Top five books of 2014

It’s been a long time since I’ve written any book reviews. Partly because I now read and edit books every day for a living, so I don’t read for pleasure as often I used to! But I have managed to find some good ones over the past year.

Many of the books that I have served as editor for would be contenders for this list. But as I think it’s poor form to review a book that I have professionally worked on, these are sadly excluded.

So here are my personal top five reads from 2014 (in order of author surname).

The Scream of Angels by David Haynes

Although I’m not such a fan of horror as I was in my bloodthirsty youth, David Haynes’s books are in a class of their own. The ‘Master of Macabre’ specialises in Victorian gothic fiction and this is one of his best. The highest praise I can give this novel is that  it actually feels like it was written by a Victorian author living in decadent Paris at the turn of the century, with all the historical language and phrasing you might expect.

Sumptuously grotesque – for strong stomachs only!

Read my review and buy the The Scream of Angels on Amazon.

FAG by Jonathan Hill

This is a novel that everyone should read. If you’ve ever felt bullied, ever felt like an outsider or ever railed against prejudice, you need to read FAG. Jonathan Hill tells an uncomfortable story with the passion and precision of a professional. It’s clear that the author has poured his heart and soul into this and it means a great deal to him.

You’ll never forget how this book makes you feel. Required reading for people from every walk of life.

Read my review and buy FAG on Amazon.

The Frood: The History of Douglas Adams by Jem Roberts

As a lifelong fan of Douglas Adams and especially The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, I was always going to adore this. How ironic that I read the enormous hardback version and not a Guide-like eBook! Meticulously researched, this deconstructs the famous author’s entire career and personal life, sometimes a little too much.

I think The Salmon of Doubt is a better book to read as a tribute to Douglas’s genius, but this feels like a truly authoritative history. (And where it is inaccurate, it is at least definitively inaccurate.)

Buy The Frood on Amazon.

21st Century Dodos by Steve Stack

For anyone who was around during the 70s and 80s (obviously I wasn’t), this book is a hilarious time capsule. Back then (so I’m told), technology, activities and lifestyles were simpler in some ways and ridiculously complex in others. There’s a great joy in being reminded (for old people, I imagine, not me) of dozens of tiny things you’d forgotten, including your own behaviour and attitudes (if you were around back then).

One for really, really old people (I must have picked it up by mistake).

Read my review and buy 21st Century Dodos on Amazon.

Monster Avengers by Rosen Trevithick

If you thought Rosen Trevithick’s books about smelly trolls were bonkers, you’re ready for the next level. The result of an enormous project working with 300 primary school children, Monster Avengers takes the wild off-the-wall imagination of kids and crafts it into the most brilliantly bizarre story you’ve ever read.

Worth buying purely for the lumipoo momps – evil duck monsters with luminous poo. “Momp momp!”

Buy Monster Avengers on Amazon.

Amongst several others, I also greatly enjoyed Ravenfold by Kath Middleton, The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman, and Simon Pegg’s autobiography Nerd Do Well. Plus a special mention for the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors – a book I have turned to more frequently than any other since becoming a freelance editor!