These are the books I chose to send to friends this year. Happy Reading in 2016! SLADE HOUSE  by David Mitchell SUBMISSION  by Michel Houellebecq THE FLEMISH HOUSE  by Georges Simenon THE LADY IN THE LAKE  by Raymond Chandler HEAT WAVE  by Penelope Lively LOW LIFE: THE SPECTATOR COLUMNS  by Jeremy Clarke GIDEON’S SPIES  by Gordon Thomas THE LADY FROM ZAGREB  by Philip Kerr DEAD IS BETTER  by Jo Perry

Sometimes reading a book one can feel ambivalent, unsure whether you’re totally enjoying it. I enjoy this writer and have enjoyed many of his books. He writes nicely and interestingly although anyone who starts a novel with a young man heading for the trenches, well no doubt how that’s going to turn out. With this book I was still ambivalent for almost two thirds, but I felt I needed a break as the year ended. Not sure why.

The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin And the Remaking of Israel. Really the end of the peace process… So sad for all concerned.

A wonderful very well written murder mystery. A great read and a great thriller. Alternative viewpoints from the various characters keep the suspense till the end. Perfectly accomplished and a great achievement. I loved it.

An excellent book by John Banville under his pseudonym. I don’t know how I managed to miss this one. Short, taut and almost perfect.

I was enjoying it, which surprised me, but he writes nicely and then it just seems to go on and on, and I realised that I believed neither in Pip, the female lead, or the asshole Andreas Wolf, the murderous East German spiritual leader of young women in Bolivia. Really? I tried and tried and then went, oh fuck it.

A very funny book that would have made my Xmas selections if I had read it sooner. Very amusingly called “the Catch 22 of dentistry” by Stephen King no less, his style and his subject reminds me of Joseph Heller, and indeed Philip Roth, which is high praise indeed. Very enjoyable and original.