millionreasons | Coffee and TV (and books)

Best Book of 2018:

Netherland - Joseph O'Neill

Weirdest Book:
Book of Clouds – Chloe Aridjis

Best non-fic:
The Rings of Saturn – WG Sebald

Best mystery:
Complicity - Ian Banks

Most disturbing:
Sharp Objects – Gillian Flynn

Best TV

Killing Eve - Everything I wanted it to be: funny, violent, sad, a bit weirdly sexy.

Sharp Objects – not quite as disturbing as the book. Patricia Clarkson and Amy Adams duke (duchess?) it out in small town Missouri. Exemplary.

The Little Drummer Girl - what I loved about this was that the Palestinians and the Israelis cared very much about complex geo-political issues and beating the enemy, whereas Charlie, the mole, the fifth columnist cared mostly about shagging Alexander Sarsgaard and you cannot blame her for that.

The Hallowe'en ep of Inside No.9 - one day those gentlemen are going to trip over their own cleverness. Best ep since the frankly repugnant-in-a-good-way Xmas ep of two years ago.

Dr Who - it's ladies' night! I think the writers need to invent some iconic villains and chuck in a few more jokes, but I liked the episodes the Daily Mail et al would call PC. Not so much Rosa; it's kind of insulting to imply that the many other people working in the civil rights movement were pointless sans Mrs Parkes, more Demons of the Punjab, which was shown on Remembrance Sunday, reminding us that there are other tragedies in history to commemorate.

The Bisexual - life and love in East London. My fave episode was the penultimate one as we saw Leila as a nerdy, lonely Camden market-visiting newby in town, rather than the somewhat whiny person she became ten years on. But who wouldn't want to marry Maxine Peake!?

Maniac - I hated the first, world-building ep of this but the dream sequence episodes - screwball comedy, domestic heist, sci-fi political drama, LOTR rip-off were all hilarious. Emma Stone is astonishing in everything she does.

Atlanta - I'm fairly convinced that the best joke in Atlanta is that Earn is too passive and introverted to be a manager and Alfred is too grumpy and limelight-avoiding to be a performer. It's not like anything else on TV.