Here's a little something for the weekend. Amy Hempel is an amazing minimalist writer who has earned herself a bit of a cult following. Anyone who has read Chuck Palahniuk's essay on her work in Non-Fiction will know of her by reputation, but may not necessarily have read any of her stuff. Some of her best writing is out of print, so I'm glad I recently stumbled upon The Harvest, a gem from her short story anthology At The Gates Of The Animal Kingdom (which is currently selling second-hand on Amazon for upwards of £120). To give you a quick taster, here's the first line:

"The year I began to say vahz instead of vase, a man I barely knew nearly accidentally killed me."

Anything that starts like this has to be good, right? Go read the whole thing now – it won't take more than ten minutes, I promise – although you will want to read it again straight afterwards!

Thirteen things to look forward to in 2005:

Ocean’s 12 - Judging by the reviews I’ve read so far, this one’s going to split the audiences. I watched Ocean’s Eleven again the other day and I still think it’s one of the most entertaining things I’ve ever seen, so I have high hopes.

Sin City - I’ve just watched the trailer, and this looks amazing. I’m not quite sure what they’ve done to Benicio Del Toro - it looks like they’ve ironed his face. Am planning on reading all of the books before this comes out. Maybe face-ironing is an important part of the plot…

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou - Wes Anderson directing, Bill Murray getting planning to get revenge on a shark, portugese Bowie covers, Willem Dafoe as a French diver, Henry Sellick-animated sealife. How can it not be a masterpiece?

REM live in Hyde Park - Please please please don’t rain.

War Of The Worlds - Judging by the first teaser trailer, this is going to be the anti-Close Encounters. It’ll be interesting to see how they do it without repeating Independence Day.

Batman Begins - So far it all looks pretty good.

The Corpse Bride - I’m excited about Charlie And The Chocolate Factory too, but this is the Tim Burton film I’m most excited about. Haven’t seen any pictures yet, but I’m hoping it’s in a similar style to The Nightmare Before Christmas. Haven’t heard yet if it’s a musical. Must do more research…

King Kong - it won’t be as amazing as the rings films, let’s accept that now, but it should still be pretty darned amazing. Plus anything with Naomi Watts in is well worth watching. Keep up to date with the production diaries here.

Revenge Of The Sith - they can’t possibly go wrong with this one. Plus, we may get to find out what Lucas plans on doing next.

Spongebob - The movie, the new series, the whole-series DVDs, everything!

New Chemical Brothers LP - their new single, Galvanise, is a right old grower. The album should be just as good. Whether it’ll be another Dig Your Own Hole is another matter.

Clone Wars on DVD - worth it just for that moment where the rain hits Anakin’s lightsabre and it starts steaming.

Dr Who - but let’s hope it’s more Tom than Colin Baker…