Shadows and Reflections: the annual collection of postings in which our contributors and friends look back on the events that’ve shaped the past twelve months. From Ben Myers:
Life is lists. Here is another.
Reading (recent)
Don’t Skip Out On Me by Willy Vlautin
West by Carys Davies
Us by Zaffar Kunial
You Should Come With Me Now by M. John Harrison
Jumpin’ Jack Flash by Keiron Pim
Sweet Home by Wendy Erskine
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
The Light In The Dark: A Winter Journal by Horatio Clare
Coal Black Mornings by Brett Anderson
You Were Never Really Here by Jonathan Ames
Reading (old)
Berg by Ann Quin
Our Exploits at West Poley by Thomas Hardy
Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter
Gazza Agonistes by Ian Hamilton
Bring on The Empty Horses by David Niven
Men On Ice by Andrew Greig
It’s Me, Eddie by Eduard Limonov
Heat Wave by Penelope Lively
Christie Malry’s Own Double Entry by BS Johnson
Bonjour Tristesse by François Sagan
Reunion by Fred Uhlman
Listening
Joy As An Act Of Resistance – Idles
Mogic – Hen Oggled
Karaoke For One Vol I – Insecure Men
Smote Reverser – The Oh Sees
Welcome Strangers – Modern Studies
Wide Awake! – Parquet Courts
Songs of Praise – Shame
The Hunter – Anna Calvi
Deportation Blues – BC Camplight
Big Attraction & Giddy Up – Amyl And The Sniffers
Your Queen Is A Reptile – Sons Of Kemet
Viewing
Patrick Melrose
The Deuce
She’s Gotta Have It (series)
Killing Eve
I, Tonya
A Very English Scandal
The Mighty Redcar
Stewart Lee: Content Provider
Dark River
Inside No. 9 (Halloween special)
Mindhunter
Atlanta
Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing
Louis Theroux’s Altered States
GLOW
Podcasting
Backlisted
The Back Half (New Statesman)
Adam Buxton
All Killa, No Filla
S-Town
Bookshambles
First Graft
Turned Out A Punk
Criminal
People, places, things.
Bowhill Castle in Berwickshire
CBD oil
Pompeii (particularly the Necropolis)
Third Man Books
Stoodley Pike, Calderdale
My Back To Nature exhibition by George Shaw at The Collection, Lincoln
swimming in the Whiteadder River, Berwickshire
Bloomsbury Books
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard live at The Trades Club
Martin Parr’s Return To Manchester exhibition
Kirsty Wark
swimming in a quarry near Littleborough, near Rochdale
The Lantern, The Grayston Unity and The Book Corner, Halifax
The Verb (Radio 3)
badgers
Marlborough Literature Festival
The Duke Of Buccleuch
swimming in the River Bradford, near Youlgrave, Derbyshire
Saul Adamczewski
Elliott & Thompson
The People’s Bookshop, Durham
Mary Anne Hobbs
‘Smoko’ by The Chats
Pink Lady apples
Arbor Low burial mound
‘This Is America’ by Childish Gambino
The Page Café, Hebden Bridge
Jimothy Lacoste
Great Tew, Oxfordshire
James Naughtie
Making Thunder Roar exhibition at The Bronte Parsonage
Calderdale Royal Hospital A&E
Stephen Fry
The Sage, Gateshead
The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society re-issue
Brett Anderson in conversation with Adelle Stripe
Cally Callomon
St. Cuthbert
squirrels
Idles on Later With Jools Holland
Sebastian Barry
Editions du Seuil
Music Inspired by The Gallows Pole by The Shining Levels
Andrew Weatherall
Tangerine Press
When We Were Brothers (play, Freedom Studios)
The Kitchen, Mytholmroyd
Harrogate Spa
New Statesman
Elizabeth Alker
Paul Smith
birds
Futurismo Records
Anthony Bourdain
cats and dogs
Bluemoose Books
*
In 2018 Benjamin Myers published Under The Rock (Elliot & Thompson) and the chapbook The Whip Hand (Tangerine). His novel The Gallows Pole won the Walter Scott Prize and is being reissued by Bloomsbury in February 2019.