A very chaotic year, but these are the books I have read this year.

1421           Gavin Menzies.  The year China discovered America.

This is absolutely fascinating and a sequel to his previous book, but this is far more detailed about how several enormous Chinese fleets, often of 500 boats, composed of huge Junks and lesser boats, discovered almost the entire world, from California as well as the East Coast of the USA, South America, Europe, Africa and even Australia.  It is a total rewriting of the European history of discoveries, which of course was kicked off by versions of the highly detailed maps the Chinese made. It’s an odd irony that Confucianism put an end to the explorations.

Faceless Killers             Henning Mankel

The first Kurt Wallander Mystery and I guess there are a lot more.  Easy reading.

The Stepdaughter          Caroline Blackwood

I may have read this before, but she is a fine writer and far more than the reputation she has earned.

Universality                   Natasha Brown

This is the genuine article.  A very fine novel by a very fine young British novelist of whom we will hear a lot more.  A definite must read.

Table for Two.   Short stories   Amor Towles

I am not a fan of this writer.  I think he writes pastiches of other writers.  This book did nothing to change my mind.

The Pregnant Widow              Martin Amis

I did enjoy a re-read of this though.  Martin Amis is always readable, always fascinating.  And sadly no longer with us.

Some Hope          Edward St. Aubyn

The third of the Patrick Melrose novels.

I re-read it out of desperation for something new.  This quartet is magnificent as is his writing.

The Carter of Providence                 Georges Simenon

I’m running out of Maigret’s to read.   Oh no.   They are such a perfect length and so fine.

The Actual           A novella     Saul Bellow

I know some people think Bellow is the best writer but I am not one of them.  Some of his books I admire a lot, others less so.  This may fall under the latter category but since it is very short and about sex it is quite readable.

Paris in Turmoil.   A city between past and future.    Eric Hazan

A book written by a Publisher, which is far less interesting than the city it is about.

I had A Chateau in Provence            Iain McGarvie-Munn

Since I happen to know this chateau and it features a little in my forthcoming book on Provence (out next year, I was delighted to find this personal memoir by the son of the man who bought and renovated it absolutely fascinating.   He also writes very nicely.

Foundation          Peter Ackroyd

The History of England from its earliest beginnings to the Tudors.

And that pretty much describes it.   Interesting early beginnings in pre-history through the Romans to the more familiar Kings.  I have read a few of his later books too.

We could be….Bowie and his heroes          Tom Hagler

With help from Tony Visconti this is a highly readable romp through the many extraordinary and talented people that David experienced and enjoyed throughout his life.   He was an intellectual, an artist, a musician and a very very funny man.  Simple and enjoyable.

Midnight Mass              Paul Bowles

Very enjoyable short stories.

Philip Larkin Poems                        Selected by Martin Amis

Brilliant selection and brilliant foreword.

Read on Kindle

 

The Tenth Man                      Graham Greene

I’m a fan but I found this almost unreadable.

Life Sentences               Martin Mull

A preview copy for which I was proud to write a Foreword.   Lovely short stories from my late friend, actor, guitarist and artist, whom I miss a lot.

The Demon of Unrest              Erik Larson

I had to abandon this history beginning in Savannah just before the Civil War because it so reflected today’s headlines and what is happening again in America that I found it impossibly depressing and I was unable to continue.  I hope America can survive again without losing another half a million men.

Earth to Moon               Moon Unit Zappa

I have known her since she was a young girl in Vacation 2 and the family since the death of Frank, whom I did not know.  She writes wonderfully and her book is totally sad because as the eldest and the nicest she suffers the most from her mother, who was very bizare and who behaved monstrously at the end, leaving the two eldest kids with almost nothing.   Moon’s father too, bringing home mistresses and paying little attention to the kids, was also some kind of monster.  I hope this book helps Moon find herself and a pathway to a decent life.  She has the brains and the writing skills and the modesty to do all that.   Remembering always the words of the poet Larkin: “They fuck you up your mum and dad.”

The Fatal Shore            Robert Hughes

One of my favourite books and I re read it because of course I was in Australia which is where I would like to be most days.

Homo Sapiens:     A brief history.

Doesn’t seem to mention an author, but is a fairly brief romp through the beginnings of mankind.  Highly readable and a useful reminder of what and where we came from.

The Beautiful and the Damned         F. Scott Fitzgerald

I had to have a quick re-read.  Not my favourite but this is his first and fairly incredible for that.

California Fire and Life.                  Don Winslow

It was the first of his I read so thought I’d give it another go.   Enjoyed it again.

When the going was good                 Graydon Carter

I like him as an editor.  Found this going not so good….  Oops.

A few words in defense of our Country.  Robert Hilburn

The Biography of Randy Newman.   Of course I loved it.  Though he might have mentioned I gave him his star on the Walk of Fame – outside Musso’s.  !!

Gun Street Girl                       Adrian McKinty

Falling Glass                          Adrian McKinty

Loved them both.  In fact all his work except his two best sellers!!

The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire.     Henry Gee

Loved it.

Lorne .  The Man who invented Saturday Night Live      Susan Morrison

Of course I found it fascinating.  Though I must say it made me a little anxious.  Is that the secret to Lorne’s control?

Broken                Don Winslow

As always readable and gripping.

The Wide Wide Sea.    Hampton Sides.

Imperial Ambition , First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook. Readable and fascinating

 

Summer Reading.  2025

Travelling to England and on to Europe for a summer away from the madness of North America.

I regret Everything                  Keith McNally.          (Kindle)

The legendary restaurateur reveals everything.  Well almost.  Including the fact that he is British, had an affair with Alan Bennet and other naughty details of a life well spent opening many of New York’s finest and most popular restaurants and nightclubs – from The Odeon to Nells.  He writes well and honestly and I enjoyed his company.

The Zone of Interest               Martin Amis         (Kindle)

Quite the most enjoyable and startling and beautifully written novel I have ever read.   He is often pre-occupied with evil, and as this is set in Auschwitz, which only gradually dawns on you, evil is everywhere.  Doll, the commandant, insists he is just a normal man, as his wife slowly and gradually recognises the sheer horror in which she now lives with their children.   I think it is a masterly piece of work and enjoyed every minute of it, including his brief notes at the end on the nature of Hitler, who turns on his own people and seeks their own destruction.

The Absent One    A Department Q novel.   Jussi Adler-Olsen.    (Kindle)

Having enjoyed the Netflix Scottish Adaptation of the first volume of these books by the Danish writer I was naturally tempted to read more of them.   This was Book Two and although well written, I found the level of violence in this book way too much for me and I abandoned it for the sake of my own mental health.   He does conjure cruel monsters and they may well exist like this, but I had to turn away.   And read:

Maigret and The Headless Corpse              Georges Simenon

Yes I know it’s mellow and set in a Paris that has long gone, nevertheless he writes so well and plots so well that I am unashamedly a fan.   This is one of the very best of his.  And I immediately followed up with:

Maigret’s Revolver                           Georges Simenon

Which I had the vague memory I had read before.   That after all was originally the point of keeping this Reading Diary, but now I am older I find I can re-read quite happily, and if it is a great book or even a good book, it just keeps better.  So I read on and don’t look back, wishing I could join the Inspector in a glass of pastis on the way home, but sadly my drinking days are behind me.   In fact most of my days are behind me, but it doesn’t matter as long as I can still read (and play guitar.) I share my love of Maigret with Jules Holland, though he is a real fan and visits the arrondisements mentioned in the book including the Boulevard Richard Lenoir where Maigret lives with the endlessly patient Madame Maigret.

Four Seasons in Rome            Anthony Doerr

I’m a huge fan of his and spotted this unlikely travel book in a brief race through Foyles.    Of course Doerr writes wonderfully, he is one of the best of the current writers.  He and his wife Shauna leave Idaho shortly after she gives birth to twins.  A difficult birth, and they fearlessly head off to Italy with no Italian.   One of my motto’s is “Never let children outnumber you” and the sheer bravery of travelling to Rome with twins for an unsought, but nevertheless awarded, one year writing scholarship is a fascinating story.   Of course he hardly gets any writing done, the twins (boys) are still in their first year, need endless attention and the exhausted couple struggle through a dream like Rome. Of course throughout their stay they are praised, helped and adored by the Italians who do love children.     They manage to make day trips to see various sites in Tuscany from their flat in Trastevere and more locally in Rome itself.  He always has something interesting to share from the two and a half thousand years of Roman history. Coincidentally, they are present for the death of Jean Paul 2, the huge funeral and the subsequent election of the German Ratzinger, who actually remains in the Vatican long after his resignation as Pope.  Doerr is a great observer of people, and despite his lack of the language he manages to bring to life all the local people they meet in their extraordinary year.  It’s fascinating to me that at this point in his life he still hasn’t written All The Light We Cannot See and refers to it as the historical novel he hasn’t finished.

 

Two shelves of books and a stacked Kindle I’m ready for my summer reading and the road.    I realize I couldn’t do without reading.  I hardly watch movies any more, though I do like lots of the mini-series on the Streamers.  Binge watching is the best.  Too bad they have killed the cinema and don’t pay royalties.

Summer Books

The Thin Man                                 Dashiell Hammet

One of my favourite books.  It moves so fast, almost all dialogue, more like a movie. The characters live and breathe through dialogue and cocktails.  Obviously Nick is him and Norah Charles is Lillian Hellman.  He really keeps the pace up.  Love it.

The Lock-Up                                   John Banville

How very different novels can be.  In this the action starts very dramatically and then slows down.  Almost everything extraneous is described, several different stories appear to start up.  Reflections on doorways are described, landscape, trees, Dublin, clothes, but this does slow the action down and in the end the mystery isn’t only superfluous, there is an addendum which is both unexpected and unnecessary.  The book is quite readable but quite slow.

Tourist Season                       Carl Hiassen

This was almost my favourite novel of the summer.  A very funny book about some utterly detestable characters.  I loved every minute of it.   Florida of course but boy does he keep it going with many laugh out loud passages.

The Revenge Club                  Kathy Lette

She describes this as a book for women but I think she does herself an injustice.  Kathy can write with the best of them.  And this is a great summer read, even for we poor men who are also not entirely averse to wanting vengeance on an ex-partner…

Maigret’s Revolver                  Georges Simenon

The perfect palate cleanser.   A perfect Maigret book.   How far we have come with murder mysteries since the almost innocent world of Simenon’s criminal Paris….  It feels safely nostalgic.

Maigret’s Christmas               Georges Simenon

I’m also dipping in and out of a bumper Christmas book of nine stories which I keep by my bedside for desperate times.  They are all great reads and desperation departs.

I used to be charming     The Rest of Eve Babitz

And who wouldn’t want Eve Babitz by your bedside?  Always funny, always inciteful and a superb writer. I prefer the stories of her life and the people she meets to the novels, and this is jam packed with wonders.  I may well have read it several times.  I never get tired of her.

So late in the Day          Claire Keegan

And then there is Claire Keegan the perfect miniaturist, the shortest of books and yet nothing is wasted or out of place.  I loved this.

James                           Percival Everett

And this I adored.  Just a superb rendition of the world of Huckleberry Finn seen through the eyes of a runaway slave.   He made me laugh, he made me cry.   Boy what a tyranny that world of slavery was.  And now this weird president is trying to remove its impact!   “The Smithsonian” we are told “focuses too much on how bad slavery was.”   As if you could possibly remove that stain? It’s like saying Dachau wasn’t so bad.   Disgusting.   Read this book you’ll love it.

State of Fear                 Michael Crichton

I always find him the best of popular page turners.  He writes well and keeps you gripped and enthralled.

The Origins of Creativity.        Edward O. Wilson.

How little we know about ourselves and the origins of what goes on inside our enormous homo sapiens crania.  I found this short book about the birth of the humanities, the origins of creativity, language, art, science, religion and music, so totally absorbing and fascinating, particularly in our relationship to nature, that I read it twice.

 

Dominion                      Peter Ackroyd

And I’m ploughing on through Volume V of Peter Ackroyd’s great History of England.  I surprise myself by how little I know of the great age of industrialism and the political figures who exhausted and sometimes killed themselves, trying to deal with the problems of the age, Peel, Palmerston, Disraeli etc from the end of the Regency to the end of Victoria’s life in 1901.   So like our own modern times and yet so not.

Mrs. Dalloway.              Virginia Woolf

Re-reading this novel after, what?  well this paperback on my shelf says 1969, after all those many years anyway, I found it to be the most delightful, beautifully written and exquisite novel that I had looked down on from a distance for decades.  I could hardly put it down.  I found her grasp of characters delightful, her prose exquisite, and myself a snobby old bastard.  What a joy.   Do we change, or do they?   Quite the most wonderful read of the summer.  I am delighted to have been proven quite wrong and I unashamedly advise you to read it if you have now, like me, grown old enough.  I am now no longer afraid of Virginia Woolf.

The Professor of Desire  Philip Roth

This on the other hand has not survived the test of time.  It has sat on my bookshelf since 1978 and has only grown old and sad.  Rather like a bad Henry Miller.   I have some virtually unreadable notes scribbled in the back that suggest about half way through that I felt it had become soap opera so I don’t think I liked it all that much even back then.  I have been a great admirer of Roth and think I must be careful about re-reading in future.

Let Me Tell You What I Mean           Joan Didion.

A good quarter of the book is a Foreword which tends to suggest the Publisher is trying too hard, but these are quite agreeable bits of journalism, about Nancy Reagan and Martha Stewart, Hemingway and even Robert Mapplethorpe, but often before they became more interesting.  Quite old pieces then but nicely written.

Small Things Like These         Claire Keegan

Another exquisitely written tiny classic.  This one feels like it should be a Christmas film.  How rarely do books get written about good men?  I loved it.

The Eye in the Door       Pat Barker

The Ghost Road             Pat Barker

And I finished the last two books in the Regeneration Trilogy with great delight.   Exceptionally fine writing (she has a fine eye for men and their ways) and no wonder she won the Booker Prize. The shattered world of the first world war, and the unbelievably awful nightmare of the trenches which caused such havoc in the minds of everyone involved, is here intertwined with the struggles of the real men (Rivers) who tried so hard to heal them.  The story involves many of the major writers (Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Graves) and Poets (Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke) and their generation of lost youth, of whom the most tremendous sacrifice was demanded.   Superb writing.  I could read them again.

Reading on the road.       (Always Look on the Bright Side of Live, Live)

Mrs. Dalloway      Virginia Woolf

A 1969 paperback I found in my library in France.  As I say above, I absolutely adored it and couldn’t understand its total lack of appeal to my younger self.  It is a masterpiece.  I left the slightly old and worn copy with its torn cover by my bedside in Birmingham for someone else to stumble across.  This is my policy on the road, which I started last year in Australia.  Let someone else find it. Don’t carry what you’ve read…

 

An emergency visit to Waterstones in Birmingham produced two books

The Predicament           William Boyd

The new novel by William  Boyd a favorite writer I found disappointing and uninteresting.  I found this signed edition in Birmingham but although I am a big fan of his this is a sequel to another book of his which I also did not like much.   I’m afraid I discarded it half way through – signed and all – and gave it to a fellow traveller along with Times Arrow by Martin Amis which I had bought but can never get into. I left that in Brighton.

 

A second visit to Waterstones in Brighton was more fertile. There is never a possibility of being disappointed by Maigret and a slim paperback by Simenon, kept me very happy resting on a huge bed in a bowed bedroom with three windows overlooking the sea with a view of the wrecked iron structure of the old burned down pavilion.   A ferocious wind made it hard to even walk along the promenade.

Stan the Killer      Georges Simenon

A fine Maigret in a nice new edition of Penguin.  Three short stories in the new Penguin Archive Series.  Includes The Inn of the Drowned and Madame Maigret’s Suitor.   Fabulous as usual.  Three short tales.   I gave it to someone in Brighton.

So long, see you tomorrow                William Maxwell

An odd sort of tale, about friendship and murder that for me didn’t really catch fire.  I left it in Manchester.

Betty      Georges Simenon.

Simenon but sadly not a Maigret.  Started fascinating but then stopped.   I left it in Manchester.

Play it as it lays.             Joan Didion

I haven’t read it for a long time.   And it has the advantage of having Eve Babitz on the cover in the nude playing chess with Marcel Du Champ.  I found the novel really good.  Smart, sharp, mordant and funny.    The very best of Didion for me.   Left it in Glasgow.

The Blue Room    Simenon

Also not a Maigret.  Also not as good.  Also left in Glasgow.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brody          Muriel Spark

Re-read it appropriately in Edinburgh.   The perfect book to read in that beautiful city.  I sat reading,  looking at the Castle through the window of my posh hotel.  It’s still a wonderful novel and she is still a wonderful writer.   I left it in the Caledonian Hotel.

Since I enjoyed it so much I started to binge on her, and have put them all together on my return.  Each is worth a re-read.

A Far Cry From Kensington             Muriel Spark

The Ballad of Peckham Rye              Muriel Spark

Loitering with Intent                        Muriel Spark

The Stories of Muriel Spark

Vagabond            Tim Curry

Tim’s publisher sent me an early copy for a quote, for which I was very grateful and I read with delight.

“Tim Curry is perhaps the finest baritone gardener in this business they call show.  He is also, as far as I’m concerned, the King of Broadway – and forever my King.  I love and adore Tim and all things Curry, including Vagabond.   This is his thoroughly enjoyable memoir, a legend writing as honestly as one can about life behind the curtains.”

Hero           Thomas Perry

My friend Tom Perry died suddenly and all I could do was reach for a novel to remind myself just what we will all miss.   He was a very fine man, and father, and we were co-parents at Oakwood, when he kindly gave me a copy of a book of his, and immediately I became addicted.  He sent me a new one every year.

Annihilation         Michel Houellebecq

I am a fan of his and I had been eyeing this very large hardback book, waiting for it to appear in paperback, but when it did it appears I didn’t finish it.   I shall leave it on a shelf near my bedside to try and see if the second half improves.

It Girl.  The Life and Legacy of Jane Birkin         Marisa Meltzer

The life and legs of this beautiful and highly attractive British girl, who cleverly escaped to France and made a very fine life in cinema and in song.  Nicely described and written.  I for one, did not know she had made so many films, but she seems to have enjoyed her life and her notoriety in a healthy and satisfactory way, which ends sadly, as all life does.

Picket Line           Elmore Leonard.   The Lost Novella.

A fine short tale and a fine diversion at an important period of his life, before he became a legend.

The Professor and The Siren   Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Very short tales, but he writes so singularly well that he could write a menu and keep you gripped.  With a foreword by Marina Warner.

Read on Kindle

Crooks        Lou Berney.

A fascinating American crime saga, written through a family, the parents first and now the kids. Normally Sagas are one kind of genre and crime thrillers are another but here he has combined the forms so that a crime thriller about two crooks in Vegas magnificently becomes a saga about their children.  This gives it a depth and a width which is quite fresh and totall originalu.  Quite brilliant in concept and execution and a wonderful read.

Pax            Tom Holland

War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age

Wonderfully written brilliant history.  The best and most fascinating book I have ever read of the early Caesars.  The death of Pliny in the maelstrom that was the entire Bay of Naples exploding is enough to remind us that it wasn’t just Pompeii and Herculaneum that disappeared, it appeared to be the whole world coming apart, and the richest and most opulent part of it.   As if California disappeared one weekend.

Star Island           Carl Hiassen

To say that this family has become addicted to Carl Hiassen is an understatement.  Tania and I are both chuckling our way through the many hilarious books – largely set in Florida – that this man has written. This is Book 6 of 7 in this series.

Henry ‘Chip’s Cannon   The Diaries 1938-43  Edited by Simon Heffer.

Gossipy political diaries about life amongst the Upper Classes during war time. Amusing and entertaining and a reminder that they are not like us.     In the days when people still wrote letters to each other.  For instance:  I am slightly off Rab.  He is bourgeois and a don at heart, and I only like princes and great gentlemen and flaneurs and even, if need be, pansies!   And another example of this weirdly wonderful world at war about his wife.   Mustering my courage I drove to Southend to have a confidential conversation with my ever loyal agent, Bailey. He had heard no hints or rumours of my marital difficulties.  But he spoke out frankly: said that Honor was no loss to me in the constituency as she was personally unpopular, even disliked: many people had

asked him whether she drugged.  Her rudeness and vacant expression had offended and puzzled people.   I finished Anna Karenina and went sadly to bed.   Mrs. Nimmo tells me that old Sir Drummond Smith, a decayed farmer of 80 who lives nearby at Suttons, is courting her 18 year old daughter.  I advised her to encourage the marriage.    The Battle for Leningrad has begun.  It is eight weeks since Germany invaded Russia.

You really can’t make this stuff up and I must remember to dip into it again from time to time!

Bad Monkey         Carl Hiassen.  Book 1.

The Wayfinder              Adam Johnson

I was very find of this writer but found this to be very hard going and I abandoned it.

Nobody’s Girl                Virginia Roberts Guiffre

The poor victim in the appalling world of Ghislaine Maxwell and his saliva hammer.  The most unfortunate story.  I mean if you are victimised by your father what chance do you have?   One feels a mixture of pity and indignation that she fell into such a world amongst such people.  I feel we have not heard the last of this.

Nature Girl          Carl Hiassen

I did warn you.

Skin Tight            Carl Hiassen

My only excuse is they are perfect books for travel.   Especially on Kindle.   And they are very funny.

Clown Town         Mick Herron

I have read practically every word by this extraordinary writer and this was the first book to disappoint me.  I’m not sure why.  I think it’s to do with television.  It spoils all writing.

All About Eve       Sam Staggs

Interesting enough.  Th  complete Behind the Scenes Story of the Bitchiest Film Ever Made.   I didn’t finish it but watched the movie instead.

The Accidental Species.   Misunderstandings of Human Evolution. Henry Gee

Always fascinating and often controversial.   And a jolly good read.

Gun Street Girl     Adrian McKinty

Rain Dogs. Adrian McKinty

Police at The Station and they don’t look friendly. Adrian McKinty

Hang on St. Christopher.  Adrian McKinty

I reminder to myself I also read these on Kindle.  The Sean Duffy Series are terrific.

 

The trouble with Kindle reading is you tend to lose touch with what you read, because when you carry on reading it pops them back to the front of the queue and then annoyingly and condescendingly congratulates you on being on a reading streak.  My whole life is a reading streak so fuck off you Amazonian twats.   It’s very annoying when you re read something on Kindle and then it’s all over the place.  I keep them in case I am stuck somewhere without a decent book, so they are in a chaotic order and I am going to abandon trying to decide what I read recently!

And now it’s November.