BOOKS OF 2015 - MISS EMILY ETC.

It's end-of-year book listy time and I'm delighted that Miss Emily has featured on a few: Amazon Canada names it in their Best Books of 2015, writer Nina Stibbe wants it for Christmas :), Toronto's Globe and Mail has it as one of The Globe 100, 100 Best Books of 2015 and Charles Lambert has it in his Top 5.

Charles's stunning novel The Children's Home is forthcoming (Feb. 2016). I read it in proof copy and it's stunning: gothic, creepy and compelling. Think Edward Gorey, Roald Dahl, Lemony Snickett. Fabulous.

My own picks were for the Bristol Prize people - short story collections by Elizabeth Baines and Eliza Robertson. I've also picked one book for the Wales Arts Review but you'll have to wait and see what that is.

HORIZON CONTRIBUTORS BOOKS OF THE YEAR

As I said before, I've contributed to a few Books of the Year round-ups this year. Here 's the final one. Katy Evans-Bush asked all us Horizoners to contribute our picks to Horizon. Mine and others are up on the Salt blog ahead of the publication of the review here.

THE ANTI-ROOM - BOOKS WE LIKED IN 2010

We did our Books We Liked in 2010 post on the Anti-Room. Mine included Patrick Chapman's The Darwin Vampires and Tom Vowler's The Method. Go see what we liked here.

BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2010 - IRISH TIMES

I was asked to contribute to this annual round-up, The Books We Loved Reading in 2010, in the Irish Times. These were my choices here. I have now been asked to do two more of these but I can't use the same books, can I?! No, I guess not. Luckily, many books impacted on me this year and each place only wants me to name three or so. The next Best Books features are at the Anti-Room and Horizon. Soon!