Paul talks about some of his favourite reads of the past year, as well as some of the most significant albums he heard. 

A walk through a troubling year with a back and forth between books and music.

You can view the full Booklist here:

 https://vikingpaul.blogspot.com/2021/01/booklist-2020.html

Paul discusses four (+ 1 bonus) of the most successful pure science fiction films of the past decade and what each of them sprang from and means.

Gravity by Alfonso Cuaron
Interstellar by Chirstopher Nolan
Arrival by Denis Villeneuve
Ad Astra by James Gray
(and special bonus The Midnight Sky by George Clooney)

In John Steinbeck's Great Depression novel Of Mice and Men, Chapter 4 is dedicated to the interaction of four marginalized characters: a man-child with superhuman strength, an old man with one hand, a black man with a crooked spine, and a woman in an unhappy marriage. This episode is a microcosm of the book's overall themes. 

Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men. New York: Penguin, 1993. 

Not exactly as ambitious as it sounds, but Paul talks about the importance of the bible generally as a text, and how it's often hard for non-believers to get around the whole matter of faith thing. Discussion about the contradictory interpretation of both Testaments together occurs as well. 

The inspiration for this comes in the form of a reference Paul makes to the book The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs, recommended by Paul's good friend Carley. Thanks Carley.

Jacobs, A.J. The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007

In honour of Remembrance Day, Paul looks at some of the philosophical passages in the great World War 1 novel All Quiet on the Western Front by  Remarque.

Remarque, Erich Marie. All Quiet on the Western Front. Toronto: Balantine Books, 1982

"In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae, read by Leonard Cohen. Courtesy Legion Magazine's YouTube channel. 

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien is a great book and a nerd's delight, but the first two books of it--which comprise Fellowship--really are a sequel that shouldn't have worked. A short children's fantasy gets followed by a thousand pages that essentially retcons your memories and makes them something else.

As a sequel to The Hobbit, Fellowship is a mess. Fortunately, it was so much more than just a sequel. 

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Fellowship of the Ring. London: Harper Collins. 2010. 

Paul--an agnostic at best--talks the importance of writing the faithful honestly and credibly in fiction, especially in a world that looks down upon faith. 

Paul's first true step into the deep and muddy pool of historical fiction. He reads Robert Grave's masterpiece I, Claudius, a book about those crazy Roman emperors and the women who killed them, plus the little boys who killed them. Depravity! Politics! Statecraft! And asides to talk about possessive apostrophe usage!

Paul talks audiobooks. 
And why Moby Dick sucks. 

Why do we read Shakespeare? Why does a poet and dramatist from London 400 years ago still play such and important part in our life? Answer: because we have to have the best.

Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York: Riverhead Books, 1999.
Branagh, Kenneth. Hamlet. USA/UK: Columbia Pictures, 1996
McTiernan, John. Last Action Hero. USA: Columbia Pictures, 1993.
Shakespears Sister. "Stay." Hormonally Yours. London: London Records, 1992.