As the clock-hands shiver through the final hours of the year, it’s time to think about what really matters. Not novelty bathmats or flavoured gin, but people. People who need people, sang the notoriously synonym-averse Barbra Streisand, are the luckiest people in the world.

Well, today Barbra, people who need people who need books are the luckiest people in the world, because we’ve got their backs. Below is a selection of fiction and non-fiction published in 2018 that our writers have read and loved. Use it to treat yourself, fill your Christmas list, or foist gifts on family members (that you can steal back mid-way through 2019 without them noticing).

The Lost Man by Jane Harper

Jane Harper’s rise to success has been stratospheric – with three novels in three years she’s become an internationally bestselling author and her debut, The Dry, is currently being adapted into a film starring Eric Bana. But while The Dry and Force Of Nature were both well-written page turners, it’s her third novel, The Lost Man, that really shows what she’s capable of. Like the other two, The Lost Man is a murder mystery set against the harsh and unforgiving Australian landscape, but it’s a far richer, more ambiguous work, exploring the lasting damage wrought by complex family dynamics and terrible secrets left to fester. The Lost Man sinks its hooks in from the first chapters, but as the story unfolds Harper deftly peels away the layers of every one of her deeply flawed characters, revealing a truth far more tangled than a straightforward whodunnit. Emotional, riveting and thought provoking. Add it to your lists.

Gabriel Bergmoser

Notes On A Nervous Planet by Matt Haig

Is the mind-numbing scroll of social media getting you down? Does the relentless rubbish of scary world news make you want to run away and live the Old Ben Kenobi hermit life? If so, Matt Haig’s latest non-fiction is the perfect tonic. Here, an excellent author delves deep into what makes the modern interconnected globe such an easy stomping ground for depression and doom-declaring, as well as offering some top tips on how to disconnect, double down on what matters and keep the despair at bay. Part memoir, part self-help guide, part stream-of-consciousness journey of discovery, this terrific book will take you on a ride from brutally honest behind-the-scenes biography to web-era wisdom, via a surreal-but-surprisingly-deep conversation with a turtle. It’s hard to describe, but an absolute treat to read.

Rob Leane

Lost Objects by Marian Womack

In these sci-fi short stories about the natural world you’ll find butterflies, kingfishers, ospreys, and so many wonderfully described animals and landscapes – but everything is changed, diminished or corrupted in ways that are hugely unsettling. These are tales of climate change and near-future disaster, told with emotion and commitment to the way lives might alter. Concepts that often feel overwhelming are brought back down to an individual level, and tied to personal hopes, dreams and nightmares. Published by Luna Press, it’s a wonderful, mournful collection. 

Aliya Whiteley

Bookworm by Lucy Mangan

I’d like to report a robbery. Under cover of darkness, writer and Guardian TV critic Lucy Mangan crept into my soul, pocketed my memories and wrote them up beautifully in the guise of her “memoir of childhood reading.” I’m convinced that’s what’s happened. It wasn’t just mine either. Mangan also half-inched my friend Claire’s, and my niece’s, and probably yours too. It was a spree.

An alternative explanation would be that Lucy Mangan’s funny, warm Bookworm is personal and universal in the way that the very best books are. Her account of discovering the company and comfort of reading, from picture books to teenage coming-of-age novels, belongs to her but also to bookworms everywhere. This is a wonderful read (Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth gave Mangan a revelation about the conjuring ability of words that “was like watching the translucent paper being peeled off a transfer, revealing the true colours beneath”) that rekindles old obsessions and sends you in search of any stories you may have missed at the time.

I loved this book so much, I ate it.

Louisa Mellor

Circe by Madeline Miller

Becky Lea

The Frighteners: Why We Love Monsters, Ghosts, Death & Gore by Peter Laws

Christmas is coming and it’s a good time to snuggle up, get the fire burning and read a cracking spooky book to make you feel all snug inside your warm walls, safe from ghosts, werewolves, neck bothering knives and murderous barbers as you ponder the thrill of fear when reading Peter Laws funny, thoughtful book The Frighteners.

It takes a wry affectionate look at fear and the origins of fear as a response – and why we humans seek if out. Laws hunts werewolves in Hull and gambols with goths in Whitby. He wanders through spooky hotel basements, dances with zombies, handles the hair of serial killers and confesses to melting his toys as a kid for sinister effect. He takes us on a journey of his own fear triggers, while examining those that tickle the fancies of others (I’m thinking of the Furry section in particular here). Reading the book took me to unexpected places of my own, thinking back to the Hammer House films I’d watch tucked up in bed on my portable TV set. I was eight at the time and have been hooked on horror ever since. Recommended to anyone who enjoys a smattering of horror. And the pretty hardback would make a lovely gift to the gore hound in your life.

Jane Roberts-Morpeth

In Pieces by Sally Field

When it comes to Hollywood royalty, you’d be hard pressed to find anybody with more worth than Sally Field, a teen star who went on become one of America’s most celebrated actors across television, film and stage and now taken to the written word with as much confident, poise and talent as her acting career.  

Don’t come here expecting a linear timeline of her career with in-depth self-congratulation, Field lays her own personal story down in the best way she can, In Pieces, as the book deals with fragments it combines into a whole.  It’s a brilliant, thought provoking, sometimes difficult read, but one you will feel all the better for having done so.

Carley Tauchert-Hutchins

Batman: White Knight by Sean Murphy

Written and drawn by Sean Murphy, with letters by Todd Klein and colours by Matt Hollingsworth, White Knight is one of the best standalone Bat-yarns that’s been spun in recent years.

The four-word synopsis on the back of this collected edition tells you everything you need to know about the plot: “THE JOKER GOES SANE!” The book itself takes that elevator pitch and really runs with it, imagining a DC Universe where The Clown Prince Of Crime becomes a reformed public hero and turns his attention to the political arena. It stops short of putting words like “Make Gotham great again” in the mass murderer’s mouth, but it’s easy to see a glimmer of real-world inspiration as one of the worst people in the world charms his way into a position of power and makes life hell for Bruce Wayne and Batman. A twisty yarn unfolds, the visuals are always excellent, and there are even some Easter Eggs plonked along the way for fans of Bat-cinema history.

Rob Leane

Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett

Becky Lea

How Saints Die by Carmen Marcus

Ellie is a child forged by the sea, caught in a tempest and riding out the storm the only way she can – through tales and imagination as she stands on the edge of her community buffeted by the whispers, the rumours, the difference in herself she feels deep in her bones. There’s her fisherman father, moored on land. Her mother, fragile, institutionalised, adrift on her own inland sea. A class of children who fit, who say yes, who know the way to belong – children who know that Ellie is out of kilter with the norm.  A child who knows how saints die.

How Saints Die invites the weather indoors. Into your world and under your skin. The hiss of the sea, the wind in the chimney. The snow and ice of a northern winter. A noise may be the wind, it could be a sea wolf.  This is a beautiful book, imaginative and heart-breaking, woven with grace and sadness. This reader was a puddle of emotion throughout. It tackles difficult themes – bullying, mental illness, the harm careless words and judgment can cause.  Ellie’s world isn’t easy. But it was a joy to share her story.

Jane Roberts-Morpeth

We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix

A rock anthem to the power of the human spirit, Grady Hendrix’s third novel is a musical horror that hits the kind of high notes most genre authors only dream of. Where Hendrix’s second novel, My Best Friend’s Exorcism, traded in nostalgia and the value of friendship, We Sold Our Souls is packed with themes and motifs, flaying alive everything from the pitfalls of fame to the corrupting influence of ambition, all while creating an entire rock mythology as riveting as anything dreamt up by Tolkien.

At the centre of the race-against-time plot, ex-rock-star Kris is a riveting heroine – a woman at first broken by show business, she refuses to surrender and gradually comes into her own as she fights back against her former bandmate. Even if you’ve never picked up a guitar, much less played one, We Sold Our Souls makes for an addictive read, richly written and with characters that sink their claws in and refuse to let go.

Josh Winning

Redemption’s Blade: After The War by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Redemption’s Blade begins in the aftermath of mass war and killing, when the good guys have won after slaying a would-be king, The Kinslayer. There is chaos in the void left behind – of leadership, of severely traumatised nations, of what happens to ‘heroes’ after the war. What happens to the ‘bad guys’? Which way will society go when the war to end all wars is done?

We join a motley crew on a quest for redemption as they banter, bicker, have inappropriate hook-ups and throw buckets of gallows humour at us.  In particular we walk with Celestaine, the wielder of the blade, the seeker of redemption. She may have won the war but there’s a battle inside of her is that is still going strong. And boy, did I have a crush on Celest. She’s a Xena for the twenty-first century, deploying her skills for what she hopes is the greater good. And she isn’t afraid to stick two fingers up to demi-gods. Recommended to those that love to sink into solid fantasy fellowship quests populated with engaging characters and cracking writing. You can read this as a standalone piece; however the follow up by Justina Robson, Salvation’s Fire is also worth your time, if not quite as Celest-centred.

Jane Roberts-Morpeth

The Bitter Twins by Jen Williams

Becky Lea

The Beasts Of Grimheart by Kieran Larwood

You’ll find the Podkin One-Ear stories on bookshop tables labelled for 9-12 year olds, but even if those numbers more readily describe the age of some of your socks or the number of minutes it would take you to get out of a beanbag these days, that’s no barrier.

These fantasy adventure stories are great reads. You could think of them as a junior Lord Of The Rings, but funnier and with more rabbits, or as Mrs Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH, but scarier and with more rabbits, or as… well, you get it. Rabbits. Adventure. Fantasy. Enchanted objects. Heroism. Family. And some thrillingly creepy villains.

The Beasts Of Grimheart is book three in The Five Realms series, which starts with The Legend Of Podkin One-Ear and The Gift Of Dark Hollow. Perfect for cosy Christmas reading.

Louisa Mellor

Vengeful  by V.E. Schwab

Becky Lea

My Squirrel Days by Ellie Kemper

Sometimes you wonder if your entertainment heroes are really as wonderful as they appear on-screen and there are few TV heroines as wonderful as Kimmy Schmidt. So imagine my joy when I cracked open Ellie Kemper’s hilarious debut and she was all that and a bag of chips!

She recounts her life and work up to this point with such verve and pep you can’t help but smile and wish in some alternative world you would be best friends, a true joyful treat from beginning to end.

Carley Tauchert-Hutchins

The Hollow Tree by James Brogden

Becky Lea

 

Books by Den Of Geek writers

To finish, here’s a selection of books published this year by writers from our very own geek stable.

TV Geek by Simon Brew, Mike Cecchini, Louisa Mellor & more.

The Den Of Geek guide to TV for the Netflix generation is “Essential nerdtastic reading” said Jason Isaacs, and who are we to argue?

Boone Shepherd – The Silhouette And The Sacrifice by Gabriel Bergmoser

The story of Australian expat, errant journalist and accidental hero Boone Shepherd concludes in the final part of this thrilling young adult trilogy.

Crap Holiday by Jenny Morrill

“Not a great book to read on a bus or in a coffee shop, unless you’re okay with looking like a cackling idiot,” Crap Holiday is unhinged and hilarious, much like its brilliant writer.

Anaconda Vice by James Stansfield

A smart, fast-paced thriller set in a claustrophobic small town where retired wrestler Lucas Winters becomes stranded.

The Loosening Skin by Aliya Whiteley

A strange and sensuous novel about love, sex, time and freedom, from a writer at the forefront of the new wave of weird fiction.

Vicious Rumer by Josh Winning

Vicious Rumer is a thriller for fans of Jessica Jones, Lisbeth Salander and The Craft, from the writer of the Sentinel trilogy.