Anthony Stidolph

Author Alexandra Fuller’s latest novel, The Legend of Colton H. Bryant, is set in her adopted home of Wyoming in the United States and tells the true story of a modern-day cowboy. Based on a series of interviews she conducted with Colton’s family and friends, the book is powerful and moving, the relative simplicity of the storyline and the small-scale tragedy it contains belying a dramatic weight, emotional wealth and sorrowful depth.

Part memoir, part fiction, Alfred & Emily — which author Doris Lessing claims will be her last book — is divided into two parts. In the first, Lessing tries to imagine what her parents’ lives might have been like had there been no Great War to disrupt it. In the second — and, to my mind, more moving section — she describes how it actually unfolded, living in genteel poverty on a remote farm in Southern Rhodesia. Written by an old woman with a cold eye for reality and no time for sentimental lies, it’s a sad story of blighted hopes and unrealised dreams.

On a much lighter note, I thoroughly enjoyed Hops and Glory, author Pete Brown’s wildly funny account of his quixotic quest to retrace the history of “the beer that built the British Empire”— India Pale Ale (IPA). Brown is a natural story teller with a good satirical eye and a nice line in sardonic observation. In a rollicking style which manages to be both tongue-in-cheek and buttonholing at the same time, he shows how the history of IPA was very much linked to that avaricious prototype of the modern global corporation — the English East India Company.

David Pike

Elizabeth Turner’s The Blue Skies of Autumn: a relentlessly brave and detailed description of the author’s traumatic experiences during and after 9/11, when her husband of two years disappeared without trace in the Twin Towers. Turner was seven months pregnant at the time and her book is a highly personal odyssey from hell to recovery.

Bernard Cornwell’s Azincourt is a thundering good historical novel with an engaging central figure (archer Nicholas Hook), an intriguing cameo of King Henry V (with Shakespeare’s shadow in the background), detailed insight into medieval warfare and politics, a no-nonsense love affair, a harrowing account of the siege of Harfleur, and a massive and blood- sodden description of the great battle of the title, in which the reader is taken into the heart of the mud, gore and guts.

Another splendidly informative, vivid and absorbing historical novel is Simon Scarrow’s Fire and Sword, which focuses on events leading from Napoleon’s coronation down to the Peninsula Campaign. The two main and almost polar opposite characters are the ruthless if brilliant Napoleon and the gentlemanly but warlike Duke of Wellington. The book abounds with detailed and graphic battle descriptions, complex politics, and plenty of beguiling personal moments.

Margaret von Klemperer

I read a lot of good local writing this year, but it was difficult to come up with a standout until I picked up Zakes Mda’s Black Diamond. Its film script origins give it pace and accessibility, but this playful tale of revenge, crime, love and cats is still a sharp look at our contemporary society, warts, racial tensions and all. Mda is a fine commentator on South Africa, and his humanity shines through all his writing. Great fun.

Another lively piece of local fiction is Sarah Lotz’s Exhibit A, a wisecracking crime novel. The hero is Georgie, a shambolic lawyer whose insanitary dog, Exhibit A, provides the title. Georgie is working for a client who claims she was raped in police custody, but proving her story is no easy task. The novel climaxes in a courtroom scene and is a slick and entertaining holiday read.

But the best novel I have read this year — in fact one of the best for a very long time — is Barbara Kingsolver’s brilliant The Lacuna. Set in Mexico and the United States through the years of the Depression, war and McCarthyism, it combines real characters such as Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Leon Trotsky, with a totally believable fictional hero.

It is a long and complex book, historically surefooted, psychologically compelling and written in beautiful prose.

Thando Mgaga

Memory is the Weapon by one of South Africa’s born and bred and celebrated writers, Donator Francesco (Don) Mattera, is not only a good read but has relevance to our country’s history. In this book, Mattera mixes telling his life story with his own experience of growing up in Sophiatown. He portrays the magic, the unison among the different races that grew up there and touches on certain characters who contributed to what was Sophiatown.

Unapologetically, Mattera describes the anger felt by those who were forced to stand still and watch their beloved communities and homes torn to shreds by the apartheid government, and the unfairness and ridiculousness of the racial classification by the regime.

The book A man Who is Not a Man by Thando Mgqolozana hit the point home for me when it comes to the culture of circumcision as a rite of passage for young Xhosa men.

Mgqolozana tells a story of an initiate whose circumcision went wrong due to neglect by his grandfather. In the story, the initiate was castrated by members of his community for not being a “complete” man.

The trauma that his tradition caused him is shared by hundreds of young Xhosa men whose circumcision went wrong. But besides being a good read, the book also respects the culture of circumcision by not divulging too much information and thus jeopardising this sacred culture.

Carol Brammage

Thinking back over books I reviewed this year, American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld immediately springs to mind. Although inspired by former United States first lady Laura Bush, the book surpasses this connection and succeeds as a nicely observed coming-of-age tale with incisive social commentary and psychological insights making for a satisfying read. That said, the portrayal of the fictionalised George W. Bush is hugely entertaining.

Second on my list is Brodeck’s Report by Phillippe Claudel. Translated from French, it tells the story of Brodeck, required to write a report on the murder of an enigmatic stranger who arrives in a remote village that has been disrupted by war. A meditation on the goodness and badness of humanity, despite tragedy and cruelty, the book powerfully evokes the beauty of the natural world and honours the suffering of marginalised individuals and the people they love.

Last is a novel, translated from Italian, The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano. Burdened by unusual childhood trauma that marks them out as different, the story of Alice and Mattea’s mutual identification as they progress through damage, distress and desire towards some semblance of autonomy, is told with a cool but riveting clarity.

Stephanie Saville

Choosing my top three books for 2009 was a Himalayan task, which will have me second guessing myself for a while yet. Hold my breath and here goes my literary women’s list in no particular order.

Trinity Rising by Fiona Snyckers  was a riotous read which cheered me up and made me feel young again. A great read in the style of a homegrown Marian Keyes. Trinity Luhabe, a  first- year Rhodes student, entertains on a grand scale. A South African author to boot.

the immigrant by Manju Kapur relates the journey of Nina, an educated Indian woman teaching at a university in Delhi, who, in her early 30s, embarks on an arranged marriage and moves to Canada to start a new life. She sheds her sari for jeans, adds meat to her previously vegetarian diet and tries to fit into a culture that renders her enormously conspicuous. Kapur was described as a modern-day Jane Austen, and I agree wholeheartedly.

Come Sunday, by Isla Morley. A wrenching wow of a book which I loved every word of. Another South African author too. A South African living in Hawaii, Abbe Deighton’s small daughter Cleo is killed by a car some few chapters from the start. Abbe’s crushed spirit endures.

Go get them all. They are all classics in their own right.

Sharon Dell

My year was enriched by journalist Kevin Bloom’s Ways of Staying. The death of his cousin, Richard Bloom — shot with Brett Goldin in 2006 — brings a “new and uncomfortable” dimension to the way in which he lives in South Africa. But Bloom is not about to give up on his homeland. The book is a skilfully positioned series of narrated encounters with people — black and white, Jewish and Gentile, poor and rich, local and refugee, native and immigrant. Crime and violence are dominant themes, but there is also compassion and hope. The stories are complemented by well-chosen reflections drawn from Bloom’s work as a journalist. Without being unrealistic, Bloom refuses to succumb to glibness, stereotype, bias or despair. It’s a fine contribution to the debate about South Africa and its future.

My page-turner was British author Scarlett Thomas’s The End of Mr Y. Thomas’s protagonist, PhD student Ariel Manto, is interested in thought experiments. She finds a recipe which gives her access to the “Troposphere”, an alternative world in which the minds of others can be “surfed”.  It sounds decidedly out there, but Thomas seems to know her theory — a combination of post-modernism, quantum physics and philosophy — and manages to suspend it all in an exhilarating adventure story.

The year’s dose of satire was supplied by White Tiger, last year’s Man Booker prize winner, by Aravind Adiga. A series of letters from  Bangalore businessman Balram Halwai to the Chinese premier, the book offers an unflinching, darkly funny critique of modern-day India.