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2017: My year’s reading in biography

01 Monday Jan 2018

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Of the biographies I read in 2017, I thought these six very good.

  1. Our Man Elsewhere: In Search of Alan Moorehead / by Thornton McCamish (2016)
    “This is a biography which gives a vivid sense of life and culture in the mid-twentieth century. It reflects in an indirect but profound way on what makes life meaningful and how the past is present – or not – today. It didn’t leave me with a strong desire to read Moorehead’s work but it did leave me with a strong desire to read whatever book McCamish writes next.” – My review
  2. The Enigmatic Mr Deakin / Judith Brett (2017)
    “Brett’s biography is wise and compellingly readable. She captures the experience of living, the passing of years, the shifts in attitude and fortune, the development of character. Even if the promises of spiritualism were false and Deakin’s spirit cannot be summoned, The Enigmatic Mr Deakin brings him to life as much as a biography can hope to do. May it foster a wider understanding of a man worth remembering.” – My review
  3. The Boyds: A Family Biography / Brenda Niall (2002)
    A book that takes us through a couple of centuries of Australian life through the eyes of one family. It’s a superb example of a rare and difficult genre.
    – My review
  4. Capote / by Gerald Clarke (1988)
    “It reads so smoothly, so effortlessly in a way which only a great biographer can achieve and only then with much sweat. It follows Capote from his troubled childhood in Alabama and the wounds his selfish parents inflicted on him to his emergence as a literary wunderkind in New York and the successes of his early and mid-career to the tragic descent into writer’s block, alcoholism, and exile from the circles of the wealthy and celebrities he had moved in. It’s a tragedy and it’s told with a restraint, clarity, and insight which make it compelling.” – My review
  5. Kylie Tennant: A Life / by Jane Grant (2006)
    A compelling biography of a true character in Australian literature. I was impressed by how much Grant achieves in such a short book.
    – My review
  6.  A Life Discarded / by Alexander Masters (2016)
    Masters pieces together the life of an unknown person from the hundreds of diaries they left behind in a skip bin. It’s a page-turning biographical quest, intriguing and fun and both sad and heart-warming. But it also felt somewhat contrived to me, as Masters shapes his quest to eke out the suspense. (Not reviewed.)

Ten years of this blog: greatest hits part 2, 2012-2017

19 Tuesday Dec 2017

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October 2015 – Pretending to write with 3-month-old Thomas

As promised, part two of this blog’s greatest hits!

Statistics have a way of humbling us, I think. My most popular post of all time, by a long way, is a rather prosaic summary of my favourite novel, Paul Auster’s Moon Palace – sitting on 9855 hits.  In writing it, I was just trying to remember the details better, but unwittingly I created an essential resource for students who have Moon Palace as a set text and don’t want to actually read it. I have actively contributed to about 9000 people not reading my favourite novel. Continue reading →

Soundtrack to a year: my favourite songs of 2015

05 Tuesday Jan 2016

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One album will put baby Thomas to sleep: Tiny Ruins’ Brightly Painted One. Itunes says I played the album’s best song, “She’ll Be Coming Around,” seventy times in 2015, but it wasn’t counting all the times it played in the car at 4am in the pre-dawn dark as I looped around the deserted restaurant strip. It’s a soothing indie-folk album, beauty inflected with a wistfulness, never completely sad like so much music I listen to.

It was the year of the Orbweavers too, a quintessentially Melbourne duo (also indie-folk, I suppose), who don’t sing about predictable themes, but instead draw on stories from their city’s history. Their most recent album, Loom, is superb, but my favourite of theirs is probably “On My Way Home,” a catchy and poignant song.

  1. She’ll Be Coming Around – Tiny Ruins (NZ, 2014)
    https://youtu.be/Up0bhJzi0iU
  2. On My Way Home – Orbweavers (Aust, 2009)
    https://youtu.be/ZycntAtNyWk
  3. Small Plane – Bill Callahan (US, 2013)
    https://youtu.be/Mh5km2xKlfk
  4. Gypsy Candle – Giant Sand (US, 2015)
    https://youtu.be/z3j522N_NNY
  5. My Least Favourite Life – Lera Lynn (US, 2015) –
    the best thing about True Detective season 2.
  6. Got You Well – Gabrielle Papillion (Canada, 2015)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr1-SKuNXyg
  7. Vacancy – Aisha Badru (US, 2015) – can you imagine if Sarah Blasko and Lisa Mitchell were the same person?
  8. Confession – Lotte Kestner (US, 2013)
    There’s a beautiful weariness to this song. “Sometimes the moment gets it right / I like the things you say when you drink”
    https://youtu.be/ZyihspIK57A
  9. Black Notebook – Ane Brun (Norway, 2015)
  10. If I Could Tell You – Nev Cottee (Britain, 2015)

Film and television – my favourites in 2015

02 Saturday Jan 2016

Posted by in film review, lists, television

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Our firstborn, Thomas, came into the world in July, and, predictably, I have not been to the cinema since then. If I did go, I would probably fall asleep halfway through. But I’ve still seen some fine film and television this year. We signed up for Netflix to watch series 3 of House of Cards (good but not in my favourites list) and stayed with it for its convenience (the equivalent of a dozen paused DVDs at any time) and interesting range. It started with a well-chosen Australian selection, which I used as an education in some classics I’d missed; alas it hasn’t added many Australian titles since. I’ve reviewed a number of my favourite films, but none of the television series, so I’ll offer some comments on them.

Television

  1. Fargo, season 2 (US/Canada, 2015; SBS) – each episode is a near-perfect short feature film. The crime trappings are just a mode of investigating existence. It’s intelligent, funny, absurd, sometimes brutal. And if you haven’t seen season 1, it stands on its own. But watch season 1.
  2. Black Mirror (Brit, 2011-2013; Netflix) – these short films are extrapolations of our current culture, a couple of years into the future, and offer the most extraordinary critique of our lives today. It’s science fiction at its best.
  3. Toast of London, season 1 (Brit, 2013; SBS) – I cannot convey how bizarre this show is as it follows Steven Toast, the world’s second finest high-winds actor, around his improbable career on stage and film. To give one taste: his arch-enemy exacts revenge on Toast by pretending to be a plastic surgeon and turning a friend of a friend into a Bruce Forsyth look-alike, just to annoy Toast. And you know what he finds funny? He’s not even very annoyed. This will be a cult hit for decades to come but season 2 is not as good.
  4. The Americans, season 2 (US, 2014; DVD) – this is a small masterpiece of the drama and thriller genres, as deep undercover Soviet agents live out their suburban lives in the US of the early 1980s.
  5. Utopia, season 2 (Australia, 2015; ABC) – this satire is so perceptive about how offices function and the groupthink / buzz-words / box ticking which drives too much decision-making in the public service and politics.

 

Film

  1. Walkabout (Australia, 1971; Netflix)
  2. Wake in Fright (Australia, 1971; Netflix)
  3. Deep Water (Australia, 2012; ABC)
  4. Compliance (US, 2012; SBS)
  5. The Imitation Game (Brit, 2014; cinema)
  6. Far from the Madding Crowd (Brit, 2015; cinema)
  7. Wild (US, 2014; cinema)
  8. Foxcatcher (US, 2015; cinema)

My fiction top 5 for 2015

18 Friday Dec 2015

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1. The Illumination / Kevin Brockmeier (USA, 2011)

Andrew Hagan’s novel The Illuminations received a lot of attention this year; I haven’t read it even though my Kindle believes I should, but I did read Kevin Brockmeier’s very similarly titled novel from a few years ago. It’s set tomorrow when everyone’s pain suddenly becomes illuminated, and follows a number of interweaving stories. It shows the potential for speculative fiction to explore the meaning of life and it’s a beautifully strange story. My review

2. Crow’s Breath / John Kinsella (Australia, 2015)

John Kinsella’s short, intense stories are haunted and haunting. My review

3. The Privileges / Jonathan Dee (USA, 2010)

My favourite Jonathan Franzen novel of the year was by Jonathan Dee; it manages to be smart and funny and affecting all at once in chronicling the American rich.

4. Purity / Jonathan Franzen (USA, 2015)

Jonathan Franzen’s actual new novel was not far behind – I called it an  “engrossing and ambitious novel about idealism and marriage.” My review

5. The Book of Strange New Things / Michael Faber (Britain, 2014)

Perhaps this book has to make the top five because I’m still so unsure of what to make of it. A strange novel of religion, marriage and aliens. My review

I read as much non-fiction (mainly life writing) as fiction this year, and I’ll be posting my favourites on my other blog, A Biographer in Perth. What was your favourite work of fiction this year?

My favourite albums of 2014

07 Wednesday Jan 2015

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I’ve been finding almost all my music on Radio National’s Inside Sleeve. I assumed my taste was quite broad, and then a reviewer compared the two most different albums I bought all year as being in the same family (those by Lily & Madeline and Luluc). To rework an old joke about country and western, these days I like all three kinds of music – indie folk, new folk, and folk pop. As long as it’s a woman singing, by the look of it. This photograph shows Luluc, who released the widely-acclaimed Passenger this year, playing to an audience of thirty in the Rosemount. I liked being on such intimate terms with them, but they deserve better!

1. Laura Jean – Laura Jean

Melbourne’s Laura Jean is very droll and confessional, and likes to sing about kelpies. Her songs are poems. “First Love Song” and “Don’t Marry the One You Love” should be hits.

Days can be filled so easily / With small tasks and pottering / People ask me what I do / I guess now I look after you.

2. Luluc – Passenger

Luluc are a duo also from Melbourne. Their music has a smooth, melancholy beauty.

Your words fall down like water/ Spilling off the page

3. Soko – I Thought I was an Alien

Soko is French; her music is quirky but also earnestly beautiful, as she pleads and denounces her lovers in her husky little-girl voice.

Today was your birthday / And I didn’t dare to call / But I thought about you all day / Even at midnight I wanted to call /
To be honored to be the first one to send you my love / And wish you / Happy hippie birthday

4. Alela Diane – About Farewell

Diane is a US singer-songwriter, with a country tinge which is under control in this break-up album. I bought it in July, and it has the winter chill in it.

Some things are best if kept in darkness
Only true before the dawn
Ghost ships, silent, deathly sting
Before the canon storm

5. Kathryn Williams – Crown Electric

Williams is a British singer-songwriter who Spotify recommended because I liked Holly Throsby, which is a good comparison. It’s an album ranging across moods and themes, often finding transcendence in the everyday.

Come and go faces in the crowd
Like one big wave crashing into town

*

I bought Tiny Ruins’ Brightly Painted One just in the last week of the year and it will be bound to make next year’s list, as I like it very much.

Across the genres: a slow reader’s favourite books in 2014

31 Wednesday Dec 2014

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Perth-book-cover

Some book bloggers complain how they only managed to read seventy books this year, rather than their usual one hundred. I read thirty-nine, which is still more than I have managed the last few years. I’m the tortoise of book bloggers.

Most of my reading has been related to biography and/or Katharine Susannah Prichard (the subject of my PhD), and it’s harder to judge these books which I have to read in a somewhat task-orientated way. But I had such a delightful year of books. It brings me pleasure remembering the highlights.

  1. Perth / David Whish-Wilson – A portrait of the city. The best work of creative non-fiction I’ve read, a blend of memoir, history, biography, and landscape writing. My review.
  2. Wild Oats of Han / Katharine Susannah Prichard – I’ve read eleven books by Prichard this year, and they fit together as a body of work. But let me pick this one out as probably her most under-rated work, a delightful evocation of childhood as free-spirited Han comes to grips with the world. It’s the most distinct of her books, and it possibly suffered from being marketed as a children’s book, when it is not really. My review.
  3. What Happened to Sophie Wilder? / Christopher Beha – A contemporary American classic, a dark Graham Greene-ish novel about writing and faith. My review
  4. The Narrow Road to the Deep North / Richard Flanagan
    – Had to see what the Man Booker judges were so impressed by; I was impressed too. My review.
  5. Lila / Marilynne Robinson – A worthy companion novel to the other two set in Gilead. It is wise and hopeful while aware of the hardness of life in telling of one woman’s redemption. My review.
  6. Christina Stead: A Biography / Hazel Rowley – I hope to write a biography with some of the brilliance of this one, to balance historical and psychological insight with beautiful writing. My review.
  7. Unearthed / Tracy Ryan – Reading through these poems a second time, I was struck afresh by their power. My review.
  8. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks / Rebecca Skloot
    – A non-fiction biographical quest, so superbly written. My review.
  9. The Invisible Woman / Claire Tomalin – unearthing the hidden story of Dickens’ mistress, Nelly Ternan. Claire Tomalin is my favourite biographer.
  10. Moving Among Strangers / Gabrielle Carey
    – I couldn’t put down this memoir in which Carey writes to family friend Randolph Stow just before he dies and uncovers lost stories of her family. My review.

Honourable mentions: A Wrong Turn at the Office of Unmade Lists / Jane Briony Rawson (my review); Reading by Moonlight: How Books Saved a Life / Brenda Walker; Secret River / Kate Grenville.

My favourite TV series of 2014

31 Wednesday Dec 2014

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the-returned

It was the year of long-form drama for me and Nicole. To watch a story unfold an hour at a time, night after night – such a bigger canvas than a feature film, and an after-work addiction.

1. The Returned (series 1) – I have never seen anything like this French supernatural drama. To watch it is to be trapped inside a beautifully eerie dream, as the dead begin to return to a village.

2. True Detective (series 1) – An existential crime series about two detectives on the trail of a southern gothic murderer across decades. Really, the crimes are secondary – this is about the meaning of life, as Rusty philosophises to Marty and an unlikely friendship develops.

3. Parade’s End (mini-series) – A dense and super-intelligent adaptation of Ford Madox Ford’s novels, following a man of integrity through World War One, at war with a scheming wife and torn by his desire for a young suffragette. It is incredible.

4. House of Cards (series 1 and 2) – An excellent adaptation to the American context, with fascinating characters and enthralling political intrigue. I wrote about it here.

5. Fargo (series 1) – Fargo the TV series is better than the film. It is dark and funny and suspenseful, and Billy Bob Thornton’s character could be the most interesting killer I’ve seen on television.

Honourable mentions – Rectify (series 1); The Fall (series 1); and Boardwalk Empire (series 1).

What was your favourite?

My favourite films of 2014

30 Tuesday Dec 2014

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insidellewyndavis

1. Inside Llewyn Davis – A folk singer caught in an eternal recurrence of misfortune. Thanks for showing how beautifully cruel the world is, Coen brothers.  My review.

2. Pride – Uplifting drama about a group of homosexuals helping Welsh miners during a strike. Perfect filmmaking. My review.

3. Boyhood – Ten years in the life of a boy growing up, through the small tragedies and dramas of family life. I was disappointed at the time, but it stayed with me a long time. Important and affecting.

4. Interstellar – A flawed but fascinating science fiction film on a huge canvas across space and time. It moved and awed me. My review.

5. Her – A man in love with his operating system. It’s profound and nearly perfect, although it left me a little cold.

Lisa Mitchell, Nick Cave and several points in between: my favourite songs in 2013

31 Tuesday Dec 2013

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1. Whipbird – Pretty for the Dirt

I discovered this delightful Brisbane folk band on Radio National’s Inside Sleeve. It’s a perfect mix of poetry, pop and violins. She sings, ‘Just remember I lay at the bottom of a lake / And you’re not such a stronger swimmer, boy.’ Hope they release an album in 2014.

Lisa Mitchell2. Lisa Mitchell – Land Beyond the Front Door

I discovered this song waiting to leave a plane stuck on the tarmac. It made the delay worthwhile – thank you Virgin. I listened to more Lisa Mitchell than anyone else this year. Her quirky voice is sweet, playful and sadly happy.

3. Emilana Torrini – Autumn Sun

It’s not the Icelandic singer-songwriter’s best album, but I think this is one of her best songs, a beautiful ballad about fading youth which becomes a song about a fan who betrays her.

4. Lissie – Go Your Own Way

I will be quite happy to never see the Nicholas Sparks film preview for which this was the soundtrack. But it’s an achingly beautiful cover of the Fleetwood Mac song. I just wish I could get into the rest of Lissie’s work.

5. Deborah Conway and Willie Zygier – Book of Life

I thought Deborah Conway was just eager to get off Q and A when she suddenly stood up toward the end, but she was heading over to sing a song, and it’s a wonderful ballad with many years of pain and love in it. One of the few singers I liked as a ten year old in 1991 (“It’s Only the Beginning”) and like today twenty-two years later.

nickcave6. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Push the Sky Away

It’s hard to pick out songs from Nick Cave’s new album, because it works so well as an album. It’s thankfully less heavy than their last release, back to the more introspective, slow rumbling I like best. It was a special thing to see them play in the amphitheatre in March.

7. Florence and the Machine – Bedroom Hymns

In the same movie session I fell for Lissie’s “Go Your Own Way”, I was also entranced by this song, the soundtrack to the preview for The Great Gatsby. It’s dark, catchy and haunting. It seemed perfect for the film; I was waiting for it eagerly all the way through when I went to see the film, only for it to never play – it was only in the preview. It’s also only a bonus track on the album, a strange choice, given I think it’s the finest track. The album itself doesn’t let up; the rest is just as intense, and perhaps less interesting.

8. David Bowie – Heat

In an album I haven’t got into, this track stands out, like an outtake from my favourite Bowie release, Heathen. It’s a surreal, ominous electronic epic.

9. The Innocence Mission – God is Love

Innocence Mission is the opposite of Florence and the Machine. An upbeat Catholic folk band with a husband and wife at its core, this song’s title sums it up.

10. Angus and Julia Stone – Living on a Rainbow

My friends were going on about these two years ago, and here I am coming very late to the party. Julia Stone sounds a lot like Lisa Mitchell, and this is a beautiful song.

Honourable mention: Adrian Crowley – Summer Haze Parade

Someone close to me told me to turn this off when I started playing it, because apparently he’s woefully tuneless. I wouldn’t know about; I just know he reminds me of Leonard Cohen on a good day.

You can find most of these songs on a Spotify list here.