Looking Back on Some Memorable Readings, Movies, Plays, Operas, TV Shows

Books:
Maye’s Request, by Clifford Henderson
The Feast of the Goat, about the Trujillo regime, by Vargas Llosa
Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson
La’s Orchestra, by Alexander McCall Smith
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, by P.D. James
The Right Attitude to Rain, Alexander McCall Smith
The Darkest Jungle, by Todd Balf, about finding a way through the Darien to the Pacific
Cleopatra, by Stacy Schiff
In the Time of the Butterflies, by Julia Alvarez
The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver
Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese
Innocent, by Scott Turow
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens,  for the 2011 Dickens Universe
Unbroken, by Lauren Hillenbrand
The Rest Is Noise, by Alex Ross
The Border Trilogy and The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot  
Undaunted Courage, by Stephen Ambrose
Frankenstein, by Mary Wollenstonecraft Shelley
Bleak House, by Charles Dickens
Supposing Bleak House, by John Jordan, for the 2012 Dickens Universe
The Help, by Emma Donoghue
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, by Julia Alvarez
Alma Rose, by Edith Forbes
Darwin’s Armada, by Iain McCalman
The Room, by Kathryn Stockett
Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen
The Disappearing Spoon, by Sam Kean
The Ape House, by  Sara Gruen
The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey Eumenides
A Good American, by Alex George
Code of the Woosters, by H.G. Wodehouse
The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern
Darwin and the Novelists, by George Levine
The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros
The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak 
 Verdi’s Shakespeare, by Garry Wills
Catherine The Great, by Robert Massie
and, into 2012, Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eumenides.

Movies (in theaters and on TV):

True Grit with Jeff Bridges; Letter to Three Wives; The Siberian Express; Pollock; The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest; The Bourne Ultimatum; Social Network (my favorite for the year, should’ve won the Oscar); Gaslight; The Graduate; Born Yesterday (with Judy Holliday); Not the Messiah;  Reduced Shakespeare; Charade with Audrey Hepburn; Annie Hall; Major League (an annual favorite); The Fighter; While You Were Sleeping; The King’s Speech; Easter Parade; Tell No One; The Wedding Planner; David Copperfield; The Best Years of Our Lives; Emma; Get Shorty; Bringing Up Baby; City Lights;  The Soloist; Great Expectations (David Lean); Harry Potter II; The Lincoln Lawyer; Midnight In Paris; The Big Year; Moonstruck (again); My Week with Marilyn; Hugo; The Front (Woody Allen); The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (American version); the new Muppet Movie.

Plays (at the Arden and Act II Playhouse):
Superior Donuts, Wanamaker’s Pursuit, Art, The Male Intellect, Sylvia, The Mystery of Irma Vep, Romeo and Juliet (Severna Park High School production)

Operas (all HDTV productions):
Iphegenie in Tauride, Nixon in China, Lucia di Lammermoor, Capriccio, Le Comte Ory, Die Walkure, Anna Bolena, Siegfried, Don Giovanni, Satyagraha.

Classical Music:
Philadelphia Orchestra, three concerts. Highlights: Brahms Requiem;  Higdon’s  Concerto for Orchestra, both conducted by Yannick Nezet-Seguin; Copland, Clarinet Concerto with Ricardo Morales, conducted by Marin Alsop.