I did quite well this half of the year. In August I thought, ‘ahh, now, I’m always forgetting to watch films from this point in the year onward’ and made a concerted effort. December rolled around and the fact it was the season, together with with the thought, ‘last month of the year!’, led to more films. Catch-up television is incredibly useful – I owe much of this list to iplayer – as are subscription programmes.

Here are the films I watched for the first time during the second half of 2016. My opinions here are a lot more subjective than my book reviews.

The Bishop’s Wife (USA, 1947) – Feel good semi-comedy. We could do with Cary Grant in our films today.

The Black Cauldron (USA, 1985) – It’s easy to see why it’s a largely unknown Disney. The voice acting of the lead, the story line – the spark of an idea but not realised. We found out after watching that the film was hack-edited – one of the higher people in the company decided to do it himself, ruining it, and this caused a group of the animators to go and form Pixar.

Carol (USA, 2015) – A very good film. I liked the quietness that fit the situation.

Far From The Madding Crowd (UK, 2015) – Perfect, super, casting. But no development, progression, epic end section rendered average…

Holiday Affair (USA, 1949) – A film of the times (bit of a brash hero) but this turned out to be pretty charming and, in some ways, ahead of its time (very confusing, I know!)

Into The Woods (USA/UK, 2014) – A few of the lyrics are good and on occasion it’s funny, but it’s mostly a non-event.

The Lady In The Van (UK, 2015) – You can’t really go wrong with Maggie Smith, nor Alan Bennett.

The Lego Movie (USA, 2014) – Fantastic; barmy and hilarious.

Snow White And The Huntsman (UK, 2012) – Pretty good, very much ‘based’ on the story rather than following it.

Miss Potter (UK, 2006) – Found the animation a bit silly but otherwise it’s a lovely film.

What films did you watch for the first time in 2016?

This year I read 71 books, completed two I’d started late 2015… and I’ll be carrying over the now-always-carried-over Vanity Fair (begun in 2012; I’m hoping to restart it) and two others. I made a big effort on the general diversity front, aiming for more male writers, more writers of colour (a number I’ve noticed has gone down since I started blogging), more older books and more translated fiction. I have to admit that this time that latter category was boosted by review copies. Around early autumn I decided to start keeping numerical stats and applied them both to this year’s list of books and retrospectively. It’s proved a good decision so far – it’s reminded me to read my own books. I’m looking at writing a stats post for the past few years’ worth of books.

In forming this list I’ve had the opposite difficulty to every other year – each December I find myself with a lot of ‘best of the best’ books to choose from. Last year I had so many I decided to just list them all. This time, I’ve had trouble. Whether it’s due to a natural personal reading progress, particularly in context with reviewing, or whether it’s down to the books themselves… I’m inclined to think it’s a bit of both with an emphasis on my ratings. Have I given less books 5 out of 5 this year due to ever more experience? I think I may have. I do feel a lot more in tune with literature in general than I did 6 years ago, and then there’s the inevitable thing where when you’ve read a lot of books, new ones that tread the same ground won’t seem so ground-breaking. Whatever it is, the fewer books on the best of list are ones without compare, if I may use some flowery language, and I think they’re absolutely awesome.

As always, books that have been reviewed have a line underneath them and the title links to the review. Up until my personal favourites list, all books are rated as objectively as possible. If you’d prefer to skip all that, click here to view my personal favourites.

The Best Of The Best

Ayelet Gundar-Goshen: One Night, Markovitch – A man with an unremarkable face and his friend with the amazing moustache decide to join men heading to Germany to save Jewish women from the Nazis and bring them home to Israel. Full of humour, this is no less a book with a lot to say. It was even better than I’d hoped.
Cathy Rentzenbrink: The Last Act Of Love – The story of the event and aftermath of the author’s brother’s accident as a victim of a hit-and-run. A superb book.
Dan Richards: Climbing Days – Discovering his great-great-aunt was a mountaineer, Richards sets out to learn more and follow in her literal footsteps. Utterly superb.

5

• Linda Stift: The Empress And The Cake
• Keith Stuart: A Boy Made Of Blocks
• Marie-Sabine Roger: Soft In The Head
• Marie Sizun: Her Father’s Daughter
• Philip Pullman: Northern Lights
• Philip Pullman: The Subtle Knife
• Sara Taylor: The Lauras

4.5

• Abubakar Adam Ibrahim: Season Of Crimson Blossoms
• Andrew McMillan: Physical
• Dan Richards: The Beechwood Airship Interviews
• Elizabeth Fremantle: Watch The Lady
• Jessie Greengrass: An Account Of The Decline Of The Great Auk According To One Who Saw It
• Lewis Carroll: Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland
• Magda Szubanski: Reckoning
• Nicholas Royle and David Gledhill: In Camera
• Olumide Popoola and Annie Holmes: breach
• Paula Hawkins: The Girl On The Train
• Philip Pullman: The Amber Spyglass
• S J Watson: Before I Go To Sleep
• Samantha Sotto: Love & Gravity
• Sarah Ladipo Manyika: Like A Mule Bringing Ice Cream To The Sun
• Susanna Kearsley: Mariana
• Tahmima Anam: The Bones Of Grace

4

• Alex Pheby: Playthings
• Amy Liptrot: The Outrun
• Ashley Stokes (ed.): The End
• Benjamin Wood: The Ecliptic
• Bill Burnett and Dave Evans: Designing Your Life
• Elizabeth Fremantle: The Girl In The Glass Tower
• Elnathan John: Born On A Tuesday
• Frédéric Dard: Bird In A Cage
• Jonathan Ames: You Were Never Really Here
• Lucy King: Say It With Diamonds
• Mavis Cheek: Dog Days
• Max Porter: Grief Is The Thing With Feathers
• Midge Raymond: My Last Continent
• Rachel Elliot: Whispers Through A Megaphone
• Rowan Hisayo Buchanan: Harmless Like You
• Sue Gee: Trio
• Suzanne O’Sullivan: It’s All In Your Head
• Thomas Hardy: Far From The Madding Crowd
• V H Leslie: Bodies Of Water
• Zadie Smith: Swing Time

3.5

• Alan Titchmarsh: Mr Gandy’s Grand Tour
• Alice Dunbar-Nelson: Violets And Other Tales
• Cheryl Strayed: Wild
• Chigozie Obioma: The Fishermen
• Elizabeth Gaskell: Cranford
• Jemma Wayne: Chains Of Sand
• Kate Walker: Indebted To Moreno
• Kirsty Moseley: Worth Fighting For
• Louisa Young: The Heroes’ Welcome
• Pamela Hartshorne: House Of Shadows
• Paul McVeigh: The Good Son
• Robert Macfarlane, Stanley Donwood, and Dan Richards: Holloway

3

• Claire Watts: Gingerbread & Cupcake
• Colette Dartford: Learning To Speak American
• Elizabeth Chadwick: Shields Of Pride
• Helen Slavin: Crooked Daylight
• Holly Black: The Darkest Part Of The Forest
• Jo Bartlett: Somebody Else’s Boy
• Rick Yancey: The 5th Wave
• Shan Sa: Empress
• Xiaolu Guo: A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers

2.5

• Ben Fergusson: The Spring Of Kasper Meier

1

• Xiaolu Guo: I Am China

My Personal Favourites

This year has been very different. Happenings have resulted in my reading a lot more literary fiction, literary non-fiction, and so on. It’s made me think back to that first year I documented my reading, 2009, and those first couple of titles I read that were literary fiction – not knowing about that category at the time I labelled them historicals and I wasn’t keen. I didn’t understand them. It’s funny to think that I appreciate them now.

In regards to my retrospective stats, I’m going to write a comparitive post within a month or two so I won’t go into too much detail here, but my reading skewed towards women a little less this year which I’m very happy about and will be working to improve further this new year. New-to-me authors ruled the year; the vast majority of books I read were by authors I hadn’t read before. Some great new finds but I do feel I need more balance. The oldest book I read was Cranford – published as a serial between 1851-53. The newest book I read, Samantha Sotto’s Love & Gravity, is set to be published early February.

Quotation Report

I found it hard to write up this quote in my usual style, so here’s the extract from the book, The Subtle Knife, concerning Lyra’s first impressions of Will:

She tiptoed to the window. In the glow from the street lamp she carefully set the hands of the alethiometer, and relaxed her mind into the shape of a question. The needle began to sweep around the dial in a series of pauses and swings almost too fast to watch.

She had asked: What is he? A friend or an enemy?

The alethiometer answered: He is a murderer.

When she saw the answer, she relaxed at once. He could find food, and show her how to reach Oxford, and those were powers that were useful, but he might still have been untrustworthy or cowardly. A murderer was a worthy companion.

Do not tell Deborah of Cranford that women are equal to men because she will not listen – she believes women are superior. And if you join Joseclin and Linnet’s household, from Shields Of Pride, you will find yourself playing medieval football with a pig’s bladder and it will be messy.

Yaacov Markovitch of One Night, Markovitch is pleasantly surprised to learn his visa-wife is a fan of agricultural literature – she’d said she’d read a great deal about Israel’s oranges. What he doesn’t realise is she’s read a four-line stanza.

If you wish for people to not visit, take a leaf from Dan Richards’ relative – mentioned in Climbing Days and wear a hat whilst in the house so you can say you’re off out… though it might not work in our present day so much.

Getting beer in stock either for the babysitter or the kids is absolutely fine when you’re absolutely desperate for time away with your wife, or, at least, so thinks Matt from A Boy Made Of Blocks.

In the next few days I’ll be posting my film round-up and goals for the year.

What were your favourite books from those you read last year?

Happy new year! It always seems strange having this round up just before my yearly one, but without it a few books would get completely lost and – in many ways more importantly – I want to shed particular light on this month because the books were particularly great.

The Books

Non-Fiction

Fiction

Claire Watts: Gingerbread & Cupcake – Simon hoped to travel over the summer, Lily hoped for a last ‘summer of love’ but when both plans fail and Simon’s family tearooms take a dive in the ratings, they find themselves spending time with each other. A nice fairly short young adult book.

Rowan Hisayo Buchanan: Harmless Like You – After the death of his father, Jay must go looking for his absent mother; Yuki struggled with who she was meant to be, falling into bad relationships, always hoping to be a good artist. A good book about identity, art, race, and family.

Samantha Sotto: Love & Gravity – The cracks in the wall start happening in Andrea’s single digit years and although no one believes her she comes to look forward to the rare sightings of the historical boy, a budding scientist, on the other side of her wall. A great time slip/travel novel that makes use of a mystery box of letters recently found amongst Issac Newton’s possessions to tell its story.

Zadie Smith: Swing Time – A nameless narrator tells us the story of her life; her on-off best friend and their jealousies and triumphs, the work she did for a western celebrity with an idealised project for ‘Africa’, and a childhood with a mother determined to better herself. This book is a bit too packed full of subjects, structured in a strange way, and has a disappointing non-ending, but the reading experience is pretty awesome.

Being December, I had more time for older books and books from my shelves. I had been wanting to read Buchanan for a while and Sotto’s book, whilst a review copy, was one I’d been looking forward to ever since I finished her previous in 2011. Watts’ book, too, I’d looked forward to – I’m still to review her previous book, that should be happening February or thereabouts; it’s stunning. My favourite? The Sotto just about wins.

Quotation Report

None this time.

Here’s to good books helping us all get through that post-Christmas dullness!

Which of your last 2016 reads were favourites?

I’ll be pausing posting for the next two weeks for Christmas, hopefully reading a number of books I haven’t yet got to, and sorting out year round-ups and those What’s In A Name posts. Posts will start up again 2nd January, and the What’s In A Name pages will be available the day before. I will be on Twitter throughout the holiday.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Fly away on my zephyr.

Publisher: The Friday Project (HarperCollins)
Pages: 510
Type: Non-Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-008-10521-1
First Published: 30th July 2015
Date Reviewed: 8th October 2016
Rating: 4.5/5

An idea sparks an artistic journey – after a brief conversation about a decoration for a student bar, Richards sets about creating a model airship, which leads him to think about how artists work within their creative spaces. He decides to contact various people of the arts world, interviewing them in context with his thoughts. (Amongst the icons are Jenny Saville, The Manic Street Preachers, David Nash, and Dame Judi Dench.)

The Beechwood Airship Interviews is a work of non-fiction the defies genre. At once a slight memoir and an arts/culture book, it’s an intriguing work that sports an overall artistic interest that’s apparent no matter how much or how little you happen to know about the interviewees themselves.

Richards’ starting point is the eponymous airship – a zeppelin of wood he creates as a sculpture for his student union bar. It is through this that he comes to ponder creative spaces, an artist’s personal connection to the place in which they create their work.

Richards’ interviews tend to follow a basic network connection – he starts with Bill Drummond who often lends work to the student bar, then moves on to Richard Lawrence who is a printer Drummond knows, then to Stanley Donwood who knows Lawrence and so on. The interviews span several pages and are offset by photographs. White space between questions and Richards’ now usual footnotes mean that the book is not quite the possibly daunting length it infers itself to be.

The questions are what make this book, along with Richards’ joviality and writing in general. There are no queries as to favourite roles as there are on TV shows or in papers, for example; Richards’ mission in visiting the people was to be different, to achieve the exact ideas and answers he was interviewing them to find. Some of the thoughts conveyed here are really quite mind-blowing in that artistic, literary pleasurable way.

In amongst the interviews, then, is Richards’ journey through the airship creation, his travels between places – home, university – and general diary-type content. His personable style pulls you along during the brief introductory periods – the vast majority of this book is formed of the interviews (as you might expect!)

Something of great importance to Richards in terms of education is the way art courses are run, how they’ve changed to become a lot more about rules and regulations – working towards a construct – rather than about creative freedom and becoming the artist/writer/musician one is destined to be. His thoughts – blunt, no prisoners – form a large part of the end though the thread is there throughout.

You learn a lot thanks to these interviews. How particular people work, yes, but also specific ideas, concepts, that unless you happen to be well-versed in every subject covered will be compelling at some point. You get the set-up – the off-stage portion of his time with each person; the cups of tea, the phone call between Dame Judi Dench and her daughter, the banter.

But really it’s the power, the almost inevitability, of this book to really wow you at times – supposing you are interested of course – that makes it the success it is. Richards’ enthusiasm is infectious; he tells you everything, taking you along for the ride in its entirety. The book itself may be niche and all about Richards’ desire to learn for himself, but the angle he takes and his writing style means that you’re just as much a part of it yourself from the word ‘go’.

The book could be considered a little too long; it does cover a lot and at a couple of points goes into the sort of artist philosophy that might turn off non ‘arty’ types. But that’s the way of interviews and collections, there will always be something a bit less interesting, and it doesn’t affect the book beyond that nor for any particular length of time.

Speaking in the present, if you’ve read Richards’ later work – rather possible as this book is somewhat of an outlier – you’ll find a slight difference in style that’s interesting in terms of the writing journey; this book was published a good few years after it was written. The Beechwood Airship Interviews won’t suit everyone but in terms of today it’s safe to say that with the recent publication of Climbing Days the potential audience number has increased, because, particularly, if you liked that book, you’ll like this one too.

I’ve met the author a couple of times and have interviewed him.

Update, 14th December 2016: Changed second usage of ‘decoration’ to ‘sculpture’ to more accurately reflect the project specifications.

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