Helen J. Nicholson's 3 favorite reads in 2026

• 2025
• 2026

This is a brilliantly plotted detective story, an hilarious satire, and a well-informed introduction to ballet. I first read it over fifty years ago as a teenager (a copy borrowed from a friend) and have re-read it again and again. Every re-read is as funny, intriguing, and poignant as ever -- this is a book that never grows stale. Yes, the characters are humorous stereotypes, but the point of a stereotype is that it's a true image, yes? This book was originally published in 1937, so it's another world -- no mobile phones, no internet; we're in a place before the Second World War, where Hitler is as yet no more than an unpleasant threat ('by unfortunate coincidence Hitler had selected the day of [the crime] to threaten the world with peace, collaring the greater part of the front pages...') yet nearly ninety years later the story is still fresh, crazy, realistic, and very, very funny. And I bet you can't spot who dunnit!
(PS: Did I happen to mention that this book is utterly hilarious?)

Connie Willis returns to some of her old themes: the young woman arriving at an unfamiliar airport to be a friend's bridesmaid ('Just like the ones we used to know') with events not working out quite as planned; problems and misunderstandings communicating with aliens ('Spice Pogrom'); films (Remake), especially films about aliens invading Earth ('Newsletter'); Roswell and the empty plains of New Mexico ('Nonstop to Portales') ... and throws in some old Western movies for good measure, with her usual astonishing quantities of vivid imagination, complex plot and laugh-out-loud humour. More light-hearted than some of her earlier work, but nevertheless an excellent read.

I love this book because, like Alice Barton, the novel's heroine, I was a hideously shy child and so sympathise enormously with her predicaments during the story. As we follow Alice on her weekend away to a house-party hosted by her mother's friends Lord and Lady Pomfret in their stately home, Pomfret Towers, we share Alice's fear of strangers, relief at meeting friendship from her contemporary Phoebe Rivers and the elder Lady Pomfret, and consternation when the parcel she brought with her and, later, her shoes vanish -- the servants have them safe, but however is she to get them back? How should she react to the overbearing Mrs Rivers? Will the obnoxious Julian Rivers get his come-uppance? Will her new friendships at the Towers replace her old friendships at home? And will Alice learn how to cope in Good Society, or at least learn how to cope with enthusiastic dogs?