Eye in the Sky (2016), directed by Gavin Hood

Intelligent, balanced, thoughtful and well cast, this film examines the chain of command and the decision process of a drone strike on high-level terrorists about to implement a suicide bomb attack in Nairobi. The tension rises as politicians and the military across several nations wrestle with the ethical and legal dilemma of preventing terrorism versus collateral human damage. Helen Mirren and Alan Rickman are strong as the military officers with responsibility for the strike. They have to deal with the vacillations of politicians above, some of whom are more concerned with covering their backsides than making decisions. They also have to take into account the concerns and questions of those below, including agents on the ground and the drone pilots, who actually have to do the dirty work. The technology demonstrated is awesome, but never overwhelms consideration of the human cost. Tension builds as the risk of letting the terrorists escape is weighed against the life of innocent bystanders, particularly a nine-year-old girl selling bread in the street outside the targeted building. Viewers are posed the question – what would you do? And there are no easy answers.

The Wife Drought, by Annabel Crabb

The saying that behind every successful man stands a woman just about sums up Annabel Crabb’s contention that working women need wives in order to match men’s success. Emphatic and repetitive, the book certainly proves its point. A plethora of stats no doubt support the argument, but become tedious despite Crabb’s bright and breezy writing style. That Australian society has made very little progress on this issue, compared with other western nations, is undeniable and depressing. Crabb doesn’t really come up with anything new and offers little in the way of practical solutions to overcome the entrenched social conditioning that maintains the status quo. She argues that change is necessary for the benefit of men, as well as women as all have more to gain than lose. But there is a sense that she is only preaching to the converted.

Plain-speaking Jane, by Jane Caro

A mouthy woman who can laugh at herself, Jane Caro epitomises someone ‘destroying the joint’ by being very good at what she does and not afraid to talk about it. Her autobiography contains bit too much childhood detail; yes it’s important to know where you come from, but that doesn’t mean you have to document every road your bus travelled down the way to each and every school you attended. Very Sydney-centric, her story is nevertheless that of everywoman and includes brave accounts of the effect of childbirth and motherhood on career; battling mental illness; and a triumph of will and talent over self-doubt and societal bullshit. Caro is an impressive woman who somehow manages to relate her (considerable) success in a male-dominated industry without big-noting herself. After the extreme detail of the early years, there is a bit of a rush to the finish. It would perhaps have been entertaining to read more of her time on ABC TV’s Gruen franchise, which is how she became more widely known outside Sydney. But this is a relatively minor niggle about an enormously entertaining memoir.

Clade, by James Bradley

Set in a dystopian future, beginning not too far from now, the effects of cataclysmic climate change on a planet and on a particular extended family are seen in snapshots over a span of around 50 years. Grimly realistic and all too believable, the novel shows the day-to-day reality of the impact of the changing climate on ordinary people and the society they inhabit. Despite it all they continue to live, love, breed and hope, reflecting the truth of the title, which is a reference to the tree of life. Individual characters are not especially appealing, but they are mere cogs in the overall machine of a crisply-written and gripping tale. Books written in the present tense can often be intensely annoying, but here it is less so and as the story continues it actually seems quite apt, when the future depicted is increasingly uncertain.

Friday Night Lights (Series 1-5), directed by Peter Berg

You don’t have to take any interest in American football, or even in sport generally, to get a lot out of Friday Night Lights. For the outsider the obsession with high school football in small town Texas is bizarre, but by all accounts fairly accurate. The first series introduces super coach Eric Taylor, his wife Tami and the town of Dillon, where the Dillon High Panthers reign supreme. Deep and complex themes, well-developed characters and satisfying story arcs move through all five seasons, with the exception of one strange turn in season two. A good man and a good marriage are at the heart of the show, but neither is ever too good to be true. We see the politics of schools, and of small towns, from the point of view of kids and teachers; the joys and perils of parenting; and of course the intricacies of football and what it means to be part of the team, or not. Deeply engaging, it is one of those series that is sad to finish, although it is good that it did not run too long and jump the shark.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery

What a very strange book. At times tedious, often stretching credulity, occasionally very entertaining, it is not at all clear why it became an international best seller. It is written from alternating points of view, those of 12-year-old Paloma Joss and 54-year-old Renee Michel, the concierge of the apartment building in Paris where Paloma’s family lives. At times the voices are difficult to distinguish, which is possibly intentional, but does not contribute to enjoyment of the story. Precocious Paloma is suicidal and contemptuous of her neglectful family. A plain exterior and inferior class disguise Renee’s refinement and intelligence. The former regains some sense of childhood and the latter a sense of self from their involvement with a new resident, a wealthy elderly Japanese man. Quirky in the extreme, the book’s shock ending comes as something of a relief.