My 3 favourite reads in 2024

Once again, Shepherd.com invited me to contribute a list of the three best books I’d read over the past year (though not necessarily books published in that time), and once again I was happy to oblige - and plug my book, The Mirror and the Road, at the same time!

Choosing 3 books from 12 months is never easy, and there were some terrific runners-up - including Slow Horses by Mick Herron, Politics on the Edge by Rory Stewart, and Shakespeare: The Man who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench (with Brendan O’Hea). In the end, though, I chose three books about creative artists: two of them filmmakers, one of them an author (who was himself a huge film fan).

Here, then, is a brilliant biography and two memorable memoirs, which comprise my 3 favourite reads in 2024.