Love Is A Mix Tape: Life And Loss, One Song At A Time by Rob Sheffield

In the memoir, Love is a Mix Tape, the author describes listening to music after his wife died, how he kept having to turn of the radio in the first days after but then listened obsessively after that. During the course of the book he listens to different tapes that he and his wife had recorded (mix tapes) and each tape brings forth a different time or aspect of their life together. At it's core, this is a meditation on the ways that music impacts and shapes the lives of music lovers.

I am finding this deeply touching because he spends time talking about his wife, who died, but this is really about how is life is shaped by music. For someone from my generation this was a familiar book. I know this man (or at least someone like him). Outstanding.

Old Filth by Jane Gardam

Old Filth is the story of Sir Edward Feathers, a lawyer, who as a young child was sent from Malaya to England to be raised properly. His father fading into the background, his school friend killed in the war and the death of his wife, have left Edward alone. After a certain number of losses Edward stops creating new connections.

What struck me about this novel is that everything in his life was designed to train him for the moment when he is alone and must carry on. Although on the surface this is a quiet novel where "not much happens", watching endless repetitions of loss resulted in this being one of the saddest books that I have read this year.