Time for my annual Books of the Year - Xmas gift suggestion thread.

These are my favourite 15 books I've read this year. Starting with non-fiction, which I've read more of this year than last, and then fiction.

1. I've got into classical music properly for the first time this year, in large part due to this wonderful history of 20th century music. Ross manages to make a technical and potentially dry topic absolutely gripping. Masterful.

2. The best biography I read this year - Sontag was a fascinating figure, brilliant but also pretty obnoxious. Also she slept with an astonishing array of people from Jasper Johns to Lucinda Childs and, somewhat incongruously, Lord Donaghue.

3. When I was recovering from a long hospital stay I needed something purely fun and enjoyable and this was it. Hard to say much new about The Beatles but Brown's book finds some new angles.

4. I've avoided most of the pandemic books - too soon - but this was one great. To be honest I'd read Michael Lewis's shopping lists if he published them. He is *the* best story teller. This book looks at a group of people who had anticipated the disaster of covid.