Eve Tushnet
Let’s do this. Previous years can be found here.
I already did my top 10 books and my opinion there has not changed.
Possibly my favorite review of my novel is Kate Havard’s: “A Paleocon, An Otherkin, And a Saint Walk Into a Bar.” (Buy the book here yo.)
Best movies seen for the first time: The Fits
ugh I can’t leave it off, I enjoyed Little Sister so, so much and can’t bear to bump The Elephant Man so you’re getting a top six.
The Witch and really this maybe should be third. Math is hard.
Also notable: Barcelona, Birth of a Nation (2016), Casino, Charlie Victor Romeo, Coming to America, The Cramps: Live at Napa State Mental Hospital, Creep, Don’t Bother to Knock, God on Trial, Holy Hell, Hunger, The Lobster (and more here), The Long Goodbye, Menace II Society, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, The Sisterhood of Night, Tickled, Tuff Turf,
Movie Fidel Castro can watch when he finally gets out of Purgatory: Behavior. You can watch it now!
Best articles by other people: I always do six here, because one year I forgot how to count.
Patrick Blanchfield, “The Gun Control We Deserve.”
Helen Andrews, “The New Ruling Class.” (I did a quick note on non-meritocratic forms of personal authority here.)
Dara Lind, “Fear is a totally rational reaction to the Donald Trump presidency.”
Matthew Loftus, “When the Neighborhood Changes.” Excellent framework for thinking about gentrification; hits a lot of issues in a short space. If you’d like a portrait of a church doing what Loftus recommends, check out Ruben Castaneda’s S Street Rising: Crack, Murder, and Redemption in DC.
Amy Welborn, “Women and the Protestant Reformation.”
Karen Heller, Against Air-Conditioning. I’m not using the headline the Washington Post gave it because it’s scolding and she almost certainly didn’t write it. Great aesthetics-driven piece on a subject dear to my heart.
Also this isn’t the same as the other articles so I’m separating it out: “We Know That We Are Going to Be Killed.” An interview with an Iraqi priest.
Best articles by me: “Humiliation and Reconciliation.” On public penance, from the 13th century to yesterday.
“Order, Chaos, Peace.” I put a lot of myself, & my current intellectual concerns, into this review of a biography of L. Brent Bozell.
“The Right to Look Your Judge in the Eye.”
“Tenderness in Moonlight“: I didn’t actually love Moonlight but I wanted to talk about the thing it’s about.
“Amoris Laetitia from Where I Stand.” This probably also counts as the article by me with which I’m least satisfied.
Best blog posts ditto: “The Three False Gods of Marriage, Freedom, And Morality” and “If You Don’t Honor Celibacy…“.
“Assisted Suffering.” Against assisted suicide. Of which more in the New Year.
“As They Liked It.” I start out by reviewing an early ’80s Shakespeare acting class and end up ranting about recovery and guilt and eternity.
“Fr. Mother, Or, Is there an equivalent to the priesthood for ladies?”
I think my other favorite things I did on Gay Catholic Whatnot were “Unchosen Blessings,” “Four Kinds of Argument on True Fulfillment for Gay Christians,” and the talks I gave at Hope College and Calvin College. But the most practical piece is probably “Some Ideas for When Your Church Can’t Handle the Thought of Orthodox Gay Christians.”
Best anthology I’m editing, which should come out in late 2017: “Staying Catholic When You’ve Been Hurt in the Church.” It may get a better title.
Most unintentionally Christian political slogan: Deplorable Lives Matter.
Holy Fool 2K16: Joanna Rothkopf, “Eat, Pray, Tail: I Wore a Tail for a Week and Learned Nothing.” Every time I think about this piece I laugh once more.
Photographs of the year: monks returning to St. Aelred’s abbey, 500 years after it was destroyed by Henry VIII.
And last: A friend of mine became an American this year so it is, I think, only fitting that on New Year’s Eve I introduce her to this movie:
Wait, no. This was a great year for fans of underdog sportsmen. Adam Rippon won Nationals!
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