I read SO many good books this year … but here are some highlights to inspire your holiday reading.

The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams – Sparked by the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary, this wonderful tale explores missing words and the lives women lived between the lines. As Esme discovers: language shapes the world.

Still Life by Sarah Winman – Moving from the Tuscan Hills and piazzas of Florence, to the smog of London’s East End, Still Life explores lives intertwined through happenstance and a love of art and beauty. Joyful. Soulful. A favourite!

The Narrow Land by Christine Dwyer Hickey – It’s 1950 on Cape Cod and Michael, a ten-year-old boy, befriends the artists Jo and Edward Hopper. The party scene is a tour de force and each character is finely drawn. Poignant. Lingering.

The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis – After a janitor teaches Beth to play chess, she yearns to be a grandmaster and her rise through the ranks is glorious to watch. Her addictive personality threatens to break her. Can she outplay the male champions?

Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy – meet Inti, a biologist, who is compelled to reintroduce 14 grey wolves back into the Scottish Highlands to restore the lost ecosystem. Like McConaghy’s novel Migrations, this is weird and wonderful.

The Performance by Claire Thomas – follows three women watching a live performance of Samuel Beckett’s play Happy Days as the world outside is ravaged by bushfires. Margo, Ivy and Summer reach for meaning and connection. Superb.

Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford – What do a typesetter, a muso, a woman in a disastrous marriage, a property developer and a schizophrenic bus conductor have in common? They are the brilliantly crafted characters in this blessing of a book.

Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty – McAnulty is a neuro-diverse teenager but his marvellous memoir is the work of a wise old soul and seasoned environmentalist. Our next Robert Macfarlane or David Attenborough, perhaps?

Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagan – Music is the lifeblood of Tully and Noodles’ friendship. O’Hagan’s novelistic paean to his dead friend Keith Martin is both boysy and remarkable. I loved its celebration of male friendship. Its unflinching questions. As one reviewer writes, ‘If Mayflies was a record it would be on repeat. Fade to “There is Light that Never Goes Out” by The Smiths.’

Wintering: How I Learned to Flourish When Life Became Frozen by Katherine May – Slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, dreaming, working with your hands. Radical acts, May writes, but essential.

The Summer Isles: A Voyage to the Imagination by Philip Marsden – Marsden faces wild storms, treacherous channels and tricky landing spots on his voyage and writes lyrically of the region’s mythical islands, marvellous poetry and ancient lore.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett – Twins flee their colour-obsessed hometown. Desiree returns with her dark-skinned child. Stella decides to pass as white, and lives in fear that her life in LA will unravel if her ‘blackness’ is found out. Remarkable.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles – Count Alexander Rostov is declared an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal forced to live in an attic room of the Hotel Metropol. He’s irrepressible, charming and devoted to his charges and friends.

Also worth a look: The Truth about Her by Jacqueline Maley, The Asparagus Wars by Carol Major, Bewilderment by Richard Powers, The Good Turn, The Scholar and The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan (and particularly as read by Aoife McMahon).