2009 - A quick review of my year

I wasn't sure whether to bother with this having published my books of the decade last week but this blog has always included more than the written word so I hope you'll indulge me a little further. I was pleased to be able to continue reviewing generally, what with the arrival of baby No.2 into our lives, and only hope the quality of what I have to say hasn't dipped too dramatically. I'll try to keep the reviews coming as quick as I can next year but if there's a bit of a pause in between posts you'll know why.

Books

You already know that I picked Lark and Termite as my novel of the year (other notables include Simon Mawer's The Glass Room, Stefan Zweig's Beware Of Pity and Fred Wander's The Seventh Well) so I'll draw your attention to some short and non-fiction if I may.

Plenty of other bloggers as well as the mainstream press have been queueing up to praise David Vann's collection of stories, Legend Of A Suicide. It is a book which almost defies categorisation and indeed has been presented differently here from the US (where each section is numbered as you might chapters in a novel rather than headed with story titles as it is in the UK). A fictional exploration of his father's own suicide, the stories are like broken fragments that reflect something unique about the experience. The facts change in each story but remain linked by their common themes and inspiration. The book is dominated by its central tale which makes the book worth buying on its own; a thrilling and horrific short that has a twist in the middle that will take your breath away.

Another collection of shorts is worthy of a mention firstly because of its beautiful production. Twenty-six separately bound booklets brought together in a box, An A-Z Of Possible Worlds by A C Tillyer is the kind of book you wish someone would give you for Christmas. Inspired by her own repetitive commuter journeys Tillyer has created a series of journeys into the mind, each to a separate world where you might find anything from archaeologists to strippers as expressions of power, repression or rebellion. I was surprised by how powerful the collection became as I worked my way through from A-Z and that is a testament to the writing. It is also worth noting that the book is published by new independent Roast Books

I really should read more non-fiction but one of the consolations of my low reading rate is that my hit-rate is pretty much 100%. Philip Hoare is one of those writers like Geoff Dyer who you should keep an eye on; always be ready to read whatever they write, no matter how far away from your normal remit or pattern that might be. Hoare's latest, Leviathan or the Whale is a genre defying biography of Earth's largest creature and Hoare's lifelong obsession. Informative, enlightening and personal, you'll have huge respect and admiration for the animal at the end if you haven't already. It is also a valuable companion to Melville's Moby-Dick which is its own reference material I know but Hoare's background on the man himself as well as the time he was writing in add more flesh onto that considerable beast.

I've also begun to get a handle on finding those neglected classics to accompany the glut of new titles published each month. The trick of course is to discover the right publishers and let them do the hard work for you. Pushkin Press, Oneworld Classics and New York Review Books Classics have been great guides so far and I look forward to latching onto some more in the year ahead (please feel free to tell me of more in the comments section below).

Music

I wish I'd been able to listen to more music this year. I don't know why, but finding the time to enjoy music has become harder and harder, actually I do know why - pesky kids. It may be just as well however because trying to pick a favourite album has had me somewhat stumped. If you were to force me to name just one then I'd have to mention the album that I have come back to more than any other, the stunningly titled 'Album' by Girls. The story behind singer Christopher Owens is almost to extraordinary to ignore (read my original review for details) but the music on the album is joyous, infectious and unpolished.

What I'd rather do though is pick a few tracks from some of my favourite albums as a kind of Just William's 2009 EP (upload problems are the reason for the videos). Enjoy.

Two Weeks by Grizzly Bear from Veckatimest

White Blank Page by Mumford & Sons from Sigh No More

Laura by Girls from Album

Keep The Streets Empty by Fever Ray from Fever Ray

Film

It was released right at the start of the year and remains the film that made the biggest impact on me at the very end. Darren Aranovsky's film was a comeback for him as much as its star in my eyes and the unflinching honesty of this portrayal of a former wrestler's comeback makes it uncomfortable but essential viewing. We are so used to watching polished film stars being beautifully lit and shot from angles that compliment, dare I say it - enhance their features that the harsh daylight and shadow of this film, the way that every imperfection on that pummelled face and body is highlighted make it all the more extraordinary. It isn't only Mickey Rourke who allows himself to become the object of our scrutiny, Marisa Tomei is just as brave in her own performance and both are to be commended for the way they open themselves up for our perusal.

I won't bother about Theatre and Art as I've done virtually none of either. Suffice to say that theatre wise you should all come and see me in War Horse. As for Art, all I can suggest is that you give the latest installation in Tate Modern's turbine hall by Miroslaw Balka a miss. You make your way up and into the vast shipping-like container via a ramp, the light gradually disappearing inside, the sound deadened by felt-lined walls. In theory you would be tentatively feeling your way forward, afraid of colliding with others, scared of bumping into the dead end of the space, unsure of where that is. Balka hasn't taken into consideration the mobile phone however. There are two types of people: those that would turn off their mobile phone when going into a gallery/theatre etc in order to enjoy the experience and those that wouldn't even consider doing that and certainly have no worries about using them. Despite a sign saying that phones and cameras are not to be used I'd be surprised if you could find a time of day when that black space isn't being illuminated by someone taken a picture/video, texting, or simply finding there way about via their mobile phone screen. It's a shame but I'm not convinced that I'd have got an awful lot more from the installation if rules had been observed or I'd been on my own.

So, 2010, that futuristic date is suddenly upon us, and what do I hope to achieve? Well, to keep it up for one thing, but to try to find and review books from smaller publishers and more works in translation too. If you publish books like that then please get in touch, if you're a reader of this blog and would like to recommend books/publishers then you get in touch too. Happy Christmas everyone and all the best for the New Year...

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2008: Review of my Year

I'd like to start off by mentioning that this year the standard of books I have read and music I have listened to has been incredibly high. I have always been a reader of reviews in order to find new authors, or books worth reading, as well as speaking to booksellers and even the odd friend, but the risk has always been falling prey to the puff piece (a particular hazard when finding music). If reviewing is your job, a daily task, there's always the chance that through the repetition of themes and ideas, through all the mediocrity, something which is merely different or puts its head above the parapet can be elevated to the status of next big thing, album of the year, or even that dreaded word: MASTERPIECE!

What has changed all of that for me has been blogging. Through reading a wide variety of views, written in a way that tends to reveal far more of the personality, tastes and prejudices of the author and then cross referencing those recommendations, I have found my strike rate getting better and better. Add to that the increase (I hope) in my own critical faculties since I began writing my own reviews and we have the reasons why 2008 has been such an enjoyable year for me. Forget the Booker, and other prize lists, and even be wary of the paid experts. For a really good idea about what's worth reading, listening to or watching listen to the enthusiasts who bother to write their thoughts up in their spare time. Not all of them of course, some of them are rubbish.

Books

Choosing a book of the year is well nigh impossible for me this year. There are so many books I have enjoyed, been challenged by and simply in awe of. What I've decided to do is mention three books written by authors who are making themselves essential writers. The books have stayed with me through the year and share a theme; that best summarised by the famous line by William Faulkner: 'The past is never dead. It isn't even past.'

Darkmans by Nicola Barker

A book I read right at the beginning of the year and which I cannot quite shake from my head. It failed to win the Booker judges over last year but I was bowled over by its ambition. It's a big novel filled with ideas, the very text itself fractured and interrupted by the presence of the past in the form of John Scogin, court jester to Edward IV. Many characters find themselves losing control over their own actions as this malevolent spirit reaches out, a genuinely unsettling experience for the reader with some clever typography. The plot is wide ranging but as one character observes about history,'It's a fascinating business. Kind of like solving a crime. Like unravelling a mystery story. All the clues are in the text and your job is simply to sniff them out'. International rail links may not have put Ashford on the map but this grand novel by one of the this country's most exciting writers certainly deserves to.

Glister by John Burnside

A writer who deserves to be read by many, many more, Burnside's work as a poet and his recent memoir A Lie About My Father have helped to develop his fiction into something very distinctive. Glister combines the sinister menace of a fairytale with the very modern horrors of violence and murder. His vision of Innertown, a place poisoned by industry, strikes at the very heart of our fears for our environment. Haunted by a history of child murders, it is a society broken, divided and scared, through which he also latches onto our fears for and of children in a genuinely original way. His skills as a poet populate almost every page with a phrase or image that sticks in your mind and it all adds up to being a authentically frightening experience.

The Impostor by Damon Galgut

Sneaking in just before the end of the year Galgut's latest novel is a powerful work filled with symbolism and heavy with meaning. Looking to get his life going again Adam Napier retreats to his brothers rural house in the karoo to write poetry. A chance encounter with an old schoolfriend brings his past rushing back, temptation within his grasp and as his moral compass wavers he finds himself embroiled in the machinations of the new South Africa. Filled with striking imagery and evocative prose it is a short novel which punches well above its weight and marks Galgut out as a writer of extreme promise for the future.


Honourable mentions: The Story of Forgetting by Stefan Merrill Block, The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano, The Secret Scripture and A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry, Blackmoor by Edward Hogan, The Book Of Ebenezer Le Page by G B Edwards,The Cottagers by M N Klimasewiski.

Not-book-of-the-year: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I know I'm in the minority here but really, you deserve better, people.

Music

It's been a fanatastic year for music I think. Paul Weller and Nick Cave showed some of the young pretenders how it's really done. Portishead and Tricky came back as strong as ever and Elbow finally earned some recognition after 18 years of making great music together. But the best music was being made on the other side of the pond I'm afraid, whether it was the invention of young acts like MGMT and Vampire Weekend or the profusion of beautiful male harmonies and alt. folk Americana. But amongst all the fantastic music this year one album stands head and shoulders above the rest.

Dear Science, by TV On The Radio

Inventive, angry, free and funky; Brooklyn's art-rockers delivered on their earlier promise with an album of sparkling gems and no filler. I'm not a big fan of star ratings but this is what 5-stars was meant for. In fact this album deserves a Michelin star it's so rich and tasty. Music which is exciting in its combinations of musical influences, its variety on the album itself and its approaches vocally is enough to raise it above its peers, but when it actually has something to say too, then you really have something worth listening to. Sometimes an album comes along which gives all the other bands out there a real kick up the arse, and should embarrass some groups into retirement. The last one like that was OK Computer and it seems fitting that the band who paid tribute to that release with their first demo OK Calculator should have risen to take that crown.


Close, but no cigar: For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver, Sun Giant EP by Fleet Foxes, Vampire Weekend by Vampire Weekend, I could name many, many more...

Not album of the year: Anywhere I Lay My Head by Scarlett Johansson. Don't give up the day job. Even Dave Sitek couldn't save this one.

Film

I have seen far too few films this year for one reason or another so I don't feel I can really talk about my film of the year (we've joined LOVEFiLM now so perhaps next year will be better) but I enjoyed laughing away at Son Of Rambow, Knocked Up and In Bruges and was certainly electrified by Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. I thought There Will Be Blood might sneak in and steal the crown but if I had to pick one film it would be David Fincher's superb Zodiac. The recreation of the period is spot on, the performances from Jake Gyllenhall, Robert Downey Jr and Mark Ruffalo are superb and the personal investment from Fincher, who was growing up in San Francisco at the time the killings occurred, makes all the difference. His confidence to take time to tell the story may not be to all tastes but what's two and half hours between friends?

TV

2008 has been the year of the box-set for many folks. Amazon's DVD sales chart has become the subject of newspaper articles. For me, HBO continued to dominate my viewing with all five series of The Wire. Most TV programmes struggle to tell even one side of the story competently. The Wire puts them to shame by providing the most rounded portrait of a city I have ever seen. Crediting its audience with some intelligence, it never patronised; dealing with big issues and big storylines with the confidence of those who know all sides of the story. No, it's not The Sopranos, but what is?

Theatre and Art

If I haven't watched many films this year I certainly haven't seen nearly enough Theatre or Art. Having a baby does nothing for your social life. On the plus side I know all the words to all the songs on Balamory, In The Night Garden and Tikkabilla. I'm hoping next year will be different. And I hope you'll enjoy some of it with me...

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

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Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990-2005 at The National Portrait Gallery

Before you enter Annie Leibovitz's new show it is possible for everyone to see four images from her now infamous shoot with the Queen. As we stood there looking at them my wife overheard someone saying 'She looks so regal, I mean that is royalty'. They are indeed rather austere and there is a very strange quality to them; they don't look real. The Queen looks more like a waxwork placed in a dramatic setting and the lighting looks forced making the pictures look more like paintings than photographs, which may indeed be the point, but actually sucks the life out of them as portraits. Once you actually get inside the retrospective is a combination of her celebrity portraits, personal photos of family and friends (including many of her partner Susan Sontag), reportage from Sarajevo and even her first work in landscape. It is a curious mixture, and it really is mixed up. The portrait of a pregnant Demi Moore is surrounded by her reportage from Sarajevo, one of which, a striking image of an abandoned bicycle and a vicious swipe of blood, the remnants of a mortar falling, shows all too clearly this juxtaposition of life and death.

Death is obviously something which haunts this exhibition. The photographs documenting the illness and death of Susan Sontag are bound to divide people. I personally found the later ones a little ghoulish and uncomfortable, finding far more in the more relaxed pictures she had taken of them both on their travels together or simply lounging around at home or in hotels. It was Sontag who had encouraged Leibovitz to take more personal photos and it these for me which are the most interesting to look at. There isn't much to be gained from seeing the familiar pictures of celebrities from magazines blown up, although her portraits of politicians I found slightly more interesting mainly due to the benefit of hindsight. Given what we know now it's difficult not to snigger at her picture of Bill Clinton in the Oval Office perched confidently on the desk with one hand lying in his lap. The group picture of Bush's White House team (looking much younger) shows the traits they went on to exhibit during both of his terms: the reptilian smirk of Dick Cheney, the demonstrative seriousness of Condoleezza Rice and the arrogant raised eyebrow of Donald Rumsfeld, all in the one picture.

But with her pictures of friends and family there is real life and love. They are the kind of candid photos we all take but whether it's family gatherings or the informal shots of her parents on the beach or getting out of bed they show her skills at composition transferred to a more immediate form than the studio photography which dominates the rest of the show. It is a shame that for the most part these images are so small, I couldn't help but think that they would have benefited from enlarging in a way the editorial images didn't. One picture which she has taken of her mother tells a great story. Her mother was afraid of looking old whilst Leibovitz of course was unafraid of showing her exactly as she was, keen in fact to get away from the family tradition of always smiling in photos. She found herself weeping behind the camera as she shot. Her parents disliked the picture when they saw it, but I think it has the kind of honesty and affection which can make a much more compelling portrait. Just imagine if she'd been given the opportunity to take a similar photograph of The Queen.

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can you tell what it is yet?

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snow shadows

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Kenneth Branagh as Richard III

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Pool reflection in Wales

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Snowy trees in Kent

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a mermaid sleeps

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Lancashire landscape

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Free music festival, Clapham

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Alexandra Park in autumn

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reading as art

There can be no doubt that writing can be art, but how about reading?

In the latest installation at Tate Modern the artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster has given us all the opportunity to become part of the installation. As you enter the Tate the writing on the wall tells you the set up.

It has been raining for years now, not a day, not an hour without rain. This continual watering has had a strange effect on urban sculptures. They have started to grow like strange tropical plants, and become even more monumental. To stop this growth it has been decided to store them inside,among the hundreds of bunkbeds which, night and day, receive refugees from the rain...Turbine Hall/2058/London

Behind a multicoloured plastic curtain, like those in an industrial refrigerator a refuge has been created. Ranks of blue and yellow bunk beds share the space with vast sculptures including Louise Bourgeois' Maman and a Henry Moore, all 25% bigger than the originals. On the bare beds there is reading matter; books of the apocalypse including Ursula Le Guin's The Lathe Of Heaven, Mike Davies' Dead Cities and H.G Wells' The War Of The Worlds. A vast screen at the back of the hall projects stark images from science fiction films to a soundtrack of constantly falling rain. Gloomy just about covers it.

We are invited to take a bed and immerse ourselves in the writing I guess. It is strange to read H.G Wells' opening line:

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.

whilst a huge pregnant spider towers over you.

I have to say that not many of the tourists there with me were taking the plunge despite there being many European sci-fi classics in their original languages. One couple had actually fallen asleep, the rigours of sightseeing obviously taking their toll. I suppose there isn't the time to start and finish even the smaller titles, depending on how fast you read, and whoever placed Roberto Bolano's epic 2066 (over 1,000 pages) in the original Spanish is surely having a laugh. I did see one guy, perched on a yellow bed, wrapt by Jeff Noon's Vurt, but when I looked to see if he was still there when I left he'd disappeared, as had the book. Curious. I didn't want to read any of them myself to be honest and so took my own book from my bag and settled myself on one of the beds. They have no mattresses of course and hurt like hell, but what did I expect; you have to sufffer for your art.

(this was first posted on the Picador blog)

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an invitation

I know it's not cool to be so pleased by it, but I recently received an email asking if I'd be interested in contributing to the Picador Blog. My enthusiastic reply contained several exclamation marks!!!

Anyway you can read what I wrote for them here.

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The Spotlight Project - Una Stubbs

A series of portraits where I reunite actors with their first ever headshot.

Go on, you know you're thinking it: Aunt Sally. No? Till Death Us Do Part? Summer Holiday perhaps? Ah, you may be showing your age there. It's rather unfair of me to mention these early roles I suppose given the rennaisance her career has enjoyed recently in the theatre but I was rather excited in a slightly childish way to meet Una Stubbs. She has the kind of career which means that entire decades can be recalled with one of her iconic portrayals.

She was in rehearsals at The National Theatre at the time I met her and it is worth mentioning straight away that she looks amazing for a woman who has recently turned 70. Not only stylish but incredibly funny we had a great time with the shoot, which hopefully you can see below. The picture itself is one of the publicity stills from Summer Holiday and it seems that Una has lost none of her capacity to enjoy life from her days as a young ingenue.






Click here to see other portraits from The Spotlight Project.

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The Spotlight Project - Lynda Bellingham

A series of portraits where I reunite actors with their first ever headshot.

There was something unique about my afternoon with Lynda Bellingham. Perhaps it was the fact that she was in the process of writing her autobiography (whose publication is mired at the moment in legal action) but more than anyone else I photographed, seeing this photo again brought back a flood of very vivid memories and emotions. She was able to recall so much about the time the picture was taken and then a few things that happened in later life, all of it inspired by seeing this early image of herself, part of what I was hoping this project could achieve.

(I'd love to say more but given the spectre of legal action it's probably best if I don't. Suffice to say real life has not always provided the kind of domestic bliss you might see in, say, an Oxo commercial)







Click here to see other portraits from The Spotlight Project.

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The Spotlight Project - Maureen Lipman

A series of portraits where I reunite actors with their first ever headshot.

Little did I know as I pulled up to Maureen Lipman's house that this shoot would end up being so traumatic. Not due to any thing she did; as with all the actors I photographed she was warm, welcoming and makes a fine cup of tea. No, it was the hardware that was to cause the stress. As I set up my stuff in her garden (at the bottom of which, as you can see below, she has a London postbox and old red telephone booth- perhaps a kickback from those BT ads) I had no idea that my camera was suffering a fault. I know everyone has gone digital these days but I'm a bit old fashioned in my use of film, chemicals and paper. What this means of course is that there's no way of checking as you go along that everything is working perfectly. To cut a long story short my lens only actually opened on about ten of the pictures I took, so I was greatly relieved that I got anything usable for the project.

Maureen pointed out that she thought she had one portrait earlier than this which I have since found so perhaps if we get the chance we could try again with my now fully functioning camera. Which also provides the perfect excuse for another cup of tea.
Click on any image to see a larger version.







Click here to see other portraits from The Spotlight Project.

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The Spotlight Project - Jonathan Pryce

A series of portraits where I reunite actors with their first ever headshot.

Jonathan Pryce greeted me at his front door in his dressing gown. 'I'm running a little late. Would you like a coffee?' he asked as he lead me through his gorgeous house. I stammered something back and said I'd set my stuff up in the garden whilst he got dressed. Wow, even the garden was extraordinary. I found myself not star-struck as such but with a voice that's as recognisable as the face you can find yourself struck a little dumb by the uncanniness of the impression he does of his own voice. Does that make sense?

Anyway, when he returned he told me how he had recently had a portrait taken for a project which followed the basic premise of 'Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon' (Andy Gotts work can be found here) which sounded like a brilliant idea, much better than mine. Once set up, I handed him his envelope and we began. As you can see below; the film actor's skill is often in making minute facial gestures speak volumes on the big screen. So no big reactions then. What I was amazed by was how perfectly he was able to copy his own expression from the picture for the front-on portrait I took.

He then told me that he still had the entire box of reproductions of this first headshot in the loft. He had had them done whilst at RADA but when he was snapped up by an agent one of the first things he was asked to do was to get new headshots and so the orignals remained unused. Until I came along. Click on any image to see a larger version.







Click here to see other portraits from The Spotlight Project.

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