Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson in The Light House
Victoria Meadows standing in front of a Rocketman Display
Joaquin Phoenix in Joker
Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems
Matt Damon and Christian Bale in Ford V Ferrari
I only read 17 books in 2019. Short of my goal, but most of what I read was challenging and on the longish side. I vow to read more this year. My goal is 36. I’ve already read four, so I am on track.
Here are my top 10 books for 2019:
Some of these books I have been wanting to read all my life but never got around to, like Look Homeward Angel, which inspired a trip to Aheville NC,and Ulysses which was I must say the most challenging of all. Love in Time of Cholera was a pure pleasure to read. Beloved was Toni Morrison’s masterpiece. So sad we lost her last year. Cities of the Plain completed the Border Trilogy. I try to read at least one Cormac McCarthy book each year. Terrific writer! Quichotte by Salman Rushdie was was a pleasant surprise. First one of his I’ve read in a while. I remember reading Satanic Verses when it first came out and created such a stir. The Big Sleep was pure pleasure. If you have never read anything Heinrich Boll, I highly recommend him to you. One of my favorites for a long time. The Clown is a good one! Dream of Fair to Middling Women was Samuel Beckett’s first novel and was not published during his lifetime. It is very instructive to read it and see some of the characters and themes introduced early on that we see later in more mature works. Highly entertaining. And, finally, Will in the World. I learned so much about William Shakespeare and Elizabethan England reading this book.
2018 was a pretty good year for films. I had a hard time picking my top 10, but I didn’t have a hard time picking my top 3. They are as follows:
“Got ya for the Greek, Lefthander. Two witnesses.”
“Knew I’d never get t’ be twenty-one anyhow.”
Have you noticed that Amsterdam’s concentric canals resemble the circles of hell? The middle-class hell, of course, peopled with bad dreams. When one comes from the outside, as one gradually goes through those circles, life – and hence its crimes – becomes denser, darker. Here we are in the last circle.
Some cats just swing that way…
“Standing amid the tan, excited post-Christmas crowd at the Southwest Florida Regional Airport, Rabbit Angstrom has a funny sudden feeling that what he has come to meet, what’s floating in unseen about to land, is not his son Nelson and daughter-in-law Pru and their two children but something more ominous and intimately his: his own death, shaped vaguely like an airplane.”
The dome of the moon rose out of the ground white and frat and membranous.
Anyone want to talk about any of these books I would be happy to discuss. Your comments are welcome. Each book was special in its own way and I would be hard pressed to say which one I like the best.
I read 34 books in 2017. Short of my goal of 50. This year I set my goal at 48 and will up my game.
Of the 34 books I read here are my top 10 favorites:
The God of Small Things is by far my favorite book of the year.
What are some of yours?
2017 was a pretty good year for the movies. What I liked was the movies I liked were spread out pretty evenly throughout the year. Although, I did have to play catch up at the beginning of this year (2018) to see all the movies I wanted and needed to see.
My criteria for making the top 10 list were that first of all I had to actually see the film, secondly I had to really really like the film. It had to resonate with me. From there I looked at acting, writing, directing, cinematography, originality, story, thought provoking ideas, and technical aspects.
Here, then is my list of the top 10 movies for 2017.
Other films I liked but didn’t make the cut:
1.
Here’s looking at you kid.
2.
Blessed be he whose blood and judgement is so well commingled that he is not a pipe for fortune’s fingers to play what stop she pleases.
3.
May the devil cut off the toes of our foes that we may know them by their limping.
4.
Here’s to plain speaking and clear understanding.
5.
He who has dined with his friends but once knows what it’s like to be Caesar!
6.
To the constitution of the United States and confusion to its enemies.
7.
Here’s to wives and girl friends. May they never meet!
8.
She was only a grave digger’s daughter but you should have seen her under the sod.
9.
May you be in Heaven fifteen minutes before the devil knows you are dead.
10.
Cheers! Down the hatch mate!
Man in his pajama at China Star in Louisville, Kentucky
Ghost Dog 