Normally at this time of year I would produce a series of blog posts on my cultural adventures over the past year, typically a post on favourite music, one on books, one on films, one on art exhibitions visited, and one on photographs I have taken over the year. I like reading the ones I have written in the past, for what they capture of why some I read, listened to or saw something that entranced me. This year, however, personal events have made such a series posts seem too much to undertake and not entirely fitting.
However, for the record, I can at least list, as a record, some titles in those various categories, in one post. And the post on photographs I will still do, at the very end of the year. So, in 2025, here are some of the things that kept the brain whirring and the heart beating. I have highlighted the top choice in each category.
Books
Ronald Hutton, Oliver Cromwell: Commander in Chief
Geoff Brown, Silent to Sound: British Cinema in Transition
Georges Perec, Life: A User’s Manual
Carlo Ginzburg, No Island is an Island: Four Glances at English Literature in a World Perspective
Shūji Terayama, When I Was a Wolf
Ian Christie, What Made Cinema? Essays on Visual Culture and Early Film
Andrey Kurkov, Death and the Penguin
J.M. Coetzee, Foe
Tabish Khair, Filming
Georges Perec, Species of Spaces and Other Pieces
Selma Van De Perre, My Name is Selma
Brian Boyd, On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition and Fiction
Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier
Marcus Bull, The Great Siege of Malta
Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human
Andrew Hui, The Study: The Inner Life of Renaissance Libraries
Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo
Ford Madox Ford, The Fifth Queen
Joe Boyd, And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: A Journey Through Global Music
George Steiner, The Death of Tragedy
Irene Handl, The Gold Tip Pfitzer
François-Xavier Fauvelle, The Golden Rhinoceros: Histories of the African Middle Ages
Daniel Kehlmann, The Director
Alexander Exquemelin, The Buccaneers of America
Alastair Bonnett, Extraordinary Islands: An Atlas of Unlikely Places
Christine Lowther, Hazard, Home: Poems
Nick Thorpe, Walking Europe’s Last Wilderness: A Journey Through the Carpathian Mountains
Sir John Mandeville, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville
Terence Gallacher, The Movietone Years
Uwe Wittstock, February 1933: The Winter of Literature
Films
A Complete Unknown (2024)
The Nine Muses (2010)
Flow (2024)
Deep End (1970)
The Straight Story (1999)
Mulholland Dr (2001)
Queimada (1969)
Fedora (1978)
Knife in the Water (1962)
The Good Soldier (1981, TV)
Merry-Go-Round (1956)
The Wonder Boys (2000)
Sisters (1972)
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014)
Charlie Bubbles (1967)
It (1927)
The Snow Woman (1968)
Uptight (1968)
Splendid Outing (1978)
Music
Anthony Moore, On Beacon Hill
Galactic and Irma Thomas, Audience with the Queen
Erik Friedlander, Origami
Bill Orcutt, How to Rescue Things
Bob Dylan, The Bootleg Series Vol. 18: Through the Open Window 1956–1963
Shreikback, Oil and Gold
Mary Halvorson, Bone Bells
Graham Collier Music, Down Another Road
Alan Sparhawk with Trampled By Turtles, Alan Sparhawk with Trampled By Turtles
Walt McClements, On a Painted Ocean
Hayden Pedigo, I’ll Be Waving as You Drive Away
Carolyn Wonderland, Truth Is
Dave Douglas, Alloy
John Cale and Bob Neuwirth, Last Day on Earth
Damien Jurado, Passing the Giraffes
Chuck Prophet, Bobby Fuller Died for Your Sins
Linda May Han Oh, Strange Heavens
Theatre
The Tempest (Drury Lane)
The Harder They Come (Stratford East)
The Mousetrap (St Martin’s Theatre)
Concerts
Organ recitals in assorted London churches
Hayden Pedigo (King’s Place)
Gabriella Smith (Royal Albert Hall)
Art exhibitions
Vincent Van Gogh and Anselm Kiefer (Royal Academy)
Andrea Francolino (Mazzoleni)
Sean Scully and Giovanni Morandi (Estorick)
Ketty La Roca (Estorick)
Lee Miller (Tate Britain)
Patrick Heron and Victor Passmore (Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert)
The World of Johan De Witt (Dordrecht Museum)
Places
Lake District -St John’s in the Vale, Rusland, Grizedale Forest, Townend, World by the Water festival (Keswick)
Bath
Royal Horticultural Society gardens, Wisley
Faversham literary festival
Charleston House (East Sussex)
Kent County Cricket ground, Canterbury
Lullingstone World Garden (Kent)
Netherlands (‘s-Hertogenbosch, Arnhem, Dordrecht)
Northumberland (Norham, Berwick, Lindisfarne, Farne Islands, Flodden)
York
Rochester, of course
Assorted Kent hospitals – Margate, Canterbury, Gillingham, Ashford…
