On the first of January every year, I publish the Tony’s Reading List Awards, in which I take a closer look at the year that was as well as rewarding the books I enjoyed the most (and least) over the twelve months. As the blog has been going since 2009, I thought it might be nice to have a sort of ‘Hall of Fame’ for easy reference, and this is the result 🙂
For each year, we have a list of between five and seven shortlisted titles, with the winner (or winners – several of these are series) highlighted in *bold* – all links are, of course, to my reviews. As you can see, I’ve covered a lot of great books over the years: are any of these among your favourites?
*****
2009 – Books of the Year
*The Sea of Fertility Tetralogy by Yukio Mishima*
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
Der Prozeß (The Trial) by Franz Kafka
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Ulysses by James Joyce
2009 – Golden Turkey
The Universe by Richard Osborne
*****
2010 – Books of the Year
*The Barchester Chronicles by Anthony Trollope*
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
The Waves by Virginia Woolf
Quicksand by Jun’ichiro Tanizaki
Kusamakura by Natsume Sōseki
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
2010 – Golden Turkey
The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
*****
2011 – Books of the Year
*The Glenroy Trilogy by Steven Carroll*
Silence by Shusaku Endo
The Silent Cry by Kenzaburō Ōe
The Bone People by Keri Hulme
Adam Bede by George Eliot
Violin Lessons by Arnold Zable
2011 – Golden Turkey
Michael Kohlhaas by Heinrich von Kleist
*****
2012 – Books of the Year
*Petersburg by Andrei Bely*
The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
Dublinesque by Enrique Vila-Matas
Independent People by Halldór Laxness
Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin
2012 – Golden Turkey
Please Look After Mother by Kyung-Sook Shin
*****
2013 – Books of the Year
*War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy*
Seven Types of Ambiguity by Elliot Perlman
A Heart So White by Javier Marías
Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain) by Thomas Mann
The Sorrow of Angels by Jón Kalman Stefánsson
Blinding: The Left Wing by Mircea Cărtărescu
2013 – Golden Turkey
Rustic Baroque by Jiří Hájíček
*****
2014 – Books of the Year
*A True Novel by Minae Mizumura*
Where Tigers Are at Home by Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès
Seiobo There Below by László Krasznahorkai
Alte Meister (The Old Masters) by Thomas Bernhard
Zone by Mathias Énard
2014 – Golden Turkey
One Spoon on This Earth by Hyun Ki-young
*****
2015 – Books of the Year
*The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu*
The Tale of the Heike translated by Royall Tyler
The Heart of Man by Jón Kalman Stefánsson
Sphinx by Anne Garréta
A Time for Everything by Karl Ove Knausgaard
Kassandra by Christa Wolf
2015 – Golden Turkey
The Fall of Language in the Age of English by Minae Mizumura
*****
2016 – Books of the Year
*Your Face Tomorrow by Javier Marías*
Death by Water by Kenzaburō Ōe
Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar
War and War by László Krasznahorkai
Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleß (The Confusions of Young Törleß) by Robert Musil
2016 – Golden Turkey
Rust by Yang Gui-ja
*****
2017 – Books of the Year
*The Book of the Dead by Orikuchi Shinobu*
Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin
The Unseen by Roy Jacobsen
Gold Rush by Yu Miri
Such Small Hands by Andrés Barba
2017 – Golden Turkey
The Explosion Chronicles by Yan Lianke
*****
2018 – Books of the Year
*À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time) by Marcel Proust*
Flights by Olga Tokarczuk
A Tale of False Fortunes by Fumiko Enchi
Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enriquez
Jahrestage (Anniversaries) by Uwe Johnson
2018 – Golden Turkey
The Dinner Guest by Gabriela Ybarra
*****
2019 – Books of the Year
*The Shape of the Ruins by Juan Gabriel Vásquez*
Berta Isla by Javier Marías
Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote by Ahmadou Kourouma
Das Kalkwerk (The Limeworks) by Thomas Bernhard
Medea. Stimmen (Medea. Voices) by Christa Wolf
Primeval and Other Times by Olga Tokarczuk
2019 – Golden Turkey
Die Kieferninseln (The Pine Islands) by Marion Poschmann
*****
2020 – Books of the Year
*Les Misérables by Victor Hugo*
Border Districts by Gerald Murnane
The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa
Die Kunde von den Bäumen (The Tidings of the Trees) by Wolfgang Hilbig
The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi
2020 – Golden Turkey
Serotonin by Michel Houellebecq
*****
2021 – Books of the Year
*Nostalgia* by Mircea Cărtărescu*
Barley Patch by Gerald Murnane
An I-Novel by Minae Mizumura
Winter in Sokcho by Elisha Shua-Dusapin
A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse
Ich (I) by Wolfgang Hilbig
2021 – Golden Turkey
The War of the Poor by Éric Vuillard
*****
2022 – Books of the Year
*The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami*
Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree
When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro
Korrektur (Correction) by Thomas Bernhard
The Backstreets by Perhat Tursun
Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck
2022 – Golden Turkey
Broken Summer by J.M. Lee
Tony's Reading List 