My year in books

Happy new year to all but particularly to the Alzabo Soup podcast for running a mammoth Shakespeare / Renaissance English plays readalong in 2024. Obviously a big draw for reading them all is 1. you can boast about it and 2. you can make a big list at the end. Here's mine – I've written a bit more about the entries below on Goodreads. Hope everyone has a good 2025.

Shakespeare plays ranked

1. Hamlet
2. Macbeth
3. A Midsummer Night's Dream
4. King Lear
5. As You Like It
6. Romeo & Juliet
7. Measure for Measure
8. Cymbeline
9. Richard II
10. The Two Noble Kinsmen (with John Fletcher)
11. Twelfth Night
12. Othello
13. Coriolanus
14. The Merchant of Venice
15. The Merry Wives of Windsor
16. The Tempest
17. Henry IV Part 1
18. Antony & Cleopatra
19. Much Ado About Nothing
20. Titus Andronicus (with George Peele)
21. Julius Caesar
22. Henry IV Part 2
23. All's Well That Ends Well
24. Edward III (with others)
25. The Winter's Tale
26. Henry V
27. Love's Labour's Lost
28. Richard III
29. Henry VI Part 2
30. Trolius & Cressida
31. Henry VI Part 1
32. The Comedy of Errors
33. Pericles (with George Wilkins)
34. Henry VI Part 3
35. King John
36. Timon of Athens (with Thomas Middleton)
37. Henry VIII (with John Fletcher)
38. The Taming of the Shrew
39. Two Gentlemen of Verona

Other Elizabethan / Jacobean drama ranked:

1. Thomas Kyd - The Spanish Tragedy
2. John Ford - 'Tis Pity She's A Whore
3. Christopher Marlowe - Edward II
4. John Webster - The Duchess of Malfi
5. Thomas Middleton - The Revenger's Tragedy
6. Francis Beaumont - The Knight of the Burning Pestle
7. Thomas Dekker / John Ford / William Rowley - The Witch of Edmonton
8. John Fletcher - The Woman's Prize, or The Tamer Tamed
9. Ben Jonson - Volpone
10. Thomas Middleton / William Rowley - The Changeling
11. Anonymous (perhaps Thomas Kyd) - Arden of Faversham
12. Francis Beaumont / John Fletcher - Philaster, or Love Lies a-Bleeding
13. Christopher Marlowe - The Jew of Malta
14. Thomas Dekker - The Shoemakers' Holiday
15. Ben Jonson - The Alchemist
16. John Webster - The White Devil
17. Christopher Marlowe - Doctor Faustus

Shakespeariana roughly in order of preference:

• Jonathan Bate - Soul of the Age: the Life, Mind and World of William Shakespeare
• Emma Smith - This Is Shakespeare: How to Read the World's Greatest Playwright
• James Shapiro - 1599: a Year in the Life of William Shakespeare
• James Shapiro - 1606: Shakespeare and the Year of Lear
• Harold Bloom - Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human
• Stanley Wells - What Was Shakespeare Really Like?
• Stanley Wells - Shakespeare & Co.
• Richard Proudfoot - Shakespeare: Text, Stage & Canon
• Jan Kott - Shakespeare Our Contemporary
• David Bevington - How to read a Shakespeare play
• Germaine Greer - Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction
• Bill Bryson - Shakespeare: the World as a Stage
• G. Wilson Knight - The Wheel of Fire
• Stephen Greenblatt - Shakespeare's Freedom
• E.M.W. Tillyard - The Elizabethan World Picture
• Katherine Rundell - Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne
• Michael Hattaway (ed.) - The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's History Plays
• Margreta de Grazia / Stanley Wells (eds.) - The New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare

Other non-fiction:

• Lizzy Goodman - Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011
• David Toop - Ocean of Sound: Ambient Sound and Radical Listening in the Age of Communication
• Suzanne Ferriss - Lost in Translation (BFI Film Classics)
• Laura Ashe - Richard II: A Brittle Glory
• Anne Curry - Henry V: Playboy Prince to Warrior King
• Rosemary Horrox - Richard III: A Failed King?

SF (mostly) shorts:

Jack Vance - The Dragon Masters

Jack Vance - The Last Castle

Jack Vance - The Miracle Workers

Jack Vance - The Star King

Jack Vance - 'Abercrombie Station' / 'Chowell's Chickens'

Jack Vance - 'The Mitr'

Jack Vance - 'The Moon Moth'

Jack Vance - 'Ullward's Retreat'

George R.R. Martin - 'A Song for Lya'

Michael Moorcock - Stormbringer

Michael Moorcock - 'The Stealer of Souls' / 'Kings in Darkness' / 'The Flame Bringers'

Kelly Link - 'The Faery Handbag' / 'Stone Animals' / 'Magic For Beginners'

Mariella Frostrup (ed.) - Darkest Desire

Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory

Comics:

Becky Cloonan / Tula Lotay - Somna

Brian Azzarello / Maria Llovet - Faithless, vols. 1 & 2

Kazuo Umezz - The Drifting Classroom, Perfect Edition vol. 1

Edward Ross - Gamish: A Graphic History of Gaming

Richard Corben - DEN vols 1 & 2

Emily Carroll - Through the Woods

K. Briggs - Macbeth

Matt Fraction / Chip Zdarsky - Just the Tips

Kieron Gillen / Jim Rossignol / Jeff Stokely - Ludocrats

Georges Pichard - Marie-Gabrielle de Saint-Eutrope

Favourite music of 2024

Guitars

Hovvdy - Hovvdy

Macseal - Permanent Repeat

Gulfer - Third Wind + Lights Out

Johnny Foreigner - How To Be Hopeful

Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee

Ten years ago a band that covered and sound not-a-little like Coldplay would have been absolute anathema to me, but things change when you're in your mid-thirties and married with children. The Hovvdy record is made for tired dads scoring wins where they can and I've come to embrace that. On the other picks: power pop is not a guaranteed winner with me but Macseal crack the formula – great summer BBQ record. Gulfer are (now, sniff, were) a great band. JoFo 4eva of course. Cindy Lee is ambient to me and that's actually a great way to appreciate this very hyped release.

Bops

Charli XCX & Lorde - 'Girl, so confusing'

Charli XCX & Ariana Grande - 'Sympathy is a knife'

Charli XCX - Brat

This Is Lorelei - 'Dancing in the Club'

Charly Bliss - 'Waiting For You'

Only a monster wouldn't well up at the Lorde verse in 'Girl, So Confusing'. I'm a Charli day one and don't truck with this attitude that the music loses something when the uncoolest people in the world are making Brat memes. That may perhaps be because I am also one of those uncool people (married with children etc). Speaking of, maybe Charli should have that kid and take a break. Kids are great.

Beats

Priori feat. James K - 'Wake'

Maya Q - 'Starbust'

Sully & Salo - 'Nights (Not Just A Dub Mix)'

Artur M Puga - 'NubeKevlar'

Earl Grey - 'Amygdala'

Toma Kami - missed heaven

Skee Mask - Resort

aheloy! - Deep in the Big Blue Dream

Innersound - Yellow Boa

Djrum - Meaning's Edge

Jeigo - Fig

Xylitol - Anemones

Drum and bass is the greatest music ever invented. Shawn Reynaldo gets it – shout to his First Floor newsletter where I got wind of a lot of these picks.

Moods

Priori - This But More

Rosie Carr - yew

Lyndsie Alguire - time is but the drawing of a sword

C. Diab - Imerro

Mary Lattimore & Walt McClements - Rain On The Road

Not Waving & Romance - Infinite Light (and to a lesser extent Wings of Desire)

Isabel Pine - Where the Flowers Grow

Hearts And Minds - Hearts And Minds

Nexcyia - Endless Path Of Memory

mu tate - wanting less

Various - 29 Speedway: UltraBody

Xoloft Infected Puberty Arc - Made By A Kid

Lifted - Trellis

James K - 'Hypersoft Lovejinx Junkdream'

Blue Lake - 'Green-Yellow Field (Sofie Birch & Carøe Remix)'

COLA REN - 'Baraka (Salamanda Remix)'

It seems I have joined the large contingent of people for whom music with things like rhythm or melody is just a bit too much. Can ambient ever be bad is a question I've been grappling with as I've been familiarising myself with the genre. Reading David Toop's monumental Oceans of Sound, which fondly depicts the kooky and silly nature of a lot of experimental music, helped me relax about the need to evaluate this stuff. Whatever works for you is fine. Large swathes of this music will be by its very nature forgettable, you just find the bits that keep you interested. Shout to Philip Sherburne's Futurism Restated newsletter where I got wind of a lot of these picks.

Rereleased / Remastered

Cocteau Twins & Harold Budd - The Moon and the Melodies

Dettinger - Intershop + Oasis

Various - Lost Paradise: Blissed Out Breakbeat Hardcore 1991-94

Various - Virtual Dreams II - Ambient Explorations in the House & Techno Age, Japan 1993-1999

Significant Harold Budd obsession developed this year. I will also never say no to a massive compilation of obscure 90s electronic music.

Not of 2024 but loved in 2024

ML Buch - Suntub

Ben Quad - I'm Scared That's All There Is

Yasmin Williams - Urban Driftwood

Brian Eno / Harold Budd - Ambient 2: The Plateaux Of Mirror

Laraaji / Brian Eno - Ambient 3: Day of Radiance

Fripp & Eno - Evening Star

Laurie Spiegel - The Expanding Universe

Caroline Polachek - Desire, I Want To Turn Into You (Everasking Edition)

ML Buch is my most listened to artist of 2024. Got wind of Suntub through it placing on so many 2023 lists which just goes to show that lists are worth something. 2024 screamo Ben Quad not my speed, but 2022 melodic Ben Quad very much is. Shout to Endless Scroll's Michael Brooks for the Yasmin Williams recommend. Dipped into a bunch of Brian Eno his year – the collaborative albums stayed with me the most.

The Wheel of Fire

The Wheel of Fire by George Wilson Knight
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Extremely idiosyncratic takes on Shakespeare, written with such whirling enthusiasm that it can be hard to maintain a grasp of the argument. Wilson Knight is dismissive of critical approaches that focus on character and intention (which cards on the table I'm amenable to), preferring to look at the symbolic significance of the plays and something that today might perhaps uncharitably be described as their general vibe. Most valuable for me were the readings of Measure for Measure and Trolius and Cressida, which the critical consensus interprets as satirical if not farcical in tone, but Wilson Knight takes more seriously. I thought it was impossible to see Duke Vincentio as a hero, but Wilson Knight shows that there can be positive readings of the character, showing in turn how Shakespeare's skill in balancing perspectives is evident even in plays that today's readers are liable to only interpret in a certain direction.

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The Alchemist

The Alchemist by Ben Jonson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Despite Jonson’s interest in seeing this play printed and read, it still belongs best on the stage, where the rapid-fire back and forth and madcap pace is more evident. The plot starts fast and gets faster, as the various gulls first get introduced and then pile up on each other, with the con men having to think of ever more extravagant tricks to separate them from their money. Quite a bit of it is pretty turgid on the page. The jokes need great performances to bring them alive.

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Philaster: Or, Love Lies A-Bleeding

Philaster: Or, Love Lies A-Bleeding by Francis Beaumont
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The dramatic trick this keeps playing is to bring characters to the edge of death and then pulling back. The subtitle ‘Love Lies a-Bleeding” gestures towards that – the main couple are both near mortally wounded but recover and are united at the end through a twist that makes less sense the more you think about it. The blood that is shed is proof of their honour. The most radical aspect of the play is that it is the intervention of the people against a tyrannical king that delivers the happy ending. Shakespeare borrowed some elements of this play for Cymbeline and improved on them in almost every way.

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The Tempest

The Tempest by William Shakespeare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a strange one. Prospero starts the play as a revenger, and his authoritarian disposition towards his daughter, Ariel and Caliban provides plenty of scope for modern day readers to see the character as an upholder of patriarchy, colonialism and racism. But at the end of the play, there’s a swerve away from revenge and towards high-minded forgiveness. Prospero overcomes his baser nature – which the play elsewhere associates with conspiring courtiers, drunken louts and 'savage' men in faraway lands. He is the stage manager as hero, whereas in most Shakespeare plays the stage-manager tends to be the villain (see in particular Iago and Edmund). He is not as compromised as the 'Duke of Dark Corners' in Measure for Measure – whereas that play's ending descends into farce, The Tempest strikes a more wistful tone. Prospero's magic engineers a happy ending – a restoration of the natural order, with natural slaves put in their place and the rightful rulers reassuming theirs. Shakespeare's contemporary audience may have accepted this at face value. A modern audience may find it harder to do so.

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The Changeling

The Changeling: Full Text and Introduction by Thomas Middleton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Bit of an odd one. There are thematic connections to be made between the largely unconnected main plot and sub-plot, but they are rather flimsy. Middleton’s moralistic policing of female chastity is quite an unattractive trait, but the villainous De Flores, obsessed with bedding the beautiful Beatrice-Joanna even if it kills him, is a fun role.

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The Witch of Edmonton

The Witch of Edmonton by Thomas Dekker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A play full of ambiguities. To what extent is the titular witch created by the prejudices of her community? How much agency does she really have? She is both a scapegoat and a revenger. The play revels in the fascination with witchcraft while at the same time portraying Mother Sawyer as a victim. Both her and Frank Thorney are pressured into doing evil by the fraught economic circumstances they find themselves in. Both get sent to the gallows, but while Mother Sawyer goes out cursing, Frank is penitent – a slightly heavy-handed insistence by the dramatists on the importance of forgiveness. The most ambiguous character of all is of course the satanic talking dog, who either inspires or encourages the chaos that engulfs Edmonton. In the end he is beaten an away by the good-natured simpleton Cuddy Banks – a Bottom-like figure who consorts with demons but can’t be corrupted by them. It is another one of the play’s ironies that the most heroic character is the clown.

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The Knight of the Burning Pestle

The Knight of the Burning Pestle by Francis Beaumont
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It is a testament to the rapid evolution of the theatre in Renaissance England that basically within 20 years of the medium establishing itself we get deconstructions like this. Here a rote city comedy with shades of Dekker’s Shoemaker’s Holiday is disrupted by a grocer family who park themselves on the stage and insist on the addition of a heroic adventure subplot (heavily influenced by Don Quixote). Their interjections provide a meta commentary on the different tastes and expectations of the audience, although the jokes do start to wear a bit thin towards the end. The author’s preface seems to be a defence against accusations of snobbery – the play is written to “please all, and be hurtful to none”. It’s certainly a delight.

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