Read My Buddy’s Book of the Year

Stephen Moss scrutinizes all those Book of the Year lists for The Guardian and finds that (gasp!) authors tend to recommend their friends’ books.

Sunday Tel military man Antony Beevor has chosen fellow Sunday Tel military man Max Hastings. Sunday Tel lit ed Miriam Gross loved it too. In the New Statesman, Guardian man Roy Hattersley chooses fellow Guardian man David McKie, while William Cook, the historian of Viz, has chosen the memoirs of its editor, Chris Donald. In the Observer, Jeremy Paxman has chosen his fishing chum Matthew Fort’s Italian travelogue, while Faberite Kazuo Ishiguro has chosen ex-Faberite (and Observer lit ed) Robert McCrum’s biography of PG Wodehouse.

Next thing you’ll be telling me that writers are human.