Final reads of 2025

Read on Kindle:

Dynasty           Tom Holland.

The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar

I was so taken with Pax that I decided to read the entire trilogy.  This one takes us through Caesar and his murder, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula and Nero, the better known Emperors, but he is always fascinating and I could not stop.

Rubicon          Tom Holland

The Last Years of the Roman Empire

I followed up with the finale of his trilogy which completes the tale of Rome.   So that’s over a thousand years of Roman history by this very fine writer, which I enjoyed immensely.  I have several more by him waiting in the wings, which is the great advantage of Kindle when you travel.

On Human Nature     Edward O. Wilson

The 25^th Anniversary edition of this lovely book by this fine writer which tells us all about ourselves and how we came to be here, and let some of the chapter headings inform you of what we are learning:   Heredity, Development, Aggression, Sex, Altruism, Religion and Hope.

1929    Andrew Ross Sorkin

A highly readable account of the stock market crash of 1929 with lots of obvious and scary connections with our own time.

 

Also the Carl Hiaasen craze in our family has continued with

 

Native Tongue

Sick Puppy

Skinny Dip

Star Island

Squeeze Me

Razor Girl

Strip Tease

All of which continue to amuse and pass long journeys agreeably, with many giggles.

Books.

I re-read a couple of Don Winslow books while awaiting delivery of his next one.

A Cool Breeze on The Underground.   Don Winslow

The Trail to Buddha’s Mirror           Don Winslow

Which I found fascinating as I think they are early books of his, and also set in England.

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh    Michael Chabon

And I re read this because I found a nice first edition of his first novel and very much enjoyed it again.

The Eleventh Hour    Salman Rushdie

A Quintet of Stories

But I finished the year off with a magnificent and wonderful read by Salman at his finest, which reminded me of just how enjoyable and inspiring great writing can be.   And this is really great writing.

I’m already re-reading it!

Happy New Books everyone.

 

2026

 

January thru March

House of Meetings                  Martin Amis

A signed edition with a compliments slip from Mike Nichols.  2006.  Nice to read again.

The New York Stories of Elizabeth Hardwick

Born in Kentucky in 1906 I had not read any of her stories before.  A very fine writer.

Captain Alatriste     Arturo Pérez-Reverte

Translated from the Spanish.  About a 17^th Century swordsman. He is the “master of the intellectual thriller.”

Departure (s).      A Novel          Julian Barnes.

Written at 80.  Is it a novel?   Or a memoir?  Or a bit of both.

The Little Sister             Raymond Chandler

I read my First edition from 1949 and enjoyed it but have to say at times I didn’t quite follow it.  It’s not his best but it’s still him.

Kindle Reads

The Cold Cold Ground. 1.      Adrian McKinty

I started to re-read The Sean Duffy Series again.  This is the first of a totally gripping series.   He grew up in Carrickfergus in Ulster and the central idea follows a young police detective trying to do his job in the midst of all the chaos of Northern Ireland.   He’s a bright Catholic cop in a primarily Protestant Police force and in this one the homicide he’s investigating is not the gay serial killer that at first it appears to be….

Double Whammy           Carl Hiaasen

Also the first in a series, this is Skink Book 1.  Macabre, comedic, this is set around a Bass Fishing set who compete and cheat to win, money and cars and cash in Florida.   I have read some of the other ones, but not in the correct order.   I don’t think it really matters.  Hiassen gets funnier and funnier.

The Woman in White     Wilkie Collins

I can’t believe I never read this.  It’s wonderful.  A brilliant thriller from a contemporary of Dickens.

The Final Score             Don Winslow

Six short novels from the thriller writer who never disappoints.

The Island            Adrian McKinty

I thought I’d give his best sellers a chance since I am so enamoured of his earlier books.  Fairly gripping story of a family threatened by a wild Australian family who live on an island near Melbourne.

Half His Age        Jeanette McCurdy

I found her very readable.  And frequently very funny.  For instance this is how she opens this book:

It’s bad form to groan when a guy’s going down on you, I know that, but right now it’s hard not to…

How can you resist such an opening…?

March Violets       Philip Kerr

I must be in a sentimental mood, for this is the third first book of a series I re-read. Bernie Gunther is a Policeman in Berlin in Nazi Germany.   I loved the whole series.

The Most of Nora Ephron

She was so brilliant and writes with so much wit and style, one can only miss her a little more.

Why the Neanderthals ( and the Others) are Gone.   Lonnie Goff

About African migrations.  The Neanderthals evolved in Europe some 430,000 years ago and remained there 170,000 years.   Fascinating stuff.

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.

 

Intermezzo                    Sally Rooney

I like the way she writes.  I found the first half gripping, then felt it was going adrift, but returned to it with delight, because of her prose and the fresh way she writes about people.   Especially in sexual relationships.  I keep going despite several breaks because she can really write.   However though I have re started many times I still haven’t finished it so I must reluctantly conclude the book doesn’t quite work for me.

Gabriel’s Moon             William Boyd.

One of the books I devoured on the road and left behind on a hotel shelf.   I know I loved it but can I remember why or where?   Alas.

The Goodbye People      Gavin Lambert

I left this for a fact on a hotel shelf in Sydney.   I was only quite enjoying it and it went as a sacrifice to weight.   It was a nice McNally Edition I picked up in New York.

The Decline and Fall of The Human Empire.    Henry Gee.  (Preview)

Why Our Species is on the Edge of Extinction.

Now this one I still have because the author kindly sent me a Kindle copy.  I believe I was supposed to write something about it, but the road is so demanding, and tiring and tasking, that I am afraid I forgot to do that.  I think Henry will forgive me as I recommend the book a lot.  The gist is that we have already passed the point of becoming extinct once we became the sole hominid on the planet, but, he allows some room for the possibility of survival if we can manage to leave the planet and colonise space.  The future does not look optimistic on that front and the only upside is that we won’t be here to witness it.  However we will shortly suffer the consequences of our short sightedness in terms of survival on this planet.

Dark Renaissance           Stephen Greenblatt        (Preview)

This is a note I wrote to my pal Stephen Greenblatt who had kindly shared his book with me.   I just adored it as you can see.

“First of all let me say I read your book end to end with delight.  Your writing is effortless, your humor superb, your arguments unanswerable.  I love the way you now bring Marlowe to life in the way that you did Shakespeare.  Through their writing as well as through the scant historical details of their lives you make them live for us.  Marlowe in particular, the precocious boy suddenly lifted out of his working class world and expanded by education which propelled him into Cambridge which allowed his brain room to expand and grow and view the Universe as well and revealing his thoughts in the dangerous world of late Elizabethan life.  That naturally rang home to me, a boy who was gifted a similar elevation.  You expose so well the curse of religions and their cruelty when given half a chance, as well as the dangers faced by scientists in trying to reveal the Universe to us and of common people in the years when religions changed with the weather.

I loved learning about Bruno and his dangerous – though totally accurate – views of the universe and the true nature of the sun and earth  – for which he paid with his life.  Everyone should expect the Inquisition!   In short you’ve done it again, written a totally engrossing, compelling read, throwing light onto a genius poet and playwright who was mysteriously removed from the stage in his prime by forces unknown.

Over The Edge of The World        Laurence Bergreen.

Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

An amazing story.  Enthralling. Gripping and true.  Though  I had my appetite whetted by Henry Green’s short narrative.  This detailed history of the three year expedition by the Portuguese Magellan for Spain, the mutinies, the tragedies, the discoveries was absolutely superb.  It led me into searching for more details about the Chinese exploration of the globe which seems to have certainly preceded all the European “discoveries” and I went looking for any book that shed light on the Chinese Treasure Fleet of  Cheng Ho in the15th Century.  Quite by chance I found a copy of the below in Betty’s Books, a delightful bookshop in Newcastle, NSW.

1434                             Gavin Menzies

The year a magnificent Chinese Fleet sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance.

These Junks were five times bigger than Magellan’s boats and it is clear that these fleets sailed the world and it was their maps, so valuable, that finally got into the hands of European explorers and led to the age of discovery.   I remember reading his previous book 1421 but I think it may have gone when I chucked out my library.  This book too remains somewhere on a shelf in a hotel in Australia for someone else to enjoy.   I take photos of the covers to remind me not to forget, and by the context I think I left it in Sydney, which makes sense.

This is What Happened           Mick Herron

Nobody Walks                        Mick Herron

Miss May Does Not Exist         Carrie Courogen

An enthralling account of the Life of Elaine May, with wonderful stories of the extraordinary Mike Nichols, their meeting, their early days, their successes, and their subsequent inevitable interactions in life and showbusiness.

The Glass That Laughed          Dashiel Hammet

An early recently discovered very short story.

Sweet Tooth                  Ian McEwan

I found this 2^nd hand in a rather lovely Coffee House Bookshop in Newcastle Australia.  I wasn’t sure I hadn’t read it but I very much enjoyed it, particularly the first half which is wonderfully written.  The plot twist works very well.  A very pleasant travel read with lots of nostalgia about Cambridge in the early seventies.

Hero                             Thomas Perry

Another total blinder from Thomas Perry.  How does he remain so good?   A female protagonist is attacked for doing her job.   She goes on the run from police, news organizations and revenge seekers.   Totally gripping.

Howard’s End               E.M. Forster

Which I found second hand in paperback in Newcastle Australia and left in a hotel in Sydney.  I had not re read it in a while and the problem was that after writing “What About Dick?” I kept giggling at various points where Helen(a) stole umbrellas or Leonard Bast(ard) walked all night into the countryside.  It’s my own fault I know but since I have a first edition at home I left this for some other reader to enjoy, who hadn’t been polluted by comedy.

Henry V                        Dan Jones

The astonishing rise of England’s greatest warrior King.

A big book in all ways, and I was grateful to Sydney for publishing it already in paperback.  They do that there and it’s much better for we travellers.  The only problem with Henry Vth for me was that I did not like him at all.  Of course one can feel sympathy for him being attached to the Court of the worrying Richard 11nd, but only in the way you can feel sorry for Caligula attached to the court of Tiberias.   His father was unpleasant but I began to particularly dislike the son when he invaded France and this dislike grew with every siege and  chevauchee.   Is this what we want from our Rulers?   Ruthless efficiency in warfare, and the belief that God has singled you out personally to determine the state of Western Europe.   Yes there are far more unpleasant people around at the time but bashing in towns and cities in the name of God is hardly England’s greatest King.  Shakespeare here has done him a huge favour of course and Lawrence Olivier, but historically at the time England was the one doing the invading so Henry V is hardly the victim of Nazism.  I learned a lot about myself while reading this highly readable and enjoyable biography of one of the greatest Worrier Kings from the deeply mysterious world of the Medieval Ages.

The Blue Hour                       Paula Hawkins

Another brilliantly written suspense book.  I think that’s the right definition.  She is more like Highsmith in narrative form.  Her observation of character is as good, her writing as fine, and she leaves you in the same suspended state of not quite knowing what will happen.  No spoilers.

The Human Factor                 Graham Greene

An odd book which I found second hand in the Adelaide Central Market.

Didion & Babitz                   Lili Anolik

A brilliant book where – as a huge fan of Eve – I learned to appreciate Joan a little more.   Very interesting and of course I knew half the characters in it – odd people like Earl McGrath and the imperious mischievous Ahmet Ertegan.   A very finely researched book based on her discovery of a box of unsent letters, which are of course the most accurate kind, since they say what you think, but then cleverly withdraw from the unpleasant consequences.

True and False              David Mamet

Oh I love David Mamet.  Here he brilliantly peels away the bullshit that surrounds the acting trade.

Three Uses of the Knife:          David Mamet

On the Nature and Purpose of Drama.      Kindle.

Research                       Philip Kerr

I felt very fortunate to fall upon this book in the back of Dymocks in Perth.   I, like many others, was saddened by his early death, and I had no idea that anything else had been published since his decease and yet there it was!   So I fell on it and devoured it on a day off.   Then of course I left it behind in an hotel somewhere, because, well, bags are heavy on the road, so I can give you no information whatsoever, except I immediately recommended it to fellow Kerr enthusiast Jeff Davis and I remember I loved it and intended to buy it again when I returned to the Untied States.

May We Borrow Your Husband   Graham Greene

& Other Comedies of the Sexual Life.

A re-read.   Still a bit disappointing.

Joe Country                  Mick Herron

Episode 7 of Slow Horses. Very good read, except unaccountably it lost a little at the end.

Independence Square     Martin Cruz Smith

I had not read him or what looks like this series which appears to be the last of The Renko novels.

The Master & Margarita         Mikhail Bulgakov

I had previously abandoned this book some years ago on an earlier visit.   I might re-leave it again.  I was intrigued at first then I wasn’t.

Catherine de Medici                Leonie Frieda

Renaissance Queen of France.   Kindle.   The life of Catherine de Medici, the Italian Princess who became Queen of France, and mother of several Queens of France.  This author argues that she was far less the monster that she is painted after the St. Bartholomew Massacre.

Whiplash River                       Lou Berney

I read for a while before remembering I had definitely read this BUT it set me up for the third of this trilogy which has been newly published and which I have yet to read.   I blame Don Winslow for this confusion since he keeps recommending him, and rightly so.

Double Barrel Bluff                Lou Berney

The Kings of Cool                   Don Winslow

Prequel to Savages.

Bambi vs Godzilla    David Mamet

Everywhere an Oink Oink    David Mamet

Fifty Grand         Adrian McKinty

The Promise         Damon Galgut

Making Rumours           Ken Caillat

 

2024

Ok I’m still playing catch up.  Many of these I read some months ago. I’m unsure in which order but I start off as usual with a re-reading of:

Tender is the Night                 F. Scott Fitzgerald

Which I enjoyed more than ever and indeed am now convinced that this is his greatest novel.

I loved the opening prose so much that I picked it up a few weeks later and found myself once again happily on the plage in Juan Les Pins, intrigued by the story of Rosemary and her mother meeting the Americans of all sorts on the tiny beach.   I could read it again today.

Black Water                  Joyce Carol Oates

I met this incredible lady at Steve’s New Year’s Eve Party and I had to rush out immediately and buy something.  I knew her name but not her work, so I grabbed this, and really enjoyed it.   A fascinating novel based on Chappaquiddick.

The Snow was Dirty       Georges Simenon

A Man’s Head               Georges Simenon

Maigret’s First Case      Georges Simenon

Félicie                          Georges Simenon

A Maigret Christmas and other stories Georges Simenon

I love everything Simenon, Si mais non? Mais oui.

Same Time Tomorrow    Bob Cryer.

A funny and revealing and sweet remembrance of my old pal and mentor, his father the wonderful, legendary and sadly missed Barry Cryer.  Tears and laughter.

Territorial Rights           Muriel Spark

She is one of my favourite novelists. I just love her books. She never disappoints.

The Prague Orgy           Philip Roth

He still re-reads well.

Byron, A Life in Ten Letters             Andrew Stauffer

A lovely idea and a clever way of dealing with the life of the much biographied perhaps over rated poet.  He definitely poured his art into his life.   This is a fascinating and succinct romp through the limping upper class shagnasty, who poured his sperm into many of the most fascinating women of the early 19^th century.

I used to be charming.                      Eve Babitz

The rest of Eve Babitz.

Read in paper and Kindle.  Essential reading.  I adore her.

City of Dreams     Don Winslow

His penultimate novel, continuing the tale of Danny Ryan who fled  Providence providentially to discover gold in Las Vegas.

City in Ruins        Don Winslow

His final novel, which he very kindly sent me an advanced readers edition of, so I could start to miss him sooner.   Luckily he is going to pop up on television and movies rather a lot and he leaves us a huge body of work, which, at my age I can often re-read without knowing what is going to happen.  That is obviously why I began to keep a Reading Diary.  This, the third part of the crime trilogy loosely based on The Aeneid, which itself I must read one day …

Sex and Rage       Eve Babitz

A novel.  I prefer her more direct books.  This is about her writing a novel, and is of course about her attempts to write a novel.  She was always a writer.  And is a delightful read.

Dickens and Prince        Nick Hornby

A fascinating coupling.  Coming next Proust and Elvis.

Vertigo                         W.G. Sebald

I loved the opening chapter and always have, but a rereading of the rest of the book I found disappointing.

Agostino     Alberto Moravia

A wonderfully written, and absolutely touching novel.  I doubt I will read anything as great as this again this year. He is a magnificent novelist. An excellent translation too.

Answered Prayers          Truman Capote

This gets better over time.  Thanks to him who would ever have heard of these women?

He tried for Proust but he revealed something about the wealthy and entitled without changing their names and sexes like Proust did and so he was bashed around by the rich and powerful, as they do. Writers are always observing.  What else should they write about?

 

Somewhere along the way I fell in love with the short story.  Maybe because with the decline in memory it is easier to remember what just happened in a short story!  In particular the two great American masters of the modern short story Carver and Cheever.  Amongst the collections I read and enjoyed were:

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love  Raymond Carver

Exquisitely, and very briefly written stories.  Very short some of them.  Lightly sketched the caricatures seem to breathe effortlessly.

The stories of John Cheever             John Cheever

A wonderful collection of this admirable writer.  I had read them before, Mike Nichols gave them to me, but the great advantage of the memory loss of old age is you can read books again without remembering. Obviously all great books get better on re-reading.   This is one of them.

Gutshot Straight                     Lou Berney

Don Winslow recommended it and I bought it and I’m happy to say that even when I realised I had already read it, I carried on a read it with even more enjoyment.  As we have learned, that is the mark of a good book.

 

Springtime

Feel Free                      Zadie Smith

I very much enjoy her essays.  Some are a little esoteric for me.  If I don’t like the writers I skip.  But she is so clear headed and damn sensible I read 90 per cent of them with great enjoyment.

Knife                            Salman Rushdie

An account of the monstrous and fearful attack on him, which he barely, but mercifully survived.  As I wrote to him, “the last thing I expected from your book was that it would be a love story,” and yet indeed it is.  A hymn to his love for Eliza, who raced to him and whose love and patience encouraged him to continue life to all our great relief.   Sometimes a man can be married many times but only find his true love at the end.  So it was with Mike Nichols, so it seems with Salman.  A great, and deceptively simple read.

A Hitch in Time             Christopher Hitchens

Sometimes when Salman came to LA to do Bill Maher, he would bring Hitch over and we would have great conversation and fun.  I was very excited to learn that often at the end of a contentious interview Hitch would burst into my Philosophers Song – to which he knew all the words.  These collected articles on a variety of subjects are greatly entertaining and never less than fascinating.  A great and funny man, a wit, a philosopher, a great drinker and a great companion.   Subjects range from Princess Margaret to P.G. Wodehouse. You can’t get more eclectic than that.

Blood Rites                   Barbara Ehrenreich

Origins and History of the Passions of war.

I devoured this book when I first found it, but left it somewhere in France, so I was happy to stumble on this paperback in Vromans and raced through it.  A fascinating and deeply interesting discussion of the origins of war in homo sapiens with many intriguing new thoughts and suggestions.   I have always thought war was something we evolved once we had dispatched of predators, for we self-predate in order to keep evolving.  Though she does indeed go into the beginnings of when we were prey, this simplistic idea is far more interestingly explored here.  I want to read a lot more both from her and on this subject.  War is the curse of our planet.  Can it be cured?  Let us hope so.  It seems unlikely.   As long as they build armies, they will use them.

The Pole                       J. M. Coetzee

A poem of a book.  A sweet an delicate romance between a middle aged Spanish man and a courtly Chopin loving Polish pianist.  Delicately sketched but deeply felt.  I loved it and read it through again immediately.

Goodbye Columbus        Philip Roth

It is a short novella and I remember reading it with enjoyment.  This time reading it I was struck with what an amazing and precocious talent the young Roth possessed.   This Modern Library edition comes with five other short stories.

The Ghost Writer           Philip Roth

I have been re reading Roth with great enjoyment but this one I remembered not liking much the first time and my mind was not changed.  I think when he goes into the weird story of Ann Frank being still alive I remained puzzled and unconvinced.  I know some people love this, but it ain’t for me.

France  An Adventure History          Graham Robb

I fell on this book with delight and relief at the soi-disant Best Bookshop in Palm Springs when I had run out of reading matter on a short birthday break in Desert Hot Springs.   I loved it, but only got half way through as I was more interested in his wonderful scenes from history, than his own personal memoirs of a cycling tour of France, even if it was up Mont Ventoux.   Fortunately a couple of months later I picked it up again and I couldn’t put it down.  He is the most amazing writer of French history I know.  It kept me spell bound till the end.  Of particular interest to me is Louis Napoleon where history becomes almost buffoon like. A totally great read.

The Beginning of Spring         Penelope Fitzgerald.

A Moscow novel set in 1913.  I notice I had read this before in 2019, when I wrote briefly “Interesting but not perfect.”    I think I stopped around the same time this time.  Not for me.  Though I love many of her books.

Uncle Vanya                         Anton Chekhov

I gave it a read because it has been so successfully revived at Lincoln Centre, but I think I would have preferred to see it.  This to me was always the one play of Chekhov’s that never grabbed me.  It didn’t grab me this time and I think there is something I am missing.

Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?     Raymond Carver

I have recently become much more fond of Short Stories, largely because of this brilliant writer and in particular because of this almost flawless collection.  He is extraordinary.  Totally brilliant.

Dark Ride                     Lou Berney

A man sees two kids who have been tortured by cigarettes.  He sets out to discover them and their mother to see if he can get anyone to help him rescue them…. A charming thriller.  So I wrote a year ago but I went out and bought it again and was once more completely engrossed.

Black Swans         Eve Babitz

I picked this up and re-read them with even more enjoyment.  The first time I had scrolled in pencil in the back of her book “She’s half a journalist and half a novelist.  So occasionally the fiction gets too factoid and the facts get too factionary – with the occasional brilliant balance.”  On re-reading I think this is far too simplistic because as I also observed “she is interested in the truth” and it is this search to capture life in words that makes her such a captivating and deeply honest writer.  So I was happy re-reading.

Burn Book.  A tech love story            Kara Swisher

I loved this.  She was so in on tech and the people who would matter so early, that her story is fascinating to read.  When I recommended it online there were a few instant haters, but I think that’s because she is fearless and takes no prisoners.  Very much worth a read for all she has to say about men who have now become monsters.

 

Summer Reading

Everywhere an Oik Oik.                   David Mamet

I loved this book and I would have said so even if I hadn’t found later on in the book he says how I made him laugh his ass off.  I remember the occasion very well, Mike Nichols 75^th Birthday Party and I was determined to be funny and I went for it, shamelessly and successfully.  It’s rude its disgusting, and that’s just me. I looked up to see David Mamet choking for breath!  I was proud of Mamet for not holding back at all in this book, and slightly ashamed I hadn’t realised just how many movies he has directed.  Proud to be included.

The Beautiful and the Damned         F. Scott Fitzgerald.

For travel I took a tiny Collector’s Library edition of this book which I hadn’t read in a long time.  The satisfying clarity of the print and the fact it has a built in book mark ribbon makes it a good choice for a travelling companion.  Swiss Air ensures my ride is efficient, on time and I am well fed and pampered. The book is really a tragedy.  The love story of Anthony for Gloria, a wonderful romantic tale, declines into the demise of the bright young things in a heady mixture of balls, idleness and alcohol.  Having no purpose but pleasure ruins the pleasure of pleasure.   Managing to insult his rich and future benefactor his great expectations are snatched away, and he grasps at the straw of a long lawsuit.  Even his stint of self-punishment in the army leads to no overseas glory in WW1, as the armistice comes to soon for his glorious suicide and leads to further feminine distraction.  It is a harsh self-portrait of himself and Zelda and Tender is the Night will be a more accurate account of the inner secrets of both.  It ends both tragically with him as a bum being ejected for New York places where he once was heralded, and ironically, with him finally winning the lawsuit, and being wealthy confined to a wheelchair on the deck of a liner to Europe, sadly imagining that he has won.

Nero                    Anthony Everitt & Roddy Ashworth

Matricide and Murder in Imperial Rome

As a change I picked up this large but interesting new book on Nero.  We all know a little and indeed he does become history’s monster but before he does so there are many fascinating tales of him growing up an heir in the dangerous world of Augustus.  His mother Agrippina pushes him towards the Imperial throne in her own quest for power.  He will coldly remove her, after having poisoned his brother Germanicus at a banquet, removing any potential challenge to his power.   This is a highly readable history of Rome under the Caesars including quite a lot about the dangerous barbarians who live in the British Isles. (Clearly not much has changed.).  Enjoyable popular history which gives a fresh look at one of history’s greatest tyrants with many corrections of historical cliches.  Hint:  he didn’t fiddle while Rome burned.

Where Angels Fear to Tread             E.M. Forster

As a palate cleanser I turned to this beautiful short novella which highlights the delightful comedic talents of Morgan Forster. The Herriton family are worthy precursors of E. F. Benson’s Mapp and Lucia.  Mrs. Herriton is a monster and has brought up a priggish daughter whose smug British confidence will lead to tragedy. Lilia, an unhappy widow escapes from the rigid captivity of her controlling mother-in-law in the social sterility of the society of Sawson for freedom in Italy.   She finds escape in an unfortunate love affair with a young Italian, her friend Miss Abbot is unable to help her and Philip, Mrs. Herriton’s son, sent to prevent the match, fails to save her.  A delightful read.

Life as a novel               Martin Amis.

A sad and lovely book. Amis, aware he is pegging out invites you into his own demise.  Come in, sit down, have a drink.  He calls it a novel.   Of course.  It contains perhaps one of the most dislikeable and manipulative female characters in literature.  Poor Amis, both fascinated and disgusted with her, is easy meat.  Enter the dreadful Phoebe, who recurs throughout the book like a bad habit. With a masters or mistress degree in prick teasing which keeps the poor chap on the hooks long after he should have run for the hills.  (Perhaps rivaled only by Larkin’s appalling Monica.). But who Catriona now assures me is a fictional character, so I am completely confused!

I had read some of this before, for instance The death of Hitchens.  Like an 18th century painting.

Still as sad and as poignant, but his own demise shortly following had me completely and horribly shocked. I always thought he would be here with a new book to cheer me up.  Slightly too much Bellow for my taste.  This “fictional” highly readable autobiography. is an odd but lovely farewell.

The Island           Adrian McKinty

I find it odd that the only two books of this brilliant author I have had to abandon were his two best sellers.  This and The Chain.  I think it is because I am personally averse to horror, in books and the cinema.  I found both manipulative, whereas the Northern Irish novels, where horror is a daily fact, seem to me realistically and beautifully written.  I agree it’s my fault.  I apologize.  As a counterpoint to this let me mention three of his novels which I read recently and loved:

The Dead Yard              Adrian McKinty

City Street Girl              Adrian McKinty

Falling Glass                 Adrian McKinty

And any of his exquisite Northern Ireland detective novels you can lay your hands on.   He is very very good.

The Wager                    David Grann

In contrast to which I found The Wager, long, boring and dull, and was happy to jump overboard early.

The Kind worth Killing            Peter Swanson

Seizing on a palate cleanser I found after a few pages I remembered reading this recently.  It’s good, a little strangers on a train, and a little Gone Girl it is wonderfully crafted and it will keep you guessing.

Unless you had already read it.  Which is I guess the problem with Who Dunnits.  If you can remember who there’s no point in re-reading.

Cocktails with George and Marsha     Philip Gefter

I did very much enjoy this book about the making of the movie of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, not just because of my love for Mike Nichols, here revealed as a very powerful young first time director, able to stand up to Jack Warner, to insist that the movie be made in black and white and not colour, and to gently remove Ernest Lehman’s “improvements” from his film script adaptation of Edward Albee’s brilliant stage play, in favour of Albee’s own words.  To be able to direct Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, at the height of their tabloid fame, is in itself remarkable.  To pull it off and fight off the censors, and cleverly manipulate the widow Kennedy into saying at a screening “Jack would have loved it” cutting the feet from beneath the studio censors and the powerful nay sayors, is remarkable.

A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth      Henry Gee

4.6 billion years in 12 Pithy Chapters.

My favourite book of the year and maybe the decade.  Henry Gee is both brilliantly funny and brilliantly informative.  So many times I found myself  saying out loud “Oh my gawd” as some fact or information came at me.  We are not the end of evolution.  We are not even the summit of it.  We are mistaken about our place in the incredible and very long evolution and continuous breaking of new life forms on earth.  I shall read this book again and again.  You might find the early chapters a little dense because there are so many monocellular Latin forms of life.  Don’t be afraid to skip, move forward, the story gets better and better with incredible chapters on animal life and the evolution of mammals.  Learn your place in the Universe, which is both incredible and unlikely and puny.

Kindle Reads

Cocktails with George and Martha    Philip Gefter

Being just about to publish a book about Mike Nichols I naturally seized on this.  The balls of the man.  His first movie and he is telling Harry Warner it has to be in black and white.  He was so funny and so talented, he had told me a few tales but amazing to see him pulling a hit movie out of this unlikely Broadway hit play – mainly by cutting all the Hollywood apapted bits and letting the play speak.  Imagine your first cast are Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the prime of their fame but also their talent.  A fine tale well told.

(Sidebar: I fell in love with Edward Albee early, directing The Zoo Story with John Shrapnel and Johnny Lynn at Cambridge. I was at the same time an enormous fan of Mike Nichols and Elaine May and had their album.)

Eve’s Hollywood                     Eve Babitz

I am totally in love with Eve Babitz.  I think she is the most wonderful and fascinating writer.  I recommend trying all her writing. Some of her essays are to die for.  They can vary widely between autobiography, sexual reminiscences and barely disguised fiction.  But she is never boring and she tells the truth, shamelessly, breathlessly and wonderfully.  Many males can learn a lot from her tales.  Enjoy.

Ask Not.                        Maureen Callahan

The Kennedy’s and the Women they destroyed.   

A timely and essential reminder of just how appallingly the Kennedy boys sexual ethics were covered over and dismissed.  We must never let people behave like Kings.  Apart from their appalling Father, Joe, their avoiding mother Rose seems to have helped enormously into creating the entitled bastards so many of them became. No women should have to put up with this.  I found her insights insightful.  JFK sex was all about power and not enjoyment.  Jackie seems to have finally survived to become a normal person, but they wounded and used and injured and killed so many women, the horrible mound of Ted and his public display of cowardice, all in the name of achieving the Oval office, is a warning, that the pursuit of power attracts the most appalling people.  America was set up to avoid this officially, but it hasn’t and it is constantly at threat.

The Michael Forsyth Trilogy.  Adrian McKinty

Fifty Grand,

The Dead Yard,

Dead I May Well be.

Perfect holiday reading.  Check the order.  I love the way he writes.  Just a delight. I love his Belfast books.  I had a terrific time with these.  I think he writes wonderfully.  Such a relief to find many books of his I haven’t yet read.

The Accidental Species.           Henry Gee

Misunderstandings of Human Evolution.  Another fascinating book about our species and the contrast between how we perceive of ourselves and the reality of the fortune of our survival on this planet.

Bambi vs Godzilla                  David Mamet

On the nature, purpose and practice of the Movie Business

I love the disrespect with which he treats his subject!  Always funny and always on point.

The Neil Carey mysteries                  Don Winslow

I had to slow down to save a couple for my travels I was reading them with so much enjoyment.

I can’t wait to continue the final two.

A Cool Breeze on the Underground

The Trail to Buddha’s Mirror

Way Down on the High Lonely

Summer Reading in Books (continued)

Caste                   Isabel Wilkerson.

The Origins of Our Discontents.    She spots that Caste is a very basic and vile form of human social organisation most obviously with Slavery which goes back millennia, and of course builds Empires, and vast fortunes such as paid for and built huge houses during the British Empire, and that the most pernicious and easiest to continue form of slavery to continue is when it involves skin color.  The slavery in the Southern states affects US Society today, in a most invidious form for a supposed land of the free.  The tales in the book are horrendous, shocking and heart breaking.   Hard to read. But important.   I was struck how much Caste itself is present in most societies outside of the US.  For instance the English caste system which is kept in place by the Monarchy.

Butterfield 8         John O’Hara

A re-reading.  Stands up pretty well. Not a classic but a good yarn from that time.

Cathedral             Stories        Raymond Carver

Sad and wistful stories.  Nobody writes better about the US working classes.  The lack of money, the sadness, the marriages.  I suppose because traditionally in the novel – because they are writing for readers in those strata – people write more about the middle and aspiring or upper classes.  Very few D. H. Lawrence although a spate of working class books and plays in the UK in the Sixties.

A Clue to the Exit                   Edward St. Aubyn

A re reading.  A dying man intends to rid himself of his money gambling in the Monte Carlo Casino.  Not entirely successfully.   He is certainly the finest writer of prose novels currently in the UK.

No Orchids for Miss Blandish           James Hadley Chase

So I had no idea until just now that the author of this classic American crime noir novel first published in 1939 was born in England in 1906 as René Brabazon Raymond, began his career as a bookseller wrote this his first novel over six weekends with the aid of a dictionary of American slang and had never even been to America.  A very fine and totally convincing work of fiction.  It is a dark masterpiece.

Arctic Summer              E. M. Forster

Abandoned and unpublished by Forster shortly before he began work on A Passage to India  this subversive attack on the code of the gentleman would actually make a fine film and is very nicely written.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao      Junot Diaz

A superbly written brilliant book, which thoroughly deserves the Pulitzer Prize he won, it is the most wonderful novel set in the Dominican Republic, often during the time of the appalling dictator Trujillo largely about a Tolkien nerd, but actually about so much more.  I read it with so much joy I never wanted it to end.

Cadillac Jack                Larry McMurtry

I am very fond of his books, but I never quite finished this one.  Curate’s egg.  Good in parts.

Caesar’s Vast Ghost       Lawrence Durrell

Aspects of Provence.

I think Durell writes the best books on Provence even if I hadn’t visited his brother Gerry in the Maz he wrote this book in.  He frequently combines history with geography.  Here he adds biography and poetry.  Once again we get the amazing story of how Marius saves Rome, which I could read every day.

Fall Reading  (Books)

Goodbye Darkness         William Manchester

A magnificent beautifully written history of the nightmare that was the Pacific War in WW2.  We concentrate so much on the invasion of Europe and D Day that we sometimes forget the extraordinary and magnificent struggle the Marines waged against the Japanese, after Pearl Harbor and the tremendous loss and suffering on both sides.  William Manchester was there, he fought to take back every island and atoll en route to Japan, each at tremendous cost.  This is him revisiting this bloody journey and his memories of the bitter fight he and his companions waged before they were spared the ultimate horror of invading Japan by the atom bomb.  It is history from the battlefield itself and the most remarkable book I have read for a very long time.  I think it just might be the best war history ever written.   We owe them all so much.

A World Lit Only by Fire         William Manchester

Of course I then had to go back and read one of my all-time favourite history books also written by him, which is subtitled The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance, Portrait of an Age.  If you ever needed to remember just how evil mankind can be, this is the book.  The six Popes alone are enough to put you off religion forever.  There is much about Martin Luther and the Reformation, where you soon discover that one kind of nastiness is just replaced by another.  It is the most agreeable reading of history and ends with a virtual encomium to Magellan, whose genius I had not quite appreciated, and whose religious folly led him to trust in God and not in man, which meant he never made it home, although a few of his crew did stagger back to Spain, completing the circumnavigation of the globe.  The first to do it.   Sheer, wonderful, magnificent, narrative history.

Chess.    Stefan Zweig

A short but highly readable and finely written novella about a Chess Master and a strange confrontation about an Ocean liner.   Delightful.

Revenge of the Tipping Point.     Malcolm Gladwell

An interesting sequel to Malcolm Gladwell’s first book and filled with interesting facts about superspreaders of COVID and the overstory which he defines, but which ended for me with the most powerful explanation of the vile achievements of the Sackler Family to make a fortune by starting an Opioid crisis which continues to ravage America to this day.  Almost impossible to believe, and virtual impossible to stop, since it has spread to the black market and Fentanyl which continues to kill more and more Americans daily.

Paris in Ruins               Sebastian Smee

Another history, this time through the eyes and brushes of the contemporary French artists Manet, Monet, Degas and the amazing Berthe Morisot which shows the horrors that Paris undergoes after the idiot Emperor Napoleon 111rd led France into a disastrous war with Prussia.  It led to the siege of Paris with many of these artists remaining in Paris, where rats became a vital food, and then to the Commune, after France had capitulated to Bismarck, when Paris was once again besieged and bombarded, this time by the rest of France.  A terrible story, but brilliantly told through the painters who suffered it.

 

Some books I read on the plane to and from New York, promoting my own book: 

The Spamalot Diaries

 

Bonjour Tristesse           Francoise Sagan

The book that begin it all.  A very honest story of a young girl growing up in the South of France with her very French father, and his girlfriends.  Written when she was 19, this book changed everything.

Every Frenchman has one       Olivia de Havilland

A brilliant short and very, very funny reprint of a book by the film star Olivia de Havilland, about moving to and living in Paris, which had me laughing out loud.  And that my friends is very rare.  Chapeau to Crown Archetype for discovering and reprinting this hilarious book.

The Goodby People                 Gavin Lambert

Again a reprint, by McNally editions, of a classic collection on stories by a remarkable writer.

 

And as I head for Sydney and a long tour of Australia and New Zealand I very much continue to enjoy this on my I Pad – the gift to travellers.

Tune In                        Mark Lewisohn

The Beatles:  All These Years          Vol 1

A compulsive and terrific and incredibly in-depth history of the Beatles.   So detailed and wonderful that I am on Page 638 and Ringo still hasn’t joined.  Though we have learned all about him.  And them.

Just a magnificent and compelling and definitive history of the world’s pre-eminent Group.  I’m totally gripped and glad I have some long flights ahead!  Happy Reading!   October 12^th 2024

Eric