Silverview            John Le Carré

A posthumous novel completed by his son.

Camino Winds               John Grisham

Ok.

The Deer Park               Norman Mailer

Re-reading this book always gives me the utmost delight.   It is one of my favourite novels.  It has the ring of reality. It is written with effortless energy.  The characters are instantly recognisable, even when they are movie stars.  It’s about Palm Springs and the Movie People but it is really about Love.   And Sex.   I had not realised until now that his Publisher rejected it, and Mailer refused to make cuts.  In 1955 Viking stepped in. I have a British first edition from Arthur Wingate 1957. I don’t know anything finer by this author.  I am hard put to explain why I find it so appealing.  I think it is because he brilliantly pictures two different male/female relationships, but each couple with the same tensions.  The whole ambivalence of love and lust, and fear of, and gratitude for, such bonding.  He understands this beyond his years (the war) and is able to illustrate perfectly, the unique human ability of the sexes to misunderstand each other and yet still be reconciled through sex.  Both share the magic.  It is a wonderful commonality.

The swats at the film industry are funny, as they always are at that industry.   I had never spotted any Fitzgerald in Mailer hitherto and yet here it is in Sam Spades, but with a strength, clarity and modernity of language which I think is new, both from and caused by the wartime experiences of these writers.  Remember Holden Caulfield travelled across the battlefields of Europe in the knapsack of J. D. Salinger. From D-Day to Dachau.  They were young men, but with such awful, traumatising experiences of war.  No wonder their novels seemed fresh and arresting.  They had lived with death.

The Left Handed Twin            Thomas Perry

In cracking form this is one of the most thrilling of his recent novels. It’s a Jane Whitefield novel, and the pursuit of her along the Appalachian trail is one of the most intense things he has ever written.

The Silence of the Girls           Pat Barker

One of the most brilliant and best written books I have ever read.  I really loved this account of Troy through the eyes of the women.  A terrific idea and wonderfully executed. She writes like an angel.  I thought she brought to life the daily incessant dull, terrifying grind of warfare brilliantly, and how virtually invisible the women are.  Between Queens and slaves.

The Women of Troy.      Pat Barker

And I loved the sequel too.

The Thursday Murder Club     Richard Osman

Reluctantly retired oldies solve crimes.  Funny and sweet.

Revolution.           Peter Ackroyd

The next book in a very fine history of England from the Battle of the Boyne to the Battle of Waterloo.

He writes very well and his stories are fine and well chosen.

Mike Nichols A Life       Mark Harris

A very fine portrait of a wonderful man.  I must have met Mark at Mike’s apartment. He is married to Tony Kushner the brilliant writer.  The book is both sympathetic and insightful, and highly readable.

Dolphin Junction           Mick Herron.

The latest thriller from the very best contemporary British thriller writer.  He is a must read.

On Provence                 Henry James

He is a mustn’t read.