Shane Richmond

Last year was my sixth year of 26 books. I read 43 books in all – including one that I read twice. That’s the most I’ve read since I started doing this.

My favourites were The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight by Vladimir Nabokov and The Counterlife by Philip Roth. Least favourites were The Canal by Lee Rourke, Notable American Women by Ben Marcus and PopCo by Scarlett Thomas.

Some stats: Of the 43 books, five were written by women, 10 were non-fiction (one of which I read twice) and two were translations.

Here’s the full list of what I read:

January
Noir by Robert Coover
The Canal by Lee Rourke
The Tell-Tale Brain by VS Ramachandran
Take Your Eye Off The Ball by Pat Kirwan

February
A Frolic of His Own by William Gaddis
Open Doors and three novellas by Leonardo Sciascia
Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith

March
Mirage Men by Mark Pilkington
Stamboul Train by Graham Greene
The Information by James Gleick

April
The Pale King by David Foster Wallace
The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace

May
Angels by Denis Johnson
Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth
The Lime Twig by John Hawkes
Notable American Women by Ben Marcus
The Real Sebastian Knight by Vladimir Nabokov
Wittgenstein’s Mistress by David Markson

June
Inverting the Pyramid by Jonathan Wilson
The Counterlife by Philip Roth
The Facts by Philip Roth
Deception by Philip Roth
Patrimony by Philip Roth

July
Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
PopCo by Scarlett Thomas

August
Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
The Manticore by Robertson Davies
World of Wonders by Robertson Davies
All That I Am by Anna Funder

September
Take Your Eye Off the Ball by Pat Kirwan (re-reading)
Point Blank by Richard Stark

October
The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V Higgins
All About Steve by The Editors of Fortune Magazine
A Most Wanted Man by John Le Carre

November
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Super Crunchers by Ian Ayres
The Games That Changed the Game by Ron Jaworski

December
The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil
Memoirs of a Master Forger by William Heaney
Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson

Three books to bring the year to an end:

Book 41: The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil
Book 42: Memoirs of a Master Forger by William Heaney
Book 43: Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson

This year I decided to do something different with my albums of the year list. I asked a few of my friends to pick their top five – and I added my own. To avoid everyone picking the same few records, nobody was allowed to pick an album that had already been chosen.

Because lots of people contributed, I can’t rank the 40 albums here so I’ve put them in alphabetical order. At the bottom of the list is a Spotify playlist, which has 31 of the 40 albums on it. The links go to iTunes.

1. The Advisory Circle, As the Crow Flies
2. Africa Hitech, 93 Million Miles
3. Bjork, Biophilia
4. James Blake, James Blake
5. Bon Iver, Bon Iver
6. Cashier No9, To the Death of Fun
7. The Decemberists, The King is Dead
8. Lana Del Ray, Video Games (EP)
9. Demdike Stare, Triptych
10. EMA, Past Life Martyred Saints
11. The Field, Looping State of Mind
12. Eleanor Friedberger, Last Summer
13. Friendly Fires, Pala
14. Fruit Bats, Tripper
15. Fucked Up, David Comes to Life
16. Gang Gang Dance, Eye Contact
17. PJ Harvey, Let England Shake
18. Tim Hecker, Ravedeath 1972
19. Julie Holter, Tragedy
20. Holy Other, With U (EP)
21. The Horrors, Skying
22. King Creosote and Jon Hopkins, Diamond Mine
23. Leyland Kirby, Intrigue and Stuff (Limited edition 12″ series)
24. Metronomy, The English Riviera
25. Thurston Moore, Demolished Thoughts
26. My Morning Jacket, Circuital
27. Okkervil River, I Am Very Far
28. Oneohtrix Point Never, Replica
29. Plaid, Scintilli
30. Roly Porter, Aftertime
31. Radiohead, King of Limbs
32. SBTRKT, SBTRKT
33. Shabazz Palaces, Black Up
34. Tune Yards, Who Kill
35. Tom Waits, Bad As Me
36. Walls, Coracle
37. Gillian Welch, The Harrow and the Harvest
38. Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat, Everything’s Getting Older
39. Wild Beasts, Smother
40. Wild Flag, Wild Flag

Spotify playlist: Best of 2011

Thanks to everyone who helped with the list, including Adam Webb, Chris Deerin, Chris Williams, Lucy Jones and Mark Birchall.

The year is almost done. I read three books last month. Here they are:

Book 38: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Book 39: Super Crunchers by Ian Ayres
Book 40: The Games That Changed the Game by Ron Jaworski

Here’s what I read last month:

Book 35: The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V Higgins
Book 36: All About Steve by The Editors of Fortune Magazine
Book 37: A Most Wanted Man by John Le Carre

Here’s what I read last month:

Book 33: Take Your Eye Off the Ball by Pat Kirwan
Book 34: Point Blank by Richard Stark

I’ve been introducing some friends to the Ealing comedies. We started with the Lavender Hill Mob, which was showing at a few London cinemas in a restored print, and followed a couple of weeks later with Kind Hearts and Coronets.

If you haven’t seen either one, I’m about to spoil the endings. I’m also going to spoil the ending of Anatomy of a Murder so don’t read further if you haven’t seen those films.

The crooks in the Lavender Hill Mob don’t get away with their heist and, though the ending of Kind Hearts is ambiguous, it’s fairly likely that the central character there doesn’t get away with his crimes either.

That ambiguity was a little too much for the Americans, however. An extra 10 seconds of Kind Hearts was filmed which did away with the ambiguity so that the film would comply with the US Production Code.

Watching those films raised a question that has puzzled me for years. When did crime begin to pay in the movies? The Ealing comedies are notable for their witty approach to ensuring that the crooks don’t get away with it but they still put you in the position of rooting for the criminals, only to disappoint you at the end. They simply aren’t allowed to give you the satisfaction of seeing Alec Guiness’s bank robber enjoy his riches.

But we’ve also seen films in which the crooks to get away with it. Whether they are heist films or courtroom dramas with a twist, at some point it became acceptable for the bad guys to succeed. But when?

The Motion Picture Production Code provides a clue. The code set the boundaries of what was allowed on film. Obvious things such as nudity and swearing were prohibited. There were also rules about interracial relationships, homosexuality and, of course, crime. According to Wikipedia, the code required films to ensure “that throughout, the audience feels sure that evil is wrong and good is right”.

The Wikipedia entry lists Anatomy of a Murder as one of the films that helped to bring about the Code’s demise. That film deals with the trial of an army lieutenant who is accused of murdering an innkeeper. He claims that the innkeeper raped his wife.

James Stewart’s lawyer manages to get the lieutenant acquitted but the end of the film casts doubt on the man’s story. The innkeeper may not have raped his wife after all and the lieutenant may have killed him in a drunken rage.

So it’s possible that the criminal got away with it in Anatomy of a Murder but, again, like Kind Hearts and Coronets, it’s not explicit. My search goes on for the earliest film in which the criminals escape justice.

There is a lot to love about the new film version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. It’s beautifully directed and filled with impeccable performances.

The scene in which Gary Oldman’s Smiley recounts his meeting with his nemesis, Karla, is particularly stunning. The locations are wonderful and elements of the set design – a chandelier here, a fairground dragon there – make for some memorable scenes.

The film doesn’t entirely avoid the perils of adapting a complex book. The first 20 minutes feel rushed as the film struggles under the weight of exposition and the closing montage is cheesy.

The script makes some inexplicable changes to the plot, few of which are an improvement. There are some inconsequential alterations: Jim Prideaux’s mission takes place in Hungary, not Czechoslovakia, Ricki Tarr is sent to Istanbul, rather than Lisbon, and the Russian source is “Witchcraft” instead of “Merlin”. There’s no obvious reason for those changes but they don’t make anything worse.

Peter Guillam, Smiley’s right-hand man in Tinker Tailor…, runs MI6′s ‘scalphunters’, the team that deals with the secret service’s violent, dirty jobs. In the book he’s straight but in the film he’s gay. When Smiley warns him that he will be watched closely, Guillam goes home and makes his boyfriend move out. That provides a nice Hollywood opportunity to show what he is sacrificing for his work but does it make sense?

Presumably Guillam now thinks he’s at risk of blackmail but given his job, surely that was a risk before? Is it possible that someone in his position could live with a man and expect nobody to notice?

More troublesome is the film’s device for visualising the suspected Russian agent at MI6. The head of the service, Control, suspects one of his five key lieutenants. The film has him attach little photos of each man to chess pieces, implying that Control is having trouble remembering what his colleagues look like.

When Control briefs Prideaux he shows him the chess pieces. Each man is represented by a different piece. They need a code so that Prideaux can tell Control which man is the traitor. In this case, surely Control would choose King, Bishop, Knight, Rook and Pawn? Adding another layer by going for Tinker, Tailor, etc., just seems perverse.

Those are nitpicks, really. The only change that really irritated me – and one that significantly weakened the film – was the decision to open with Prideaux’s failed mission. One of the joys of Le Carre’s plot is that the precise details of the mission unfold as Smiley pursues his investigation and the film blows that in its desire to open, literally, with a bang.

This is a great film but not the masterpiece that many critics have claimed it to be.

One day, I’ll post something on this blog that isn’t a list of what I read last month. Today is not that day. Here’s what I read last month:

Book 29: Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
Book 30: The Manticore by Robertson Davies
Book 31: World of Wonders by Robertson Davies
Book 32: All That I Am by Anna Funder

Here’s what I read in July. Reviews follow, as I slowly catch up.

Book 26: Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem
Book 27: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Book 28: PopCo by Scarlett Thomas