I DIDN'T read as much as I wanted to this year because I was working on a novel; I try not to read much fiction so that it doesn't start influencing my writing. Still, I read a lot of good non-fiction, and now that my novel's completed, I got back to some fiction by the end of the year. So here's a closer look at what I read.

The Upstairs Wife by Rafia Zakaria is billed as "an intimate history of Pakistan". It tells the story of Pakistan's formation along with the personal family history of Zakaria's aunt, whose husband took a second wife. I liked the parallel threads and the women's perspective that Zakaria provided: something always missing in both personal narrative and history coming from Pakistan.

H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald is the memoir of the author grieving after her father's death; she acquires a goshawk and decides to train it. Goshawks are stubborn and notoriously hard to train, but MacDonald finds peace and transcends her grief in the process of taming this beautiful hawk. It's a wry, poignant, and satisfying story.

An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alemeddine is the story of Aaliya, a septuagenarian woman living in Beirut, but it is also the story of Beirut. Together Aaliya and Beirut have lived through civil war, Aaliya's childhood and young womanhood, her divorce and her friendship with Hannah. Aaliya is a recluse who has spent her life collecting and translating books into Arabic, both well-known classics and obscure novels. Alameddine's novel is so richly interlaid with literature, art, and music that reading it is an education in itself. A striking, fabulous novel that I didn't want to end.

My one disappointing read was Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay, a collection of essays examining pop culture, feminism, and politics. All the rave reviews it received in 2014 made me curious to read it, but I couldn't engage with Gay's style and I found the topics dated and uninteresting.