Posted on

Favorite Book of 2023, #1!

Well this is embarrassing. As I started to pull together the top books I read in 2024, I noticed that I hadn’t ever posted about my #1 book of 2023! In fact, I hadn’t posted anything on this blog since March! For the few of you who read this, my apologies. I can’t promise I’ll do better in 2025, I will at least try to get my favorite books of 2024 out there. And in the meantime, here is my top book of 2023!

#1 – My Rock ‘N Roll Friend by Tracey Thorn (2021)

My Rock 'N Roll FriendStill riding high on my women in rock memoirs, the talented Tracy Thorn came in at #3 with Naked at the Albert Hall. Ms. Thorn also topped my list of books read in 2023 with her outstanding work, My Rock ‘N Roll Friend. This is certainly quite a feat for any author, especially one who is mainly known for being the lead singer and songwriter of the band Everything But The Girl, who, incidentally, released their first album in 23 years last spring.

Accomplished singer/songwriter and frontwoman for the band, Everything but the Girl, impressed me greatly with her first memoir, Bedsit Disco Queen: How I Grew Up and Tried to Be a Pop Star. With her latest work, My Rock ‘n Roll Friend, Thorn not only writes a compelling and fascinating memoir about her friend, Lindy Morrison, drummer of the Australian 80’s band, The Go-Between, but she also chronicles their nearly 40 year friendship, and most startling of all, she writes an insightful, intellectually scathing feminist showcase about how women are systematically erased from history. Tracey is a writer to be cherished. Her prose is casual, self-reflective, yet immediate and powerful. Her voice is singular, and unique… unexpected even for those who only know her through her work as a pop star. Her ability to bring her subject to larger-than-life reality, whether you know a little, a lot or nothing about her is remarkable, and certainly makes you want to know more. I also hope Tracey continues to document her observations about life, feminism, friendship, relationships, and life.

And for those keeping track, here is the complete list of my favorite books read in 2023:

  1. My Rock ‘N Roll Friend – Tracey Thorn (2021)
  2. Stolen – Ann-Helén Laestadius, Rachel Willson-Broyles (Translator) (2021, 2023 in the U.S.)
  3. Naked at the Albert Hall: The Inside Story of Singing – Tracey Thorn (2015)
  4. Rat Girl – Kristin Hersh (2010)
  5. The Unfolding – A.M. Homes (2022)
  6. The Museum of Failures – Thrity Umrigar (2023)
  7. Girl in a Band – Kim Gordon (2015)
  8. Stories I Might Regret Telling You: A Memoir – Martha Wainwright (2022)
  9. Swim Home to the Vanished – Brendan Shay Basham (2023)
  10. The Emperor’s Children – Claire Messud (2006)
  11. TNight Sky Mine – Melissa Scott (1996)
  12. The Memory of Animals – Claire Fuller (2023)
  13. You Only Call When You’re in Trouble – Stephen McCauley (2024)
  14. Chapter and Verse: New Order, Joy Division and Me – Bernard Sumner (2015)
  15. Boys in the Trees: A Memoir – Carly Simon (2015)
Posted on

Favorite Books of 2023, #’s 2 & 3

Apologies for the lengthy gap between my previous post and this one. I had an awards ceremony to put together, an acclaimed Japanese director to host, and a vacation in Palm Springs (currently in progress) to indulge in. Now here I am with my #2 and #3 books read in 2023, one being a novel by a first-time author for me, and the second being one of my women in rock ‘n roll memoirs, who has appeared on a past Top books of the year list!

#2 – Stolen by Ann-Helén Laestadius, Rachel Willson-Broyles (Translator) (2021, 2023 in the U.S.)

StolenAnn-Helén Laestadius is a lauded author from Sweden, of Sámi and Tornedalian descent: two of Sweden’s national minorities, and in tackling this multi-faceted novel, she barely misses a step while addressing the bigotry, cruelty, and casual indifference that plagues a community. Sadly, the novel is based on hundreds of police reports the author reviewed. The story revolves around Elsa and her family, of Sámi descent, and reindeer herders by profession. When Elsa is just a young girl, skiing to their reindeer corrall on her own for the first time, she stumbles across on of her own reindeer calves, slaughtered by a man from a neighboring village. Caught in the act, the man threatens Elsa for her silence. Despite reporting the murder of their property, Swedish law only considers this kind of slaughter as theft and do very little to investigate. This dark scene kicks off a decade long struggle that Elsa, her family, and her fellow Sámi villagers face time and time again as their livelihood is destroyed, and their reindeer are tortured and butchered unlawfully.

Add to the main storyline the powerful undercurrent of bigotry directed at the indigenous people of the area, and how it impacts the youth — leading to depression and suicide — and Laestadius fashions a damning tale of today’s society in the hopes that things will start to turn around. There’s also the underlying threat of climate change that, while not in the forefront, is elegantly woven throughout the lives of these people who depend on the seasons. This is a complex, well-written, gritty and upsetting tale, which is just as it should be.

#3 – Naked at the Albert Hall: The Inside Story of Singing, Tracey Thorn (2015)

Naked atI don’t think there’s a better memoir writer than Everything but the Girl’s Tracey Thorn. Ironically, the second of her three books (and the third that I read) focuses on the skill that she is better known for, and that’s singing. In Naked at the Albert Hall: The Inside Story of Singing, Thorn focuses on the the physical requirement of singing, the relationship between the singer and the listener, and the tools that a professional singer might use to enhance or alter their singing ability. Along the way she includes stories about her life as both lead vocalist for Everything but the Girl, and the struggle she has had since 2000 when she sang her last public concert. Included in the book are brief interviews with other singers, such as Linda Thompson, Kristen Hersh (author of my #4 book, Rat Girl) and the marvelous Alison Moyet, asking the to provide their points of view of how singing impacts their lives. She talks about many of the singers she admires and her relationship with them as a listener.

Posted on

Favorite Books of 2023, #’s 4 & 5

Entering my Top 5 books of last year, we find a surprise new book published by a favorite author late in 2022, and another installment of my rock ‘n roll memoirs, this time by a local favorite.

#4 – Rat Girl by Kristin Hersh (2010)

Rat GirlAnother great entry in my new favorite genre: the rock ‘n roll memoir by women. Kristen Hersh details a year in her life; modified entries in her diary, just as her band, Throwing Muses was about to take off. Along the way, there’s a bipolar disorder, a friendship with an icon of the golden age of Hollywood, and a pregnancy. This is what I look for in a rock ‘n roll memoir: reading about life as a working musician, while commenting on the larger world and the personal idiosyncrasies that make up a personality. Hersh’s observations about life and her unorthodox childhood are abstract, atonal, and whimsical, reminiscent of her music, but the deep bonds of friendship between her and her bandmates shines through.

#5 – The Unfolding by A.M. Homes (2022)

The UnfoldingA.M. Homes fascinates me as a writer. Her novels are usually heavily satirical, and rarely tackles subjects I would predict would be interest to me. Yet her sharp-eyed take, often on middle America is often bold, insightful, and entertaining. In her latest novel, The Undoing she focuses on a singular moment of a behind-the-scenes power broker for the Republican Party known as the Big Guy. It’s election night 2008, and things definitely go as planned. Shaken to the core as Obama is announced President of the United States, The Big Guy and his family experience the upheaval in radically different ways, with our wealthy, rich patriarch setting in motion a super secret cabal of similarly wealthy, aging, white Republican that will secretly and slowly return America to it’s former greatness over the coming decades.

Homes spends a lot of time getting into the heads of these, frankly, uninteresting (to me) and stereotypical men, and I occasionally lost patience with the book having to struggle through the minutia of their conversations. Much more interesting, and what earned the book its ranking here are the Big Guy’s wife and daughter. Wife Charlotte, a smart, independent woman has been covering her squandered personal dreams, and long enduring emotional trauma with vodka for years, and chooses this moment to check-in to Betty Ford’s clinic and ger her life on track, a fact her husband is gobsmacked by, even as he tries to support her. Their high school senior daughter, Meghan goes through a transformation of her own… something many of us would call growing up… as she discovers some things about life, both macro, and micro and very personal that set her on a journey that in Homes’ on subversive way is the most optimistic arc of the novel.

Posted on

My Top 20 of 2022, #’s 1 & 2

And here we are at the top of my list of favorite films of 2022. What ties these films together are the broad themes of love and family… themes that go against my often-cited love of bleak films. These two films moved me, but also thrilled me with the acting, the scripts, the directions, the production design, the use of music, the cinematography and more. These were films that stuck with me long after I saw them. I first saw my #1 film of the year way back in January, and it never got knocked off the top spot. I do hope you will give these films a try!

After Yang

#2) Ali & Ava, directed by Clio Barnard – Clio Barnard, innovative director of the Buried Treasure nominated pseudo-doc THE ARBOR, has created a nearly perfect adult romance with ALI & AVA. the third of her four films to be shot in the city of Bradford in England. Led by a pair of terrific acting performances from Adeel Akhtar (THE BIG SICK, FOUR LIONS) and Claire Rushbrook (SECRETS & LIES; AMMONITE) the film charts the tentative love story of two Bradford natives in their forties both emerging from challenging relationships. Ali is a landlord who lives with his Pakistani family and is a bit of an anomaly, as he is beloved by his tenants. He and his younger wife are recently estranged, but still live in the same flat with the rest of the family, whom they have not told about their separation. Ava works as a teaching assistant, comes from an Irish-Catholic background, has a complicated relationship with her adult children, and an even more complicated relationship with her deceased husband. Once the two meet their slow, quiet attraction develops into something more, all while Barnard subtly weaves in issues around race, religion, abuse, and other grown-up issues in ways that are natural and powerful. 

One of the things that makes ALI & AVA so unique is how the story is told so strongly through music. Ali is a fan of techno and hip hop, while Ava adores country and folk. They fall in love and get to know each other through small acts of generosity and kindness, but also through their mutual love of music and the curiosity for each to learn more about the other. The film is hopeful, although not predictable or formulaic in any way. The cinematography by Ole Bratt Birkeland is stunning, both in the way it captures surprising beauty in some of the neighborhoods that exhibit the worst levels of social deprivation, and the extraordinary ways it captures the love story being told with powerful close-ups of the two leads. This one’s a real winner in so many categories, and Clio Barnard is a director to keep an eye on.

After Yang

#1) – After Yang, directed by Kogonada – After the gorgeous simplicity of Kogonada’s Chlotrudis Awards-nominated previous film, COLUMBUS, I’m not sure what I was expecting with this follow-up, starring a big name star like Colin Farrell. Of course, Farrell was so powerful in THE LOBSTER, so I know he’s capable of being a great actor as well, which he shows again, in this haunting adaptation of a short story that explore what it means to be alive and sentient. It’s a story we’ve seen explored before; several times in the last couple of years. Yang is an artificial person — an older brother for Jake and Kyra’s adopted Japanese daughter Mika. Someone marketed to give Mika cultural reference given her parents are white and African respectively. When Yang malfunctions, possibly permanently, Jake begins an exploration that will reveal parts of Yang’s life that illuminate heretofore unknown depths.

The futuristic world Kogonada creates is uniquely serene and beautiful. The lovely production design that suggests a future society, yet is familiar and comfortable, with its sleek and graceful beauty augments the immersive experience of the film. As mentioned above, Farrell, who broke on the scene as a brash, bad-boy once again shows how skilled he is at nuanced, mature roles. Kogonada’s direction, so minimalist in COLUMBUS, is more expansive here, but just as simple and effective. Finally, AFTER YANG features one of the best ever opening scenes of any film that touches on one of my favorite film tropes: unexpected dancing. A true triumph.

And here’s the complete list for my Top 30 films of 2022:

  1. After Yang
  2. Ali & Ava
  3. Broker
  4. Utama
  5. Memoria
  6. The Falls
  7. Aftersun
  8. Anne at 13,000 Ft.
  9. A Love Song
  10. Women Talking
  11. Playground
  12. Petite Maman
  13. Neptune Frost
  14. Decision to Leave
  15. The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet
  16. You Won’t Be Alone
  17. The Man in the Woods
  18. Nitram
  19. The Justice of Bunny King
  20. The Eternal Daughter
  21. The Cathedral
  22. The Wheel
  23. Great Freedom
  24. Zero Fucks Given
  25. Intregalde
  26. Cici
  27. God’s Creatures
  28. Hit the Road
  29. Ahed’s Knee
  30. The Worst Person In the World
Posted on

My Top 20 of 2022, #’s 3 & 4

Other than the exceptional filmmaking, these two films near the top of my 2022 favorites have little in common. One is from a seasons filmmaker whose films have topped by year-end lists in the past, the other is a director with his first-time narrative feature, One features a large cast of inter-connected characters in a cosmopolitan environment, while the other focuses mainly on three characters in a remote wilderness. Yet both exemplify what makes a film great for me: strong relationships, and unexpected deep emotion told through beautiful writing.

Utama

#4) Utama, directed by Alejandro Loayza Grisi – When I learned that Utama is translated in English to Our Home, it resonated so much more with me. This is a powerful, effective film that, while fairly straightforward, successfully blended several themes, most notably climate change, aging, generational dynamics, and the modernization of indigenous culture, quite well into moving portrait of love and loss. Set in Bolivia, Virginio and Sisi are an aging indigenous Quechua couple who live alone, a long walk from the nearest village, and a much farther distance from the nearest city. They have been without rain for nearly a year, which makes tending their herd of llama, and their sad garden increasingly difficult. When the water Sisi retrieves from the village pump dries up, and Virginio’s health begins to become an issue, they are faced with some difficult choices. A visit from their grandson, Clever, complicates matters as his grandfather thinks he’s a bit of a brat and visiting to do the bidding of his father (Virginio’s son). 

The gentle story does it’s work, but it’s the directorial skill, coupled with some remarkable cinematography by Barbara Alvarez, and Art Direction by Valeria Wilde that really elevate this film. The stark landscape marries stunning beauty with desolation. Powerful moments are conveyed with a look, or a gesture that moved me to tears. Every time the absurdly whimsical, hassled herd of llama entered the screen I had to smile. The low-key, but beautiful way that José Calcina and especially, Luisa Quespe portray the two leads, is worthy of consideration for nomination (and reminiscent of another South American favorite of mine, the Uruguayan Buried Treasure nominee, WHISKY) — although as none of the characters are portrayed by professional actors, I feel the director deserves a lot of credit there.

Broker

#3) Broker, directed by Hirokazu Koreeda – Sure, he’s one of my favorite directors, but perhaps because of the good but not great reviews I had seen for BROKER, I was taken by surprise at how much I enjoyed this one! It’s a bit of a flip side of his last Japanese-set feature, the award-winning SHOPLIFTERS, as both combine crime and created families, but both come at those themes from very different directions. BROKER is shot in South Korea, and boosts a couple of actors more well-known to the U.S. audiences: Song Kang-ho, from PARASITE, and Doona Bae, a Koreeda and Bong Hoon-ho alum (she co-starred with Song in THE HOST, and the TV series, “Sense8”. The complex story involves an infant being abandoned by his mother, the illegal selling of children, prostitution, murder, and found-families. It also features some of the most overt humor in a Kore-era film, with lots of laughs throughout. It also got me strongly with a few emotional scenes where I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing while I held back some sobs (that ferris wheel scene). It’s not a very subtle film, but the story unfolds beautifully, taking it’s time (hence the longer running time) so nothing really feels forced. Another scene featuring Doona Bae talking on the phone while Aimee Mann’s Wise Up plays in the background even references MAGNOLIA in a way that really took me by surprise.

Koreeda never disappoints, and BROKER, with its light-hearted caper feel, talented ensemble, and deep emotion has a lot of appeal for a wide audience. His exploration of the concept of family, both natural and found is always well-handled, from his earliest films such as AFTERLIFE, and throughout his career with such work as NOBODY KNOWS; STILL WALKING; LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON; OUR LITTLE SISTER; AFTER THE STORM; and SHOPLITERS. BROKER is a beautiful addition to that list.