And so to the eagerly awaited reading list for 2011 – the year I discovered Hamilton, Judt, Murakami and Doctorow, and rediscovered Orwell, the Scottish Enlightenment and public libraries. The first year a friend appeared on the list. Many of the books inspired the thoughts on these pages, although the most amazing book of the year probably remained the first (sorry Stuart).
W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz; John le Carre, The Spy who Came in from the Cold; John le Carre, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Nicholas Phillipson, Adam Smith: An Enlightened Mind; Patrick Hamilton, The Slaves of Solitude; Ian Jack, The Country Formerly Known as Great Britain; Misha Glenny, The Balkans; Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier; Rupert Thomson, This Party’s got to Stop; Richard Feynman, Surely you’re joking Mr Feynman; Stuart Evers, Ten Stories about Smoking; Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That; Tony Judt, Ill Fares the Land; William Faulkner, As I lay Dying; Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front; Iain McGilchrist, The Master and his Emissary; Havi Carel, Illness; Patrick Hamilton, Hangover Square; Eric Ambler, Cause for Alarm; Joshua Foer, Moonwalking with Einstein; Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood; Geoff Dyer, Working the Room; Chris Mullin, Decline and Fall; John Armstrong, Conditions of Love*; Graham Greene, The End of the Affair; Tony Judt, The Memory Chalet; Mick Jackson, The Underground Man; Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking; Roger Deakin, Wildwood; Nicholas Phillipson, David Hume: The Philosopher as Historian; Heather McGowan, Schooling; Gillian Tett, Fool’s Gold; George Orwell, Books vs Cigarettes (and other essays); E.L. Doctorow, Homer and Langley; Phillipe Legrain, Aftershock; Dubravka Ugresic, Karaoke Culture; George Orwell, Why I Write (and other essays); Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin; George Orwell, Decline of the English Murder (and other essays).
*Lent to me over a decade ago and finally read (sorry Geraldine). Thanks to all who provided recommendations and other (shorter term) loans.
