The political writing that has engaged me most this year is the memoir The Return (Penguin). Hisham Matar is a loving and angry son in search of his father – an activist abducted by Egyptian agents in 1990 and turned over to Libya. It doesn’t have a happy ending, but it’s a resonant commemoration of courage. For those dreaming of summer, Jon Hotten’s memoir The Meaning of Cricket (Yellow Jersey) is accessible, fun and elegantly written. Ian McGuire’s whaling novel The North Water (Scribner) is exuberant, occasionally emetic, but always gripping.
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