the new year honours lists
New Year is a strange time. Some like to take time to reflect on the year gone by – mistakes made, lessons learned, wisdom gained – and shape some intentions for the year ahead.
Others prefer to trivialise the complexities of the past year by parcelling it up into simplistic and banal lists of the best and the worst of whatever.
In that spirit, I’m delighted to present you with my own, entirely subjective and highly opinionated opinion on the top five records and books of the year. They weren’t all released or published this year, but they were all new to me. First the music:
1. The Trumpet Child (Over the Rhine). One of the few bands that Espero and I are equally taken with. We caught them live here in Vancouver last year, and were totally floored. This album was a surprise – jazzier and more playful and, well, sexy, than anything else in their back catalogue, or in my music collection. But by far the most enjoyable album of the year. And plenty of thoughtful hooks under the playfulness – “His final goal, to fill with joy/ the earth that man all but destroyed.”
2. Sky Blue Sky (Wilco). I’ve loved this band for a long time, but at first didn’t know what to make of this. It’s simpler and happier than anything they’ve ever recorded – the first song has the cheesiest guitar solo and I still have no idea if they’re taking the piss or not. But if you go with the album it’s just lovely. Musical sunshine.
3. The Shepherd’s Dog (Iron and Wine). This guy has gone in the opposite direction to Wilco. His last record was a thing of gentle, quiet beauty – this one is noisier and more complex and ambitious, a more difficult listen. But he hasn’t lost his gift for haunting melodies and strange, evocative lyrics. It gets better with every listen, and if you ask me in a few weeks I’ll probably regret not making it my number 1. I’ll just have to carry that regret through 2008.
4. Boxer (The National). Dark, textured, weary, articulate, beautiful.
5. The Broken String (Bishop Allen). Maybe I should be growing out of it, but I still have a soft spot for a good bit of tuneful indie pop. Belle and Sebastian still light up my life. This New York band’s album was a highlight this year – it collects together the best songs from a project they took on in 2006 to record an EP every month of the year.
Narrowly missing the cut were The Innocence Mission (We Walked in Song), Calexico (The Black Light), Whiskeytown (Faithless Street), Brian Houston (Sugar Queen) and Stars (Set Yourself on Fire). Biggest disappointments of the year after being hailed as returns to former glories were Ryan Adams (Easy Tiger) and Radiohead (In Rainbows).
And now the books. This will inevitably be extremely random since I’m refusing to separate fiction from non-fiction, sacred from profane, and academic from bed-time-reading. It’s more fun this way.
1. The Violent Bear it Away (Flannery O’Connor). This is the least celebrated of her writings (she only wrote two novels and about 30 short stories) and has been out of print for a while. But it blew me away. I never understand everything that’s going on in her stories, but her strange characters on their bizarre spiritual journeys just draw me in, stir me deeply, and live in the memory long after I finish. Absolutely unique.
2. Reflections on the Psalms (C.S. Lewis). Most of you know that in my list of favourite writers this Belfast boy is out in front on his own. I read pretty much his complete works in uni, but it’s about time to revisit them. Every page is provocative and refreshing and surprising. Reading this reminded me that I don’t love Lewis primarily as an “apologist” or defender of the faith, as he’s usually depicted. For me he’s above all a spiritual guide – what he does for me is call me to a lifelong pursuit of the beautiful and the good and the true.
3. The Sacred Journey (Frederick Buechner). Buechner writes better than nearly anyone else alive today and he writes about life in general and the spiritual life in particular with disarming honesty and deep insight. His short memoirs are my favourites among his writings.
4. The Love of Learning and the Desire for God (Jean Leclerq). OK so this one was a textbook for a class I took. And it’s exploring the culture of medieval monasticism. But it is really, really good. Seriously.
5. A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bill Bryson). This is a really fun and engaging read. Bryson does a great job of condensing the history of science into a readable and entertaining paperback, without trivialising the subject matter. He clearly loves science, and it’s infectious. But he also does a great job of showing the humanness of science – that it often advances through colossal egos and petty rivalries, creative leaps, blind alleys and lucky accidents, as much as by the clear-headed and methodical pursuit of knowledge. And that, although we know a lot of amazing things, there’s still a whole heap we don’t know.
Now it would be appropriate and traditional for you to tell me I’m out of my mind and wouldn’t know a masterpiece if it bit me on the bum, and offer your top fives as a corrective to my ignorance.
Happy new year.
espero says:
January 1st, 2008 at 6:28 pm
It’s just wrong that Peace like a River didn’t make it into the Top 5 books.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
I shall sulk and keep my fiction discoveries to myself forthwith. Humph.
zoomtard says:
January 1st, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Since I’m not allowed to write on my blog, I’ll just hide it as a comment on yours. Happy New Year and all that by the way.
Booktown:
1. Colossians Remixed.
Maybe in years to come we’ll all laugh and say “What fools we were to get so caught up in all that politics lark” but for me right now, no book has haunted me and excited me as much this year.
2. The Resurrection Of The Son Of God
I re-read this in the summer and it terrified me at times- the paragraphs just lodge in the old noggin cos they are written so well. If I’m ever bed ridden for a while, I think I’ll just spend my time learning the final two chapters off by heart.
3. The Harry Potter book
Cos I am seriously predictable and it was so very fun.
Musicville:
1. Radiohead’s In Rainbows
J! How could you be disappointed. They found melody again. Thom Yorke sings about sex! I thought he had no willy, like Eoin McLove from Fr. Ted. But there he is, singing love songs and here I am, singing along, all the crimes of banal anti-Bush records forgiven.
2. Rilo Kiley’s Under The Blacklight
I think I love Jenny Lewis almost as much as my wife. The voice. It’s a little bit of heaven in my i-river. “Her good looks could have sailed a ship but her will alone could have sunk it”. Amazing
The best film of the year was obviously Lives of Others.
Now I’m off to continue my recuperation from a rather intense and embarrassing hangover.
jaybercrow says:
January 1st, 2008 at 9:11 pm
OK so for the record Peace Like a River (Leif Enger) would have been my 6th choice, with the 7th Potter book appropriately in 7th.
I’ll have to check out Colossians Remixed since it has both zoomtard and soapbox salivating. I bought the Resurrection tome this year and will read it sometime in the next decade. Look forward to processing it over a pint or ten when we get home.
I’ll give the Radiohead record more time, but I’m not optimistic. And I must check out Rilo Kiley this year since I loved the Jenny Lewis album…
I seriously didn’t see enough movies this year to do a top 5, which is kind of tragic. I could do a top 5 of kids movies and TV shows though…
QMonkey says:
January 1st, 2008 at 9:22 pm
nice list
Im with Zoom on In Rainbows, it hit the spot nicely… also i advise making a playlist mixed with OK computer… one song in turn from each starting with OK. (saw it on some web site somewhere)
The National – excellent…. no Neon Bible?
movies… 2 days in paris? Babel?
kickedbyanelephant says:
January 4th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Clearly I’ve been asleep for most of 2007 as I’ve never even heard of any of the bands in your top 5. Does nobody watch Top of the Pops anymore?
Ok, I need to get out more.
kickedbyanelephant says:
January 4th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
(Yeh, I do actually know top of the pops isn’t on anymore!)
Van Peebles says:
January 19th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
If Jayber Crow (whoever he is) ran the BBC juvenile delinquency would plummet. Instead of running out of the local Spar with a six-pack of Carling stashed in his hoodie, the typical adolescent would scurry away for a happily meditative evening with a bottle of port and a Charles Williams reprint.
Thanks for a great list of recommendations. I’m about to start listening to Iron & Wine and am keen to hear the Wilco album. Heavy Metal Drummer remains my definitive “I’m feeling happy” song.
It’s also been great to read a few paragraphs from Zoomtard, an Irishman I gather who, like Bono, sees the value of a nom de plume. His blog sabbatical has convinced me that this internet thing is a flash in the pan.
In terms of literary highlights, Fred Buechner’s Secrets in the Dark provided wisdom and sustenance at the end of fractured days. David Remnick’s Reporting showed how a craft can become an art, and proved a uniquely fascinating place creation is – just having the chance to experience reality is a bountiful blessing. Whether writing about Al Gore or Mike Tyson, Remnick documents with a precision which spellbinds the reader without resorting to flourishes.
In cinema, it’s been exciting to see a return to compelling storytelling. Juno starts out with the whimsy of a indie flick but is actually a brilliant story about the bewilderment of teenagerdom and how it doesn’t dissipate one iota when you hit adulthood.
Zodiac was also an epic crime story told with ashamed bravura, interspersed with utterly unironic chills and laughs in equal measure.
Mock me, but I found I Am Legend significantly smarter than the average bear, and Pan’s Labyrinth was perhaps the most successful representation of magical realism on screen yet.
Charlie Wilson’s War was fantastic, and makes me hope all the more that HBO will pick up the West Wing and coax Aaron Sorkin back for a full term.
In terms of new media, I had a go on Call of Duty 4 and am more convinced than ever that I never want to go to war.
I’m itching to see No Country for Old Men.
Here’s to a year of transition and revelation.
Tora! Tora! Tora!