One of the most anticipated books of the year was Sally Rooney’s fourth novel Intermezzo, which several Guardian readers enjoyed this year. Though reader Emma didn’t enjoy Rooney’s third novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You as much as her first two, she felt the author was back on form with her tale of two grieving brothers. “Intermezzo is for sure my favourite book of the year,” she says. “I really empathised with the grief and inner turmoil of the characters.”
Irish writers made a strong showing all round, with Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn sequel Long Island the favourite of a number of readers, including Heather, who found it impossible to put down. “I felt like I’d stepped into the character’s lives and wanted to gossip over a cup of tea and biscuits with them all.”
Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These, meanwhile – now a film adaption produced by and starring Cillian Murphy – is “a jewel of a book” according to one reader. “This novella will break your heart and fill it up again” says another, Tracey.
Percival Everett’s funny, moving reimagining of Huckleberry Finn, James, was shortlisted for the Booker prize this year and a big hit with readers, with Andy nominating it “because it redresses the balance of what was an already great story.”
For another reader, Dicken, his book of the year was a toss-up between James and Colson Whitehead’s Crook Manifesto. “But it is James that wins for me, not because of the powerful messages about being enslaved (though it is thought provoking in that regard), but because Everett can tell a story like pretty much no other recent writer – often funny, fully rounded characters, and a plot that keeps you involved right to the end.”
Other Booker-listed titles also proved popular, with winner Orbital by Samantha Harvey and Rachel Kushner’s Creation Lake chosen by various readers. Hisham Matar’s My Friends was Kate’s favourite read. “This is not a book whose story or characters have any obvious parallels with my own life, but it was so human and beautiful that I became totally immersed in the story and felt very much like I was on a journey with these three friends in exile.”
Though most picked fiction as their books of the year, Martin loved Sathnam Sanghera’s Empireworld, which he felt was a “brilliant” follow-up to the author’s acclaimed 2021 book about British colonialism, Empireland. “The level of detail is astonishing and, like all good books about the British Empire, it highlights the enormous disparity between our own view of our legacy and the views of the rest of the world,” says Martin. “Essential reading.”
Romantasy, which was in the running for the Collins words of the year, is a genre that has been going from strength to strength, and Rebecca Yarros is one of the most popular authors writing this kind of steamy fantasy. One reader, Aditi, picked her novel Fourth Wing as her book of the year. Yarros “does an exceptional job of guiding you to visualise the narrative and characters, with the right balance of you having to work stuff out yourself and it flowing along,” she says. And in good news for Aditi, there’s another Yarros novel, Onyx Storm, in store for next year, along with plenty of other titles to suit all kinds of tastes. Happy reading!
Copies of Irish author Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images
