It was a tough choice, but my number one book of the year is Wifedom by Anna Funder. Meticulously researched combining history and memoir, Wifedom uncovers the hidden life of George Orwell’s wife Eileen. It shows how she was written out of history and the vital role she played in supporting and aiding Orwell in his writing life. A terrific read.

Second choice takes us to another country, Malaysia, sometimes home of sublime writer Tan Twan Eng. Twan writes with a moody and descriptive style of colonial Malaysia in his book The House of  Doors. His exploration of lives is rich and satisfying. I had the good fortune to meet and interview Twan in both Hong Kong and Ubud. His humility and dry sense of humour makes him popular at literary festivals around the world. You’ll want to read everything he has written.

My third choice is Yellowface by R.F Kuang. June Hayward, an unsuccessful young author, finds herself the only witness to the death of her former classmate, Athena Liu, a Chinese American author who is an industry darling. She decides to position herself as a friend of the author and begins to edit and re-write Athena’s manuscript. In the end she makes it her own and I could not get past the fact that she stole the manuscript. It asks all sorts of questions about the publishing industry and was a fascinating read.

I finished Richard Flanagan’s book Question 7 over Christmas. It’s a captivating read written in a unique style. It is a meditation on the past of one man and the history that coalesced in his existence. It jumps around quite a bit as Flanagan explores different ideas from HG Wells to the atomic bomb, to his father’s life as a POW, to the killing and suffering of Tasmanian Aborigines but somehow it all works. A book that makes you think.

My final choice is The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams. It is almost a companion novel to her highly successful book The Dictionary of Lost Words, as again she has told a story told through women’s eyes. A working-class, self-educated woman, Peggy works as a book binder at Oxford University Press, while what she wants is to read the books and study at Oxford. Williams writes in a descriptive easy to read style. It’s a good one to curl up with on rainy day.