This has been an interesting year for books, a mostly boring and predictable one for TV and a C-minus grade for cinema-screened movies. I went to see Barbie with my granddaughters and did mildly enjoy it, but as you’ll see, my main film review for this year is for that Netflix thundering dud, Mary. See what you think of what I thought of them, and if you disagree, go right ahead and tell me – I love a good argument.
The books I’ve read or reread this year.
Alexander Armstrong, Evenfall (2024) For older kids, a story about a boy who must go on a mystical quest as he turns 13. The Pointless host can really spin a yarn.
*Anne Berest, The Postcard (2024) Novel I reviewed in The Age; compelling and poignant account of a search for the sender of an old postcard that leads to an investigation of the writer’s forebears in the maelstrom of Jewish families driven first from Stalin’s Soviet pogroms and thence to France, which then falls to the Nazis. A daughter of survivors, Berest’s account is intelligent, sensitive and piercingly perceptive.
Patricia Briggs, Winter Lost (2024) Werewolves, vampires, Celtic Fae, Native American spirituality and demigods galore. And a spot of romance. What’s not to like? (Start with the first one, Moon Called.)
Susan Dalgety and Lucy Blackburn (eds), The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht (2024) Thirty-plus verified accounts of women victimised by government gender policies rolling back women’s rights, spaces and safety.
Robert Galbraith, The Running Grave (2024) Seventh in the Cormoran Strike series. One of the best thrillers I’ve ever read.
Michael Gawenda, My Life as a Jew (2024) Former Age editor, a personal and completely riveting story of his life navigating what it has meant to him to be Jewish, left-wing and secular. Published just before the events of October 7 2023, and thrown into high relief now. An absolute must-read.
Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation (2024) A must read for anyone with children. Basically the more screen time kids get, the less they can concentrate and emotionally self-regulate.
Miranda Hart, I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest With You (2024) Decent, gentle; confessional but not overly so; writes about her struggles with chronic illness and fatigue caused by a hitherto unsuspected tick bite when she was 14.
*Kathy Lette The Revenge Club (2024) – Novel I reviewed in The Age; fast-paced, full of chatty one-liners. Sort of an updated First Wives Club vibe, without them all being married.
Graham Linehan Tough Crowd (2024) – Greatly readable and highly informative not just about his life and recent struggles with cancel culture, but also insightful into his creative process and methods.
Bill Maher What This Comedian Said Will Shock You (2024) The famous Democrat comedian. If the Democrats want to regain the presidency, they need to listen to their loyal critics.
*Liane Moriarty Here One Moment (2024) – Novel I reviewed in The Age; a beach or book-club read.
*Bruce Nash All The Words We Know (2024) – Really good, insightful mystery novel where the sleuth is an elderly woman in an aged care facility. Complex because she is losing her memory, poignant, illiantly written with fantastic word play. I reviewed this in The Age.
Simon Sebag Montefiore Jerusalem (2011); and The World: A Family History (2022) The great readable historian. Read them both to get an idea of why perhaps the aliens don’t want to land here on Earth – humans are Not Nice …
J.D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy – Good reading, if only to dispel the deliberately lying rumour about the couch. Also essential if we want to understand that people on the ‘other side’ can be just as intelligent, decent human beings as those who disagree with their politics.
*Reviewed for The Age
On my to-read list over the holidays:
Yardena Schwarz Ghosts of a Holy War (2024)
Pearl Witherington Cornioly with Hervé Larroque Code Name Pauline: Memoirs of a World War II Special Agent (2024)
Richard Dawkins The Genetic Book of the Dead (2024)
I’m also waiting impatiently for J.K. Rowling to put out the latest Cormoran Strike book under her Robert Galaith nom de plume.
Standout films and streaming:
Barbie (Local Hoyts with grandkids)
Slow Horses (Apple TV)
Mr In-between (Binge)
Yellowstone (reviewed here in Eureka Street) (Stan)
Special Ops: Lioness, 1923 (Yellowstone prequel) Landman (Paramount+)
Special mention to prolific US writer, director and actor Taylor Sheridan, who appeared first as Danny Boyd in Veronica Mars and now has credits for creating Sicario (Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin); Mayor of Kingstown (Jeremy Renner); Tulsa King (Sly Stallone); Yellowstone (Kevin Costner); 1883; 1923; Special Ops: Lioness (Zoe Saldana); Landman (Billy Bob Thornton). Sheridan’s historically and politically informed worldview is complex and insightful. The political implications in Lioness and Landman, his most recent offerings, are worth our attention. Sheridan is well-informed and deeply cynical in a morally Machiavellian way.
Only Murders in the Building (Disney+)
The Rookie (Ch 7)
OK but flawed:
The Oxford police series: Endeavour, Morse and Lewis (itbox)
These last are OK but flawed because the writers are obsessed with making most of their murderers women. Strains the suspension of disbelief to breaking point in many cases. We started making bets about it:
‘OK, serial killer who batters people to death with superhuman strength – female perp?’
– ‘Hmm, tough one. What are the odds? I’ll give you 5-4 it’s the elderly infirm nun.’
This is a pity because a lot of the background stuff around Oxford is pleasant and informed about scholarship and high culture.
When nights were cold and nothing was on the TV we also sat through (but often while I’m reading from the above lists):
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s bio series Arnold, and then perforce, many of his action movies on Netflix. This led resistlessly to Jason Statham action movies and The Fast and the Furious franchise. These last are all noisy and car-crashy but not at all sleazy, so are decent watching with kids on wet arvos, which keeps them off screen games when they’re sick of gluing and drawing things and don’t want to sit and read.
Mainly terrible but with a couple of good points:
Mary (Netflix). Well, actually only one good point: the actress playing Mary was (shock horror) an actual Israeli Jewish actress. This movie was deservedly panned for various reasons, but some folk said that having a Jewish Israeli actress was bad: I think that that was the one point where it was being a bit accurate. However, making Gabriel a creepy demony-looking stalker, having Mary being a feisty horse-galloping death-defying type, and inventing a storyline of her being mobbed and threatened with murder for being pregnant was just too much BS. Having a pale vampiric Satan lurking around causing all the trouble was another pile of too much. Anthony Hopkins’ Herod was believably crazy if you look at the history of the time, although if you read Simon Sebag Montefiore’s magnificent Jerusalem, (listed above) you’ll see that the film is yet again fantasising when it has Herod stabbing his wife Mariamne, who was executed while he was away on the orders of his sister Salome (not that Salome, an earlier one). Anyway, it's a waste of time but I watched it so you don’t have to. Read the gospels if you want the full amount of what we know about Mary, mother of Jesus – and it’s not much. Jesuit composer Christopher Willcock translated Didier Rimaud SJ’s original poem in French and set it to glorious music. It neatly sums up all we can know about her. Everything else disappears under the light of research and discernment. The poem, used with permission:
There is nothing told about this woman, but that she had once become engaged,
and an angel addressed her and said: "You are blessed among all your kind."
On this day all earth and all paradise join in naming you happy and blessed;
Virgin Mary, blessed are you.
There is nothing told about this woman, but that she had brought into the world,
in the land of Judea, her son; for some shepherds have passed on this tale.
There is nothing told about this woman, but that she had searched for three long days
for her child who was busy elsewhere, and her heart then did not understand.
There is nothing told about this woman, but that she at Cana was a guest,
and that Jesus changed water to wine, so that all might believe who he was.
There is nothing told about this woman, but that she was standing by the cross
when her son stretched his arms out on high, and met death with a thief on each side.
There is nothing told about this woman, but that she was one in prayer with those
upon whom tongues of fire did descend, and the Spirit baptized them with flame.
And while we are thinking about Mary Mother of God, if your local Nativity scene drapes its plaster Baby Jesus in a keffiyeh, perhaps we can also place there a yellow ribbon to mark a prayer for little Kfir Bibas, a real Jewish baby, who with his mother and brother, is still being held hostage by Hamas. Faced with such division, what is one to think and to do? Merry Christmas and a healthy, happy, peaceful New Year to you all. God bless us, everyone.
Juliette Hughes is a freelance writer.