Here are my 2020 recommendations with short descriptions, covering economic history, science, society, literary fiction, and poetry, mostly done in the first half of the year after which reading dropped off precipitously.
Leave a CommentTag: End-of-Year Lists
I’ll begin with a story that is one of my favorite essays, from Essays in Idleness (Tsurezuregusa) by Yoshida Kenko a world-wise Japanese monk from 1331. Kenko writes:
When I went to see the horse racing at the Kamo Shrine on the fifth day of the fifth month, the view from our carriage was blocked by a throng of common folk. We all got down and moved towards the fence for a better view, but that area was particularly crowded and we couldn’t make our way through…
Leave a CommentThings I loved in 2019 on Big screen/TV/Streaming, Podcasts and Music. The Guilty (Danish) is a beautifully acted, taut thriller. A demoted police officer assigned to call-dispatch gets an emergency call from a kidnapped woman. The call is suddenly disconnected, the search for the kidnapper begins.
Leave a CommentHere are some films and podcast episodes that I liked in 2018. Sights (Film, TV, etc.) Bladerunner 2049 was a thought provoking movie and a well-deserved sequel to Bladerunner. Love per Square Foot was a cheerful and peppy urban love story set in Bombay. NetFlix has made a movie that Bollywood has forgotten how to make. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell made by BBC boasts high production and some great acting by all the principal characters. The TV series is less-nuanced than Susannah Clarke’s book by the same name, i.e., the TV series is darker and misses the whimsical funny elements in the book, that are understandably harder to translate to screen. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (season 1) is great…
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