The book that I’ve most enjoyed this year is The Knives by Richard T Kelly (Faber & Faber). Its central character is an ambitious former army officer who rises through the ranks of Conservative MPs to become home secretary. I can testify to the remarkable accuracy of Kelly’s depiction of the job, but the thrilling adventures that this particular incumbent experiences are probably not what’s in store for Amber Rudd.
Although it’s not new, I read Olive Kitteridge (Simon & Schuster) by Elizabeth Strout this year and I doubt that I will ever read anything better. It’s about nothing very much but everything that matters.
Golden Hill by Francis Spufford (Faber & Faber) is a beautifully observed, suspenseful first novel that transports you to mid-18th-century New York. The city is at the frontier of the known world, but it’s also a small, claustrophobic society of Anglo-Dutch families, suspicious of a young man newly arrived from England with money in his pockets. It’s a gripping tale.
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