Best & Worst Books of 2016

Some of my books, resting quietly.

Looking at the list of books I read last year my first impression is that they are an odd bunch. The combination of books I read of my own volition and those that I read for the book club make strange bedfellows. Among the novels read for the book club Rose Tremain’s The Gustav Sonata (2016), Mario Vargas Llosa’s Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977) were among the best, but the most satisfying novel was undoubtedly Dominic Smith’s The Last Painting of Sara De Vos (2016) (I’m yet to write a review...). My library’s book club voted it their best book of the year and although it was not my personal choice for best book it was certainly close. As for the worst book of the year the book club agreed with me absolutely: Charlotte Wood’s The Natural Way of Things (2015) was the most reprehensible novel I’ve read since Howard Jacobson’s dreaded The Finkler Question (2010).

Although Cixin Liu’s The Dark Forest and The Three Body Problem and Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch were all excellent reads, the prize for best book of 2016 has to go to Patrick Rothfuss’ fantasy novel The Name of the Wind (2007). Of all the books I read across 2016 The Name of the Wind came the closest to being rated as sublime. In hindsight I think that the only reason I did not give it the top rating was because of my unfamiliarity with the fantasy genre. Currently I’m reading its follow-up, The Wise Man’s Fear (2011) and although I’m only a third of the way through it’s looking like it could gain my highest rating in 2017.

Once again I’m looking forward to another year of reading, but as usual I wish that I had more time to get through my ever growing pile of unread books, but of course the one thing that is guaranteed is that I will not stop adding to the pile of books waiting to be read! Just give me more books!

The (Reprehensible) Finkler Question - Howard Jocobson (2010)

At the end of each year I give my book club group at the library the opportunity to vote on both the best and the worst books read during the year. Three years ago The Finkler Question was overwhelmingly voted the worst book of the year. This was the year it won the Man Booker Prize, a fact that all thirty active members could not fathom considering it was totally unappealing in almost every way. When considering my choice for the worst book of 2013 I realised that I still hadn’t read a book that came close to the awfulness of The Finkler Question. I can’t even bring myself to give even a brief synopsis, the memories are simply too distressing, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

I may well be overdoing this a bit (true, but only a bit), but for a book that was meant to be funny (it wasn’t at all) and had won a major prize, surely it should display some finer points? Unfortunately the extremely irritating protagonist, overdone theme of identity (of the possible Jewish kind*) and a prose style like fingernails down a blackboard were reprehensible. There I’ve said it: reprehensible. This is a nice segue to the real reason why I'm talking about this book. Recently I created a ratings link on this blog, but my lowest rating of reprehensible was not represented due to the fact that no book has deserved such a description during the lifetime of the blog. Recently I realised that I may not read a reprehensible book for a long while and that the rating would remain tragically unrepresented. So, it was logical; all I needed to do was make a brief post about just how the dreaded The Finkler Question scarred me for life and the problem would be solved. 

If anyone happens across this post and had a good time reading The Finkler Question, then please tell me why I’m wrong. Meanwhile read it at your peril!

* This is in no way an anti-Semitic comment.