I was fortunate this year, hitting the century mark (100+) both in terms of the number of books read and movies watched.

I’ve gone through my lists and compiled a roster of favourites–difficult, in many cases, to settle on a definitive order, impose a hierarchy of excellence. Every single selection brilliant in its own right and worthy of inclusion:

BEST BOOKS

Fiction:

Bleeding Edge (Thomas Pynchon)
Purity (Jonathan Franzen)
Stoner (John Williams)
Fat City (Leonard Gardner)
The Book of Aron (Jim Shepard)
Number9Dream (David Mitchell)
Something Rich and Strange (Ron Rash) Short Stories
Gaps (Bohumil Hrabal)
Young Skins (Colin Barrett) Short Stories
The Normals (David Gilbert)
Payback (Gert Ledig)
As Far as the Eye Can See (Robert Bausch)
Cain’s Book (Alexander Trocchi)
The Commissariate of Enlightenment (Ken Kalfus)
Strong Motion (Jonathan Franzen)
All That Outer Space Allows (Ian Sales)
Highrise (J.G. Ballard)
Three Men in a Boat * (Jerome K. Jerome)

Non-Fiction

The Price of Inequality (Joseph Stiglitz)
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Ilan Pappé)
Theodore Rex (Edmund Morris)
Colonel Roosevelt (Edmund Morris)
The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible (Charles Eisenstein)
Werner Herzog: Conversations (with Paul Cronin)
Orson Welles’ Last Movie: The Making of “The Other Side of the Wind” (Josh Karp)
Arms: The Culture and Credo of the Gun (A.J. Somerset)
My Father and Myself (J.R. Ackerley)
When in Disgrace (Budd Boetticher)

BEST FILMS:

“Hard to Be a God” (Directed by Aleksei German)
“Amores Perros” * (Dir. Alejandro Inarritu)
“Leviathan” (Dir. Andrey Zuyagintsev)
“Sightseers” (Dir. Ben Wheatley)
“Valerie and Her Week of Wonders” (Dir. Jaromil Jires)
“Blue Ruin” (Dir. Jeremy Saulnier)
“Winter Sleep” (Dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
“Gomorrah” (Dir. Matteo Garrone)
“Amarcord” (Dir. Federico Fellini)
“Boyhood” (Dir. Richard Linklater)
“L’il QuinQuin” (Dir. Bruno Dumont)
“Time Crimes” (Dir. Nacho Vigalondo)
“The Devil’s Backbone” (Dir. Guillermo del Toro)
“The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser” (Dir. Werner Herzog)
“What We Do in the Shadows” (Dir. Taika Waititi; Jermaine Clement)
“Berberian Sound Studio” * (Dir. Peter Strickland)
“2001: A Space Odyssey” * (Dir. Stanley Kubrick)
“Chinatown” * (Dir. Roman Polanski)

Honorable Mention:

“Closely Watched Trains” (Dir. Jiri Menzel)
“Jodorowsky’s ‘Dune'” (Dir. Frank Pavich)
“Wild Tales” (Dir. Damian Szifron)
“Satyricon” (Dir. Federico Fellini)
“Ex Machina” (Dir. Alex Garland)
“Land of Silence and Darkness” (Dir. Werner Herzog)
“Stroszek” (Dir. Werner Herzog)
“Nightcrawler” (Dir. Dan Gilroy)
“Her” (Dir. Spike Jonze)
“Maps to the Stars” (Dir. David Cronenberg)

PLAYLIST (Musical Favourites)

Tom Morello “The Nightwatchman” (World Wide Protest Songs)
Ty Segall “Manipulator”
Porcupine Tree “Up the Down Staircase”
Pere Ubu “Raygun Suitcase”
The Stooges “Raw Power”
Paul Banks “The Base”
Merle Haggard “I Am What I Am”
J.D. Crowe and the New South “Lefty’s Old Guitar”

Best Comedy: Bill Hicks “Salvation: Live at Oxford”

TV

“Rick & Morty” (Seasons 1 & 2)
“True Detective” (Series 1)
“The Mighty Boosh” (Series 1-3)

• Denotes “Previously Read” or “Previously Viewed”