Crosswords - Talking About What I Read in 2018

So, I managed to read 104 books in 2018. That wasn’t my plan at the beginning of the year I just found myself with time to read. Or I made time to read. You can choose. I basically made sure that when I was travelling anywhere, I had a book with me, which because I commute into work every day gives me a minimum of about two hours of reading each day. Most work lunchtimes I tried to find, at least half-an-hour to read. You’d be surprised how much you can read if you do that. Particularly if – like me – you’re stupid enough to deliberately pick a slightly longer route into work because it both allows you more time to read and pretty much guarantees you a seat all the way from Willesden Junction to Waterloo.

Any other reading time is a bonus.

How did I decide what to read? Well, some of it is a spur of the moment choice in a bookshop or library. Some of it comes from a list of 1000 Novels You Should Read that I took from the Guardian a few years ago that I have since expanded with lists from other sources. Then there are recommendations from friends and family. Finally, there are several podcasts which I’ve been listening to in 2018 that have provided recommendations.

They are – in order – Backlisted, History Hit and Robin Ince and Josie Long’s Book Shambles. Backlisted is a podcast that I can’t recommend enough to anyone who likes books. Almost every book they talk about sounds interesting and their peripheral recommendations – in the introduction for example – can also turn out to be rather marvellous, for example, Eve’s Hollywood by Eve Babitz (of which more later) came in that introduction rather than being a specific book they focused on in the episode. You should give it a listen. History Hit focuses – obviously – more on history, which is a subject I am interested in reading about. Book Shambles covers a broader range of both fiction and non-fiction. It also talks more about science, which is one of the big gaps in my reading topics.

I also deliberately tried to read more poetry this year, which I managed to do. These were chosen via Acton Library, who had a surprisingly extensive selection of poetry books. Through that I got introduced to Carol Ann Duffy properly, Wendy Cope, Simon Armitage and others. Backlisted got me to read ‘Autumn Journal’ by Louis MacNeice, which I think was the best thing I read all year from a poetry perspective, although Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘Rapture’ blew my mind on reading it. I binge read it and even now it pops up in my mind on occasions.

So, I’m going to list my Top Five reads. First non-fiction and then fiction.

Our Boys – The Story of a Paratrooper by Helen Parr

This is one of the most moving books of military history and sociology that I’ve ever read. It takes the story of Helen Parr’s Uncle Dave who died fighting in the Falklands War and using it as the seed to tell a much bigger story of the Parachute Regiment (and the men who joined it), the society they lived in and the impact the Regiment and War had on their families

Death in Ten Minutes by Dr Fern Riddell

The story of Kitty Marion, a Suffragette this book digs deeper than into one – admittedly interesting -life and talks about a campaign of violence that could only be described as terrorism that we have edited out of our collective memory. There’s so much to praise in this book, not least of which is the writing itself.

The Literary Churchill by Jonathan Rose

I have read a lot of books about Winston Churchill, but this is the first one which I think gets a real grip on Churchill’s personality. I found myself reading this and Rose’s research and the conclusions he draws from that feel right. If you want to understand why Churchill was the person, he was – warts and all – this is the book to read.

Operation Chaos: The Vietnam War Deserters Who Went to War With The CIA, The Brainwashers & Each Other by Matthew Sweet

I haven’t read a book by Matthew Sweet that isn’t damn good, but this is an astonishing read. The subtitle of the book pretty much outlines what this book is about. The story is too good and too weird not to be told and Matthew Sweet tells it wonderfully well. And you can see the seeds sown that helped create our weird conspiracy culture (and Donald Trump if you look hard enough

The Anna Karenina Fix: Life Lessons from Russian Literature by Viv Groskop

A late entry here as I read this in a binge read last week but it does a great job of making you want to read some of those big Russian novels that you've avoided because they seem both depressing and difficult. Groskop draws out key themes, contextualises their writing and helps with some of the things that makes these books seem so difficult to approach, especially the names. 

Next up…Fiction

Eve’s Hollywood by Eve Babitz

I’m not sure if this is fiction in the purest sense because it is more of a memoir. I’ve put it here because whatever you want to call it I found it utterly captivating from start to finish. Clever, funny, witty and beautifully written this is a book that – and yes, I’m going to say it – if it was written by a man would be up there with ‘On the Road’ as a more than cult classic. I loved it. I’ll re-read it.

My Antonia by Willa Cather

I’d not come across anything by Willa Cather before this but there’s something rather beautiful about this story of a relationship that isn’t quite a romantic relationship. Cather’s writing is wonderful, especially her descriptions of land and landscapes but there’s a brilliant scene involving the arrival of a gaggle of children that is one of the best bits of writing I’ve seen anywhere.

Kokoro by Natsume Soseki

This is an early 20th-century Japanese novel about two men of two different generations becoming friends, although there will be much more to this in the end. It’s beautifully written and is moving in that understated way that one thinks of when talking about the ‘stiff upper lipped’ Englishness of the 19^th century. It’s a wonderful read.

Bid Me To Love by H.D.

This is probably the ‘artiest’ book on my list, but it is also a book that is about love, loss and the artistic flowering of an individual. It is – in a similar way to Eve’s Hollywood – a fictionalised version of a real life. It is unusual in being a feminine perspective on World War One and is worth reading as part of a double-bill with Richard Aldington’s ‘Death of a Hero’. Aldington is a character in H.D.’s novel and H.D. is a character in Aldington’s book. The two books give a fuller account of their relationship that just each individual text, but H.D.’s book also has the extra benefit of being about the realisation of a talent

A Man Called Ove

This is a book I came to on the recommendation of my brother, Karl. I saw the film first and then read the book. The film is great, but the book is magnificent. It’s blackly funny, moving and thoughtful. Read it and then think about how you’re living your life.

You’ll notice that there’s a lack of 2018 novels on that list. Mainly because I don’t think I read one. I’m usually a bit behind anyway and generally, I’m not keeping up with what’s being freshly published but I’m hoping that will change in 2019, although that might involve me trying to do some planning. So, don’t hold your breath.

I’ve missed out my Doctor Who reading. I very much enjoyed the New Doctor Who Target novelisations, but I was impressed with both Black Archives books I read, which are – for those uninitiated – in-depth guides to individual Doctor Who stories. I read Matthew Kilburn’s excellent book on ‘The Time Warrior’ and James Coorey Smith’s book on ‘The Massacre’. They’re both well-researched, well-written and do the thing that these books should do, which is re-watch the original stories they are discussing.

The full list of what I read is below. If you’ve got any questions then I’ll happily try to answer them. If you’ve got books you want to send me then feel free to get in touch.

Young Lawrence: A Portrait of the Legend as a Young Man	Anthony Sattin
Is That The New Moon? A Stunning Anthology of Women Poets	Wendy Cope [Ed]
Casino Royale	Ian Fleming
The Mark of The Rani	Pip & Jane Baker
Hurricane: Victor of the Battle of Britain	Leo McKinstry
Churchill's First War: Young Winston And The Fight Against The Taliban	Con Coughln
The World's Wife	Carol Ann Duffy
Eve's Hollywood	Eve Babitz
Live & Let Die	Ian Fleming
Moonraker	Ian Fleming
Family Values	Wendy Cope
Hitler's Henchmen	Guido Knopp
High-Rise	J.G. Ballard
The West End Front: The War Time Secrets of London's Grand Hotels	Matthew Sweet
Theatre Writings	Kenneth Tynan
Shock & Awe: Glam Rock & It's Legacy	Simon Reynolds
Macbeth	William Shakespeare
The Sign of Four	Arthur Conan Doyle
The Crystal Bucket : TV Criticism from the Observer, 1976-79	Clive James
Diamonds Are Forever	Ian Fleming
The World's War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire	David Olusoga
Their Darkest Hour: People Who Were Tested To The Extreme in WWII	Laurence Rees
Rose	Russell T Davies
Twice Upon A Time	Paul Cornell
You Lucky People: The Tommy Trinder Story	Patrick Newley
The Christmas Invasion	Jenny T Colgan
Selected Poems	Simon Armitage
Rapture	Carol Ann Duffy
The Day of the Doctor	Steven Moffat
Dam Busters: The True Story of the Legendary Raid on the Ruhr	James Holland
From Russia With Love	Ian Fleming
Last Hope Island	Lynne Olson
The Age of Shakespeare	Frank Kermode
Tolkien's Gown & Other Stories of Great Authors and Rare Books	Rick Gekoski
Dr No	Ian Fleming
The Last Stand	Mickey Spillane
Eleven Days in August: The Liberation of Paris in 1944	Matthew Cobb
The Vinyl Detective : Victory Disc	Andrew Cartmel
The Traitors: A Story of Blood, Betrayal and Deceit	Josh Ireland
Death in Ten Minutes	Fern Riddell
And Still I Rise	Maya Angelou
Collected Poems	Chinua Achebe
Operation Chaos: The Vietnam War Deserters Who Went To War With The CIA, The Brainwashers & Each Other	Matthew Sweet
Passschendaele: A New History	Nick Lloyd
Hundred Days: The Campaign That Ended World War One	Nick Lloyd
Goldfinger	Ian Fleming
For Your Eyes Only	Ian Fleming
A Man Called Ove	Frederik Backman
The Quiet American	Graham Greene
Kill All The Gentlemen: Class Struggle & Change in the English Countryside	Martin Empson
Thunderball	Ian Fleming
My Antonia	Willa Cather
The 007 Diaries: Filming Live & Let Die	Roger Moore
Darkness Falls From The Sky	Nigel Balchin
The Sound & The Fury	Faulkner
Human Chain	Seamus Heaney
Tropic of Ruislip	Leslie Thomas
The Third Man	Graham Greene
Strange Weather in Tokyo	Hiromi Kawakami
Ms Ice Sandwich	Hiromi Kawakami
The Image of Africa	Chinua Achebe
White Egrets	Derek Walcott
Arrow of God	Chinua Achebe
The Scarlett Pimpernel	Baroness Orczy
Look Stranger!	W.H. Auden
Epileptic	David B
Bid Me To Love	H.D.
The Riddle of the Sands	Erskine Childers
Ten Years in an Open Necked Shirt	John Cooper Clark
Tolkien & The Great War: The Threshold of Middle-Earth	John Garth
Towns of Two Halves	David Guest
About Time: The Unauthorised Guide To Doctor Who, Volume 7 (2007)	Tat Wood
The Age of Exodus	Gavin Scott
Ma'am Darling	Craig Brown
Our Boys: The Story of a Paratrooper	Helen Parr
The Time Warrior	Matthew Kilburn
Harold Pinter	Michael Billington
The Massacre	James Cooray Smith
Slow Days, Fast Company	Eve Babitz
Slouching Towards Bethlehem	Joan Didion
The Moon's A Balloon	David Niven
Sonnets	William Shakespeare
The Guest Cat	Takashi Hiraide
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept	Elizabeth Smart
The Vanquished: Why The First World War Failed To End, 1917-1923	Robert Gerwarth
The Heart of a Dog	Mikhail Bulgakov
Always Look On The Bright Side of Life	Eric Idle
A People's History of the German Revolution	William Pelz
The Dud Avocado	Elaine Dundu
Hear The Wind Sing	Haruki Murakami
Pinball, 1973	Haruki Murakami
Other Minds: The Octopus & The Evolution of Intelligent Life	Peter Godfrey-Smith
The Wild Sheep Hunt	Haruki Murakami
The Spy Who Loved Me	Ian Fleming
Kokoro	Natsume Soseki
Autumn Journal	Louis MacNeice
Prometheus Bound & Other Plays	Aeschylus
The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes	Hugh Greene [Ed]
Selected Poems	Pablo Neruda
The Literary Churchill	Jonathan Rose
Cockleshell Heroes	C.E. Lucas Phillips
Peacemakers - Six Months That Changed The World	Margaret MacMillan
The Existentialist Café - Freedom, Being & Apricot Cocktails	Sarah Bakewell
The Anna Karenina Fix: Life Lessons from Russian Literature	Viv Groskop

Happy Doctor Who Day

Happy Doctor Who Day everyone. A mere 55 years ago, at c.5.15pm, the first episode of Doctor Who - An Unearthly Child - was broadcast. And we saw & heard this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjDFvoRNpOM - for the first time.

Then, about 43 years ago, I was put in front of the telly by my Mum & Dad and was watching 'Terror of the Zygons'. I would have been four. So, you can blame my parents for the way I've turned out. I can roughly date it because the cliffhanger at the end of Part One is my first Doctor Who memory. Followed by little bits of other stories until 1977 when I remember watching whole stories. Or at least the bits I didn't find too terrifying.

Which means, of course, that Doctor Who has been one of the few consistent - or inconsistent - things in my life apart from my family. It's bought me fear, laughter, tears and - especially - joy. 

I've spent a lot of time watching it, re-watching it, re-re-watching it, reading it and about it, thinking about it, writing about it and talking about it. I've made good friends through it. If it is a phase I was going through & that you thought I was going to grow out of I have left it a bit late.

I certainly think my romantic left-wing view of the world was influenced by Doctor Who. It taught me that that might isn't always right, that a teaspoon and an open mind are essential tools with which to face a complicated universe and that change isn't a bad thing. In more recent years it has taught me to accept that everything ends and that there aren't simple solutions to everything. It taught me that you can't always mend people, but that you can try to help them. And those words that have become a sort of Doctor Who mantra - Never be cruel or cowardly. Never give up. Never give in - have become a motto by which I would like to live my life. And that's not a bad point of view to learn from a television series. 

I've watched episodes with my family. I've watched episodes alone - a lot of those. I've seen Doctor Who in cinemas and at the houses of friends. Both those who like Doctor Who and those who don't. Indeed, if you're a friend of mine I've probably forced you to watch at least one episode. Possibly against your will. Possibly not. I'd say I was sorry, but I'd be lying.

And, of course, I take it far too seriously but I'm also more than capable of taking the piss out of it. No one mocks Doctor Who and its foibles better than Doctor Who fans. We know its limitations inside out. We see them and we don't see them. I know that the Zarbi look ridiculous but I still love The Web Planet. I know that having a monster that looks not unlike Bertie Bassett is silly indeed but I still love The Happiness Patrol. There are probably more important things in the world than Doctor Who but there aren't a lot of things that bring me as much happiness. 

And thank you to all the cast and crew who have worked on Doctor Who over the years. Thank you to the writers of novels, to DWM editors and writers and to everyone at Big Finish. And to all those who've contributed to my love of Doctor Who over the years. You know who you are.

Happy Doctor Who Day everyone. 

The Last Jedi

So, I saw Star Wars: The Last Jedi on New Years Day. I picked the first performance I could find, which meant I got the screen to myself. And due to a cock-up by the cinema, I didn't have to watch any stupid ads before it started either. It was trailers and then film. As it should be.

I loved it. Genuinely loved it. Enjoyed it more than any Star Wars film since...Return of the Jedi. I'd almost go as far as to say it was my favourite Star Wars film of the entire lot so far but that might be pushing it.

And yet I see an internet full of complaints. Now, I'm not a Star Wars 'geek'. I'm a Doctor Who 'geek'. That's where my fandom pound gets spent. I like Star Wars. I'd put it in with a handful of other SF related things that I have an interest in but don't know every detail about. You can make a judgement of the value of my opinion based on that. A lot of Star Wars fans seem to be very angry about this film.

I'm going to ignore the SJW angle because if this series has been about a bunch of good guys trying to take down the fascists with a dash of mysticism attached from the very beginning. Or alternatively, it's just supposed to have been a series of adventure movies to which we have all become slightly over-attached to. And that's not a bad thing. Doctor Who is just a family TV series designed to keep everyone watching BBC One between the football results and Juke Box Jury to which I have become ridiculously and expensively attached.

I'll start with Luke's character as this seems to be the big issue people have with the film, including to some degree Mark Hamill himself. Yes, Luke in the earlier films was always the least cynical and most optimistic character of the main characters. Yes, it is hard to see what Luke has become. But I don't believe it is 'out of character'. This is Luke after he's lost his nephew to the Dark Side. This is Luke after he's utterly failed. This is Luke after another series of killings. Is there any wonder he's become cynical and cut-off from the force and the galaxy. There isn't anything 'out of character' here. This is Luke after an emotional battering, which most of us would struggle to recover from. And Hamill - whatever his personal doubts - is brilliant. And yet, however much he wants to stop being a legend, in the end, he saves the day at the cost of his own life. His legendary status is cemented. He does the right thing.

Everyone talks about the Jedi as if they're great but in the prequel trilogy, they were basically a bunch of politicians quibbling over midichlorians whilst a Sith Lord out-manoeuvred them. Like any number of mediaeval religious orders in this world, they found that their temporal power meant they lost sight of their spiritual goals. The Jedi that the original trilogy remembered were the legends, not the politicians. It seems that Luke saw that too (and so did Yoda). All the organisation needed to be pulled down and something new should take its place, which learned the lessons from their previous failures.

Which is where Kylo Ren's call to Rey to 'let go of the past' echoes with Luke's story. Kylo Ren is still conflicted. He's asking the same questions as Rey about his place in the universe. Luke couldn't show it too him. Snoke can't. He's hoping perhaps Rey can.

The other key thing in this film I think is that it is about failure and learning lessons from failure: Poe, learns to go from bull in a china shop to leader; Rey fails to convert Kylo Ren back to the light, but she learns that she can find her own way; Finn learns - and that's why the sequence on Canto Bite matters - that there is something worth fighting for. In defeat, he finds his place.

I felt that the film was aiming to say something about balance and that Leia was the person who would bring balance to the Force, perhaps through Kylo Ren. Perhaps herself. I wonder whether the next film will be about balance.

This is the Rebellion's Dunkirk. Now it has to rebuild.

People seemed disappointed that Rey's family were 'nobodies'. Why? Does every major force wielding character in Star Wars have to be related? What else could she be? Luke's daughter? Obi-Wan Kenobi's? Isn't that all a little incestuous. And the scene when she's standing to look at the (almost) infinite line of herself is just her learning that she's who she is because of herself. She hasn't needed to be part of the bloodline of some Force Nobility. And that makes her a stronger and better character.*

A similar thing applies to Snoke. I think because fans love theories it is disappointing when we aren't given one of them as the answer to who is what. All those guesses about who Snoke is or was are never going to get answered because his own hubris gets him killed. And I'm all right with that. Again why do we want to make the Star Wars Universe so incestuous? Snoke has to be someone connected to somewhere else in the films. Why? We fans love our theories, but it is funny when we're all wrong. Snoke is just Snoke. And now he's dead.

It seems to me that people dislike this film because it has tried to do something new. You can't freeze something like this in carbonite. It needs to stretch out and develop.

O and on a couple of the little things:

Porgs: they're hardly in it and they're mostly comic relief. Get over it.
Leia's Space Flight: this we're supposed to disapprove of because why? Is it any weirder than being able to move rocks with your mind. Or lifting R2-D2 up? Or...etc. Who knows what sneaky practice Leia has been doing on her Force control when no one is looking.

And finally, after all this waffling on, I like this film because it was entertaining. Perhaps, having seen Abel Gance's 5 and 1/2 hour Napoleon a couple of days earlier, my tolerance for film length was at an all-time high but it flew by. I was never bored. I was moved to tears when Leia and Luke talk towards the end of the film. I enjoyed Kelly Marie Tran as Rose.

Plus Adrian Edmondson.

Sorry if this isn't to your liking but frankly I don't give a damn. 


*This might all turn out to be a double-bluff and the final film reveal she's really the daughter of Qui-Gon Jinn or something equally tedious.

Reading in 2017

So, the last book I completed in 2017 was Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama, whilst the first was Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari. One of them I enjoyed more than the other. In between those two books I read a few other books.

I'm going to list my Top Ten, which as with all things is utterly arbitrary and might change as books settle in the mind and heart. Actually, I'm going to split them into Top Ten Fiction and Top Ten Non-Fiction. Just because.

TOP TEN FICTION

Autumn, Ali Smith
The Noise of Time, Julian Barnes
The Door, Magda Szabo
A Month in the Country, J. L. Carr
Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin
A General Theory of Oblivion, Jose Eduardo Agualusa
A Whole Life, Robert Seethaler
Exit West, Moshin Hamid
Sally Heathcote Suffragette, Mary M Talbot/Kate Charlesworth/Bryan Talbot
Under The Udala Trees, Chinelo Okparanta
The Monkey's Mask, Dorothy Porter

I actually made a concerted effort to broaden my fiction reading this year, which I did. So I am smugly pleased about that. There were two books I read this year that I actively loathed. I might name them later.

I've been influenced in my reading choices this year by a couple of podcasts. Firstly, Robin Ince and Josie Long's Book Shambles, which I've been listening to for some time. That's where I first heard of The Monkey's Mask. The other is Backlisted Podcast, which is why I ended up reading A Month in the County and The Year of Reading Dangerously. For non-fiction, I blame Dan Snow's History Hit podcast for throwing up lots of books I'd like to read. Too many for my wallet, unfortunately.

The Top Ten isn't in any particular order but I'd probably nominate Autumn, by Ali Smith as my favourite fiction read of 2017. It's a beautiful book. I couldn't put it down and when I finished I felt that little pang of grief that comes with finishing a brilliant book for the first time. I can't recommend it enough.

TOP TEN NON-FICTION

The Mystery of Princess Louise: Queen Victoria's Rebellious Daughter, Lucinda Hawksley
Breakdown, The Crisis of Shell Shock on The Somme, Taylor Downing
In These Times: Living in Britain Through Napoleon's Wars, Jenny Uglow
All Behind You Winston: Churchill's Great Coalition, 1940-45, Roger Hermiston
Indian Summer, Alex von Tunzelmann
On Bullfighting, A.L. Kennedy
A Short History of Drunkenness, Scott Murray
The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books Saved My Life, Andy Miller
Little Me, Matt Lucas
Julian of Norwich, Janina Ramirez

That's a mixed set of subjects. There are the usual Tony Cross obsessions there: World War One, World War Two and Churchill. All three are subject areas that are the gift that keeps on giving. Again there in no particular order, but if I had to pick one it would be Taylor Downing's book Breakdown, The Crisis of Shell Shock on the Somme, which is a well-researched and well-written book covering a subject capable of raising issues even now. It tries to be fair to the British Army, but there are still moments where I felt genuine anger about the way individuals (or groups) were treated.

The full list of what I read is below. If you've got any questions then feel free to answer. As you'll see from that list I did manage to read some poetry, but not as much as I'd like. I read two different Ted Hughes books. One, Crow: From Life and Songs of the Crow I struggled with. The other Tales From Ovid: Twenty-Four Passages from 'Metamorphoses' was fantastic. Make of that what you will.

FULL LIST OF BOOKS

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind	Yuval Noah Harari
The Owl Service	Alan Garner
The Noise Of Time	Julian Barnes
Myra Breckenridge	Gore Vidal
Blood River: A Journey Through Africa's Broken Heart	Tim Butcher
A Perilous Undertaking	Deanna Raybourn
The Door	Magda Szabó
The Mystery of Princess Louise: Queen Victoria's Rebellious Daughter	Lucinda Hawksley
Breakdown: The Crisis of Shell Shock on the Somme	Taylor Downing
Man On The Run: Paul McCartney in the 1970s	Tom Doyle
Jane Eyre	Charlotte Bronte
Hope In The Dark	Rebecca Solnit
Tales from Ovid: Twenty-four Passages from the "Metamorphoses"	Ted Hughes [Trans]
In These Times: Living in Britain Through Napoleon's Wars, 1793-1815	Jenny Uglow
The Pirate Planet	James Goss
Running Through Corridors: Volume 2-The 70s	Toby Hadoke & Robert Shearman
All Behind You Winston: Churchill's Great Coalition, 1940-1945	Roger Hermiston
After Daybreak: The Liberation of Belsen, 1945	Ben Shephard
King John: Treachery, Tyranny and the Road to Magna Carta	Marc Morris
The Vinyl Detective: The Run-Out Groove	Andrew Cartmel
The Moonstone's Curse	Sam Siciliano
Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone	J.K. Rowling
Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition	Nasid Hajari
Dynasty: The Rise & Fall of the House of Caesar	Tom Holland
The Age of Olympus	Gavin Scott
Truths, Half-Truths & Little White Lies	Nick Frost
Indian Summer	Alex Von Tunzelmann
If This Is A Man	Primo Levi
Space Helmet For A Cow: The Mad True Story of Doctor Who, Volume 2: 1990-2013	Paul Kirkley
Go Tell It On The Mountain	James Baldwin
On Bullfighting	AL Kennedy
Giovanni's Room	James Baldwin
Confessions of a Lioness	Mia Couto
A General Theory of Oblivion	José Eduardo Agualusa
A Whole Life	Robert Seethaler
The Sense Of An Ending	Julian Barnes
Reel History - The World According to the Movies	Alex Von Tunzelmann
Sherlock Holmes vs Cthulu - The Adventure of the Deadly Dimensions	Lois H. Gresh
Money	Martin Amis
Sherlock Holmes: The Labyrinth of Death	James Lovegrove
Directed by Douglas Camfield	Michael Seeley
Selected Poems	Anna Akhmatova
The Underground Rail Road	Colson Whitehead
Exit West	Moshin Hamid
Stalin Ate My Homework	Alexei Sayle
Aeneid VI	Seamus Heaney
Autumn	Ali Smith
Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow	Ted Hughes
A Study in Scarlet	Arthur Conan Doyle
A Kind of Blue: A Political Memoir	Kenneth Clarke
Now We Are Six Hundred: A Collection of Time Lord Verse	James Goss
James Baldwin: The Last Interview & Other Conversations	James Baldwin
Hero of the Empire: The Making of Winston Churchill	Candice Millard
Solar Bones	Mike McCormack
Fear & Loathing on the Oche: A Gonzo Journey Through The World of Championship Darts	King Adz
Little Me	Matt Lucas
A Short History of Drunkenness	Mark Forsyth
Blade of the Immortal - Omnibus I	Hiroaki Sumura
Julian of Norwich	Janina Ramirez
A Christmas Carol	Charles Dickens
The Title: The Story of the First Division	Scott Murray
A Month in the Country	J L Carr
The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books Saved My Life	Andy Miller
Introducing Fascism: A Graphic Guide	Stuart Hood/Litza Jansz
Sally Heathcote Suffragette	Mary M Talbot/Kate Charlesworth/Bryan Talbot
Penguin's Poems For Love	Laura Barber [Editor]
Under The Udala Trees	Chinelo Okparanta
The Story of my Teeth	Valeria Luiselli
The Monkey's Mask	Dorothy Porter
Rendevous With Rama	Arthur C Clarke

My Favourite Things from 2017

Well, I went to a lot of films and art in 2017. I also saw about 20 plays and 2 operas, although I left half-way through one of them, Jane Eyre at the National Theatre. I also managed to attend two plays in a week that failed to reach their end - Insignificance at the Arcola Theatre and Coriolanus at the Barbican - which has to be an unusual event.

So, my Top Ten Theatre/Opera were:

Salome, National Theatre
Incident at Vichy, King's Head Theatre
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Harold Pinter Theatre
The Seagull, Lyric Hammersmith
Kiss Me, Trafalgar Studio
Coriolanus, RSC at The Barbican
Art, The Old Vic
The Life of Galileo, The Young Vic
Richard III, Arcola Theatre
Aida, ENO

Salome, which was a new version by Yaël Farber. It took a little while for me to get into but it eventually blew my mind. A real example of what theatre can do with a story you think you know. Incident at Vichy is a Miller play that doesn't get performed often but seemed to be a play for 2017. The cast was astonishing and if a play had deserved a West End transfer then this was it. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf featured probably the best performance I saw from anyone in 2017, which was Imelda Staunton's Martha, although Greg Hick's Richard III was pretty astonishing. 

I saw a terrible Romeo & Juliet at The Globe, which managed to make one of my least favourite Shakespeare plays utterly awful. And as I said about we left Jane Eyre at the National Theatre at the interval. The less said about this the better. 

I wish I could go to more theatre as at its best I don't think there's anything as absorbing or as moving, even film. If I had the money and the time I'd go to the theatre every night. Almost. 

I saw 61 films in 2017. My Top Ten is

The Death of Stalin
Dunkirk
In Between
Logan
I Am Not Your Negro
After The Storm
Wonder Woman
A Ghost Story
My Life As A Courgette
The Road to Mandalay


Now that Top Ten is 2017 films. I also saw a number of films that were made before 2017. That included probably my favourite film of all time, A Matter of Life and Death, which I got to see in its new digital print. I finally got to see Le Samouraï on the big screen and found that sometimes the memory doesn't cheat. I saw Lawrence of Arabia again, which is as impressive this time as it was when I saw it last year. I can see a Lawrence of Arabia re-watch becoming an annual thing if I can find a cinema showing it because you really do need to see it on the big screen. That was the same with Abel Gance's Napoléon, which I saw last night. So here is my Top Ten Films I Saw in 2017 regardless of when they were made:

A Matter of Life & Death
The Death of Stalin
Dunkirk
In Between
Le Samouraï
Lawrence of Arabia
I Am Not Your Negro
A Star Is Born (Mason/Garland-obviously)
Logan
Cabaret

So, well done Carrie Dunn whose work on exposing me to musicals seems to have finally succeeded. That's two musicals in the Top Ten. Five films of 2017 itself still made the list. The Death of Stalin was darkly funny, superbly acted and was absolutely the best film from 2017 that I saw. It even nudged Dunkirk off the Top Spot, even though that is an astonishing film that had to be seen on the big screen. In Between was the film that surprised me most and probably moved me most if truth be told. I Am Not Your Negro was a stonkingly well-made documentary, which in the age of Donald Trump needed to be made. That's a fucking tragic thing to have to write.

I saw a lot of exhibitions at various galleries and museums in 2017. It helps to have lots of memberships courtesy of relatives and Christmas. (Thanks, Mum, Dad and Uncle Robin and Aunty Sue.) My Top Ten Exhibitions were:

David Hockney, Tate Britain
Hokusai: Beyond the Great Wave, British Museum
Australia's Impressionists, National Gallery
Gillian Wearing & Claude Cahun: Behind the Mask, Another Mask, NPG
Giacometti, Tate Modern
Fahreinessa Zahid, Tate Modern
Drawn in Colour: Degas from the Burrell Collection, National Gallery
Jasper Johns, Royal Academy
Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, Tate Modern
Opera: Power, Passion & Politics, V&A

But this list is utterly arbitrary really as there was so much good art to see in London in 2017. Obviously, the advantage of living in London (and having an income to afford these things) is that there are galleries, museums, cinemas and theatres everywhere. If I had a 2018 wish it would be to visit a few more of the smaller theatres and galleries. If I had the money. 

I should also put in a word here for the day I spent at the Royal Festival Hall watching a live reading of Primo Levi's 'Is This A Man', which you can find an audio version of here. It is worth a listen. 

I saw a handful of live music. All of which I loved. Gretchen Peters was fantastic as always, as were Depeche Mode and The Unthanks. I also saw a couple of classical music concerts, Yuja Wang and Benjamin Grove at The Royal Festival Hall. Both of which were amazing. 

So, there you have it. The only thing left is books, but that's a whole other column of its own. 

Thanks to everyone who came with me, bought tickets and/or memberships. So that'll be Aya, Emma, Mark, Chris, Leslie and Carrie. It's been a good year. It wouldn't have been so good without you all.