These are the books I read as a break from standard academic reading, though the line gets blurred with some of the biographies. I read more of those this year than previous years, including the three volumes of Isaac Deutscher’s epic study of Trotsky.

For lists from previous years see here, and for some responses to questions asked about my novel reading see here.

1. Maja Lunde, A History of Bees
2. Alex Danchev, Georges Braque: A Life (biography)
3. Ian McEwan, Nutshell
4. Frida Beckman, Gilles Deleuze (biography)
5. Thomas Flynn, Sartre: A Philosophical Biography
6. Zadie Smith, White Teeth
7. Mark Mason, Walking the Lines: The London Underground, Overground
8. Graham Greene, The Quiet American
9. Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep(non fiction)
10. Jon McGregor, Reservoir 13
11. Jean-Paul Sartre,War Diaries: Notebooks from a Phoney War 1939-1940
12. Damion Searls, The Inkblots: Hermann Rorschach, His Iconic Test and the Power of Seeing
13. John Banville, The Blue Guitar
14. Elisabeth Roudinesco, Jacques Lacan: An Outline of a Life and History of a System of Thought (biography)
15. Sarah Painter, Beneath the Water
16. Pat Young, Til the Dust Settles
17. Anthony McCarten, Darkest Hour: How Churchill Brought us Back from the Brink (biography)
18. Naomi Klein, No is Not Enough (non fiction)
19. Robert MacFarlane, Landmarks (non fiction)
20. Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding
21. Alma Katsu, The Hunger
22. Cara Hunter, Close to Home
23. Matthew Richardson, My Name is Nothing
24. Paul Trynka, Starman: David Bowie (biography)
25. Lisa Appignanesi, Simone de Beauvoir (biography)
26. Jane Harper, The Dry
27. Robert Harris, Conclave
28. Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing
29. Isaac Deutscher, The Prophet Armed: Trotsky, 1879-1921(biography)
30. Margaret Atwood, Hag-Seed: The Tempest Retold
31. Heather Morris, The Tattooist of Auschwitz
32. Graeme MacRae Burnet, The Accident on the A35
33. Madeline Miller, Circe
34. Elizabeth Day, The Party
35. Val McDermid, Beneath the Bleeding
36. Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent
37. Isaac Deutscher, The Prophet Unarmed: Trotsky, 1921-1929 (biography)
38. Belinda Bauer, Snap
39. Jason Powell, Jacques Derrida: A Biography
40. John le Carré, The Constant Gardener
41. Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop
42. Elizabeth Strout,Anything is Possible
43. Aldous Huxley, The Devils of Loudun (non-fiction)
44. Val McDermid, Forensics (non-fiction)
45. Clare Mackintosh, Let Me Lie
46. Laura Marshall,  Three Little Lies
47. Andy Weir, Artemis
48. Yann Moulier Boutang, Louis Althusser, une biographie: La formation du mythe 1918-1945: La matrice
49. Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
50. Yann Moulier Boutang, Louis Althusser, une biographie: La formation du mythe 1945-1956: Ruptures et plis
51. Mohsin Hamed, Exit West
52. Michel Surya, Georges Bataille: An Intellectual Biography
53. Victoria Helen Stone, Jane Doe
54. Stuart Kendall, Georges Bataille (biography)
55. Simeon Wade, Foucault in California (memoir)
56. Naomi Alderman,The Lessons
57. Scott Hamilton, The Crisis of Theory: EP Thompson, The New Left and Postwar British Politics (biography)
58. Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects
59. Isaac Deutscher, The Prophet Outcast: Trotsky, 1929-1940 (biography)
60. Shirley Jackson, We have Always Lived in the Castle
61. Ray Monk, Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude 1872-1921 (biography)
62. Sarah Vaughan, Anatomy of a Scandal
63. Jane Harper, Force of Nature
64. John le Carré, A Small Town in Germany
65. A.S. Byatt, The Children’s Book
66. Ben Okri, The Famished Road