What I’ve Read, Seen and Played in 2019
Games we got this year, liked and didn’t trade on:
out in 2019:
Underwater Cities
Tapestry
Everdell expansions
Root expansion
Wingspan
Wingspan Expansion
out earlier:
Root
Star Trek Fleet Captains
Terraforming Mars expansions
Vitaculture
A very light year for plays:
Worst Witch (touring and then West End, both great)
Operation Mincemeat (great)
Cinderella panto
Joseph (West End revival, mediocre)
Benjamin Button
Edward II, Globe
Richard II, Globe (all female)
All Male Pirates of Penzance (good)
Director’s Cut (good)
Starkid musicals we saw this year:
Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals (v good)
Twisted (good)
Harry Potter: Senior Year (phenomenal)
Starship (fine)
Trail to Oregon (uneven, fine)
Firebringer (fine)
Black Friday (awful recording)
Me and My Dick (bad)
Ani (bad)
Western TV:
Miraculous Ladybug (phenomenal)
more Steven Universe (the film was strong)
What We Do in the Shadows, series
Ghosts
Terror (part through)
Gentleman Jack
Series of Unfortunate Events (against my will)
Worst Witch
She Ra
Dragon Prince
Ghosts isn’t one of the stronger projects of a team I do really like. Terror, I’m hoping will pick up. So far it’s got some strong elements but the writing isn’t quite where I’d like it to be. Gentleman Jack was somewhat disappointing; I found Katy’s patience for Series inexplicable. Worst Witch sucked this year, probably because they ditched their female writing team so that All Dudes could write stories about girls hanging out together and coming of age. For some reason. Dragon Prince is nice but meh. She Ra is fun but deeply bad at core thematics.
Western Films:
Knives Out*
Klaus*
The Favourite
Kid Who Would Be King
The Knight Before Christmas
There are more, I’m sure. I just don’t remember them rn. Favourite was almost great? Katy also made me watch “Return to Oz”, which sure was something.
This is the year Katy FINALLY accepted subtitles, so at last I could start watching anime again.
Japanese films (none from this year):
Your Name (great)
The Cat Returns (great)
When Marnie Was There
Porco Rosso (I feel bad not rating this higher, but ultimately I don’t think I fully GET it, you know?)
Ocean Waves
Doukyuusei
Arrietty
2019 anime:
mob psycho
one punch
my hero academia
Haikyu!! (against my will, I don’t give a shit if they win nationals, volleyball is a dumb sport)
These series were exceptional, but Mob is probably best.
Older anime I watched this year (all strong, imo):
Heidi (partway through)
cowboy bebop
evangelion
sound euphonium
full metal alchemist: brotherhood
yuri! on ice
rakugo s1
I probably forgot some, but these are the books I remembered to tell Goodreads about this year:
Jolly Foul Play
First Class Murder
Arsenic for Tea
Murder Most Unladylike
You can get through Robin Stevens’ YA mysteries in a few pleasurable hours. They’re fun.
Dickens:
Martin Chuzzlewit
Barnaby Rudge
The Magic Fishbone (short)
Dombey and Son (good)
reread David Copperfield (excellent)
A bigger commitment, both because serial novels tend to be LONG and because this is stuff I’d left sitting on my Unread Dickens pile for ages, as I didn’t expect to love it (and often didn’t.)
Stuff I read under coercion/for academia and hated:
Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life
Life in the UK Test Handbook
Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek
Metamorphoses of the Sublime: From Ballads and Gothic Novels to Contemporary Anglo-American Children ́s Literature (simply did not like)
Other:
The Story of Venus and Tannhäuser (turns out Beardsley is a way better illustrator than writer)
Objects For A “Wunderkammer” (interesting)
Blue Trout, Black Truffle (fun food memoir of pre-war Europe, including East Europe)
Currently Reading:
Pickwick Papers (part through, loving it)
Mysteries of Udolpho (part through, jesus shitting christ)
Don Quixote (part through, enjoying it)
