Once again, it’s time for my year-end(ish) picks. You’re probably saying, “It’s a new year already.” I say, “Meh” (which is in the dictionary now, by the way). As per the previous lists, this is a list of arts and entertainment I encountered for the first time in 2008, not necessarily stuff that was released in 2008. It is more autobiographical. You’ll notice a lot of 2007 films on the list since I got to watching most of them after 2007 was over. 2007 was arguably the strongest year for movies in a long time—perhaps since 1999? Well, here are my picks, in no particular order. And oh yeah, happy New Year.

Moving Picture Shows, Films, Cinema

      There Will Be Blood (d. Anderson, 2007) (Read my review here)

      Lars and the Real Girl (d. Gillespie, 2007)

      Into the Wild (d. Penn, 2007)

      Juno (d. Reitman, 2007) (Read my review here)

      Once (d. Carney, 2007) (Read my review here)

      Badlands (d. Malick, 1973) (Read my review here)

      Days of Heaven (d. Malick, 1978)

      Atonement (d. Wright, 2007) (Read my review here)

      The Bridge on the River Kwai (d. Lean, 1957)

      High Noon (d. Zinnemann, 1952)

      My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown (d. Sheridan, 1989)

      A Mighty Heart (d. Winterbottom, 2007)

      For All Mankind (d. Reinert, 1989) (Read my review here)

      WALL·E (d. Stanton, 2008) (Read my review here)

      The Dark Knight (d. Nolan, 2008) (Read my review here)

      Slumdog Millionaire (d. Boyle, 2008)

      Young at Heat (d. Walker, 2008)

      Joyeux Noël (d. Carion, 2005)

Music, Albums, LPs

      Arcade Fire, Neon Bible (2007)

      Glen Hansard, Marketa Irglova, and others, Once: Original Soundtrack (2007)

      Eddie Vedder, Music for the Motion Picture Into the Wild (2007)

Fiction, Novels, Literature

      Cormac McCarthy, The Road (2006) (Read my review here)

      J. R. R. Tolkien, The Children of Húrin, ed. Christopher Tolkien (2007) (Read my review here)

      Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955) (Read my review here)

      McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses (1992) (Read my review here)

      McCarthy, No Country for Old Men (2005)

      Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953) (Read my review here)

Non-Fiction, Essays, Biographies

      Jeffrey Stout, Democracy and Tradition (2004) (Read my review here)

      Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (1948, 1995)

      Sarah Vowell, Assassination Vacation (2005)

      Jean Edward Smith, FDR (2007)

      Phyllis Tickle, The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (2000)

Comix, Graphic Novels, Sequential Art

      Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis 1 & 2 (2003, 2004) (Read my review here)

      Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, Batman: The Long Halloween (1996-1997)

      Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli, Batman: Year One (1987)

Television, Boob Tube, TV

      Fontline: The Undertaking (2007)

      Lost: Season 3

      Heroes: Season 1

      John Adams (Read my review here)

Best of all Media for 2008ish:

      Cormac McCarthy, The Road

A few years ago Carey and I started making it a point to read Pulitzer Prize winners. After seeing the Coen brothers’ brilliant adaptation of McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, I decided to pick up his 2006 Pulitzer-winning novel The Road. This story has entered my bones. Reading the story of a man and his son fight for life in the face of death’s terrible reality resonated in me as the loss of my father was so fresh. As you can see in my list of favorite novels I read in 2008, The Road set me off on a journey to read a lot of McCarthy this year. I plan to read his whole catalogue now. His sparse and yet lyrical prose is some of the most beautiful I’ve ever read. He is a different writer to be sure, but the author who comes most immediately to mind in terms of control of the written word and unforgettable stories is Toni Morrison. McCarthy and Morrison write so vividly and pitch-perfectly, that their words demand to be read aloud.

The Road is by no means an easy book to read given it presents a post-apocalyptic world so horrible that it feels real. I love post-apocalyptic stories, but this is the first one that actually seems like it could happen. The main characters, a man and his son, walk along a road in something like a nuclear winter. The vegetation is gone and few if any animals are still alive. They search for food and clothing and hide from gangs of roaming cannibals. The man and boy work to protect each other and to keep their love alive. They are, “each the other’s world entire.” The novel’s violence feels real and immediate. The horrors the man and boy encounter tear at the reader for I too wanted to protect the boy from seeing such awful things. It is one of the most powerful depictions of the relationship between father and son that I’ve read in a long time.

I finished The Road on a puddle-jumper flight next to a large man whose body regularly invaded my air space. In the midst of these cramped quarters, I wept at the book’s hauntingly graceful ending. Immediately, I wanted to discuss this book with friends, but I was the first person I knew who had read it. Thus I recommended it to just about anyone who would listen. Now friends and family have read it and have also seen its power, beauty, and terror. I love our conversations about the story and characters. I dream of having a book club discussion of the book. I would love for my friends to write essays about this book. And yet, the most poignant aspect of my encounter with The Road is that I think my dad would have really liked this book had he read it. Here is something that I would have loved to share with him as we shared The Lord of the Rings, John Adams, or Steinbeck and Hemingway, but we will not have that opportunity.