E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

I am writing this first part on the eve of New Year's Eve day - and as new remembrances come to me, I may well update it. As the years go on, and this blog seems an interminable waste of time and fuss, and as my ego weakens its grip on me (ever too slowly to be sure) it seems less time is required to indulge my need for self-advertising. However, I do like to briefly report in such posts on things done and experienced. The highlight of the year is the time spent at Christmas with my family. No other part of the year is ever more meaningful, and I am always reminded how love shapes and supports my existence. Professionally, managing to keep my small indie publishing press afloat in a bad time for retail and literary publishing, was a major success for me. We published too many vital and important books to celebrate them all here, but two stood out for me, as being watersheds in our company's fortunes and esteem - The Monkman and Seagull Quiz Book - a good-selling en

Aim High, more often Year-end Best of lists are invidious, and, also, these days, ubiquitous, to the point of madness. But we have loved them for years... so... In the spirit of austerity and limiting resource-expenditure, Eyewear, the blog , this year will focus on the TOP ONE of various categories. Note we cannot claim to have seen or read everything, including The Post , or Lady Bird , which may end up winning the Oscar in 2018. So here goes. (we have not included our Eyewear books; nor have we included books of poetry, that may follow in 2018) BEST NOVEL 2017 1. The Transition - novel by Luke Kennard Oddly overlooked by some, this brilliant mock-dystopian millennial epic was both brilliantly funny, and insightful, and the debut of one of the UK's best-known younger poets. A great British comic novel, easily comparable in laughs per page to Lucky Jim . BEST FILM 2017 1. Good Time  If this was a longer list, we'd have room for Bladerunner 2049 , The L