MY 2019 RECOMMENDATIONS IN BOOKS, FILM & TV.
This is the time of year when I like to offer a few recommendations to folks with similar tastes; films, Tv and books from my reading and viewing in the previous year.
My favourite TV of 2019:
Too Old to Die Young
Succession Series 2
The Handmaid’s Tale Series 3
Billions Series 3
The Watchmen
The Boys
The Kingdom.
Giri/Haji.
And my two favourite TV series of/seen in 2019 were Chernobyl and The Terror.
At the cinema, my favourite films of 2019 were:
The Joker
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Doctor Sleep
Midsommar was my film of the year. I caught an early screening in London, then watched it again, twice … and it really disturbs me. The most disturbing film for me since Aster’s debut, Hereditary.
Reading in 2019, I checked my reading diary yesterday and realised I’d hit 84 books – though it feels half that at year’s end as I have been so busy. But in horror and the weird fiction, in no particular order, I really enjoyed:
The Wise Friend by Ramsey Campbell (published April 2020)
Hollow Shores by Gary Budden
Wounds by Nathan Ballingrud
The Delicate Shore Beckons Us by Jonathan Wood
Children of the Crimson Sun by Karim Ghahwagi
The Bellboy by Rebecca Lloyd
The Ballet of Doctor Caligari and Madder Mysteries by Reggie Oliver
The Book of Bones by John Connolly
The Immeasurable Corpse of Nature by Christopher Slatsky (published 2020)
Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver
Mothlight by Adam Scovall.
Other fiction I recommend:
Dodgers by Bill Beverly
Stoneburner & Time Done Been Won’t Be No More both by William Gay
Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan
The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters.
In Non-fiction, my favourite reads were:
The Weird & the Eerie by Mark Fisher (Lit’ Criticism)
Sleeping with Lights On by Darryl Jones (Lit’ Criticism)
Folk Horror by Adam Scovall (Lit’ Criticism & more)
Millennium by Tom Holland (History)
Underland by Robert Macfarlane (Nature Writing)
Wilding by Isabella Tree (Nature Writing)
The Moor by William Atkins (Nature Writing)
The Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald (Memoir or fiction?)
Waterlog by Roger Deakin (Memoir)
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara (True Crime)
All the Devils Are Here by David Seabrook (True Crime).