Happy 2014! Doesn’t that sound like a line out of a science fiction novel? We had a stay-at-home New Years Eve. Fondue and other finger foods, beaucoup du vin, a jigsaw puzzle/mystery game, and a marathon viewing of the final season (5 episodes) of Treme.
Treme : New Orleans :: The Wire : Baltimore. I didn’t watch The Wire when it first aired, so I can’t say how the popularity (or lack thereof) of Treme compared to the earlier Simon series. They are both slow burns, both show the seedier sides of their respective cities, but lovingly. Treme started nearly four years ago, focusing on the post-Katrina city and its slow, arduous recovery. The final season started with Obama’s first election victory. As finales go, this one was mild. It wasn’t the “back to ground zero” resolution of The Wire. Life goes on. Some characters (Antoine Batiste) grew a lot over the course of the series, whereas others like Toni Bernette were still fighting the good fight and essentially unchanged. There were heroes (David Morse’s Colson, who bucked the corrupt system, sacrificed his career, but refused to be part of the society of corruption in the NOPD) and other winners (Janette literally won back her name). Sonny was in a much better place than when we first met him playing on the streets with Annie, and Annie was trying to find her own way in the music world without sacrificing her soul. The most interesting character for me was Davis McAlary, the drug-smoking part-time DJ, part-time musician, raging voice of New Orleans. The way the city and its residents handled the pothole that damaged his car represented New Orleans as much as anything else in the show. This isn’t the New Orleans the tourists see, as a rule. But the music, oh the music, from jazz to zydeco to country to things that you can’t even begin to describe. What fun. I hope the series finds a second life in binge viewing and DVD. It’s definitely worth 35 hours of your time.
I watched the Winter Classic yesterday afternoon. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a hockey game, but this one was fun. It was played at an outdoor arena constructed inside a hockey stadium in Ann Arbor, and featured long-time across-the-border rivals Toronto and Detroit. It snowed hard during the game, which must have been a challenge, and it looked really cold, but everyone had a great time. It’s almost an exhibition game, in that people who don’t normally watch hockey might tune in. The game delivered. It had it all. A tie, a full overtime period and a shoot-out, with Toronto winning on the final shot.
Saw an advertisement during the game for a new HBO series called True Detectives. Looks interesting.
I finished the four seasons of The Last Detective, starring Peter Davison. A charming British copper show. It was good to see things going his way a little more in the final season. Reunited with his wife. Still slogging along and solving crimes. Roger Daltrey was a guest star in one episode and Toby Jones from The Mist in another. The series didn’t really get a proper conclusion, per se, but it ended on a fun note. Comedian Sean Hughes is hilarious in the series.
I read approximately 70 books in 2013. The first two in the list below I started at the end of 2012 but didn’t finish until early last year, and the Morrell book I haven’t yet finished. Hyperlinked titles are the ones I reviewed at Onyx Reviews.
- NOS4A2 by Joe Hill
- A Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
- The Importance of Being Seven by Alexander McCall Smith
- The Redeemer by Jo Nesbø
- Standing In Another Man’s Grave by Ian Rankin
- Kinsmen by Bill Pronzini
- The Dinner by Herman Koch
- Femme by Bill Pronzini
- Little Green by Walter Mosley
- The Burn Palace by Stephen Dobyns
- Joyland by Stephen King
- The Last Whisper in the Dark by Tom Piccirilli
- Treachery in Bordeaux by Jean-Pierre Alaux and Noël Balen
- Save Yourself by Kelly Braffet
- The Girl on the Glider by Brian Keene
- A Conspiracy of Friends by Alexander McCall Smith
- Naoko by Keigo Higashino
- Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures by Emma Straub
- The Bat by Jo Nesbø
- Waiting to be Heard by Amanda Knox
- Hard Listening by members of the Rock Bottom Remainders
- Inferno by Dan Brown
- Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen
- Redbreast by Jo Nesbø
- The Horror…The Horror: An Autobiography by Rick Hautala
- If You Were Here by Alafair Burke
- Doctor Sleep by Stephen King
- Green Shadows, White Whale by Ray Bradbury
- Light of the World by James Lee Burke
- Cabal by Clive Barker
- Arbeitskraft by Nick Mamatas
- The Year of the Ladybird by Graham Joyce
- Death is a Lonely Business by Ray Bradbury
- Stranger Than Fiction: The Life and Times of Split Enz by Mike Chunn
- Let Me Go by Chelsea Cain
- Nemesis by Jo Nesbø
- The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling)
- Stephen King: Man and Artist by Carroll Terrell
- Hit Me by Lawrence Block
- The Truth by Michael Palin
- Tatiana by Martin Cruz Smith
- Dexter’s Final Cut by Jeff Lindsay
- Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives edited by Sarah Weinman
- The Abominable by Dan Simmons
- Never Look Away by Linwood Barclay
- The Last Storyteller by Frank Delaney
- The Double by George Pelecanos
- The Hunter and Other Stories by Dashiell Hammett
- The Last Dark by Stephen R. Donaldson
- Police by Jo Nesbø
- The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
- Darker than Amber by John D. MacDonald
- The Prophet by Michael Koryta
- Sycamore Row by John Grisham
- When the Women Come Out to Dance by Elmore Leonard
- Snowblind by Christopher Golden
- Luther: The Calling by Neil Cross
- The Last Kind Words Saloon by Larry McMurtry
- The Explanation for Everything by Lauren Grodstein
- The Gods of Guilt by Michael Connelly
- From Hell by Alan Moore
- The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon by Alexander McCall Smith
- Saints of the Shadow Bible by Ian Rankin
- Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly by Agatha Christie
- Cockroaches by Jo Nesbø
- Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
- The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons by Lawrence Block
- Spirit of Steamboat by Craig Johnson
- Murder as a Fine Art by David Morrell
