Top 10 Books of 2014

Top fiction and non fiction from 2014.

Despite a lot of my reading being for uni during the year I seem to still have managed a lot of reading for pleasure too, although it has to be said I struggled more to get a top 10 for each genre, more than 5 was easy but getting to 10 less so.

These are simply in alphabetical order and nothing more - simply the best books I have read this year.

Fiction:

• Song for Issy Bradley - Carys Bray
• A Place Called Winter - Patrick Gale
• Ishmael's Oranges - Claire Hajaj
• Wars of the Roses: Trinity - Conn Iggulden
• The Dead Lake - Hamid Ismaliov
• Strange Weather in Tokyo - Hiromi Kawakami
• A Tale for the Time Being - Ruth Oyezeki
• Unspeakable - Abbie Rushton
• Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan
• Mrs Hemingway - Naomi Woods

In this we have 2 books not out until 2015, 2 in translation and one sequel that was easily as good as the first!

Non-fiction

• The Fateful Year: 1914 - Mark Bostridge
• Europe in the Looking Glass - Robert Byron
• Bitter Lemons - Lawrence Durrell
• How to Be a Heroine - Samantha Ellis
• Apple of My Eye - Helene Hanff
• H is for Hawk - Helen Macdonald
• My Salinger Year - Joanna Smith Rakoff
• The Boy in the Top Knot - Sathnam Sanghera
• Without Reservations - Alice Steinbach
• Gin, Glorious Gin - Olivia Williams

From this list it seems that travel writing is my top genre of 2014!

Here's to another year of reading in 2015, although studying continues and will involved a 15000 word dissertation so who knows how much I'll read for pleasure.  I do have a 2 week beach holiday planned which will mean at least a dozen books...!

Top Ten Theatre of 2014

That Time of the Year Again

In a year where I have seen 36 pieces of theatre live and 4 broadcast as live plays narrowing down to just five was impossible and even now I think that my frequent companion, Rebecca, will disagree with my rankings at the very least.

I have had several outings to the theatre with my nephew and while all of the productions we saw together were magical this year they haven't made the top 10 but rest assured theatre aimed at the under 10s is excellent and I had a lot of fun watching them and sharing my love of live theatre with him.

So with no further ado my top 10 are:

1. Lord of the Flies
2. Red Velvet
3. 'Tis Pity She's a Whore
4. To Kill a Mockingbird
5. My Night With Reg
6. The Scottsboro Boys
7. Oh! What a Lovely War
8. Another Country
9. A Bunch of Amateurs
10. Pitcairn

A real mixture of genres here and it was very hard to narrow it down to just 10, so many plays nearly made the grade.  I shan't list my least favourite plays - I think the reviews speak for themselves!

As I already have my first trip of 2015 planned for January 3rd I think it is fair to say that 2015 will also be theatre filled!

Around the world in six books

Considering the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2014.

For the past few years I've been reading a lot of literature in translation and also taking part in the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, last year I took part in a Readers' Day based on the prize but this year got a little more glitzy!

One of the reading groups I belong to was approached by The Booktrust and asked to read the six shortlisted titles and then answer some questions on each one. These answers were then collated in to two posts on the prize website. These can be found here and here.

The six books were:

• A Meal in Winter by Hubert Mangarelli, trans. Sam Taylor
• Revenge by Yoko Ogawa, trans. Stephen Snyder
• The Iraqi Christ by Hasan Blassim, trans. Jonathan Wright
• A Man in Love by Karl Ove Knausgaard, trans. Don Bartlett
• The Mussel Feast by Birgit Venderbeke, trans. Jamie Bulloch
• Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami, trans. Allison Markin Powell

All were interesting reads but my favourite was Strange Weather in Tokyo and this is a book I've already recommended to lots of other readers both at work and home.

On the prize ceremony night three of us made it to the Royal Institute of Architects for the main event and it was a lovely evening complete with champagne and canapes themed to the countries represented on the short list.

The chair of the judges, Boyd Tonkin, gave a brilliant speech debunking the myth that 'no one reads books in translation' - on the day the prize was awarded the top 3 bestselling fiction titles were translations as was the bestselling non fiction book!

The winner on the night was The Iraqi Christ which was my least favourite of the six titles but the author and translators were so nice that I can't be too upset!  What was nice is that for the first time in the history of the prize a special mention was given to a book (The Mussel Feast) and this was my second favourite book from one of my favourite publishers.

I love being a part of this prize but have everything crossed that in 2015 a woman will finally win!

Many thanks to Booktrust and The Writers Centre Norwich for letting me be a part of this shadowing group, but again this blog is fully independent and was not a condition of taking part.

No Wellies Needed

Norwich Film Festival. Odeon Cinema, Norwich. May 2014.

After our recent trip to Sundance London we had another chance to see films as part of a festival at the homegrown Norwich Film Festival.  Once more we decided to focus on the Short Film programme and managed to get to three of the four evening events.

First up we saw the BAFTA shorts - all of the films nominated at the main film award earlier in the year.  This screening comprised of seven films shown in two hours and surprisingly was my least favourite event.

The films were all technically good (and I'm told that two even were played as part of the 2013 Norwich Film Festival) but with the exception of Island Queen  none of them particularly wowed me. I think that after the variety of Sundance these all seemed too professional and polished and often too long.  I can't quite explain it in a way but I just preferred the shorter, rougher films.

Luckily the other two screenings were more like this, and while (obviously) I didn't like all of the 27 films shown they were much more to my taste comprising a mix of 1 minute films, student projects, animations and some professional films.

My overall favourite films were all animations: The Gravedigger's Tale , Une Aventure d'Escargots and Angels and Ghosts but the A Day in the Life of a Bathroom Mirror  was very funny as was Liars and several others were very moving.

I'm not a huge fan of films generally but 'shorts' are really growing on me and I'm looking forward to next year's festival already.

(ps - all of the links this time are 'worksafe')

Theatre 2014: Review One

A Christmas Package, The Blakeney Players, Blakeney. January 2014.

As ever this review cannot be totally impartial as I do know one of the cast.

Wow - what a start to 2014's theatre!

The opening number of this winter's show from the talented Blakeney Players put a lot of professional theatre to shame with the timing and choreography. Apart from at the ballet I don't know that I saw a better dance routine in 2013.

The story as ever is thin but that isn't the point of the play at all, it is about having fun - both for the cast and the audience - and I think that yesterday that was the case completely.  In 90 minutes we moved from dance routines to opera via pop songs and Punch and Judy. The action went from London to Moscow via Paris and Venice and Thunderbird 2 cooked the Christmas turkey in a very clever piece of staging.

The play also had the scariest scene I have ever seen on stage during a musical number where all the female case wore Olivia Newton-John masks and the men John Travolta ones - the result was scarier than any monster Doctor Who have come up with, including the Weeping Angels or the kid in a gas mask...

The scenery wobbled, the jokes were dreadful but as ever the enthusiasm made up for it all. One of the funniest things I've seen since their last play - I already can't wait for the summer show!

some of the cast - photo from the EDP website.