Philip Roth.                            Blake Bailey.

The Biography.  I wonder if the biography of a novelist is ever as interesting as his books.  I doubt it.  This one certainly isn’t and now I find the book itself is actually more interesting because it has been cancelled and withdrawn by the Publisher.  We seem to be heading into dangerous waters.

Bowie’s Bookshelf                  John O’Connell

A lovely, elegant book, succinct, interesting, and beautifully written, it clearly shows the intellectual that David Bowie was.   Sympa, hip and erudite at the same time O’Connell cleverly avoids the pitfalls of pretention and has written a tremendous tribute to an extraordinary man and gifted artist and also a good reading (and listening) guide to anyone interested.

Maigret and the Wine Merchant     Georges Simenon

One of the most elegantly written Maigret’s I remember.  His books are never so much as who but understanding why. This one the murdered man has done everything to ensure the list of people wanting him dead is huge, as he is a roué and an adulterer.  He is shot, leaving a fashionable but very discreet brothel.  But who?  Maigret suffers from a cold and sneezes his way across half of Paris before retiring to bed and of course solving the puzzle.  A lovely book.

The Bomber Mafia                  Malcolm Gladstone

Precision bombing. For and against.  The politics and problems of firebombing in WW2.

The Premonition                     Michael Lewis

This is a must read to understand the pandemic and the response to it.  Quite oddly it starts with George Bush and the unlikely fact that he had read a book that fired him up to realise that no one in the entire Government was in charge of any pandemic response.  He insisted on starting such an organisation right away.  And did.  So kudos to him, though no amount of planning could forestall the damage a Trump can do. The book tells of the real heroes, mostly mavericks and outsiders, who persisted, often at the cost of their jobs, to prepare America for some kind of a response while the Trump Government utterly failed the people.  A gripping and fascinating story.

Lurkers                                  Sandi Tan

I loved this book.  Hilarious.

In the Garden of the Beasts     Erik Larson

The foolish naivete of the American family who came to the American Embassy in Berlin in 1933, when everyone was busy trying to pretend that the Hitler regime was no big deal. Tourists and other Americans beaten by the Nazi thugs made it hard to look away but daughter Martha manages to, for quite some time, before inevitably the true nature of the organization reveals itself. The book is a picture of American ignorant innocence against vilely motivated right-wing gangsters, which foreshadows what we have all just witnessed in the late White House.  Never forget, Hitler said the next place for Nazism would be America.

The Book of Eels                    Patrick Svensson

Contains more than you ever thought you would want to know about eels, almost all of which is totally fascinating, including the amazing fact that they all originate in the Sargasso Sea.  I’d skip the fishing bits.

The Autograph Man               Zadie Smith

I hadn’t read this one, so it’s catch up time, because I adore this writer. I enjoyed this, what, her second novel? very much.

King of the World          Philip Mansel

The Life of Louis XIV.  A lengthy but readable life of a man we have seen a lot of recently.  An extraordinary life as he constructed a glittering cage for the nobility to entrap them in a Court where they must compete for favour and affection.  I was intrigued to read about his early Pilgrimage to Provence in 1660 to give thanks to God for himself.

Fall            John Preston

The Mystery of Robert Maxwell.

Not much of a mystery since he was a crook and con man from the moment he left the army, after WW2 as a decorated young officer with an enviable reputation for bravery. Giant balls and no morals, it’s the story of Murdoch and Trump.  The mystery to me is how he managed to get his hands on the millions of dollars from his own employees pension fund.  It wasn’t just him who went belly up.

Tales of the South Pacific        James Michener

I like dipping into these tales which contain the seeds and the characters for the Rogers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific, though the raping of American nurses by American soldiers is not selected as a theme for Broadway.

Languages of Truth       Salman Rushdie

I raced through this book of Essays (2003 – 2020) with increasing delight, mixed with anxiety at his story of his own long battle with Covid.  But the book is a refreshing brain shower that sets off all kinds of resonances and a need to search, look up, re-read and basically have a good think.  I have to declare that he asked me for permission to quote I’m Not Yet Dead from Spamalot but I had forgotten about that till I got there.  Likewise I was very moved by his elegy to our mutual friend Carrie Fisher.  The first thing I did after reading this was to re-read…

Slaughterhouse Five      Kurt Vonnegut

The first half of which I found absolutely delightful, and the second half less so.  Vonnegut is so funny and smart and great and always tries to keep the reader with him.

Widespread Panic          James Ellroy

Can I declare I don’t quite love him?   It’s the prose.  It gets in the way for me.  He’s like the school of Tom Wolfe where you are so busy looking at the writing BAM you get snapped out of the world of the novel.

Double Blind.                Edward St. Aubyn

I’m going to give it another go.  I was wildly excited by the Patrick Melrose novels, and I shamelessly gushed to him at a Memorial.  I kept losing my way in this new one.  I have learned to put books by serious authors aside and come back to them. So I will.

The Krull House            Georges Simenon.

Not Maigret.

The Kings of Cool          Don Winslow

In the prequel to Savages, this does exactly what I find Ellroy’s prose doesn’t, it simply and succinctly paints the scene. Minimalism in the prose maximises the impact of the action.  I really enjoyed this as indeed I do all his books.

City On Fire                  Don Winslow

He very kindly sent me an early copy of this elegant new first part of a trilogy of novels based on the Aeneid, though you probably wouldn’t have guessed if you hadn’t been told that, since it is set in Providence, Rhode Island. Brilliant and compelling. He is absolutely at the top of his game.  This is a must read. And for me a Must Read Again.  (Comes out in September). Can’t wait for the next.