2017 awards

From the books I have read, films I have seen and songs I have heard for the first time this year, here are my top choices.

Best Book
I have not read as widely as I would have liked this year, possibly because the year has been more broken up than previously, with different things going on, but I have completed a few excellent books, including All the light we cannot see and Lion. My pick for the best book I have read, however, goes to A town like Alice, by Nevil Shute.
     Written in 1950 it splits the setting between 2nd World War Malaya, and post-war England and Australia. The main character, Jean Paget, has come into an inheritance and is determined to use it to generate prosperity for a small community in the outback.
     The characters are superbly formed and the settings dramatic. The descriptions of life I cannot imagine are almost unmatched in anything I have read before and it taught me a lot about places I have never, and possibly will never, visit!


Best Film
By contrast I have seen quite a lot of films this year. I finally caught up with Inception, and I was deeply challenged by I, Daniel Blake. But my favourite film of the year, is La La Land. It is the first time I really appreciated my film studies A level, and felt like I was getting my money's worth from going to the cinema. For my full review see my blog post from January.


Best Song
There aren't many new songs that I've been singing throughout the year, but one that I have is Coldplay's Something Just Like This. I've enjoyed Coldplay's music before, but this is the first year I would really say I have become a fan, discovering many of their lesser known tracks. This song, of course, was very popular, partly for it's catchy tune, but also for it's message, something I think we all appreciate - we may not all be heroes, or want to meet them, but we all want someone we can miss, true relationships. It's part of what life is all about.