I’ve not dedicated as much time to reading this year as I’d have liked (wedding and work: the two Ws that seemed to take over my life), nor kept a proper note about what I’d read. The below is what I can remember, for better or worse, from the beginning of the year.

The Virgins, Pamela Erens.
I don’t remember an awful lot about this other than it irritated me most of the way through. There were several elements I found problematic from a feminist perspective. The short and scrappy note I did take on my phone says: unconvincing; dark but not dark enough; irritating omnipotent narration; don’t feel it to be true. It most certainly is nothing like The Virgin Suicides, which it was breathlessly compared to.

The Etymologicon, Mark Forsyth
I was bought this by one of my favourite book clubbers as a birthday present, and he has me down to a tee. Full of vignettes about how certain words and phrases came to be, and one of those books so full of fascinating facts that you become irksome in your, “Oooh, just listen to this!” as you read out passages while your fiancé desperately tries to get to sleep.

Blood and the Beauty, Sarah Dunant
I quite like chunky historical fiction, and had hoped that this would do for the Borgias what Wolf Hall did for Cromwell. It doesn’t, really. Diverting enough and probably worth putting on the beach read list, but with a subject matter of such infamy, it had the potential to be wildly compelling. Maybe Mantel has spoilt me forever.

Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
I picked this up from the hotel library and read it on a Thai beach in two sittings over one afternoon, totally unable to see what all the fuss was about. I remember the last two thirds as being particularly irksome, but I wasn’t in a position (in my hammock) to be making notes as to why.

Most of Nora Ephron, Nora Ephron
The late and divine Ms Ephron is high up on my list of fantasy dinner party guests. Even if you’ve read a lot of her other work, this is a book worth buying for the few bits and pieces which don’t appear anywhere else. There’s a section of screenplay from When Harry Met Sally, a most excellent diatribe about egg white omelettes and so much more that had me cooing with glee. I’d read the woman’s shopping lists, they’d be that well put together. Buy it, read it. It’ll enrich your life.

The Miniaturist, Jessie Burton
This is just lovely. Like all books that are enormously hyped, I had substantial misgivings about this, but it’s a gorgeous book, and makes for a great holiday read if you want something engrossing and not mindless. Evocative, slightly magical, enveloping in its atmosphere, this tells the story of the young wife of a Dutch merchant, and the miniature house that starts to reflect their lives. There’s domesticity and politics and truth and perception and obsession. Highly recommended.

Bring up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel
I was prompted to read this before the staggering televised version hit the screens earlier in the year (holy moly, but Mark Rylance is a god): given that I absolutely adored Wolf Hall, it’s going to be no great surprise that I chomped my way through this in a matter of days. Eagerly anticipating part three, and so hoping that Mantel turns her attention to other maligned historical figures in due course.

The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
A tip: don’t read this shortly after getting married. The thought of having to cope with the death of one’s husband is quite traumatic enough without thinking about doing so when one has only just acquired a husband. Didion’s writing is, as ever, beautiful – if brutal. How someone could be suffering such pain and put words like this to paper is beyond me. It’s as emotionally hefty as it sounds, but one to get swept up into – if only as a reminder to tell the people you love that you love them while they’re around to hear it.