Year of consuming media

 This year I decided to list all of the new albums (or old albums that I no longer or had never possessed in physical form) I have downloaded, all of the films and TV series I have watched, and all of the books I have read.

I set myself some ambitious targets: 200 albums, 250 movies, 10 TV series and 60 books, divided 40 fiction to 20 non-fiction.

I also allowed myself a December 1st start, so I really had 13 months rather than 12 (part of the reason was that I still had a strange hankering to go to Las Vegas this December coming, although this of course depends on my health, my mum's health, and the State of the Union in 10 months' time).

 Anyway, I'm two months in, and I've been going OK. 17 albums,  28 movies, 16 books, of which seven were non-fiction. Mainly as a personal record, but also public, just in case anyone is interested, here it all is.

 The 'new' albums  were:

Skeleton Crew	Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds	2016
Random Access Memories	Daft Punk	2013
Album	Girls	2009
Heroes	David Bowie	1977
All The Young Dudes	Mott The Hoople	1972
New World Record	ELO	1976
Alone In The Universe	Jeff Lynne's ELO	2015
In The Now	Barry Gibb	2016
Mr Wonderful	Fleetwood Mac	1968
Fleetwood Mac	Fleetwood Mac	1968
Puberty 2	Mitski	2016
Bury Me At Makeout Creek	Mitski	2014
A Moon Shaped Pool	Radiohead	2016
My Woman	Angel Olsen	2016
Retired From Sad, New Career In Business	Mitski	2013
Lush	Mitski	2012
Lodger	David Bowie	1979
Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)	David Bowie	1980

 Of these, Mitski's third and fourth albums have probably got the most airplay (Jeff Lynne and ELO have run her close).

 The films I''ve seen are: 

Sully		2016
Hell or High Water		2016
Arrival	Denis Villeneuve	2016
Anthropoid	Sean Ellis	2016
Don't Think Twice	Mark Berbigilia	2016
Other People	Chris Kelly	2016
Arq	Tony Elliott	2016
Free State Of Jones	Gary Ross	2016
Nocturnal Animals	Tom Ford	2016
Denial	Mick Jackson	2016
La La Land	Damien Chazelle	2016
Resistance	Amil Gupta	2011
Safety Not Guaranteed	Colin Trevorrow	2009
Mustang	Turkey	2015
Anomalisa	Charlie Kaufman	2015
Embrace Of The Serpent		2015
Stray Cats		1971
Stalingrad	Joseph Vilsmaier	1992
V/H/S		2013
Lesson Of The Evil	Takashi Miike	2014
Surrogates	Jonathan Mostow	2009
Bad Lieutenant	Werner Hersog	2009
Macbeth	Justin Kurzel	2015
Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone	Chris Columbus	2000
Harry Potter & The Chamber Of Secrets	Chris Columbus	2001
Bad Timing	Nic Roeg	1980
Harry Potter & The Prisoner Of Azkaban	Adolfo Cuaren	2004
Warm Bodies	Jonathan Levine	2013

 

Nothing a 10 out of 10, although some of these films were very good indeed. Sticking in my head as "really would like to see again" are "Safety Not Guaranteed" and "Macbeth".  "Arq" is an interesting piece of low-budget science fiction. Might give that another go.

 Non-fiction was:

Title	Author	Year
The Pity Of War	Niall Ferguson	1998
Anti Fragile	Nassim Nicholas Taleb	2012
Black Box Thinking	Matthew Syed	2015
The White Nile	Alan Moorehead	1960
The Year Of Reading Dangerously	Andy Miller	2014
The Subterranean Railway	Christian Wolmar	2006
War Of The World	Niall Ferguson	2006

All of which were worth reading. Niall Ferguson is going up in my estimation. He can be deliberately contrary, but his research is sound and his writing is solid without being boring. "The Year Of Reading Dangerously" is the only "light" book, and was very enjoyable.

 Fiction was:

The Luminaries	Eleanor Cattom	2013
Deptford Trilogy Book 2	Robertson Davies	1975
Timbuktu	Paul Auster
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana	Umberto Eco
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets	JK Rowling	1998
Deptford Trilogy Book 3	Robertson Davies	1977
The Quarry	Iain Banks	2013
Harry Potter And ThePrisoner of Azkaban	JK Rowling	1999
A Possible Life	Sebastian Faulks	2013

 

And I'll probably finish Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire tonight.

Of these "The Luminaries" is easily the strongest. The Eco was the hardest work. The Deptford Trilogy I found less engaging than some people seem to. Harry Potters' "Azkaban" is very well written.

The TV series are:

Breaking Bad Season 3	12 episodes
Westworld Series 1	10 episodes
The OA	8 episodes
Sherlock 4	3 episodes
Victoria 1	8 episodes
Fleabag 1	6 episodes

 

Westworld and The OA stand out, with the former probably sneaking it. Sherlock 4 was rather disappointing. Fleabag had its moments, but was far less "revolutionary" than the critics claimed. 

 

I'll admit, it's only when you list the things that you've read/watched that you realize how much stuff you consume. Is it "wasted" time? I don't think so. Watching "Homes Under The Hammer" or "The Great British Bake Off" or "Rip Off Britain" or "Storage Hunters" is "wasted" time (albeit not unenjoyable).