As the new year begins, it's time for my annual round-up of my five favourite books from among all of those I read in 2024. I read 123 books last year — my highest total since the pre-pandemic times when I was still commuting regularly. Thrillers, mysteries and crime were my most-read genres, as usual. And I read almost of these on my Kindle, finally upgrading to the newest Paperwhite model after years of service from its predecessor.

In the second of my end-of-year round-up posts, I'm highlighting my five favourite books from among all of those I read in 2023. It was — for me — a relatively slow year for reading. I read 77 books in total, including a couple of re-reads, and I wasn't feeling very inspired for much of the year. This meant I defaulted to my usual reading favourites: crime and psychological thrillers and books set in New York City (where the photo below was taken). Sometimes both!

For the first part of my big birthday celebration, I drew inspiration from the delightful déja vu of New York. And for the second, I looked instead to the jamais vu of Thailand.

Today, I’m New York bound once more on a long-awaited family trip to mark a milestone birthday for me. It will be my 33rd visit to the Big Apple since my first in 1995. Feeling nostalgic, I dove into my NYC archives, trawling through my old diaries (until 2006), blog posts (from 2007) and photo albums (digital and predigital — a big thank you to my parents for their help with the earlier years).

Today, I am sharing my five favourite books from among those I read during 2022. I ended up reading fewer than 100 books in both 2020 and 2021 and to hold myself accountable, at the start of 2022 I started blogging every other month about my favourite books. I tailed off towards the end of the year due to a hectic travel schedule and getting stuck for a while on a few books I wasn't enjoying, but I still achieved my target and read 102 books in 2022. Read on to find out which ones made my shortlist, as well as my full reading list for the year.

Another two months have passed (how?!), which means it's time for my bimonthly book recommendations. I read 19 books in July and August, taking my total for the year to date up to 78. I enjoyed so many of the books I read over the past two months and it was really hard to select just five favourites...but here they are.

It's time for the latest installment of my bimonthly series where I pick my favourite five books from among those I've read over the past two months. My tally for May and June was slightly down (mainly because there were a couple in there that — were I less of a completionist — may well have been DNFs), but I still read 17 books. I'm up to 59 at this mid-year point, which means I'm comfortably on track to meeting my goal of reading 100 books by the end of the year.

This year, I've been trying to get my for-fun reading back up to pre-pandemic levels and I've also been picking out and writing about my favourite five books every two months as a way to hold myself accountable. I read 20 books in March and April, taking my year-to-date tally to 42. Here are my five favourites from among the books I've read in the past two months.

Just like in 2020, the number of books I read last year dipped below the 100 mark. For most people, reading 74 books in a year is still a lot, but in 2022, I wanted to try to prioritise reading for fun again. And to hold myself accountable, I'm going to write a post every two months picking out my five favourite books from among those I've read. So far, this is working quite well, as it's the end of February and I've already read 22 books. Here are the five that I most enjoyed reading.

What with one thing and another, my 2021 end-of-year round-ups have been slightly delayed, such that it is now already 2022. In this post, I'm highlighting my five favourite novels that I read in 2021, as well as five more that almost made the shortlist. 

 1. The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris*

I was looking forward to reading Zakiya Dalila Harris's debut novel for many weeks, and I raced through it in a couple of evenings. In the novel, Nella is a 26-year-old editorial assistant working at a New York publishing house. She works hard, gets on well with her editor and hopes she is on track for a promotion in the not-too-distant future. 

This is the last of my 2020 round-up posts, and highlights my favourite five books that I've read this year. My reading habits changed as much as my travel habits this year, and I've read far fewer books than last year: 94, in total. I used to read for pleasure mainly on my bus ride into the office and when travelling. I've technically had more time this year, but I've tended to use it for other hobbies, like writing (my own novel is now technically finished after I wrote the final 30,000 words this year) and doom-scrolling. I also got stuck on Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light for several weeks, which I did enjoy but felt it should have been 200 pages shorter. Il Decameron is a pretty hefty read too, even in English, rather than the Italian original I studied at university, but its Black Death setting and black humour felt apt for this year. 

Spotted in Rye, Sussex

The Vanishing Half — Brit Bennett
Blame Francine Pascal, whose Sweet Valley High novels I devoured during my tween years, but I've always had a certain fascination with novels featuring twins. Brit Bennett's The Vanishing Half, which tells the story of light-skinned Black twin sisters Desiree and Stella. Although parts of it are set in California and although Stella's daughter might not be too out of place in Sweet Valley, it's otherwise worlds apart.

Like many people, my prime time for reading was on my commute, which gave me a total of 90 minutes to two hours per day with a book or my Kindle. I read 135 books in 2019, most of them on the bus, but when lockdown was introduced, I found it hard to motivate myself to read. I had so much more time to myself but I couldn't tear myself away from the Sisyphean search for scintillating shows on streaming services, or random rabbit holes on the internet.

One of the problems with being a serial reader is that none of your friends and family understand when you lament that you 'only' read 111 books in a year. But compared to the 148 I read in 2017 and the 200 I read in 2016, it does sound like a lot less. I blame my incredibly busy year at work, and my hectic itinerary in Peru didn't give me much chance to catch up on my reading.

• Dead Letters — Caite Dolan-Leach
• The Break Down — B.A. Paris
• Pachinko — Min Jin Lee
• What Happened — Hillary Rodham Clinton
• Lullaby — Leïla Slimani
• The Girl in the Snow — Danya Kukafka
• Anatomy of a Scandal — Sarah Vaughan
• Fire and Fury — Michael Wolff
• The Thirst — Jo Nesbø
• The Wife Between Us — Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen
• The Woman in the Window — A.J. Finn
• The Philosophy of Coffee — Brian Williams
• The Rooster Bar — John Grisham
• Death at La Fenice — Donna Leon
• The Monk of Mokha — Dave Eggers
• A Column of Fire — Ken Follett
• The Guilty Wife — Elle Croft
• The Perfect Stranger — Megan Miranda
• Now You See Her — Heidi Perks
• Macbeth — Jo Nesbø
• Ready Player One — Ernest Cline
• An American Marriage — Tayari Jones
• Friend Request — Laura Marshall
• The Late Show — Michael Connelly
• Call Me By Your Name — André Aciman
• The Travelling Cat Chronicles — Hiro Arikawa
• The Anonymous Venetian — Donna Leon
• Twins — Dirk Kurbjuweit
• A Little Life — Hanya Yanagihara
• Anything You Do Say — Gillian McAllister
• Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine — Gail Honeyman
•  Bring You Back — B.A. Paris 
• Death and the Virgin — Chris Skidmore
• Every Note Played — Lisa Genova
• Let Me Lie — Clare Mackintosh 
• Then She Was Gone — Lisa Jewell
• The Female Persuasion — Meg Wolitzer
• Crimson Lake — Candice Fox 
• Magpie Murders — Anthony Horowitz
• All the Beautiful Lies — Peter Swanson
• The Party — Elizabeth Day
• Everything I Know About Love — Dolly Alderton
• Clean — Juno Dawson
• Our Kind of Cruelty — Araminta Hall
• The Elizas — Sara Shepard
• The Good Liar — Catherine McKenzie
• The Perfect Mother — Aimee Molloy
• Sisters in Law — Linda Hirshman
• That Kind of Mother — Rumaan Alam
• Darling — Rachel Edwards 
• Paper Ghosts — Julia Heaberlin
• The Italian Teacher — Tom Rachman
• My Absolute Darling — Gabriel Tallent
• Fear — Dirk Kurbjuweit
• Social Creature — Tara Isabella Burton
• Last Seen Wearing — Hillary Waugh
• Pretty Girls — Karin Slaughter
• Providence — Caroline Kepnes
• The Favourite Sister — Jessica Knoll
• This Could Hurt — Jillian Medoff
• MEM — Bethany C. Morrow
• 1974 — David Peace
• Everyone Is Beautiful — Katherine Center
• The New Girl — Ingrid Alexandra
• Laura & Emma — Kate Greathead
• The Last Time I Lied — Riley Sager
• All We Ever Wanted — Emily Giffin
• Day of the Dead — Nicci French
• Last Breath — Karin Slaughter
• The Ensemble — Aja Gabel
• Girls Burn Brighter — Shobha Rao
• 1977 — David Peace
• The Last Enchantments — Charles Finch
• Warlight — Michael Ondaatje 
• 1980 — David Peace
• 1983 — David Peace
• Pieces of Her — Karin Slaughter
• Mean Streak — Sandra Brown
• All the Hidden Truths — Claire Askew
• The Surgeon — Tess Gerritsen
• If I Was Your Girl — Meredith Russo
• Fruit of the Drunken Tree — Ingrid Rojas Contreras
• The Mars Room — Rachel Kushner
• Friction — Sandra Brown
• Our House — Louise Candlish
• Educated — Tara Westover
• The Incendiaries — R. O. Kwon
• If You Leave Me — Crystal Hana Kim
• The Kiss Quotient — Helen Hoang
• A Spark of Life — Jodi Picoult
• China Rich Girlfriend — Kevin Kwan
• The Witch Elm — Tana French
• Rich People Problems — Kevin Kwan
• Number One Chinese Restaurant — Lillian Li
• The Immortalists — Chloe Benjamin
• Love Is Blind — William Boyd
• The Gunners — Rebecca Kauffman
• Sting — Sandra Brown
• The Death of Mrs Westaway — Ruth Ware
• Miss Ex-Yugoslavia — Sofija Stefanović
• The Anatomy of Dreams — Chloe Benjamin 
• Transcription — Kate Atkinson
• A Dark Time — Sophie Hannah 
• Home Fire — Kamila Shamsie
• Death and Judgement — Donna Leon
• Little Fires Everywhere — Celeste Ng
• The French Girl — Lexie Elliott
• The Flight Attendant — Chris Bohjalian
• Force of Nature — Jane Harper
• Give Me Your Hand — Megan Abbott
• Grist Mill Road — Christopher J. Yates

The bookshop featured in the photograph at the top is the wonderful Topping & Company in Bath.

I couldn't have imagined a better book launch than the one I attended last week for a book about coffee and travel from my favourite travel guidebook publisher at one of my favourite coffee shops in London. The event was for Lonely Planet's Global Coffee Tour and took place at the original branch of The Gentlemen Baristas on Union Street, which I've been visiting for almost four years.


After enjoying a natural Ethiopian pourover coffee courtesy of The Gents and watching a latte art demo with one of the baristas, I talked with some of the friendly Lonely Planet team, including editor Karyn Noble, an Australian in London who was as delighted as I was to discover The GBs, which features in Global Coffee Tour, of course. I also got the chance to browse through the book, which is organised by continent and country and includes numerous coffee-shop recommendations, ordering tips (if I ever make it to Ethiopia — and I hope I will — I know now to say: "Nē buna ibakiwo ifeligalehu") and insights into coffee production, café culture and home-brewing.



It was a good sign when I opened the book at random on the Hungary section and came up with several coffee-shop suggestions to add to my list of cafés to visit when I go to Budapest next month. And I've already visited 23 of the listed countries on four continents, which meant I could compare their suggestions against some of my own lists. I concluded that the recommendations are very well curated, with some really great specialty coffee spots in cities from Paris and Mexico City, to Melbourne and Saigon. One thing I particularly like is that rather than just listing cafés throughout the world that will serve a high-quality but identikit flat white, the guide includes locations that will give you a real taste for the local coffee culture. There's a coffee plantation in Costa Rica, for example (not the farm I visited), while in Tokyo, the wonderful and historical Café de l'Ambra, features in the guide.


Lonely Planet's guides are usually my first port of call when I'm planning a trip (unless the region's guide happens to be very out of date), and I find the inclusion of cafés and coffee shops convenient for key sights in their 'pocket' city guide range very useful. Global Coffee Tour flips that around: several coffee shops are presented for each city, along with a few suggestions for other things to do nearby. This is perfect for people like me, who often plan their travels around the coffee (NB: I always do a lot of research when seeking out a city's best coffee spots), but feel like it would be a waste to visit a new city without seeing anything but the coffee scene. So if you're visiting Tim Wendelboe in Oslo (and you should), you'll know to visit the Munchmuseet and take dinner at Markveien Mat & Vinhus when you're all coffeed out.


The book has lots of photos and it's enjoyable both to browse for coffee-destination inspiration and to search for places for a specific trip. Colombia, Nicaragua and Ethiopia jumped even higher up my travel wish list. One small point for anyone hoping to visit Supercrown in NYC: alas, the wonderful Bushwick coffee shop and roastery has now closed. The only trouble now is that there are even more coffee destinations for me to visit. #coffeebloggerproblems

Disclaimer: Global Coffee Tour was published by Lonely Planet in May 2018. I received a free copy at the launch. The decision to write a review was mine and all opinions here are my own.

Dave Eggers’ new book The Monk of Mokha tells the remarkable and inspiring story of Mokhtar Alkhanshali, a Yemeni American in search of a dream — until, after a few false starts, he stumbles down the rabbit hole of speciality coffee. After growing up in San Francisco’s tough Tenderloin neighbourhood, Alkhanshali knows he wants to do something more with his life but doesn’t have a plan. Then one day, a friend tells him to check out the statue of “a Yemeni dude drinking a big cup of coffee” opposite the fancy apartment building where he is working as a doorman. The statue — of a man who “seemed to be some mash-up of Ethiopian and Yemeni" — turns out to be located in the lobby of a building built by the Hills brothers, whose company had a key role in popularising coffee in the United States throughout the 20th century.


Intrigued, Alkhanshali begins to research Yemen’s role in the origins of coffee: the country is home to the first coffee cultivation and organised coffee trade, but its exports have since withered to a negligible level. At the same time, Alkhanshali learns about the intricacies of contemporary speciality coffee production and preparation. His training ground is first the Sunday morning cupping sessions at Blue Bottle’s Oakland headquarters and then Boot Coffee, where he becomes the ever-present, enthusiastic apprentice of Willem Boot.

And soon, the apprentice has a plan: he will create the world’s first Yemeni speciality coffee company, empowering farmers and growers and producing high-quality coffee beans, while maintaining high standards of ethics and transparency. To do this, Alkhanshali must first become a Q grader — a speciality coffee expert qualified to rate and score Arabica coffee — and pass a test of 22 parts, some of which “would seem to the generalist or everyday coffee enthusiast insane”, Eggers notes. And even then, starting a company in Yemen during a civil war was never going to be easy, and along the way, Alkhanshali must evade Saudi bombs, Houthi rebels and other dangers besides. I cannot imagine that anyone has ever gone through as much adversity to attend the annual Specialty Coffee Association conference as Mokhtar did.

Eggers’ narrative is beautifully written and hugely compelling. His description of the history of coffee is fascinating, entertaining and rich with colour, his language wonderfully evocative, from the coffee beans like “piles of red cherries like huge ruby-red beads” to the Ethiopian shepherd Khaldi’s over-caffeinated “jumping, prancing, braying” sheep. But most of all, Eggers conveys Mokhtar’s passion, drive and determination in his quest to make his dream a reality. It’s an inspiring story — one I didn’t want to end — I wanted to spend more time in the company of this incredible man who made his dream into a reality.

Naturally, the first thing I did after finishing the book was to Google Mokhtar’s company, Port of Mokha, and read more about what happened after the events depicted in the book. The coffee isn’t terribly easy to get hold of in the UK, but I hope that the success of The Monk of Mokhtar will make it more accessible. Otherwise, I hope to be able to track it down in the United States sometime. As for Mokhtar Alkhanshali himself, London readers can find him at an event to discuss the book and his story at Foyles, Charing Cross Road, on 5 March. I might well see you there!