As January breezes in with its boot-camp vibe, it’s easy to feel a touch overwhelmed. This is a time when many of us struggle with the basics of getting through the day, let alone fronting up to a declutter, detox and diarise regime. For anyone facing the new year jitters, the books below might just help, generously mapping the way to worlds of adventure – but also reminding us to take our time. There’s no deadline, after all, for starting the next chapter.
1. My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
“It was Larry, of course, who started it”, as young Gerry recalls. One day, the Durrell family are variously cursing their catarrh, their acne, and the endlessly grey English drizzle. The next, thanks to the urging of their imperious eldest brother Lawrence, they’ve sold up and are living in a strawberry-pink villa on the island of Corfu. Gorgeous prose and perfect comic timing make this autobiographical novel the ideal read, or re-read, for anyone who needs a vicarious getaway.
2. O Positive by Joe Dunthorne
As irresistibly clear and loud as its bright yellow cover, this glorious debut poetry collection explores themes of friendship, love, and risk. There’s plenty of cleverness here, but the tone is conspiratorial. Dunthorne draws you in, to share in the jokes. Subjects range from a surreal encounter with an airport security wand to a poem in praise of guinea pigs, true crime and “the sun / when it arrives / like a tray of / drinks”. A collection full of possibility.
3. Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
When it comes to fresh starts, the Victorian novel is pretty much a dead end. Morality and narrative convention dictate that any misdemeanour, however small, must inevitably come to light, causing a full-on snafu by chapter 17. That said, Braddon’s tightly paced tale of reinvention, retribution, and Manor House skulduggery – an 1862 bestseller – will make for a cracking start to your reading year.
4. Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris: Including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry by Leanne Shapton
What if we thought less about clean slates and more about the traces we leave behind? This is the concept behind Shapton’s brilliant image-based story of a Manhattan couple’s love affair and breakup. Taking the form of an auction catalogue, detailing the possessions and ephemera accrued throughout their relationship, this book makes something new and beautiful out of marginal things and discarded lives. Hugely intelligent, fresh, and formally radical.
5. Great Second Acts: In Praise of Older Women by Marlene Wagman-Geller
In a world that prizes golden youth, it’s refreshing to find a book that celebrates later-life achievements. Wagman-Geller’s rich collection of potted biographies applauds women who begin and sustain extraordinary ventures late in life. From Maggie Kuhn’s move from retirement to White House political activism as a “Gray Panther”, to Anna Mary Robertson Moses’s arrival on the art scene as the 70-year-old painter Grandma Moses, this book proves that it’s never too late to see yourself as promising.
