Annus mirabilis

Does cultural output reach a highpoint every January without me having noticed before? There are more new, excellent films out this past month - No Country For Old Men, Sweeny Todd, Charlie Wilson's War - than I remember seeing all of last year. I vaguely remember January 2006 including the release of both Closer and Garden State, which were probably the best two films of the year, but I don't remember any notable books coming out that month or anything much from Jan07. Today I walked into a bookshop and for the first time I can remember could have bought six months worth of reading without trying - in fiction there's a new Iain M Banks, a new Charles Stross (about a theft in a virtual world), the last of Orson Scott Card's Shadow trilogy out in paperback, George R R's Hunter's Run; in non-fiction The Logic of Life has come out a week and a half early, seemingly just to catch this January tide of excellence. They've been around a while, but I spent at least one week of January reading the first two books of Scott Lynch's staggering Gentleman Bastard sequence and await the third with unconcealed impatience. I saw the best Eels concert I've ever seen a fortnight ago: on Wednesday, the penultimate day of January, the Penny Sweets are reforming. I've even been playing the best board game I've ever seen most weekends since Xmas - the wonderful, complex Power Grid.

Frankly I suspect a new golden age. In my experience one rolls around every few years.