Books of the year II – chosen by our regular reviewers

Andrew Lycett

Describing how individuals get drawn, often haphazardly, into a bloody conflict such as the English Civil War is not an easy task. But Jessie Childs manages it superbly in The Siege of Loyalty House (Bodley Head, £25), which tingles with a discerning historical imagination.

Lily Dunn’s memoir Sins of My Father (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £16.99), about her mixed reactions to her beloved dad’s dive into a religious cult and subsequent alcoholism, is notable for its emotional truthfulness, sure sense of time and place and appealing tone of delivery.

The novel which gave me most pleasure was Winchelsea by Alex Preston (Canongate, £14.99), a rip-roaring yarn about smugglers and seafarers in Romney Marsh and its coastal hinterland in the 18th century. The energy, word play and attention to contemporary detail could not be bettered.

Mark Mason

If you want a laugh, it’s Jeremy Clarkson’s Diddly Squat: ’Til the Cows Come Home (Michael Joseph, £20). The book will keep us going until the next TV series appears. It includes Clarkson’s battles with Whitehall: ‘If the government sends round an execution squad, I shall simply tell them that while my cattle look like cows they actually identify as alpacas.’ For a more comprehensive critique of big government there’s Konstantin Kasin’s brilliant An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the West (Constable, £18.99). The stand-up comedian demolishes socialism, whose ‘answer to poverty is the equivalent of helping wheelchair users by cutting everyone else’s legs off’. He quotes The Spectator’s heroic Lionel Shriver on cancel culture: ‘These people think they’re motivated by virtue, but the thrill isn’t doing good, it’s authoritarian – pushing people around.’

Peter Frankopan

This was a bumper year for books, perhaps because so many people got scribbling during lockdown. I greatly enjoyed The World: A Family History by Simon Sebag-Montefiore (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £35) and The World the Plague Made by James Belich (Princeton, £35), both sweeping, ambitious histories.