For the second year in a row, I set myself the goal of reading a book every two weeks, which I did, but I have to admit that this year, I cheated. I listened to a book. I didn’t read it with my eyes. I used my ears, and walking the dog and commuting to work to listen to my first audio book. And the experience was… sad…

But not in comparison to the best book I read this year – Show Me The Bodies by Peter App. A thorough and devastating report on the Grenfell tragedy. This was a book that was impossible to read without wanting to see everyone involved in a prison cell. While the inquiry’s report is not due until late next year at the earliest, this is essential reading to find out how simple decisions can have tragic consequences.

Which is just like my choice to listen to an audiobook…

I hadn’t realised that Spotify now had books and, when I did, I thought I’d listen to Matthew Perry’s autobiography as I thought his story would be better heard with his delivery rather than read with the intonation of Chandler Bing in my head. What I wasn’t prepared for, even though I knew the book was about his addictions and not his time on Friends, was just how bad his addictions had been – and how every page was a warning to never take Oxycontin. By the time he was on his umpteenth rehab and listing in detail the effect of various painkillers, I was promising myself I would never even take an Aspirin again, in case I spiralled.

Best fiction book I read this year was ‘In Ascension’ by Martin McGuiness, an ultra serious sci-fi with what turns out to be a very dumb/clever pun for a title. You’ve got to admire anyone who’ll write 300 pages on single cell organisms, diving, botany and the complete list of items on the Voyager spacecraft just to write a titl= that could have been written by Tim Vine.

Most enjoyable book goes to ‘The Blade Itself’ by Joe Abercrombie for fiction and ‘The Last Action Heroes’ by Nick De Semlyn for non-fiction. Most annoying book goes to ‘1923’ by New Boulting, a book about the search to find out more about a one minute film clip from the 1923 Tour de France. Some may find it’s digressions to be enriching as they add context to even the slightest action in the film, others, me included, might think that the digressions are nothing but filler because a one minute clip of the Tour de France doesn’t justify 250 pages. And most thrilling goes to two zombie thrillers: The Girl With All The Gifts and The Boy on The Bridge.