On my culture radar this month

Before I start, this month’s photos were taken on and around Glen Dye by Jamie Brogan.

It feels appropriate to start this month with David Lynch, who, as you no doubt know, died in mid-January.

Weirdly, Lynch, a bit like my dad, was one of those people that I thought had been around forever and would go on forever.

Some of his work left me cold, but some I loved.

The first two series of Twin Peaks are amongst my favourite TV shows ever. Caroline and I watched every episode bar one at 9pm on a Tuesday (no pause, no iPlayer) when it first came out in 1990, and in many ways, it dominated our lives. It was so fresh, beautiful, weird, scary, funny, inspiring, peerless.

By coincidence, our youngest son Felix has been watching it and says it remains exceptional.

BOOKS I HAVE READ* INCLUDE

*By way of a reminder, I only mention things here that I enjoy as I am not a critic, rather I see myself as a friend recommending stuff.

Orbital by Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize, and I think it is unbelievably good. It is a thin book, albeit with dense type but it somehow reads like a long one.

It’s unlike anything that I have read, in that while telling a story it often feels like a work of non-fiction. And it is incredibly lyrical, painterly, thought provoking, sad, uplifting and warm.

I still think about it a lot.

Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton is absolutely wonderful.

First a disclaimer, I am fascinated by hares; I love them. But this will appeal to most readers. It is a true story of a woman who finds a leveret on a country track and after passing it twice, immobile and apparently lost, takes it home.

What follows is equal parts heart-warming, educational and unpredictable.

Dalton offers a masterclass in learning through quiet observation, and while she changes the hare to some degree, I think she is changed by it to a greater degree.

This is going to be a huge hit.

Lazarus Man by Richard Price.

Price is one of the great chroniclers of contemporary American life and this clever, dense novel is full of remarkable characters and diverse plots, all of which intertwine to create a mesmerising, believable and very human tale.

The story follows a number of people who are somehow involved in a gas explosion which demolishes a building in Harlem, either as survivors, victims, observers or investigators. It’s all quite complicated but in Price’s masterful hands it works incredibly well.

I raced through it and loved it.

AUDIOBOOK

A Voyage Around The Queen by Craig Brown.

This unconventional and brilliant book is as much a social history as biography of the late Queen, and I think it’s great.

It is meticulously researched, warm, arch, funny and intelligent. The cast of characters ranges from Beaton to McCartney, Anne Frank to Warhol and Hendrix to Trump.

This is the sort of book I thought I wouldn’t read (it is very long, and I don’t generally do biographies) but having listened to it, I now realise that I would have enjoyed it.

Very long, very good.

Honestly, it’s terrific.

MUSIC

I am really enjoying Michael Kiwanuka’s album Small Changes; he’s a master of elegant, soulful pop music that in some ways could have been made at any point in the last 60 years, but also feels very much of now.

Don’t be put off by the song titles, which are all a bit TikTok (this is pejorative… there are tracks called Follow Your Dreams, Live For Your Love, Small Changes), because what lies beneath is great.