The Nightwatch by Sarah Waters

This book is set in 1940s London and follows the entwining stories of Kay, Julia and Helen, Viv and Reggie, and Viv's brother Duncan. Their stories are told in the three chunks of the book, which work backwards in time, so that we learn how the characters reached the positions they are in at the beginning of the book, in 1947.

It's an easy book to read, and kept me engaged thorughout, although the final, 1940, chunk came as a slight let-down compared to the drama of the 1944 section. And somehow Duncan's story never feels part of the rest of the book.

The characters are alive, although Helen and Duncan are the weakest. 1940s London is vividly described, but unobtrusively so: there is no description for the sake of it, none of the 'I've done my research and I'm gonna use it' feel that ruins so many other period books (Maria McCann and the execrable 'As Meat For Salt' for instance).

This was my first Waters book, and I'll definitely be reading more.
(84/100)

The Virago Book of Ghost Stories by Richard Dalby (ed)

This is a really good book for Christmas reading. The tales are spooky and atmospheric rather than scary, but if you like ghost stories, particularly MR James or EF Banson, you'll enjoy these.
(73/100)

So this means that according to my scoring my book of 2007 was The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer, although in retrospect the book I think I liked the best and am most likely to read again is Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.