1923 (Ned Boulting)

Ned Boulting 
1923: The Mystery of Lot 212 and a Tour de France Obsession

Well known and knowledgeable author writes a typically engaging and thorough book in which his love of the sport comes through. Buys a piece of film at an auction which turns out to be 2 minutes of the 1923 Tour de France and then he investigates who's in the film and their stories. Bring into play everything from their personal stories and of their great grand children and also branches out to cover two world wars and a great deal of French and German history. So many rabbit holes to travel down and incidental and in some ways trivial facts but the way that Ned threads them together is fascinating. Never thought "why is he telling me this" until after I've read enthralled and often after I've gone down my own Wikipedia rabbit hole to find out more. Not many could engage you with their personal obsession in the way that Ned does. You can watch the film on-line too.

George Orwell's 1984 Graphic Novel (Matyáš Namai)

Matyáš Namai
George Orwell's 1984 Graphic Novel Adapted and Illustrated

Orwell's classic dystopian novel reimagined and illustrated. The story is depressing and it seems that we are closer to this society than shortly after Orwell wrote it obviously concerned that the world would go down this route by the end of the 20th Century. Many would say that parts of the world had but the doublespeak whereby leaders reword history and current events on-line is accepted by so many. As with any graphic novel the richness is in the illustrations and these are great. But inevitably at the expense of words which makes me feel that I should read Orwell's version again both to see if it's the same as this version (it's a very long time since I would have read it) and whether the nuances will depress me further.