Favourite books of 2016
Here are 10 books I particularly appreciated this year – though not necessarily published in 2016 – listed in alphabetical order.
Literature
Another look at The Man Who Fell To Earth
Nicolas Roeg’s film has many memorable scenes and images that entangle themselves in the mind, and is electrified by a charismatic lead performance by David Bowie. But the director’s habitual desire to shock through the shoehorning of several gratuitous scenes into his movie adds nothing to Tevis’ subtle tale.
‘The Idea of Europe’
If Britain does indeed vote ‘Leave’, and the gradual disintegration of the European Union were to gather pace, what would be left of ‘the idea of Europe’? What sense of collective identity and purpose, if any, predated the EU, and would it be strong enough to survive its breakup?
Roman poets
Every so often you visit a place with high expectations, and those expectations are exceeded. So it was for me when I visited the Protestant Cemetery in Rome a couple of days ago.
Radical hope
What is hope? What would it mean to wish that 2016 will be any better than 2015? As we enter the New Year the latest book by the prolific Terry Eagleton, Hope Without Optimism, offers a brief but wide-ranging meditation on the meaning of a seemingly simple concept that escapes easy definition.
Percy Bysshe Shelley: Poet and Revolutionary
In an age ever more obsessed with the importance of crafting effective political ‘stories’ and ‘narratives’, Jacqueline Mulhallen’s Percy Bysshe Shelley: Poet and Revolutionary is a timely review of the life and work of a poet writing 200 years ago acutely aware of the vital role the imagination plays in extending the horizons of political possibility.
Submission: a scepticism beyond scepticism
Michel Houellebecq’s Submission carries an explosive political charge, even by the standards of France’s most controversial novelist.