Tuesday, January 27, 2009

AN ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TASK - five books in eight minutes

This morning on Nine to Noon with Lynn Freeman I had the almost impossible task of picking my five favourite books from last year and I had just eight minutes in which to address them.
I agonised over my selection for days, got to a long short list of seventeen, then ten and finally five. These were my five final choices:


The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson - Quercus
Ngaio Marsh - Her life in crime - Joanne Drayton - Harper Collins Into the Wider World - Brian Turner - Random House
Urban Village - Jenny Carlyon & Diana Morrow - Random House
Novel About My Wife - Emily Perkins - Bloomsbury

Narrowly missing the cut were Native Wit by Hamish Keith, Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks, Saffron by Peter Gawron, Fish of the Week by Steve Braunias and Forbidden Cities by Paula Morris. But truly there were so many fine books published last year, where do you start, how do you choose? How long is a piece of string?

1 comment:

Vanda Symon said...

You were most eloquent Graham. Great job cramming so much into a little time.