A patchier reading year for me but still some good finds for you to enjoy …

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman –You’ll love how Eleanor looks at the world and applaud her impatience with society’s silly conventions. While she’s deeply wounded by what happened to her as a child, she’s also funny.

The Overstory by Richard Powers –This book is brilliant. It celebrates the wonder of trees and the hopefulness of humanity. It made me wish that trees could speak or scream – so they could push us to reverse our planet’s destruction.

We’re All Wonders by R.J. Palacio is a gentle, melancholic story about how being different can make you feel alone and isolated. Its message for children: there’s enough room in the world for people to be who they are – different and wonderful.

Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan is magnificent. Set in the Great Depression and Second World War, it charts the fortunes of an Irish family in Brooklyn. Anna defies convention and becomes a diver. She also probes her father’s disappearance.

Last Stories by William Trevor is full of beauty and sadness. This master of the short story died in November 2016 but his stories (and yes, these are his last) will live on –resonant with empathy for the human condition.

The Only Story by Julian Barnes – ‘Would you rather love the more, and suffer the more; or love the less, and suffer the less? That is, I think, finally, the only real question.’ – Another piercing tale of star-crossed lovers from a great British novelist.

Sorry Day by Coral Vass – Vass’s story will help children (aged 7+) and their families comprehend the tragedy encountered by people of the Stolen Generations, and why Sorry Day is important. This is one for every Aussie’s bookshelf.

Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London by Lauren Elkin – Elkin’s piquant prose prepped me perfectly for perambulation in Paris. The flâneuse idles and observes – George Sand and Sophie Calle paved my way.

Paris in the Present Tense by Mark Helprin – Seventy-four-year-old Jules Lacour is a tutor at Paris-Sorbonne and a child of the Holocaust neither of which stops him falling in love and committing fraud (and worse) to help his terminally ill grandson.

The Shepherd’s Hut by Tim Winton – A brutal and intensely satisfying novel in which the protagonist Jaxie is told: ‘Five minutes of mercy in this country and you’ve got a miracle on your hands.’ Winton offers more than that.

A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler – Four generations of Whitshanks inhabit a sprawling Baltimore house and it holds their complexities, rivalries, dreams, and desires like a jug holds water. Tyler’s 20th book is a gem and deserves its accolades.

The Twelfth Raven by Doris Brett – Poignant insights into getting older from this memoir of recovery after stroke: ‘Loss – sudden and irretrievable. Losing the people you love. The people who know you. Being left behind.’

Less by Andrew Sean Greer won this year’s Pulitzer Prize and was a great pick-me-up in a stressful year. Less was once loved by a celebrated poet and regards himself as a lesser literary luminary. He’s also sweet – and the literary world is chewing him up.

The World was Whole by Fiona Wright – These elegant essays explore ‘home’ – both in our built environments and our bodies. Wright details her experience of chronic illness and treatment as she travels from Sydney’s south-west to Shanghai, Iceland and Tasmania. Read Wright’s Small Acts of Disappearance too.