OR Melling -- Best Literature Picks of 2007

2007 was an annus horribilis for me but, Deo gratias, 2008 has turned out to be an annus mirabilis. Enough with the Latin, there were, nonetheless, some bright spots last year to ease the murk. In 2007, I finally found a Neil Gaiman book I could read. I know, blasphemy, but edginess is not my thing. Indeed I loved Stardust. I liked Kate Thompson's The Last of the High Kings, but not as much as The New Policeman, of which it is the sequel and which I loved. Laughed all the way through Susan Juby's Alice series which details the hilarious misadventures of a teenager brought up by alternative parents. (THIS IS MY LIFE, my daughter kept shouting, when she read it.).

Did I discover Haruki Murakami last year? Yes, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. He is a genius. Japanese magical realism: it doesn't get any weirder. As one critic says, he takes a baseball bat to the inside of your brain. I'm well into his list now, even the one non-fiction about the Tokyo subway gas attack, and as long as he writes, I'll be reading him. For television - not that I watch it much (honestly, I only get the four Irish channels with a bad indoor antenna) - there was nothing better in 2007 than The Tudors. And it's not just that they filmed it here in my own hometown - go Ardmore Studios, Bray, Co. Wicklow! - or that I know the Queen of England, the brilliant Maria Doyle Kennedy (oops, dropped a name), it's just that all those Irish actors and the Irish production itself out-BBC'd the BBC for stunning historical drama. It's got everything: top class acting, fabulous costumes, steamy sex, serious eye candy, philosophy, religion, Elizabethan music and culture ... and more.

2007 saw two big musical discoveries for me, thanks to John Kelly's JK Ensemble programme on RTE Lyric Fm radio: fairy girl Joanna Newsom and Greek songbird Savina Yanntou. I recommend anything by the former and of the latter, in particular, her Terra Nostra CD, recorded live in Athens, with Primavera en Salonico, and featuring the folk songs of many countries, including A Fairy's Love Song from the Outer Hebrides. Biggest disappointment of the year? The film of The Golden Compass: a sow's ear from a silk purse!