#mads reads the dark nest trilogy | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

casxmorgan · 3 years

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Books Books Books

100 Years of Solitude

11.22.63

120 Days of Sodom

1491

1984

A Brief History of Time

A Canticle for Leibowitz

A Child Called It

A Clockwork Orange

A Confederacy of Dunces

A History of the World in Ten and a Half Chapters

A Land Fit for Heroes Trilogy

A Little Life

A Naked Singularity

A People's History of the United States

A Scanner Darkly

A Series of Unfortunate Events

A Short History of Nearly Everything

A Song of Ice and Fire

A Storm of Swords

A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments

A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Walk in the Woods

A World Lit Only by Fire

Accursed Kings

Alice in Wonderland

All Quiet on the Western Front

All the Light We Cannot See

All the Pretty Horses

America, the Book

American Gods

American Psycho

And then There Were None

Angela’s Ashes

Animal Farm

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Anna Karenina

Anything Terry Pratchett, But, Mort is My Favorite

Anything Written by Robin Hobb

Apt Pupil

Artemis Fowl

Asimov's Guide to the Bible

Asoiaf

Atlas Shrugged

Bartimeaus

Batman: the Long Halloween

Battle Royale

Beat the Turtle Drum

Behind the Beautiful Forevers

Belgariad Series

Beloved

Berserk

Bestiario

Black Company

Blankets/habibi

Blind Faith

Blindness

Blood Meridian

Blood and Guts: a History of Surgery

Bluest Eye

Brandon Sanderson

Brave New World

Breakfast of Champions

Bridge to Terabithia

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: an Indian History of the American West

Calvin and Hobbs

Candide

Carrie

Cat's Cradle

Catch 22

Cats Cradle

Chaos

Child of God

Choke

Chuck Palahniuk

City of Ember

City of Thieves

Cloud

Collapse

Come Closer

Complaint

Confessions of a Mask

Contact

Conversation in the Cathedral

Cosmos

Crime and Punishment

Dan Brown

David

Dead Birds Singing

Dead Mountain: the Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident

Delta Venus

Die Räuber (the Robbers)

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

Don Quixote

Dragonlance

Dune

Dying of the Light

East of Eden

Educated

Empire of Sin: a Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans

Enders Game

Enders Shadow

Escape from Camp 14

Ever Since Darwin

Every Man Dies Alone

Everybody Poops

Everything is Illuminated

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Fahrenheit 451

Far from the Madding Crowd

Faust

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson

Feet of Clay

Fight Club

First Law

Flowers for Algernon

Flowers in the Attic

Foundation

Foundation Series

Foundation Trilogy

Frankenstein

Freakonomics

Fun Home

Galapagos

Geek Love

Gerald’s Game

Ghost Story

Go Ask Alice

Go Dog Go

Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

Goldfinch

Gone Girl

Gone with the Wind

Good Omens

Grapes of Wrath

Great Expectations

Greg Egan

Guards! Guards!

Guns Germs and Steel

Guts (short Story)

Half a World

Ham on Rye

Hannibal Rising

Hard Boiled Wonderland

Hatchet

Haunted

Hawaii

Heart Shaped Box

Heart of Darkness

Hellbound Heart

Hellraiser

Hell’s Angels

Helter Skelter

His Dark Materials

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Hogg

Holocaust by Bullets

House of Leaves

How to Cook for Fourty Humans

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Huckleberry Finn

Hyperion

I Am America, and So Can You

I Am the Messenger

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

I Was Dr. Mengele’s Assistant

In Cold Blood

In Search of Our Mother's Gardens

Independent People

Infinite Jest

Into Thin Air

Into the Wild

Introduction to Linear Algebra

Invisible Monsters

Ishmael

Jacques Le Fataliste

Jane Eyre

Jaunt

Job: a Comedy of Justice

John Dies at the End

John Grisham

Johnathan Livingston Seagull

Johnny Got His Gun

Jon Ronson

Journal of a Novel

Jurassic Park

Justine

L'histoire D'o

Lamb

Last Exit to Brooklyn

Les Miserables

Lies My Teacher Told Me

Life of Pi

Limits and Renewals

Little House in the Big Woods

Lockwood & Co.

Lolita

Looking for Trouble

Lord Foul’s Bane

Lord of the Flies

Lyddie

Malazan Book of the Fallen

Maldoror

Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media

Man’s Search for Meaning

Mark Twain’s Autobiography

Maus

Meditations

Megamorphs (series)

Mein Kampf

Memnooch the Devil

Metro 2033

Michael Crichton

Middlesex

Mindhunter

Misery

Mistborn

Moby Dick

Mrs. Dalloway

My Side of the Mountain

My Sweet Audrina

Nacht über Der Prärie (night over the Prairie)

Naked Lunch

Name of the Wind

Neuromancer

Never Let Me Go

Neverwhere

New York

Night

Night Shift

Norwegian Wood

Notes from Underground

Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea

Of Mice and Men

Of Nightingales That Weep

Ohio

Old Mans War

Old Mother West Wind

On Heroes and Tombs

On Laughter and Forgetting

On the Road

One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest

One Hundred Years of Solitude

One of Us

Painted Bird

Patrick Rothfuss

Perfume: the Story of a Murderer

Persepolis

Pet Sematary

Peter Pan

Pillars of the Earth

Poisonwood Bible

Pride and Predjudice

Ready Player One

Rebecca

Red Mars

Red Night (series)

Red Shirts

Red Storm Rising

Redwall

Replay

Requiem for a Dream

Revenge

Riftwar Saga

Ringworld

Roald Dahl

Rolls of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Round Ireland with a Fridge

Running with Scissors

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

Sapiens, a Brief History of Humankind

Scary Stories to Read in the Dark

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

Schindler’s List

Sein Und Zeit

Shades of Grey

Sharp Objects

Shattered Dreams

Sherlock Holmes

Sho-gun

Siddhartha

Sisypho

Skin and Other Stories

Slaughterhouse Five

Smoke & Mirrors

Snow Crash

Soldier Son

Sometimes a Great Notion

Sphere

Starship Troopers

Stiff, the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Storied Life of A.j. Fikry

Stormlight Archives

Story of the Eye

Stranger in a Strange Land

Surely, You're Joking

Survivor Type (short Story)

Suttree

Swan Song

Tale of Two Cities

Tales of the South Pacific

The Alchemist

The Altered Carbon Trilogy

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

The Art of Deception

The Art of Fielding

The Art of War

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation

The Autobiography of Henry Viii

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

The Beach

The Bell Jar

The Bible

The Bloody Chamber

The Book Thief

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The Brothers Karamazov

The Call of Cthulu and Other Weird Stories

The Cask of Amontillado (short Story)

The Catcher in the Rye

The Chronicles of Narnia

The Clown

The Color out of Space

The Communist Manifesto

The Complete Fiction of H.p. Lovecraft

The Count of Monte Cristo

The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night Time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

The Dagger and the Coin

The Damage Done

The Dark Tower

The Declaration of Independence, the Us Constitution, and the Bill of Rights

The Devil in the White City

The Dharma Bums

The Diamond Age

The Dice Man

The Discworld Series

The Dresden Files

The Elegant Universe

The First Law Trilogy

The Forever War

The Foundation Trilogy

The Gentleman Bastard Sequence

The Geography of Nowhere

The Girl Next Door

The Girl on the Milk Carton

The Giver

The Giving Tree

The God of Small Things

The Grapes of Wrath

The Great Gatsby

The Great Gilly Hopkins

The Hagakure

The Half a World Trilogy

The Handmaid’s Tale

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

The Hiding Place

The History of Love

The Hobbit

The Hot Zone

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

The Hyperion Cantos

The Jaunt

The Jungle

The Key to Midnight

The Killing Star

The Kingkiller Chronicles

The Kite Runner

The Last Question (short Story)

The Lies of Lock Lamora

The Little Prince

The Long Walk

The Lord of the Rings

The Lottery (short Story)

The Lovely Bones

The Magicians

The Magus

The Martian

The Master and Margarita

The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect

The Monster at the End of This Book

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

The Music of Eric Zahn (short Story)

The Name of the Wind & the Wise Man's Fear

The Necronomicon

The New Age of Adventure: Ten Years of Great Writing

The Night Circus

The Nightmare Box

The Odyssey

The Omnivore's Dilemma

The Orphan Master’s Son

The Outsiders

The Painted Bird

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Phantom Tollbooth

The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Pit and the Pendulum

The Plague

The Prince

The Prince of Tides

The Princess Bride

The Prophet

The Queen’s Gambit

The Rape of Nanking

The Red Dwarf

The Republic

The Rifter Saga

The Road

The Satanic Verses

The Screwtape Letters

The Secret History

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel

The Selfish Gene

The Shining

The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer

The Silmarillion

The Sirens of Titan

The Six Wives of Henry the 8th

The Solitude of Prime Numbers

The Speaker of the Dead

The Stars My Destination

The Stormlight Archive

The Story of My Tits

The Stranger

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck

The Suspicions of Mr. Witcher

The Tao of Pooh

The Things They Carried

The Time Machine

The Time Traveller’s Wife

The Tin Drum

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green

The Wasp Factory

The Wind Up Bird Chronicle

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle

The World According to Garp

The Yellow Wallpaper

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Things Fall Apart

Thirsty

This Blinding Absence of Light

Tiger!

Time Enough for Love

To Kill a Mockingbird

To Say Nothing of the Dog

Toni Morrison

Too Many Magicians

Traumnovelle

Tuesdays with Morrie

Tuf Voyaging

Undeniable

Under Plum Lake

Universe in a Nutshell

Unwind

Uzumaki

Various

Village Life in Late Tsarist Russia

Walden

War & Peace

War and Peace

Warriors: Bluestar’s Prophecy

Watchers

Water for Elephants

Watership Down

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Wheel of Time

When Rabbit Howls

Where the Red Fern Grows

Where the Sidewalk Ends

Why I Am Not a Christian

Why People Believe Weird Things

Wizards First Rule

Wool

World War Z

Worm

Wuthering Heights

You Can Choose to Be Happy

Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

#some of these are fucked up #but #all the better

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andcontemplation · 4 years

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Video Store Fridays -- the full list

With the help of @unpredictablybittersweet and @hopbyers98 I got all VSF off the whiteboard and into a spreadsheet this afternoon (yes that is how bored I am) and I’ve pasted all 274 titles alphabetically below. @unpredictablybittersweet and I will be working on getting it organized and searching for patterns & clues 🔍 If there's something you think is notable about any of these movies, hit the reblog and let us know!

<< BE KIND, REWIND <<

300

12 Monkeys

13th Warrior

2001: a Space Odyssey

28 Days Later

47 Meters Down: Uncaged

Ace Ventura Pet Detective

Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls

Almost Famous

Altered States

Amalie

American Sniper

Analyze This

Annihilation

Aristocats

Armageddon

Arrival

Assassin's Creed Movie

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Babe: Pig in the City

Back Draft

Basketcase

Batman Begins

Batman vs. Superman

Battle of Big Rock

Beauty and the Beast

Beetlejuice

Behind Enemy Lines

Beverly Hills Cop

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

Billy Madison

Black Cauldron

Black Swan

Blade Runner: 2049

Blair Witch Project

Boondock Saints

Borat

Bram Stoker's Dracula

Broken Arrow

Burn After Reading

C.H.U.D.

Cabin in the Woods

Carrie

Casablanca

Castaway

Children of Men

Cider House Rules

Clueless

Conair

Congo

Constantine

Crank

Crimson Tide

Dances With Wolves

Dark Knight

Death to Smoochy

Deep Blue Sea

Die Hard 1 2 & 3

Dogma

Don's Plum

Don't Breathe

Doom

Dreamcatcher

Drop Dead Fred

Dukes of Hazard

Dumb & Dumber

Easter Egg (not a movie??)

Edward ScissorHands

Emma

Enter the Void

Event Horizon

Ex Machina

Fallen

Fargo

Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Final Destination

Fisher King

Forrest Gump

Fugitive

Full Metal Jacket

Get Out

Ghost

Ghostbusters

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Girl, Interrupted

Gladiator (?)

Godzilla: King of the Monsters

Good Fellas

Good Will Hunting

Hackers

Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets

Heat

Hell or High Water

Hellraiser (I + II)

Hidden

High Fidelity

High School Musical

Highlander

Home Alone

Hunger Games

Hurt Locker

I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang

I Am Legend

In Cold Blood

Inception

Independence Day

Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark

Indiana Jones: Temple of Doom

Innerspace

Inside Out

Interview with a Vampire

Into the Spiderverse

Island of Dr. Moreau

It Follows

It's a Wonderful Life

Italian Job

James Bond (all)

James Bond: Skyfall

John Carter of Mars

JP (= Jurassic Park?)

Jupiter Ascending

Jurassic World 2: Fallen Kingdom

Karate Kid

Kingsmen

Knives Out

Labyrinth

Leon: the Professional

Let The Right One In

Little Miss Sunshine

Long Kiss Goodnight

Lord of the Rings: Trilogy

Lord of the Rings: Two Towers

Lost Boys

Mad Max: Fury Road

Magnolia

Mask of Zorro

Men in Black

Mimic

Minority Report

Misery

Mr. & Mrs. Smith

My Cousin Vinny

Mystic River

Never Been Kissed

Nightmare 3: Dream Warriors

No Country for Old Men

North By Northwest

Ocean's 11 + 12

Ocean's 8

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Open Water

Orange County

Ordinary People

Paddington: 2

Pan's Labyrinth

Papillon

Paradise Lost

Peter Jackson's King Kong

Peter Pan

Pineapple Express

Platoon

Predator

Primal Fears

Princess Bride

Prisoners

Pulp Fiction

Ravenous

Reality Bites

Red Dragon

Reservoir Dogs

Robocop

Rushmore

Saving Private Ryan

Scrooged

Se7en

Shape of Water

Shooter

Sicario

Silence of the Lambs

Silver Bullet

Sky High

Society

Source Code

Speed

Splash!

Splice

Spy Kids

Star Wars

Star Wars: Rogue One

Starship Troopers

Step Up 2: Step Up 2 Tha Streets

Stoker

Superbad

Swept Away

Swingers

Sword in the Stone

Swordfish

Tangled

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Terminator 2

Terminator: Dark Fate

The A-Team

The Birdcage

The Birds

The Book of Henry

The Cell

The Craft

The Crazies

The Crow

The Descent

The Devil's Advocate

The Fifth Element

The Fly

The Good Son

The Goofy Movie

The Graduate

The Green Mile

The Guardian

The Guest

The Hobbit: I, II, II

The Lighthouse

The Matrix

The Mist

The Mummy

The Natural

The Neverending Story

The Orphan

The Peanut Butter Solution

The Perfect Storm

The Prestige

The Raid

The Revenant

The Ring

The Rock

The Shining

The Terminal

The Visit

Thor: Ragnarok

Timeline

Titanic

To Kill a Mockingbird

Tombstone

Total Recall

Toy Story 4

True Lies

True Romance

Truman Show

Twister

Unbreakable

Unforgiven

Unleashed

Very Bad Things

Wanted

War Dogs

War Games

Wayne's World

Wedding Crashers

Weird Science

Welcome to Marwen

Welcome to the Dollhouse

Wet Hot American Summer

What Dreams May Come

What Lies Beneath

What Women Want

What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Willow

Wizard of Oz

You've Got Mail

Young Sherlock Holmes

Zodiac

Zoolander

#Stranger Things #video store friday #video store fridays #masterlist #stranger things writers #stranger things twitter #stranger things 4 #ST4 #theories and clues

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rhetoricandlogic · 3 years

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REVIEW: Sidewinders by Robert V.S. Redick

June 28, 2021

By Julia Frazer

Sidewinders by Robert V.S. Redick is an ambitious, impressive novel that rightfully takes its place within the halls of classic desert fantasy. Sidewinders, which will be released on July 6, 2021, is the second novel in a planned trilogy called The Fire Sacraments. Grimdark Magazine received an ARC of Sidewinders in exchange for an honest review.

After the murder of the Prophet’s favorite son in a case of mistaken identity, brothers Kandri and Mektu Hinjuman have become two of the most infamous people alive in war-ravaged Urrath. Kandri and Mektu attempt to escape the Prophet’s immense force of religious fanatics, facing hardship and avoiding death at every turn. This review contains mild spoilers for the first installment, Master Assassins, which should be read before Sidewinders.

“We have just entered the desert, this great killer who dispatches even the best of us, the most sage and seasoned, indifferent as the rag that wipes the soot from the kettle. Now you appear and we must accept you, share our camels and our water and our way. They are rationed, life is rationed, why should we die that you might live?”

Sidewinders begins right where Master Assassins leaves off as the brothers Hinjuman travel with a caravan across the deadly deserts of Urrath. They must not only flee their hunters but also deliver a letter with earthshattering repercussions regarding a lethal disease that has plagued the world for generations. As the brothers traverse the arduous desert roads to the purported safety of the fortress city of Kasralys, disaster upon disaster befalls them. However, the vast desert is only one of their most dangerous foes. Some of their fellow travelers also covertly seek the brothers’ demise. A bejeweled weapon is coveted by all and brings ruin to any who carry it. And unconquerable Kasralys might be about to face its most dangerous opponent yet.

New characters are introduced as the plot expands from a heart-pounding chase through the desert to complex political intrigues, but the brothers Hinjuman still take center stage. Kandri’s point of view occupies the majority of the novel. In addition to a few new third-person limited perspectives scattered throughout Urrath, there are some interesting first-person interludes to add variety and insight to Kandri’s journey and the mythology of the world.

Redick’s world-building is top-notch. Sensory details are excellent, and the author makes the desert into its own character. Anything other than devouring Redick’s fantastic prose for yourself is inadequate to describe just how concrete his world feels. Realistic details of the difficulties of survival in the desert contrast fantastical elements like the horrifying sky jellies, large jellyfish-like creatures that nest in the desert and can envelop a man and dissolve him alive.

“The wise brother undone by the idiot, the idiot saying what no one else dares to say. And the madman, the believer in he knows not what: flailing, falling, drawn to death like a salt lick […] I don’t like human beings. And I’ll ask you not to judge me unless you’ve done as I’ve done. Unless you’ve lived among them, worn their skin, dwelt in their sternums, felt the constant stabbing signals that race from brain to stomach to fingertips, listened to the gurgling advance of waste gasses down the coiled tubes in their abdomens, learned their names, sipped their terrors, attempted that bludgeoning exchange they call communicating, glimpsed the lake of fire they call love.”

Redick has undeniably evolved as a writer and storyteller since his Chathrand Voyage series. The Fire Sacraments is very firmly in the adult grimdark category, while Chathrand Voyage is more lighthearted YA. So great are the differences in prose, character, setting, and intended audience that The Fire Sacraments series almost feels like it could have been written by an entirely different author than Chathrand Voyage.

Sidewinders is a lyrical, feverish novel that requires the reader to slow down, take a break, and jump back in. A binge-read doesn’t necessarily allow for the necessary time and space to absorb the well-plotted tragedy and terrific prose. Redick deftly sidesteps expectations and takes the story in unexpected directions while still honoring the desert fantasy genre. Redick’s writing in Sidewinders often reads more like a prose poem than a novel. His word choice is precise, and his sentence construction is effective in its turns of stuttering, rambling, and flowing smoothly.

“He caught the sword of the next rider with the flat of his blade and let his arm give way until both hilts were near his face and then seized the other’s wrist in his teeth and bit down grinding through veins until he choked on blood and there was another dead man, another soul to taste and swallow and forget.”

Interestingly, Redick switches from using the present tense in the first novel to the more standard past tense in the second novel. Redick reveals his thinking in Grimdark Magazine’s incoming interview with him. Readers may forecast a clever structural reason like N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy, which had the unconventional use of the second person that only makes sense in the context of the entire trilogy.

Redick capably manipulates the reader’s emotions throughout Sidewinders. As the characters get deeper into the desert, their descent into madness continues. Redick’s prose allows the reader to experience some measure of that same madness with hypnotic depictions of dreams, nightmares, and the cascading dominoes of chance versus destiny. Sidewinders also has a rare exploration of the structural injustice of the healthcare industry not often portrayed in high fantasy that will resonate for audiences like the U.S. without universal healthcare. Redick discusses this concept in detail in Grimdark Magazine’s recent interview.

Through effective use of the device of the desert as a catalyst, Redick reveals the dark and bright facets of human nature that arise when the trappings of civilization are stripped away by the desert. So too does the desert help reveal universal feelings of loneliness and the idea that one human can never truly know another. His depictions of familial squabbles and the heavy burdens of becoming a caretaker for a loved one feel grounded and authentic.

Fans of Steven Erikson and Bradley Beaulieu will appreciate the elaborate world-building and expansive plots of Robert V.S. Redick. With its well-researched anthropology and devastating conclusions, Redick’s series also feels emotionally similar to that of Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow. Sidewinders is a beautiful fever-dream of a novel that is bound to impress. Redick has outdone himself with this second installment, and no doubt the third novel will continue to surpass and subvert expectations.

#Robert V. S. Redick #Sidewinders #mahreviews #long post

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karmadash-is-shippingtrash · 6 years

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A Reylo and Kiara/Kovu comparison

Mostly told in terms of TLK 2 instead of SW

I’ve seen many post going around comparing these and I though it best to add my views coming from somebody who’s been trash for TLK since I was a child. I probably know more about these movies than I do my own family.

This will contain TLJ spoilers but everything’s under the cut because this is going to be long, so you’re safe until you click that read more. (This post contains pics!)

I want to start off by comparing the difference/opposites between the two, because there are many.

If we are saying that Kovu is Kylo, and Kiara is Rey then the family and living situations are very different and I would say opposites of each other but it’s not like the writers decided to base Reylo on TLK 2 ;)

To start with Kiara is the princess of this story (unlike Rey) she has a good family, and could want for nothing since the pridelands is full of life. Despite having an over protective father (which I wont go into because that’s a whole other TLK meta of its own) and pair of baby sitter that leave her with hardly any time on her own shes got a very good family structure and constant support.

Kovu on the other-hand is in the outlands where food is scarce unless you count the bugs, he has his mother and half siblings (though this is still questionable) his family aren’t very caring or kind and live their entire loves on the basis of killing Kiara’s father so that can live in the pridelands. (Though this is down to Scar previously ruling it, I feel like its a good comparison to the First Order seeking to rule the galaxy much like the Empire had)

These are two very different backgrounds to how Rey/Kylo grew up, and although we don’t know every detail, I can safely say that Kylo was more likely to have grown up being treated like a prince (up until going to Jedi school) and Rey grew up with practically nothing and surviving on false ideas.

The first Meeting;

Similar to how things took place in TFA, Kovu and Kiara first meet up when they’ve both gone far from everybody else. Kiara was practically running away from her home, much in the same way Rey was running form the light saber and those visions. Kovu makes himself seem like the big bad but he doesn’t actually try to hurt Kiara (especially since she doesn’t exactly lie down and play dead, but unlike Rey she doesn’t try to fight back until he provokes her.) They then end up falling into a crocodile nest and have to run for their lives which I like to link to the fact that the area where Maz’s castle was is currently being destroyed by the on-going battle. Though unlike Kylo, Kovu still hasn’t received his scar. Also baby Kiara flirts with Kovu.

Despite both of them being reprimanded for this, (although in Reys case it turned into a rescue mission) Zira twists the situation in Kovu using this as a way to get closer to killing Simba (with this epic musical number), like Snoke deciding that Kylo should “bring him the girl”. Unlike in TFA they’re both children and leave unlike Kylo keeping Rey on Starkiller for info on Luke’s map (which i’m still annoyed by, I mean if they had most of the map surely they’d be able to locate what the missing piece was by flying around the galaxy right?)

The “second” meeting

Zira orchestrates a plan to set fire to the pridelands, using all her children to follow her bidding (i’d say these would be Hux and Phasma, but comparing with to Nuka would be mean, Vitani on the other-hand is great) when Kiara is about to taker her hunting exam (I guess there’s no better way to describe it) having set up Kovu to rescue her and win Simba’s favor. And it works.

Kovu saves Kiara and then she gets very mad because he ruined her hunting exam and better yet she doesn’t remember him. So despite the plan working out in this movie, nothing like this happens in TFA, but you could compare this to the force-bond moments within TLJ.

Now this is where my opinion differs from most of the fan-base, since everybody likes to talk about the pond scene (which I’ll cover later) but if you want to split up the new SW trilogy within this movie, than I’d say that the childhood sections are TFA, the bulk of the movie would be TLJ, which leaves barely anything for the next movie other than my hopes for the direction Reylo will take.

So at this point, I’m comparing the entire time Kovu spends with Kiara at pride rock like the force bonding moments, because this is tuning point for Kovu. His head had been filled with his mothers opinions on Simba only for them to all change while he’s with them. This is also when Kiara and Kovu start to fall for each-other. I don’t think I need to say much about this since I’ll just add the pics because they speak for themselves.

This all leads up to the “There is is” moment - the touch. (Simba see’s this and really isn’t happy *cough*like Luke*cough*) But then they get a romanic musical number so its OK. Alternately you can listen to Kylo and Rey’s themes.

Obviously after this nothing goes right. Simba just starting to accept Kovu invites him out for a chat when Zira and her pride of lion (Or the First Order party) turn up and attack Simba sparking the basis for the war. Zira essentialy calling Kovu a traitor gives him his scar.

Where Simba banishes Kovu - Luke breaking the connection between Rey and Kylo. From here the pair don’t really see each-other because Kovu’s run off finding “nowhere” for him to belong, where he see’s a reflection of Scar in the water. Which I like to think would be like Kylo looking at his mask and finally seeing that he shouldn’t be like Vader. Kiara decides to go after him, because love, she re-visits all the places they went together. This is like the scene where Rey puts herself in the pod just to see Kylo and bring Ben back.

Its this scene that makes me think of then Rey looking into the mirror (or whatever it is) because I think in the way that It appears that Kylo is in the mirror before she looks at herself is trying to show us that Kylo’s part of her, and that Rey is only one half of the force. In this scene Kiara is looking at the water feeling like half of herself is missing, and that half is Kovu.

The “final” meeting

In true movie fashion in TLK the reunion is a dramatic run toward each-other before they embrace. How I wish we had a real hug in TLJ. This leads up to the Reylo fan-favs “We are one” and “Let’s run away together and start a pride, all our own” yup, classic.

Unlike Kylo and Rey, this conversation happens before the fight. But it still has the same impact of Rey telling Kylo they can’t leave, they have to fix the problem and actually unite the galaxy, while Kiara has smaller plans of just uniting both prides. This is where I’d cut off the comparisons with TLJ. Despite the fact that Kylo ad Rey do fight together and take down the guards, I think that the battle at the end of TLK2 could be more fitting for the next movie installment.

Now this section is purely me speculating about the next movie based on TLK2 but I’m just going to roll with it.

I don’t see any reason for Kylo and Rey’s force bond to weaken at all (despite the soul crushing door closing scene) so I think they’ll still be able to communicate which will mostly be Rey trying to bring back “Ben” and Kylo just trying to get her. Now if Kylo can locate Rey she cant stay with the resistance meaning that Kylo could follower her somewhere else for them to have their own version of a reunion (though without a romantic musical number, but love will find a way!) If Rey can truly make Kylo see that together then can save the galaxy we might just get to see them stop a huge battle between whats left of the resistance and the FO. They could finally end the SW story on a good note, of a galaxy united, with both the dark side and the light in balance.

All images came from DisneyScreencaps, honestly an amazing resource. I sadly don’t have the programs to rip my own DVD/Blurays (because I’m trash and own like 4 copies of TLK2)

#reylo #tlk2 #comparison #meta?#tlj spoilers

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duncanwrites · 6 years

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Books I read in 2017, reviewed in 2 sentences or less.

Among other things, in 2017 I tried to read more books by authors from different eras other than our own. I also ended up putting down more books half-read than usual. I’m sure those two things say something about our year in anxiety.

But here’s what I finished and what I thought:

Birds of America - Lorrie Moore: This book contains some of the very finest short stories I've ever read. Every word, sentence and paragraph seems perfectly put together to draw out the real humanity of flawed people in a flawed world.

Wolf in White Van - John Darinelle: Among other qualities, I think Wolf in White Van has the best title of any book on this list: in the context of the novel itself it provides a perfect framing device that allows you to see the poetry of a dark twisted staircase of a story.

The Sympathizer - Viet Thanh Nguyen: If I talked to you about The Sympathizer this year, it probably came out as an excited rant about any number of things - its dark humor, brilliant structure, mind-bending narration - but I promise you that beneath the exuberance there's a genuinely stunning novel sort of unlike anything I've otherwise read.

The Shock Doctrine - Naomi Klein: I re-read this book to get ready for Trump, and it did help, but it also reminded me about how angry I still am about the war in Iraq and so many other things. Still my favorite book by one of the best political writers out there doing the work.

Hegemony How-To - Jonathan Matthew Smucker: Another pre-Trump read, I think Smuker's book is one of the most useful -- as in practically, real-life make your work better -- books on politics in a long time. My only complaints is that I didn’t have a chance to read it years earlier so I could have avoided a lot of the things Smucker describes so well.

Three Body Problem, The Dark Forest and Death's End - Liu Cixin: The first two novels of this trilogy I thought were some of the finest science fiction I've ever read: both grounded in real human suffering, sweepingly large in their approach to theory, and bringing out some exciting ideas. The third book dragged itself down with the darkness that already ran through the start of the series, but that shouldn't at all stop you from taking these on.

Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson: Another re-read, this is a classic science fiction novel that contains the kinds of themes and concepts that you begin to see everywhere around you once you finish it. Noticed a few more plot holes this time around.

The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson: Set in the same world as Snow Crash, The Diamond Age never reaches the same wild intensity of the previous book, and is plotted more in the model of a shaggy dog story than a sci-fi thriller.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - Thomas Kuhn: A classic text, the Structure of Scientific Revolutions is the source of a lot of conventional wisdom that was revolutionary in the 70s when it was published. Maybe a bit more tedious that it needs to be.

Flight Behavior - Barbara Kingsolver: I think Barbara Kingsolver is a terrific novelist, and although this book moves quite slow through its paces (and is a bit stressful if you spend your days already thinking about climate change), the payoff towards the end is real. She does a lot, with a lot of heart.

The Mother of All Questions - Rebecca Solnit: Humane, withering, lyrical: Rebecca Solnit is one of the writers I most admire, and this is a really wonderful compilation of some of her best work on feminism, hope and politics.

In Dubious Battle - John Steinbeck: I love John Steinbeck as much as the next left-leaning American, but only up to a point. This is a rough book about Men doing Men Things, full of people named Mac and Doc who do a lot of fighting and dying and it's just not his finest work.

Native Speaker - Chang-rae Lee: I re-read this book for the first time in about 10 years, and found myself coming across passages that had still somehow stuck with me through all that time. I could recommend Native Speaker as one of the best novels about New York City, relationships and language all at once, and its the kind of thing that will bear re-reading again in the future.

Trauma Stewardship - Laura van Dernoot Lipsky: I dunno, this one just didn't work for me. It felt over-broad, attributing so many behaviors and outcomes to trauma to render the concept almost meaningless.

Moby-Dick - Herman Melville: An epic that earns its place in the canon, I gushed wide-eyed about Moby-Dick at strangers for several weeks/months. Chapters on chapters about whaling history, seeming diversions, pile in between portraits of personal and collective madness: so much of this book is not about the White Whale and yet all of it is at the same time.

Direct Action - L. A. Kauffman: Direct Action is deftly written, insightful in its analyses and one of the best practical histories of contemporary organizing I've read. Hugely recommend for anyone trying to get a handle on What to Do Now.

What is Populism? - Jan Werner-Muller: I put this book next to The Shock Doctrine, Hegemony How To and Direct Action as one of the crucial books to read about Trump and the moment we're in. A book that covers the things that really need saying about Populism, but with the good sense to be brief, approachable and clear.

Bad Feminist - Roxane Gay: I am late coming to this book of essays, but I was thoroughly won over from the very start, because Gay has this way with short, direct but vulnerable language that makes her polemical points land with so much more intensity. I can't quite put my finger on it, but her manner of writing is so special, and she uses it to say such necessary things.

Istanbul - Orhan Pamuk: Let's just say this book is an acquired taste: you need some ready familiarity with Istanbul and a lot of patience for detailed personal stories and obscure asides in service of a memoir with a small focus. I quite like Istanbul and admire the literary goals of the book but didn't quite have the patience needed to really enjoy this throughout.

Dune - Frank Herbert: Apparently some people still haven’t read this book? They really should.

The Thing Around Your Neck - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: A book of short stories that are all elegant windows into the lives of people who are coping with distance, displacement and dread. They cover a lot of the thematic territory she addresses in other books, but with little experiments in style and structure that usually work.

Fear City - Kim Phillips-Fine: I've been waiting for years for someone to write the history of the New York City Financial Crisis that we all need, and I just don't think this book is it. It ended up being a sort of surface level history of a handfull elites involved in the crisis that never dove into the depths I hoped for.

Isaac's Storm - Erik Larson: I didn't always care for Larson's potboiler narrative style but I think the 1900 Galveston Hurricane is interesting and important and I'm glad someone wrote a book that lots of people could read about it.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - Hakuri Murakami: Since I read this (all at once, on a beach), I've been drifting back to certain points of it that just seem to stick with me. It's only in part a book about running, but also about writing, and I quite like both of those things.

Quicksilver - Neal Stephenson: Apparently there are 8 more books in this series. I'm not going to read them.

A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara: I can't remember the last time I was quite this obsessed with a book, to the point of being driven to read into inappropriate hours of the morning and setting aside other obligations to make time for it. I also can't remember a book so devastating and frustrating to read, that puts its characters and readers through so much trauma and then describe in claustrophobic detail how it curtails their experiences of joy and success. There's nothing like it, and you need to experience it to understand.

The Fifth Season - NK Jemisin: I didn't love this book as much as everyone else I know who has read it. The story is clearly brilliant conceptually, but something about the melodrama in the writing style just kept getting in the way for me.

Radio Free Vermont - Bill McKibben: A Monkeywrench Gang for the modern age, but with less weird macho nonsense, and a better sense of humor.

Waiting - Ha Jin: What I most admired about this book was the ascetic, unadorned language that the author uses to follow a simple but elementally powerful plot line. You do end up waiting a lot as a reader, but there's much to observe as you do.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou: You don't need me to tell you that Maya Angelou knows how to write exceptional sentences. Instead, you should read some of them and learn the real power of a well-placed metaphor, or how you honor the half-formed, overpowering complexity of a child's feelings.

The Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri: I've lost track of how many times I've read these short stories, but they destroy me pretty much every time.

Rules for Revolutionaries - Becky Bond and Zack Exley: There's some useful stuff in here.

The Lowland - Jhumpa Lahiri: This was the first novel of Jhumpa Lahiri's that I had ever read, and I just don't feel like she was able to stretch her voice -- which is so concise, spare and evocative -- to meet the scale of this novel.

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald: One of the greatest books of all time, a perfect picture of the spiritual depravity of money and consumption.

Frankenstein - Mary Shelley: It turns out this book is very little like the pop culture Frankenstein myth -- there is only a glancing mention of dead bodies, the monster is articulate and an almost wholly private terror. Instead it's a nested doll of stories about nature, knowledge and spiritual purpose. Consider Phlebas - Iain M. Banks: A perfectly fine pulpy space opera. I’ll probably read more of the Culture books at some point.

#2017 #booklist #books

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jillmckenzie1 · 5 years

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I Started a Joke

“So, when you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your head where the screaming is unbearable, remember there’s always madness. Madness is the emergency exit. You can just step outside and close the door on all those dreadful things that happened. You can lock them away…forever.”

That dialogue is from The Killing Joke, alternately the best and worst story about The Joker ever written. On its face, the story is simple. The Clown Prince of Crime has kidnapped Commissioner Gordon, and his plan is to drive Gordon mad, proving to both him and the Batman that anyone can lose their mind and descend into insanity. All it takes is one bad day. The best stories seem to be simple, but a little investigation reveals hidden complexity.

That complexity is why The Joker, a character originally created in a 1940 issue of Batman, still endures. He’s appeared in hundreds of comics, video games, artwork, and other media. It’s film, however, where the character has truly come to life; no wonder actors love playing him, as you can take him in an infinite number of different directions. Cesar Romero played him as a campy clown with a painted-over mustache. Jack Nicholson played him as a peacocking narcissist. Heath Ledger played him as an urban terrorist without a past. Jared Leto played him as a deeply annoying Juggalo. Hell, Mark Hamill might have delivered the definitive portrayal of him as a mischievous agent of chaos.

There’s a single kernel of truth within the heart of The Joker: giggling nihilism. To him, nothing matters. Not love, not death, not responsibility or decency. It’s all a twisted joke, and he’s the only man who can see that. The right portrayal of him depends on empathy and fearlessness, while never forgetting that core fundamental concept. With Todd Phillips’ new film, Joker, we have an up-to-the-moment take on the character made with skill, intelligence, and no small amount of confusion.

You can’t blame Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) for feeling a little crazy. He’s got a screaming head full of mental issues, barely managed by numerous medications. One issue that can’t quite be managed is the laughter. Specifically, when he feels stressed, he’ll erupt in a high-pitched cackle at the most inopportune times. Arthur carries a card that explains his condition and urges a modicum of compassion, but nobody seems to care.

Compassion is in short supply in Gotham City. A garbage strike has deposited thousands of pounds of trash throughout the city. Economic catastrophes, crime, and income inequality have transformed Gotham into a simmering powderkeg, and all it takes is one man to light the fuse. Who would have thought that man would be Arthur?

Certainly not him—at least not initially. He makes a meager living working as a street clown and dreams of becoming a famous stand-up comedian. If things really worked out, maybe he could even meet his idol Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro), a glib talk show host. For now, that doesn’t seem likely, particularly since he needs to care for his mother Penny (Frances Conroy), a woman suffering from profound psychological problems.

All Arthur needs is something to believe in, someone to give him a chance. There’s the slimmest thread of hope when he meets Sophie (Zazie Beetz), the pretty single mom who lives down the hall. But then there’s the gun he receives from a cruel co-worker, the social worker who informs him that budget cuts have removed access to his medication, the mayoral campaign of business titan Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen), and a pack of Wall Street bros who just won’t leave him alone. Up against all of that and more, all Arthur can do is laugh.

I still kind of can’t believe Joker even exists. Consider that we have a film about Batman’s greatest nemesis that only briefly portrays Batman as a frightened 7-year-old boy.* The main character is played by Joaquin Phoenix, one of the most talented actors on the planet. The film is directed by the guy who made The Hangover trilogy. That simple narrative would indicate a clusterf–k of epic proportions, no? No, as this simple story hides complexities.

Director Todd Phillips deserves credit since he’s made a superhero movie that’s less an action movie and more a gritty character study. His film shares DNA with 70’s classics such as Taxi Driver and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. His Gotham City is a decaying metropolis brimming over with despair, and we can feel Phillips luxuriating in gorgeous sleaze. From a technical perspective, Phillips has made an excellent film, one with strong cinematography, creepy editing, and (mostly) solid pacing.

Before we go too much further, I can hear you thinking, Hold up there, hoss. Should we really be taking a movie about a cartoon clown seriously? We should because The Joker can be interpreted as a trickster archetype or a means of blowing up a corrupt economic system a la Occupy Wall Street. I even read an interesting argument about how The Joker represents a Nietzschean superman who creates his own rules and rejects conventional morality through a will to power.

That’s great and all, but the script by Phillips and Scott Silver is frustratingly inconsistent. If we’re going to have a character study where a man is broken by an unfeeling society, we should have a series of moments plotting Arthur’s fall and rise. The path should look “insane,” but in hindsight, the pieces should fit together and feel inevitable. There should be a moment or moments where Arthur chooses to be The Joker. Instead, it feels like Arthur’s character is yanked all over the place in a crazy-quilt of trauma. Yet speaking of inconsistency, there’s a sequence late in the film where Arthur achieves self-actualization, and I thought, “There he is. There’s The Joker.” When the script works, it works. Their screenplay does have a number of clever details. I particularly enjoyed Thomas Wayne portrayed as a Trumpian tycoon entering politics** and Arthur’s spiral caused by conservative budget-cutting. There are a few moments of humor, but only a few. You’d think that a movie about The Joker would be…y’know, funny.

I literally cannot imagine any scenario in which Joaquin Phoenix doesn’t receive an Academy Award nomination. He’s that good as Arthur, and it starts with Phoenix losing over 50 pounds and transforming himself into an emaciated scarecrow. If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen him twitching, dancing spasmodically, and laughing. His performance, thankfully, is more than a collection of tics. Phoenix lets us into Arthur, showing us a man who might not necessarily be good, but the potential is there. He’s mesmerizing, and he’s ably supported by a number of strong actors. I’m pleased that, between this and The Irishman, Robert De Niro seems to be on a career upswing. I was also highly amused to briefly see Marc Maron, a noted hater of superhero movies, showing up as Murray Franklin’s producer. The great Brian Tyree Henry has a strong scene as a clerk in a certain asylum you might be familiar with.

I can’t say that Joker is a great film. Todd Phillips, Joaquin Phoenix, and the cast and crew have made a very good movie that’s sure to polarize audiences and, like Fight Club, is sure to be misunderstood. Is it the right movie for today, for times that feel like we’re tipping into the abyss? Perhaps, and perhaps we always feel that way. Near the end of The Killing Joke, The Joker is pleading with Batman, begging The Dark Knight to understand his point of view. He says, “It’s all a joke! Everything anybody ever valued or struggled for…it’s all a monstrous demented gag! So why can’t you see the funny side? Why aren’t you laughing?” How does Bats respond? “Because I’ve heard it before…and it wasn’t funny the first time.”

*The nerd part of me got upset here. “If Bruce Wayne is only seven here, while The Joker is, let’s say 40, then we have a big-ass age discrepancy! Figure after his parents are killed, Bruce spends the next 15 years going to school & doing pre-Batman stuff. If he dons the cape when he’s 22, Bruce is going up against a Joker who’s pushing 60! The Joker should never be concerned about prostate health!” Then I thought, “Relax, it’s just a goddamn movie.”

**A smart friend of mine said that nothing in movies is an accident. Look at how two of the three Wall Street bros on the subway are dead ringers for Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/i-started-a-joke/

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miraluking-respectfully · 7 months

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One thing the space bug book has failed to clarify to my satisfaction yet is what the reproductive situation is with Killiks. We've seen the Killik nursery, but nobody has addressed whether we're working with a primary egg-laying reproductive fertilized by many drones (like wasps/bees) or two primary reproductives, one of which fertilizes the other and one of which lays all the eggs (like termites). This is very important to me & Troy Denning's silence on matters of bug sex is deafening

#mads reads the dark nest trilogy #killikposting #killiks

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fashiontrendin-blog · 6 years

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The 100 Books Every Man Should Read

http://fashion-trendin.com/the-100-books-every-man-should-read-2/

The 100 Books Every Man Should Read

Groucho Marx once said: “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” We’re not quite sure what he meant either, but what we do know is that books are an essential for any man.

So, whether you’re heading off abroad and need a page-turner, or just want to have something other than Harry Kane’s ankle injury to talk about on a Tinder date next week, here are the 100 books that’ll broaden your horizons (and bulk out your bookshelf).

Classics

Men Without Women – Ernest Hemingway

Best For: Understanding Women Classic Hemingway subjects – bullfighting, war, women, more war – in a collection of short stories proving that masculinity lacking a softer touch is a dangerous thing. If you’ve been dumped, or you’re just missing your mum, then you need this.

A Picture of Dorian Grey – Oscar Wilde

Best For: When You’ve Found Another Grey Hair A handsome, innocent young man sells his soul to keep his dashing good looks – and of course it all goes pear-shaped. It’ll make you feel better about the march of time and skipping the gym, plus it’s full of classic Wilde quips you can fire off at the dinner table.

Slaughterhouse-Five – Kurt Vonnegut

Best For: Reaffirming War Is Good For Absolutely Nothing Prisoner of war, optometrist, father, time-traveller, plane-crash survivor: Billy Pilgrim is all these and more in a miraculously moving, bitter and blackly hilarious story of innocence faced with apocalypse.

The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Best For: The DiCaprio Nod Leo rarely puts a foot wrong, but even he couldn’t capture the magnetic Jay Gatsby as well as Fitzgerald did on page. Set in the summer of 1922, with the Roaring Twenties in full swing, this is a terrific unpicking of decadence, social change and excess.

A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess

Best For: Bratchnys A merciless satire of state control, in which Burgess imagined a dystopian future of ultraviolence decades before it became a sci-fi standard. Much of it is written in the slang spoken by teen hero, Alex; ‘bratchnys’ are bastards (and so are Alex and his murderous crew.)

Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

Best For: Intense Moral Conundrum There’s no sugar-coating this one: a man obsessed with the 12-year-old daughter of his landlady and so marries the mother to be near her. From there, the ground only gets dodgier. The most controversial book on this list is a literary hot potato that will never cool down.

Brighton Rock – Graham Greene

Best For: Seaside Sins Brighton wasn’t always cocktail bars and vintage shops. In 1938, a gang war is raging, and ruthless Pinkie has just killed his first victim. In trying to cover his tracks, he only digs himself into a deeper hole.

1984 – George Orwell

Best For: A Jolt Of Future Shock No list of great books would be complete without this influential masterpiece, which gets more prescient year by year. Winston Smith rewrites the past to suit the needs of the ruling party, who run a totalitarian society under the watchful eye of Big Brother.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love – Raymond Carver

Best For: Toasting Don Draper A collection of brilliant short stories about the lonely men and women of the American Midwest who drink, fish and play cards to ease the passing of time. Along with fellow US short-story master John Cheever, Carver’s words inspired Mad Men.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey

Best For: Breaking The Rules You’ve probably seen the film, but this really is a case of ‘the book is better’. Evil Nurse Ratched rules an Oregon mental institution with an iron fist until new arrival McMurphy, who faked madness to dodge hard labour in the joint, brings chaos and hope to his fellow inmates.

The Catcher In The Rye – J.D.Salinger

Best For: Angst In Your Pants Any book about the harshness of teenage life will resonate with anyone who is or has been a teen, but the misadventures of Holden Caulfield have become the set text, and rightly so. He is cynical, jaded, dickishly rebellious. And we have, in ways big and small, all been there.

Meditations – Marcus Aurelius

Best For: Getting Things Done The innermost thoughts of the Roman Emperor from 161-180AD are a genuinely practical and insightful guide to life almost 1,900 years later. Silicon Valley billionaires and their teams love this book and its ideas for the way it helps them to accept the world as it is, then rule it.

The Go-Between – L.P. Hartley

Best For: Keeping Secrets They say “the past is a foreign country”. Well, that’s because it’s the famous opening line of this novel, in which an old man recalls the summer he spent aged 13 at his friend’s country house, as he shipped illicit messages between his chum’s engaged sister and a local farmer.

Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury

Best For: Page-Turning And Page-Burning In the America of the future, people are addicted to watching soap-opera-style shows on giant screens in their homes. Books are banned, firemen hunt down illicit volumes and burn them. A book about the magic of reading and how we must never let it fade away.

The Odyssey – Homer

Best For: Original Adventure The original homecoming tale – a king’s decade-long slog home after the Trojan War – contains: witches, monsters, betrayal, drugs, cannibals, disguises, a bit of war and quite a lot of slaughter. Every man-on-a-quest story and road movie owes a debt to this remarkable tale.

Bleak House – Charles Dickens

Best For: Epic Shenanigans To be fair, the Dickens pick on this list could have been one of a dozen. But this Victorian doorstop, with its massive cast (including the murky London underworld), is the most impressive and entertaining. A legal tussle over a will plays havoc with the lives of the potential beneficiaries and those around them.

Heart Of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

Best For: “The Horror, The Horror!” In 1890, the author captained a steamboat up the Congo River. A decade later, his novel about something very similar became a sensation. In 1979 it was very freely adapted into the epic Vietnam movie Apocalypse Now. Also, at less than 100 pages, you have no excuses not to finish it.

Frankenstein – Mary Shelley

Best For: The Sum Of Its Parts Yes, everybody now knows that the monster isn’t Frankenstein; that’s the mad scientist who makes him. But did you know that science-fiction was basically invented with this book, written by an 18-year-old girl challenged to come up with a ghost story? Still creepy and relevant despite being 200 years old.

The Long Goodbye – Raymond Chandler

Best For: Prime Pulp Fiction “The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back.” “He was a guy who talked with commas, like a heavy novel.” “A dead man is the best fall guy in the world. He never talks back.” Just a sample of the hardboiled genius on display in this truly great detective yarn.

The Lord of The Rings – JRR Tolkien

Best For: Hobbit-Forming When it comes to fantasy, there is one story to rule them all. The massive success of the film trilogy based on it does not dim the power of the source material. Amazon is spending $1bn making the TV version. For many, though, the original remains the masterpiece.

Moby Dick – Herman Melville

Best For: A Whale Of A Time Sperm whale eats sailor’s lower leg; sailor tricks other sailors into crewing his revenge mission; it doesn’t go well. A tale of obsession, adventure, maritime manliness and beast-slaying that does not get old as it ages.

Modern

Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murakami

Best For: Brutal Beatlemania When he hears her favourite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend, Kizuki. Delving into his student years in Tokyo, Toru dabbles in uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire.

Money: A Suicide Note – Martin Amis

Best For: Learning Restraint Wealthy transatlantic movie executive John Self allows himself whatever he wants whenever he wants it: alcohol, tobacco, pills, pornography, a mountain of junk food. It’s never going to end well, is it? A cautionary tale of a life lived without boundaries.

The Road – Cormac McCarthy

Best For: Going Hungry Of the many, many recent stories of survival in a post-apocalyptic dystopian future, this one is the toughest, smartest and the one which stays with you the longest. A father and son contrive to survive in the face of cannibalism, starvation and brutality.

The Sportswriter – Richard Ford

Best For: Knowing The Grass Isn’t Greener Frank Bascombe, it seems, is living the dream: a younger girlfriend and a job as a sports writer. But his inner turmoil and private tragedies show all is not always as it seems, even for those who seem to have it all.

The 25th Hour – David Benioff

Best For: Clock Watching Facing a seven-year stretch for dealing, Monty Brogan sets out to make the most of his last night of freedom. His dad wants him to do a runner, his drug-lord boss wants to know if he squealed, his girlfriend is confused and his friends are trying to prepare him for the worst. It’s a lot to fit in.

We Need To Talk About Kevin – Lionel Shriver

Best For: Questioning Yourself The story of Eva, mother of Kevin, who murdered seven of his fellow high-school students and two members of staff. She’s coming to terms with the fact that her maternal instincts could have driven him off the rails. It’s made worse by the fact that he survived and she can’t help visiting him in prison.

American Pastoral – Philip Roth

Best For: Bursting The American Dream The Sixties was a time for sex, drugs, rock’n’roll and, erm, political mayhem. Swede Levov is living the American dream until his daughter Merry becomes involved in political terrorism that drags the family into the underbelly of society. Totally rad.

American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis

Best For: Career Killers The film is a contemporary masterpiece, but Patrick Bateman is even more evil on paper than he is on screen. An outright psychopath partly made by life on Wall Street, this bitterly black comedy is a classic that’ll keep you in line should you become a desk drone.

The Secret History – Donna Tartt

Best For: Murder Most Moral A group of eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a unique way of thinking thanks to their classics professor, which forces them to contemplate how easy it can be to kill someone if they cross you.

The Watchmen – Alan Moore

Best For: Picturing The Scene The most lauded graphic novel of all time concerns a team of superheroes called the Crimebusters, and a plot to kill and discredit them. Packed with symbolism and intelligent political and social commentary, with artwork as brilliant as the text.

The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen

Best For: Mother’s Day Appreciation After 50 years as a wife and mother, Enid wants to have some fun. But as her husband Alfred is losing his grip on reality, and their children have left the nest, she sets her heart on one last family Christmas. Virtue, sexual inhibition, outdated mental healthcare and globalised greed are all under the tree.

A Brief History of Seven Killings – Marlon James

Best For: Shadowy Thrills One evening in December 1976, gunmen burst into Bob Marley’s house in Jamaica, having shot his wife on the driveway, and shot Bob and his manager multiple times. No arrests were made. True story. James imagines what happens to the perpetrators, with appearances by the CIA and a ghost.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay – Michael Chabon

Best For: Nerd Nirvana The greatest superhero story ever told isn’t about costumed men, but the men who create them. Kavalier & Clay create The Escapist, at the start of comic books’ Golden Age in Thirties New York. He is super-popular; K&C miss out on the big money but can’t avoid the pitfalls of love and war.

Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

Best For: Magical Realism The tots of the title are all born in the first hour of India’s independence – midnight til 1am on August 15, 1947 – and they all have superpowers. One of them, a telepath, tries to find out why while reaching out to the others. Won the Booker Prize, and twice won Booker best-of votes on anniversaries of the award.

Robert Harris – Fatherland

Best For: Wondering What-If A most chillingly plausible alternate history, in which Germany won World War II (Oxford University is an SS Academy, and the Germans are winning the space race) and senior Nazi party officials are being offed in Sixties Berlin. Turns out there’s a conspiracy to silence the ultimate conspiracy…

The Stand – Stephen King

Best For: Good vs Evil The modern master of genre fiction’s magnum opus is the 1990 Complete and Uncut version of his 1978 novel. A virus has all but wiped out humanity. American survivors gravitate to either Las Vegas (the bad lot) or Boulder, Colorado (the goodies), then the two tribes ready for the showdown.

High-Rise – J.G. Ballard

Best For: Block Party Politics When the residents of a posh tower block find their sweet set-up falling apart, the response is feral. Minor social differences lead to floor-versus-floor violence. The well-to-do become savages, and what that nice Dr Laing does with his neighbour’s dog is decidedly un-vegan.

A Perfect Spy – John Le Carré

Best For: The Secret Life David Cornwell worked as a British intelligence officer for almost nine years before adopting the pen name of John Le Carré and quitting spookery. Of his 23 spy novels, this is the best, perhaps because it’s the most autobiographical, although the made-up secret-service bits are first-rate too.

White Teeth – Zadie Smith

Best For: The Modern World A cross-generational saga of North London life rooted in the British immigrant experience that’s much funnier than the first half of this sentence makes out. The dentistry of the title is what everyone here – Bangladeshi, Jamaican, white British or otherwise – have in common.

Spies – Michael Frayn

Best For: Playing Detective You’re trying to get through a wartime summer in London, but you find out your mum is a German spy. You bring one of your classmates in on the surveillance, but, without your knowledge, she enlists him in her mysterious deeds. Not a ‘whodunit’, more an outstandingly original ‘whoisit’?

American Tabloid – James Ellroy

Best For: Solving JFK’s Murder In the messed-up mind of Ellroy, crime fiction’s self-proclaimed demon dog, the CIA, FBI, Mafia and Hollywood are all involved in the assassination of “Bad-Back Jack”. The rat-a-tat-tat of Ellroy’s short, slang-centric sentences boosts what would still be a fine secret-history yarn to be something powerful and electric.

Style, Fitness & Mind-Enhancement

ABC of Men’s Fashion – Hardy Amies

Best For: Wardrobe Rules Classic style is forever – which is 99 per cent true in the case of this pocket encyclopaedia written in 1964 by a Savile Row legend. When you get to ‘B’, you can be amused by 150 words on ‘Bowler Hats’, but skip ‘Beachwear’ at your peril: “A plain navy blue shirt with white linen trousers will always outshine any patterned job.”

Men of Style – Josh Sims

Best For: Brushing Up Style guides can often be more decorative than useful, but this one, by the venerable fashion journalist Sims, profiles the best-dressed men of the past century so that you can steal for your look the things that make them so undeniably well-dressed.

Men and Style – David Coggins

Best For: Excavating Your True Look It is hard to be stylish if you haven’t grasped what ‘style’ means for you. Coggins understands that it stretches beyond clothes (although they are mightily important) to the influence of your father – yes, him! – your school days, your surroundings and more.

Thinking, Fast And Slow – Daniel Kahneman

Best For: Mind Games Why is there more chance we’ll believe something if it’s in a bold typeface? Why do we assume a good-looking person will be more competent? The answer lies in the two ways we make choices: fast, intuitive thinking, and slow, rational thinking. This book has practical techniques for slower, smarter thinking, so you can make better decisions at work, home and life in general.

How Not To Be Wrong – Jordan Ellenberg

Best For: Number Crunching If the maths you learned in school has slipped your mind, there’s something to be said for this book helping you to re-grasp numbers: a powerful commodity in a post-truth world. You’ll learn to how to analyse important situations at work and at play – and how early you actually need to get to the airport.

Happiness By Design – Paul Dolan

Best For: Living The Good Life As figures prove, we’re all stretched and stressed. So how can we make it easier to be happy? Using the latest cutting-edge research, Dolan, a professor of behavioural science, reveals that wellbeing isn’t about how we think, it’s about what we do.

The Chimp Paradox – Steve Peters

Best For: Retraining Your Brain Peters helped British Cycling, Ronnie O’Sullivan, and other pro sports stars win more. He says our brains are emotional (the chimp bit), logical (human) and automatically instinctive (like a computer). We can’t shut off the monkey, but with work, the other two parts can control it. Reading this won’t make you World Snooker Champion, but you will be empowered to make more successful choices in life.

Reasons To Stay Alive – Matt Haig

Best For: Mental Wellbeing Aged 24, Haig was diagnosed with severe anxiety and depression and contemplating suicide. His memoir of coming back from the brink is an honest, moving and funny exploration of triumph over failing mental health that almost destroyed him.

The World’s Fittest Book – Ross Edgley

Best For: Getting Into The Right Shape Quite the claim in the title there, but ‘fitness adventurer’ Edgley backs it up with straightforward and achievable ways to lose weight, tone up and get shredded. Less about following fitness plans (result) and more about applying basic concepts so you can exercise in the right way.

Feet In The Clouds – Richard Askwith

Best For: Running On Empty If you love exercising, you’ll love this dispatch from the world of fell running. If you don’t, then reading about the people who commit to running up and down mountains will help you understand why they love it, and maybe some of their motivation will rub off on you.

Real Fast Food – Nigel Slater

Best For: Cooking IRL Encouragement to eat out of the pan, ingredients in tins and the secret to a perfect bacon sandwich: Slater has over 350 recipes that take less than 30 minutes and don’t require much cheffing, written so any fool can follow them. His take on bacon? Smoked streaky, nearly crisp, untoasted white bread dipped in the bacon fat, no sauce.

Five Quarters – Rachel Roddy

Best For: Pasta Perfection Italian food done simply and totally authentically. The author moved to Rome from the UK on a whim in 2005 and taught herself how to cook like an Italian nonna. Veggies will find a lot to love in this one, too.

Roast Chicken And Other Stories – Simon Hopkinson

Best For: English Classics A book beloved by chefs and food writers, for good reason: Hopkinson makes everything, even the offal, sound absolutely delicious. He picks 40 ingredients, explains why they’re essential, then gives a few recipes for each. Cooking, he says, is about making food you like to eat, not showing off.

Made In India: Cooked In Britain – Meera Sodha

Best For: Takeaway At Home Totally debunking the ‘it’s too hard to make good curries’ myth, this splendid work also has pictures showing important stages of recipes, not just a food-porn shot of the final dish. Also tons of delicious things even curry-house connoisseurs might not have heard of.

Why We Sleep – Matthew Walker

Best For: Ruling The Land Of Nod Everyone knows that they should get more, better sleep, but actually trying to do so can be stressful enough to cause lack of sleep. This bestseller unpicks exactly what happens when your head hits the pillow. More importantly, it explains why and how to get your head right beforehand.

How To Be A Woman – Caitlin Moran

Best For: Opposite Sex Education Since this is the book that “every woman should read”, according to one of its many, many amazing reviews, then surely every man would benefit from reading it, too? A feminist manifesto disguised as a hilarious memoir (or is it vice versa?) from one of the UK’s funniest writers.

The Power of Now – Eckhart Tolle

Best For: Spiritual Enlightenment The author was approaching 30 and borderline suicidal, when he had an epiphany, separating what made him happy real from what was, mostly, the bullshit dragging him down. Years trying to understand how he saw the light meant he can explain it, better than the others who have tried, so you can do the same, too.

Sit Down and Be Quiet – Michael James Wong

Best For: Boosting Body And Mind The genius of this yoga and mindfulness manual for the modern man is in the way it presents those two practices as things you already do in some ways (habits from childhood and sport, mainly). Then, the ways you’re not doing them – physical and mental techniques – are put forth in a non-preachy manner.

Knowledge

A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson

Best For: Well, Nearly Everything We could have put this in the science section, given it is a scientific history ranging from the Big Bang to mankind. Anyway: now think of your best-ever teacher. Bryson is like that – curious, witty, in love with his subject – and learning along with him is a pleasure.

Sapiens – Yuval Noah Harari

Best For: A Selfie Of Ourselves Humans came to rule the world, according to this global bestseller, because we mastered fire, gossip, agriculture, mythology, money, contradictions and science. Harari himself is a master of distilling big ideas and concepts, and his book full of them will make your smarter.

Prisoners Of Geography – Tim Marshall

Best For: Mapping It All Out How and why countries do stuff to other countries because of the landscape, the climate, the culture and the natural resources available: that’s geopolitics. And to get a grip on why the world is how it is – no more important time to do that than right now – you read this.

Stasiland – Anna Funder

Best For: Cold War Stories In East Germany, the Stasi was the state security apparatus, which investigated the country’s citizens to an astonishing degree. A few years after the Berlin Wall fell, Funder met with former spies, handlers and resistance operatives, all with incredible tales.

The Plantagenets – Dan Jones

Best For: Past Glory One of the breed of young historians making history TV must-see again, Jones also writes big, juicy, novelistic books. This is the one that takes in 280 years of England and its kings from 1120, including Crusades, Black Death, civil war, war with France, heroes, legends, sacking of cities and all the rest of it. Truly stirring stuff.

Life 3.0 – Max Tegmark

Best For: AI, OK? Artificial intelligence is going to change humanity perhaps more than any other technology, so you kind of owe it to yourself to know what’s coming down the pipe. Tegmark smartly and succinctly puts forward all the arguments for and against the rise of the robots – because rise they will.

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics – Carlo Rovelli

Best For: Demystifying The World, Quickly As it says on the tin: between six and eight short essays about life, the universe and everything, which will tease and enlarge your brain, not tie it in knots. Perfectly formed into 96 pages that deliver a masterclass in relativity, quantum mechanics and mankind’s place in time in space.

The Sixth Extinction – Elizabeth Kolbert

Best For: Reaching The End Times No prizes for guessing that number six on the list of mass extinction events is happening now, as humankind reduces species diversity on Earth like nothing since the asteroid that finished off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. This book, grippingly, reports on what’s happening now, and those times before.

Behave – Robert Sapolsky

Best For: Why We Do What Do Every one of us is a student of human behaviour, so a book that gives you a distinct advantage over our classmates can only be A Good Thing. That it’s written by a scientist with a sense of humour nailing his mission to demystify complex science is a massive bonus also.

The Making Of The Atomic Bomb – Richard Rhodes

Best For: Explosive Insight An epic recollection of how mankind came to harness, then unleash, the power of the atom. From the first nuclear fission to the bombs that dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Rhodes marshals a huge cast of scientists (and spies) and leaves no stone unturned.

Inspiration

Long Walk To Freedom – Nelson Mandela

Best For: Genuine Inspiration The short version of Mandela’s life is widely known, but his detailed and moving autobiography, published in 1994, the year he became president of South Africa, is a never-to-be-forgotten account of his fight against apartheid.

I Am Zlatan – Zlatan Ibrahimovich

Best For: Ego Boosts And Footy Boots He is, by his own account, one of the greatest footballers of the modern age. Whether or not you agree, his life story is fascinating, and he gets stuck in on the page as on the pitch. “If Mourinho lights up a room, Guardiola draws the curtains.”

H Is For Hawk – Helen Macdonald

Best For: Grasping Nature’s Power This multi-award winning memoir has a most unusual premise. The author, when “a kind of madness set in” after the death of her father, drives up to Scotland from Cambridge to buy a goshawk for £800 and spends a year training it.

Do No Harm – Henry Marsh

Best For: Surgical Precision Marsh is a consultant neurosurgeon and this, his first volume of memoirs, is a glimpse inside his mind and, indeed, those of his patients. He has little time for NHS middle management, and is as precise with (literally) cutting remarks and insightful asides as he is with his scalpel.

Touching The Void – Joe Simpson

Best For: Life Or Death Scenarios Picture the scene (it starts on page 68 of this adventure classic, if you need some help): you are up a mountain, in difficult conditions, when you slip and fall. You are hanging from the rope tied to your companion, but he has to decide: if he doesn’t cut the rope, you likely both die. What would you do? A real-life version plays out in this astonishing story.

Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas – Hunter S Thompson

Best For: Madness And Mayhem The inventor of gonzo journalism recalls – lord only knows how – a drugs binge to Vegas with his attorney. In lesser hands, this would have been boring, because reading about other people being high is almost always dull. With Thompson in charge, this trippy travelogue fizzles with mad energy.

Unreasonable Behaviour – Don McCullin

Best For: Life Behind A Lens As life stories go, this one takes some beating. A 15-year-old with no qualifications ends up as one of the great war photographers, taking in Vietnam, Africa and the Middle East. He also takes a bullet in the camera and is pushed to physical and emotional extremes in the theatres of conflict.

Fever Pitch – Nick Hornby

Best For: The Fannish Inquisition The best book ever written about what it’s like to be a football fan, despite the glut of titles that has followed it since it was published in 1992. Hornby’s Arsenal addiction can be mapped onto any club, and his insight and honesty ring so very true.

The Story Of The Streets – Mike Skinner

Best For: Rapper’s Delight It will come as no surprise to anyone who has paid attention to lyrics by The Streets that the book written by the man behind them displays both a love of words and a refreshingly honest look at the world. Part guide to the highs and lows of fame, part unpicking of hip-hop as an art form, all good.

How Not To Be A Boy – Robert Webb

Best For: The Male Comedians’ memoirs are ten-a-penny, but this one stands out because the star of Peep Show goes deep into the difficulties of being ‘different’ as a boy in the 1970s and 1980s, his complicated early family life and what it means to be a man in today’s world. Of course, it’s very funny, too.

Steve Jobs – Walter Isaacson

Best For: Getting To Apple’s Core As well as the amazing tale of the rise, fall and rise again of Apple, and the stories behind its iconic products, Issacson’s official biog of geek god Jobs does one thing few official biogs do: print the negative stuff. Jobs could be, often, a douchebag, and learning that along with the positives makes this a must-read.

Fast Company – Jon Bradshaw

Best For: Taking A Punt Six profiles of legendary gamblers and chancers, including pool legend Minnesota Fats, tennis hustler Bobby Riggs and poker players Pug Pearson and Johnny Moss. “Money won is twice as sweet as money earned,” says Paul Newman as Eddie Felson in The Color Of Money. Here’s proof.

Killing Pablo – Mark Bowden

Best For: Crowning The Kingpin Even if you have watched Narcos on Netflix, this biography of Pablo Escobar will still make your jaw drop. That TV show, as good as it is, only scratched the surface. Bowden, a newspaper reporter, interviewed dozens of sources, allowing him to piece together Escobar’s remarkable ascent and descent.

The Right Stuff – Tom Wolfe

Best For: Reaching For The Stars “This book grew out of some ordinary curiosity,” said its author in 1983, four years after it was published. Yet there is nothing ordinary about it. Wolfe wondered what made a man want to sit on top of a giant tube of fuel and be hurtled into space. In the lives of US Navy test pilots and the Mercury astronauts, he found the answers, and with them wrote an all-time great non-fiction book.

The Lost City of Z – David Grann

Best For: Exploring Your Options One of the reviews called this “the best story in the world, told perfectly” and that’s fair enough, really. In 1925, British explorer Colonel Percy Fawcett went missing in Brazil while searching for a mythical settlement. This book investigates why, and the author embarks on his own Amazonian quest.

Outliers: The Story of Success – Malcolm Gladwell

Best For: Secrets Of Success Gladwell is most well known for The Tipping Point, but this book about what high achievers have in common is a more in-depth and engaging read. A big part of what makes people make it big is the hard yards: doing something for 20 hours a week for a decade, or about 10,000 hours. Start tomorrow? Why not?

Hit Makers – Derek Thompson

Best For: Being In With The In Crowd If you want to know why Star Wars is so popular, and why nothing ever really goes viral, then Thompson is your man. His study of pop culture’s most beloved items ranges from Game Of Thrones and Taylor Swift to Pokémon Go and Spotify.

Factfulness – Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund

Best For: Rebooting Your World Knowledge Bill Gates has a website on which he posts book recommendations, and liked this one so much he paid for every US college graduate in 2018 to get the ebook version. You might want to join those four million ex-students and be delighted to have much of what you know about the world put right by fascinating hard facts.

Bad Blood – John Carreyou

Best For: Fraud Or Flawed? It’s the story of the age: 19-year-old founds a medical start-up; raises $700m on the promise of a blood-testing machine that never really exists; her $10bn company collapses, with $600m of investors’ money gone. Was it just Silicon Valley hot air or a massive, deliberate fraud?

Doughnut Economics – Kate Raworth

Best For: The Future Of Your Money Experts are divided about Raworth’s ring-shaped model of how economics should be – the flow of money and trade keeping humans and Earth in good shape – but they are all talking about it. She recognises systems and effects, such as climate change and social movements, which standard economics ignore. Her argument is powerful.

Distraction

Me Talk Pretty One Day – David Sedaris

Best For: First-Person Hilarity The best of several collections of brilliant essays from the American humourist deals partly with his moving to Normandy in France, and partly with his life before that, in rural America and New York City. One of these every morning on the way to work would banish commuter blues immediately.

How To Lose Friends & Alienate People – Toby Young

Best For: Tragic Tragicomedy Young is now a right-leaning columnist and social media ‘star’. In a previous life, he got a job on the American magazine Vanity Fair, and dropped the ball spectacularly. Anyone who’s ever felt like a square peg in a workplace round hole (so, that’ll be everyone, then) will find much to laugh at here.

Our Dumb Century – The Onion

Best For: Mocking The Decades In terms of jokes-that-work-per-page hit rate, this is probably the funniest book in the world. Before social media, The Onion’s parody news site was the funniest thing online (they still do pretty good). This special project magnificently takes the Michael out of news and newspapers from 1900 to 1999. In today’s fake news era, this has become even more hilarious.

Spoiled Brats – Simon Rich

Best For: Eye-Watering Laughs Rich writes the sort of charming and amusing essays that Steve Martin and Woody Allen used to do, and there are a dozen in this volume. But it’s the novella Sell Out that makes this a must-read. A Brooklyn pickle-maker falls into the brine and is fished out 100 years later, to face the hipsters who have taken over his town. Your correspondent cried with laughter.

I, Partridge – Steve Coogan

Best For: Pitch-Perfect Parody A spot-on mocking of celebrity autobiography and a celebration of Britain’s best-loved failed chat-show host and digital radio DJ. Even better than reading this with Partridge’s voice in your head is listening to the audiobook, with Coogan-Partridge in absolutely magnificent form.

The Photo Ark – Joel Sartore

Best For: All Creatures Great And Small As ambitions go, it’s lofty and admirable: take a picture of all 12,000 species living in the world’s wildlife sanctuaries and zoos before an increasing number of them become extinct. As of May 2018, 12 years in, Sartore was two-thirds of the way there. This book covers the first 6,000 species.

Essential Elements – Edward Burtynsky

Best For: Seeing The World Through New Eyes Burtynsky is a Canadian photographer who uses a large camera to take vast-scale images of our changing planet, from seemingly endless rows of workers in Chinese factories to aerial views of oil fields in California. He makes the sort of images you can spend hours finding new things in.

Greatest Of All Time: A Tribute To Muhammad Ali – various

Best For: Knockout Storytelling Anyone saying “print is dead” hasn’t encountered this beautiful object, which has collector’s editions at £11,000 and a regular version 110 times cheaper yet almost as powerful. Ali is still sport’s most celebrated story, and the words and pictures on the 652 foot-square pages here tell that tale in the absolute best possible way.

Kenneth Grange: Making Britain Modern – various

Best For: Design Classics, UK Style A hero of industrial design as good as his more famous peers at Apple or Braun, Grange devised dozens of iconic products including Kodak cameras, Anglepoise lamps, Wilkinson Sword razors, parking meters and the Intercity 125 train. This catalogue of his career is a beautifully designed book full of beautifully designed things.

The Classic Car Book – Giles Chapman

Best For: Four-Wheeled Nirvana Quite simply a treasure trove of thousands of photos of awesome automobiles from the 1940s to the 1980s, with nerdy spec data and potted histories of cars, marques and makers.

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