Tomasz, Guardian reader
Ever since my father presented me with a copy of The Unicorn, beautifully translated into my mother tongue, I have been an ardent admirer of Iris Murdoch’s. I went on to read all of her novels, plays and poetry with great enthusiasm. Before Christmas, I returned to her penultimate novel, The Green Knight, having remembered very little of it. Yet from the very first page, I was reminded why I have always loved her work so deeply: the prose is rich, precise, disciplined and meticulously detailed; the many characters are so vividly rendered that none appears two-dimensional; each experiences and processes reality in a way that feels distinct and unmistakably individual; and the pacing of events feels perfectly judged. Although the novel is threaded with philosophical reflections on goodness and love, these never feel laboured or artificially imposed. Rather, they emerge naturally as an integral part of the novel’s dense and intricate tapestry.
Alan Hollinghurst, author
I’ve spent a month reading two poets whose work has been part of my life for more than 50 years. John Fuller’s Marston Meadows opens with the immaculate corona of sonnets that inspired Ian McEwan’s new novel What We Can Know, but these give only a foretaste of a collection that ranges, with amazing wit, agility and deep feeling, through the changing perspectives of old age (Fuller is 89). To my mind, the most moving and luminous of all his books. The Poems of Seamus Heaney, superbly edited by Rosie Lavan, Bernard O’Donoghue and Matthew Hollis, contains surprises too: poems that were previously uncollected, some never seen before, and most of them fit to stand beside the literary landmarks of their time. It’s been as magical to find these new things as to reread the countless other poems known almost by heart.
Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst is published by Pan Macmillan. To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
Kelly, Guardian reader
I read Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan with my Sauna Book Club (yes it’s a book club in a sauna – no, we don’t read in the sauna). I had enjoyed this title the first time I read it back in 2023, but this time I fell deep in to the story, maybe because of the time of year: this story is set at Christmastime in Dublin during the 1980s, with the eerie and unsettling backdrop of the local convent. I think it also touched a nerve because I have a daughter the same age as the girl that the protagonist Bill Furlong is trying to help. Bill is someone everyone deserves to know, someone who won’t look away – he makes the reader question their ethics and fills their hearts with hope. Keegan’s writing is so delicate, it amazes me how much she can say in one sentence. The book club enjoyed the book and we gave it a resounding 10/10.
Samantha Harvey, author
I read Choice by Neel Mukherjee a couple of months ago and it’s still echoing in me. It’s a novel of three stories – or perhaps one, in which the other two are embedded, so that we’re summoned into a labyrinth of moral uncertainty and offered no easy escape. It’s irresistible writing, elegant and shattering.
I’m about halfway through The Spare Room by Helen Garner, which is the first of her books I’ve read. She describes a kookaburra with a butter hangover, then with a few quick strokes conjures the radiance of a child and the spectre of death. I see why people rave about her, I will now too.
Iris Murdoch’s newly published Poems from an Attic span her life; they’re often written for a specific other, and I almost felt bad – voyeuristic – reading them. But obviously I did read them, fascinated and uplifted by their unerring soul, their frankness and care. The final poem, Macaw in the Snow, is a bolt of light. It made me cry on the train.
Orbital by Samantha Harvey is published by Vintage. To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
Stuart, Guardian reader
I’ve spent the majority of December reading Ice by Jacek Dukaj, translated by Ursula Phillips. This is a remarkable novel about an alien invasion and an alternative history of Russia, set in 1924. The protagonist Benedykt Gieroslawski is sent to frozen Siberia to track down his father who is believed to be in cahoots with the invading Gleissen aliens who are slowly freezing the entirety of Europe. An incredible novel weighing in at nearly 1,200 pages. The world building and depth of character development are really something else.
A large part of the novel takes place on the Trans-Siberian express, which only adds to the story and character development. It’s a heavy read – not one for trying when the TV is on in the background, but definitely one for sitting down quietly with and immersing oneself in.
