Blimey. Ages since I’ve done a Bookshelf. I can’t even remember half the books I read six months ago. But I’ll try.
This time, we have funny feminists, scandalous classics, a wizard who would totally make Harry Potter cry, the new George Saunders, epic American history, and assorted randomness.
The usual health and spoilers warning applies.
Alghero in northwestern Sardinia is one of my very favourite places on Earth. The city, the sea, the countryside all around – it’s simply got everything going for it. The food. The people. The quiet and calm before and after the tourist season. It’s the kind of place where you always imagine you would lead the perfect life.
Old tower on the city wall with streetlights hooded in red for the Easter processions.
This lovely little town has a gorgeous historical city centre, a maze of tiny cobbled streets that I could get lost in forever – except you never get lost for very long as sooner or later you’ll always end up back on the old city wall, with a stunning view of the sea. Standing up there by the ancient defence towers and the wooden catapults, looking down at the sea smashing against the rocks or across the bay to the mountains cast in shadows by dramatic clouds, you pretty much expect the bandits and the pirates to show up on the horizon any minute.
Vertical garden / garage / appliance storage?
Just in case you didn’t spot that “no boat parking” sign…
I bet the pirates are hiding over there!
Dotted around the tiny streets, sometimes hiding away in cellars and courtyards, you’ll find an astonishing variety restaurants – ranging from a small cramped room serving traditional pizzas to some rather fine dining indeed. My favourite are the small, family run restaurants serving no-nonsense, authentic Sardinian food – big bowls of sausage pasta, followed by a steak that’s so gorgeous it can just sit plain on its plate without even needing any garnish. Oh, the deliciousness! I honestly don’t think I’ve ever eaten such good quality produce in my entire life, not even from the local farms in my native Bavaria or in the top restaurants in London. Sardinia doesn’t mass-produce food; everything is fresh, seasonal, local – and while eating you just feel how good this food is for you. I could go on about this forever, but trust me: You have to go there and try the food for yourself. You’ll never want to go back home and to the supermarket ever again.
Walking north out of Alghero, along the coastal road, the most beautiful seaside awaits: Maria Pia, where forested sand dunes gradually give way to a perfect white beach, offering lots of little, private nooks shaded by trees – the perfect place to sit, undisturbed, and just enjoy the view of the sea and the mountainous coast. If you’ve got wheels (a bike will do), you can also go further up the coast, through pine forests and past olive groves and vineyards, to visit some of the small, hidden beaches that are dotted along the coast. And if you’re out of season and a bit lucky, you’ll have an entire beach to yourself.
In spring you can see Maria Pia in all its rough beauty, before they clean up the beach, while the April storms roll over the mountains.
And after you’ve braved the hilly coastal road, you can always snooze on the beach.
There’s loads more to see around Alghero, for example Neptune’s Grotto, a huge marine cave full of extremely fancy stalagmites and stalactites carved quite spectacularly into the cliffs. Going there by boat you’ll actually land inside the cave in a perfectly turquoise pool – a process that can quickly turn into quite an adventure when the waves get a bit choppy. On my next visit, I’m going to venture a bit further out of town to go to Asinara, a national park island which gets its name from its population of wild Albino donkeys.
And then I’ll just keep exploring the island until I’m old (and rich) enough to buy an olive grove with a little cottage outside Alghero, and retire there. And I shall live happily ever after. Eating Pecorino.
Naturally, I’d start this review by saying I loved the book. And I went to see The Great Gatsby with very mixed feelings – so mixed indeed that I almost didn’t want to go.
Reason #1: I really don’t like Baz Luhrmann’s work. I actively disliked Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge! and watching the trailer for Gatsby made me fear the worst: A cartoonesque butchering of a literary classic.
So I was quite happy to find Gatsby, overall, to be a fairly faithful adaptation. I love that they didn’t mess with the story or the characters, and stayed true to the book’s spirit and meaning.
That said, it really does annoy the hell out of me that Luhrmann has to constantly turn the volume up to eleven on the cinematography – from the rollercoaster camera moves and the flashy effects to the over-cluttered, glitzy sets – to the point where it all becomes grotesquely cartoon-y and the whole experience loses its emotional impact. (The car scenes actually made me feel like I was in the middle of the Roger Rabbit car chase. Too bloody much.) So, while breathtakingly pretty to look at overall, the film didn’t really move me one bit because there was just too much circus going on all the time.
But maybe that’s exactly what Luhrmann intended, and the over-the-topness indeed cleverly captures the fake, superficial world of the fateful Gatsby and his beloved. But I still found it visually annoying, and it did ruin the atmosphere a bit.
Welcome to my party. We blow the whole place up with fireworks every Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 8pm, 10pm and midnight.
Reason #2: Leonardo DiCaprio playing Gatsby. I was a teenager when Titanic happened, and so utterly annoyed by the hype that I stayed away from his movies until, very recently, I watched Shutter Island, Inception and Django Unchained and realised that he actually does really good stuff these days.
I still get this “Ugh, not him again” reflex sometimes, simply because his face was just bloody everywhere when I first got into movies and magazines and all that pop culture, but I’ll concede that he is a brilliant actor. And he certainly is the perfect man for Gatsby. I mean, wow. He didn’t play Gatsby, he was Gatsby. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an actor play a character so precisely like I’d imagined him when reading the book.
Lovely as Daisy: Carey Mulligan
Leonardo DiCaprio: Actually amazing as Gatsby
Overall I would call this a well cast and very faithful adaptation of a great classic. And parts of the film – the quieter, less flashy ones – were beautifully composed. The scene where Gatsby first shows Daisy around his house pretty damn near broke my heart. It’s just a shame that some of the beautiful vagueness and delicate atmosphere of the book got drowned out by too many sequins, fireworks and a largely horrendous and inappropriate soundtrack.
For that, 3 out of 5 pens.
* If you don’t get this reference you should watch This Is Spinal Tap. Actually, watch Spinal Tap anyway.
My week of musical escapism continued on Saturday with a matinee of Top Hat, the stage version of the 1935 sing-and-dance comedy starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Roberts.
Kristen Beth Williams and Gavin Lee. Image borrowed from here.
“They don’t make them like this anymore,” sighed my companion as we left the theatre; and I thought, of course he would say that. He’s in his early sixties. The good old times, and all that.
But actually, he’s go ta point. Top Hat radiates with the kind of elegance that you just don’t find in today’s productions. Whether it’s the dance numbers, the songs, the dresses and suits, the beautifully simplistic story (boy meets girl, mistaken identity causes much drama, all ends with a wedding), the dialog, or even the (endearingly obvious) jokes -everything in this show channels the spirit of a time when gentlemen were courting you properly, ladies were glamorous and admired, and everybody was wearing tap dance shoes at all times, just in case you needed to burst out into a dance routine in the middle of a conversation.
I love this old stuff. When I get down I shut myself away for a weekend and watch a bunch of ancient screwball comedies and musical films, and pretend that everything is ok in the world.
And what could be more happy-making than a musical bringing exactly this feeling to you live, today?! Especially one that is so well performed as this production of Top Hat. The cast carries the elegance and the mannerisms of the era perfectly, never once breaking the illusion that you’re right in the middle of the 1930s. The singing and the solo dance numbers to Irving Berlin’s songs are equally flawless.
Just one thing really bothered me: The ensemble was woefully out of sync on the tap dance numbers. This may be nit-picking, but watching a major West End musical I would have liked to see the ensemble dancing in razor-sharp perfection. But then, growing up in family of obsessive (tap) dancers has probably biased my expectations a bit.
Overall, Top Hat is delightful. The best kind of escapism you could possibly wish for. And Gavin Lee is divine.
Pens: 4 out of 5
Before we go anywhere with this: I LOVE classic rock. Say what you want. Look at me weird. It’s cool. Because my dad was a drummer in a hair/hard rock band in the 80s, and I started being born at one of his gigs. Which means I have a lifelong immunity against your rolling eyes and your tut-tuts and your Katy Perrys.
So, I have finally been to see Rock of Ages. And, a bit to my own surprise, I had the best fun ever. Well, at least the best fun ever in a theatre.
I expected it to be cheesy, maybe a bit cringe-y, and – having seen the movie – a bit on the lame side. Instead, what I saw was a show so filled with good music, great voices, delicious dancing and great acting, it made me want to jump up, hug people and dance rock ‘n roll moves in my underpants. In short: Incredibly happy.
By the way, when I say great voices, what I actually mean is “jump out of your seat and clasp your hands over you mouth as you breathe OHMYGOD” voices. These guys are amazing.
Built around classic rock hits from the 1980s, Rock of Ages (which hit the London West End in 2011 after being first produced in LA in 2006) probably isn’t the finest piece of theatre you’ll ever see, but I dare to say it’s the most fun you’ll ever have with a musical. It doesn’t bother much with the story – which is a good thing. Let’s face it, we’re all just here for the music and the good time, so don’t make things overly complicated. What this show does is simple and strong: It captures the essence of an era, and catapults you right back into a time when music was honest, rock stars were cool, dreams were wild and chicks didn’t worry whether showing your knickers under your tiny skirt and fainting over guys in studded leather pants was cool with your feminist agenda. (Ignore the fact that I’m too young to even have (consciously) experienced much of the 80s. I have a very clear mental image of the kind of rock chick I would have been, had I been born 20 years earlier.)
Go time travelling. Get on board this rock ‘n roll party ship filled with timeless rock classics, straight-from-the-soul singing, perfectly timed comedy and beautifully detailed production design and styling. Sing your heart out. Laugh until you scream. Have the best time ever in a theatre.
Pens: One million, out of five. Plus air guitars and gold stars. And my bra thrown at it.
******
PS: Whatever you do, DO NOT WATCH THE MOVIE. I know a DVD is cheaper than a night in the West End. But you don’t want to see a watered down, vanilla version of the show that has been dragged through the Hollywood mincer, been drained of all singing talent and style, and stars Tom Fucking Cruise trying to be a rock legend.
Well, I’m finally done reviewing all the books from last year and this year’s reads are already piling up. Time for the first Bookshelf of 2013!
The usual health and safety warning: May contain spoilers.
It’s almost March and I still haven’t reviewed all of last year’s reads. But here, finally, is the last batch.
I’ll have to come up with something a bit shorter for this year’s bookshelf to resolve the constant compromise of whether to spend my lunchtimes reading or writing…
Some more books by some of my favourite authors
Right, more bookshelf from last year. With Pratchett and the Bavarians done, let’s move on to some pretty dark (and seriously brilliant) stuff.
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
I dodged this one in school when it was on the final-year English reading list, and then my little brother dodged it in his final-year English class and passed his copy on to me. I’m glad I read it only now, almost ten years on from school. What a brilliant and painful book – those murders were haunting my nightmares for weeks. I don’t usually enjoy non-fiction much, but this one really changed my mind. As a journalist I was captivated watching the results of Capote’s meticulous (and obviously tireless) work evolve and constantly intrigued by the question of how much was fact and in how far he allowed his mind to fill the gaps. And I am in awe of the writer who can start by giving you the outcome of the story and then go on to build so much tension into it that, as you read it, your brain almost refuses to acknowledge you already know what’s going to happen.
Pens: 5 out of 5
By the way if you’ve ever wondered what became of the characters in the book, here’s a really moving interview feature portraying the later life of Bobby Rupp, the then-boyfriend of murdered teenager Nancy Clutter.
Dark, darker, noir: Introducing my new obsession
I don’t think I ever even ready so much as a real crime novel in my life. And then I watch a movie and end up knee deep in seriously dark crime stuff..
So I was watching L.A. Confidential the other day and kept thinking that somehow the movie didn’t make sense – as if there was a much bigger story behind it that had been chopped up for the adaptation. I didn’t know about James Ellroy at the time, but was little surprised when a quick search brought up L.A. Confidential, the book. And then the entire L.A. Quartet series. Being a bit weird about serial stuff, I had to start at the beginning, of course.
I’ve been lazy. So, with a massive delay, here’s the first bunch of the Bookshelf from the second half of 2012!
The usual health and safety warning applies: May contain spoilers.
THE DISCWORLD-A-THON CONTINUES…
Soul Music by Terry Pratchett
Pratchett’s take on the music industry: Somebody finds a magical electric guitar and soon the Disc is turned upside down by Music With Rocks In It. It’s basically a condensed history of everything that happened in music since the first rock ‘n roll tune was born – rockstar tantrums, shady agents and crappy punk bands are just the start, and of course the traditionally Pratchett-esque digs at musical celebs and the industry they feed are spot-on as ever, and laugh-out-loud funny, too!
Pens: 4 out of 5
I will admit that I was devastated when Kamelot’s long-time singer Roy Khan dropped out. I didn’t go to the gigs when they toured with various guest singers, I wasn’t getting my hopes up for the new album – in my mind, my favourite metal band died with the departure of my favourite metal singer.
Then the news came that Kamelot had found a new front man, and early-day tour reports from all around the internet agreed that he was pretty good. The first single from the new album Silverthorn came out, and I figured I might as well give it a try.
Listening to Sacrimony the first time, I thought new singer Tommy Karevik tried too hard to sound like Khan. Second time, I rather liked it. After a week of listening, the ghost of Khan had vanished and I found I just really enjoyed listening to Tommy singing a very good new Kamelot song. And I was getting my hopes up for the new album.
I bought myself a ticket for their gig in London. (And then I bought one for my Dad who came over from Germany for the occasion.)
Silverthorn has been out since late October and it is perfect from the first note to the last: easily the best Kamelot album ever. It has been the only thing on my iPod for the last few weeks and has probably spun through its fiftieth round already. And not a single time did I the thought cross my mind that Khan is missing from it. The album is perfect as it is; perfect with Tommy Karevik singing it.
The gig was last week; perfection if I’ve ever seen it on a stage. This is the one thing I certainly didn’t expect. Kamelot without its trademark voice, just out of a turbulent reshuffle – and yet in its best shape ever. Because the band lost a great singer, but gained an even better singer.
Kamelot, 2012 – in their best shape ever
Tommy’s voice may not quite have the volume and deepness of Khan’s voice on the lowest notes, but he hits – and holds – the higher notes so much better. All through that gig he didn’t miss a single note, and on the parts where the music calms down a bit – like the new ballad Song for Jolee – his voice is 100% goose bumps down your spine.
And I suppose it also helps that he’s pure eye candy. (I’m allowed a fangirl moment every now and then!)
Kamelot founder/guitarist Thomas Youngblood and new man Tommy Karevik
Without meaning any disrespect to Khan, I can only say it looks like this is the best thing that could have happened to Kamelot. All the reviews I’ve seen for Silverthorn are of the five-star, nine/ten-out-of-ten kind, the album has been top of various European metal charts, it’s certainly my favourite album of the year – and my favourite metal band tours on with my favourite new metal singer.
To that, a very happy \m/