These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things (of 2023)
Music, Books & Movies
Here we are with an end of the year list of things I really like, because if I love to do anything in life, it’s push my taste onto others. This year was great for music, a lot of new favourite records came out which was so so refreshing (you can check out my Favourite Albums of 2023 So Far… from October). The list has changed a bit, some stuff moved from top picks to just not quite there for me to be an overall favourite. It was funny seeing my Spotify wrapped for the year because I stopped using it in July, so it took nothing from the past 5 months into account, it already looks like a time capsule. Lots of Yves Tumor and Paramore but zero Model/Actriz. It’s a weird thing every year I get annoyed by because a lot of the time I listen to my records or things downloaded from somewhere else, so it feels like a complete misrepresentation of what I like. Which is also why I don’t like anything recommending me things via algorithm because a lot of the time it’s wrong. It' always feels presumptuous. (Also did you know when you cancel Spotify, you don’t get the rest of the month you paid for, it cuts off immediately and you don’t get your money back. A waste of a company).
I didn’t read too many new books this year, the list, as well as for film, will be based just on what I read/watched for the first time, rather than it coming out this year because I did not like enough stuff from this year to really warrant it’s own thing. In fact, I think almost every book I’ve read published this year I really disliked? But don’t lose hope, there are some that I really did love. I watched 125 films and read 37 books (and that’s excluding December), which looking at those numbers, I feel like a madman, that’s too bloody many. It doesn’t feel like I read that much this year, especially the latter half, but at least I found some new favourites. Also quick note about TV, I don’t watch much of it, but I did enjoy The Last of Us, What We Do In The Shadows and I finally started Fargo, so TV-wise those are a good shout. The Bear season 2 was also good, but not as good as season one. Maybe at some point I’ll properly write about my feelings towards television, but until then that’s what I watched this year and I’d say they’re pretty good.
I thought about making a whole list of worst things I watched/read this year, but that felt too mean spirited. I’d say my biggest disappointment was the film Sanctuary from this year, just because there were parts I really loved, but there were some choices made I couldn’t get behind. Evil Dead Rise was expectantly mediocre. Was sad to not love it, ya know? Literature wise, Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh just annoyed me. Not as much as Matrix by Lauren Groff though, I’ve tried particularly hard to block that one from my memory. Go find my reviews of ‘em somewhere, they both irritated me in similar ways. ANYWAYS.
Without further ado, my favourites of 2023:
As expected, this is my favourite album of 2023! It’s fantastic. It’s like nothing I’ve ever heard yet I can trace all its parts. Raunchy but never vulgar. Desperate but never pleading. It’s an adrenaline rush in silence. Ever looming gloom but you’re gonna fight the sky. Sad, pissed off and horny. Perfect.
This album came out in March and has stuck around for the whole year, my favourites changing often, the whole album has a great flow to it. If I get tired of one song I find another one to fall in love with. I have not got sick of it once. Really a fantastic job, a proper full album (all the albums on here are, but still want to point it out). No skips!
The Greater Wings by Julie Byrne
Ugh. Julie. Julie, what have you done to me? A delicate balance between folk and alternative, never being too much of either, floating in its own space. You are invited in and then the album ends and you’re thrown back into the harsh world! Julie! Let me stay! (I click the loop button and never have to go).
Heaven is a Junkyard by Youth Lagoon
For some reason, this album makes me think of the banal joy of grocery shopping. Like, when you go grocery shopping with someone you really like, everything becomes funny, everything is interesting, you can sometimes get lost in your thoughts, spaced out looking at a label, then brought back to reality by a random comment. Florescent lighting, nighttime, everything is amplified but also somehow quieter. The vinyl remains on heavy rotation.
Desire, I Want To Turn Into You by Caroline Polachek
Caroline in her Dido era and it works (the album also features Dido). It didn’t even make it onto my special mentions in my Favourites of 2023 So Far because I kept forgetting it’s from this year. It feels so timeless. Similar to Julie Bryne, I was aware of Polachek’s music but was never a big fan besides the absolute choon of a song So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings. This album has changed that. Another zero skips album, it feels wrong to skip a song, as if I’m disrupting the flow. It’s real good pop music, going up along with Carly Rae Jepson’s Emotion as one of my favourite pop albums.
Special mentions:
Praise a Lord Who Chews But Does Not Swallow (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) by Yves Tumor
The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We by Mitski
Improvisions by Nookie
Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh (pub. 2022, Penguin Press)
I’m dying on this hill alone that this book is great and also not that weird. Maybe I’m indifferent to a lot of stuff, maybe the tiktok book people just don’t read enough interesting/weird books. I have been shown so, so many lists of “WTF did I just read” and this popped up a lot and I think y’all need to read more historical fiction this book is a comedy. It’s a dark comedy that is also horrible but it’s supposed to be horrible! I rarely like something where everyone is horrible but this book got me. No one agrees with me. Ah well. It’s folktale directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. It’s not “weird girl” literature. Stop it. (And for those of you not keeping up with book discourse against your will, this book is really good, well written and paced, and I think it’s darkness is necessary for the story it’s trying to tell, not to shock you. This book is more than a pretty cover, it has some really interesting ideas that I think are worth discussing. It is a book unconcerned with trends and is very refined to the authors taste. It’s a singular vision!).
Love, Leda by Mark Hyatt (pub. 2023, Pennisula Press)
This was published in 2023 despite being written in the 1960s. So, basically this means I didn’t love any books from this year, ah well. This book was great! It was one of the first I read this year and I have thought about it constantly ever since. Leda is a laugh, a mess, a lovable slouch. It kind of feels like an English version of a French New Wave film? Plotless but never boring. Hyatt writes Leda in a way where I already felt like I knew him within the first couple pages, the charm of an old college friend you can’t quite give up on, someone you totally understand despite never agreeing with. A stray dog with fleas and the biggest puppy eyes you’ve ever seen. I read it in a day because I enjoyed it so much.
Which As You Know Means Violence by Philippa Snow (pub. 2022, Repeater)
Every since I read Maggie Nelson’s Art of Cruelty, I have adored anything that discusses the ethics of performance art. Audience vs artist, what is performance art even? Also a great discussion on taste, what constitutes art and what is just trash TV (depends on who you ask). Really fun read and have gone into a deep dive of several artists discussed in the book. Recommend to anyone who’s interested in art, performance and sadomasochism .
A Shock by Keith Ridgway (pub. 2021, New Directions)
Not gonna lie, I went through my old work’s instagram recommendations because I needed something good to read and my old co-workers have good taste. I loved this book! I think it is the perfect London living book. And the reason it works is because it is not obsessed about being set in London. I think a lot of authors get carried away with the city and write as if you know where/what they’re talking about. It’s an issue I have with a lot of New York writers too. Ridgway does zero name dropping. The Arms could be anywhere (there is a secondary joy of knowing it’s The Joiners Arms but it is not necessary to understand the atmosphere, I could be wrong about it being the Joiners and it wouldn’t matter). It’s a book about the stresses of contemporary life from various perspectives, the death of the old city and adapting to the new, how everyone is linked together even in the most random, inconsequential ways. It’s about sharing space with millions of people and stories we get from that (as sentimental as that statement sounds, the book is not so concerned with sentiment).
Special mentions:
The Topeka School by Ben Learner
Self Portrait in Green by Marie Ndiaye (translation by Jordan Stump)
Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au
Past Lives (2023), directed by Celine Song- “Nora and Hae Sung, two deeply connected childhood friends, are wrest apart after Nora's family emigrates from South Korea. Decades later, they are reunited for one fateful week as they confront destiny, love and the choices that make a life.”
A film like coming into a warm house on a cold day. The characters, the writing, the cinematography, the direction, this is the whole deal and it crushes you with a pragmatic love story. Uhg. I love this movie a lot. For some reason I imagine it would be a good new years movie? I suppose it’s reflective nature compliments the time. Not a film about regret, more so curiosity. A lament for who we might have been.
Passages (2023), directed by Ira Sachs- “A gay couple's marriage is thrown into crisis when one of them impulsively begins a passionate affair with a young woman.”
Like Past Lives, another favourite from this year is a simple story about love. Characters behave selfishly, thoughtless, impulsive, and you see the love, the passion, the understanding. Where does loving someone, flaws and all, begin and end? Heartbreaking but in a good way. A really solid film. Ben Whishaw is particularly fantastic.
Showing Up (2023), directed by Kelly Reichardt- “A sculptor preparing to open a new show tries to work amidst the daily dramas of family and friends.”
My issue with most films about the art world is it assumes it’s all cocktail parties and very snooty rich people and over the top explanations of the meaning of art. They’re usually not interested in how mortifying being an artist can be, the embarrassment of near begging people to show up, the panic, the unspoken competitiveness. The art world can be very interesting, a comedy of manners is an easy genre you could delve into. This film is clearly made by someone who is aware of contemporary art (another thing I hate about art movies is the art being criticised hasn’t been relevant since the 60s a lot of the time). Someone who loves art but is also critical of it and that’s what makes the critique that much more impactful. This is a movie that understands the most important thing in the art world and being an artist is….showing up.
Drive My Car (2021), directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi- “An ageing, widowed actor takes a directing job in Hiroshima where he's required to get a chauffeur for insurance reasons. He hires a 20-year-old girl and, despite their initial misgivings, a very special relationship develops between the two.”
My first substack was about this movie (link). I’d been recommended it when it came out in the UK but the running time put me off but luckily I got over that. I really love the atmosphere of this film. It’s a literal character driven film (please clap). Being driven from place to place, not 100% there, lost in thought. I kept thinking about it when reading Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto, both stories about grief and love. A yearly winter rewatch will be required.
The Worst Person in the World (2021), directed by Joachim Trier- “A young woman battles indecisiveness as she traverses the troubled waters of her love life and struggles to find her career path.”
I think in my original review of this film I said it changed my brain chemistry. I still remember the day I watched it well. It ended around 4pm, the sun glowed through the window, just before a therapy session. That day I said it inspired me to be out in the world again and hey, past Enya, you’re doing that now! So this is a very special film to me. Can’t recommend it enough.
Tampopo (1985), directed by Juzo Itami- “After a milk truck driver tells the owner of a noodle shop the ugly truth about her cooking, they depart in search of the perfect noodle recipe.”
Oh, this film is so fun. It’s the joys and failures of cooking along with some bizarre vignettes that add to what a god damn delight this film is. It’s the happiest film on this list. It’s a comedy but not obnoxious. It’s beautiful to look at. It’ll make you hungry.
And of course, the happiest film on my list has a real life animal death in it. A turtle is killed for soup. Do with that information what you will. (My sister said “that’s so you” to have my happiest recommendation contain animal death).
Cold War (2018), directed by Paweł Pawlikowski- “Set against the backdrop of the 1950s Cold War in Poland, two people of differing backgrounds and temperaments begin an almost impossible romance.”
I want to buy a projector 100% to watch this movie. I want the full cinematic experience. Romance is hard to write well, especially a trepidatious one. How can one portray yearning when together? It’s like the two main characters want to envelop the other and at the same time be mountains away. Cannot live with or without. This film manages it all, and the actors have chemistry! Well written and chemistry? Spoiled we are by this film. It will probably become one of those films I watch every year and each time get something new out of it.
Special mentions:
Petite Maman (2021), directed by Céline Sciamma
Censor (2021), directed by Prano Bailey-Bond
An Cailín Ciúin (The Quiet Girl) (2022), directed by Colm Bairéad
I’m thinking about what I’d like to seek out next year. I’d like to watch more African and South American cinema, I watched very little if none this year. Same goes for books. It’s a blind spot that should be taken care of. I will probably continue reading half of a classic novel then forget to finish it, as is my want. But more actively looking for good stuff, rather than waiting for word of mouth to reach me. There’s a film festival every year near my new place, so will have to see when it’s on. More independent stuff, along with whatever big horror hits come out next year. A couple big movies I’m looking forward to are MaXXXine and Furiosa. Book-wise, I’m out of the loop, same with music, but hopefully my local can provide.
Thank you for reading and thank you again for everyone reading and supporting the substack this year. I didn’t expect so many people to connect with it and enjoy my writing and recommendations. I wanted to push myself to get my stuff out there and the amount of friends, family and strangers showing up every week to read is amazing. It really means the world to me.
Thank you all again and have a wonderful holiday season and New Year!
-Enya xx
Noice one. Awroight