S. Cain, Quiet (2013)
R. Prawer Jhabvala, A new dominion (1972)
I. Kadare, The siege (1970)
L. Lee, Village Christmas (2015)
P. Lively, The photograph (1987)
J. Welby, Dethroning mammon (2017)
S. Westerfeld, Leviathan (2009)
This was obvious, though the reasons weren't. It also benefited from some others promising much but delivering badly - Welby was particularly vapid. Now, Mandela's book is obviously famous for its story, but I also particularly liked the reflection and the character sketches he makes. It's also very well put together and makes a long book fly by, though in reality the bulk of the book only covers about 15 years. It's a very effective polemic (with an easy target), and you'd be foolish to take it as history, but it's none the worse for that.
