Reflecting on 2023 - Books and Things

As I sit down to write this, I'm looking back on this blog and how long I've had it. Next year will be the 10th year of The Amber of the Moment but it really doesn't feel like it's been that long. When I started this blog I was continuing a neverending compulsion to write... I've been blogging online since 1999 with various different (now defunct) blogs, but this current blog is now the longest-running one I've ever had. Unbelievably, I've managed to keep it (mostly!) focused on just one or two things (predominantly, the teaching of English and History) with only a few digressions here and there.  

So here we are and 2023 is now coming to a close. I've just finished my first full year working as a Learning and Support Teacher, and it's honestly been one of my most rewarding years as an educator. I didn't get to read as much this year (just over 40 books I think) but I did watch a whole bunch of great films. I've kept my film list mostly to my Instagram and I might put together a top films list on here in a bit. Depends how much time I get over the Summer. 

Below are my 11 favourite books that I read this year, in no particular order. 

1. Cinema Speculation by Quentin Tarantino

With Tarantino's announcement that his next film will be his last, it's nice to know that he still plans to stay immersed in the world of the cinema, albeit as a critic. This collection of essays mixes memoir with recommendations of the director's favourite 1970s films. The combination of Tarantino's cinematic knowledge and his behind-the-scenes connections means that he can offer a unique perspective on film analysis that few can rival. Case in point, Tarantino writes about Steve McQueen (pictured on the cover) whilst offering up information about the screen legend gleaned from his personal conversations with those who knew him. Tarantino's direct access to actual film legends means that his expertise has that edge over many other film fans, making this a must-read for anyone who's a fan of cinema. It also introduced me to some films I'd never seen that I've since watched and loved.

2. The Promise by Damon Galgut

This sprawling epic of a post-Apartheid South Africa presents four decades in the life of an Afrikaner family. As members of the family navigate a shifting socio-political landscape from 1986 to 2018, they fail by varying degrees to make the moral leap into 21st century South Africa. Haunting and hypnotic, Galgut's prose hovers just above the characters' perspectives and effortlessly pulls the reader across a literary landscape both large and intimate. I found myself particularly fascinated by Anton, a truly memorable and oddly charismatic character who sits at the centre of the narrative like a repellent magnet. 

3. Sombrero Fallout by Richard Brautigan

I only discovered Brautigan about 3 years ago, and I'm grateful that this has happened later in my life as I'm almost finished reading all of Kurt Vonnegut's books and needed someone else hilarious and crazy to replace him. It's difficult to describe what makes Brautigan so brilliant, I think you really just have to experience his work firsthand. I read this one in a single walk - it presents two (very loosely) connected narratives; one about a writer who has just lost his girlfriend, the other about a sombrero that randomly falls out of the sky and causes a chain reaction of exponential chaos in a border town. A bizarre and one-of-a-kind book.

4. The Lost Man by Jane Harper

This is my fourth foray into Harper's crime fiction. I think The Lost Man rivals her popular debut The Dry in terms of being tightly constructed, surprising, and unputdownable. Harper is able to evoke the bone-dry hell of the remote outback whilst dipping in and out of several interconnected plotlines. The characters are finely-observed and ring true, and the thematic core of the book resonates beyond the trappings of the murder mystery genre.

5. Around the World in 80 Trees by Jonathan Drori

I picked this up after finishing the magnificent Pulitzer-prize winning tree-themed novel The Overstory. I simply hadn't had enough trees. I wanted more trees, and this delivered on that front. I don't know how you'd even classify this book - it's not quite scientific, though it is written by a scientist, and it's not quite mythology, though it is replete with fascinating sociological and folkloric miscellanea. I read this while walking underneath beautiful trees in the Blue Mountains, and I learned lots about amazing trees from around our planet. 

6. The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

I'm hesitant to put this in my list because it left me feeling depressed and experiencing an existential crisis of sorts. I have included it on my list because the quote on the front, 'Devastatingly beautiful', is such an apt description for this powerful WWII novel. Dorrigo Evans, a womanising doctor from remote Tasmania, wrestles with the twin demons of a pre-war affair and his time as a POW on Japan's ill-fated Burma-Siam railway project. Flanagan's novel is kaleidoscopic and incisive, funny and tragic, and relentlessly brutal. It's a book that has sat heavy in my consciousness in the months since I finished it. 

7. Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

Kuang takes a hot topic - cultural appropriation - and skewers it in the biggest possible way with an outrageous racial satire for our times. I won't say too much about Yellowface as it would spoil its many twists and unexpected developments. I'll just say that I read this super quickly and was both highly amused and more than occasionally shocked. My only quibble is that I think the ending could have gone further!

8. Ocean Pools by Chris Chen

I saw this at the start of the year while in a Kiama bookstore, flicked through it, and then put it back down again. It's a coffee table book filled with magnificent photographs of ocean pools, and in the following weeks after I let it go I couldn't get the idea of it out of my head. It became a romantic dream that obsessed me, and I began checking bookstores everywhere back in Western Sydney. Eventually I found it in a Big W in Richmond and I took it home to digest slowly, staring at one or two pools a night. I'm not even that much of a swimmer, there's just something idyllic and old world about these semi-wild pools that sit on the edge of the continent, facing the elements and holding little fragments of history from their coastal communities. I found 'reading' this book to be weirdly therapeutic. 

9. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

I read a non-fiction book called The Bookshop Book where its author visited amazing bookstores all over the world. In the course of her travels, various people recommend to her The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, a charming and arresting tale about a retiree who does exactly what the title says. The endorsements intrigued me so I sought the novel out. In it, hapless Harold goes to mail a letter to a long-lost friend and decides on a whim to hand-deliver it instead, walking over 600 miles from one end of England to the other. It's a journey that takes the reader along too, and its hard not to fall in love with poor Harold as he begins to transform and heal. 

10. Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

I can't quite put my finger on why I liked this. It's been a smash-hit all over the world and it's such a quirky, strange, disjointed novel. Imagine if you could visit a cafe that allowed you to time travel but, and this is a big 'but', there are several rules in place that heavily restrict the parameters of this travel. I won't tell you what these rules are as part of the joy of this book is the revelation of each of the ridiculous strictures and the ways in which they shape the individual stories of those who would time travel. As I said, it's all a bit strange. 

11. Acting Class by Nick Drnaso

Drnaso's highly-anticipated follow-up to the astonishing Booker Prize-nominated Sabrina is an equally mesmerising look at modern disaffection. Enigmatic and unsettling, Acting Class is Drnaso's most ambitious graphic novel yet, pulling together multiple characters as they're taken through a series of amateur acting lessons. The way this text builds tension through its exploration of the lost and the lonely leads to a burbling sense of terror that's both visceral and thought-provoking. Don't be fooled by Drnaso's deliberately bland drawing style - it fosters a sense of disorientation in the reader that's hard to shake and helps to create a strikingly memorable tone that feels like our feared tomorrows are already here.

Akira Kurosawa: Filmography

Akira Kurosawa with Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, two American filmmakers who were both heavily influenced by Kurosawa. 

This blog generally focuses on the teaching of English and History but, as I look at Twitter and attempt to calculate exactly how long it might take collapse in on itself, I thought I would also use this space to preserve a retrospective I'd posted there. This filmography reflects my longstanding interest in the masters of the medium, which is something I previously explored in a past life as a part-time film reviewer. It also links into my ongoing interest in the film canon, as previously seen with overviews of 'Best Films' at the Academy Awards and the wider Film Canon.

Below is a chronological filmography of the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998), one of the most acclaimed and influential cinematic artists of the 20th century.

Sanshiro Sugata (1943). It's quite amazing that this sport/martial-arts underdog story is really Kurosawa's first film as director. From the ambitious opening tracking shot to the use of vertical wipes and revolutionary slow motion, he creates a dynamic and memorable classic that still holds up today. Parts of the film feel quite modern - such as an inventive transition in which a sudden dramatic wipe jumps to a scene in which a man crashes through a wall. Definitely a must-see in Kurosawa's body of work. 

The Most Beautiful (1944). Kurosawa resisted requests from the Japanese navy to make propaganda about fighter planes during WWII. As a compromise, he instead made this semi-documentary film about the efforts of the country's female factory workers. As a State-funded war film it's quite historically interesting. It's also, from a modern viewpoint, evidently problematic as it presents several falsehoods about a society that was under a lot of strain. 

Sanshiro Sugata Part II (1945). Despite popular cineaste wisdom often claiming The Godfather Part II (1972) to be the first major film with a 'II' in the title, or that the British sci-fi/horror film Quatermass 2 to be the first numbered sequel, it is most likely Akira Kurosawa's Sanshiro Sugata sequel that is the first film to have 'Part II' in the title (one of its Japanese titles literally translates to Judo Saga 2). Like many sequels, this isn't as good as the first one. And as a government-sanctioned sequel intended to demonstrate Japanese superiority to white foreigners, it doesn't quite hold the same integrity as most other Kurosawa films - indeed, Kurosawa didn't particularly want to make this film but, being in the final year of the war, it was his only chance to make a film and was also one of the few movies actually made in Japan at all in this time. 

One point of interest... the presence of about twenty 'American' characters/extras in a Japanese WWII-era film raises certain uncomfortable (and unanswered) questions from historians, namely whether or not these are POWs who had been captured and brought back to Japan. Some film historians have suggested that these are most likely not POWs but it has always seemed odd that so many white actors were able to be assembled for a Japanese film at this point in history. At least two actors have been confirmed as Turkish-Russian, but the rest? No one is yet to definitively provide this information.   

The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tale (1945). Like the first Sanshiro Sugata film, this is a standout amongst Kurosawa's earliest work. It's also the first of many samurai films made by Kurosawa. This film was initially banned by the U.S. occupation forces in 1940s Japan due to its depiction of a feudal society, with the fear being that it might encourage warlike values. Eventually released in 1952, the film itself is a terrifically tense adventure about a fugitive commander and his six loyal samurai. Kurosawa crafts some great characters (specifically the comedic Porter, who provides a low class counterpoint to the noble samurai) and memorably suspenseful set pieces. 

No Regrets For Our Youth (1946). A romance that focuses on the true story of radical anti-military activists in the 1930s. This is the sort of film that could never have been made in WWII-era Japan and was a sign of a new filmmaking atmosphere in postwar Japanese society, revealing Kurosawa's true humanist leanings (which were politically at odds with the previous Imperial government) No Regrets For Our Youth is also one of the few Kurosawa films to have a female protagonist. Like Sanshiro Sugata Part II, but for completely different reasons, this is another historically-fascinating film.

Those Who Make Tomorrow (1946). Kurosawa's 'lost' film remains largely unseen and unreleased. It was a union-promoting propaganda piece that the occupying U.S. forces encouraged the director to make, with the hope that it would help push postwar Japan towards democracy. Kurosawa felt that he had little input and used his growing influence to have the film quickly buried. Subsequently, it's the only film on this list that I haven't seen. 

One Wonderful Sunday (1947). A young couple attempts to make the most of their day together with only 35 yen to their name. Another underrated gem within the director's early output, this is the first Kurosawa film to take a more unvarnished look at postwar Japan, with the couple's misadventures acting as a tour of a society in quiet trauma. 

Drunken Angel (1948). An alcoholic doctor (Takashi Shimura) becomes embroiled in the life of a yakuza gangster (Toshiro Mifune) in this tortured film noir classic. Great performances from Kurosawa's frequent collaborators Shimura and Mifune make this crime drama very watchable. This is the first of several famous Mifune roles directed by Kurosawa, and the young Mifune creates a complex character that holds his own against an experienced and unforgettable performance from Shimura. This is also the first of Kurosawa's many memorable forays into the crime genre. 

The Quiet Duel (1949). Kurosawa looks at another compromised doctor in a very different scenario, with Mifune playing an idealistic young GP who harbours a secret burden that twists the path of his life Kurosawa's exploration of postwar Japan's troubled psychological landscape features a lot of devastatingly effective symbolism, and also allows Mifune to demonstrate his incredible range as an actor. A fantastic film. 

Stray Dog (1949). The director takes a small scenario (a cop loses his gun and attempts to track it down before anyone can find out) and opens it up to reveal the trauma and suffering of postwar Japan in this heatwave-imbued film noir. It's also a powerful crime drama that shines a light on a devastated economy and the desperation and shame this bred throughout Japanese society.

Scandal (1950). An artist and an actress are ensnared in a fabricated news story by Japan's new American-influenced tabloid culture. On one level, it's a melodrama that entertains through the stakes felt by its characters, but, on another level, it's a thoughtful indictment of Japan's cultural and social degradation under U.S. occupation. It also features some powerful performances from its leads (Toshiro Mifune, Shirley Yamaguchi, Takashi Shimura).

Rashomon (1950). A murder involving a samurai, his wife, a bandit, and a woodcutter is shown to the audience from multiple conflicting perspectives. This film caused such a stir that it became the first Japanese film seen by many people around the world, and it catapulted Kurosawa onto the international stage as a director to watch. Rashomon is truly one of the greatest and most groundbreaking films of all time, influencing everything from The Usual Suspects to Star Trek. 

The Idiot (1951). Kurosawa's three-hour adaptation of the Dostoevsky novel of the same name. I found it a little hard to get invested in this one - I possibly would have appreciated it more if I'd read the source material! I don't know, I just found it a little meandering and patience-testing.

Ikiru (1952). Recently remade in 2022 as Living (in which Bill Nighy gave an Oscar-nominated performance), this is one of Kurosawa's many acclaimed social dramas. Takashi Shimura gives one of the greatest performances in cinema as a bland, no-nonsense businessman suddenly faced with terminal cancer. Ikiru is a thought-provoking look at the meaning of life, priorities, and Japanese society.

Seven Samurai (1954). What can be said about this iconic and wildly entertaining adventure classic that hasn't already been said? Even if you haven't seen it, you've seen its children in many permutations across film and TV and literature. This samurai action movie still holds up and features another great lead performance from Toshiro Mifune. 

I Live in Fear (1955). Toshiro Mifune once again demonstrates his versatility as he plays an elderly patriarch suffering from a form of PTSD that resulted from the dropping of the A-bombs on Japan in 1945. One of only three films in Kurosawa's body of work (the other two he would not make until the 1990s) to deal directly with the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. I Live in Fear is a biting satire of modern priorities in post-bomb Japan.

Throne of Blood (1957). This samurai-retelling of Macbeth is the first of three Shakespeare plays that Kurosawa would adapt (Hamlet and King Lear being the other two). Mifune seems born for the role of the paranoid general-turned-king, named here as Washizu. It's possibly my favourite screen version of Macbeth; the supernatural elements feel extra creepy and the feudal setting is very effective. 

The Lower Depths (1957). An adaptation of Maxim Gorky's 1902 play of the same name, Kurosawa's static look at the desperate dregs of society is slow and lacks the energy of French director Jean Renoir's superior 1936 version. The Lower Depths has some good performances and a memorable ending but it's ultimately just a little too plodding and insular. 

The Hidden Fortress (1958). A key influence on the first Star Wars film (feisty princess, story told from the point of view of two lowly characters, a samurai 'knight' character) and also a great action-adventure film in its own right. 

The Bad Sleep Well (1960). Kurosawa transposes Hamlet into the ruthless world of postwar corporate Japan, creating a memorable thriller and taut character study. The opening wedding scene served as inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather. Kurosawa's film has a weak ending but is overall a mesmerising modern reinterpretation of Shakespeare's classic tragedy.

Yojimbo (1961). A wry samurai retelling of Dashiell Hammett's classic 1930s American gangster novel Red Harvest. Kurosawa's use of Western tropes and Mifune's humorous anti-hero characterisation served as inspiration for the 1964 star-making Clint Eastwood remake A Fistful of Dollars. 

Sanjuro (1962). Such was the popularity of Kurosawa's previous film that this samurai adventure was hastily rewritten to act as a sequel to Yojimbo, with Mifune reprising his role as the laconic and streetwise swordsman. Not as great as Yojimbo but still a good film.

High and Low (1963). Starting as a devastatingly cynical commentary on class, this kidnap-and-ransom thriller segues into a highly-engaging police procedural drama. One of the first films of its kind, and another influential cinematic classic. Its power can be felt decades later in meticulous police procedurals such as the Bong Joon-ho's Memories of Murder and David Fincher's Zodiac.

Kurosawa's source material for High and Low was an American pulp crime novel by Ed McBain. As you may have noticed from his filmography, Kurosawa was quite happy to draw upon European sources - often taking the core of a narrative (and its universal drama) and using this to explore Japanese society and themes. 

Red Beard (1965). An arrogant young 19th century doctor is upset at being placed in a highly disadvantaged community and finds himself clashing with his mentor, 'Red Beard' (Toshiro Mifune). Kurosawa worked so hard at achieving a certain kind of historical authenticity in this epic drama that it permanently broke his relationship with lead actor Mifune and they would never work together again. Red Beard is a fine film that has attained critical acclaim in the years since but, at the time, it demonstrated a faltering step in Kurosawa's career. It would be his last black and white film. 

Dodes'kaden(1970). Kurosawa offsets his vibrant first-time use of colour with a depressing/hopeful ensemble story about the poor and the desperate trying to survive in their garbage dump community. The film features some indelible imagery but can feel a little unfocused at times. The title is an onomatopoeic Japanese representation of the sound of a train (say it aloud a couple of times in a row).

Sadly, even though Dodes'kaden has come to be critically re-appraised as a worthy film, its lack of success in 1970 led Kurosawa to almost give up on cinema altogether. The critical and commercial failure of Dodes'kaden (and his unsuccessful attempt to collaborate on the international war film Tora! Tora! Tora!) was so devastating to the director that he attempted to take his own life. He would only make one other film over the next 10 years.

Dersu Uzala (1975). This is a grand yet delicate examination of an unlikely true life friendship between a Russian explorer and an indigenous Nanai hunter from northern China. It was evidently the soothing nature-centric balm for the soul that Kurosawa needed. Dersu Uzala is a beautiful film that brims with genuine wisdom.  

Kagemusha (1980). A petty criminal is set up as a look-alike stand-in for a dying feudal lord. It's a sweet deal for the thief... until war comes calling! Kagemusha is a visually spectacular epic that helped to rejuvenate Kurosawa's career on the international stage. As if paying Kurosawa back for his stylistic influence on Star Wars, George Lucas helped finance this film alongside Francis Ford Coppola (who had also drawn upon the work of Kurosawa for his own hit films). Kagemusha was a triumphant comeback for the Japanese director. This film and its distinctive use of the colour red would go on to influence Star Wars again, with director Rian Johnson borrowing its visuals for Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017). 

Ran (1985). For some this samurai retelling of King Lear is Kurosawa's last true masterpiece. Epic in every sense, perfectly performed, and a nuanced statement from a master director at the height of his powers - Ran (meaning 'chaos') is one of the greatest Shakespeare adaptations.

Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (1990). It might be the most indulgent film in Kurosawa's oeuvre but this collection of short films is well-earned and feels essential to his filmography. Dreams is full of memorable images and moments that could only exist in the fantasy realm of the dreamscape. Look out for Martin Scorsese in a rare acting role as Vincent Van Gogh (pictured above).

Rhapsody in August (1991). An elderly matriarch is begged by her grandchildren to travel overseas to see her dying brother one last time. For me, this is probably the only Kurosawa film that feels contemporary to my own lifetime - it's a mature and introspective work that reflects on the legacy of the Nagasaki bombing but also features characters who very much reflect the early '90s. It's also the only Kurosawa film to feature an American movie star, with Richard Gere appearing in a supporting role. 

Madadayo (1993). Translating as 'not yet', the resounding cry of 'madadayo' is heard numerous times throughout this tale of an ageing teacher who forges a new identity for himself during retirement. Art imitates life for Kurosawa in his irreverent and reflective final film. 

Akira Kurosawa worked right up until his death - his dream was to die while directing a film but this wasn't to be. He had an accident in 1995 that left him in a wheelchair, which made it too difficult for him to direct again. Undaunted by this, he still kept working and wrote two more screenplays before his death in 1998. 

He was a true giant of cinema. 

Top Reads for 2021

This year, in total, I read just over 100 books - a mixture of fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, audiobooks, and picture books. You may note that this blog has not had as many updates lately... suffice to say, I found 2021 to be immensely challenging for a range of reasons. So it was nice, no matter what was happening, to always have some reading on the go. Often I find reading to be an anchor of sorts. 

I got my list down from 111 to my favourite 17.

The Dry by Jane Harper: I was riveted from start to finish and could not stop reading it because I really had to know what happened. This is great Australian crime fiction, and the isolated location gave me strong Peter Temple's Broken Shore vibes. I ordered and read Harper's second book almost immediately after finishing The Dry. 

The Museum of Whales You Will Never See by A. Kendra Greene: A wonderful series of discursive essays that take the reader along on the author's adventures through Iceland's esoteric museums. Wistful, fascinating, and full of wanderlust. Museum.. is the best kind of travel writing and easily my most favourite piece of non-fiction that I read this year.

Milkman by Anna Burns: What an incredible tour-de-force exploration of Northern Ireland's 'Troubles' period. Expertly constructed with an authentic and razor-sharp voice... a devastating examination of the corrosive power of conformity. This easily deserved its Booker Prize.

The Boy From the Mish by Gary Lonesborough: A beautiful, funny, heartfelt, authentic coming-of-age YA story from a gay Aboriginal perspective. My only gripe is that it's a bit sexually explicit in parts, which means I'd be hesitant to tackle it in a classroom. Lonesborough's future books will be ones to watch!

Nothing Much Happens by Kathryn Nicolai: A different sort of book to the other ones on this list. This is a book version of a popular podcast; I bought it on a whim as something to read to my wife each night to help her sleep. It worked a treat - easy rhythmic episodes designed to relax and lull. A nice concept, and it earns its place on this list because it had a positive real world impact on my life.

Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan: I've never read anything like this before and I loved it so much. It's a hard novel to describe but it's short and it's perfectly written and hilarious and poignant. Brautigan has become my new favourite author. 

The Iliad by Homer (Translated by Stephen Mitchell): Why did I wait so long to read this? I was swept up by the chance to experience the iconography and elegiac descriptions of the horrors and glories of a war culture, as written from within. Interwoven with myth and history... not at all as I expected (no Trojan horse, no Achilles heel!). I listened to this one, and Alfred Molina was a great narrator.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas: I don't read a lot of YA Lit but I had to check this out due to the hype. It did not disappoint. Very much a vivid and electric book for our times. The Hate U Give is a frequently contested titles in schools due to the way it links into the BlackLivesMatter movement, but it's hard to imagine a legitimate reason for anyone wanting to stop other people from reading it. 

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead: Historical literature with a dash of magic realism. Whitehead employs crisp imagery, riveting characterisation, and a memorable examination of 19th century slavery in order to construct a 21st century literary classic on par with To Kill a Mockingbird. Loved it. 

Stuck Rubber Baby by Howard Cruse: I came across this while working my way through the graphic novel canon and was taken by its careful reconstruction of a time period via the lens of memoir. Stuck Rubber Baby is a roman-a-clef that offers a rich representation of the civil rights movement from a gay perspective. Amazingly detailed artwork and brilliant storytelling.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel: I thought I'd be over hearing about Henry and Anne Boleyn after bingeing on The Tudors a few years back but Mantel offers a narrative that effortlessly recreates historical detail while retaining an identifiable human element. Mantel's Cromwell is a masterful characterisation. A truly absorbing novel. 

The Story of China by Michael Wood: I've looked at Wood's stuff before and, whilst he is very much a historian in the TV Presenter mood, I found a lot to be impressed with in this one-volume take on the Middle Kingdom. This ambitious, overarching history of China does a brilliant job at presenting the big events alongside smaller and more under-represented stories. 

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart: A compelling and authentic piece of literary art. Shuggie Bain offers a heartbreaking perspective on the cycle of poverty, addiction, and dysfunction. Agnes Bain will go down as one of the great characters of 21st century literature. Another well-deserved Booker Prize win.

Under-Earth by Chris Gooch: A perfectly constructed and artful depiction of a brutal Australian dystopia. Modern day convicts are thrown into a garbage underworld without hope or independence. One of the best new dystopias I've read in a while.

Civilisations by Laurent Binet: This unique chronicle of counter-factual history imagines a sequence of events that leads to an Inca conquest of Europe in the early 16th century. It sounds like such an unlikely concept but Binet absolutely nails it through his fine observation of history and the forces that make it tick. Fascinating, incisively satirical, lively, and devastating in its dissection of European ideologies.  

Mirror Sydney by Vanessa Berry: A wonderful book of essays about Sydney's hidden histories and the layers of urban esoterica that evoke our memory. Berry has a knack for exploring nostalgia and loss, and attaching value to the devalued. This one really resonated with me because of how familiar I found the geography and history.

Follow Me In by Katriona Chapman: Another personal one. I picked this memoir travel-lit up because it features a lot of places in Mexico that I'd visited. Chapman's memoir is heartfelt and bittersweet and features some of the most beautiful and accomplished artwork I've ever seen in comic form. It took me back to Mexico and I felt like I'd walked it all over again. 

Top Reads for 2020!

I had a lot of time to read this year. It was the thing I filled the 'gaps' with, and something that kept me motivated. I can safely say that I read more in 2020 then I have in any other year. Of the 127 books and graphic novels that I read, the following 12 are my favourites; the ones that stood out most...

The Shipping News by Annie Proulx: One of my favourite reads of the last 5 years - such a great novel, funny and richly quirky and tragic and just beautifully constructed and written. I read it back in Autumn while walking by the sea, with the cold wind whipping up around me, and the weather felt perfectly attuned to the content of the novel. More than six months later I'm still thinking back on it and hoping to read something else like it. 

My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf: A perfect intersection of meticulous, exhaustive research and one person's unique insight into the formative years of one of America's most notorious serial killers. Derf Backderf deals with the material with sensitivity and integrity, and works incredibly hard to avoid veering into speculation. Intensely magnetic.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel: A wonderful, scary, hopeful, metatextual English teacher's dream of a post-apocalyptic novel. The author imagines a world struck down by a devastating pandemic (fancy that!) and adds layers of interlinked characters, multiple narratives that span decades, King Lear, and a fictional graphic novel-within-a-novel. Station Eleven took me four walks to read, and I would gladly read it again.

Lost Transmissions by Desirina Boskovich: This is a brilliant piece of counter-'canon' work that shines a light on an influential secret history of speculative fiction - the forgotten voices, the unsung artistic legends, the might-have-beens. Boskovich investigates the influence of science fiction on every aspect of pop culture - books, film, art, architecture, music, fashion - and presents the texts that slipped through the gaps or deserved more attention. It prompted me to seek out a bunch of new texts.

Safe Area Gorazde by Joe Sacco: I was a teen when the Yugoslav Wars tore the Balkans apart. It was confusing, partly because '90s Australian media didn't know what to make of a war where Muslims were very clearly the victims. This non-fiction graphic novel makes an incredibly challenging and complex piece of recent history quite terrifyingly clear. 

The Voyage of QV66 by Penelope Lively: You may have noticed a few post-apocalyptic titles in this list. I read 15 such novels this year, and the ones that made it onto this list are the true stand-outs. The Voyage of QV66 takes a different angle in that it presents a post-apocalyptic vision of Britain where the animals have inherited a world mysteriously void of humans. It's a fascinating parable that also happens to be very entertaining, and is suitable for adults and children alike. 

The Transmigration of Bodies by Yuri Herrera: A hardboiled, neo-noir, dirty-as-malaria, Mexican crime novella with shades of intense social decay. Imagine Romeo & Juliet mixed with Dashiell Hammett in a favela. It's a really quick, gripping read too, and I ordered Herrera's previous novel straightaway after reading. 

Blacksad by Juan Diaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido: If you love detective fiction, film noir, intelligently-captured caricatures of incisive crime genre archetypes, or evocative artwork that conveys so much so perfectly, then you must read the graphic novel Blacksad. A great find for me this year :)

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin: I loved this. Ursula Le Guin demonstrates in this novel why she is widely considered one of the greatest sci-fi authors of all time. This carefully-written narrative offers an insightful, compelling, feminist vision of an androgynous society. Paradoxically of its time (the late '60s) and way ahead of its time. A+ effort.

Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton: I got completely hooked once I got past the disorientating opening and adjusted to the rhythm of the writing. Dalton knocks it completely out of the park with this epic and finely-observed Aussie bildungsroman. Great characters and writing - lives up to the hype!

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald: An astoundingly heartfelt interweaving of falconry, personal grief, and an investigation of the pained, repressed life of the great English author T. H. White. Helen McDonald's prose is as sharp as the hawk's beak. This is great memoir writing.

In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan: An eerie, strange, beautiful, enigmatic, post-apocalyptic classic of the 1960s. Possibly the best book I've read this year and one of the most unexpected. I was so inspired I created the artwork below, and I'm about to read it again!

And that's it!

Here are some other honourable mentions that would round out a 'Top 25' from 2020:

The 1950s counter-culture graphic novel memoir Cruisin' with the Hound by Spain Rodriguez, influential island-set graphic novel Streak of Chalk by Miguelanxo Prado, Kurt Vonnegut's political satire Mother Night, Afro-futurist Romeo & Juliet remake Prince of Cats by Ronald Wimberly, American gothic classic The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, Korean memoir Banned Book Club, Jules Verne's 20 000 Leagues Under the Sea, Italo Calvino's On a Winter's Night a Traveler..., Steinbeckesque graphic novel Kings in Disguise by Jim Vance and Dan Burr, the haunting Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham, Flea's memoir Acid for the Children, the challenging epic A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James, and Waubgeshig Rice's First Nations-perspective on the end of the world, Moon of the Crusted Snow.