Read thirty-three books this year, which is below average. The goal is fifty. They said lockdown was a perfect opportunity to catch up on reading and hobbies, to learn an instrument, compose a fucking aria, all that bullshit. I spent most of mine home-schooling and ruminating on the seeming breakdown of the global order. I doom-scrolled. Environmental catastrophe in Australia, a global pandemic, Chinese repression, American carnage – I could not tear my eyes away. Bad for reading, bad for my writing, bad for my brain.
But, friends, I come not to whinge about my year, when yours has probably been worse. I come to discuss the memorable diversions from the annus horribilis.
In terms of movies, I can’t remember watching anything that blew me away in 2020. In fact the only thing I watched and truly thought was brilliant was the new series The Boys. Cynical. As. Fuck. Certainly the best take on corporate culture and superhero franchises I’ve seen. 
Other than that I recommend Tokyo Midnight Diner (and yes, you need to watch it at midnight). Each episode is a fifteen to twenty minute vignette of the eccentric Japanese characters that pass through the diner of the title. It’s funny and strange and sometimes heart-warming.
Anyway, you came here for books and so in particular order, here they are.
(Click the PDF icon, upper right, if you prefer reading a black-on-white script)
Favourite books
- The End of the Affair (1951) – Graham Greene
Brilliant and tragic novel about love, hate jealousy, insecurity, and more than anything, about faith. While Greene captures the emotional complexities of a love affair perfectly, it was the story of the lovers’ struggle with their religious beliefs which I found most compelling. I myself am not religious, but I find the subject matter interesting when discussed by someone as intelligent, sensitive, and full of ambivalence as Graham Greene. I find it interesting because often a discussion about ‘religion’ is really a discussion of the meaning of life, or – in the case of The End of the Affair – the purpose of suffering.
The story centres around Maurice Bendrix; Sarah Miles, and her husband Henry Miles. Maurice is a writer (the novel was inspired, apparently, by a long real-life affair of Greene’s) and the passages discussing the writing craft are some of the most insightful I’ve ever read. The strange and tragic love triangle goes back and forth in time and in perspective and, in a manner Greene is exceedingly good at, becomes more tragic the more that is revealed.
- Dune (1955) – Frank Herbert
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It is some unforgiveable brand of sacrilege, I’m sure, for a science fiction writer to never have read Dune. With the Villeneuve version coming out (his Blade Runner 2049 was impressive) and the trailer dropping, I figured I should see what all the hyperventilation was about. To be honest I didn’t have high hopes: a lot of the old-school science fiction has turgid prose and ideas that have not aged particularly well. But no, not Dune, and yes, I see what all the fuss is about.
Fifty-five years after it was published, it is still a good novel in its own right. The world building is excellent and the environmental themes prescient. It is a big book and as a lover of the lean efficient prose of noir, neo-noir, and cyberpunk, the thought of a big fat space opera makes my eyes glaze just a little. But, again, as the story of House Atreides unfurled I just could not put it down.
- The Plague (1947) – Albert Camus
I started this novel at least three times in previous years (even decades) and could never get into it. The author’s first novel, The Stranger had a profound influence on me as a young man, and I’d hoped one of his other novels would do the same trick.
None have, but I will say that in this year of the plague, The Plague is worth reading. Camus was not, of course, talking about a literal plague. He was talking about war. The point is the numbness experienced by those going through a plague – the daily experience with death, the acceptance of mortality, and the human ability to adjust to and normalise just about any experience, no matter how barbaric or bizarre – is also the way people experience war. In particular, Camus was talking about the Nazi occupation of France.
Now, as it happens, his metaphorical story about a plague also works for real plagues. It follows the story of quietly heroic Doctor Rieux as he tries to treat the people of his home town, Oran. Initially, the people of Oran ‘disbelieve in pestilences’ and instead the economy is prioritised. Authorities are reluctant to enforce social distancing, and packed religious service become super-spreader events. Sound familiar?
But once the death toll starts to sky-rocket, the town is quarantined and the people experience the loneliness, boredom, and paranoic fear that you, me, we, have become accustomed to over the past year (I’ve joked that sometimes it feels like we are in John Carpenter’s The Thing: we crave human interaction but cannot trust that someone we meet might be infected, and worse, that we ourselves might unknowingly be infected).
I could go on, as the parallels are many and telling. But you don’t want to sit here and read about another fucking plague, so I will finish with this: The Plague does have a hopeful ending. Pestilences do end, after all.
- The Heroes (2011) – Joe Abercrombie
I don’t read that much fantasy, but fuck I love me some Abercrombie. Big thick tomes, but I just fly through his stuff. He writes well, his action scenes are excellent, characterisation strong, and he flavours it all with lashings of delicious gristly darkness.
The Heroes largely takes place over a three-day battle. It showcases the stupidity of war, the cowardice, the luck, the incompetence, and yes, sometimes even the heroics. As you’d expect from the Lord of Grimdark, the ‘heroes’ are no such thing, but flawed and broken individuals who go to war out of obligation, or ambition, or because they know no other way of life.
He’s cruel to his characters – unnecessarily cruel from time to time in my opinion – and poor old Bremer dan Gorst really gets it this time. I’m not sure if he’s picking on me particularly, or if it’s just the dark alchemy of his literary soul that makes him such a popular author, but he’s always a bit of a cunt to the characters I like the most.
The ending though, wow. Perfect.
- The Lathe of Heaven (1971) – Ursula Le Guin
This is my second time with this classic, and I’m glad I gave it a re-read. It is more Philip K Dick than Philip K Dick and – I say this as a huge PKD fan – better written. Do yourself a favour.
- The Remains of the Day (1989) – Kazuo Ishiguro
A tragic, moving, yet restrained novel. This was a re-read of one of my favourite authors (if not the favourite), and it did not disappoint. It tells the story through the unreliable narrator of Mr Stevens, the head butler of a ‘great’ house before and during the Second World War. Deep down he is a romantic and an idealist who, through a self-abnegating obsession with duty, ultimately ends of giving three decades of his life in service of a Nazi sympathiser (Lord Darlington), and misses the opportunity to be with the woman he loves (Miss Kenton). An incredibly sad, powerful novel.
Special Mentions
- Providence (2020) – Max Barry
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Max Barry is a talented Australian writer and goddammit we have to support talented Australian writers. Providence is about a giant warship that flies out to space with a small crew to fight an aggressive alien civilisation. The novel is fast-paced and well written. I suppose I felt it wasn’t particularly challenging (unlike his previous work, Lexicon), and was something written with a mind to getting made into a Hollywood film. Is this a bad thing? Nah. Go for it mate. You just don’t quite make it on to my ‘best of’ list, is all.
Did Not Finish
- Lolita (1955) – Vladimir Nabokov
An American with lots of followers on Twitter was yelling at anyone (men, in particular) who had this on their shelves, saying they were, ipso facto, a bad person. As a general rule, when a bully tells me not to do something, I tend to want to do the exact opposite. Especially when it comes to a novel that is widely considered one of the greatest works of literature in the English language. So I ordered Lolita.
HOWEVER. Yeah, I just couldn’t stomach it. Maybe 30 pages in I realised the subject matter could not be made palatable no matter how fine the prose. So I didn’t finish it, but I’m still not inclined to morally condemn anyone who does.
If you want to read Nabokov I recommend Pale Fire. Brilliant, funny, and surprisingly readable.
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