It is hard to limit myself to books. There were so many other things that helped me survive this year. Here are my most memorable reads and watches for 2009
Books
Sarah Waters‘ books. The new one released this year is titled The Little Stranger, but I also highly recommend the others, including Tipping the Velvet, Fingersmith, and the Night Watch. Her books are trilogies. Tipping the Velvet, Affinity, and Fingersmith give an outsiders perspective on Victorian England. Featuring lesbian relationships, the books are Dickensian in nature – an amazing power of observation and description of lives of those disfranchised, but not defined or beaten by the era they live in. Besides, her insights into the nature of sexuality and relationships transcend gender or sexual orientation. The Night Watch and now the Little Stranger take on the post-war England of the 1940s and are an evocative and haunting accounts of society emerging from the emotional and literal ruins of that war. As always, deeply personal, deeply resonating accounts.
Movies
As I think of it, this wasn’t the best year for film. But since I teach a Monster Film course, I’d like to refer to a horror movie that gave me the most pleasure this year – Drag Me to Hell (directed by Sam Raimi). Raimi is the director of The Evil Dead series (“Good… Bad.. I am the guy with the gun“) and he knows how seamlessly to blend together horror and humor. A deranged, brutally funny, scary film that features goats, kittens, and the economic crisis. The most entertaining experience I had in the theater all year. This is the movie that makes me wish Raimi would stop making Spiderman sequels and do this full time.
TV
As bad of a year this was for movies, its been a great year for TV. First of all, Battlestar Gallactica came to a thought-provoking, if frustrating, end. If you are into sci-fi and haven’t check out this metaphorical examination of life in the age of terrorism, do so immediately. This summer I also discovered The Wire, which wrapped up its last season last year. A character-driven drama about crime-ridden streets of Baltimore, it slowly unfolds, much like a novel, to reveal layers of social conflict and institutional injustice, which inform so many of characters choices. One of the best recent explorations of race and class in America. Finally, there is Mad Men, a drama set in the advertising world of the 1960s. A fascinating window into the time when “everything has changed”, its a stylized and fascinating ethnographic study of that time period. Season 3 ended this year with JFK’s assassination, a poignant and well-researched portrayal of the effects of a national tragedy on the psyche of an “innocent” nation. Good stuff.
These are the things that kept me sane this – very difficult – year.
Good choices of books. Personally on movies I like comedy and Adam Sandler is the best.
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I have heard Sarah Water’s books are really a good read…And also the movie Drag me to Hell is one of my favorite horror flick!
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Nice work on this article. I am always interested in blogs that pertain to sports. Whether or not it is about a full blown work out or just something like a casual bicycle ride.
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An open book
Marina Levina’s post has made me feel free to talk about a book that’s less than literary and more than a pop culture trifle.
Sometimes a book gets so much attention upon publication that by the time you’ve taken in the “Fresh Air” and “60 Minutes” interviews with the author, you might suppose you know the whole story. In the case of Andre Agassi’s memoir, “Open,” that would be a wrong assumption.
Agassi’s story runs far deeper than his now much publicized crystal meth problem and the revelation that he hated tennis. Some reviewers have called “Open” an anti-sports sports memoir. And that’s not entirely wrong, but Agassi’s hatred of the game was complicated, in large part because his Iranian immigrant father saw tennis as a way to riches and forced tennis upon Andre at a very young age.
Well known to tennis fans is the part of Agassi’s story involving his fall to #141 in the world and his hard-fought battle to return to the top of the sport in which he relearned the game. Agassi had a colorful supporting team to help him do so, including his devoted trainer, Gil Reyes, and former coach Brad Gilbert. And later, of course, he drew strength from his wife, Stefanie Graf, an amazing tennis player as well.
One reason that Agassi’s book transcends the sports autobiography genre is that it’s not truly an autobiography. If Agassi could write a book this good on his own, his luck at the talent lottery would have truly defied his hometown Vegas odds. Though Andre Agassi’s name appears on the cover of the book, it was J.R. Moehringer, a Pulitzer Prize winner who wrote the tennis great’s story. Moehringer, an LA Times writer, penned a best-selling memoir of his own, “The Tender Bar” (2005).
Moehringer keeps Agassi’s tale tight, on track, and compelling. And true to the book’s title, the celebrated tennis star tells nearly all and presents a psychologically rich account of a man who is driven to do his best, even as he is tortured by self-doubt and deep dislike of the task at hand.
As someone who admits to being tennis obsessed, I realize this book might not appeal to everyone (there are a lot of lessons here for players, even those of us competing at a recreational level). You might be tempted to dismiss “Open” as just another celeb sports story. But Andre Agassi is a deeply thoughtful athlete, one who opens up about the brutality of the “gentlemanly” sport of tennis and offers a story of true survival.
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Thanks to all for the tantalizing descriptions and breadth of interests…appreciate the ‘winter break’ (translation this year–campus closure) reading list. A nice complement to the summer reading lists! Look forward to this continuing News Center feature in 2010!
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