Books to look out for in 2021
Irish fiction
New work that has been a long time coming generates a particular shiver of anticipation.
Small Things Like These (Faber, October) will be Claire Keegan’s first new work since her novella Foster, still a bestseller 10 years on. Her publisher says: “An exquisite wintery parable, Claire Keegan’s long-awaited return tells the story of a simple act of courage and tenderness, in the face of conformity, fear and judgment.” Small Things Like These (Faber, October) will be Claire Keegan’s first new work since her novella Foster, still a bestseller 10 years on. Photograph: Alan Betson
Who are we? What interests us, in this age of plague? To understand the world today, let s look at the non-fiction books coming in 2021. A pattern of transformation runs through next year s non-fiction releases: the pandemic has changed the human race. We have new priorities and a different perspective. Where do we go from here?
Feminist titles focus on the power of female independent living; and writers on race look at harnessing the energy of the Black Lives Matter movement to turn protest into progress. Working-class voices rise.
Parenting gets a reality check, with new releases providing the unvarnished truth, and mental health books have a no-nonsense edge in challenging times. Other themes in 2021 are the internet, medicine, women s histories, nature, Northern Ireland, and the fight for Irish independence.
From pure joy to hilarious dysfunction, 7 holiday movies to fa-la-la-la-love Forget the figgy pudding; these holiday movies will remind you what a big get-together is like. December 22, 2020 12:29pm Text size Copy shortlink:
I don t want to start a fight, but I m not crazy about A Christmas Story.
I love Melinda Dillon as the mother of the main character, and I m aware people re-watch it every year, but there s a big difference between a movie that s fine once and one that becomes a tradition.
It probably comes down to personal preference. Some viewers like the Home Alone movies; I can t stand them. A reader wrote to say the Humphrey Bogart We re No Angels is a holiday tradition, and I like it but don t need to see it again. Same with National Lampoon s Christmas Vacation.
Christmas music is a nostalgia trip.
Generally speaking, pop music prizes novelty fresh songs, surprising sounds, this week’s hit, the Next Big Thing. But once a year, a soundtrack that reaches back decades and centuries chimes into earshot once more. Of course, nostalgia is built into the holiday season, when our secular religion of capitalist consumption gets stirred together with Christian traditions, ancient pagan rites and a vague longing for the old-fashioned comforts of home, hearth and the pastoral yesteryear. In December, we long to hear songs, as Irving Berlin once put it, “just like the ones I used to know.”
Beyonce. Photograph AP IN her 2015 book Naked at the Albert Hall, Tracey Thorn, owner of one of the great English pop voices, was at pains to point out that “there’s more thinking in singing than you might think.” The line came to mind while listening to Extraordinary Voices with Nora Fischer on Radio 3 last Saturday. The first of three programmes (the second airs tomorrow night at 11pm), Fischer was exploring the idea of vocal blend and decoration. A fine excuse to hear voice after glorious voice in an hour that took in everything from Bulgarian female choirs to Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston, and travelled from Monteverdi’s Vespers to the Flintstones theme tune as sung by Jacob Collier multi-tracking his voice (clever, though not necessarily enjoyable; but then I was always more of a Top Cat fan)