BSAC Members Recommend 2018

Read, Watch and Play

Read:

The White Boy Shuffle, Paul Beatty

A dazzling satire of the African-American urban experience

The Guardian A blast of satirical heat from the talented heart of black American life... aimed almost as much at black self-delusion and revolutionary pretension as at the surrounding racism of white society... a rich, raucous, hilarious, overdone porridge full of the various ingredients of the daily absurdist American spectacle

New York Times

The Hearts Invisible Furies, John Boyne Boyne’s enraged vision is his great strength in The Heart’s Invisible Furies. The appalling comedy of Cyril’s childhood and youth, the vigour, the mess, the stir and life and horror of it all form the heart of a substantial achievement

The Guardian

John Boyne delivers an epic full of verve, humour and heart

The Irish Times

Red Notice, Bill Browder A gripping account of murder, high finance and the Russian president’s Achilles heel

The Guardian Red Notice is a sizzling account of Mr Browder’s rise, fall and metamorphosis from bombastic financier to renowned human-rights activist

The Economist

Milkman, Anna Burns The narrator of Milkman disrupts the status quo not through being political, heroic or violently opposed, but because she is original, funny, disarmingly oblique and unique: different. The same can be said of this book

The Guardian A darkly funny novel about Seventies Belfast that leaves words ominously unspoken

Daily Telegraph

Iron Kingdom, Christopher Clark A magisterial history of Europe's only extinct power, nuanced, dispassionate and utterly gripping

Financial Times A terrific book ... the definitive history of this much-maligned state

Daily Telegraph

The Clayton M Christensen Reader The world’s leading management guru

The Economist One of the most influential business theorists of the last fifty years

Forbes

Play It As It Lays, Joan Didion She writes with a razor … You are both frightened and astonished … It seems to me just about perfect, so heart-breaking and inescapable

New York Times

Didion’s modant lucidity is like L.A. sunlight, a thing so bright sometimes it hurts

Time

All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr An epic work about bravery and the power of attachment’ Rose Tremain

The Observer Doerr can bring a scene to life in a single paragraph … Delicate and moving … the novel takes hold and will not easily let go

The Times

Hello World, Hannah Fry Brilliantly clear...Fry succinctly outlines the ethical issues that beset AI

Sunday Times With refreshing simplicity, Fry explains what AI, machine learning and complicated algorithms really mean, providing some succinct explanations of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, driverless cars and many other unnerving modern phenomena…This book illustrates why good science writers are essential

The Guardian

Montpellier Parade, Karl Geary Geary’s evocation of the harshness of Dublin in the 80s is pitch-perfect – inadequate central heating, outdoor drinking, and the awful lack of opportunity

The Guardian Luminous…brilliantly paced, full of tension and tenderness

Irish Times

Meet Me In The Bathroom, Lizzy Goodman Beautifully paced, vivid, informative and compelling... a book primarily built on passion, love and homage - a drawled rock'n'roll sonnet to the music, the bands, the city, the scene, the triumphs, the screw-ups, and, of course, 'the moment

The Guardian Meet Me in the Bathroom is the juiciest book on rock'n'roll in years...a thrilling, hilarious, gossip-fuelled account

Pitchfork

Secrets of the Temple, William Greider Masterful...Monumental...A virtuoso investigative history

Washington Post A gripping portrait of American economic civilization...brilliant author...wonderful book...

The Wall Street Journal

21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Yuval Noah Harari Truly mind-expanding… Ultra-topical… Harari’s big selling point [is] the ambition and breadth of his work, smashing together unexpected ideas into dazzling observations

The Guardian The great thinker of our age

The Times

The Mercy Seat, Elizabeth Hartley Winthrop This is a worthy novel that gathers great power as it rolls on propelled by its many voices

New York Times

A kaleidoscopic narrative that captures the wildly different perspectives of characters beyond accuser and accused. Suspenseful and highly nuanced, it raises profound questions about truth and justice

The National Book Review

The Story of Brexit, Jason Hazeley & Joel Morris One of the best comedy books of 2018

The List Hilarious

Stylist

Stranger than We Can Imagine, John Higgs A brilliantly stimulating tale

Financial Times In Stranger Than We Can Imagine, [Higgs] broadens his intellectual reach to encompass modernism, situationism, chaos theory, indeterminacy and almost every other byway of that epoch. Higgs's plate-spinning act is a fine example of learning worn lightly.

New Scientist

Falcon of Sparta, Conn Iggulden Iggulden tells an absolutely cracking story. The pace is nail-biting and the set dressing magnificent

The Times Iggulden is in a class of his own when it comes to epic, historical fiction

Daily Mirror

AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order, Kai-Fu Lee

Both a provocative and readable distillation of the conventional wisdom on AI supremacy, as well as a challenge to it.

Financial Times

Lee says he's figured out the blueprint for humans to thrive in the coming decade of massive technological disruption: 'Let us choose to let machines be machines, and let humans be humans

Forbes

The Almanac A Seasonal Guide to 2019, Lia Leendertz This book is your bible

The Independent A charming book. This is a real gem of a gift

Sunday Express

Modern Monopolies, Alex Moazed & Nicholas Johnson A stimulating book. The authors are particularly interesting on how modern platform companies are able to outsource much of their innovation

Financial Times This book is satisfying and timely, a valuable contribution to our understanding of modern business

Booklist

Becoming, Michelle Obama An inspirational memoir that also rings true

Daily Telegraph Obama writes with a refreshing candour

The Atlantic

Freya, Anthony Quinn Besides being adept at marshalling period detail, Quinn is a fluent, engaging storyteller, whose suave prose masks an unusually shrewd sense of how relationships work

Financial Times

There aren’t many novelists with smoother, more elegant prose styles than Anthony Quinn. His sentences practically purr on the page… Immensely enjoyable… Effortlessly entertaining and gracefully thought-provoking

Independent

The Happiness Curve, Jonathan Rauch Rauch fills his book with reassuring research on why a midlife malaise is normal, as well as some sound lessons on how to cultivate happiness in general

Wall Street Journal

By supplanting dated clichés with compelling scholarship, Rauch offers a fresh and reassuring vision of aging that supersedes superficial fixations

Washington Post

The Golden House, Salman Rushdie Much of the success of The Golden House, in fact, lies in its humour and in the vigour of its storytelling. There is a glowing energy to the prose that makes this Rushdie’s most enjoyable, mischievous and American of novels

Financial Times

Intelligent and darkly funny...with a raw political edge.

The Times

East West Street, Philippe Sands A compelling family memoir intersects with the story of the Jewish legal minds who sowed the seeds for human rights law at the Nuremberg trials

The Guardian The author weaves together biography and family memoir to illuminate a crucial chapter in the development of international law

Financial Times

People Like Us, Caroline Slocock

A special and important book... Slocock has done her former boss and women in general a great service in painting such a vivid, sympathetic picture of what it means to be powerful and female

The Sunday Telegraph

Much more than meets the eye in this book really interesting on women and power in the present day as well as Thatcher and her time

Mishal Husain

Watch:

A Star is Born (Film)

The new A Star Is Born, directed by Bradley Cooper and starring himself and Lady Gaga, wrings tears from its romance and thrills from a steadfast belief in old-fashioned, big-feeling cinema

New York Times

A total emotional knockout, but it's also a movie that gets you to believe, at every step, in the complicated rapture of the story it's telling.

Variety

Atlanta (TV)

Donald Glover's show is the smartest – and funniest – on TV

The Guardian

Simply the best show on TV

Rolling Stone

Cold War (Film)

Pawlikowski is in complete control of the form, but this is no austere piece of work — he even finds time for a few good jokes. Accessible, humane and compassionate: what a treat this is

Empire

Ida director Paweł Pawlikowski’s exquisitely chilling Soviet-era drama maps the dark heart of Poland itself

The Guardian

Dogman (Film)

The Italian director nitpicks gangster insecurities with hilarious flair in this tale of a dog-groomer-cum-smalltime coke dealer

The Guardian

Matteo Garrone's modern day fable is one of the best Italian films of recent times

Independent

Frontier (TV) An action-packed, uncomplicated and very entertaining yarn

The Globe and Mail Frontier privileges complication and nuance over titillation and pulp — and capitalizes on what television specifically can do in terms of telling a multi-pronged, multi-location story.

Variety

Hamilton (Theatre) World-shattering

The Stage A delicious treat for heart and head

The Guardian

Isle of Dogs (Film) A winningly dippy hodgepooch of lo-fi sci-fi, band-of-outsiders adventure and the most meme-ready canine antics you'll find outside of YouTube.

Variety

Wes Anderson's animated Isle of Dogs, by turns droll and melancholic, is a movie that can be easier to admire than to flat-out love.

New York Times

Killing Eve (TV) The BBC’s breakout spy thriller, features women who are are deeply strange, forming a collective study in improbable contrasts.

The New Yorker Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s hilarious, bloody, unclassifiable BBC America show is the find of 2018 – and a career high for Sandra Oh

Rolling Stone

Marvelous Mrs Maisel (TV) This tale of a 50s New York Jewish housewife breaking out from her marriage is a twinkling star in Amazon’s pilot season

The Guardian This is a series that's as confident as its heroine—and what a heroine she is

The AV Club

Roma (Film) In the end it's not so much a drama as a meditation: a beautiful movie whose artistry might have soared more if it had less insistent gravity

Variety

Roma is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen, and one of the most moving

Wall Street Journal

Save Me (TV) This gripping Lennie James drama treads familiar ground but there are clever layers that give it its own identity. Plus: Benidorm limps towards the sun loungers

The Guardian The most impressive home-grown drama in a long time

Daily Telegraph

Sorry To Bother You (Film) No fence-sitting here, Sorry To Bother You wallops its targets. Drenched in self-awareness, it is fantastically refreshing, defiantly announcing Riley as a radical new voice

Empire

If you’re not bothered — also tickled, irked, mystified and provoked — by Sorry to Bother You, then you’ve fallen asleep on the job

New York Times

The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell (TV) This Netflix show is the perfect show for a creepy halloween binge

Washington Post Martha Stewart meets Tim Burton

The New Yorker

The Girl from the North Country (Theatre) Dylan's songs are Depression-era dynamite

The Guardian The music and especially the moody lyrics of Dylan songs take on fresh meaning in this revealing re-think Conor McPherson

Variety

The Greatest Showman (Film) The numbers in "The Greatest Showman" have a dance-pop fire that keeps you hooked

Variety It may not be quite the greatest show on Earth, but Gracey, Jackman and the entire cast are deeply committed to entertaining and leave you feeling an old-school musical thrill

Empire

The Last Kingdom (TV) The thinking person's Game of Thrones

Daily Telegraph

Spare and unsentimental, capturing the barbarism of the time through a protagonist straddling two disparate worlds

Variety

The Little Drummer Girl (TV) Park Chan-wook’s adaptation of the Le Carré classic sees the Korean auteur take The Night Manager’s globetrotting appeal and better it with gripping espionage

The Guardian AMC’s latest adaptation of a John Le Carré novel follows the formula of ‘The Night Manager’: great actors, lush presentation, convoluted story

Rolling Stone

The Night Of… (TV) This HBO murder drama slides into something deeper about the randomness of justice, with Riz Ahmed a hypnotic lead character

The Guardian The Night Of is a glorious puzzle box of a drama which begins as a straightforward murder-mystery but is soon revealed to be something far smarter and more provocative

Daily Telegraph

The Young Offenders (TV) It takes the best of the movie and builds on it

Irish Independent An upbeat celebration of old-school comedy shtick

The Times

Play:

Betrayal at the House on the Hill (Board Game) A really cool game of exploration and traitorous mayhem

Board Game Geek If there is one game that has more power than any other to seduce people into the world of tabletop gaming, it must be Betrayal at House on the Hill

Nerds Table

Bettye Lavette - Things Have Changed (Music Album)

Mixing beloved classics and Eighties cast-offs, the 72-year-old soul singer daringly reshapes the Dylan legend

Rolling Stone Slinkily ferocious Dylan covers

The Guardian

Game of Life (App)

Classic game takes kids on a speedy 3D adventure.

Common Sense Media

An entertaining and perhaps enlightening game that can lend a hand for kids to be aware of the intrinsic worth, test, and perils of following certain line of business and societal paths.

Best Apps

God of War (Video Game)

Violent, vital and more brilliant than ever

The Guardian I DON'T THINK IT'S POSSIBLE TO OVERSTATE JUST HOW GOOD THIS IS

Games Radar

Humtap (App)

Humtap is to unearth your creativity and generate original music

Gulf News

A future whereby anyone without musical training, studio equipment, financial resources or access to music producers can produce an album

Sound on Sound

Overcooked 2 (Video Game)

A cheerful, non-violent co-op game that's simple enough for the whole family to enjoy.

PC Gamer

Following 2016's co-op cooking hit, Overcooked 2 introduces a fresh set of kitchens and recipes to conquer. A great second course.

Gamespot

Paul McCartney -Egypt Station (Music Album)

Macca’s back in the groove Guardian

Macca gives the fans what they want on this whistle-stop tour through his world-changing career

NME

Red Dead Redemption 2 (Video Game) Gripping western is a near miracle

Guardian When the credits roll, you’ll have created enough incredible memories to fill ten lesser games

Games Radar

Space Team (App)

Spaceteam for iOS is equal parts laughter and yelling at your friends

Mac World

Pushing Buttons and Shouting at Your Friends… as a Spaceteam

Touch Arcade

The Resistance (Card Game)

Easy to pick up and you can get so heavily involved in it

Board-Game.co.uk One of the best card games out there

Kotaku