Looking for something to read, watch, or listen to over the break? Hunting for a last-minute gift idea for that picky relative? Look no further! Over the course of the week we’ll bring you recommendations from colleagues in the department. Today, our purveyor of all things counter-cultural, Matt Worley, kicks things off, with additional ideas from TV queen Abbie Tibbot and literature lover Jeremy Burchardt.

Matt Worley, Professor of Modern History

Music is my main thing, so my ‘album of the year’ was the latest PJ Harvey, I Inside the Old Year Dying. Honorary mentions to: Gazelle Twin (Black Dog), Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan (The Nation’s Most Central Location) and Crown Court (Heavy Manners). My favourite gig was PJ Harvey too – at the Roundhouse; though Echo & the Bunnymen at the Albert Hall was also pretty dreamy. Godflesh served as the most pummeling … and I took my daughter to Swans, which was so loud and claustrophobic that she vomited (good dinner table anecdote for her future years). I made up for it by accompanying her to the gentler Lloyd Cole later in the year.

Book-wise, discovering Edouard Louis was a revelation, as was Eliza Clark’s Boy Parts (thanks to Natalie Thomlinson for those). Of older books, I was recommend The Maimed by Hermann Ungar and, er, enjoyed it very much. I was also pleased to see the rehabilitation of Wilhelm Reich in Olivia Laing’s book Everybody.

On TV, I finally watched the third season of The Deuce (HBO), plus ‘enjoyed’ pretty dark stuff such as The Long Shadow (ITV) and The Reckoning (BBC). The best TV for me, though, was Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland on the BBC: proper (as they say).

I’ve enjoyed a few trips to exhibitions. Horror Show at Somerset House was very much up my alley, made even better by seeing Boy George act the star on the opening night and speaking to Philip Sallon in a pretend womb (I didn’t see that one coming). Alice Neel at The Barbican was great (the portraits of Annie Sprinkle and Gus Hall looking across at each other I appreciated very much).

Finally, films. Seeing The Wicker Man on the big screen was brilliant: it’s one of my favourite films of all time. Newer flicks that stuck with me were R.M.N and Carol Morley’s Typist Artist Pirate King. Rewatched twice this year were Possum and Peeping Tom, though the discovery of Penny Slinger’s Out of the Shadows documentary was the moment that stays with me most.

I’m looking forward to the Women in Revolt exhibition at the Tate (this promises to be my favourite of the year, for sure). I also just bought a book about John Waters, which will be a treat. The Pauline Boty biography is on my Christmas list … and there’s a new Jon Savage book out next year. There’s a pile of Jane Arden and Peter Whitehead DVDs I need get to as well – not really festive, but unravelling psyches always tend to have a place at my table.

Abbie Tibbot, Research Student and Associate Lecturer

I’ve recently been to the cinema to see the new Hunger Games prequel, after reading the book this summer. This series holds a lot of nostalgia for me as I was a teenager when the original films came out. The prequel was excellent, both on the page and on the screen.

During the break, I’ll enjoy catching up with The Crown on Netflix, I need to see how it ends! I’ll also watch all the Christmas TV I can manage, including Strictly Come Dancing and the new Dr Who specials with David Tennant, the best Dr Who in my humble opinion.

Jeremy Burchardt, Associate Professor in Rural History

I’ve been listening to Ewan MacColl’s ‘The Moving-On Song’ – such a powerful and compassionate piece standing with migrants, travellers and others at the very margins of our society.

Over the break, I’ll be re-reading George Eliot’s Middlemarch. I first read it I think in my teens but I am sure most of it passed over my head!

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