2020: favourite reading, listening and viewing

10 favourite TV series of 2020
Being Beethoven (BBC)
I Hate Suzie (Sky Atlantic)
I May Destroy You (BBC)
Mrs America (BBC)
Normal People (BBC)
Once Upon a Time in Iraq (BBC)
Small Axe (BBC)
Social Dilemma (Netflix)
Staged (BBC)
Strictly Come Dancing (BBC)
Favourite TV series of 2020: Once Upon a Time in Iraq

10 favourite books of 2020
Beethoven – a Life, Jan Caeyers
Frank Ramsey, Cheryl Misak
Imperial Science, Bruce Hunt
Island Stories, David Reynolds
The Mirror and the Light, Hilary Mantel
The Powerful and Damned, Lionel Barber
A Promised Land, Barack Obama
Shakespeare in a Divided America, James Shapiro
Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum
The Tyranny of Merit, Michael Sandel
Favourite book of 2020: A Promised Land, Barack Obama

10 favourite podcasts of 2020
Americast (BBC)
Coffee House Shots (Spectator)
Composer of the Week – Beethoven series (BBC, Radio 3)
Consider This (NPR)
David Tennant Does a Podcast
The Daily (NYT)
Grounded with Louis Theroux
The Fault Line (Somethin’ Else)
Politics Weekly (Guardian)
Slow Newscast (Tortoise)
What Next? with Lionel Barber
Favourite podcast of 2020: Americast

10 favourite movies of 2020
1917, dir. Sam Mendes
Da 5 Bloods, dir. Spike Lee
I’m Thinking of Ending Things, dir. Charlie Kaufman
Let Them All Talk, dir. Steven Soderbergh
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, dir. George C. Wolfe
Mank, dir. David Fincher
Mangrove, dir. Steve McQueen
Parasite, dir. Bong Joon-ho
Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Celine Sciamma
Tenet, dir. Christopher Nolan
Favourite movie in 2020: Parasite

10 favourite places visited in the mostly locked-down year of 2020
Core restaurant, London
Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Gleneagles Hotel, Perthshire
Huntingdon Gardens, Pasadena
Jurassic Coast, Dorset
Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, Santa Barbara
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena
Richmond Park, London
Walt Disney Concert Hall, designed by Frank Gehry, Los Angeles
Wyndam’s Theatre, London – where I saw Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt last February
Favourite place in 2020: Richmond Park