I’ve listed my favourite books of the year below. These are in no particular order and can be any books I’ve read this year, they don’t have to be published in 2013. If I was lucky enough to have the money to buy every good book as soon as it was published there’d be a few more from 2013! Feel free to comment on my choices or come up with your own.
The Border Trilogy
Cormac McCarthy 
Picador (2002)
This is a brilliant triptych which evokes the haunting atmosphere of a dying breed of cowboys living near the US/Mexico border. Despite being a weighty tome at over a thousand pages it’s hard to put down.
Nothing to Envy
: Real Lives in North Korea
Barbara Demick
Granta Books (2010)
An astonishing journey into North Korea told through the lives of six escapees. This book shines a light onto the world’s darkest country. A fascinating insight which shows that even the DPRK government can’t resist change forever.
City of Bohane
Kevin Barry 
Vintage (2010)
This is perhaps my favourite Irish book of the year. It has a unique rhythm of language and graphic model imagery. It also won the world’s richest literary prize, the 2013 Dublin Impac Award.
Freedom
Jonathan Franzen
Fourth Estate (2010)
An epic look at the journey made by one family as they struggle to cope with the freedoms offered by modern America and the consequnces of their actions for themselves, their family, and society as a whole.
1493
: How Europe’s Discovery of the Americas Revolutionized Trade, Ecology, and Life on Earth
Charles C. Mann
Granta Books (2011)
A great look at the results of the Columbian Exchange, when the Western world came in contact with the Americas, Asia, and Africa for the first time. Written with Brysonesque flair this book is full of fasacinating facts and insights.
The Faster I Walk, the Smaller I Am
Kjersti A. Skomsvold 
Dalkey Archive Press (2011)
Shortlisted for the 2013 Impac Dublin Literary Award this book explores the life of an eldery woman with a wry sense of humour. A high quality debut that captures loneliness perfectly. Few novels deal with aging so sympathetically.
Ulysses and Us
: The Art of Everyday Life in Joyce’s Masterpiece
Declan Kiberd
Faber and Faber (2010)
This book is vital for anyone who has read Ulysses, is reading Ulysses, or will read Ulysses! Kiberd shows that Joyce’s book really is for everyone as well as offering countless insights and original readings of the book.
The Castle
Franz Kafka 
(translated by J.A. Underwood)
Penguin Classics (1926, first published as Das Schloß)
I think I preferred the Willa and Edwin Muir translation but this is still an astonishing work. Kafka’s vision of a senseless all pervasive bureaucracy is filled with black humour and is still as relevant in this century as the last one.
Paris 1961: Algerians, State Terror, and Memory
Jim House & Neil McMaster 
Oxford Universtiy Press (2006)
An astonshing book detailing the still little known massacre of Algerians in modern Paris. This book documents how parts of the French authorities lost their souls making Algeria and life for Algerians in France a living hell.
Berlin: The Downfall
1945
Antony Beevor
Penguin (2002)
This is the first Antony Beevor book I’ve read and he is a master at combining historical research with fastpaced narrative. Berlin has been criticised for being anti-Soviet but Beevor’s arguments are convincing.
Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Islands I Have Not Visited and Never Will
Judith Schalansky 
Particular Books (2010, first published as Atlas der abgelegenen Insein in 2009)
This book brings out the inner child explorer in every reader. Beautiful maps of islands which have fallen between the cracks of history are brought to life with fascinating, and sometimes disturbing, tales.
100 Famous Views of Edo
Hiroshige 広重 
(editors Melanie Trede & Lorenz Bichler)
Taschen (1856)
This is a beautiful book, from its wonderful binding to the beauty of its contents. The editors have done an excellent job in providing context and descriptions of each of Hiroshige’s fantastic woodblock prints.
The Diary of Edward the Hamster 1990-1990
Miriam Elia & Ezra Elia
Boxtree (2012)
A hilarious look at the brief, yet sporadically productive, life of a rodent trying to search for a meaning to his life. Be warned! You’ll never look at a pet hamster the same way ever again.
Empress Dowager Cixi
: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China
Jung Chang 張戎 
Jonathan Cape (2013)
Chang is a powerful storyteller and her historical subjects come to life on the page. It’s fascinating to see Cixi’s modernisation of China in a male dominated society in light of the current regime’s attempts to hold onto power through gradual reforms.
The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939
Antony Beevor
Penguin (2006)
A comprehensive and balanced study of the Spanish Civil War. Beevor manages to make the key events comprehensible without resorting to simplifcation. The Spanish Civil War’s shadow still looms large over Spanish society and this book is vital to anyone wanting to shed light on the subject.
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