Clare Mulley
In the past I have sometimes wondered how many books I would read if only someone had the kindness to lock me up. It turns out, this Covid year, not to be so many — but the quality has been high. Amelia Gentleman’s brilliant and devastating The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment (Guardian Faber, £10.99) fuelled me with an outrage in no way diminished by David Olusoga’s masterful and hugely compelling Black and British: A Forgotten History(Pan, £12.99). I know I was late to the party for that book but, as statues tumbled, I enjoyed Keith Lowe’s very timely and thought-provoking Prisoners of History: What Monuments Tell Us About History and Ourselves (William Collins, £20). Finally, you can’t beat a bit of Ben Macintyre when in need of distraction, and Agent Sonya (Viking, £25) doesn’t disappoint.
Philip Hensher
A strange year for a reader; and the most compelling literary experience I had was reading every one of Ivy Compton-Burnett’s novels between March and July.
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