifelong burden of guilt. Now, returning to the village with her own
children, she finally discovers that things did not turn out quite as she had feared.

I first saw Carrie’s War as a TV adaptation in the 1970s, and more recently via a
DVD of a second TV adaptation made in 2004. It particularly interests me because
my own mother was evacuated to Wales from London in, I think, 1940, although her experience was quite different from Carrie and Nick’s – but anyone could read and
enjoy this wonderful little book, it’s a gripping story and so beautifully written.

All the Lonely People by Mike Gayle

Hubert comes to England from Jamaica as part of the Windrush generation (The
Windrush was the ship many Jamaicans sailed on). He first lives in Brixton, where he
works in a warehouse and suffers horrendous racism. He meets Joyce, a white girl,
whose parents are horrified by their relationship; despite this, they marry, move to
Bromley (the London suburb in which I grew up) and have two children. Joyce’s
family never speaks to them again. Now Joyce is dead and Hubert lives alone with
his cat, Puss. To keep his daughter Rose happy (she is an academic in Australia) he
tells her all about his friends and their vibrant social life – but none of it is true. In
fact, he lives the life of a hermit. Now Rose is coming home, and Hubert needs to
find some real friends, and quickly.

Meanwhile Ashleigh, a young single mother, moves in next door with her little
daughter, and is determined to make friends with Hubert. He’s equally determined
not to let her. After several false starts they begin to bond, and decide to start a
campaign to end loneliness in Bromley. Together with a few others, they work on
their plans – but then Hubert’s past catches up with him in more ways than one, and
he retreats from the world once more. Can Ashleigh – and a face from Hubert’s past
– persuade him to move forwards with them?

Mike Gayle’s writing is wonderful – this book is so well written, so readable, and
ultimately far more ‘heartwarming’ than many of the formulaic novels described as
such.

The Cat Who Came for Christmas by Cleveland Amory

Amory is an author, socialite and animal rights activist living in a smart Central Park
apartment. It’s Christmas 1977 and, newly divorced, he will be spending it alone.
Enter a filthy, starving and injured stray cat. Amory is a dog person. Or he thought he
was. So begins his life of being owned by a cat, whom he names Polar Bear. Amory
always thinks he can get one over on PB. PB sets to work training Amory. Together
they have many adventures. They walk in the park, they go to Hollywood and stay in
the Beverley Hills Hotel. PB meets Walter Cronkite and even sits on Cary Grant’s
lap. He refuses to accept any other animal’s company – until Amory has to provide a
foster home for a pigeon named Herbert. Cat and pigeon become firm friends,
spending hours watching the world from PB’ s specially enclosed balcony – ‘As I told
you before, you never could count on his foreign policy.’

Some animal books are unbearably twee – this is not one of them. Amory writes with
masterfully understated wit, treats PB as the intelligent animal he is, knows this
smart cat will always get the better of him – but soldiers on regardless. The two of
them have a great time – and no, there is no tragic deathbed scene, at the end of the
book PB is just as much with us as he was at the beginning. I enjoyed The Cat Who
Came for Christmas very much.

Provence, 1970 by Luke Barr

Luke Barr is the great nephew of the food writer MFK Fisher. Here he writes about
the winter of 1970, when Fisher, James Beard, Simone Beck, Julia & Paul Child,
Richard Olney, Beard and Child’s editor Judith Jones, Sybill Bedford and Eda Lord
were all staying in the hills of Provence. Some were visiting, while Bedford, Lord and
Olney lived in the area. All of them had been devotees of classic French cooking, but
times were changing. Beard was already writing a book about American food, and
now Child and Fisher were turning increasingly to the wealth of outstanding produce
and fabulous variety of cuisines on their US doorsteps. Olney, Bedford and
(unsurprisingly) Beck clung to the old order. A rift developed, and Fisher eventually
moved into a hotel in Avignon, where she spent Christmas alone. She eventually
abandoned her idea of living permanently in France, and instead built ‘Last House’ in
the Sonoma Valley.

I always like reading about food writers and cooks, and I found the personalities in
Provence, 1970 fascinating. Barr opens a window onto a world long gone, and
captures a pivotal moment in time.

Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas

Maverick is a black youth living in the Garden Heights scheme with his mother Faye.
His father, Adonis, is in prison. Adonis used to be a gang leader and has told
Maverick to join one for his own protection – so Maverick is a member of the King
Lords. Maverick and his friend King are selling drugs for the gang leaders – but
they’re also selling on the side.

When Maverick discovers that he, and not King, is the father of Iesha’s baby, his
world implodes – and things get a lot worse when Iesha and her mother dump the
baby on Maverick and Faye. His own girlfriend, Lesa, breaks up him, he’s unable to
hang out with his friends – but against all the odds he becomes a great father to
Seven (‘it’s a lucky number’) and gets a job in Mr Wyatt’s store. But his schoolwork
suffers, he has no money, and when his cousin and role model Dre is shot dead,
Maverick despairs. Then Lesa informs him she too is pregnant – Maverick will have
two children before he is even 18 years old.

He returns to dealing and acquires a gun to avenge Dre’s death – but in the end
Faye, Mr Wyatt, and another very unexpected person help him to realise that there is
a way to a better life. Concrete Rose is a brilliantly written page turner of a novel,
and one that gives a clear and authentic voice to disaffected black youth. Highly
recommended.

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

This stunning novella sheds a subtle, sideways light on the appalling Magdalene
laundries run by religious orders in Ireland until as late as 1996. It’s beautifully and
economically written, and all the more powerful for the way in which it leaves the
reader to work out just what is going on.

It is 1985 and Bill Furlong is a fuel merchant in New Ross. He has five young
daughters, two of whom are already attending the best girls’ school in the town. The
school is attached to and largely run by the nuns of the local convent. Delivering to
the convent just before Christmas, Bill finds a distraught young woman locked in the
coal shed. He tries to find out what has happened, but the girl is whisked away by
some of the sisters, and he is told that she was the ‘victim of a silly game.’

The convent is in fact one of the notorious laundries, to which unmarried pregnant
girls were sent, often by their own families. They were made to work like slaves, and
when they gave birth, their babies were sold to affluent childless couples. Many
women and babies died; in 1993 the unmarked graves of 155 women were found in
the grounds of just one of the laundries in North Dublin. Only 75 of them had even
been issued a death certificate, despite the lack of one being a criminal offence in
Ireland.

On another visit Bill sees Sarah again and she again begs him to help her. Bill
begins to realise that almost everyone in New Ross is well aware of what is going on
up at the convent, but the nuns and the priests control everything in the town, and no
one wants to rock the boat. He is warned, by people with good intentions, to keep
well out of it – otherwise not only his business, but the education of his remaining
daughters, will be threatened. His own wife is furious with him for even considering
risking all that they have worked for.

Bill’s own mother was an unmarried maid, but was treated kindly by her employer;
the two of them continued to live with Mrs Wilson, who took a great interest in Bill’s
education. Bill is all too well aware that his mother would otherwise have ended up at
one of the laundries.

Now he must make a very difficult moral choice.

I loved this book as much for the way in which Keegan conjures up 1980s small town
Ireland as for its moving and truly shocking story. As someone who was familiar with
rural Ireland at that time, I remember just how much the RC church controlled
everything back in those days – less than 40 years ago – and how the approbation of
the church, and people’s desperate need to remain ‘respectable’, meant that parents
would condemn their own daughters to terrible suffering. Without ever thrusting
history in our faces, Keegan shows us just how few choices Irish women had back
then. Small Things Like These, together with the recent TV series ‘The Woman in
the Wall’, and Peter Mullan’s 2002 film ‘The Magdalene Sisters’, are a very
necessary counter to Ireland’s romantic image. Edna O’Brien’s memoir also
highlights the way in which any woman in 20 th century Ireland who dared to be ‘other’
felt the full force of society’s wrath. It’s a beautiful country and its people are great,
but parts of its history (like most countries’) are shameful and streaked with blood.

Cillian Murphy’s recent film of Small Things Like These is excellent.

And that’s it from me for this year.