Review of 2016: Part 3 – Books and TV

I read 32 books and watched 43 TV shows this year. Enough boasting, here's a piece about which ones were good and which ones weren't.

BOOKS

Fiction



My favourite book of the year was Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim (1954), an endlessly economical, alarmingly relatable marvel about lecturer Jim Dixon, who's caught between two very different women, and plagued by a litany of unspeakable men, as he attempts to hold on to his job and arrest a casual but definite decline brought on by booze, poor fortune, general confusion and a tragic inability to Play the Game. Barely a sentence goes by without Amis introducing some black, bleak or brilliant idea, revolving on some inspired turn of phrase, while the book’s blending of the cynical, romantic and inutterably, breathtakingly funny is just about perfect. It's an absolute wonder.

In April, I read Philip Roth's The Plot Against America (2004), a chilling piece of alternate history, in which heroic aviator and fascist sympathiser Charles Lindbergh ascends to the US presidency and agrees an ‘understanding’ with Adolf Hitler. Against the slow-burn of burgeoning anti-semitism, the young Roth comes of age, while the older brother he idolises is co-opted by the establishment, his cousin is crippled by war and his parents are torn between pragmatism and self-respect. Roth's humanity, intelligence and explosions of ironic violence keep you gripped and gazing in slack-jawed amazement, though of course it could never happen.



Another of my highlights was Tom Perrotta's Election (1998), an exceptional piece of storytelling told from five vantage points and prefaced with perfection by Irish novelist William Trevor's observation that "the world is the school gone mad". So I asked for two more of his books for my birthday: Little Children (2004) was a modern masterpiece that transcended its suburban trappings, and offered such virtuosic delights as a sarcastic child molester; The Leftovers (2011) was superbly plotted but saddled with a bafflingly blunt and broad sense of humour.

There is no piece of writing I love more than James Joyce's The Dead, which makes up for any of the other failings of Dubliners (published 1914), and indeed for some of the year's relative disappointings, including Dashiell Hammett's flat The Thin Man (1934), a rare case of a book being vastly improved in its cinematic translation, Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury, 1954) – an interesting but imperfect sci-fi work – and David Peace's 1974 (1999), which is unforgettable, but not always in a good way.



I was seriously underwhelmed by a couple of early Evelyn Waugh comedies: Scoop (1938), with its thin characters and fixation merely on language, and Vile Bodies (1930), an oddly blinkered and distractingly self-satisfied work with only a few passages of breathtaking wit and the superb character of absent aristocrat Colonel Blount to recommend it. It's deathly dated in its satirising of people and phenomena long forgotten, with nominative determinism that's a shallow bore, though its principal problem is its triviality: that's perhaps the point of the book, but it's also entirely self-defeating, preventing it from really amounting to anything.

This year's two Vonneguts were lesser works, though I found plenty to love about Deadeye Dick (1982), less so Galapagos (1985).

But most of the books I read were good, and many of them were simply fantastic. Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love (1945) is a playfully heightened, impeccably-written romantic comedy, laced with insight, understated emotion and dazzling wit, based upon her own life – and her experiences as a member of Britain’s most notorious family. It’s not especially ambitious in terms of scope, but it is magnificently realised. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Muriel Spark, 1961) was slim, spare and economical, warped, waspish and filled with malevolent, brilliant throwaway jokes, its nastiness masking a poignancy and perception that linger, along with the bitter taste of betrayal. And A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (1980) was as repulsive and rip-roaringly funny as you could ever want, a hypnotically original slice of Southern Gothic, full of virtuosic passages of bilious wit, as Ignatius J. Reilly and a gallery of hysterically funny supporting characters go almost aimlessly about their daily business in a vividly-realised nightmare of New Orleans, before you realise that Toole has been shuffling everyone expertly into position for a quite brilliant finale.



I also read my first Márquez novel this year, Memories of My Melancholy Whores (2004), which is great if you want to read about a disgusting old man fucking a child, and luxuriated in a book of epic silliness and staggering readability, The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair by (Joel Dicker, 2012). I'm finishing the year with Northanger Abbey, the one of Jane Austen's six completed novels that I hadn't yet read. She wrote it first, though it was only published post-humously, and there's a different feel to her later books: an immense energy allied to an apparently limitless supply of withering sarcasm.

I read lots of kids' books to help with my pitching of my own novel for eight to 12-year-olds (nothing yet, but I'll keep you posted), though one I read for pleasure, and received incalculable amounts, was How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen by Russell Hoban (1974), an utterly beautiful ode to silliness, with hilarious, sumptuous illustrations by the incomparable Quentin Blake.



***

Non-fiction



My non-fiction book of the year was unquestionably T. Harry Williams' epic treatise on the life of Louisiana senator Huey Long (1969). Next to that (but also next to most history books), Bill Bryson's One Summer (2013) looked frankly dire, though Owen Jones' Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Classes (2011/12) remains fresh, relevant and important after five years in which so much has changed, and yet nothing has.

As usual, I read quite a few books about movies. Margaret Talbot's book about her father – actor Lyle Talbot – and his times, The Entertainer (2012) was frequently excellent, Mark Kermode's Hatchet Job (2013) proved shapeless but lively, and I really enjoyed the third volume of Simon Callow's Orson Welles behemoth, One Man Band (2015), covering 1947 to 1965 in considerable style. The best by far, though, was François Truffaut's book on Alfred Hitchcock (1967, revised 1983), which fundamentally changed the way I look at cinema. I wrote about it a little here.

***

TV



My elder brother exposed me to the French cop show, Spiral, which quickly became a favourite, as I consumed the first four seasons, though my attempts to marry Laure Berthaud (above) have thus far come to naught. At times it traverses the line marked 'do not cross, silliness ahead', but at its best it's remarkable. Season 2 is a marvellous thing.

The Thick of It and Veep were regulars round my place, with just the right balance of misanthropy and swearing at a time when I was in dire need of both. I also caught up with some quality BBC dramas from recent years, and loved all of them: The Shadow Line, State of Play and Life on Mars. I travelled a little further back too, for all three brief, brilliant series of the original House of Cards.

E4's Misfits ('superheroes with ASBOs') was escapist and intensely funny, though I bailed after Season 3, by which time all of the original cast had left. The Simon/Alisha storyline in the second series is so ambitious, and so deeply affecting. Some amazing, incredibly handsome reviewer described the programme as "an antidote to morality plays, Marvel movies and just about everything else", and who am I to disagree?



Aside from Lillian Gish, my favourite actor of all time is Wendy Hiller. She was primarily on the stage, but appeared in a handful of films, and did a fair amount of TV work late in life. I watched three of her small screen triumphs: All Passion Spent (above), a delightful rom-com called The Kingfisher that reunited her with Major Barbara co-star Rex Harrison and, best of all, The Best of Friends, a miraculous drama based on the correspondence between legendary playwright George Bernard Shaw (Patrick McGoohan), esteemed museum curator Sydney Cockerell (John Gielgud) and Dame Laurentia McLachlan (Hiller).

The American Sherlock Holmes series, Elementary, got by on the strength of its central relationship, Adam Curtis made the hyper-intelligent HyperNormalisation for iPlayer, and I developed an unexpected fondness for true crime films – or at least miscarriage-of-justice polemics – devouring the likes of Making a Murderer, The Jinx, Netflix's Amanda Knox film, and old documentaries about James Hanratty on YouTube. (Bit of a weirdo, sorry.) I bailed on the much-lauded Stranger Things after two derivative, pointless episodes.



I also attended Vicky's fabled Eurovision party, finding to my perpetual astonishment that this programme I'd been avoiding for years was actually great fun, especially with friends and without Terry Wogan. I have listened to the Italian entry more times than I'd care to admit this year. The Apprentice, which in the past I'd really looked forward to, was for the most part exceedingly dull, with no heroes and – even more damagingly – no decent villains. (And I listened to a lot of podcasts, but I can't review everything, where would it end?)

I've just started Master of None (2015) on Netflix, which is a sweet and beautiful thing.

***

Thanks for reading.

Bogie, High-Rise and another astonishing Philip Roth book - Reviews #232

Here's that update I promised.

FILMS



CINEMA: The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946)

“You go too far, Marlowe.”
"Harsh words to throw at a man, especially when he's walking out of your bedroom."

I saw The Big Sleep on the big screen for the first time, revelling in Bogie and Bacall’s badinage, the great gallery of desperate supporting characters – especially Agnes (Sonia Darrin), a wry, selfish accessory to blackmail who keeps betting on the wrong guy – and the sheer sardonic poetry of the dialogue, provided by no fewer than four exceptional writers: original author Raymond Chandler, legendary southern novelist William Faulkner, Hawks regular Jules Furthman and the extraordinary Leigh Brackett, who went on to co-write Rio Bravo and The Empire Strikes Back.

There’s an awful lot of plot, and the sets could be better, but this notoriously troubled production – two years in the making, with whole chunks of story chucked out and replaced by love scenes after it had already screened to troops overseas – is a heady proposition: sometimes sleazily, hazily nightmarish in the vein of Mulholland Drive, at others so frenetic and sarcastic that there’s nothing quite as much fun. While it’s not my favourite Marlowe film, and Bogart isn’t my favourite Marlowe (Murder, My Sweet and its star Dick Powell take those honours, and Altman’s The Long Goodbye gives this one a run for its money), there are new things to discover even on the fifth time round – the sixth if you count a recent viewing of the compromised original cut – including a throwaway line I’d missed that reveals just why Eddie Mars has held onto that crap henchman of his: it’s to keep the decent one company.

“My my, such a lot of guns around town, and so few brains.” (3.5)

See also: I've done a scene-by-scene breakdown of the differences between the pre-release and finished versions, on the off chance that you are also a big nerd.

***



In the Loop (Armando Iannucci, 2009)

"Difficult, difficult, lemon difficult."

"'Climb the mountain of conflict'? You sounded like a fucking Nazi Julie Andrews."

"Within your purview? Where do you think you are, in some fucking regency costume drama?! This is a government department, not a fucking Jane fucking Austen novel."

"Yeah, apparently your fucking master race of highly-gifted toddlers can't get the job done."

This alternate-universe spin-off from The Thick of It is a little less specific, vitriolic, rapid-fire and British than the unimpeachable TV series that spawned it, but in dealing with the prelude to the Iraq War in that rough-edged, foul-mouthed, shamblingly cynical style, it comes armed with a hefty black comic edge that's simultaneously hysterical and chilling. Plus some of the best one-liners in the history of anything.

The story sees Tom Hollander as an ineffectual, gaffe-prone British government minister caught in a tug-of-war between the doves and hawks, as America limbers up for war.

Though not everyone is up to the standard of regulars Chris Addison, Paul Higgins and particularly Peter Capaldi (as the series' breakout character, psychotic spin doctor Malcolm Tucker), Hollander and a cameoing Coogan are in fine form, and at its sporadic best Armando Iannucci's satire is as funny as just about any film I've ever seen. (3.5)

***


This is actually one of the better bits of the film.

*MINOR SPOILERS*
Merry Wives of Reno (H. Bruce Humberstone, 1934) – A mediocre Warner Bros programmer in the studio's usual slangy style, with cheating wife Glenda Farrell causing two other couples to break up, sending Margaret Lindsay and Ruth Donnelly to Reno, with all the men involved (Donald Woods, Guy Kibbee and Hugh Herbert) pitching up too.

It's dated more poorly than most of the studio's comedies, with too much time spent on Herbert's familiarly irritating persona, and unfunny running gags about a sheep and a mentally fragile attorney, but there are a handful of very funny lines, and while the wonderful, fast-talking Farrell is largely wasted, Kibbee is good value playing his usual slightly pathetic ruddy-faced philanderer, and the great character comic Frank McHugh has a funny part as a hotel fixer, strolling off into the sunset with a wad of cash, two hotties in fur coats and that unmistakable 'one-two-three' laugh - as he called it - "Haaerrr haaerr haaerrrrr." The bit where he is chased by the sheep almost justifies that whole endless subplot. (2)

***



SHORT: Les mistons (Francois Truffaut, 1957) – Well this could be better. Truffaut's second film deals with the preoccupations that dominate most of his best (kids, eros, American gangster movies) without much of the instinctive genius evidenced by his debut feature, Les 400 Coups, released two years later.

Partly it's the bad dubbing, partly the charmless, faceless performances from a bunch of kids who never did anything else, partly the voiceover-itis that afflicts too many of his misfires, though at least the narratSuch ion here is erudite and in the first person.

Bernadette Lafont (later the star of the director's risible A Gorgeous Girl Like Me, arguably his worst film) is Bernadette, whose nascent love affair with the blameless Gerard inspires an explosion of confused, spiteful jealousy in the gang of pre-pubescent children who idolise her.

Shot outdoors, mostly in the woods but also in a striking, part-ruined amphitheatre, it's atmospheric but bitty, and hampered with curious gimmickry, including a sped-up sequence with a hosepipe that wouldn't look out of place in a Benny Hill episode (though he would have turned it on Lafont). Despite that, the 'shoot out' sequence is a little gem, and the ending is poetic and oddly profound, if not quite satisfying.

By 1959, Truffaut's ingenuity and innovation had reached a white-hot peak, allied to a pitch-perfect semi-autobiographical narrative of aimless adolescent alienation. That breathtaking film makes Les mistons look like the largely amateurish effort it is. (2)

***



CINEMA: High-Rise (Ben Wheatley, 2015) – Wheatley's supreme visual sense, gift for juxtaposition and staggering use of sound can't rescue Amy Jump's aloof, incoherent script, which is neither a capitalist critique nor a study of man: just a senseless, pointless wallow in moral and material degradation. The first 40 and the final two minutes are quite good, the rest is just extremely boring. Watch Skyscraper Souls instead. Or Attack the Block. (2)

***

BOOKS



The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (2004) – An astounding, chilling, completely believable piece of alternate history, with heroic aviator and fascist sympathiser Charles Lindbergh ascending to the US presidency in 1940 and agreeing an ‘understanding’ with Adolf Hitler. Against the slow-burn of burgeoning anti-semitism, the young Roth comes of age, while the older brother he idolises is co-opted by the establishment, his cousin is crippled by war and his parents are torn between pragmatism and self-respect. Occasionally the context that makes it so credible can drag, as you slog through the names and roles of those on opposing sides of the debate, but Roth’s gift for phrasing, impeccable personalisation of the narrative and jolting handbrake turns are beguiling to behold, while the unpredictable explosions of futile violence peppering the work are no mere plot devices, but rich manifestations of the irony central to Roth’s worldview. It's also the perfect time to read the book, as another racist demagogue approaches the White House on a wave of public euphoria. (4)



The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta (2011) – When millions of people simply disappear in the Sudden Departure, the residents of a small American town try to come to terms with their losses, some looking for love, some going off the rails, others seeking answers or solace as they join cults like the Guilty Remnant or Holy Wayne’s Church of the Healing Hug. Perrotta’s novel, since adapted as an HBO mini-series, is very readable, excellently plotted and frequently moving, with memorable, sometimes surprising characterisations and a few superb vignettes, but its sense of humour is bafflingly blunt and broad considering it’s from the writer of the intensely funny Election, while the suburban backgrounds and preoccupations of its characters can be irritating and trivial, even as Perrotta uses them as a subversive counterpoint. Studying a major catastrophe on such a small-scale is a smart juxtaposition (Roth did much the same in The Plot Against America, above) but a re-draft cutting out some of the clichéd language and putting in a few decent jokes would have kicked this up a level. (3)



Scoop by Evelyn Waugh (1938) – A smug, underwhelming comic novel about journalism, with nature correspondent William Boot erroneously sent to cover a pre-war conflict that could have global ramifications. It's too much a self-satisfied hymn to language, with innumerable thin characters about whom it's difficult to care anything at all, though there are some funny passages, particularly in the mid-section. (2.5)



Hatchet Job by Mark Kermode (2013) – A lively, self-justifying polemic that's at its best when articulating its author's sheer love of film, but is ultimately both repetitive and shapeless, hopping from one subject to the next with a curious lack of narrative clarity, and grating when he ill-advisedly strains for comic effect. (2.5)



Duel in the Sun by Niven Busch (1944) – I read Busch's 1948 book, The Furies, last year and was impressed by his economic prose, sharp, shrewd characterisation and fatalistic plotting born of a bracing, cynical and deeply Freudian view of humanity - virtues familiar to anyone who's come across his peak-era screenwriting. A shame, then, that his earlier bestseller, Duel in the Sun, seems to be mostly descriptions of horses. The story sees fiery 'half breed' Pearl Chavez welcomed into the bosom of the powerful McCanles family, where her overpowering sexual connection to the nasty, feminine Lewt turns brother against brother, and unsurprisingly leads to cold-blooded murder. This one's a real slog, though, full of dislikeable characters, dense phrasing and tedious specifics relating to the minutiae of Western life, creating not a richly-textured evocation of a vanished world, more a shopping list of items seen on various ranches. Afterwards, you'll feel like a bath and probably something with which to prop open your eyes. Incidentally, the film adaptation (nicknamed 'Lust in the Dust') became one of the biggest hits of the decade, and gave Lillian Gish one of her few notable sound roles, as the gentle but opinionated Mrs McCanles, pickled by drink but still sure she knows what's best for her sons. (2)

***

TV



The Thick of It (2005-7) – Season 1 is an unpolished gem, Season 2 the programme at its darkest - the 'special needs' episode so extravagantly cynical and cruel that you may temporarily forget to breathe – and the specials slightly compromised by circumstance but a convincing, non-stop parade of back-stabbing, finagling and Machiavellian intrigue. At the centre of it all is Capaldi's exquisite, hard, impeccably nuanced performance, which could so easily have been cartoonish, but never is. Each of these early episodes is magnificent to some degree, though even better was to come. (4/4/3.5/3.5)



Elementary: Season 1 (2012-3) – One of the biggest TV-themed backtracks in recent memory concerned Elementary, the Conan Doyle update that followed lukewarm on the heels of BBC's Sherlock, sending Holmes to present-day New York and giving him an American, female Watson (Lucy Liu), a move that was ridiculed by everybody with access to a computer, telephone or broadcasting station. Imagine their surprise when it turned out to be really quite good. This first season takes a while to hit its stride, but the self-contained mysteries become increasingly neat and the warm, evolving friendship between recovering heroin addict Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) and his sober companion (Liu) increasingly moving, helped by a pair of largely irresistible performances. Miller is occasionally gimmicky, Liu sometimes less than assured uttering putdowns, but mostly their story of mutual reliance and growing respect is persuasive and affecting, augmented by Miller's often intense emoting and Liu's innate implacability. The guest stars are largely a disappointing bunch (the first one I recognised was Vinnie Jones, and he couldn't act his way out of a Premier League midfield), though towards the end F. Murray Abraham adds some big-pored class to proceedings, a coup that augurs well for Season 2. I'm in two minds about the double-length final episode, with its ambitious reveal, but it certainly wasn't dull. And while the programme's look is rather too gory and murky for my tastes, the way it treats Holmes, his struggles and his addictions manage to warp Conan Doyle's creation without losing sight of who and what he is. A flawed but compelling first season. I'll be back for more. (3)



Harry Hill's TV Burp Gold (2008) – Between it being a late-night cult favourite and a dying staple of Saturday afternoon TV, this show managed to occupy a cherished place in the country's affections whilst also being pretty good. This first DVD captures that period of peak popularity, and while the programme had lost any teeth it had ever had and begun to lean on formula, it's still a diverting watch with a handful of massive laughs. "Marlon. Lanky Marlon." (3)

***

LIVE


(c) Christie Goodwin/Royal Albert Hall

CHVRCHES at the Royal Albert Hall (31 March 2016) - One of the best gigs I've seen at the Hall in my ongoing capacity as resident PR weasel: an irresistible collision of loud, satiating synth pop (in a Scottish accent), endearingly irrelevant between-songs verbiage and as much hopping, twirling and attention-swallowing stagecraft as you could possibly want. An intense, intensely enjoyable and extraordinarily cathartic experience. (4)


Probably the least interest thing in the exhibition... but the only picture I can find.

States of Mind: Tracing the Edges of Consciousness (Wellcome Collection) - This study of the fringes of the mind begins simply enough, with paintings representing synaesthesia and photos attempting to capture dreams, then becomes increasingly unsettling as it journeys through somnambulism, resistance to anaesthesia, temporary paralysis and memory disorders, augmented by eerie soundscapes and alarming, atmospheric installations. If you want to be terrified by reality, I would highly recommend going. (3.5)

***

Thanks for reading.

Review of 2015: Part 3 - Books (and a tiny bit of TV)

I've been trying to read a book a week. Here's how I got on. (My other reviews of the year, concerning movies and live shows are up already.)

Fiction:



For me, this was a year dominated by four writers, but really it was the year of Vonnegut. The year that I found a writer who moved me, made me think, and made me howl with laughter. Who seemed to be writing just for me. And who taught me that the only person you should write like is yourself (I finished my first book this year) and who was responsible for, erm, nine of the 47 books I've read. (I could still make it to 52.)

Of Vonnegut's works, Slaughterhouse Five is the obvious stand-out - the book that drew most memorably on his own experiences, and made his name - but the polemically dazzling God Bless You, Mr Rosewater is a withering critique of capitalism (with a distinctly sentimental side), and in Mother Night he mines race hate for all the black comedy he can find, with dangerously funny results.



My favourite book of the year, though, was Philip Roth's American Pastoral, a masterwork, spun with bravura style, that deals with immigrant identity, the unknowability of everyone, the disappointments of adulthood and the utter chaos of existence, as a legendary high school sports star turned upstanding citizen has his life exploded by an unexpected act of violence. It is his daughter “who transports him out of the longed for American pastoral and into everything that is its antithesis and its enemy, into the fury, the violence, and the desperation of the counter-pastoral — into the indigenous American berserk", as Roth unforgettably characterises it. The Human Stain, by the same author, isn't far behind.



The third author who took up quite a bit of my time this year was John Steinbeck, whose trilogy of books about the Californian labour struggle in the 1930s are absolutely astounding. Everyone knows about the trim, simple Of Mice and Men, and the sprawling, experimental Grapes of Wrath, but prior to those he wrote a book every bit as good: In Dubious Battle: a muddy, hungry, violent chronicle of a strike, a neglected classic apparently too abrasive, gloomy and superficially cynical to have ever found much of an audience.

And then there was Jane Austen, whose escapist but often weighty works allowed me to pass many a contented hour. I've read Pride and Prejudice and have Northanger Abbey left to read - of the others, it was Persuasion that left the greatest impact on me. Written as Austen was ailing (and so facing a severe race against time), it seems like the articulation of her entire worldview, albeit within the boundaries of a conventional romance.


The yawn also rises.

Other highlights of the year were Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies, Truman Capote's legendary In Cold Blood (which falls somewhere between fiction and non-fiction) and Breakfast at Tiffany's, and Donna Tartt's The Secret History. The worst novel I read was Hemingway's tedious, self-indulgent early work, The Sun Also Rises: a great title and a singular style in search of anything like a story.

Non-Fiction:



I tend to read quite a lot of books about movies (my 48th book, in which I'm currently engrossed, is about Peter Lorre), and this year was no different. Of the biographies, David Stenn's excellent, meticulously-researched Jean Harlow book, Bombshell, was by far the best, though Charles Affron's work on Lillian Gish, and the actress's own memoir - The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me - are well worth seeking out if you're a fan, as I am (bit of a long shot). The same can't be said of the Warren William and William Haines books I read, since William enjoyed an almost uniquely dull existence, while Haines's move away from Hollywood and into interior decorating really doesn't make for the most thrilling reading.

Far better were Victor S. Navasky's cool, forensic audit of the Hollywood witchhunt, Naming Names, and the non-fiction novel, Tinseltown, which paints an unforgettable portrait of the movie community in the 1920s and may just have solved the murder of top director, William Desmond Taylor.



Besides Gish, the deceased lady I'm most interested in (not romantically) is the tragic British songstress Sandy Denny, and I read two books about her as well. Neither of them were all that great, unlike this blog I wrote about her, which is the most-read thing on here this year. Peter Hitchens bought the Mick Houghton book from me on Amazon, which was odd.

Away from the arts, I enjoyed four books by Jon Ronson, of which his latest - So You've Been Publicly Shamed - was in many ways the most serious and frightening, as well as the most coherent and complete. There were two Ben Macintyre books (Operation Mincemeat was great fun), two about the Mitford sisters, a horrible, compulsively-readable true crime tale (True Story by Michael Finkel), and Bridget Christie's utterly charming concoction, A Book for Her, which discusses feminism, comedy and campaigning. She is wonderful.

***

TV:


Sexy brilliant actor man.

I accidentally moved into a flat without a TV aerial, so everything I saw was on iPlayer or DVD. A Moon for the Misbegotten, a 1975 TV movie based on Eugene O'Neill's play and starring Jason Robards, was head and shoulders above the rest. The BBC's adaptation of Wolf Hall had its flaws, but also the greatest performance of this and perhaps any other year, in Mark Rylance's Thomas Cromwell. By contrast, even the acting powers of Ben Whishaw couldn't save London Spy, which relinquished its curious hold on the audience after three interesting episodes, and fell down the toilet. The Apprentice was great, especially the interview round, but Jack Dee's baffling descent into unfunniness proceeded to sink You're Fired without trace. Meanwhile, Adam Curtis's iPlayer exclusive, Bitter Lake, did something utterly new. And the best sitcom of the modern era, Parks and Recreation, came to a close, with something between a bang and a whimper.

***

Thanks for reading, and for all the comments and support this year. :-)