The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them – Elif Batuman

I suspect that one reason I loved this book was that I wanted to be the author: plant trees on Tolstoy’s estate, and get paid to learn Uzbek (a language which has a hundred words for ‘crying’). The Possessed reads like Batuman’s inner ramblings (which, as a collection of previously published journalism, in some ways it is). She happens to be lucky enough that these ramblings are irreverent, informed, and invariably entertaining. Essential reading for anyone concerned about how the ‘novel of their life’ will turn out.

The Professor and Other Writings– Terry Castle

Yes, another collection of literature-related memoirs: but genuinely funny – self-deprecating and utterly un-pretentious. Not, perhaps, what one might expect from Stanford’s Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities, author of academic titles such as The Apparitional Lesbian and The Female Thermometer. Don’t care about 1970s lesbian separatists or Susan Sontag’s bitchiness? Read this, and you will.

A Summer of Drowning – John Burnside

Already an acclaimed poet, Burnside’s second novel is perhaps unfairly good. Fairytale, suspense, horror, and teen-angst are combined to spectacular effect: ‘disturbing’ and ‘haunting’ are adjectives often bandied around by book-reviewers, but this genuinely deserves them.

How to be a Woman – Caitlin Moran

Rephrases the case for feminism with the ‘WAG generation’ (that’s us, guys) in mind. The ideas are hardly groundbreaking – Germaine Greer, reviewing this in The Times, got quite sniffy that Moran had ripped off her ideas with no acknowledgement – but that misses the point. This is ‘Feminism 101’ for a postfeminist age, and Moran is funny enough to be persuasive without veering into diatribe.

Is that a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything – David Bellos

Disclaimer: not quite ‘everything’, but a valiant effort. Deals with subjects including the difficulties of translating jokes, how an alien might feel in Starbucks, and the logistical nightmares of simultaneous interpretation. Championing under-appreciated translators everywhere, Bellos combines remarkable erudition (or perhaps not that remarkable – he is, after all, a professor at Princeton) with admirable straightforwardness, avoiding the jargon that often obscures writing on linguistics.

Charles Dickens: A Life – Claire Tomalin

National treasure, novelist, insomniac, social reformer, and notoriously hard worker….who also had a secret mistress, whose existence even some of his own children were unaware of till after his death. Tomalin examines Dickens’ many contradictions, celebrating his greatness while insisting also on the flawed human beneath the name.

The Casual Perfect – Lavinia Greenlaw

The title is not an overstatement. I reviewed Greenlaw’s third collection for Varsity and, at the time, was only gushed a little. But the elegant, restrained, remarkably polite poems got under my skin. ‘I have filled the day with dreams/And now must sleep….’.

New Selected Stories – Alice Munro

Basically an excuse for a quick ode to Munro, often touted by critics as the ‘world’s best short story writer’. For once, they might actually be right. This new collection of stories from Munro’s past five collections is the ideal introduction to her work; terrifying and exhilarating in (almost) equal measure.

Embassytown – China Mieville

In this mind-bending and unashamedly intellectual novel, Mieville once again demonstrates just how good sci-fi can be. One flummoxed Amazon reviewer called it ‘either way too clever for its own good or so clever that it beats the lot’. Definitely the latter.

Arguably – Christopher Hitchens

Frankly, infuriating. At one point I threw my copy across the room in a tantrum. Then I picked it back up, and was once again won over Hitchens’ ability to cover subjects ranging from Harry Potter to apple pie with equal grace. In his essay, ‘The Other L Word’, (that’s ‘like’), Hitches implores us – ‘like’-addicts everywhere, we know who we are – to ration our use in favour of the far more eloquent ‘as’: ‘you might, like, like it’. RIP.