Every year for the last 21 years, we’ve sent a CD or cassette containing our favourite music of the year (strict rule, it has to be from the last 12 months) to our music loving friends, and if you’re one of them, you might want to look away from this blog until your copy arrives. We start posting them Monday, to catch the last post to Canada, China and (hopefully, Nicola!) Australia. For the last few years, I’ve also posted a few sleeve notes on this blog, writing one a day up to new year. I’ll be posting every day, except when we’re away. So, without any further ado, let’s begin. 1. The Fear – Lily Allen Dislike for her dad, combined with endless copyists,…

I went into town today to visit Selectadisc for the last time, but the store had already closed down, as Sue found when she took the photos on the left on her way to work this morning. I’ve been shopping at the store for 33 years. When I arrived in Nottingham it was on Goldsmith St, where the Royal Concert Hall is now. I used to flog them my spare review copies from the university paper. I spent a lot of time in the singles and second hand store on Bridlesmith Gate and latterly in the three stores on Market St, which shrank to two, then one when Jim bought the shop from its founder, Brian, a little while back. Selectadisc was a legendary, eclectic,…

Just back from London, where we saw the Monty Python musical (great fun, though Peter Davison doesn’t have much of a singing voice) and David Hare’s latest play, ‘The Vertical Hour’ at the Royal Court. This is worth catching, with strong performances from the three leads, although it was hard to credit the sexual tension needed between Anton Lesser and Indira Varma who’s more than a decade younger than Julianne Moore, who played the part on Broadway, and this weakens the play, as do the didactic bookends. Like Hare, I was against the invasion of Iraq, but a play’s far more dramatically effective if the arguments are balanced, leaving us to make up our own minds. Instead, he seemed to be writing it for a…

Every year, we put together a best of year CD for a few of our friends (and if you’re one of them, you may wish to look away until your copy arrives) and, last year, I posted a set of sleeve notes online, an indulgence which I’m going to permit myself again (I’ll update daily until complete). Non muscially minded readers, scroll down to find out more about Young Adult Fiction. Or you can visit my myspace where the song currently streaming is my favourite B side of the year (why not open another browser window, then you can listen to it as you read this…) The photo on the left is the cover photo, Brighid at Tate Modern earlier this year, with Rachel Whiteread…

Our first full day back, and we’ve just been over to Stanley and Margaret’s to collect the carful of pots that Margaret has been watering for us and which, despite the heatwave, are in better condition than when we left them. Stanley, who was 87 on Tuesday, gave us a copy of his new book Mother’s Boy, published today. So that’s the next novel I’ll read. Here, as promised, are the books I’ve just devoured during long days in France (along with, as usual, a vast pile of New Yorkers and TLSs) in roughly the order in which I read them. E.L.Doctorow – The March I’ve not previously been very interested in the American Civil War, but Doctorow’s one of the handful of novelists who…