Authors and readers reflect on the books they enjoyed in December

Authors Alan Hollinghurst and Samantha Harvey and several Guardian readers described the books they enjoyed in December, highlighting new collections, rereads and long works of fiction. Guardian reader Tomasz wrote that his admiration for Iris Murdoch began when his father gave him a translated copy of The Unicorn; he reread her penultimate novel, The Green Knight, and praised its rich, precise prose, vivid characters and naturally emerging philosophical reflections on goodness and love.

Alan Hollinghurst said he spent a month with two long-standing poets. He praised John Fuller’s Marston Meadows for its wit, agility and emotional range in old age, and described The Poems of Seamus Heaney, edited by Rosie Lavan, Bernard O’Donoghue and Matthew Hollis, as containing previously uncollected and unseen pieces that stand beside the poet’s landmark work.

Guardian reader Kelly wrote that her Sauna Book Club reread Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These and rated it 10/10, noting its Christmastime Dublin setting and unsettling convent backdrop. Samantha Harvey said Neel Mukherjee’s Choice is an echoing, morally labyrinthine novel and that she was halfway through Helen Garner’s The Spare Room; she also read Iris Murdoch’s newly published Poems from an Attic and found the final poem especially affecting.

Key Topics

Culture, Alan Hollinghurst, Samantha Harvey, Iris Murdoch, John Fuller, Seamus Heaney