Books! (Those that I finished during 2013)
- Longitude by Dava Sobel
- The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy
- The Little Pink House by Jeff Benedict
- Reamde by Neal Stephenson
- The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt
- If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
- The Likeness by Tana French
- The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré
- The Blue World by Jack Vance
- Look At Me by Jennifer Egan
- Raj by Gita Mehta
- Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
- The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
- The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt
- Faithful Place by Tana French
- Libra by Don DeLillo
- The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
- Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
- River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh
- The Child in Time by Ian McEwan
- Never Mind by Edward St Aubyn
According to my ratings on Goodreads, my favorite books were Reamde, The Children's Book, and the two Amitav Ghosh books (these are the first two of the Ibis trilogy, the last book of which comes out this year), and this seems about right. I might add The Diamond Age, because I feel like it has stayed with me looking back now.
I guess I like to do one long slog a year, and in 2013 that was War and Peace. I read it pretty much concurrently with writing my Master's thesis, which worked out oddly well. Each served as a pleasant break from the other.
I made a concerted effort to read a bit of genre fiction in 2013, which I don't usually read. I especially enjoyed The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.
My other honorable mention goes to The Last Samurai.
Movies! (Seen in theaters)
- The Moment
- Stories We Tell
- Frances Ha
- Before Midnight
- The Manxman (1929)
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Rosemary's Baby (1968)
- Fruitvale Station
- Blue Jasmine
- Newlyweeds
- Gravity
- 12 Years a Slave
- Carrie (2013)
- Nebraska
- American Hustle
I saw two operas in 2013: The Nose at the Met and Anna Nicole at BAM. I saw no plays, apparently.
