My reading has become very desultory and random.\u00a0 I pick up and put down books.\u00a0\u00a0 I can\u2019t settle in to anything.\u00a0 I can\u2019t tell if this is just a phase, as I prepare to head out on the task of selling my own.\u00a0\u00a0 The last serious book I read was Herzog <\/em>and even that I discarded.\u00a0 Is this Reader\u2019s Block<\/em>?\u00a0 I became obsessed with that gag in the last novel I wrote; at least I hope it was the last novel I\u2019ll write.\u00a0 You deserve at least that.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t even printed, a download.\u00a0\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t half bad.\u00a0\u00a0 About three quarters.\u00a0 I took some consolation from the fact that it was printed in German, but a friendly fan from Munich wrote and assured me that the translation was so bad it was almost unreadable.\u00a0 I trust her because she reads amazingly well in English.\u00a0 I\u2019ve fallen back on Kindle quite a bit too.\u00a0\u00a0 Let\u2019s see what precisely:<\/p>\n I finally came to enjoy him, and quite by chance.\u00a0 I was watching the wonderful old two-part documentary on Mark Twain by Ken Burns when I realised the voice I should hear in my head when reading Sedaris should be Southern. \u00a0I have no idea whether that is how he speaks, but since many of the tales in this collection are set in and around the beach and house he buys on Emerald Isle and\u00a0 I looked it up on a map, Raleigh, Smithfield, definitely the south, it fell into place for me and I would read with the warm treacly elegant voice used by many of the Burns readers.\u00a0 And enjoyed the tale of family, and loss, and good times.<\/p>\n I abandoned her alphabetical detective stories at this one. Not finishing.\u00a0 Not even sorry.\u00a0 Maybe a rainy day read.\u00a0 But she is no Maigret.\u00a0 Pity<\/p>\n My final Kindle try was Woodward\u2019s book, delivered shortly after midnight on publication day, but I can\u2019t become interested in Trump.\u00a0 He is such a simple monster.\u00a0 Narcissistic and uninteresting.\u00a0 With all the sycophants surrounding him doing the dance around his desk only Bannon struck me as interesting, the rest avoiding the Jared\u2019s and the soi-disant First Daughter came across as jumped up stool pigeons, and I began to lament the weakness at the heart of the American system: the elected Emperorship, with way too much power for one man and the fact that he could pull anyone unelected into his kitchen cabinet and have them do anything under promise of Presidential pardon, surely the most corrupting exception in any form of government.<\/p>\n I tried a few books too:<\/p>\n A Comedian\u2019s Take on What Makes us Human.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>I very much enjoyed this book that Robin Ince kindly sent me.<\/p>\n Which I found to be an occasionally eventful history of Ellen Terry and Henry Irving, and no more remarkable than the lives of many actors, the main interest being who and when they popped in to bed with others, since it is almost impossible to get a sense of the acting styles of Sarah Bernhardt et al pre U Tube.\u00a0 Frankly, I got fed up with the whole lot of them.<\/p>\n A fascinating series of essays and although apparently tongue in cheek, this Parisian professor tackles some interesting thoughts about what we think we know about reading.\u00a0\u00a0 Amusing hors d\u2019oeuvres, but not the full smorgasbord.<\/p>\n A short novella length little beguiling read, is part of the Slough House series.\u00a0 He just gets better and better.<\/p>\n \u201cSuperbly written short stories I could easily re-read again.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s what I wrote when I first read this book on the road in February in Australia in 2016, \u00a0\u00a0but I was going through an Adam Johnson phase and picking this up again in Vromans I found it wasn\u2019t true.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t easily re-read them.<\/p>\n So now what?\u00a0\u00a0 Pick up a Dickens, mash into a Maigret, or attack the Bellow I have been storing up.<\/p>\n Plus I have to decide what to take with me on my book tour\u2026. I decided to tackle a book on Berlin.\u00a0 See Napoleon\u2019s guide to reading:\u00a0 \u201cWhen in doubt invade Berlin.\u201d<\/p>\n Well I loved this. A kind of personal cultural history of Berlin, with two of my favourite essays: one describing the extraordinary day that Kennedy visited Berlin, which by an exquisite coincidence found me also in Berlin on that very day, where I saw his cavalcade go by.\u00a0 The other is a lovely piece on David Bowie and \u201cHeroes\u201d, describing his time in the city and his work methods.\u00a0 The whole book was lovely and finely written and I really loved it.<\/p>\n And I kept on reading:<\/p>\n Which are simply wonderful.<\/p>\n Continuing my troll and stroll through Powell.\u00a0 (And that rhymes.)<\/p>\n It\u2019s like a very posh soap, but exquisitely written.\u00a0 Is Proust French soap?<\/p>\n The first three books are described as Spring.\u00a0 Jenkins moves into the world and falls in love, this time reciprocated, in an affair with Jean.\u00a0 Uncle Giles is obscure as ever in a Bayswater Hotel.\u00a0 Some acquaintances have fallen away, some have been married, divorced and become drunks (Stringham.)\u00a0 Widmerpool has left his powerful job and joins the acceptance world, in the City.\u00a0 Something to do with guaranteeing options.<\/p>\n We enter now Summer.\u00a0 Time has passed.\u00a0 The affair with Jean is over.\u00a0 Jenkins, as usual glides through society, bumping into people, Widmerpool of course, who is now getting married.\u00a0 I finally finished reading this in September, when I was low on good reads, because it is so exquisitely written and you just want to know what happens to Widmerpool.\u00a0 At the end Jenkins is engaged, but not particularly happily.<\/p>\n A Novel in Three Decades.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Very fine trilogy of LA crime novels set as advertised in different decades.\u00a0\u00a0 Very well written and constructed. I like his books very much. I had this on Kindle for travel.\u00a0 This was particularly readable and a fascinating slice of different times in LA.<\/p>\n Highsmith\u2019s great originality is making us root for the villains.\u00a0 She understands that evil is only a slight shift of emphasis from the norm.\u00a0 Thus she can have it both ways, we observe the criminal and then watch the net closing in on the unsuspecting criminal.\u00a0 I love all the Ripleys.\u00a0\u00a0 This is very good too and has some interesting stuff from Gillian Flynn.<\/p>\n My wife was ploughing through these and they are very finely written Californian crime novels, with a very cute female Private Eye.\u00a0 I enjoyed it so much on Kindle I started the second<\/p>\n Same author, same detective.\u00a0 I was a bit disappointed it repeated the shape of the first book at the end, but I imagine she will have changed this by the next, which I have already downloaded.<\/p>\n Two thirds of a great book for me.\u00a0 Extraordinary fine writing and construction, but I felt it disintegrated into sentimentality just at the end. Since when I have read a little about the controversy of the translator \u2013 they both won the Booker.\u00a0\u00a0 Perhaps that explains the tailing off.\u00a0\u00a0 Who knows?<\/p>\n A novella, from 1997.\u00a0 About a Chicago businessman and his intense and long love for a married woman.<\/p>\n Like a fine cocktail, the short exquisite world of Maigret refreshes and cleanses the palate.\u00a0 Here he investigates the suspicious and inconvenient (to his superiors) death of a small-time burglar.<\/p>\n An unhappy man makes plans to run away from his partner and their child.\u00a0 Honest and revealing.<\/p>\n Magnificent.\u00a0 But I stopped again at the same point.\u00a0 Is it the construction?\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s like Ulysses events and memories.\u00a0 I find the apparent directionless of it a little wearying.\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019ll pick up and read on later.\u00a0 Honest.<\/p>\n Having totally fallen in love with her reading her recent book of essays I\u2019m now catching up on some of her work I haven\u2019t yet read.\u00a0\u00a0 I seriously enjoyed this, her fifth novel, which is a highly readable book. It gave me some sense of the Willesden world my son grew up in.\u00a0 It has such an authentic air to it I wonder if she really did work for an Australian singer.\u00a0 But this is to underestimate the great imaginative skills of good writers.\u00a0 They convince you that what they are writing is actually the truth.\u00a0 Let us not forget the sage advice of John Le Carr\u00e9 \u201cNever trust a novelist when he tells you the truth.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 This is the story of two friends, with different family backgrounds, but from the same estate in Willesden.\u00a0 The unforgettable Tracey sets off to become a dancer, while the unnamed narrator, revealed as sadly too flat footed for ballet, drifts, into college and then into a job with Aimee a successful world famous international pop singer, who befriends her, lifts her up into a smart whirlpool world of New York, Australia, London and finally West Africa where her darker skin tones make her useful to do the grunt work in a hugely publicised charity work, opening a girls school.\u00a0 This satire is deadly.\u00a0\u00a0 The lack of interest in the details of what it entails to run a girl\u2019s school in a Muslim dictatorship, exposes Aimee as a self-obsessed shallow narcissist, and the inevitable break up with her leads to ?? finding herself.\u00a0\u00a0 Tracey, whose father she steadfastly believes is away dancing with Michael Jackson, but is actually frequently in prison, recurs and is glimpsed in the final scene in a heart-breaking but revealing moment.<\/p>\n A dying man is given the task of writing about a dying man, his remarkable mentor and friend.\u00a0 I guess this 2000 is late Bellow.\u00a0 I liked it very much.\u00a0 I loved the Parisian scenes particularly.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Wonderful.\u00a0 The mystery of a poor young girl coming to Paris and what happened to her.<\/p>\n Mick Herron has been oddly compared to Graham Greene by some reviewer, which is inappropriate, he is more like a modern Le Carr\u00e9.\u00a0 Or Len Deighton. Slough House and its unforgettable head Jackson Lamb are destined to become the new image of The Circus.\u00a0\u00a0 A cluster of fuck-ups, screw ups and people who may no longer be fired for politically correct reasons, are relegated to Slough House where they are destined never to return, to push paper around until they finally give up and quit.\u00a0 However, the underdogs have their day.\u00a0 Highly readable and given to me as a pot boiler read by a friend, they are more than that; they are an articulate, and hilarious study of modern British society and its place in the world.<\/p>\n Spring.\u00a0 The first of the twelve volumes of A Dance to the Music of Time. <\/em>I bought the second in Hatchards and then the whole dozen.\u00a0\u00a0 However, I found that it was too much cream for tea at one sitting.\u00a0\u00a0 His prose is magnificent, but as my friend Jeremy says the writing is great but nothing much happens.\u00a0 Obviously, the wonderful creation of Widmerpool is a delight but that whole world is gone now.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This book is largely the schooldays with the unforgettable first appearance of Widmerpool.<\/p>\n Time has passed.\u00a0 Nicholas Jenkins is older.\u00a0\u00a0 Girls are coming out.\u00a0\u00a0 Boys are getting in.\u00a0\u00a0 Not Jenkins, whom seems to glide through this privileged world, bumping into odd characters like Gypsy Jones, falling in love with French women, imagining himself in love with English women, people\u2019s sisters, without actually doing anything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" September My reading has become very desultory and random.\u00a0 I pick up and put down books.\u00a0\u00a0 I can\u2019t settle in to anything.\u00a0 I can\u2019t tell if this is just a phase, as I prepare to head out on the task of selling my own.\u00a0\u00a0 The last serious book I read was Herzog and even that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=724"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":726,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724\/revisions\/726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Calypso\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 David Sedaris<\/h2>\n
Sue Grafton\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 C is for corpse<\/h2>\n
Fear\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Bob Woodward<\/h2>\n
I\u2019m a Joke and so are you\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Robin Ince<\/h2>\n
A Strange Eventful History\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Michael Holroyd<\/h2>\n
How to talk about books you haven\u2019t read.\u00a0 Pierre Bayard<\/h2>\n
The List\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mick Herron<\/h2>\n
Fortune Smiles\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Adam Johnson<\/h2>\n
Berlin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rory Maclean<\/h2>\n
Collected Poems \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Philip Larkin<\/h2>\n
August<\/u><\/h1>\n
The Acceptance World\u00a0\u00a0 (3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Anthony Powell<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n
At Lady Molly\u2019s. \u00a0 (4)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Anthony Powell<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n
Catalina Eddy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Daniel Pyne\u00a0 <\/em><\/h1>\n
Deep Water\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Patricia Highsmith<\/em><\/h1>\n
A is for Alibi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sue Grafton<\/h2>\n
B is for Burglar\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sue Grafton<\/h2>\n
The Vegetarian\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Han Kang<\/em><\/h1>\n
The Actual\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Saul Bellow<\/em><\/h1>\n
Maigret and the Lazy Burglar\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Georges Simenon<\/em><\/h1>\n
Intimacy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hanif Kureishi<\/em><\/h1>\n
Herzog\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Saul Bellow.<\/em><\/h1>\n
July <\/u><\/h1>\n
Swing Time\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Zadie Smith<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n
Ravelstein\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Saul Bellow<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n
Maigret and the Dead Girl\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Georges Simenon<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n
Slow Horses\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mick Herron<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n
Dead Lions\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 2\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mick Herron <\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n
A Question of Upbringing (1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Anthony Powell<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n
A Buyer\u2019s Market\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Anthony Powell<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n