To wrap up the year and the”avid reader” feature, I thought I’d being you one more installment — in this case my friend, and fellow avid reader, Janine Sowerby’s, Top 3 reads of the year.

As with the past installments, the books don’t have to have been published in 2015, just read this year.

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Janine Sowerby’s Top 3 Reads Of 2015

Three books I enjoyed reading:

Perla, Carolina De Robertis

Historical Fiction

A novel about a young woman’s growing realisation as to her father’s role in Argentina’s ‘Dirty War’, an infamous campaign waged from 1976 to 1983 by Argentina’s military dictatorship against those thought to be a political or ideological threat, during which thousands of people were ‘disappeared’. Although brutal in places and one of the two points of view from which the story is told requires some suspension of disbelief, it is so beautifully written, compelling and deeply moving that the reader willingly does so.

Flight Behaviour, Barbara Kingsolver

Political/Scientific Fiction

A novel in which Dellarobia, a young mother dissatisfied with her life of poverty on a failing farm in the Appalachians, experiences a phenomenon which turns out to be both unnatural and life-changing. As a biologist from Appalachia, the author ably conveys her knowledge of, and esteem for, the people, location and science in this story. It seamlessly weaves together threads of marriage, motherhood and family life; faith; climate change and the natural history of Monarch butterflies (aka King Billies). It does so without being preachy, by using outstanding imagery and containing a surprising amount of humour (particularly for the parents of young children).

Life After Life, Kate Atkinson

Historical Fiction

Ursula Todd is born during a snow storm on 11 February 1910 but, strangled by the umbilical cord, promptly dies through a lack of outside help; more specifically, a pair of surgical scissors. However, this novel innovatively and successfully employs The Butterfly Effect to illustrate, through multiple, parallel presents, numerous answers to that eternally asked question, “What if…?” Ursula’s narrative starts again…and again and again in each chapter…each time taking a different, and ultimately influential, course. This novel accordingly resonated with me on many levels, including its setting in the wartime Britain my grandparents and father were born into and lived through.

I also recommend Kate Atkinson’s Behind the Scenes at the Museum.

~ Janine Sowerby

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Janine Sowerby is a town planner who dabbles in writing and may one day to be a writer who dabbles in town planning. She has had poetry and short stories (fiction and non-fiction) published, including in Kokako, Takahe, The Press and NZ Poetry Society and other anthologies, such as Crest to Crest and A Foreign Country. She has also co-written short screenplays as part of NZ’s annual 48 hour film-making competition.

To read the previous three installments in this “top reads” series, click on:

Jennifer Lowe’s Top 5 Reads Of 2015

Paul Weimer’s Top 5 Reads Of 2015

Karen McMillan’s Top 5 Reads of 2015

And a very Happy Reading New Year to all of you. 🙂