My Top 5 Books of 2015

2015 was a record year of reading to me — I powered through 158 books including a couple of re-reads. Last year, somewhat grudgingly, I made the switch to e-books — I try to use my local library as much as possible but the wait lists for new books are often too long — which probably helped to boost my numbers. You can probably tell from my full reading list that crime and psychological thrillers and mysteries are still my favourite genres, but I try to read as widely as I can, seeking recommendations from friends, colleagues and blogs. Here are my top five:

1. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. Regular readers will not be surprised that Yanagihara's brutal but brilliant, heart-breaking but heartfelt novel is my favourite of the year. The story of talented but damaged Jude and his three best friends from college as they navigate relationships, careers and, well, life isn't at all what I expected. It certainly isn't always easy to read, but A Little Life is well worth the emotional effort; I could scarcely put it down throughout its 700-odd pages.

2. The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett. What might my life have been like if only I hadn't fallen off my bike? This is the question posed by Barnett's novel, in which we are treated to three versions of the relationship between Jim and Eva, who variously meet (or don't) in Cambridge in the 1950s. It sounds a little like Sliding Doors, but I thought it was more of the calibre of Sartre's Les Jeux Sont Faits. It is a tale of possibility, hope and love — what it means to succeed and what it means to find a soulmate.

3. Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff. The opening scene of Fates and Furies — a young couple, newly married, alone on the beach; one talented and happy, one with a darker past — reminded me of Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach, which I loathed. Nonetheless, I stuck with it as the story of handsome, golden Lotto and intelligent, enigmatic Mathilde gradually unfolded. It was only after a dramatic change of narrative structure part-way through, as we segue from the titular fates to the furies, that the novel really hooked me in. Like its central characters, Fates and Furies is often smart and often beautiful, but sometimes painful.

4. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. A young blind girl and her father flee Paris for the Brittany coast in 1940. Hundreds of miles away, a young German boy becomes an expert at fixing radios, before earning a place at a tough military academy. These stories, we sense, will overlap but when and how? Doerr's novel is meticulously observed, rich and tender, if very slightly too long.

5. Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill. I don't usually enjoy structural or stylistic elegance in a novel when it comes at the expense of plot and characters, but Offill's quirky tragicomedy combines style and substance. Well-paced, convincing and enjoyable, Dept. of Speculation offers brief snapshots into the life of a Brooklyn-based writer and her husband as their marriage begins to falter.

And in case my shortlist is too short, here are a few bonus recommendations for the five books that just missed out on a top-five spot:

• We Are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas. On the surface, We Are Not Ourselves reads a little like a mash-up of Colm Toíbín's Brooklyn and another novel that was made into a popular film this year (spoiler alert: click here if you want to know which one). A young Irish-American from Brooklyn meets and falls in love with a scientist who is quite different from the boys she has ever known. We Are Not Ourselves tells the story of their relationship over the next few decades — a recurring theme in my 2015 favourites. More than that, though, it's a chronicle of a changing country and of that often elusive American Dream. Thomas's novel is slow-moving at times, but thoughtful, beautiful and sad.

• So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson. A cautionary tale for the Twitter generation, Ronson's book explores what it means to be publicly shamed in the digital age. He interviews a number of people whose lives have been altered forever after they did something stupid on social media. So You've Been Publicly Shamed is, by turns, fascinating and appalling. 

• Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami. Since my trip to Japan last year, I've been trying to soak up as much Japanese culture as I can and Kawakami's novel about the friendship between a 30-something woman and her former high-school teacher is beautiful, understated and tender. It transported me back to Tokyo, evoking many of the city's sights, sounds, smells and sensations.

• The Likeness by Tana French. I had to include at least one crime novel on my longlist and Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad series was one of my favourite discoveries this year — I'm late to the game, I know. Each of the five novels features a different detective from the (fictional) squad as they try to solve a current crime that also prompts them to confront their own past. The Likeness, which is narrated by a female detective who goes undercover to investigate the murder of her döppelganger, is my favourite and is compelling, intriguing and well written.

• Purity by Jonathan Franzen. Well, what would a 'books of the year' round-up be without a Great American Novel? In Purity, though, Franzen's tongue is often firmly in his cheek (one of the characters even remarks that most Great American Novelists seem to be called Jonathan). Epic in scope with complex, overlapping plots that jump from Berkeley coffee shops to East German cover-ups. 

My complete 2015 reading list (re-reads are in italics):

• The Miniaturist — Jessie Burton
• An Officer and a Spy — Robert Harris
• Buried Angels — Camilla Lackberg
• Dept. of Speculation — Jenny Offill
• Everything I Never Told You — Celeste Ng
• Red Dragon — Thomas Harris
• Wonderland — Stacey D'Erasmo
• Nobody Is Ever Missing — Catherine Lacey
• The Architect's Apprentice — Elif Shafak
• The Girls at the Kingfisher Club — Genevieve Valentine 
• Wild — Cheryl Strayed
• What If — Randall Munroe
• The Girl on the Train — Paula Hawkins
• You — Joanna Briscoe
• Still Alice —  Lisa Genova
• The Burning Room — Michael Connelly
• Cold Cold Heart — Tami Hoag
• Dark Places — Gillian Flynn
• The Boston Girl — Anita Diamant
• Unbecoming — Rebecca Scherm
• The Company You Keep — Neil Gordon
• Left Neglected — Lisa Genova
• All the Light We Cannot See — Anthony Doerr
• Yes Please — Amy Poehler
• Alan Turing — Andrew Hodges
• Binary Star — Sarah Gerard 
• Our Tragic Universe — Scarlett Thomas 
• A Spool of Blue Thread — Anne Tyler
• Unbroken — Laura Hillenbrand
• July's People — Nadine Gordimer
• Don't Sweat the Small Things — Richard Carlson
• American Sniper — Chris Kyle
• The Forgotten Girls — Sara Blaedel
• Butterflies in November — Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir
• The Driver's Seat — Muriel Spark
• The Jigsaw Man — Paul Britton
• Mightier Than the Sword — Jeffrey Archer
• A Little Life — Hanya Yanagihara
• The Nightingale — Kristin Hannah
• The List — Karin Tanabe
• Ballad of a Small Player — Lawrence Osborne
• Missing You — Harlan Coben
• World Gone By — Dennis Lahane
• The Good Girl — Mary Kubica
• What Alice Forgot — Liane Moriarty
• The Sun and Other Stars — Brigid Pasulka
• The Rosie Effect — Graeme Simsion
• The Children's Crusade — Ann Packer
• The Crown — Nancy Bilyeau
• The Creation of Anne Boleyn — Susan Bordo
• Unravel — Calia Read
• H Is for Hawk — Helen MacDonald
• So You've Been Publicly Shamed — Jon Ronson
• Don't Try To Find Me — Holly Thomas
• The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace — Jeff Hobbs
• Skippy Dies — Paul Murray
• We Are Not Ourselves — Matthew Thomas
• At the Water's Edge — Sara Gruen
• Strange Weather in Tokyo — Hiromi Kawakami
• Forensics — Val McDermid
• The Visionist — Rachel Urquhart
• Finding Zero — Amir Aczel
• The Flash Boys — Michael Lewis
• Last One Home — Debbie Macomber
• The Buried Giant — Kazuo Ishiguro
• Luckiest Girl Alive — Jessica Knoll
• The Information — James Gleick
• After the Crash — Michel Bussi
• The Girls from Corona del Mar  — Rufi Thorpe
• The Headmaster's Wife — Thomas Christopher Greene
• In a Dark, Dark Wood — Ruth Ware
• Inside the O'Briens — Lisa Genova
• The Boys in the Boat — Daniel James Brown
• My Salinger Year — Joanna Rakoff
• The Japan Journals: 1947-2004 — Donald Richie
• Techbitch — Lucy Sykes & Jo Piazza
• Thomas Cromwell: Servant to Henry VIII — David Loades
• Confessions of a Player — Victoria Coren
• The Versions of Us — Laura Barnett
• Into the Forest — Jean Hegland
• In the Woods — Tana French
• The Likeness — Tana French
• Every Secret Thing — Laura Lippman
• Landmarks — Robert Macfarlane
• True Story —  Michael Finkel
• Serena — Ron Rash
• Faithful Place — Tana French
• Among the Ten Thousand Things — Julia Pierpont
• The Interlude — Rupert Smith
• The Book of Numbers — Joshua Cohen
• Anna Karenina — Leo Tolstoy
• Into Thin Air — Jon Krakauer
• Broken Harbour — Tana French
• The Price of Salt — Patricia Highsmith
• The Light Between the Oceans — ML Stedman
• Hardly Knew Her — Laura Lippman
• The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying — Marie Kondo
• Pretty Baby — Mary Kubica
• Go Set a Watchman — Harper Lee
• Far from the Madding Crowd — Thomas Hardy
• In the Unlikely Event — Judy Blume
• A Window Opens — Elisabeth Egan
• The Good Girl — Fiona Neill
• Pitch Perfect — Mickey Rapkin
• The Driftless Area — Tom Drury
• To the Power of Three — Laura Lippman
• The Secret Scripture — Sebastian Barry
• Villa America — Liza Klaussmann
• The Taming of the Queen — Philippa Gregory
• The Sisters — Claire Douglas
• The Year of Living Danishly — Helen Russell
• Purity — Jonathan Franzen
• I Let You Go — Claire Mackintosh
• Elizabeth — David Starkey
• A Book of Common Prayer — Joan Didion
• The Kind Worth Killing — Peter Swanson
• Fates and Furies — Lauren Groff
• The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. — Adelle Waldman
• Early One Morning — Virginia Baily
• Sweet Caress — William Boyd
• The Narrow Road to the Deep North — Richard Flanagan
• The Heart Goes Last — Margaret Atwood
• Did You Ever Have a Family? — Bill Clegg
• The Martian — Andy Weir
• Snowdrops — A.D. Miller
• Blue Nights — Joan Didion
• Sleeping on Jupiter — Anuradha Roy
• Rogue Lawyer — John Grisham 
• The Road to Little Dribbling — Bill Bryson
• Depraved Heart — Patricia Cornwell
• Friday on My Mind — Nicci French
• Golden Age — Jane Smiley
• Never Look Back — Clare Donoghue
• A Guide to Berlin — Gail Jones
• Liar's Chair — Rebecca Whitney 
• What Lies Between Us — Nayomi Munaweera
• The Good Liar — Nicholas Searle
• Rock, Paper, Scissors — Naja Marie Aidt
• The Ice Twins — SK Tremayne
• The Crossing — Michael Connelly
• The Ninth Life of Louis Drax — Liz Jensen
• The Cuckoo's Calling — Robert Galbraith 
• The Darkest Secret — Alex Marwood
• The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend — Katarina Bivald
• No 11 — Jonathan Coe
• The Girl in the Spider's Web — David Lagercrantz
• The Tea Planter's Wife — Dinah Jeffries
• The Verdict — Nick Stone
• Where'd You Go, Bernadette? — Maria Semple
• The Danish Girl — David Ebershoff
• The Secret House — Nicci French
• The Blondes — Emily Schultz
• Where My Heart Used to Beat — Sebastian Faulks
• The Silkworm — Robert Galbraith
• Career of Evil — Cormoran Strike
• Hotels of North America — Rick Moody
• Not on Fire, but Burning — Greg Hrbek
• Primates of Park Avenue — Wednesday Martin

My Top 5 Movies of 2015

2015 has been a good but not outstanding year for cinema. I think all of the eight movies on my longlist are great but none of them will be entering my list of all-time favourites. I watched 88 films in total, although I caught 30 or so of these on TV or Netflix rather than at the cinema, including some re-watches. The three films on my longlist that didn't quite make it into my top five are: the gorgeous Slow West, the ingenious Inside Out and the heartbreaking Still Alice.

1. The Martian. It's been a good few years for movies set in space and Ridley Scott's The Martian is easily the most entertaining of the lot. It has a likeable hero to root for (played by a perfectly cast Matt Damon), a gripping story, great cinematography and, perhaps most importantly, a sense of humour. If you can catch it on the big screen — there are still a few screenings in London — you will enjoy it even more, but if not, it will still make great viewing on TV.

2. Ex Machina. I watched The Empire Strikes Back for the first time this Christmas (yes, I know...), and although I found it entertaining enough, I don't think it has aged very well (yes, I know...). Just compare C-3PO to Alicia Vikander's Ava in Ex Machina, for example. The latter is an AI created by Nathan (Oscar Isaac), the brilliant but mysterious CEO of a Google-like company, and Vikander's performance as the gently whirring, über-intelligent android is quite something. Alex Garland's film, which also stars Domhnall Gleeson as a young coder who goes to Nathan's house to run the Turing test on Ava. Even if you don't normally go for sci-fi, Ex Machina is a neatly scripted, tense psychological thriller that explores themes such as ambition, intelligence, humanity and hubris.

3. Brooklyn. John Crowley's film, based on Colm Toíbín's novel of the same name, is so understated and unassuming that I'm not sure it will do terribly well when Oscar season rolls around. However, this tale of a young Irish woman's journey to Brooklyn in the 1950s as she attempts to make a life for herself and finds herself caught between two worlds wins you over gradually with its charm and warmth. Saoirse Ronan is fantastic in the lead role: she is wonderfully expressive, switching effortlessly between the sadder, darker moments and those that are lighter and more comic. Timeless and beautiful, Brooklyn is uplifting and moving without being the least bit hackneyed or maudlin.

4. Whiplash. Even re-reading my review of Damien Chazelle's film about a pushy young drummer (Miles Teller) who will do whatever it takes to succeed makes me feel slightly on edge: Whiplash is 107 minutes of pure tension. Teller is great but it's J.K. Simmons as his conductor and instructor who really steals the show. BBC Young Musician of the Year this ain't, but for a sharp, fast-paced story of drive, passion and ambition, Whiplash is well worth a watch.

5. Carol. After I sang the praises of Todd Haynes' Carol — a 1950s love story of a doe-eyed, naive Rooney Mara and a worldly, knowing Cate Blanchett — to some friends, they asked whether it wasn't just a bit 'worthy' and my answer was a resounding no. Of course, the setting and indeed the circumstances mean that this isn't just your average love story, but it's to the credit of Haines and to the two lead actresses that Carol doesn't feel like it's trying to tick the '1950s lesbian love story' box; it could almost be any great love story. The chemistry between Mara and Blanchett is perfect, and their performances are both complex and subtle. It is meticulously observed and beautifully shot.

The full list of films I watched this year is as follows (re-watches are in italics):

• The Theory of Everything 
• Veronica Mars (TV)
• The 39 Steps (TV)
• Testament of Youth
• Foxcatcher
• Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (TV)
• Whiplash
• Wild
• American Sniper
• Selma
• A Most Violent Year
• Ex Machina
• Guardians of the Galaxy (TV)
• Still Alice
• Inherent Vice
• Lucy (plane)
• The Judge (plane)
• Big Hero 6 (plane)
• The Interview
• The Duke of Burgundy
• Suite française
• The Tale of Princess Kaguya
• A Little Chaos
• The Gambler (plane)
• A Beautiful Mind (DVD)
• Cinderella (2015)
• Dark Horse
• Chinatown (TV)
• John Wick (plane)
• Trash (plane)
• Gone Girl (plane)
• The Maltese Falcon (DVD)
• Girlhood
• Jiro Dreams of Sushi (TV)
• Listen Up Philip
• The Overnight
• Slow West
• Swingers (TV)
• The Babadook (TV)
• Pitch Perfect (TV)
• The Gift
• The Diary of a Teenage Girl
• Inside Out
• Trainwreck
• Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
• Up (TV)
• Mulholland Drive
• Nebraska (TV)
• Inception (TV)
• The Departed (DVD)
• Legend
• Everest
• Populaire (TV)
• Miss You Already
• The Martian
• Team America: World Police (TV)
• Pulp Fiction (TV)
• Queen of Earth
• Youth
• Insomnia (DVD)
• Sicario
• Brooklyn
• Suffragette
• The Social Network (DVD)
• Bronson (TV)
• The Shining
• Casablanca (DVD)
• Spectre
• Rounders (TV)
• To Kill a Mockingbird (TV)
• Macbeth (2015)
• Steve Jobs
• The Dreamers (DVD)
• Trainspotting (TV)
• Carol
• Bridge of Spies
• The Lobster
• Melancholia (TV)
• Black Mass
• The Wolfpack (TV)
• Sisters
• Chef (TV)
• Elf (TV)
• Christmas Vacation (TV)
• Arthur Christmas (TV)
• The Empire Strikes Back (TV)
• Fatal Attraction (TV)
• Love Actually (TV)

My Top 5 Leaps of 2015

It's time again for my annual series of year-in-review top-five lists. As always, I'm starting with my top five leaps of the year, which, I find, is a good way of looking back on some of my travels and other adventures. 2015 hasn't been a particularly strong year for leaps: for various reasons (mainly weather-related), I didn't manage to take any on my European trips to Brussels, Lisbon, Copenhagen and Cannes. Here are a few favourites from some of my other adventures:

1. The 'blast from the past' leap. San Francisco, USA. After a work trip to Washington, DC, and San Jose, I had a few precious hours in San Francisco before my flight home. I used to travel to SF relatively often but it had been six years since my last visit. Luckily, it was a perfect sunny Sunday and Crissy Field and Golden Gate Park were glorious. I didn't have a tripod with me but managed to take a quick self-timer leap with the bridge in the background. Now, of course, I want to return to the Bay Area for a longer visit.

2. The 'never gets old' leap. New York, USA. Unusually for me, I only made it to New York once this year for a brief family holiday over the Easter weekend. The weather was gorgeous and so of course we made time for a few morning jogs in Central Park and a leap on Gapstow Bridge with the Manhattan skyline in the background. Tradition is a wonderful thing.

3. The 'it's a cliche for a reason' leap. Isla Mujeres, Mexico. After ten days of exploring Mexico City, Oaxaca and Mérida, there was nothing I wanted more than to find the perfect beach and spend a few days relaxing on it. I came pretty close with Playa Norte on Isla Mujeres, with its soft, powdery sand and warm, crystal-clear turquoise waters. I didn't move very far for the next few days. It took me a number of takes using the self-timer on my waterproof camera to capture the perfect 'beach paradise' leap, but it was well worth it.

4. The 'sunshine in Wales?' leap. Farchynys, Wales. Many of my childhood holidays were spent in and around Barmouth and Dolgellau in Mid-Wales. It was almost always cold and rainy and there was a little too much walking and too little shopping for my younger self's taste. This year, though, my dad took my brother, sister-in-law and me back for a long weekend in June. Unexpectedly, the weather was beautiful — so much so that I barely recognised the views over Cadair Idris. On the Sunday morning while the tide was out, my dad and I went for a walk along the estuary and the light was particularly spectacular. We were able to capture a few leaps — and to avoid sinking into the soft, muddy sand.

5. The 'freshwater' leap. London, UK. I've always been a bit of a wuss when it comes to outdoor swimming but when an outdoor swimming pond opened up near my office in King's Cross, I knew I had to try it. I selected a warm day in August for my swim, but the pond's clear waters were still far nippier than I would have liked and leaping was the only way I was going to get myself in.

2016 is, of course, a leap year and I hope it will also be a good year for leaps!

Bex's London Food and Drink Awards: 2015 Edition

As 2015 draws to a close, I've been reviewing some of the wonderful food and drink experiences I have had in London this year as part of my annual food and drink awards. As I have only included places that are new to me this year, the burger category was a little tricky to award this year; Honest Burgers' Honest Burger is easily my favourite burger in the city (their Karma Cola collaboration was pretty darn good too) and I find myself returning there rather than trying new places. The brunch category was tough for another reason: too much choice!

1. Best coffee: Allpress (Dalston)
Allpress isn't technically new to me this year — I've visited the Shoreditch original many times — but their Dalston-based café and roastery is. And it's particularly lovely, from its gorgeous front garden, to its light, airy interiors. The coffee is, as you would expect from Allpress, top notch. Whether you are in the mood for a macchiato or a pourover, or even a cold brew (weather-permitting), you know that the coffee will be expertly prepared.
Runner-up: Small White Elephant

2. Best brunch: Duck & Waffle (City)
Unlike some of the restaurants and cafés on my shortlist, Duck & Waffle isn't the kind of brunch spot every weekend. It isn't especially cheap, for one thing, and for another, you will probably need to book several weeks, or even months, in advance to get a table during prime brunching hours. However, for a special occasion or for delighting out-of-town visitors, it would be hard to find a more iconic London brunch spot than Duck & Waffle. Try to get a table near the window for the best views of the city — table 72 seats you right next to the Gherkin, with a wonderful view over south London. And if you go, you must try the eponymous duck and waffle (a waffle with duck confit and a fried duck egg, with a side of mustard maple syrup).
Runner-up: Hubbard & Bell

3. Best street food: Hawker House (Canada Water)
SE16 isn't the first area you think of when someone says, 'cool London street food', and yet thanks to Hawker House, it is now. For the moment, at least. The Street Feast guys have taken over a warehouse near Canada Water tube and propelled in their closest food vendor friends. There are burgers, tacos, arepas, steamed buns and much more. The Milk & Honey cocktail lounge adds a note of sophistication to the otherwise super-casual surroundings, and their drinks are really top notch.
Runner-up: Netil Market

4. Best cocktail: Edwina's Affair at Dishoom (various locations)
I've had a fair few cocktails this year — most of them gin-based and in Bermondsey, Peckham and Camberwell — but the one drink I return to time and again is Dishoom's famous Edwina's Affair. I was drawn in by the candied rose petals but stayed for the perfect combination of gin, rose, cardamom and mint. It's refreshing, well-balanced and a little bit playful. Plus, it's served in an Instagram-ready copper julep mug. What's not to like?
Runner-up: Full-fat Old Fashioned at Hawksmoor

5. Best burger: Burger Bear (Stoke Newington, Old Street and Peckham)
I didn't mean to queue up for the Super Angry Grizzly burger for over an hour at the Mr Hyde National Burger Day event; it just happened. I had been wanting to sample Burger Bear's wares for some time but rarely find myself in Stoke Newington or Old Street — the bear's main lairs — and so I decided to seize the moment. Although I enjoyed the burger, I wasn't sure it was worth the wait at the time, but with the 20/20 burger vision of a a true hamburgerologist, it grew on me in time. Juicy, meaty patty: check. Cheese and smoked pancetta: check. One hell of a kick from the pickled jalapeño relish and Holy Fuck bacon jam: check. The Super Angry Grizzly is a beast of a burger, but one that is well worth hunting down.
Runner-up: Big Fernand

6. Best restaurant: Hixter (South Bank)
Over the years, my family and I have frequented several of Mark Hix's excellent restaurants, but 2015 was the year we discovered Hixter. Located in Bankside, just south of The Globe and Borough Market, Hixter feels a million miles away from these tourist hotspots. The menu is simple — you can choose between various chicken dishes and steaks (sorry, veggies) — and the cocktails are excellent too. The décor is smart and cool, but the service very friendly and relaxed; Hixter even featured in an episode of London Spy this year, although sadly, I don't think they can guarantee the presence of Ben Whishaw.

Feast Your Eyes on Hawker House, Canada Water

London is full of street-food dining options these days but no one does a better job of organising winter- and British-weather-proof street food markets than the guys at Street Feast. They find great venues and bring in a wide variety of food and drink vendors, as well as a relaxed but fun vibe. I've written previously about Street Feast's Model Market in Lewisham and Hawker House in Hackney, but was delighted to find that Hawker House's latest home is a little closer to my home. Canada Water, to be more exact: a warehouse on Surrey Quays Road that used to house the shouty discount store known as WHAT!!

Hawker House is open on Friday and Saturday evenings from 5 pm until 19 December, but I think are reopening for another few months at the end of January. It's free to get in before 7 pm and £3 afterwards. We got there just before 7 pm and luckily, there was no queue. The venue is a five-minute walk from Canada Water Tube, just behind the big Decathlon store.

Inside, it was already very busy when we arrived. We decided to start with a drink and I was pleased to find that Milk and Honey — a bar and private members' club in Soho that I've always wanted to visit — has a pop-up bar on the upper floor, if you're looking for a classier drink. The cocktail menu was seriously impressive and it was very difficult to pick just one drink (everything is £9).

The Florodora with gin, ginger, raspberry, lime and soda is exactly the kind of cocktail I usually order, but I decided to be a little more adventurous and go for the Penicillin instead, which combined scotch, honey, ginger, lemon and peat. It definitely had a peaty taste, but it was absolutely delicious and rather comforting given that I had a slight sore throat. I tried a sip of my brother's Roberto Burns (tequila, mezcal, Benedictine and vermouth), which was complex and very moreish. We couldn't find any seats at the bar so we walked over to the balcony area to people-watch while we drank.

By then, we were definitely in need of some sustenance so we did a lap to review the options. I was sorely tempted by the pulled pork from Smokestak and the South American steaks from Meat Hook, but some nights (most, in my case), it just has to be a burger, so I headed to Chuck Burger where a fairly big line had formed. They were offering two burgers — a pulled pork option and the Devil Burger, with crispy bacon, cheese, grilled jalapeños, sriracha mayo and green sauce. I ordered the latter, which a delicious, juicy, messy, spicy £8 meat feast. Strongly recommended.

We picked up another round of drinks from the Hangar Bar, which has a selection of beers, wines and cocktails, helpfully categorised in three price ranges: economy, business and first (the cocktails still ranged from about £7-10). I had some kind of fruity tequila concoction, which was good, but nowhere near as good as at Milk & Honey. We finally found some seats — no mean feat — and then thought about whether we had room for any more food. We didn't, but I couldn't visit Hawker House without at least one taco from Breddos (£4 for one, £7 for two, £9 for three), so I made one final pitstop. The fish tacos are fantastic — the fish is tasty and the batter perfectly crispy. They are super-spicy, though, so have a cool drink to hand if you are a wuss like me.

Hawker House is an excellent spot for a night of casual-cool wining and dining. I hope its success will encourage other pop-ups to consider the Canada Water/Bermondsey area as suitable locations.

Hawker House Canada Water. 1 Surrey Quays Road, London, SE16 7PJ (Tube: Canada Water). Website. Twitter.

November Favourites

It's been a busy couple of weeks and so I'm a little late posting my November favourites, but here are a few of the things I enjoyed last month.

1. The Lobster
I wanted to catch The Lobster, the absurd, dystopian film from Yorgos Lanthimos, at the London Film Festival but couldn't get tickets. The reviews were mixed when the film was released and so I wasn't going to bother going to see it, but then I got tickets to a free screening and figured it was worth a punt. I'm really glad I did. The story centres around a near-future world where it is illegal for adults to be single. If your relationship ends, you go to The Hotel (run by a character played by the ever-excellent Olivia Colman) and have 45 days to find a suitable partner or you will be turned into the animal of your choice. Love, however, is less important than 'suitability', which seems to be defined by a shared interest or 'flaw', such as propensity for nose bleeds.

The lobster is the animal chosen by Colin Farrell's David, who enters the hotel at the start of the film after his wife leave him. The result is a combination of Sartre's Les Jeux Sont Faits and Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror, with a hefty dose of absurdism. It is thought-provoking and funny in both sense of the word, and Farrell and Rachel Weisz are both great.

2. Curators Coffee Gallery
Since I visited Curators Coffee's Oxford Circus location last year, I've been a convert. The café is a beautifully designed haven, just a few minutes' walk from the Oxford Street crowds. The coffee is excellent and there are often innovative coffee-based drinks on the menu. I stopped by last month for a Chemex, a cookie and a chillax. The staff are very friendly and it's a great place to hang out.

3. The Darkest Secret by Alex Marwood
I enjoyed, but didn't love, Alex Marwood's first novel, The Wicked Girls, but was intrigued by the blurb for her forthcoming novel, The Darkest Secret and it is a real page-turner; I stayed up way too late one night last week, powering through the twists to get to the end. In the summer of 2004, a three-year-old girl goes missing while her identical twin sister sleeps and her father, Sean, celebrates his fiftieth birthday with his wife and closest friends. Twelve years later, one of Sean's daughters from his first marriage — 27-year-old Mila — deals with another family tragedy and tries to understand what really happened back in 2004.

The novel alternates between Mila's first-person, present-day narrative and third-person perspectives from the guests at Sean's birthday party: his probably soon-to-be-ex second wife, Claire; his lawyer best friend Robert, Robert's wife Maria, a PR guru, and his teenage daughter who has a serious case of the Lolitas; an alcoholic MP and his bland wife; and Sean's possible new love interest — the interior designer for his property company — and her partner, a fun-loving doctor who has brought his own box of medical tricks.

None of the characters are especially likeable but Sean and his family make for compelling reading as we gradually begin to understand what really happened that weekend — and what has happened to Mila and her family since then. Marwood's writing is bold and edgy, and she conveys the voices of the different characters very effectively. I saw the final twist coming fairly early on, but that didn't make getting there any less enjoyable. The Darkest Secret is sometimes shocking and often dark, but always entertaining.

Disclaimer: The Darkest Secret will be published in the UK on 7 January 2016. I received a pre-release copy via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

4. kikki.K
I usually try to pass through Covent Garden as swiftly as possible but there is now a new reason to linger in the form of Swedish import kikki.K, a shop that has an Instagram-ready collection of stationery, organisation goods and homewares in pretty pastel shades. If HAY, Kate Spade and Muji had a baby, kikki.K wouldn't be far off. My inner cynic wants to hate it (some of the 'inspiration journals' are too twee by far) but I'm a sucker for this kind of thing and it's the perfect place to find stocking fillers and gifts for those hard-to-buy-for people. I particularly like this travel wallet, this diary and this desk clock. The London store is at 5-6 James Street, Covent Garden, WC2E 8BH.

5. The Bridge
I've sung the praises of this Swedish–Danish collaboration before, but the third series has just started to air in the UK. BBC Four is airing two episodes every Saturday night — the first four are still available on iPlayer. Nordic noirs are ten-a-penny these days, but The Bridge is really excellent, elevated by Sofia Helin's strong performance as Saga Norén, the brilliant but complex Swedish detective at its centre. There is a significant character change for the third series, which I won't mention in case you haven't yet seen the first two series. I was worried that this would make for a weaker show, but so far, series three has been just as good, as Saga struggles to deal with present relationships and her past while a new string of murders breaks out. Great Saturday-night viewing.

"What's Written on Paper Is Less Important Than Blood and Honour" — Black Mass Review

I rewatched Martin Scorsese's The Departed recently, which reminded me how much I enjoyed the film. It gets a lot of stick for not being worthy of the Best Director Oscar that Scorsese finally won for it, but I liked the double-double-cross structure and thought the central performances —Matt Damon as a mole in the FBI and Leonardo Di Caprio as an undercover cop — made it pretty compelling viewing. Jack Nicholson's performance as the crime boss at the centre of the film is said to be based on real-life Boston gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger, who is the subject of Scott Cooper's new film Black Mass. Somehow, though, despite the great potential for drama that the real-world events should inspire and despite Johnny Depp's widely acclaimed turn as Bulger, the film felt clumsily paced and strangely unengaging.

As the film opens, one of Bulger's associates, Kevin Weeks (Jesse Plemons) is agreeing to cooperate with the authorities in exchange for a reduced sentence. We then jump back to 1975 when a younger Kevin first starts working for Bulger as a driver and a heavy. Much of the film is seen through his eyes, although he isn't very central to the action. The key relationship in the film is between Bulger and John Connolly (Joel Edgerton), an FBI agent who grew up with Bulger and his younger brother, Senator Billy Bulger (Benedict Cumberbatch) in South Boston. Connolly persuades the older Bulger to become an FBI informant and then provides him with information Bulger can then feed back to the FBI.

Time ticks by and Bulger's crimes continue to mount up, forcing Connolly to take additional steps to cover up his own actions as his boss (Kevin Bacon) becomes more suspicious. Murders, threats and intimidation rack up, but beyond Connolly's loyalty to his childhood friend and to 'Southie', his motivation for helping Bulger remains somewhat two-dimensional. And there really is no one to root for in Black Mass — not that such horrific real-life crimes should be glamorised for the sake of entertainment, of course, and perhaps that is why The Departed works better as a cinematic piece. Depp's physical transformation is impressive and his performance is good, if not outstanding and not really enough to mask the film's other shortcomings. Black Mass often seemed to drag, loose ends were left untied and it just never really built up the necessary momentum. It didn't help that several characters looked quite similar (with all the prosthetics and make-up, I initially thought that 1990s Kevin was Connolly's character) and that no fewer than five central characters were called John.

I have seen both of Cooper's previous films, Crazy Heart and Out of the Furnace, and although I enjoyed the former, the latter left me similarly underwhelmed and suffered from similar plotting and pacing issues as Black Mass. Some of this is down to the writing, of course, but Black Mass could have done with losing a good 15 minutes from its run time (it was originally three hours, which is astonishing). Black Mass isn't terrible — there are some nice performances from the ensemble cast, and the mood, feel and look of 1970s and 1980s Boston is spot on — but nor was it as satisfying as I had hoped.