Why I loved those 20 books from 2023 - part one!

 

Why that Top 20?

It occurred to me yesterday that it was all well and good letting everyone know what my top reads were but perhaps I should say why I loved them...

Non Fiction:

One Hundred Saturdays  - this was a completely new to me story about both WW2 and Rhodes (an island that is always going to be very special to me) and it has made me really want to go back and to explore this new history. It also reminded me of Louis de Bernieres Birds without Wings in that there weren't as many differences between the Turks/Ottomans and Greeks as we think. Review for this book here.

Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad - another WW2 story but fascinating to read of the parallels between Hitler and Stalin's treatment of people. I knew some of the stories but again there was a lot of new information - and it tied in quite nicely with the novel The Half Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley which just missed out on being one of my top 10 fiction books of the year.

The Dictionary People - a recent read and a fascinating insight into how the OED was one of the first crowd sourced projects - review here.

All the Beauty in the World - this is the biography of a museum guard at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. It combines personal history, history of art and quirky tales from the museum - including sock allowances!

Venice - after visiting Venice, and falling in love with the city, I've been reading lots of books about La Serenissima. Some have been histories and others personal reflections on the place but there was just something beautiful about this book of one man's visits to the city and the small things he notices while there.

The Six - not quite so many books about space crossed my path this year but this was a stand out as it is the story of the first six female astronauts picked at the start of the Space Shuttle era. It contained biographies of the women and details of their space flights and it was great to read of this era of space travel from a female perspective.

Femina - after reading For Thy Great Pain... at the end of 2022 I was keen to read more about women from further back in history and this book was wonderful to dip in and out of as women were put back into the narrative.

The Diary Keepers - after reading Bart van Es' The Cut Out Girl and learning more about the Netherland's less glorious WW2 history this was a fascinating collection of diary excerpts covering the whole political spectrum of life in occupied Holland. My thoughts from earlier in the year. 

Portable Magic - a book about the history of books by an author I really like, not much more to say really except that it really increased my list of books I want to read at some point!

Letter From New York - I've been a fan of Hanff for years but didn't know about this gem until it was republished this year. It is a more cosy, intimate, version of Letters from America by Alistair Cook and focusses very much on Hanff's life in New York before it was cleaned up. She has a unique writing style and I am sad that I have now read everything that she published in book form.

Review of the year part 3

 

Top Kidlit & YA books read in 2021

Despite everything that was thrown at us all in 2021 Kentishbookboy and I have continued to share books with each other and there's nothing more I like than getting a message from him (or his mum) saying how much they love a book, and although only a couple of shared reads have made my final top 10 all of the books he suggested were great and I think that we are living in another golden age of children's literature.

The books that made my list in alphabetical order are:

• Medusa by Jessie Burton
• Darwin's Dragons by Lindsay Galvin
• Julia and the Shark by Kiran Millwood Hargreve & Tom de Freston
• How to Be Brave by Daisy May Johnson
• Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Melinda Lo
• The Swallows' Flight by Hilary McKay
• Wishyouwas by Alexandra Page
• Arctic Star by Tom Palmer
• Swarm Rising by Tim Peake & Steve Cole
• Amarantha by Elena Traina

Review of the year part 2

 

Top Non-Fiction read in 2021

As the New Year Bank Holiday is three days long this year I feel fully justified in spreading my 'best of the year' lists over three days too!

Today non-fiction books take centre stage, I wasn't always in the mood for fiction during 2021 and thanks to the great non-fiction out there I never quite lost the reading mo-jo. In a year that was so strange, and with so little travel possible, I definitely roamed the world via the written word.

In alphabetical order my top reads were:

• Come Fly the World by Julia Cooke
• One Woman's Year by Stella Martin Currey
• The Stubborn Light of the Things by Melissa Harrison
• Minarets in the Mountains by Tharik Hussain
• Burning the Books by Richard Ovenden
• Light Rain Sometimes Falls by Lev Parikian
• Slow Road to San Francisco by David Reynolds
• The Lost Cafe Schindler by Meriel Schindler
• Hidden Hands by Mary Wellesley
• Freedom by Lea Ypi

Review of the year part 1

 

Top 10 fiction novels read in 2021

Looking back on my reading diary for 2021 I had a better year of books than I first thought, and indeed I couldn't narrow it down to just 10 books so I am creating 3 lists this year - one for fiction, one for non-fiction and one for children's/YA books.

I did completed two of my own challenges, reading all of the 2021 World Book Night titles and then reading all of the books long listed for the 2021 Wainwright Prize. I also got better at abandoning books - actually abandoning them rather than kidding myself that I'd come back to them!

I was also pleased to see that 60% of the books read were by women and that I read more than 2 translated titles a month.

Anyhow, in alphabetical order, here are my top 10 fiction reads from this year:

• Civilisations by Laurent Binet (translated from the French by Sam Taylor)
• Which Way? by Theodora Benson
• The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
• The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante (translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein)
• The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield
• The Island of Trees by Elif Shafak
• Kololo Hill by Neema Shah
• O, The Brave Music by Dorothy Evelyn Smith
• Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
• Still Life by Sarah Winman

Theatre of the Year 2016 - Good and Bad!

Top and Bottom of the year.

In 2016 I saw 38 plays.  It should have been 41 but for the being poorly scrubbed three off of my calendar.  I'll never know if Rattigan's Ross, First Light or Father Comes Home From the Wars would have made my top ten - from reading the plays I feel that First Light may have done but as this was a new play for 2016 I don't rule out the chance of a revival...

Let's start with the duds of 2016, not too many of these but they really were stinkers.

•  Breakfast at Tiffany's heads the pack here.  Way to ruin a good film and a good book  in one hit.  The cat however was amazing!
• Doctor Faustus was the other play I really, really disliked this year, although in its favour it started early and was short!

There were others that I found unmemorable but these were the two that I actually regret spending money on. The outings themselves were nice, and for one of them it was great to catch up with The Upstartwren but the shows themselves were dire.

Now for the nicer part. My top shows of the year, in no particular order:

• Lawrence After Arabia - not as deep and detailed as Rattigan by any means but a play that left me curious and wanting to find out more about Lawrence and George Bernard Shaw.

• Ellen Terry with Eileen Atkins - this fitted in so well with my studies and the research I'd undertaken into Terry that it was a delight, and Atkins gave a tour de force performance.

• Pride and Prejudice - not a book I'd read before seeing the play but the condensed version and retention of so many of the lines made this a delight to watch (and I've since read and loved the book).

• Two Gentlemen of Verona - so much of this production could have made it unbearable but in the end it was very cleverly handled and some of the terrible misogyny mitigated by the actions of the female characters. I'm not sure I'd like all of my Shakespeare updated like this but for me this was a delight.

• The Boys in the Band - a perfect comedy in so many ways but also a deeply dark and disturbing play. Not a weak link in the cast and made up for the dreaded words "rail replacement bus."

• Madama Butterfly - I'm not 100% certain that updating of the opera by 50 years worked or was needed but once I'd got over this it was a sublime evening at the theatre.

• Jess and Joe - months after seeing this I can still close my eyes and replay much of this short, perfect, two-hander. I really hope that it is rewarded at award time as it was just brilliant.

• Merchant of Venice - this comes close to being my favourite play of 2016 as well as 2015. A case where rewatching a great peice of theatre was as good the 2nd time.  The ending still broke me.

Plays that nearly made this list were Pericles and The Tempest from the Sam Wanamaker Theatre at the start of the year (but *not* Cymbeline!) and also Boys will Be Boys.

What I find interesting is that in a year where I went to the Globe so little 3 of their productions are still in my top lists with another 2 only just missing out...

It has been harder to pick my best of lists this year, I don't know if I am getting harder to please or if I just didn't see the right shows... apart from the two stinkers I pretty much enjoyed everything, or parts of everything, when I saw it - less just stands out now at the end of the year.  I'm looking forward to seeing what 2017 brings.

Box Office Top 10 (or 11)

My favourite theatre 2015.

In 2015 I made 39 trips to the theatre and saw 37 plays, and it seems that this year there were a lot more that I either didn’t enjoy or felt pretty flat about.  

Unlike most reviewers I think that the Cumberbatch Hamlet and the Branagh A Winter’s Tale were two of the biggest disappointments – although to be fair the big named starts (Dame Judi Dench and Benedict Cumberbatch) were both excellent in their roles, shame about the rest of the productions!

• Assassins – I’ve never been so freaked out (in a good way) by a production before!

• Edward Scissorhands (ballet) – this was pure frothy fun and a treat from start to finish.

• Farinelli and the King – Mark Rylance (and the Sam Wanamaker Theatre) made this slight play punch well above its station for me.

• Romeo and Juliet (ballet) – I studied and wrote about this ballet and the chance to see it at the Royal Opera House was the icing on the cake.

• Measure for Measure – a real problem play on reading and studying but this clever production at the Globe ironed them out for me and I really enjoyed this.

• Merchant of Venice – a hard play to pull off in a post-Shoah world but I think this production managed it wonderfully, the ending especially was very moving.

• The Bakkhai - I love Greek drama (2016 sees the return of the Cambridge Greek plays and seeing them in the original language!) and I thought this was a clever way to keep very true to the original while updating slightly.  I didn't have the problem with the Chorus that many did.

• Shakespeare in Love – I wasn’t sure, but Shakespearean adaptations formed a large part of my spring studies and as I prefer theatre to film I treated myself and don’t regret a penny!

• Book of Mormon – I knew nothing about this going in except that it was hugely hyped and quite hard to get seats. It might be short but it is very funny – if you can get over the blasphemy, rude language and scatological humour, which I can!

• Richard II – sneaking in at number 10 is my 3^rd Globe production (4^th if you count Farinelli). It wouldn’t have made it from the viewing early in the run, but it changed so much during the run that it was a different beast by the last night and a play I can’t wait to own on DVD.

An honourable mention has to also go to the Simon and Garfunkel Story which wasn't a play, a concert or a musical in the traditional sense but was a brilliant evening and also introduced me to new songs by the duo - something I was surprised by as I've been a fan for over 30 years.

Here's hoping that 2016 is a good theatrical year, I've already got 13 plays booked for the first 3 months of the year and this is before a lot of the Shakespeare productions get announced. 2016 will be big for the Bard as it marks 400 years since his death, and should also be big for me as I will finish my MA (and have more time for the theatre...!)

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!

Theatre 2014: Review Thirty-One

To Kill a Mockingbird, Theatre Royal, Norwich. September 2014.

I ran out of time to see this at the Open Air Theatre both last summer and this so I was very pleased to read it was coming to Norwich and that some colleagues were as keen as me to see it.

From the moment the actors appeared on the stage to the moment the curtain fell I was transfixed and I was living in 1930s America with the cast.

Rather than turning the book into a straight play and adding too much new dialogue to a classic story the cast read from the novel and various scenes are then acted out, I'm not familiar enough with the text to know if this was the original dialogue but for me it worked absolutely.

The big courtroom scene blew me away totally and even though I knew how it ended I was swept away totally and really couldn't believe that a anyone would have reached the verdict reached.  I loved the playing of the scene to the audience as well, making us the jury worked brilliantly.

The whole production was incredibly strong, with a very small part of me finding the young actor playing Jem to be a little weaker than the rest but apart from that the staging, the music and the who thing were just fantastic.

By the end I had a definite lump in my throat (as did my companions) and this play has jumped right up towards the tops of my favourite plays of the year.