Lists are always fun at the end of the year. The best this, the best that, and then a top ten or top five. We could not yet make a list of books to take with us to a desert island, but we have done our best to make a (small) selection from the pile of books we read last year that made us laugh, moved us, surprised us or impressed us for some other reason. Presuming, as it happens, that many wonderful titles must now go unmentioned, voilá, here are some of our personal favourites of 2015: books that, if you haven't read them yet, are highly recommended to start the new year with. In alphabetical order:
1. José Eduardo Agualusa - The trader in pasts (Meulenhoff)
Admittedly not a book that came out last year, but one that we read and should not be missing from our list of favourites: The trader in pasts is a book as wondrous and original as it is beautifully written and cleverly constructed. In this colourful, sensuous, magical-realist novel, protagonist Félix Ventura gives people a false past. A book that is hard to put down. His new novel, due out in January, is already on our wish list.
2. Alex Boogers - Alone with the gods (Podium)
The thickness of this coming-of-agenovel may not be appealing to everyone, but Alex Boogers leads you through the life of growing-up Aaron Bachman at breakneck speed. When Aaron's father knocks down a man in the doorway and turns to jail, a very different fight begins for his mother Jo and him. Aaron seeks refuge in kickboxing, but ends up having to fight much harder to allow love into his life. Raw, overpowering, sensitive - a book that captures your heart.
3. David Grossman - Does a horse enter the pub (Cossee)
A novel like a one-man show: Israeli writer David Grossman glues his readers to their seats with this breathtaking novel, in which comedian Dov Grinstein treats his audience to something very different from tears of laughter. A book that chafes and scrapes, and one you won't soon forget.
4. Auke Hulst - Sleep tight, Johnny Idaho (Anthos)
Dutch literature is still sometimes called little engaged, but with Sleep tight, Johnny Idaho Auke Hulst wrote a socially critical novel set in the near future that is not at all as far away from us as we would like to think. The Archipelago, an island state in the Pacific Ocean, is a closed world in which people identify themselves with their fingerprints and there is no longer any privacy. An ingenious, suspenseful novel with three delightful characters.
5. Tjitske Jansen - Forever last (Querido)
'Described events', as Tjitske Jansen herself calls them, the prose fragments in Forever last. Events from her own life, memories of beautiful and painful moments in her life, chronicled with that recognisable, light and witty tone that is her own. Jansen knows how to say a lot with few words and expresses herself very precisely. Moving, but often also very funny. Wonderful.
6. Patrick Modiano - To avoid getting lost (Querido)
Nobel laureate Patrick Modiano's new novel was another one to remember. Reclusive writer Jean Daragane receives a call one day from a man who has found his address book. He takes a remarkable interest in a particular name in the booklet. This triggers in Daragane all sorts of memories of a past he would rather have forgotten. Suggestive, intriguing and exciting.
7. Connie Palmen - You say (Prometheus)
Who else but Connie Palmen could write so enchantingly about a passionate, tearful love as that between poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath? It is a subject tailor-made for her, as twice widowed after a great love, Palmen knows like no other how to find the words for passion, loss and mourning. With the moving You say she has outdone herself. A novel with sentences that melt on your tongue.
8. Rutger Pontzen - Now that I (Querido)
By far the most daring novel of 2015 (and the years before): Now that I by Rutger Pontzen. Anyone who dares to cast his novel - a debut, no less! - into a monologue consisting of one long sentence, has guts. For that reason alone, this book deserves to be on this list. It is also a good story about talent and (too) high expectations, pride, oblivion and death.
9. David Vann - Aquarium (The Bezige Bij)
American writer David Vann knows how to expose human trauma like no other and describe it in such a way that it hurts. Aquarium is another poignant but hopeful novel about the girl Caitlin and her mother Sheri, whose life unexpectedly begins to shake to its foundations when Caitlin's grandfather turns up. The reader is left gasping for breath.
10. Thomas Verbogt - When winter is over (New Amsterdam)
A beautiful story about memories and which persons and moments ultimately matter in a human life. Verbogt's groping way of writing is sensitive, moving and one of a kind.
Now in this year-end list, we thought we would limit ourselves to fiction for the sake of convenience, but one non-fiction title cannot go unmentioned:
11. Brenda van Osch - The unfinished child (Balance sheet). A beautifully written, sensitive portrait of the world in which premature infants and their parents find themselves, and all the issues and dilemmas they and doctors face during treatment. Meanwhile, the treatment limit is 24 weeks. Journalist Brenda van Osch, herself the mother of a premature, multiply disabled daughter, intertwined her own story with her experiences in the neonatology department, raising questions about the ethical and technical limits of early life. An important book, and chronicled in such a way that it reads almost like a novel. We did not keep it dry.
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