The Best Books Published so Far in 2018 View in your browser Friday May 11 2018 The Best Books of 2018 So Far “Time,” opined the Nobel laureate Bob Dylan, “is a jet plane, it moves too fast.” Come May, that sentiment chimes in the breast of every literary editor across the land. The year is halfway gone. The January snows have melted and the green buds of April have flourished into leaf. We bask in the clement rays of the late spring sun … I’m getting carried away. What I mean to say is, now 2018 is almost halfway through, what have been the best books so far? Here’s a list of the ones we have loved. FICTION A Long Way from Home by Peter Carey A plucky rural couple sign up for a car race across Australia — and come to terms with the country’s racist past. London Rules by Mick Herron This topical spy farce propelled Herron into the mainstream. The Times critic Marcel Berlins says that Herron is the funniest crime writer alive. West by Carys Davies Cy Bellman heads into the unexplored American west in search of dinosaur bones. Andrew Holgate loved it. The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton A country house murder mystery, but the detective is forced to relive the same day over and over again — each time in the body of a new house guest. Tangerine by Christine Mangan You’ll spot this compelling, noirish tale of 1950s Algeria on sun loungers this summer. Dear Mrs Bird by AJ Pearce Crumbs, old bean! Lots of jolly 1940s slang in this endearing tale of a young woman’s quest to become a journalist. Circe by Madeline Miller The witch who traps Odysseus in Homer’s The Odyssey gets her story retold from a feminist angle. We didn't see eye to eye on this one, but anyone who enjoyed The Song of Achilles won't want to miss it. Kudos by Rachel Cusk (pictured) Cusk’s novel is made up of a series of conversations on planes and in hotels. Much more interesting — and moving — than that makes it sound. Again, our critics didn't completely agree ... but Cusk in the literary flavour of the moment. You Think It, I'll Say It by Curtis Sittenfeld Sittenfeld gets topical in these tales. Targets include Trump and Hillary Clinton. Greeks Bearing Gifts by Philip Kerr The penultimate outing for Kerr's detective and antihero Bernie Gunther. This time he's in Athens. Trick by Domenico Starnone Starnone is Mr Elena Ferrante. In this novel, Daniele Mallarico, a famous illustrator in his seventies, is babysitting for his daughter. Her marriage is in trouble. Time Is a Killer by Michel Bussi Set on the island of Corsica, a middle-aged woman goes back over the car crash that killed her mother ... or did it? Lullaby by Leïla Slimani Slimani's tale about a perfect nanny who turns out to be a murderous psychopath impressed critics and readers alike. NONFICTION With the End in Mind by Kathryn Mannix Tales of death and dying from Doctor Mannix. She has seen thousands of deaths and has gleaned valuable, moving lessons. In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein by Fiona Sampson Horror stories, gravestone sex and mad poets. The Frankenstein author saw it all. Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff Is Trump really the narcissistic fool he seems? Wolff spent a lot of time in the White House and he says he is. Under the Knife by Arnold van de Laar A history of surgery in 28 gory operations. Don’t read it if you can’t handle blood. Cutting people open wasn’t much fun before anaesthetics. Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover Homeschooled by her nutty survivalist father out in the American boondocks, Westover eventually made it to the University of Cambridge. This is her story. Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker Don’t listen to the doom mongers! The world is becoming a better place every year, says Pinker — you just need to look at the data. Unmasked: A Memoir by Andrew Lloyd Webber Musicals supremo Lloyd Webber spills tales of theatreland in this remarkably entertaining memoir. Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life by Nassim Nicholas Taleb Taleb’s message is that we shouldn’t trust experts who don’t have some form of investment in the advice they’re giving us. Rosie: Scenes from a Vanished Life by Rose Tremain The novelist recalls a childhood of parental affairs and Swiss finishing schools. All That Remains: A Life in Death by Sue Black As a forensic crime scene expert, Black has seen all manner of mangled corpses. Prepare for some grisly lessons in the art of murder and corpse preservation. Berlin 1936 by Oliver Hilmes The extraordinary tale of Hitler's Olympics told through the eyes of athletes, politicians and ordinary people. The Wood by John Lewis-Stempel A year in the life of an English wood, by one of our best nature writers. In Byron's Wake by Miranda Seymour An account of the turbulent lives of Byron's wife, Annabella Milbanke, and his daughter, Ada Lovelace, both remarkable women. Our Place by Mark Cocker A fierce polemic about how the British people regard themselves as lovers of nature, yet live in one of the most denatured and wildlife-impoverished countries on Earth. Arlott, Swanton and the Soul of English Cricket by Stephen Fay and David Kynaston A tale of two legendary, but very different commentators who chronicled the golden age of cricket. To Throw Away Unopened by Viv Albertine A lively and entertaining memoir by The Slits frontwoman, Viv Albertine. Modernists & Mavericks by Martin Gayford How artists such as Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and David Hockney remade Britain's art scene in the postwar years. The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli Forget everything you thought you knew about time and the universe. Things aren't as they seem, says the physicist Carlo Rovelli. James Marriott james.marriott@thetimes.co.uk Must Read This week’s must-read is David Graeber’s book Bullshit Jobs. Graeber’s idea is that many of us are in jobs that are either pointless … or downright evil. Look away if you work in marketing, HR or law. He may not be right, but hen has certainly struck a chord. The book is full of entertaining testimonies from disgruntled office workers stuck in bullshit jobs. Emma Duncan enjoyed this story in particular: “Some of the testimonies are hilarious: there’s a chap called Eric who has been employed by a design partnership to work on a project that only one of the partners wants to happen, so he never gets anywhere. He keeps trying to quit, but his boss keeps offering more money. So he sets up fake meetings in London, stays in a hotel and gets drunk at the company’s expense. Finally, after a company-funded three-day binge on MDMA at an anarcho-syndicalist house party in Bristol, he breaks down at Temple Meads station and goes off to grow tomatoes in a squat.” However, she wasn’t totally on board with Graeber’s theory. Watch out too for an even more sceptical review in The Sunday Times. Read the full story What You Need to Know About Edward St Aubyn Sky Atlantic’s new show Patrick Melrose is easily the most anticipated literary adaptation of the year. Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Patrick Melrose, the louche, cynical, drug-addicted hero. The show is based on five autobiographical novels by Edward St Aubyn, known collectively as The Melrosiad. In tomorrow’s Times the venerable John Sutherland takes another look at the books and finds that they’re as brilliant as ever. For those unfamiliar with St Aubyn and his work we have put together a cheat sheet of five things to know about him. Impress chums at high falutin dinner parties with your flawless St Aubyn banter! 1. St Aubyn comes from old money. The family came over with William the Conqueror and one branch of it still occupies a forbidding castle on the coast of Cornwall. 2. St Aubyn was raped by his father as a child. That terrible incident set him on a path of depression and drug abuse (he was already a heroin addict by the time he went up to Oxford) — the source material for the Melrose novels. 3. The five Melrose novels are: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother's Milk, and At Last. They take us from Patrick’s rape by his father at the age of five, through his drug-addled twenties and eventually to his middle age, when he is a washed-up bachelor living in a crumby London flat. 4. When talking to your friends about St Aubyn’s novels, you should praise his elegance and poise as well as his sensitive handling of traumatic childhood events. Wonder aloud, though, whether the dialogue isn’t sometimes a little too polished. Stroke your chin and opine that it sometimes seems that none of the characters ever attains an individual voice — does it make sense that they should all speak in the super-refined idiom of St Aubyn himself? 5. Although St Aubyn is increasingly regarded as one of the finest British writers living, he has never won the Booker. He was nominated in 2006 for Mother’s Milk, but the prize went to a book called The Inheritance of Loss by a person called Kiran Desai… Nope, me neither. His novel Lost for Words satirises the absurdity of prize culture. Last year humble books toiler James Marriott interviewed St Aubyn for The Times. Read the full story Review of the Week Our favourite review this week was Giles Milton’s Sunday Times piece about Antony Beevor’s new book, Arnhem: The Battle for the Bridges, 1944. The Arnhem offensive was Field Marshal Montgomery’s disastrous attempt to spearhead an advance into the German Reich in the autumn of 1944 and steal a march on Omar Bradley’s American forces. Milton reckons Beevor is so eager to cover every skirmish involved that the reader ends up losing sight of the bigger picture. Read the full story Curtis Sittenfeld — Hero of the Hour Curtis Sittenfeld, thou shouldst be living at this hour! Oh … you are. That’s jolly good because at the moment we’re all nuts about you. Critics love her new book of short stories, You Think It, I’ll Say It. Sittenfeld has her finger firmly on the erratic pulse of modern life. She tackles Trump, Clinton and a lesbian Christian celebrity. Writing in The Times, Johanna Thomas-Corr said: “Cynical, compassionate, candid, Sittenfeld’s stories are peopled by well-educated, easily irritated women who are yearning for 'grown-up happiness' while still nurturing resentments from their adolescence.” This weekend, Lucy Atkins joins in the praise, calling the stories “impossible to put down”. If you’re planning on “sitten” down with another of her novels, well, there are plenty to choose from. And they’re a diverse bunch. Here are two that stand out for us. American Wife is, of all things, a novel loosely based on the life of first lady Laura Bush. Eligible is a retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice set among the country-club-going haute bourgeoisie of Cincinnati, Ohio. And to top it all, she was nominated for the EFG Sunday Times short story award. You can read her story on the prize’s website. Read the full story Coming Up The Times ◆ Gerard DeGroot, our heavyweight history man, takes on Antony Beevor’s new book, Arnhem: The Battle for the Bridges, 1944, an account of the disastrous Allied offensive in the Second World War. ◆ Julie McDowall reviews Chernobyl: A History of a Tragedy by Serhii Plokhy. The Soviets exposed thousands to poisonous radiation. Just don’t call rescue workers humans — call them “bio robots”. ◆ David Aaronovitch says he may be persuaded to try LSD after reading Michael Pollan’s book How to Change Your Mind, about the beneficial applications of psychedelic drugs. The Sunday Times ◆ Josh Glancy reviews an in-depth life of Benjamin Netanyahu that makes clear just what a political survivor he is. ◆ An explosion ten times more radioactive than Hiroshima: Victor Sebestyen reads Serhii Plokhy’s extraordinary account of the Chernobyl disaster. ◆ Catch up with Joan Smith’s crime novels of the month. 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