My Top 5 Books of 2016

Towards the end of October, I realised that I had read almost 150 books so far in 2016 and that if I pushed myself, I might make it to 200 by the end of the year. I tend to read between 12 and 15 books each month, so upping this to 27 per month was going to be a stretch, particularly as I was so busy travelling and attending various weddings and work-related social events in November and December. However, I finished book number 200 — a late entry into my top five — with two days to spare and even managed to fit in another novel.

I don't think I'll do another reading challenge for a while because the time pressure and the constant hunt for the next books to read did take some of the enjoyment out of it. But I got some great recommendations from friends and there are usually a few crime writers whose archives I can work through in the absence of other inspiration. When I told people about my 200-book target, many of them asked if I was going to pick lots of novellas and short stories. The answer was no (I'm not generally fond of shorter-form fiction) and indeed, the books on my reading list range from 200-ish to 700-ish pages. One year, I might get around to tallying up my total annual page count!

With that being said, here are my favourite five books of the year:

1. Why We Came to the City* by Kristopher Jansma. Regular readers will know that I have a soft spot for novels set in New York, particularly those featuring twenty- or thirty-somethings trying to carve out a life for themselves in the city. Even this year, I've read several books along these lines, but Jansma's was easily my favourite. Keenly observed, moving and, by turns, painful and funny, Why We Came to the City is beautifully written and left me longing for more.

2. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. I only finished this novel on Thursday, so perhaps it doesn't say that much to note how it has stayed with me ever since, but Gyasi's story about two half-sisters born in Ghana in the eighteenth century — one married to a slave trader and the other sold into slavery — and their descendants over two centuries is powerful and compelling. Each chapter offers up a snapshot of the life of one family member, from Ghana's Gold Coast to the coal mines of Alabama and the jazz clubs of Brooklyn. Epic in scope, Homegoing drives home the long-lasting damage done by African colonialism and American slavery. Gyasi is a tremendous storyteller and it's hard to believe that this was her first novel.

3. The Trespasser* by Tana French. I read a lot of crime novels every year. It's an over-saturated market and there are a lot of mediocre books out there but Tana French never disappoints. The Trespasser is the latest in her 'Dublin Murder Squad' series. Tightly focused and meticulously detailed, the novel follows Detective Antoinette Conway as she investigates the murder of a young woman that turns out to be a lot more complex than it first seems. Set during a bitterly cold Dublin winter, it's the perfect book to read in January — preferably curled up in front of a roaring fire with a mug of hot chocolate.

4. A Fortunate Age by Joanna Rakoff. I only got round to reading Rakoff's 2009 mémoir, My Salinger Year, last year and was keen to check out her début novel, A Fortunate Age. Set in Brooklyn in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it follows a group of college friends as they attempt to follow their hearts and pursue their dreams (I told you that I have a type). A Fortunate Age is a funny, sharp and richly painted portrait of a particular generation in a particular city. Coincidentally, I read this just after returning from New York, and the novel takes place primarily in the two Brooklyn neighbourhoods where I did my Brooklyn coffee tour — Williamsburg and Bushwick — both of which have changed considerably over the past 20 years.

5. The Confidence Game by Maria Konnikova. I don't tend to read much non-fiction for pleasure these days, partly because I do a lot of it in my day job, but Konnikova is a terrific writer and The Confidence Game is a truly fascinating book about the psychology of con artists and cheats, and the conned and cheated. Well-researched, engaging and thought-provoking, this book will help you understand why we are all so susceptible to manipulation and deception.

As usual, in case there aren't enough recommendations for you in my top five, here are five more books I enjoyed this year, which didn't quite make the shortlist:

• Freya by Anthony Quinn. The heroine of Quinn's novel, the titular Freya, is one of the most memorable characters I've encountered this year; she is blunt, ambitious and not always terribly likeable. We first meet her on VE Day, as she meets Nancy — a gentler soul who also wants to be a writer — and follow the pair to Oxford, and then to London as they both try to make their way in the world. 
• The Mandibles by Lionel Shriver. Set in 2029 in a post-...something world, Shriver's darkly comic novel follows the fortunes of the formerly fortunate and eponymous Mandible family. The US economy has collapsed, there are food shortages and children called Goog and Fifa. The scary part about The Mandibles is that, like the best Black Mirror episodes, its story feels, if not exactly inevitable, then all too plausible. Shriver's tongue is firmly in her cheek, however (“Plots set in the future are about what people fear in the present. They’re not about the future at all,” one character tells his daughter), and the novel is at its best when it is at it most satirical.
• Commonwealth by Ann Patchett. Another multigenerational family drama, but this one is set in the recent past rather than the near future. An affair in the 1960s brings together two families, but has aftershocks that last for decades. Commonwealth is sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, but always warm and emotional, with well-drawn, complex characters.
• The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair by Joël Dicker. Complex and self-aware, Dicker's weighty epic novel is, on the surface, a story about writing and writers. It is clever (sometimes too clever for its own good) and gripping.
• The Animators* by Kayla Rae Whitaker. Whitaker's novel about two female friends — the titular animators — is bold and imaginative, witty and tragic. The Animators will be published in January 2017 and I'll be posting my full review then (I received a pre-release review copy), but suffice to say that I loved it.

My full reading list for 2016 is as follows (re-reads are in italics):

• Complicit — Nicci French
• Descent — Tim Johnston
• Missing Pieces — Heather Gudenkauf
• The Illuminations — Andrew O'Hagan
• The Lake House — Kate Morton
• Oryx and Crake — Margaret Atwood
• The Year of the Flood — Margaret Atwood
• MaddAddam — Margaret Atwood
• Landfalls — Naomi J. Williams
• The Festival of Insignificance — Milan Kundera
• My Name Is Lucy Barton — Elizabeth Strout
• The Exclusives — Rebecca Thornton
• Why We Came to the City — Kristopher Jansma
• Alice & Oliver — Charles Bock
• Dune — Frank Herbert
• Eligible — Curtis Sittenfeld
• Cat's Eye — Margaret Atwood
• The Bones of You — Debbie Howells
• Try Not To Breathe — Holly Seddon
• The Queen of the Night — Alexander Chee
• Trust No One — Clare Donoghue
• The Taliban Shuffle — Kim Barker
• The Expatriates — Janice Y. K. Lee
• The Quality of Silence — Rosamund Lupton
• The Confidence Game — Maria Konnikova
• The Girl in the Red Coat — Kate Hamer
• The Girls — Emma Cline
• A God in Ruins — Kate Atkinson
• Girl Through Glass — Sari Wilson
• Unscripted — Alan Sugar
• The Man in the High Castle — Philip K. Dick
• The Widow — Fiona Barton
• Until It's Over — Nicci French
• The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair — Joël Dicker
• Losing You — Nicci French
• City on Fire — Garth Risk Hallberg
• The Clan of the Cave Bear — Jean M. Auel
• On Beauty — Zadie Smith
• The Handmaid's Tale — Margaret Atwood
• Cometh the Hour — Jeffrey Archer
• Before the Fall — Noah Hawley
• Black-Eyed Susans — Julia Heaberlin
• Our Endless Numbered Days — Claire Fuller
• Neurotribes — Steve Silberman
• Shotgun Lovesongs — Nickolas Butler
• White Teeth — Zadie Smith
• Homecoming — Tanya Bullock
• Keep You Close — Lucie Whitehouse
• The Valley of Horses — Jean M. Auel
• The Wars of the Roses — Dan Jones
• Maestra — L. S. Hilton
• Before We Met — Lucie Whitehouse
• Gone Astray — Michelle Davies
• e. — Matt Beaumont
• The Robber Bride — Margaret Atwood
• Just Fall — Nina Sadowsky
• The Secret History — Donna Tartt
• Missing, Presumed — Susie Steiner
• Catfish and Mandala — Andrew X. Pham
• The Crossing Places — Elly Griffiths
• England, England — Julian Barnes
• The Vanishing Year — Kate Moretti
• Escape the Night — Richard North Patterson
• The Nest — Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
• The Last Child — John Hart
• The Frozen Dead — Bernard Minier
• The Assistants — Camille Perri
• Modern Lovers — Emma Straub
• Gone, but Not Forgotten — Phillip Margolin
• Shelter — Jung Yun
• Freya — Anthony Quinn
• The Woman in Cabin 10 — Ruth Ware
• Conviction — Richard North Patterson
• Dear Amy — Helen Callaghan
• Eleanor — Jason Gurley
• The Sympathizer — Viet Thanh Nguyen
• Between You and Me — Mary Norris
• Invincible Summer — Alice Adams
• The Most Dangerous Place on Earth — Lindsey Lee Johnson
• Orpheus Lost — Janette Turner Hospital
• Hold Still — Lynn Steger Strong
• The Execution of Noa P. Singleton — Elizabeth L. Silver
• Rich and Pretty — Rumaan Alam
• If I Forget You — Thomas Christopher Greene
• The Mandibles — Lionel Shriver
• Conspiracy — S.J. Parris
• Rage of Angels — Sidney Sheldon
• Memoirs of a Geisha — Arthur Golden
• Vinegar Girl — Anne Tyler
• The Lock Artist — Steve Hamilton
• The Unforgotten — Laura Powell
• The Man Who Couldn't Stop — David Adam
• Sweetbitter — Stephanie Danler
• The Gilded Years — Karin Tanabe
• The Fire Child — S.K. Tremayne
• This Perfect Day — Ira Levin
• The Clasp — Sloane Crosley
• Disclaimer — Renee Knight
• Indonesia, Etc.  — Elizabeth Pisani
• The Janus Stone — Elly Griffiths
• Stormbird — Conn Iggulden
• Wild Justice — Phillip Margolin
• The House at Sea's End — Elly Griffiths
• A Room Full of Bones — Elly Griffiths
• Saturday Requiem — Nicci French
• The Red Room — Nicci French
• Ties That Bind — Phillip Margolin
• Beneath the Skin — Nicci French
• A Quiet Place  — Seicho Matsumoto
• Dying Fall — Elly Griffiths
• The Trespasser — Tana French
• The Swimming Pool — Louise Candlish
• I See You — Claire Mackintosh
• Truly Madly Guilty — Liane Moriarty
• Bright, Precious Days — Jay McInerney
• Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow — Peter Høeg
• Proof Positive — Phillip Margolin
• Undertow — Elizabeth Heathcote
• The Animators — Kayla Rae Whitaker
• You Will Know Me — Megan Abbott
• This Is Where You Belong — Melody Warnick
• Three Sisters, Three Queens — Philippa Gregory
• The Faces of Angels — Lucretia Grindle
• Loner — Teddy Wayne
• Catch Me When I Fall — Nicci French
• Killing Me Softly — Nicci French
• The Outcast Dead — Elly Griffiths
• Eileen — Ottessa Moshfegh
• Out — Natsuo Kirino
• Land of the Living — Nicci French
• Fugitive — Phillip Margolin
• Serious Sweet — A.L. Kennedy
• The Plains of Passage — Jean M. Auel
• Supreme Justice — Phillip Margolin
• The Blind Assassin — Margaret Atwood
• Violent Crimes — Phillip Margolin
• Good as Gone — Amy Gentry
• The Shelters of Stone — Jean M. Auel
• Bring Back the King — Helen Pilcher
• Only Daughter — Anna Snoekstra
• Highest Duty — Chesley Sullenberger and Jeffrey Zaslow
• The Associate  — Phillip Margolin
• Commonwealth — Ann Patchett
• Today Will Be Different — Maria Semple
• Heartstone — Phillip Margolin
• The Trap — Melanie Raabe
• The Hopefuls — Jennifer Close
• A Fortunate Age — Joanna Rakoff
• Tell Me No Lies  — Lisa Hall
• Stoner — John Williams
• Home — Harlan Coben
• The Whistler — John Grisham
• Modern Romance — Aziz Ansari
• Alias Grace — Margaret Atwood
• Mount! — Jilly Cooper
• This Was a Man  — Jeffrey Archer
• The Circle  — Bernard Minier
• Behind Her Eyes — Sarah Pinborough
• Once More, with Feeling — Victoria Coren & Charlie Skelton
• Behind Closed Doors — B.A. Paris
• The Last One — Alexandra Oliva
• The Two-Family House — Lynda Cohen Loigman
• All the Ugly and Wonderful Things — Bryn Greenwood
• News of the World  — Paulette Jiles
• Another Brooklyn — Jacqueline Woodson
• Modern Girls — Jennifer S. Brown
• The Secret of Nightingale Wood — Lucy Strange
• The Penguin Lessons — Tim Michell
• The Swans of Fifth Avenue — Melanie Benjamin
• Best. State. Ever. — Dave Barry
• Sleight of Hand — Phillip Margolin
• Small Great Things  — Jodi Picoult
• Animal — Sara Pascoe
• The Wrong Side of Goodbye — Michael Connelly
• The Book of Unknown Americans — Cristina Hernandez
• North of Boston — Elisabeth Elo
• To Capture What We Cannot Keep  — Beatrice Colin
• The Futures — Anna Pitoniak
• Sleeping Beauty — Phillip Margolin
• We Never Asked for Wings — Vanessa Diffenbaugh
• The Underground Railroad — Colson Whitehead
• Tender — Belinda McKeon
• The Muse — Jessie Burton
• Jar City — Arnaldur Indriðason
• When Breath Becomes Air — Paul Kalanithi
• Swing Time — Zadie Smith
• The Last Innocent Man — Phillip Margolin
• Hillbilly Elegy — J.D. Vance
• The Land of Painted Caves — Jean M. Auel
• Trinity — Conn Iggulden
• Lost Lake —Phillip Margolin
• Silence of the Grave — Arnaldur Indriðason
• Hidden Figures — Margot Lee Shetterly
• This Must Be the Place — Maggie O'Farrell
• A Rising Man — Abir Mukhurjee
• The Wangs vs the World  — Jade Chang
• Voices — Arnaldur Indriðason
• The Crossing — Andrew Miller
• The Draining Lake — Arnaldur Indriðason
• Homegoing — Yaa Gyasi
• Hagseed — Margaret Atwood

* I received pre-release review copies of Why We Came to the City, The Trespasser and The Animators from NetGalley. Receiving a review copy of a book doesn't influence my decision to review it or my opinions of it in any reviews I do write.

My Top 5 Movies of 2016

My cinema visits have declined again in 2016, thanks to a combination of longer days in the office and busy weekends either in London or abroad. I only watched 54 films this year and only half of those were at the cinema. It was only a few years ago that I was going to the cinema twice a week, although it was cheaper to do so then and I lived very close to multiple cinemas. On the plus side, these reduced viewing figures made picking out my top five films rather easier than last year.

1. Arrival. I was always going to enjoy a film whose central character is a female linguist, but it wasn't a given that I would like it as much as Denis Villeneuve's Arrival, which stars Amy Adams as an American linguist who is tasked with communicating with a pair of alien beings that have arrived in a strange spacecraft that has landed in Montana. The film is so much more complex and clever than this brief plot description suggests, however. It is powerfully moving, lovingly made and cleverly constructed. I felt emotionally drained when I left the screening and yet although its 1h56 runtime was just about right, it left me craving more, which, in this age of 3h30 epics, is something I rarely feel about a film.

2. Nocturnal Animals. Without wishing to sound like the London chapter of the Amy Adams fan club, I thought she was terrific in Tom Ford's second picture too, although her self-absorbed and often shallow character in Nocturnal Animals contrasted starkly with her performance in Arrival. Like Villeneuve's film, though, Nocturnal Animals' clever and precisely choreographed structure and hugely compelling plot kept me gripped until its understated but powerful conclusion. Nocturnal Animals is a visually stunning film, but one that isn't often easy to watch; rather, it's harrowing and sad, and with the theme of vengeance featuring as prominently as in the fifth film on this list. With great supporting performances, particularly from Michael Shannon and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ford's movie is very accomplished indeed.

3. Manchester by the Sea. Speaking of harrowing... Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea, which comes out in the UK on 13 January, is filled with physical and emotional pain. It isn't so much heart-wrenching as heart-pummelling as it gradually tells the story of a solitary janitor (Casey Affleck) who returns to his hometown after a tragedy in the family. His return to the town awakens many of his barely acknowledged (let alone defeated) demons. Although the film could be more concise, Affleck's central performance as the broken, heartbroken man holds it all together. Just make sure that you have something comforting and light-hearted queued up to watch after the emotional battering you will probably receive.

4. Hail, Caesar! Several people walked out of the screening of the Coen brothers' latest film that I attended in Portland and if you are not a fan of the Coens, you probably won't be too fond of this anthology of wackiness set in 1950s Hollywood. It's light on plot — or, rather, it's light on coherent plot — but is wonderfully funny and a delight to watch. I saw the film almost 11 months ago and "would that it were so simple" remains one of my most common ripostes.

5. The Revenant. Back in early January, before 2016 became too bleak, The Revenant was a tough film to watch and I suspect it would be even harder to watch now. Alejandro González Iñárritu's epic tale of vengeance is as brutal as it is beautiful, with strong performances from Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy. You need to be in the right frame of mind — and to have access to as large a screen as possible — but this powerful piece of filmmaking has stayed with me throughout the year.

Bonus: La La Land. OK, so Damien Chazelle's relentlessly joyful depiction of love and ambition in a technicolour Los Angeles didn't quite make it into my top five. But as someone who has little interest in musicals, I was bowled over by how much I enjoyed the film, and I still can't get the haunting, lullaby-like refrain City of Stars out of my head. The chemistry between Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling is remarkable and La La Land is a delightful film. The movie is released in the UK on 12 January. Go to see it!

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

- Joy
- The Danish Girl
- Mad Max: Fury Road (TV)
- The Revenant
- Oldboy (TV)
- The Hateful Eight
- Room
- The Big Short
- 99 Homes (TV)
- Looper (TV)
- Spotlight
- Trumbo
- Amy (plane)
- Ricki and the Flash (plane)
- Hail, Caesar!
- Eddie the Eagle
- Truth
- Rams
- Force Majeure (TV)
- Maryland
- High-Rise
- Midnight Special
- Lost in Translation (TV)
- Chocolat (TV)
- Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (plane)
- Edge of Tomorrow (TV)
- 45 Years (plane)
- Hannah and Her Sisters (TV)
- A Most Wanted Man (TV)
- The Talented Mr Ripley (TV)
- Tommy Boy (TV)
- Clue (TV)
- The Juror (TV)
- The Nice Guys
- Jason Bourne
- Deux jours, une nuit (TV)
- The Dark Knight (TV)
- Manchester by the Sea
- Sully
- The Girl on the Train
- Nocturnal Animals
- Free Fire
- Money Monsters (plane)
- The Accountant
- A United Kingdom
- La La Land
- Pan's Labyrinth (TV)
- Arrival
- Victoria (TV)
- The Edge of Seventeen
- Joy (TV)
- Serendipity (TV)
- Solace (TV)
- The Terminator (TV)

A Year in Leaps: 2016

Each year, as part of my year-in-review top five lists, I like to look back on some of the most memorable places I travelled to this year and, because I enjoy taking silly leaping photos in new places, picking out my favourite five leaps of the year is a fun way to do this. Alas, there were a few particularly memorable trips this year during which, for various reasons, I didn't get the chance to take a leaping photo; most notably, my recent holiday in Reykjavik, where a photo with the Northern Lights in the background would have entailed a 12-second levitation. Even in a leap year, I wasn't quite up to the challenge.

Bex's Food and Drink Awards: 2016 Edition

For the past few years, I have kicked off my series of end-of-year round-ups with a selection of my London food and drink favourites. But as I have spent a fair amount of time travelling this year, I thought it was high time for a revamp. I've kept the same categories as before — best coffee, brunch, street food, restaurant and cocktail — but as well as including my pick for London of the new-to-me places, I've also included an international category so that I can highlight some of my travel food and drink favourites. For the coffee category, it was too hard to narrow down my choices to just two, so I included one for London and the UK, one for the US and one for rest-of-world. I've linked my reviews for each winner and runner-up, so click on through to find out more.

1. Best coffee shop

United Kingdom
Origin (London)
I had my best pourover of 2016 at Origin's Charlotte Street café in Shoreditch back in March and I was even more pleased when they opened a coffee bar at the British Library, near my King's Cross office, in September. You can read more of my London coffee shop reviews here.

Runners-up: Lundenwic (London) and Society Café (Oxford).

United States
Supercrown (Brooklyn, NY)

Although I only made two trips to the US this year — one to Portland, Oregon, and Washington, DC, in February and another to New York in October — I managed to pack in visits to 32 new coffee shops. It was really hard to pick just one, but Bushwick's Supercrown with its excellent and beautifully packaged house-roast beans, immaculately brewed pourovers and relaxed ambiance won me over. See also: more of my New York coffee adventures, my Portland coffee guide, and my DC coffee guide.

Runners-up: Coava (Portland, OR) and The Coffee Bar (Washington, DC)

Rest-of-world
Café Pascal (Stockholm, Sweden)

Vietnam, Paris, Naples and Reykjavik all surprised and delighted me with their coffee scenes this year, but it was Stockholm's Café Pascal that really stood out for me thanks to its excellent (Koppi) pourovers, fab brunch and casual but fun neighbourhood vibe.

Runners-up: Coutume (Paris, France) and The Workshop (Saigon, Vietnam)


2. Best brunch spot

London
Friends of Ours (Hoxton)

Friends of Ours is the kind of neighbourhood brunch spot that every neighbourhood needs. Plus, they serve brunch on weekdays; what's not to like?

Runner-up: The Good Egg

Rest-of-world
Jack's Wife Freda (New York, NY)

Technically, I went to the Soho branch of Jack's Wife Freda for breakfast not brunch, but that made it much easier to secure a table and I would have happily enjoyed my rosewater waffles with a side of duck bacon for brunch (or dinner, for that matter).

Runner-up: Kaffihús Vesturbæjar (Reykjavik, Iceland)


3. Best street food

London
Mercato Metropolitano (Elephant & Castle)

A varied selection of street food — including plenty from some great gourmet Italian producers — is available at the large and bustling Mercato Metropolitan market that opened this summer in Elephant & Castle. There's also a pop-up cinema and an Italian deli.

Rest-of-world
XO Tours (Saigon, Vietnam)


I could have included almost any of the street-food meals and dishes I ate in Vietnam, so I'm cheating a little bit by including XO Tours' street food tour of Saigon by motorbike. I ate so much great food that night, including many dishes I wouldn't have known to order (and some that I might have been too squeamish to order) and although expensive, it was great fun and a great way to see the city.

Runner-up: Di Matteo (Naples, Italy)


4. Best restaurant

London
Padella (London Bridge)

Padella serves quite possibly the best pasta in London at very reasonable prices. It's well worth the queue outside the new Borough Market restaurant — go early if possible.

Runner-up: Som Saa

Rest-of-world
Cull & Pistol (New York, NY)


We had an epic lobster and seafood feast at Cull & Pistol in New York's Chelsea Market. It gets very busy at the weekends but the petite restaurant is worth waiting for.

Runner-up: Pubologi (Stockholm, Sweden)


5. Best cocktail

London
'Rosa Verde' at The Beautiful Pizza Boy (Peckham)

I'd been waiting quite some time for Pedler's little sister (brother?), The Beautiful Pizza Boy to open up, but the pizza and the cocktails at the modern-Neapolitan restaurant on Bellenden Road are excellent. The Rosa Verde cocktail (Buffalo Trace, rose vermouth, pistachio orgeat and rose petals, with a Campari powder rub) looked great and tasted better.

Rest-of-world
'PBJ on Wholegrain' at Tweed (Stockholm, Sweden)

When I spotted the 'PBJ on Wholegrain' on the menu at Tweed in Stockholm, I only asked the waiter to tell me more because I thought it sounded absurd, and yet by the end of his description, I was sold, and it was easily my most memorable cocktail of the year — in a good way, of course. It involves whiskey blended with peanut butter using a special machine, and is smooth, sharp, sweet and fruity.

Runner-up: 'The Clover Club' at The Clover Club (Brooklyn, NY)

Where were your favourite new coffee shops, cocktail bars and restaurants this year? I'd love to hear about them in the comments.

"It's Another Day of Sun" — La La Land Review

Despite the great acclaim it has been getting, I wanted to dislike Damien Chazelle's latest film La La Land. I am not, I should note, a great fan of musicals and the opening scene in which an epic traffic jam turns into an upbeat spectacle as drivers clad in colourful clothes leap out of their cars and sing and dance as they celebrate another day of sun in Los Angeles. Suffice to say that it grated.

Image ©La La Land

La La Land is a classic boy-meets-girl tale in which barista/actress Mia (Emma Stone) and musician-for-high/would-be jazz pianist Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) struggle to balance their budding careers with their nascent romance. The story itself isn't terribly original and yet before long, it had won me over — round about the time Sebastian grudgingly plays Take on Me in an '80s-style band at a party (for the A-Ha song is, surprisingly, my Achilles heel).

Part of the reason the film is such a pleasure to watch is the chemistry between Stone and Gosling. The scenes that they share are mesmerising, their exchanges charming but with enough just enough punch, although both individual performances are also strong. Stone's Mia, in particular, begins as something of a cliché or a cipher — she reminded me a lot of Betty in David Lynch's wonderful Mulholland Dr. (which would make a good double-bill with La La Land), from the giant Ingrid Bergman poster next to her bed and her love of Paris to her cheery optimism. As the film progresses and cynicism and self-doubt begin to set in after more and more auditions end poorly, she becomes at least somewhat more like Diane.

Sebastian too struggles with his dream of opening a jazz bar on the site of a samba/tapas joint that infuriates him ("pick one!"). Instead, he is forced to take gigs playing Christmas music in restaurants to an audience of indifferent diners until someone from his past makes him a tempting and potentially life-changing offer — one that may force him to choose between Mia and his career.

In musicals, I often find myself wishing the songs would end and that we will get back to the plot. This wasn't the case with La La Land and indeed, I was unable to get one of the songs — the beautiful, haunting City of Stars — out of my head for over a week after seeing the film. Although I wasn't quite sure that the few Sliding Doors-like moments worked perfectly, I did enjoy the movie's seasonal structure — the joke being that every season looks the same in LA.

La La Land is escapism, pure and simple. Chazelle has captured a relentlessly joyful, technicolour version of LA that harks back to a golden age of cinema and indeed of the United States. Without wishing to get too political, I should probably note that I saw the film at a preview last month on the night before the US election and it felt comforting and uplifting. I suspect, however, that if I had watched it two nights later, I might have had less patience for its cheery blend of optimism and nostalgia. Nonetheless, if La La Land can win over a cynical musical-skeptic like me, it's a strong sign that Damien Chazelle has created an extraordinary film, as is the suite of Golden Globe nominations it earned earlier this week.

La La Land is out now in US cinemas and will be released in the UK on 13 January 2017.

The Caffeine Chronicles: Coffee Island

I happened upon the first London branch of Greek speciality coffee mega-chain Coffee Island about a month ago. I might have walked past the rather unassuming storefront on Upper St Martin's Lane but I remembered the name from a London's Best Coffee news post and made a note to return. I say that the storefront is unassuming from afar and yet up close, it harbours a wealth of paraphernalia to delight the speciality coffee lover, from grinders and Chemexes, to coffee magazines and single-origin beans.

It was early afternoon on a Sunday when I finally visited Coffee Island and the café was bustling. After admiring all of the merchandise — and there are more shelving units by the front window that house coffee beans, coffee-making kit, mugs and cups, and plenty more. On the wall by the door is the extensive coffee menu. Espresso-based drinks are available with a house blend or a 'Microfarm' single-origin guest for 30p more (yesterday, it was an Ethiopian Sidama). At the brew bar, hand-brewed filter coffees are available brewed through the V60, Aeropress, Chemex or Syphon, with one of five single-origin varieties. There's also a batch-brew filter and an ibrik on the menu.

The large central coffee island ("we're not very original with our names," one of the baristas quipped) is right in front of the door, with a handful of small and longer tables at the back, and several more on the mezzanine level. I ordered a pourover and asked for a coffee recommendation. After discussing my coffee tastes briefly, the barista asked if I was in the mood for a funky Ethiopian and I replied in the affirmative; the result was a fruity Yirgacheffe, which he recommended brewed through the V60 (£2.60). Oddly, given that it wasn't that busy, he seemed to try to down-sell me to the batch brew, but I declined; perhaps he was just trying to make sure I knew all of the options. I also ordered a slice of banana bread (£3) from the tempting array of cakes and sweet treats sitting on the counter. There were also various different sandwiches, but I'd already eaten lunch.

I took a seat at one of the tables at the back of the café where I could watch the baristas at work at the brew bar and on the espresso machine. Before long, the coffee arrived and I was impressed with how well the citrus notes of the Yirgacheffe came through in the V60 brew; it was a very well prepared cup of coffee. KeepCup fans will be pleased to note that the coffees are served in the company's glass cups. I was more interested in the plate on which the — delicious — banana bread was served.

With branches of Timberyard and Department of Coffee & Social Affairs within a two-minute walk, Coffee Island has some fairly stiff local competition, but it's a nice addition to the Seven Dials neighbourhood. If you're in need of some coffee beans, their Microfarm retail bags, which cost between about £6 and £8, are very reasonably priced, and they will grind them for you in the grindery if that's what you need.

Coffee Island. 5 Upper St Martin's Lane, London, WC2H 9NY (Tube: Leicester Square). Website. Twitter. Instagram.

How To Spend a Winter City Break in Reykjavik

I spent four days in Reykjavik and for me, it was about the right amount of time to spend in the city in the winter. I was really busy at work before my trip and didn't have time to do as much research as usual, so I thought I would put together a short guide with some of my tips and recommendations for things to do and places to eat, drink and shop. I plan to go back to Iceland in the summertime to see more of the country, but I loved my short winter city break.

Reykjavik Specialty Coffee Guide

With a population of just 120,000, Reykjavik is one of the smallest capital cities in Europe — it's roughly the same size as Cambridge, UK, to give you some idea. But this doesn't mean that the city lacks a healthy coffee scene — coffee is very much in order on those cold, dark winter days. Coffee and cakes, like most other things in Reykjavik, are expensive, which meant that I could generally only try one type of coffee in each café. Here are some of the coffee shops I visited during my short stay.

Reykjavik III: Something Old, Something Blue

Reykjavik is a destination that rewards the organised and one of the activities that you need to book in advance of your stay is a trip to the Blue Lagoon, the beautiful geothermal spa located in an outstanding area of natural beauty in the middle of a lava field. The Blue Lagoon is a) expensive, b) busy and c) very touristy and yet, it was one of the most enjoyable experiences of my trip.