Tuesday, January 5, 2010

A year of books and movies

Last year I saw 30 movies and read 19 books. I know this because of the list I kept on this blog - the first time I've ever kept such a list.

It's fun to look back, and I'm sorry I haven't always made movie and book lists. It would be interesting to look back on what I read and saw ten or twenty years ago; much of which I'm sure I've forgotten.

I'm surprised to know I saw 30 movies. That seems like a lot, and I didn't even count movies I saw on TV - only those I saw at the theater, or rented. And I regret that so many of these were movies I could have skipped. But some of them were great. I especially enjoyed The Visitor, Frozen River, Iris, Up , and Julie & Julia.


My favorite book of the year was Wonderful Town - New York Stories From The New Yorker. This is a collection of stories set in Manhattan that appeared in the New Yorker from the 1930s -1990s - though not in chronological order.

I was both inspired and entertained by these stories, written by some of the best writers of the last century, including James Thurber, John Cheever, Susan Sontag, Phillip Roth, Dorothy Parker, Jeffrey Eugenides, etc. etc.

Another great book I read this year is the graphic novel, Stitches, by David Small. He's an author and illustrator of many children's books, but this is a memoir of his dysfunctional family and his childhood experience with cancer.
It's dark, but compelling. And, as with other graphic novels I've enjoyed, the artwork is a fascinating companion to the story.

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