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Wyndham and Bannerjee creator Abir Mukherjee, above, whose standalone thriller Hunted (Vintage) is out, now says: “Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst (Macmillan) follows Dave Win, an Anglo-Burmese man, from childhood and through his life as an actor. It’s a poignant book about race, class and sexuality in a changing Britain. Hollinghurst has rightly been described as the UK’s finest living author. The Most Secret Memory of Men by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr (Vintage) is a Senegalese writer’s quest to uncover the fate of a vanished author, the book weaves together colonial history, identity, and the power of literature. Absolutely haunting.”
(Image: Express / Jonathan Buckmaster)
Legendary music PR Alan Edwards, whose I Was There (Simon & Schuster) recalls his 30-year collaboration with David Bowie, says: “It was a bumper year for music books but two titles caught my eye. Bitter Crop by Paul Alexander (Canongate) is an incredibly moving, painful and insightful story about the last year of the great Billie Holiday’s life. Plagued with drug addiction and terrible choices in men, but at the same time befriended and supported by greats like Frank Sinatra, Bitter Crop captures her spiralling decline but also the magnificence of her final performances. Street-Level Superstar: A Year With Lawrence, by Will Hodgkinson (Nine Eight Books) is the extraordinary story of a singer most of us have never even heard of, always managing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. One of the most unexpected and offbeat pop biographies I’ve read in a long time. Also an honourable mention to Dylan Jones’s fascinating insight into the life of a style editor, These Foolish Things: A Memoir (Little, Brown).
(Image: Dave Bennet / Getty)
Alexander Larman, above, author of Power and Glory, a gripping new account of the Duke of Windsor and wartime treachery, says: “Daisy Dunn’s classical exploration, The Missing Thread (Orion), was not only beautifully written and intricately researched, but a valuable corrective to the macho, Gladiator school of classics scholarship. And I loved Dan Jones’ endlessly readable Henry V (Apollo), which confirms Jones as a chronicler of blood and guts with some serious brains, too.”
(Image: Alexander Larman)
Alice Feeney, above, whose new thriller, Beautiful Ugly (Macmillan), is published next month, says: “I loved Things Don’t Break on Their Own by Sarah Easter Collins (Penguin). This brilliant and beautiful book is a genuine page-turner. Original, clever, gripping, and deeply moving. I loved every page. The Dream Home by T M Logan (Bonnier) was one of my favourite books this year, and I devoured this deliciously dark thriller, so addictive it should come with a warning.”
(Image: Alice Feeney)
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