Our favourite books this year, chosen by Orion editors...

Editor's Choice: Amanda Harris chooses The Slippery Year by Melanie Gideon

Dear Reader,

It takes a certain quality of writing to catch an editor’s attention when faced with the fire hazard that is the daily submissions pile. My attention wasn’t just caught with The Slippery Year by Melanie Gideon: it was tickled, it was entertained and it was grabbed with both hands.

The Slippery Year is a wonderful exploration of marriage, parenthood and happily ever after. It’s a memoir about life the wrong side of forty: the white charger has been shipped off to the knacker’s yard some years ago and instead of sleeping next to your lover, you’re sleeping next to a relative ... and for the rest of your ‘staying home on a Saturday night’ life. It’s about a wife and mother struggling through a year without knowing quite who she is anymore, or more to the point, who she wants to be.

So does Melanie escape to have tantric sex with a yogi in the Himalayas? No, she finds happiness exactly where she is: in the beauty of everyday life and in the love her family shares. And that’s why this book is so unexpected and so special. It’s not about escape; it’s about discovering anew the delights of your own life.

Reading The Slippery Year can be compared to having a drink with a best friend and cathartically laughing and crying the night away. That’s why I love this book and have selected it as my Editor’s Choice. I hope you love it too.

Best wishes,


Amanda Harris
Editorial Director
Non-fiction