Top Ripples 2018

Here’s the other one of my perennial posts, a wrap for the year. Books I’ve read and film experience that top the year for me. Here are the lists, in no particular order:

MOVIES

I’m appreciating foreign language films more and more, for they offer some of the best examples of what cinematic arts can offer, not CGI sparked spectacles. In my Top 10 list, the first four are from non-English speaking countries. They are also short-listed for the coming Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film category. Links are to my reviews.

Roma

Shoplifters

Capernaum

Burning

A Star Is Born

Wildlife

The Favourite

Free Solo

Shirkers

The Kominsky Method

I must mention two films that I’d highly anticipated but somehow didn’t connect as I’d wanted to. Maybe if I’ve the chance to watch them again I might change my mind: Cold War and First Reform.

Two movies from 2017 which I hadn’t watched until January this year that should be mentioned here:

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

The Shape of Water

 

BOOKS

These are not necessarily published in 2018, but the best books that I’ve read this year. I’m not a ‘quantity reader’, nevertheless, a look back at my Goodreads record, I can’t believe I ate all these (links are to my reviews):

The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust (after 3 years, finally finished)

Middlemarch by George Eliot

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham

Not Quite, Note White: Losing and Finding Race in America by Sharmila Sen

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance

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Selective Top Ripples from past years are listed on the side bar. Click on the pictures to my reviews.

Again, thanks for visiting the Pond and throwing in your two pebbles. I’ve enjoyed every single ripple. Hope you’d found a quiet respite here for thoughts and renewal.

And to all, may 2019 bring you more great books and movies to cherish.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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Update: This post should be written on the last day of the year. Since I’d posted it, I saw another film today which I feel should be included here on the Top Ripples 2018 list, and that’s The Favourite (Just opens today in our City). I’m taking The Rider out to keep the list of 10. The Rider I found I’d already included it in my Top Ripples list last year.

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Arti

If she’s not birding by the Pond, Arti’s likely watching a movie, reading, or writing a review. Creator of Ripple Effects, bylines in Asian American Press, Vague Visages, Curator Magazine.

7 thoughts on “Top Ripples 2018”

  1. You finished Guermantes Way? Woo hoo! Well done! So tell me, does it eventually get more interesting? It must because if it is a slog the whole way it would not have ended up on your list. Oh David Copperfield! Love that book! I am really looking forward to seeing A Star is Born.

    A good year for you! I hope 2019 brings you lots of good books and movies!

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    1. Stefanie,

      I finished GW in Jan. this year, by now, don’t remember that much. But you know, with Proust, my memory’s not as clear as his, but the general mood/feeling stay. Read David Copperfield to prep for the upcoming movie adaptation. Yes, that’s probably one of my all time favourite books. As for the movie, Tilda Swinton, Ben Whishaw, Hugh Laurie are in. Who plays DC? Dev Patel. Just too curious to find out what this post-modern version is like.

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  2. Wow — you had some heavy reading this year! I’m loving the Komisky Method and hope to see The Favourite and maybe A Star is Born over the weekend or early on in 2019. My best movie of the year was “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” and I hope it gets nominated for doc, along with the “RBG” film. (The doc; haven’t seen the new one). I’m intrigued by Capurnum and Shoplifters especially. Still have to read your Roma review.

    I loved Pachinko. Didn’t you review it? You should link your book reviews and discussions there too in your spare time, of course!

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  4. I couldn’t remember who introduced me to Pachinko! I have just finished reading it. Parts 1 and 2 blew me away, unfortunately it was difficult to maintain the momentum of such turbulent times in the last part, but I was left with an idea at last of why Japanese and Koreans have such a difficult relationship.

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