Pseudocheirus peregrinus

BOOKS 2016

This was a bit of a frustrating year for me due to complications at work. Looking back at it from the vantage point of a couple of years later now, I can see that my usual habit of structured reading (the previous read-through of all of Peter Carey in chronological order, and the follow-up of all of Patrick White in chronological order) was replicated in my decision to return to childhood by reading through all of the Asterix comics, buying the ones missing from my childhood collection, and those issued since I grew up. This allowed me a bit of a comforting wallow in nostalgia, and the easy symbolic successes of completing a collection. Plus it was a fun distraction when the eBay packages turned up in the mail at work.

January

This shows the results of a visit to the Music section of the Melbourne City Library, and a brief flirtation with the non-identical twin psychogeographies of the Wu-Tang Clan and London.

B1. Doctor Brodie's Report, Jorge Luis Borges (tr. N T di Giovanni).
B2. Visions Before Midnight: Television Criticism from the Observer 1972-72, Clive James.
B3. The Dirty Version: on stage, in the studio, and in the streets with Ol' Dirty Bastard, Buddha Monk and Mickey Hess.
B4. Ghost Milk: Calling Time on the Grand Project, Iain Sinclair.
B5. The Tao of Wu, The RZA (w. Chris Norris).
B6. Rise of the Super Furry Animals, Ric Rawlins.
B7. Japrocksampler: How the Post-war Japanese Blew their Minds on Rock 'n' Roll, Julian Cope.
B8. The Desert and the Dancing Girls, Gustave Flaubert (tr. Francis Steegmuller).
B9. Gilliamesque, Terry Gilliam and Ben Thompson.
B10. Dark Palace: the companion novel to Grand Days, Frank Moorhouse.
B11. Flacco's Burnt Offerings, Paul Livingston.
B12. The Wind in the Willows, Nancy Krulik. (spine: The Wind in the Willows Novelisation, Kenneth Grahame, adapted by Nancy Krulik. title page: Walt Disney's The Wind in the Willows, adapted by Nancy E. Kurlik, from the screenplay by Terry Jones, based on the novel by Kenneth Grahame).
B13. The Writer's Cut, Eric Idle.
B14. The Inner Man: the life of J. G. Ballard, John Baxter.
B15. Gray's Anatomy, Spalding Gray.

February

I finished the Edith trilogy of giant books by Frank Moorhouse and followed it up with Forty-Seventeen, which is interestingly both a prequel (written before the trilogy) and a sequel (Edith is an elderly lady in this one; obviously she fascinated Frank so much he had to go back and write 1800 pages about her earlier life). I enjoyed these books a lot and thought I had discovered a new seam to mine, so bought a few more of his books. Sadly the first one I read was a slight monograph called "Martini" and it was so supremely awful I have moved the rest of the pile to a cupboard where I will no doubt get to them... one day.

B16. Popular Hits of the Showa Era, Ryu Murakami (tr. Ralph McCarthy).
B17. The Ham Funeral, Patrick White.
B17a. Online Diaries: The Lollapalooza '95 Tour Journals of Beck, Courtney Love, Stephen Malkmus, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Mike Watt & David Yow.
B18. 69, Ryu Murakami (tr. Ralph F. McCarthy). (spine: Sixty-Nine).
B19. Henry Handel Richardson, Vincent Buckley.
B20. Cold Light, Frank Moorhouse.
B21. ReBerth: Stories from Cities on the Edge, ed. Jim Hinks.
B22. Forty-Seventeen, Frank Moorhouse.
B23. Writing Home, Alan Bennett.
B24. A Book For Her, Bridget Christie.
B25. 250 Cartoons, Matthew Martin.
B26. The Double-Bass, Patrick Süskind (tr. Michael Hofmann).

March

This was a good month, though The Raw Shark Texts was a bit of a disappointment. Maybe I had set my expectations too high? It gave me a bit of a bad vibe, which I now diagnose as what everyone is currently going through with Ready Player One.

B27. Walls, Channa Wickremesekera.

B28. Nineteen Twenty-One, Adam Thorpe.

B29. Not to be Rude, Sarina Rowell.

B30. Travelling to Work: Diaries 1988-98, Michael Palin.

B31. Everyday Devils and Angels, Michael Leunig.

B31a. Stalin Ate My Homework, Alexei Sayle.

B32. The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes.

B33. The Raw Shark Texts, Steven Hall.

April

B34. The Sound of the Crowd: A Discography of the ‘80s, Steve Binnie.

B35. Bonkers, Jennifer Saunders.

B35a. A Nest of Occasionals, Tony Martin.

B36. Thatcher Stole My Trousers, Alexei Sayle.

B37. These Broken Stars, Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner.

B38. The Making of the Goodies’ Disaster Movie, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie.

B39. Great Interviews of the Twentieth Century, John Clarke.

B40. The Night the Prowler, Patrick White.

B41. The Birds, Aristophanes (trans. William Arrowsmith).

B42. The Twyborn Affair, Patrick White.

B43. Zero Waste Home: The Ultimate Guide to Simplifying your Life, Bea Johnson.

May

The A. S. Neill books, about alternative education in the UK in the sixties, I picked up simply because of references to them in British comedy shows - Summerhill was parodied as "Drumlake" in Brass Eye; 'Neill! Neill! Orange Peel!' was memorably (and mystifyingly to me as a child) part of The Young Ones.

B44. Summerhill, A. S. Neill.

B45. Barmy: The New Victoria Wood Sketch Book featuring ‘Acorn Antiques’, Victoria Wood.

B46. ‘Neill! Neill! Orange Peel!’, A. S. Neill.

June

B47. Vernon God Little, DBC Pierre.

B48. The Letter U and the Number 2, Negativland.

B49. England, England, Julian Barnes.

B50. Friends Like These, Danny Wallace.

B51. The Internet is not the Answer, Andrew Keen.

B52. Quean Lutibelle’s Pew, Louie Crew.

B53. A Complete Dagg, John Clarke.

B54. What is the What, Dave Eggers.

July

The Bill Drummond book here is a very limited edition published for his brief exhibition in Sydney. While it is an official Penkiln Burn publication, it doesn't seem to be mentioned on the Penkiln Burn site and seems to have been printed on demand. It sits on my bookshelf looking like the impoverished cousin to its stablemates, which are all perfect-bound on soft paper. I quite enjoyed the Margaret Atwood novel, but I think my tastes run to her more fantastic stories.

B55. Blood and Guts in High School, Kathy Acker.

B56. Ben Baker’s Comedy Cash-In Book Book (Second revised edition), Ben Baker.

B56a. Ben Baker’s Comedy Cash-In Book, Ben Baker.

B57. Is This Music?, Tim Worthington.

B57a. Lightning Rods, Helen DeWitt.

B58. Missionary or Cannibal?, Bill Drummond.

B59. The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood.

August

B59a. Fraud, David Rakoff.

B59b. Asterix the Gaul, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B59c. Flood, S. Alexander Reed and Philip Sandifer.

B59d. Asterix and the Golden Sickle, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B59e. Drop Out!, Robin Farquharson.

B59f. Asterix and the Goths, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B59g. Asterix the Gladiator, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B59h. Asterix and the Banquet, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B60. The End of the Homosexual?, Dennis Altman.

B60a. Asterix and Cleopatra, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B61. The Pretended Asian: George Psalmanazar’s Eighteenth-Century Formosan Hoax, Michael Keevak.

B61a. Asterix and the Big Fight, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B61b. Asterix in Britain, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B61c. Asterix and the Normans, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B61d. Asterix the Legionary, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B62. Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Paton.

B63. Ragnarok: The End of the Gods, A. S. Byatt.

September

B64. Off the Map: Lost Spaces, Invisible Cities, Forgotten Islands, Feral Places, and What They Tell Us About the World, Alastair Bonnett.

B65. Meanjin Volume 70 Number 1, 2011, ed. Sophie Cunningham.

B65a. Asterix and the Chieftain’s Shield, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B65b. Asterix at the Olympic Games, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B66. The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Yukio Mishima (tr. Ivan Morris).

B67. Sandman’s Advice to the Unpopular, The Sandman.

B67a. Asterix and the Cauldron, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B67b. Asterix in Spain, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B67c. Asterix and the Roman Agent, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B67d. Flaws in the Glass: A Self-Portrait, Patrick White.

B68. Commodork: Sordid Tales from a BBS Junkie, Rob O’Hara.

October

With Three Uneasy Pieces, my Patrick White task came to a symbolic end. There are further publications and biographies which I will get around to (and haven't yet) but this unbelievably slim volume is the last new fiction he published. There is a bit of a sense of clearing out the backs of his cupboards with this, though he was of course still working on the novel that was eventually published posthumously as The Hanging Garden. The book by Ramzy Alkaweel about the Pet Shop Boys' album "Very" is one of the best books I've read in the 'all about an album' genre. It is a big step up from the book on They Might Be Giants' "Flood" I re-read back in August. Two albums that meant a great deal to me, but only one got the book it deserved. Ironically Alkaweel, over a hundred pages or more, devotes about six lines to the song that had the greatest impact on me ("A Different Point of View"). I was fourteen when the album came out, an incipient straight man, and while the sense of sexual freedom and possibility charted by the album largely sailed over my head, I took from it a lot of exuberation, delight in melody, and a prioritisation of treble over bass. Alkaweel was six (!) when "Very" was released and so it wove into the tapestry of his development in a way only open to little children, but I agree with everything he wrote and learned a lot from him as well. A compliment I cannot pay to the authors of the 33 1/3 book on "Flood".

B68a. Asterix in Switzerland, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B69. Carry a Big Stick: a Funny, Fearless Life of Friendship, Laughter and MS, Tim Ferguson.

B69a. The Mansions of the Gods, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B69b. Asterix and the Laurel Wreath, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B69c. Asterix and the Soothsayer, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B70. Memoirs of Many in One: By Alex Xenophon Demirjian Gray, Edited by, Patrick White.

B70a. Asterix in Corsica, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B71. Three Uneasy Pieces, Patrick White.

B72. Smile if You Dare: Politics and Pointy Hats with the Pet Shop Boys, 1993-94, Ramzy Alwakeel.

B73. Great Railway Journeys, C Anderson, N Makarova, R Malan, M Palin, L St Aubin de Teran, M Tully.

B74. Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer, Peter Wright with Paul Greengrass.

B75. The Alice Behind Wonderland, Simon Winchester.

November

B75a. The Desert and the Dancing Girls, Gustave Flaubert (tr. F Steegmuller).

B75b. Attacks of Opinion, Terry Jones.

B76. No Known Cure: The Comedy of Chris Morris, eds. James Leggott and Jamie Sexton.

B76a. Asterix and Caesar’s Gift, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B76b. Asterix and the Great Crossing, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B76c. The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures, Louis Theroux.

B76d. Obelix and Co., Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B76e. The Twelve Tasks of Asterix, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B77. A Wild Haruki Chase: Reading Murakami Around the World (compil. The Japan Foundation).

B78. The Dreaming Swimmer: Non-Fiction 1987-1992, Clive James.

December

Each December, wanting to hit my 100 book target with ease, I go to the library and borrow books that both look at least slightly interesting, and short. Amongst the exceptions here is the Evie Wyld novel, a novel bridging England and Australia in a way I can partly relate to, and which reflects the author's upbringing. Evie Wyld had an Australian mother, and the Australian scenes clearly come from a child's memory of visits to the Australian countryside. As an Australian, I can see tiny errors in this, but that's what memory is all about, and in a way what the novel was about. Amnesia by Peter Carey gave me similar pause for thought - set almost entirely in Australia (and in named Melbourne streets an hour's walk from my home) - but written by a man who left Australia in 1994. I sympathise entirely when the concept of being an Australian abroad, and carrying a version of Australia in your head wherever you go - but when I came back I was very much confronted with the difference between the old Australia in my head, and the new Australia in front of me. It doesn't take long for you to think about the differences between the Australia in your head and the actual Australia you left - your view of your 'country' is largely mostly to do with the social milieu of your family and friends, and the 'landscape' is primarily the landscape of the area you spent your youth in. I found the A. S. Patrić novel (winner of the Miles Franklin) and the Colson Whitehead novel (Booker shortlisted) pretty much without merit. The conceit in the Whitehead wasn't nearly fleshed-out enough to justify its use, though the whole was beautifully written. The Patrić was basically the novelisation of an underfunded Stan Original Series after Film Victoria had said no.

B79. Trainspotting & Shallow Grave, John Hodge.

B80. All the Birds, Singing, Evie Wyld.

B81. My Two Blankets, Irena Kobald and Freya Blackwood.

B82. Amnesia, Peter Carey.

B82a. Asterix in Belgium, Goscinny/Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B83. Scornflakes, Attila the Stockbroker.

B84. The Perpetual Race of Achilles and the Tortoise, Jorge Luis Borges.

B85. Mean Time, Carol Ann Duffy.

B86. The Seagull, Anton Chekov in a version by Benedict Andrews.

B87. The End of the World, Maria Takolander.

B88. The Peasants and the Mariners, Brian Bouldrey.

B89. Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution, Laurie Penny.

B90. Don Parties On, David Williamson.

B90a. Asterix and the Great Divide, Albert Uderzo (tr. Bell/Hockridge).

B91. Death in Venice, Thomas Mann (tr. H. T. Lowe-Porter).

B92. The Strange Library, Haruki Murakami (tr. Ted Goossen).

B93. Private Lives, Noël Coward.

B93a. A History of Capitalism According to the Jubilee Line, John O’Farrell.

B94. Oh What a Lovely War, Joan Littlewoods’ Theatre Workshop.

B95. The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Bertolt Brecht (tr. Jennifer Wise).

B96. Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish: a novel, David Rakoff.

B97. A Gap in the Records, Jan McKemmish.

B98. Fairy Tales, Terry Jones.

B99. Black Rock White City, A. S. Patrić.

B100. The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead.

Centropus colossus

MOVIES 2015

This was a great year for films, with a run of great Chinese movies at the start and great Japanese movies at the end from various film festivals.

In no special order, some of the most interesting films were Sunstruck (if you can imagine Wake in Fright as a children's film); Most of My Memoirs are Plagiarized (an absurd, possibly self-financed, deeply unwell film that seems to be a forgotten entry in the James Incandenza oeuvre), The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (a disorienting documentary), and Eisenstein in Guanajuato (Greenaway's most surprising film for a long time).

Also mention of The March, a film I saw on TV as a child which haunted me for two decades, in which the poor populations of Africa march on Europe. Watching this in 2015 coincided with the Syrian refugee crisis and this film seemed pretty percipient.

I was hoping Sweden's A Pigeon Sat on a Branch would be the arthouse king this year but it didn't live up to expectations. Contrast that with Germany's The Scorpion's Sting, a portmanteau film dominated by a long 'short' film within, "Deep Gold", which while only 25 minutes long may have been the best thing I've seen for years. I saw it directly after Three Stories of Love, which may be the best feature film I saw all year.

Summer Time Machine Blues is a Japanese children's film which I saw on an aeroplane once and have loved ever since. It's like Back to the Future with all elements of romance erased. 

M1. 20,000 Days on Earth, 2014.

M2. loudQUIETloud: A Film about the Pixies, 2006.

M3. サカサマのパテマ ("Patema Inverted"), 2013.

M4. Sunstruck, 1972.

M4a. A Zed & Two Noughts, 1985.

M5. Monty Python Live (mostly) - One Down Five To Go, 2014. [DVD unedited version]

M6. 红高粱 ("Red Sorghum"), 1987.

M7. 大紅燈籠高高掛 ("Raise the Red Lantern"), 1991.

M7a. サマー タイム マシン ブルース ("Summer Time Machine Blues"), 2005.

M8. Most of My Memoirs are Plagiarized, 2014.

M9. This Body is Wrong for Us, 2011.

M10. Norman Lovett: Outside the Box, 2011.

M11. Kar korsanlari ("Snow Pirates"), 2015.

M12. Arj Barker: Balls, 2008.

M13. It's That Man Again, 1943.

M14. Bill Bailey: Part Troll, 2004.

M15. Jesus Camp, 2006.

M16. Mr. Mike's Mondo Video, 1979.

M17. Tunnel Vision, 1976.

M18. 绝响 ("Swan Song"), 1985.

M19. Utopia, 2013.

M19a. Finisterre, 2003.

M20. The Honourable Wally Norman, 2003.

M21. Dreams of a Life, 2011.

M22. Lee and Herring Live at the Cochrane, 1995.

M23. Disco ex Machina: The Movie, 2015.

M24. The Look of Silence, 2014.

M25. ゆきゆきて、神軍 ("The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On"), 1987.

M26. Eisenstein in Guanajuato, 2015.

M27. They Might Be Giants: Live in Berlin, 2015. (screen title: They Might Be Giants: Live in Berlin 2013)

M28. The Target Shoots First, 2000.

M29. The Queen of Versailles, 2012.

M30. Little Dieter Needs to Fly, 2001? (original film 1998, viewed version includes later postscript)

M31. The Legend of Leigh Bowery, 2002.

M31a. The March, 1990.

M32. Zero Dark Thirty, 2012.

M33. Nirgendwo in Afrika ("Nowhere in Africa"), 2001.

M34. Bliss, 2010. (Opera Australia broadcast)

M35. Alive Inside, 2014.

M36. Only Lovers Left Alive, 2013.

M36a. Bliss, 1985. (theatrical version)

M37. Overnight, 2004.

M37a. Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns, 2002.

M38. Parting Shots, 1998.

M39. Johnny English Reborn, 2011.

M40. En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron (“A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence”), 2014.

M41. Thai Die, 201X [undated].

M42. The Lobster, 2015.

M43. Hell House, 2001.

M44. Tanna, 2015.

M45. Lucky Miles, 2007.

M46. 日本のいちばん長い日 ("The Emperor in August"), 2015.

M47. 野火 ("Fires on the Plain"), 2014.

M47a. Kokoda, 2006.

M48. 駆込み女と駆出し男 ("KAKEKOMI"), 2015.

M49. 恋人たち ("Three Stories of Love"), 2015.

M50. Der Stachel des Skorpions ("The Scorpion's Sting"), 2014.

M51. Mad Max: Fury Road, 2015.

M52. 99 Homes, 2014.

M53. Home of the Brave, 1986.

M54. Bill, 2014.

M55. Suffragette, 2015.

Quinkana fortirostrum

I'll keep books and movies to separate posts from here on. Here are:

BOOKS 2015

B1. Glued to the Box, Clive James.
B2. Monsieur Linh and His Child, Philippe Claudel (tr. Euan Cameron).
B2a. Sabine's Notebook, Nick Bantock.
B2b. The Golden Mean, Nick Bantock.
B3. The Gryphon, Nick Bantock.
B4. Remainder, Tom McCarthy.
B4a. Tintin and the Secret of Literature, Tom McCarthy.
B5. One Hundred Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses, Lucy Corin.
B5a. C, Tom McCarthy.
B6. The Greatest Movies You'll Never See, Simon Braund (ed).
B7. The Shawshank Redemption, Mark Kermode.
B8. In the Memorial Room, Janet Frame.
B9. If You Like Monty Python... Here are Over 200 Movies, TV Shows, and Other Oddities that You will Love, Zack Handlen.
B10. 'Well, I heard it on the Radio and I saw it on the Television...', Marcia Langton.
B11. World Film Locations: Melbourne, Neil Mitchell (ed).
B12. The Barry McKenzie Movies, Tony Moore.
B13. Khaki and Green: With the Australian Army at Home and Overseas, "the Editors" (eds).
B14. The Bogan Delusion, David Nichols.
B15. Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture, Alice Echols.
B16. Loops, Issue 02, Lee Blackstone and Richard King (eds).
B17. Spaceballs: the Book, Jovial Bob Stine.
B18. The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2013, Dave Eggers (ed).
B19. The Metamorphoses of Tintin, or Tintin for Adults, Jean-Marie Apostolidès (tr. Jocelyn Hoy).
B20. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, Jeanette Winterson.
B20a. Are We Alone?: Implications of the Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life, Paul Davies.
B21. The Outsider, Albert Camus (tr. Stuart Gilbert).
B22. Absolutely Fabulous 2, Jennifer Saunders.
B23. The Book of Strange New Things, Michel Faber.
B24. The Vivisector, Patrick White.
B25. The Boat, Nam Le.
B26. So, Anyway..., John Cleese.
B27. Ben Baker's Comedy Cash-In Book Book, Ben Baker.
B28. The Burst of Creamup , TVCream (eds).
B29. Drop Out!, Robin Farquharson.
B30. The Comedy Company Holiday Book, D MacLeod, I McFadden, M Fahey, G Robbins, P Herbert.
B31. Patrick White: A General Introduction, Ingmar Bjorksten (tr. Stanley Gerson).
B32. The Idea of Japan: Western Images, Western Myths, Ian Littlewood.
B33. Kill Your Darlings Issue 3 October 2010, Rebecca Starford (ed).
B34. Oranges are not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson.
B35. The Pleasure of my Company, Steve Martin.
B36. Glyph, Percival Everett.
B37. Sally Heathcote: Suffragette, M Talbot, K Charlesworth & B Talbot.
B38. The Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro.
B39. The Games, John Clarke and Ross Stevenson.
B40. The Chaser Annual 2008, R Cooke, S Cubis, D Knight, C Licciardello, J Morrow, C Reucassel et al.
B41. Good News Week, Ian Simmons (ed).
B42. Ragworts, Bill Drummond.
B43. The Wordy Shipmates, Sarah Vowell.
B44. The Internet Police: How Crime went Online, and the Cops Followed, Nate Anderson.
B45. The Book of Jokes, Momus.
B46. Guanxi (The art of relationships): Microsoft, China, and Bill Gates's Plan to Win the Road Ahead, Robert Buderi and Gregory T. Huang.
B47. The Unknown Terrorist, Richard Flanagan.
B48. Leaving Paradis: My Expat Adventure and Other Stories, Sonia Harford.
B49. It is Written, Baby, Dave Graney.
B50. Peter Carey, Graham Huggan.
B51. Hatchet Job: Love Movies, Hate Critics, Mark Kermode.
B52. To the Is-Land, Janet Frame.
B52a. A Letter to Our Son, Peter Carey.
B53. The Go-Betweens, David Nicholls.
B54. Moving Tigers, Bob Franklin.
B55. The Bedroom Philosopher Diaries, Justin Heazlewood.
B56. The Truth, Michael Palin.
B57. An American in Oz, Sara James.
B58. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future..., Michael J. Fox.
B59. Ethel & Ernest: A True Story, Raymond Briggs.
B60. The Last Interview and Other Conversations, David Foster Wallace.
B61. You Never Give Me Your Money: The Battle for the Soul of the Beatles, Peter Doggett.
B62. The Eye of the Storm, Patrick White.
B63. A Poke in the Eye (With a Sharp Stick), Graham McCann (ed).
B64. The Curfew Tower is Many Things, Bill Drummond (ed).
B65. Imajine, Claudel Casseus.
B66. A Nice Night's Entertainment, Barry Humphries.
B67. Their Lips Talk of Mischief, Alan Warner.
B67a. Falling Towards England, Clive James.
B68. The Cockatoos, Patrick White.
B68a. Peter Carey, Bruce Woodcock.
B69. The Revolt of the Pendulum: Essays 2005 - 2008, Clive James.
B70. The Diaries of Donald Friend, Volume 1, Anne Gray (ed).
B71. Grand Days, Frank Moorhouse.
B72. The Bodysurfers, Robert Drewe.
B73. The Museum at Purgatory, Nick Bantock.
B74. Ogf, Keith Smith.
B75. Bliss: the Screenplay, Peter Carey and Ray Lawrence.
B76. Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead, Rick Meyerowitz.
B77. Science... For Her!, Megan Amram.
B78. The Poems of Ern Malley, Ern Malley (commentaries by Max Harris and Joanna Murray-Smith).
B79. Roald Dahl, Ann Alston and Catherine Butler (eds).
B80. A Fringe of Leaves, Patrick White.
B81. Papua New Guinea: Black Unity or Black Chaos?, Hank Nelson.
B82. The Further Tale of Peter Rabbit, Emma Thompson.
B83. The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorised History, John Ortved.
B84. The Adventures of Hergé, J-L Bocquet, J-L Frontal and S Barthélémy (tr. H Dascher).
B85. A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees, Yoshida Kenko (tr. M McKinney).
B86. These Things Happen, Greg Fleet.
B86a. How I Escaped My Certain Fate: the Life and Deaths of a Stand-Up Comedian, Stewart Lee.
B87. Slade House, David Mitchell.
B88. The Diaries of Donald Friend, Volume 2, Paul Hetherington (ed).
B89. Stories of Manhood: Journeys in to the hidden hearts of men, Steve Biddulph (ed).
B90. The Peacocks and the Bourgeoisie: Patrick White's Shorter Fiction, David Myers.
B91. Big Toys, Patrick White.
B92. Brilliant Creatures, Clive James.
B93. Hillendiana, Donald Friend.
B94. From the Fatherland, with Love, Ryu Murakami (trs. R McCarthy, C De Wolf, G Tapley Takemori)
B95. Heat 13: Harper's Gold, Ivor Indyk (ed).
B96. Crazy Like Us: The Globalisation of the Western Mind, Ethan Watters.
B97. Wake in Fright, Kenneth Cook.
B98. A Wild Ass of a Man, Barry Oakley.
B99. Martini: A Memoir, Frank Moorhouse.
B100. Ayoade on Ayoade: a cinematic odyssey, Richard Ayoade.

The backbone of 2015's reading was working my way through late-period Patrick White while reading the diaries of Donald Friend. This heavy-going trammell through mid-20th century gay Australia needed frequent levity so there's a lot of light entertainment interspersed throughout - comedy scripts and funny books I leapt at during breaks from Friend's friends or White's characters drinking endless cups of pink tea and eating bread and dripping in dreary North Sydney rooming-houses.

The two books by David Nichols were picked up separately and looked interesting (one a history of the band The Go-Betweens, one a polemic about class in Australia) - it wasn't until months later, seeing them on my bookshelf, that I realised they were written by the same man.

Michel Faber's "The Book of Strange New Things" was my favourite (only?) new Australian novel, but Kazuo Ishiguro's "The Buried Giant" was my favourite new novel of the year. At time of writing (2018), "The Buried Giant" is probably still the strongest contender for my favourite novel of 2010-2020.

When I met Y back in 2003 she often mentioned a favourite book by Ryu Murakami which she called "The World in Five Minutes From Now". Unfortunately this book has never been translated into English. I subsequently avoided Ryu Murakami because it is apparent that only his more violent and disturbing novels have been translated in to English, with the more imaginative ones left in Japanese only - hey, violent and disturbing is fine, but I didn't want to get the wrong impression of his writing. However, "From the Fatherland, with Love" (written in 2004 while I was living in Japan) finally came out in English and the Japanese version was available at the Melbourne City library. So Y and I read the book simultaneously in two different languages, which was fun. In a conceit that would probably result in lawsuits in an English-language novel, the entire book is set in and around an identifiably real hotel in Fukuoka which is suddenly occupied by a hostile army, so you can put the book down, fire up Google Earth, and become intimately acquainted with the bushes full of snipers by the hotel's rear steps. Amazingly this book had three translators - I presume because of its length - and because the book was set in the future (published 2005, set in early-to-mid 2011) but not published in English until 2013, you get a strange alternative Japan in which 11 March 2011 ticks over without any fuss at all. 

The ventures into Frank Moorhouse and Barry Oakley are part of an effort to read the contemporaries of Peter Carey.

The Stewart Lee re-read came from having just finished Greg Fleet's autobiography. Somewhere there is a fascinating novel to be written based on when Lee and Fleet shared a flat in Edinburgh, or bummed around in Melbourne together. 

Fuscospora gunnii

Catching up through 2014, my third full year back in Australia. After the first year of slight instability after ten years away - coming home to a country you grew up in but has changed just as much as you have in your absence - and the second year of revisiting and reviewing all the Australian culture you missed greatly or had missed out on - the third year is where things start to be normal again and you can settle back into life.

We still live in an inner suburb of Melbourne, so have a lot of access to film festivals, and a wealth of second-hand bookshops. This year I ramp up the number of new books to 100, contrary to my earlier conviction that it is ridiculous and unsustainable. I maintain this conviction - but I did it anyway.

BOOKS 2014

B01. The Paper Chase, Hal Porter.

B02. Am I Black Enough for You?, Anita Heiss.

B03. Meanjin 1/1992: Women's Knowledge.

B04. A Hard Day's Night, John Burke.

B05. Sandman in Siberia, Steve Abbott.

B05a. Fat Chance, Simon Gray.

B06. Birth of the Motion Picture, Emmanuelle Toulet (tr. Susan Emanuel).

B07. Black & Violet, Jason Andrew Updike.

B08. What Did You Expect?, Ben Baker.

B09. Fun at 1: The Story of Comedy at Radio 1, Tim Worthington.

B10. Quarterly Essay 22: Voting for Jesus: Christianity and Politics in Australia, Amanda Lohrey.

B11. Poll Dancing: The Story of the 2007 Election, Mungo MacCallum.

B12. Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, David Sedaris.

B13. The Tree of Man, Patrick White.

B14. A Cry in the Jungle Bar, Robert Drewe.

B15. Storyteller: The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl, Donald Sturrock.

B16. North Face of Soho: Unreliable Memoirs Volume IV, Clive James.

B17. Comics: A Decade of Comedy at the Assembly Rooms, John Connor.

B18. Fawlty Towers: The Story of the Sitcom, Graham McCann.

B19. Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators in The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy, "Text by Robert Arthur".

B19a. Seven Little Australians, Ethel Turner.

B20. Art of McSweeney's, the Editors of McSweeney's.

B21. I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution, Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum.

B21a. No Shitting in the Toilet: The Travel Guide for When You've Really Lost It, Peter Moore.

B21b. My Uncle Oswald, Roald Dahl.

B22. Loot, Joe Orton.

B23. Herge: The Man who Created Tintin, Pierre Assouline (tr. Charles Ruas).

B24. The Pillow Fight, Matthew Condon.

B25. Lennon Remembers: The Rolling Stone Interview, Jann Wenner.

B26. Monty Python's Flying Circus: Complete and Annotated ...All the Bits, GC JC TG EI TJ MP et al, annotations some twat.

B27. Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to its Own Past, Simon Reynolds.

B27a. Voss, Patrick White.

B27b. Mister Roberts, Alexei Sayle.

B28. A Hostile Beauty: Life on Macquarie Island, Alistair Dermer and Danielle Wood.

B29. This Accursed Land: Douglas Mawson's Incredible Antarctic Journey, Lennard Bickel.

B30. Funemployed: Life as an Artist in Australia, Justin Heazlewood.

B31. Quarterly Essay 6: Beyond Belief: What Future for Labor?, John Button.

B32. Clockwise (aka Clockwise: A Screenplay aka Clockwise: Original Screenplay), Michael Frayn.

B32a. The Bedtime Leunig, Michael Leunig.

B32b. You and Me, Michael Leunig.

B32c. Eat the Rich, P. J. O'Rourke.

B32d. Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway, Clifford Stoll.

B33. Loveless, Mike McGonigal.

B33a. The B'stard File (aka The B'Stard File: The New Statesman aka The B'Stard File: The New Statesman Expose), Rik Mayall (text by L Marks, M Gran, N Hornick, J Cutrara, T Bagley).

B34. Pilcrow, Adam Mars-Jones.

B35. The Silent Cry, Kenzaburo Oe.

B35a. Monty Python: the Case Against, Robert Hewison.

B36. Take the Cannoli: Stories from the New World, Sarah Vowell.

B37. The Funky Squad Annual, S Cilauro, T Gleisner, J Kennedy.

B38. All Windows Open and Other Stories, Hariklia Heristanidis.

B39. Facing the Other Way: The Story of 4AD, Martin Aston.

B40. Patrick White, Geoffrey Dutton.

B41. Cedilla, Adam Mars-Jones.

B42. Dark Horse: The Secret Life of George Harrison, Geoffrey Giuliano.

B43. The Family Law, Benjamin Law.

B43a. Paradoxical Undressing, Kristin Hersh.

B44. No More Curried Eggs For Me, compiler Roger Wilmut.

B45. Readings from International Conference on Humour: A Special Issue of the Australian Journal of Comedy; 1997, v. 3, no. 1, G Matte et al.

B46. The Longest Cocktail Party: An Insider's View of the Beatles, Richard DiLello.

B47. Super Expanded Deluxe Edition, Tim Worthington.

B48. American Hoax, Charles Firth.

B49. An Angel at my Table (Autobiography 2), Janet Frame.

B49a. 'Rommel?' 'Gunner Who?', Spike Milligan.

B50. Tango: My Childhood, Backwards and in High Heels, Justin Vivian Bond.

B51. Black Postcards, Dean Wareham.

B52. Mr Manchester and the Factory Girl: The Story of Tony and Lindsay Wilson, Lindsay Reade.

B52a. Holidays in Hell, P.J. O'Rourke.

B53. The Embassy of Cambodia, Zadie Smith.

B54. The Bridegroom Was a Dog, Yoko Tawada (tr. Margaret Mitsutani).

B55. Bonjour Tristesse, Françoise Sagan (tr. Irene Ash).

B56. Petit Mal, DBC Pierre.

B57. Tirra Lirra by the River, Jessica Anderson.

B58. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Yasutaka Tsutsui (tr. David Karashima).

B59. Traditional Molvanian Baby Names, S Cilauro, T Gleisner, R Sitch.

B60. Monanisms, The Museum of Old and New Art.

B61. Real Wild Child, Narelle Gee.

B62. Riders in the Chariot, Patrick White.

B63. The Crucible, Arthur Miller.

B64. The Daylight and the Dust: Selected Short Stories, Janet Frame.

B64a. The Lost Goon Shows, Spike Milligan.

B65. Fraud, David Rakoff.

B66. [Untitled children's story], Kit WIlliams.

B67. The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell.

B68. Under Stones, Bob Franklin.

B69. A Bit More Fry & Laurie, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.

B70. Quarterly Essay 52: Found in Translation: In Praise of a Plural World, Linda Jaivin.

B71. The Burnt Ones, Patrick White.

B72. TATP: Talk About the Passion, Ben Baker and Tim Worthington.

B72a. Scarcely Relevant: Writings from The Scrivener's Fancy, Tony Martin.

B73. The Good Soldier Schweik, Jaroslav Hasek.

B74. Whoops Apocalypse: A State of the World Report, Andrew Marshall & David Renwick.

B74a. The Hippopotamus, Stephen Fry.

B74b. Dancing on Hot Macadam: Peter Carey's Fiction, Anthony J Hassall.

B75. Joseph Anton: A Memoir, Salman Rushdie.

B76. The Road to Mars, Eric Idle.

B77. The Floating World, John Romeril.

B78. Goon Abroad, Harry Secombe.

B79. The ITMA Years, Ted Kavanagh et al.

B80. The Avocado Plantation: Boom and Bust in the Australian Film Industry, David Stratton.

B81. Contemporary Australian Television, Stuart Cunningham & Toby Miller.

B81a. Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby, Donald Barthelme.

B82. The Crystal Bucket: Television Criticism from the Observer 1976-79, Clive James.

B83. Moon Lake, Eudora Welty. (Penguin Mini Modern Classics)

B84. Hal Porter, Mary Lord. (OUP Australian Writers and their Work series)

B85. Frank, Jon Ronson.

B86. A Point of View, Clive James.

B87. The End of the World, Paddy O'Reilly.

B88. More Please, Barry Humphries.

B89. To the Islands, Randolph Stow.

B90. Australian Literary Studies, Volume 19 No 2 1999.

B91. People, Alan Bennett.

B92. Nagasaki, Éric Faye (tr. Emily Boyce).

B93. A History of Capitalism According to the Jubilee Line, John O'Farrell.

B94. A Bone of Fact, David Walsh.

B95. Acorn, Yoko Ono.

B96. Higher Than the Sun, Tim Worthington.

B97. Three Stories, J M Coetzee.

B98. Not on Your Telly, Tim Worthington.

B99. The Hell of it All, Charlie Brooker.

B100. L'Amour, Marguerite Duras (tr. Kazim Ali and Libby Murphy).

B100a. The Solid Mandala, Patrick White.

In 2014 I am slowly working through Patrick White, while also reading a lot of books for what I consider the final time as I decide to discard them. A fascination with the more forgotten spatterings of English pop culture is given strong representation by all the Tim Worthington books: these excavations of cultural crannies were always interesting as a foreigner in the UK - though to be fair by 2018 and ensconced back in Australia I don't find myself going back to much of it.

I can strongly recommend Donald Sturrock's authorised biography of Roald Dahl, which authorised or not is unflinching on Dahl's inherent shittiness. I also wish all popular biographies were as densely detailed as this is.

I considered updating the details of the annotator of B26, but it is truly so awful I feel obliged to (a) not embarrass the man by naming him, and (b) warning any potential reader to avoid.

B66 is a puzzle picture book by the author of Masquerade; one of the puzzles was to establish the name of the book. I was unable to solve this so have left the title blank.

MOVIES 2014

M00a. The Parole Officer, 2001.

M01. The Battle of the Sexes, 2013.

M01a. The Best Bits of The Late Show Volume Three, 1994.

M02. The Reluctant Fundamentalist, 2012.

M03. The Wolf of Wall Street, 2013.

M04. The Trip, 2010.

M04a. Cremaster 1, 1995.

M04b. Cremaster 2, 1999.

M04c. Cremaster 3, 2002.

M04d. Cremaster 4, 1994.

M04e. Cremaster 5, 1997.

M05. 風立ちぬ ('The Wind Rises'), 2013.

M06. L'Année dernière à Marienbad ('Last Year in Marienbad'), 1961.

M07. Biba! One Island, 879 Votes, 2011 (including 2013 postscript).

M08. 12 Years A Slave, 2013.

M09. Blue Jasmine, 2013.

M09a. The Best Bits of The Late Show Volume One, 1993.

M09b. The Best Bits of The Late Show Volume Two, 1993.

M10. Half / ハーフ, 2013.

M11. 百合子、ダスヴィダーニヤ ("Yoshiko and Yuriko"), 2011.

M12. A Life Exposed: Robyn Beeche, 2013.

M13. Carts of Darkness, 2008.

M14. Winter's Bone, 2010.

M15. Philomena, 2013.

M15a. キューティー　ハニー ("Cutie Honey"), 2003.

M16. The Grand Budapest Hotel, 2014.

M17. American Hustle, 2013.

M18. The King's Speech, 2010.

M19. The Book Thief, 2013.

M19a. The Tulse Luper Suitcases 1: The Moab Story, 2003.

M19b. The Tulse Luper Suitcases 2: Vaux to the Sea, 2004.

M19c. The Tulse Luper Suitcases 3: From Sark to the Finish, 2004.

M20. The Zero Theorem, 2013.

M21. Alexei Sayle's Pirate Video, 1982?

M22. Under the Skin, 2013.

M23. Les Creatures ("The Creatures"), 1966.

M24. リアル ("Real"), 2013.

M25. Sans toit ni loi ("Vagabond"), 1985.

M26. ドールズ ("Dolls"), 2002.

M27. Snowpiercer, 2013.

M28. Believe in Me, 2007.

M29. Little Noises, 1991.

M30. Hross í oss ("Of Horses and Men"), 2013.

M31. August: Osage County, 2013.

M32. Dallas Buyers Club, 2013.

M33. The Tempest, 2010.

M34. Hořící keř ("Burning Bush"), 2013.

M35. Dylan Moran: Monster, 2004.

M35a. Down Among the Z Men, 1952.

M36. Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, 1982.

M37. Tom a la ferme ("Tom at the Farm"), 2013.

M37a. Backbeat, 1993.

M38. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, 2010.

M39. Monty Python Live: One Down, Five To Go (90 min TV edit shown on SBS), 2014.

M39a. Spies Like Us, 1985.

M40. バトル　ロワイアル ("Battle Royale"), 2000.

M41. Bjork: Biophilia Live, 2014.

M41a. Brazil, 1985.

M41b. The Draughtsman's Contract, 1982.

M42. Down Terrace, 2009.

M43. 小さいおうち ("The Little House"), 2014.

M43a. Barry McKenzie Holds His Own, 1974.

M43b. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2004.

M44. Mad Dog Morgan, 1976.

M44a. Erik the Viking, 1989.

M45. Red Dawn, 2012.

M46. Tomorrow, When the War Began, 2010.

M47. Harry Brown, 2009.

M48. Wired, 1989.

M49. The Mule, 2014.