2020/142: Beloved -- Toni Morrison

2020/142: Beloved -- Toni Morrison

This here Sethe was new. The ghost in her house didn’t bother her for the very same reason a room-and-board witch with new shoes was welcome...This here Sethe talked about safety with a handsaw. This here new Sethe didn’t know where the world stopped and she began. [loc. 2898]

( spoilers, probably )

2020/143: The Remaking of Corbin Wale -- Roan Parrish

2020/143: The Remaking of Corbin Wale -- Roan Parrish

This was what he’d been struggling to understand since the beginning. If they were cursed, why would the signs lead him to the person who might activate it? The only explanation was that the universe, instead of being indifferent, or kind, wished for him to suffer. And Corbin couldn’t believe that. It wasn’t what he’d ever known. The sky and the trees and the grass and the seasons—no, the universe wasn’t vengeful. And Corbin was so small. [loc. 2243]

Alex Barrow, a successful New York pastry chef, suddenly finds himself without job or boyfriend: at a loose end, he returns to his hometown, Ann Arbor, where he takes over his mother's coffee shop and transforms it into an artisan bakery.

( no major spoilers )

2020/144: Squeeze Me -- Carl Hiaasen

2020/144: Squeeze Me -- Carl Hiaasen

He claimed that Angie had sought out the reptile, into whose gaping maw she’d inserted Pruitt’s left fist, the one that had been holding his knife. Angie eventually resigned, pleading guilty to one felony count of aggravated assault and one misdemeanor charge of illegally feeding wildlife. [loc. 72]

This is a fascinating dystopia, set after the Covid pandemic but during the second term of a US President (referred to only by his Secret Service codename, Mastodon) who plays a lot of golf, likes junk food, hates immigrants, and refuses to believe in climate change. Obviously this character is wholly fictitious, as is his wife, the fragrant First Lady, whose codename is Mockingbird.

( no major spoilers )

2020: Year in Review (going out)

hahhahahahaha ... well, yes, actually I did manage some outings. But 2020 was the year in which I realised just how much my cultural life means to me (not just for the cultural stimulus but for the social and emotional aspects). I miss going out, and I miss the friends I went out with.

Everything is reviewed on this blog! (Sometimes rather cursorily.) Check out my monthlyculture tag.

Bracketed figures show range over the last 17 years [see year-in-summary tag for my Cultural History since 2004].

Film: 12 (4-20). Best three = David Copperfield, Little Women, Jojo Rabbit.

Theatre: 3 (1-26). Best three = well, all of them :) Teenage Dick, Macbeth, Revenger's Tragedy.

New Category! Theatre (streamed): 38. Best three = Midsummer Night's Dream (Bridge production); Pericles; This House.

Concerts (classical): 3 (2-22). Glyndebourne Young Artists was a delight, a sunny day and an outdoor concert with some splendid performances. I was in the choir for Haydn Nelson Mass (horribly close to first lockdown). And ah, the Musical Homelands at Cadogan Hall, can't believe that was only this year ...

Opera: 0 (0-10). Boo.

Gigs: 0 (0-9). Double boo. Here is a song close to my heart: 'All I Want for Christmas is a Rock Show'.

Art: 1 (Went to Madrid to look at pictures!) I do not mention the Artemisia Gentileschi exhibition at the National Gallery, for which we have had multiple tickets and been foiled every time.

Books: 156 and counting. Separate post coming eventually: reviews here (ongoing: am behind on reviewing).

Also in 2020: visited Spain and Malta; zero conventions (well, 0.5: I 'attended' Punctuation, but Zoom does not work well on my Chromebook, and I found it hard to navigate). (This is also one reason I'm not at many online gatherings. The other reason is that I seldom hear about them until afterwards ...)