Books

Books I loved in...

 

...2022

Excellent Women by Barbara Pym

Oh William by Elizabeth Strout

The Magician by Colm Tóibín

Still Life by Sarah Winman 

These Precious Days by Ann Patchett

Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Klara and the Moon by Kazuo Ishiguro

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Palace of the Drowned by Christine Mangan

 

...2021

Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain by Sue Gerhardt 

The Audacity by Katherine Ryan

Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason

Inner Engineering by Sadhguru

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell

Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami

The Wisdom of Yoga by Stephen Cope

A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym

Flying on the Inside by Rachel Gotto 

The Salt Path by Raynor Winn

Here is Where We Meet by John Berger

The Art of Falling by Danielle McLaughlin

Olga by Bernhard Schlink

Old Friend from Far Away by Natalie Goldberg

Hitching for Hope by Ruairí McKiernan

Breath by James Nestor

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön

Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton

Educated by Tara Westover

Mantel Pieces by Hilary Mantel

Untamed by Glennon Doyle

Giving up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

Silence in the Age of Noise by Erling Kagge

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

Quiet. The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

From a Low and Quiet Sea by Donal Ryan

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

The Grassling by Elizabeth-Jane Burnett

Lives of Houses by Kate Kennedy and Hermione Lee (eds.)

 

...2020 

Handiwork by Sara Baume

Notes to Self by Emilie Pine

Constellations. Reflections from Life by Sineád Gleeson

On Chapel Sands by Laura Cumming

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick

Last Stories by William Trevor

The Source by Dr Tara Swart

The Infinite Way by Joel Goldsmith

The Secret Lives of Colour by Kassia St Clair

That Sense of Wonder by Francesco Dimitri

 

...2019
Sleeping Arrangements by Laura Shaine Cunningham

Becoming by Michelle Obama
The Mistress's Daughter by A.M. Homes
Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale
A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson
The Way Home by Mark Boyle
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
The Cancer Whisperer by Sophie Sabbage
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey
Lifeshocks by Sophie Sabbage
Dying to be Me by Anita Moorjani
Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Heartburn by Nora Ephron
The Queen of the Tambourine by Jane Gardam
The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch
Once We Were Sisters by Sheila Kohler
The Lonely City by Olivia Laing
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Manderley Forever by Tatiana de Rosnay
My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund

...2018
Manderley Forever by Tatiana de Rosnay
History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund
The Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante

Life in the Garden by Penelope Lively

The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald

All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews

Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Dr Joe Dispenza

Zelda. A Biography by Nancy Milford

Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift

A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler

Seeing Ourselves. Women's Self-Portraits by Frances Borzello

Country Girl. A Memoir by Edna O'Brien

...2017
10% Happier by Dan Harris
The Girls by Emma Cline
Iris. A Memoir of Iris Murdoch by John Bayley
A Line Made by Walking by Sara Baume
The Reconstructionist by Josephine Hart
Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin
Deceived with Kindness. A Bloomsbury Childhood by Angelica Garnett
Patrimony by Philip Roth
Something to Hide by Penny Perrick
Undue Influence by Anita Brookner
The Vanishing Man. In Pursuit of Velázquez by Laura Cumming
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
In Search of a Beginning. My Life with Graham Greene by Yvonne Cloetta / Marie-Françoise Allain
How to be Both by Ali Smith
Art as Therapy by Alain de Botton and John Armstrong
Vanessa Bell by Frances Spalding
The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
Ich Habe Auch Gelebt! Briefe einer Freundschaft by Astrid Lindgren & Louise Hartung

...2016
Lalu Lalula, Arme Kleine Ophelia by Fanny Morweiser
Frenchman's Creek by Daphne Du Maurier
Nada by Carmen Laforet
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
Miss Emily by Nuala Ní Chonchuir

...2015
Hanging with the Elephant by Michael Harding
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
The Girl Missing From the Window by Paul O'Reilly
The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt
Virginia Woolf by Hermione Lee
Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell

...2014
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit

Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach

Staring at Lakes by Michael Harding

Stoner by John Williams

Time Present and Time Past by Deirdre Madden

...2013
Nothing is Black by Deirdre Madden
Living in the Light by Shakti Gawain
In the Mind's Eye by Lucy Grealy
The Vein of Gold by Julia Cameron
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Judith Kerr's Creatures: A Celebration of her Life and Work
An Experiment in Leisure by Marion Milner
Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Athill
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Swimming Home by Deborah Levy
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Damage by Josephine Hart
Authenticity by Deirdre Madden
A World of Our Own by Frances Borzello
Herzzeit: Ingeborg Bachmann - Paul Celan. Der Briefwechsel 

...2012
Embracing Uncertainty by Susan Jeffers 
Night by Edna O'Brien
Shoot the Damn Dog by Sally Brampton
A Life of One's Own by Marion Milner
An Experiment in Love by Hilary Mantel
Man with a Blue Scarf by Martin Gayford
On Not Being Able To Paint by Marion Milne
The Sea Change by Elizabeth Jane Howard
Blue Nights by Joan Didion
The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard

...2011

Molly Fox's Birthday by Deirdre Madden
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

The Summer Without Men by Siri Hustvedt

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Euginides

The Loft by Marlen Haushofer

The Reenchantment of Art by Suzi Gablik

The Paper Garden by Molly Peacock

The Diary of Anaïs Nin 1931 - 1934

Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Your Voice In My Head by Emma Forrest

Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan 

Books on art:

Mysteries of the Rectangle by Siri Hustvedt

Art and Fear. Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland

About Looking and Ways of Seeing by John Berger

Aesthetics. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art by Anne Sheppard

On Photography by Susan Sontag

The Artist's Way and Vein of Gold by Julia Cameron

Colour. A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay

The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and Drawing on the Artist Within by Betty Edwards

The Story of Art by E. H. Gombrich

Stravinsky's Lunch by Drusilla Modjeska