OVERVIEW: 2018 highlights

[feather_ghyll]

Here’s my annual round-up of highlights from 2018 posts. I read a couple of books by a few authors, Helen MacInnes, Elinor M. Brent-Dyer and E.M. de Foubert, and two books in my rereading of Eva Ibbotson, preferring The Morning Gift to Madensky Square, which is my least favourite book by her. But, as it turned out, I read three books by Carola Dunn: two Daisy Dalrymple mysteries (‘Mistletoe and Murder’ was far better than ‘To Davy Jones Below’) and ‘Buried in the Country’, the latest Cornish mystery, all of which are cosy historical murder mysteries.

I very much admired Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. It is narrated by a scholarship girl at the privileged New England Ault School. Lee Fiora is an obsessive observer, which makes her a good narrator for a literary novel. I’ve caught myself using her class’s catchphrase of ‘therein lies the paradox’ subsequently. I was also glad to come across Nicole Burstein’s Othergirl, which starts from the premise that superheroes are real, and against that backdrop, looks at the friendship between two teenage girls as they study for their GCSEs.

The best Girls Own book I read during the year was Evelyn Smith’s perceptive Biddy and Quilla about friendship and growing up. It features no superpowers, although there are some heroics. I also enjoyed Monica Edwards's The Outsider (a family of young people and children holiday together on a farm with friends). The funniest book of the year, to my surprise, was Pamela Brown’s The Bridesmaids – I don’t remember Brown as a comic writer first and foremost, but the mad ideas of the young matchmakers who want to become bridesmaids to back up a boast was funny.

It was a pleasure to reread The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows in preparation for seeing the adaptation – reviewed here, mainly from the perspective of noting all the changes and speculations as to why. (I bought a copy of the DVD over the Christmas holidays.) I also saw Paul Thomas Anderson’s excellent Phantom Thread, set in the world of 1950s London couture.

As for the Big Four, as I said, I read two books by Brent-Dyer, one a late Chalet School book Challenge for the Chalet School and the other, A Head Girl’s Difficulties. I read two books by Dorita Fairlie-Bruce, That Bparding School Girl, which I preferred to Captain Anne, a Springdale book that references Dimsie. I snuck in an Angela Brazil book before the end of the year, and read nothing by EJO. But I did read an American Camp Fire girls novel, and The Far-Distand Orux, co-written by two talented schoolgirls.

Not only did I fail to read more non-fiction books (my resolution, which I didn’t give much thought to) I read fewer books full stop. So I plan to increase the number of books I read, and I have something in mind about more rereads.

Last year's post.