Books of the Year

[verismissimo]

For me:

Fiction: Stoner by John Williams
Non-Fiction: 1599 by James Shapiro
A bit disappointed in the biography of Patrick Leigh Fermor.

For you... ?

[DracoM]

Fiction [or is it?] Yellow Birds / Kevin Powers

[Stanley Stewart]

Letters from a Life, Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten, Vol VI, 1966-1976

Britten's Century, Celebrating 100 Years of Benjamin Britten

Olivier - a biography by Philip Ziegler

Stage Blood - Michael Blakemore - 5 years as deputy director at the NT

The National Theatre Story, Daniel Rosenthal - catalogues/discusses 800 NT productions

Breakfast with Lucian (Freud) - A Portrait of the Artist

The Leonard Bernstein Letters, edited by Nigel Simeone

My Lunches with Orson; Conversations Between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles
NB now being presented on R 4, starting earlier today, 19 Dec, concluding Boxing Day

Dropped Names, Famous Men and Women as I Knew Them. memoir by Frank Langella

[amateur51]

Letters from a Life, Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten, Vol VI, 1966-1976

Britten's Century, Celebrating 100 Years of Benjamin Britten

Olivier - a biography by Philip Ziegler

Stage Blood - Michael Blakemore - 5 years as deputy director at the NT

The National Theatre Story, Daniel Rosenthal - catalogues/discusses 800 NT productions

Breakfast with Lucian (Freud) - A Portrait of the Artist

The Leonard Bernstein Letters, edited by Nigel Simeone

My Lunches with Orson; Conversations Between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles
NB now being presented on R 4, starting earlier today, 19 Dec, concluding Boxing Day

Dropped Names, Famous Men and Women as I Knew Them. memoir by Frank Langella

An intriguing list Stanley - is the Ziegler worth reading? I've just finished reading the 2005 Terry Coleman biography.

[Stanley Stewart]

Thanks, ams. A tricky one of swings and roundabouts. My personal preference is for the Terry Coleman biography. However, a Festive Season card, yesterday, from quite a well known name - we were in rep together 50 years ago this year! - assures me that Ziegler really 'caught the man'. Coincidentally, I'm also reading Knight Errant, the 1996 biography of Robert Stephens, a close associate of Olivier's at the NT and he, too, reflects on the darkness behind Olivier's competitive and incorrigibly jealous disposition. I'd leave Ziegler well alone for a year or two but perhaps take a shufti of Michael Blakemore's recent memoir, "Stage Blood"; particularly the illuminating chapter on his rehearsing Olivier in "Long Day's Journey Into Night"; the strategy and tact needed to gain his confidence. In turn, this facet should be balanced against Olivier's capacity for hard work, his belief and total commitment to the NT and, particularly, his encouragement of young actors. Always enjoyed relaxing in their company and I've often been told how, at the end of a season, they would come away from their interviews, feeling like a million dollars, until they realised that they also left with their P45!

[verismissimo]

A follow-up question, Stanley: Is the Langella worth the investment of time? It's intriguing, but...

[Mahler's3rd]

"The Sorcerer Of Bayreuth" By Barry Millington, Published In October Last year I know, but got it for Christmas and started reading it in 2013 (Does That Count?)
"At The Close Of Play" By Ricky Ponting

[Stanley Stewart]

A follow-up question, Stanley: Is the Langella worth the investment of time? It's intriguing, but...

Yes, indeed, vm. He is a most perceptive and sharp observer. Several most enjoyable splutters throughout.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Michael Graziano lays out an audacious new theory to account for the deepest mystery of them all. The human brain has evolved a complex circuitry that allows it to be socially intelligent. This social machinery has only just begun to be studied in detail.




Our early ancestors lived in small groups and worked actively to preserve social equality. As they created larger societies, however, inequality rose, and by 2500 BCE truly egalitarian societies were on the wane.

[Petrushka]

I'm not sure that I've read any books in 2013 that were published this year but the book that has given me most pleasure in the past 12 months is undoubtedly The End: Hitler's Germany 1944-1945 by Ian Kershaw. It is a searing and illuminating read, casting new light on why Germany went on fighting when all was clearly lost. The final months of the Second World War in East Prussia and eastern Germany make for horrific reading but Kershaw's prose style is masterly in telling this terrible tale and I can see that I'll be reading and re-reading this book over the coming years.

[Richard Tarleton]

I'm not sure how many others did, but I enjoyed reading Alan Rusbridger's Play it Again - An Amateur Against the Impossible - the account of a remarkably balanced, rounded and cultured individual's determination to learn and perform Chopin's Ballade No 1, against a backdrop of being editor of the Guardian in the year of the Arab Spring, Japanese Tsunami, English riots, Wikileaks, the NOTW hacking scandal.....