We were thrilled to reach the end of 2021 with a stellar group of eight books selected as Books of the Year.
The ‘deeply moving’ The High House by Jessie Greengrass was chosen by Good Housekeeping. Joanne Finney described her reading experience as an extremely memorable one: ‘so grounded in reality and the ordinariness of the lives of this disparate group, that I had to read parts of it through my fingers’. The High House was also shortlisted for the Costa 2021 Book Awards.
Mick Herron selected Jo Lloyd‘s The Earth, Thy Great Exchequer, Ready Lies (also shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize) in the Daily Express and Timothy Ogene‘s Seesaw was picked twice in The White Review by Jen Calleja and Luke Brown.
Calleja called Seesaw ‘a brilliantly meta satire about literary culture, race, class, not writing – the spoofing of academic language and the unreliable narrator’s escapades are creasing me up and making me cringe in equal measure’.
The Upswing by Robert Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett, was reviewed as ‘the most important book in social science for many years’ by Paul Collier in The Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year roundup.
To the Lake by Yana Vagner was praised as ‘a galloping thriller that you will want to devour in one sitting’ by Susan Swarbrick in The Herald and Adam LeBor in Financial Times chose ‘Vagner’s standout debut’ as ‘an absorbing, evocative odyssey that also reaches deep into the main characters’ backstories’.
Woke, Inc. by Vivek Ramaswamy was selected by The Sunday Times, The Daughters of Kobani by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon features in the personal favourites of The Daily Express, and Bring Back Our Girls by Joe Parkinson and Drew Hinshaw was included in The Telegraph‘s highlights.