Frostquake           Juliet Nicolson

I well remember the winter of 1963.  So bloody cold.  Snow till May.

Inside Comedy               David Steinberg

Me too.

Henderson the Rain King        Saul Bellow

He writes so divinely.

The Mystery of Charles Dickens        A. N. Wilson.

Beautifully written, elegantly told, I loved this book.  It’s amazing to me that I did a whole University Exam on Dickens and most of the facts discussed here were completely unknown.  His love affair with the actress, with children, and his cruel treatment of his wife.  Of course it was 1965….

I can’t believe I haven’t read this man.  He is a delight.

The Secret Life of the Savoy             Olivia Williams

And the D’Oyly Carte family.

I loved this book too.  Far better written than expected I knew a lot of the early story about how D’Oyly Carte built a theatre and Hotel at the Savoy from the money he made for Gilbert and Sullivan.  The Theater was the first to have electricity. An extraordinary sea change in theatrical history.    She tells the story elegantly with plenty of teasing details.  Olivier and Marilyn on the cover, and you long to know what she was telling him in the Savoy bar.

Beautiful World, Where are you.  Sally Rooney

All unhappy love affair stories are the same… I really enjoyed the opening of this and then felt it tanked.  I liked the stuff on the importance of the novel, but felt the story wasn’t up to it. I really enjoyed all the bits about the late Bronze Age collapse. Relevant to today with the possibility it was caused by a pandemic.  This was all new to me (novel) but I found the non-novel better than the novel.  She should do some essays.  (Like Zadie Smith.) I look forward to her next.

Smoke                          Joe Ide

An I. Q. novel. I have been following him since his debut.  He tries to ring the changes on this one, but like all successful formats it becomes a bit of a trap.  I think he should try something completely different, though he will be known for these books.

The Chiffon Trenches    Andre Talley

I find fashion not very interesting it seems.   I met this pleasant man at the Bowie wedding in Florence.  He was humiliated by Iman seizing his camera and unrolling the film.  He went to his room he was so embarrassed.  They were being paid a million by Hello Magazine for the exclusive..

A Slow fire burning       Paula Hawkins

A thriller.  It thrills.

The End of Everything (Astrophysically speaking). Katie Mack

A fantastic book, which I had to read very slowly, a chapter at a time.  It is mind blowing.  The five or six likeliest ends to the Universe are here simply laid out.  I first was amazed by her on The Infinite Monkey Cage.  The end of the Universe is fascinating and I hope I’ll be here to enjoy it.  The most amazing thing is that in the future all the galaxies will have moved so far apart that we will have no sight or knowledge of the entire universe that came before.  We will have reverted to the Medieval view of the Universe, that there is just us…

She has the funniest footnotes.  I suggested she might win a Nobel Prize for her footnotes.

Smoke and Mirrors        Neil Gaiman

I don’t read a lot of fantasy so I have not read him as widely as I should.  I really enjoyed this book though.  My favorite was The Goldfish Pool and other stories, which was hilarious.  And accurate. I will read more.  He is a wonderful writer.

Changing my mind        Zadie Smith

Occasional Essays.  Always interesting. Of course I love everything she writes.  She seemed to be defining a form of Quantum criticism in her essay on Barthes and Nabokov.   Learning to re-read almost as important as learning to read.  A good book is one you can re-read, a great book is one you must.   “Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only re-read it.  A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader.”   Dip and enjoy.  Gold everywhere.

Based on a True Story.   Norm Macdonal

I wasn’t aware of his work.  I downloaded this to Kindle after he died.  It’s a funny autobiography, but thanks to his first love for drugs and alcohol, slightly less coherent than it might be.  Indeed he has a fictional co-conspirator with him and can’t wait to be away from the serious bits of his life story, indeed at times he seems to be channelling  Hunter Thompson.  Clearly an outrageous chap, he left lots of comedians distraught by news of his death.  I met him briefly one year at Marty Short’s Christmas Party.

Peril.          Bob Woodward and Bob Costa

The importance of Democracy is to vote unsuitable characters out and so I read the terrifying Trump chapters, and skipped the less interesting Biden scenes. America dodged a bullet but only just and the bullet (still mad) keeps on coming, because a con man is like a shark and must keep on going forward so somehow some people don’t notice that he is lying through his teeth and everything he says is worthless.  Sadly this shark is killing thousands of Americans.  Poor suckers.

My Mother Was Nuts              Penny Marshall

I didn’t know Penny had written a book.  Nice scenes of the early days and Laverne and Shirley.  She visits us one year with Art on a Motorbike.  I liked the crew of characters she grew up with and played with and partied with.  I know lots of them.  I found when her book got onto making movies I was less interested.  Movie making is as dull to read about as it is to do.  But she was always a treat and of course I married her on Laverne and Shirley..

Rebellion             Peter Ackroyd

The History of England from James 1 to The Glorious Revolution.  Beautifully written history by a writer who is a master of the anecdote.   Very fine, popular history, that began with the Tudors, which I skipped and I can’t wait to continue.

April in Spain                John Banville

Just a bit too gentle and laid back for my taste.  He is an amazing writer whom I have enjoyed widely.

Cloud Cuckoo Land       Anthony Doerr

Another brilliant book from the most brilliant writer.

The Lincoln Highway    Amor Towles

Sadly I have never really got into him. I find him more of a parodist.  He writes well but..

The Man who Died Twice        Richard Osman

Literally a Who Dunit, this is a really funny book, the sequel to a highly popular first book The Thursday Murder Club Mystery which I will order immediately.   Hugely popular in the UK he deserves to be widely read and appreciated everywhere.

The Promise                  Damon Galgut

Booker prize winner and deservedly so. Really a family saga, which also contains the modern history of South Africa, from the deplorable apartheid world of Dr. Verwoerd to the current day. It is also a memento mori, a philosophical study of the human constantly condition faced with human mortality.

Effortlessly linked are the stories of Amor, and what happens to her two siblings Astrid and Anton.  Really an amazing book.