My other great love was Emmanuelle Pagano’s One Day I’ll Tell You Everything, about a trans school bus driver in the mountains of France.

The book was both subtle and masterful in its use of structure, voice and character – a very clever piece of work. Another favourite was Thomas Savage’s The Power of the Dog, about two brothers on a ranch whose relationship changes when one of them marries. Then I picked up Circe and fell in love with the language and Circe’s character and desires. I gave my brother The Song of Achilles for Christmas a few years back, but only read it this year, burning through it at the hairdresser’s in Munich. The highlight of my year was reading Madeline Miller’s work.

Of these I really liked Muninjali writer Ellen van Neerven’s Throat and Metis Nation writer Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves. I finally made good on my intention to read more poetry (I read 7 titles which, while not huge, is an improvement on zero), and I got back into the habit of reading work by First Nations Writers (6 titles from Australia, and one from Canada). My proportions changes slightly compared to other years - 42% Australian women writers (up from 36% in 2019, 39% in 2018) 13% Australian Male writers (pretty much the same at 14% in 2019 and 13% in 2018) 37% international women writers (up from 33% in 2019) and 8% international male writers (down from 20% in 2019 and 15% in 2018). Last year, in that weirdest of years, I didn’t quite make it to 100 books, despite binge reading over Christmas and generally lying supine for most of the year – I was 5 short.

Figurehead by Patrick Allington