BEST OF 2020: BOOKS

Overall, 2020 was a good year for me to get through a lot of books that had just been sitting on my shelf but the most notable thing I can say about last year is that I read a lot of art books and a lot of film books that made up half of the thirty books I did get through.

 

I can honestly say that I only read one book that was actually published last year which is Don Delillo’s The Silence: A Novel.  It is the first book of his that I have read although his Cosmopolis is still sitting on my shelf waiting to be read.  Delillo has a very unique style of writing like Hunter S. Thompson or if you’re not into reading style then this is definitely not for you, but it is a quick read.

 

STEPHEN KING & CLIVE BARKER:

Two authors that I had not read in years I finally decided to get back to during the downtime I had during the pandemic.  Regarding King, I decided to start off small with his short novellas Elevation and Gwendy’s Button Box (with co-author Richard Chizmar).  I loved both and they reminded me why I enjoyed reading King so much which is his great use of character.  For Barker I read his First Tales, The Adventures of Mr. Maximillan Bacchus and His Traveling Circus and the art book Clive Barker Illustrator.  It has been a while since I have read both authors, but it was great to get back to them as I picked up a couple of their other novels to read for 2021!

 

ART BOOKS:

I took some time during 2020 to get back to my art studies.  In addition to Clive Barker Illustrator which delved deep into his art and influences I read Pandemonium: Further Explorations into the Worlds of Clive Barker.  The later book delved deep into both Barker’s art, theater, and film work.   I got through two books by David Mack – Dream Logic and Reflections: Art Book Vol. 1.  I have always loved his work and sense of style and technique and have been following his career for years.  These two books allowed me great insight into his art and process.   The next actual artist whose book I looked at was Dave McKean’s Dust Covers: The Collected Sandman Covers 1989-1997.  I have been a fan of his for as long as the original Sandman series was published (that is when I was first exposed to his amazing style and art).  This book allowed me to read his insights and hindsight on how many of his most iconic pieces were created for the series.  The last artist that I will mention is celebrated graphic novel artist Will Eisner and his book Graphic Storytelling & Visual Narrative. So, anyone who has been keeping up with me will know that I was only exposed to Eisner two years ago and I have been on a quest to read everything he is written.  Now I am moving on to his non-fiction and art books of which this is the first.  I am sure I will have plenty more to speak of in 2021 once I read more of his books.

For 2020 I only read two art history books – The Origins of Christian Art (by Michael Gough) and Baroque And Rococo Art (by Germaine Bazin).  I need to read more of these for 2021 as I would like to get through about 5-8 of these style books a year to keep my brain learning about art history.

 

FILM BOOKS:

I love reading about the making of films which makes up a huge number of the books I read each year and 2020 was no different.  I read three books in the Devil’s Advocates library which include In the Mouth of Madness (by Michael Blyth), Ju-On: The Grudge (by Marisa Hayes), and The Thing (by Jez Conolly).  Each of these books do an excellent job of breaking down all the elements of these films.  They are also short yet very comprehensive so that fans of the films and filmmakers can get a grand insight into the film and its legacy.  This series does focus more on horror and cult cinema.  The next series of books I read are two from the World Directors series.  From that series I read the books on Atom Egoyan (by Jonathan Romney) and Jane Campion (by Dana Polan).  Atom Egoyan is a great read and I love the way that Romney organized and presented the material.  I was not as taken with Polan’s Jane Campion book, but I did the added insight on Campion’s career and influences.

Regarding non-series books, I did (finally) get around to reading On Location…On Martha’s Vinyard: The Making of the Movie Jaws by Edith Blake which is one of the most famous behind the scenes books ever written.  It is indeed an amazing and candid look at the making of the film and a book I recommend to anyone wanting to know what a real film set is like.  With Tom Savini’s book Night of the Living Dead ’90: The Version You’ve Never Seen readers get a look at Savini’s film the way it was originally intended through storyboards and annotations that put the film a whole different light.

The final book in this section that I would like to discuss is The Name of the Book is Dogma95 by Richard Kelly.  I have an interest in this film movement and this book is made up of interviews of everyone who was involved with it in addition to giving a history and a context for the movement.

 

NOVELS:

My interests in 2020 was all over the map!  In addition to all the novels I have already mentioned I read several that were based on films and television shows or vice versa like Jack Sharkey’s The Addams Family (an anthology of different stories that could easily be episodes of the show), The Nightmares on Elm Street Parts 4&5 (by Joseph Locke), A Monster Calls (by Patrick Ness, Siobhan Dowd, and Jim Kay), The Thing (Novelization by Alan Dean Foster based on the Screenplay by Bill Lancaster), Solaris (by Stanislaw Lem), and Annihilation (by Jeff Vandermeer).  Now I enjoyed all these books, but Solaris and Annihilation were amazing!  I am now going to start reading more from both authors because I love their sense of storytelling and style.  The Thing has a lot of scenes that went missing from actual film which made reading the novelization that much better whereas The Nightmares on Elm Street were pretty much spot on except Part 5 changed a lot regarding the way in which people were killed.

The novels that fell outside of those is Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children (by Ransom Riggs), The Tibetan Book of the Dead (which had no author), and my second Ryu Murakami novel Sixty-Nine.  Murakami is an excellent writer that more people should get to know his work.  I have finally started to return to Riggs series and my hope is to catch up by the end of 2021!

 

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With having read thirty books in 2020 I kind of hit my goal since the plan was to read between 25 and 35.  It was 50 percent both non-fiction verses fiction which is also good.  Normally, I end up reading more non-fiction than fiction which is why my shelf of unread books never seems to go down, but I am hoping that 2021 will be a change in the right direction. 

For 2021 I am hoping to finish the Southern Reach and Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children series in addition to catching up with my Steve Alten Meg series (which I did not read any last year).  I am hoping to get maybe five King novels read and a whole lot more art and film books, so it will be interesting to see how 2021 stacks up to 2020.

 

Now I want everyone to go away and pick of a book and turn off Nextflix for once.

 

MONTH OF 2020 FILMS

For 2021’s January themed month of film watching I decided that it was best to catch up on films from the previous year that had managed to pass me by, so this was the Month of 2020 Films!  This being said, I caught up with a lot of films from every genre which in turn will help me decide my 2020 Best of film lists.

 

DOCUMENTARIES:

I should start by saying that I (finally) jumped on the band wagon and watched the entire Netflix Tiger King mini-series which also meant that I watched the stand alone special The Tiger King & I.  I enjoyed the whole true crime docu-series and this film added to the overall series by placing it in our current quarantine times.  Injustice and true crime are appealing subjects for non-fiction films so of course I watched the following films Murder to Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story, The Three Deaths of Marisela Escobedo, and Athlete A.  Of the three, Athlete A was the best, but they all were eye opening in regard to their subject matter and overall execution.  Athlete A is one I recommend everyone watch.  The last two documentaries that I watched of the month were Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution and Dance Dreams: Hot Chocolate Nutcracker.  Dance Dreams is an amazing look at one of the premiere dance studios in the United States and their production of the Hot Chocolate Nutcracker.  Crip Camp is overall one of the best documentaries that was released in 2020. 

 

DRAMA:

Only caught up with three dramas this month.  Wished I had gotten around to more, but January was not an ideal month for dramas.  What I did get around to was an eclectic mix.  Watched Hillbilly Elegy, Mank, and Trial of the Chicago 7.  Mank was clearly the best of the bunch overall but Trial of the Chicago 7 and Hillbilly Elegy had some stand out performances even though there were other areas that were lacking.  Mank is by far one of director David Fincher’s best films in years and deserves the accolades it is being given.  I am surprised that Glen Close in Hillbilly Elegy is not being given just as much praise as she is phenomenal but then again, she is phenomenal in most everything. 

 

ACTION:

I only watched three action films in this month and two of them were based on comic books.  The first one is Extraction which had some amazing cinematography and action sequences.  Some of the best I have seen all year.  The two I watched that were based on comic books were vastly different from one another - The Old Guard and Wonder Woman: 1984.  Now, I have read the graphic novel on which The Old Guard is based and its pretty much spot on.  The film does a better job with bridging all the stories of the characters together and it does an amazing job with setting up the world of the film.  There are even whole scenes in the film lifted directly from the comic book.  Wonder Woman on the other hand is a mixed bag but it does a great job servicing the young female audience that it was designed to appeal to whereas the typical comic book fan may not be as impressed.  Some questionable CGI at the end does take away from the overall film.  The funny thing is that I believe all three of them will be getting sequels sometime soon.

 

HORROR:

The horror genre is what films I ended up watching the most of partially because so many more horror films were released last year than practically every other genre, so I felt like there was a lot for me to catch up with.  My Top 5 favorites were The Cleansing Hour, A Good Woman is Hard to Find, La Llorona, The Mortuary Collection, and Spiral, which were all different from one another.  Although not your standard horror film, Sarah Bolger gives a phenomenal performance in A Good Woman is Hard to Find.  Spiral gives one of the most genuine same sex relationship portrayals in a horror film which elevates the film about the new people moving into the neighborhood that has a supernatural cult in its mist.   The Mortuary Collection is one of the best anthology films to come around in several years that also has a great wrap-around segment and The Cleansing Hour is both fun and suspenseful with a fake internet exorcist having to contend with a real demon possession.  These are all films I highly recommend.

 

On the flip side are those films I would not recommend which include The Deeper You Dig and The Beach House which both had interesting concepts but bad execution.

 

The other horror films that were just okay were Blood Vessel, Castle Freak (remake), Confessional, Death of Me, Lingering, Porno, Scare Me, and The Soul Collector.  Lingering almost made the Top 5 and would probably be at #6 and Porno and Scare Me are great fun.  Blood Vessel is for those that enjoy vampire films, but I got bored (even though there is plenty of gore and is quite entertaining).  The original Castle Freak did not need a remake but at least this version has plenty of gore and takes on an overly Lovecraftian ending that is at least a good payoff.  Confessional was an interesting concept that was well done but just did not hold my attention.  Lingering and The Soul Collector are equally fine films that delve into their respective cultures and are easily some of the other highlights that I saw.

Overall, January ended up being a great month of film watching and catching up with a lot of films from 2020 that I had missed.  There were plenty more that I still did not get to but that will be for another time.  In the meantime, I hope you look out for some of these films and I hope my insight will be valuable for you.

 

Now, go away.  For February, my focus is a Month of International Films, so I have a lot of subtitles to read!