The retelling of The Man Who Never Was. I kept putting it down as he keeps delaying the story. In the end it’s too discursive or he fails to write grippingly enough. Disappointing. Still might dip into the end parts as it is such a great yarn.

In his autobiography Hitchens recommends this. I was rather enjoying it but then got disrupted on my travels. Twice I tried to read it and twice I put it aside. Second time I didn’t even get to the first point I abandoned. Can’t quite see what Hitchens sees. Is it the young successful and famous protégé of the more seriously good poet? I found the prose in the end dull and it was easy to forget. I know, it must be me.

1960’s paperback edition of the 1933 novel which I found in the Library of Friar Park when my selected travel books proved disappointing. My third go at this novel and this time I really enjoyed it. It seems so honest and real. About Doctor Diver the psychiatrist and his wife the schizophrenic Nicole. It begins at Gausse’s Hotel in Juan Les Pins, where we are going shortly…

A prototype novel. With many common themes and characters but none as fully developed or as successful as they will become in her later work. The lead character Catherine Morland is ridiculously naïve and entertains Gothic visions of her lover’s father murdering and locking up his wife – which border on the insanely paranoid – although we are assured she is only parodying contemporary Gothic novels which were then all the rage. Only the bitchy hypocritical wonderful self-justifying utterly selfish character of Isabella Thorpe successfully comes to life.

The problem is not that it isn’t good but that it is the same. Things happen, new people are introduced but the story doesn’t spring forward – we know precisely the same thing about Jomier – that he is old, that he is still bitter about his first wife betraying him thirty five years later! Also when given the opportunity for a younger lover he would far rather live alone than share a Viagra life with her. In the end his relentless self-disparagement convinces you that he is an uninteresting old whiner. So for all the early acute perceptions of feminism and the DNA role of the male, and his delightful skewering of the American pro-Zionist right, you are less than interested in his tale.

Not so this one which I preferred to Conrad! I know – heresy! It’s just he writes so well and also informatively about a ship stuck in a hurricane in the West Indies. You could lift his description of the cause of hurricanes almost verbatim. It is the best scientific prose description of a physical phenomenon I have ever read. By the Author of High Wind in Jamaica, which is another exceptionally fine read.

I really like her, but there is a certain kind of Muriel Spark book that fails to interest me. Almost invariably they are about cults or semi religious bodies, usually involving sex, pregnancy and religion. None of them grab me. Iris Murdoch is the same. Why do they do this? I may well have tried to read this before and simply got to the same point and ejected.

Power, Love and Politics in the Ancient World. Nice history well told. The dashing Anthony out maneuvered by the shrewd survivor Augustus. I had not realized the amount of time that lapsed after the death of Caesar before the final showdown at Actium.

A memoir which reveals more about the young, rather fey, self righteous lefty than the more interesting man who crossed over to America to discover himself and to lead a sensible life. He loves the literary craick – and his pals are all interesting – Amis, pere et fils, Fenton etc, He has always seemed rather dangerous to me – he has that weird Gore Vidal ability to insist on being the drunkest and most argumentative man in the room. I am sorry he is sick. He is great company. And very funny.

Ok Jay McInerney is the real thing. Brett Easton Ellis isn’t. He knows what it is but he can’t do it. This is like a minimalist revisit of a minimal novel he wrote some time ago. Nothing wrong with it. Except expectation. That killer level where you have set your own bar and you have to jump over it again.

Murder at Holyrood. A not particularly well written gallop through the facts of this most amazing scene from history, where the Queen’s Italian favorite is murdered in front of her eyes. There are better versions.

Another fine grey Irish thriller from Black: the pseudonym of John Banville.

Yes. Well what can you say? Never dull. I don’t have any problem with Oprah re-inventing herself from the promiscuous and pregnant young molested teenager that she was. Good for her. Of course later on she becomes a teensy bit of a monster, but she uses her power largely for good, and without her there is no Obama. The way she conquers the white middle class wives of Chicago changes the whole racial attitude in America. A fascinating tale of the rise and rise of an extraordinary female. And who cares if she is gay or Steadman’s gay, or if anyone is gay… It’s really none of our business.

Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin and The Race of a Lifetime. Very readable, nicely written recent history, fascinating for its portrayal of the major characters in a vital election. Hilary and the strange blood bond between the Clintons is enthralling, Obama nothing short of a great hero, and the off-hand choice of the quite appalling Beauty Pageant Queen Palin shows what a weak and arrogant leader McCain would have made. America can breathe again….

Spoken of as her greatest work – but not by me. An old lady, Dame Lettie, is badgered by phone calls reminding her that she must die. Indeed she must –she is brutally and unexpectedly and shockingly bludgeoned to death about two thirds of the way through the book. These phone calls spread alarm and panic and disquiet amongst the beautifully drawn generation of elderly people who were once the smart set of London. Now confined by the constraints of age they await the truth of the message of the phone calls: “You are going to die.” Unfortunately we never learn who is making these phone calls or why, so that the end is terribly unsatisfactory. Perhaps rather like our own lives…

It seems so artificial. Contrived theatre. Intellectual farce from the middle class. Noel, a self re-invented working class boy, writing for “Noel” the darling of Broadway. The interesting bits for me are the actual physical violence between the lovers, which seems real, drunk, and written from somewhere true and honest but Coward is always trying to create a glittering carapace of golden wit behind which he can perhaps hide.

Seven stories and a novella. I was bowled over by her writing, her grasp of character and her ability to convey depth precisely and simply. I have been reading a lot of short stories and it seems to me that she is as good if not better than Cheever, and I have bought many copies of this book to distribute amongst friends, which is a rare thing and always a sign I really like a book. Get it.

I supposed Mitchell might be challenged a bit by Amis who seems to be getting better and better. This is a very good novel indeed about the early days of Keith Nearing (his thinly disguised attack on himself ) in the 70’s in a castle in Italy on a summer vacation. He flashes forward to modern times and this is a very effective device, showing us how people change.

An extraordinarily fine book. A great novel. Picked up on a brief visit to UK. He is our Chabon. The best contemporary writer in action today. I can’t believe he didn’t even make the short list for the Booker. Clearly the best novel in English since his last. It’s a must read. As are all his books.

Am I missing something? This seems to be a very tedious and dull play. In fact who put the anus in Coriolanus?

The er.. epic (or epicene) tale of Dreamworks. Jeffery Katzenburg recruits two smart friends to help him fight the bully Eisner. Along the way we see Jeffery’s fondness for other people’s ideas, but also how his grimly determined work effort finally paid off, and how, despite more flops than a Chicago hooker, he finally makes his millions and manages to take all the credit for Shrek, and most of the money from his co-workers. She is not the best writer in the world but it is competently written and readable if you like tales from Hollywood. And Jeffery is Jeffery.

I enjoyed very much this book sent me by a friend. Powerful and brilliant.

And even a lively attempt at Roman history descended into what I call the Mustapha school of historical writing (It musta been a great sight when..) But I might give it another go as the subject is fascinating.

In desperation I went out and bought a paperback of this, only to experience instant disappointment as time has definitely dated this so called classic.

I turned for hope to a first edition which I had picked up. But alas the same desperate feeling of dullness stole over me that I have always experienced in trying to read this book. Oh God. I am afraid of Virginia Woolf and for very good reasons – she is dull, tedious and boring.