Intermezzo                    Sally Rooney

I like the way she writes.  I found the first half gripping, then felt it was going adrift, but returned to it with delight, because of her prose and the fresh way she writes about people.   Especially in sexual relationships.  I keep going despite several breaks because she can really write.   However though I have re started many times I still haven’t finished it so I must reluctantly conclude the book doesn’t quite work for me.

Gabriel’s Moon             William Boyd.

One of the books I devoured on the road and left behind on a hotel shelf.   I know I loved it but can I remember why or where?   Alas.

The Goodbye People      Gavin Lambert

I left this for a fact on a hotel shelf in Sydney.   I was only quite enjoying it and it went as a sacrifice to weight.   It was a nice McNally Edition I picked up in New York.

The Decline and Fall of The Human Empire.    Henry Gee.  (Preview)

Why Our Species is on the Edge of Extinction.

Now this one I still have because the author kindly sent me a Kindle copy.  I believe I was supposed to write something about it, but the road is so demanding, and tiring and tasking, that I am afraid I forgot to do that.  I think Henry will forgive me as I recommend the book a lot.  The gist is that we have already passed the point of becoming extinct once we became the sole hominid on the planet, but, he allows some room for the possibility of survival if we can manage to leave the planet and colonise space.  The future does not look optimistic on that front and the only upside is that we won’t be here to witness it.  However we will shortly suffer the consequences of our short sightedness in terms of survival on this planet.

Dark Renaissance           Stephen Greenblatt        (Preview)

This is a note I wrote to my pal Stephen Greenblatt who had kindly shared his book with me.   I just adored it as you can see.

“First of all let me say I read your book end to end with delight.  Your writing is effortless, your humor superb, your arguments unanswerable.  I love the way you now bring Marlowe to life in the way that you did Shakespeare.  Through their writing as well as through the scant historical details of their lives you make them live for us.  Marlowe in particular, the precocious boy suddenly lifted out of his working class world and expanded by education which propelled him into Cambridge which allowed his brain room to expand and grow and view the Universe as well and revealing his thoughts in the dangerous world of late Elizabethan life.  That naturally rang home to me, a boy who was gifted a similar elevation.  You expose so well the curse of religions and their cruelty when given half a chance, as well as the dangers faced by scientists in trying to reveal the Universe to us and of common people in the years when religions changed with the weather.

I loved learning about Bruno and his dangerous – though totally accurate – views of the universe and the true nature of the sun and earth  – for which he paid with his life.  Everyone should expect the Inquisition!   In short you’ve done it again, written a totally engrossing, compelling read, throwing light onto a genius poet and playwright who was mysteriously removed from the stage in his prime by forces unknown.

Over The Edge of The World        Laurence Bergreen.

Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

An amazing story.  Enthralling. Gripping and true.  Though  I had my appetite whetted by Henry Green’s short narrative.  This detailed history of the three year expedition by the Portuguese Magellan for Spain, the mutinies, the tragedies, the discoveries was absolutely superb.  It led me into searching for more details about the Chinese exploration of the globe which seems to have certainly preceded all the European “discoveries” and I went looking for any book that shed light on the Chinese Treasure Fleet of  Cheng Ho in the15th Century.  Quite by chance I found a copy of the below in Betty’s Books, a delightful bookshop in Newcastle, NSW.

1434                             Gavin Menzies

The year a magnificent Chinese Fleet sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance.

These Junks were five times bigger than Magellan’s boats and it is clear that these fleets sailed the world and it was their maps, so valuable, that finally got into the hands of European explorers and led to the age of discovery.   I remember reading his previous book 1421 but I think it may have gone when I chucked out my library.  This book too remains somewhere on a shelf in a hotel in Australia for someone else to enjoy.   I take photos of the covers to remind me not to forget, and by the context I think I left it in Sydney, which makes sense.

This is What Happened           Mick Herron

Nobody Walks                        Mick Herron

Miss May Does Not Exist         Carrie Courogen

An enthralling account of the Life of Elaine May, with wonderful stories of the extraordinary Mike Nichols, their meeting, their early days, their successes, and their subsequent inevitable interactions in life and showbusiness.

The Glass That Laughed          Dashiel Hammet

An early recently discovered very short story.

Sweet Tooth                  Ian McEwan

I found this 2^nd hand in a rather lovely Coffee House Bookshop in Newcastle Australia.  I wasn’t sure I hadn’t read it but I very much enjoyed it, particularly the first half which is wonderfully written.  The plot twist works very well.  A very pleasant travel read with lots of nostalgia about Cambridge in the early seventies.

Hero                             Thomas Perry

Another total blinder from Thomas Perry.  How does he remain so good?   A female protagonist is attacked for doing her job.   She goes on the run from police, news organizations and revenge seekers.   Totally gripping.

Howard’s End               E.M. Forster

Which I found second hand in paperback in Newcastle Australia and left in a hotel in Sydney.  I had not re read it in a while and the problem was that after writing “What About Dick?” I kept giggling at various points where Helen(a) stole umbrellas or Leonard Bast(ard) walked all night into the countryside.  It’s my own fault I know but since I have a first edition at home I left this for some other reader to enjoy, who hadn’t been polluted by comedy.

Henry V                        Dan Jones

The astonishing rise of England’s greatest warrior King.

A big book in all ways, and I was grateful to Sydney for publishing it already in paperback.  They do that there and it’s much better for we travellers.  The only problem with Henry Vth for me was that I did not like him at all.  Of course one can feel sympathy for him being attached to the Court of the worrying Richard 11nd, but only in the way you can feel sorry for Caligula attached to the court of Tiberias.   His father was unpleasant but I began to particularly dislike the son when he invaded France and this dislike grew with every siege and  chevauchee.   Is this what we want from our Rulers?   Ruthless efficiency in warfare, and the belief that God has singled you out personally to determine the state of Western Europe.   Yes there are far more unpleasant people around at the time but bashing in towns and cities in the name of God is hardly England’s greatest King.  Shakespeare here has done him a huge favour of course and Lawrence Olivier, but historically at the time England was the one doing the invading so Henry V is hardly the victim of Nazism.  I learned a lot about myself while reading this highly readable and enjoyable biography of one of the greatest Worrier Kings from the deeply mysterious world of the Medieval Ages.

The Blue Hour                       Paula Hawkins

Another brilliantly written suspense book.  I think that’s the right definition.  She is more like Highsmith in narrative form.  Her observation of character is as good, her writing as fine, and she leaves you in the same suspended state of not quite knowing what will happen.  No spoilers.

The Human Factor                 Graham Greene

An odd book which I found second hand in the Adelaide Central Market.

Didion & Babitz                   Lili Anolik

A brilliant book where – as a huge fan of Eve – I learned to appreciate Joan a little more.   Very interesting and of course I knew half the characters in it – odd people like Earl McGrath and the imperious mischievous Ahmet Ertegan.   A very finely researched book based on her discovery of a box of unsent letters, which are of course the most accurate kind, since they say what you think, but then cleverly withdraw from the unpleasant consequences.

True and False              David Mamet

Oh I love David Mamet.  Here he brilliantly peels away the bullshit that surrounds the acting trade.

Three Uses of the Knife:          David Mamet

On the Nature and Purpose of Drama.      Kindle.

Research                       Philip Kerr

I felt very fortunate to fall upon this book in the back of Dymocks in Perth.   I, like many others, was saddened by his early death, and I had no idea that anything else had been published since his decease and yet there it was!   So I fell on it and devoured it on a day off.   Then of course I left it behind in an hotel somewhere, because, well, bags are heavy on the road, so I can give you no information whatsoever, except I immediately recommended it to fellow Kerr enthusiast Jeff Davis and I remember I loved it and intended to buy it again when I returned to the Untied States.

May We Borrow Your Husband   Graham Greene

& Other Comedies of the Sexual Life.

A re-read.   Still a bit disappointing.

Joe Country                  Mick Herron

Episode 7 of Slow Horses. Very good read, except unaccountably it lost a little at the end.

Independence Square     Martin Cruz Smith

I had not read him or what looks like this series which appears to be the last of The Renko novels.

The Master & Margarita         Mikhail Bulgakov

I had previously abandoned this book some years ago on an earlier visit.   I might re-leave it again.  I was intrigued at first then I wasn’t.

Catherine de Medici                Leonie Frieda

Renaissance Queen of France.   Kindle.   The life of Catherine de Medici, the Italian Princess who became Queen of France, and mother of several Queens of France.  This author argues that she was far less the monster that she is painted after the St. Bartholomew Massacre.

Whiplash River                       Lou Berney

I read for a while before remembering I had definitely read this BUT it set me up for the third of this trilogy which has been newly published and which I have yet to read.   I blame Don Winslow for this confusion since he keeps recommending him, and rightly so.

Double Barrel Bluff                Lou Berney

The Kings of Cool                   Don Winslow

Prequel to Savages.

Bambi vs Godzilla    David Mamet

Everywhere an Oink Oink    David Mamet

Fifty Grand         Adrian McKinty

The Promise         Damon Galgut

Making Rumours           Ken Caillat

 

2024

Ok I’m still playing catch up.  Many of these I read some months ago. I’m unsure in which order but I start off as usual with a re-reading of:

Tender is the Night                 F. Scott Fitzgerald

Which I enjoyed more than ever and indeed am now convinced that this is his greatest novel.

I loved the opening prose so much that I picked it up a few weeks later and found myself once again happily on the plage in Juan Les Pins, intrigued by the story of Rosemary and her mother meeting the Americans of all sorts on the tiny beach.   I could read it again today.

Black Water                  Joyce Carol Oates

I met this incredible lady at Steve’s New Year’s Eve Party and I had to rush out immediately and buy something.  I knew her name but not her work, so I grabbed this, and really enjoyed it.   A fascinating novel based on Chappaquiddick.

The Snow was Dirty       Georges Simenon

A Man’s Head               Georges Simenon

Maigret’s First Case      Georges Simenon

Félicie                          Georges Simenon

A Maigret Christmas and other stories Georges Simenon

I love everything Simenon, Si mais non? Mais oui.

Same Time Tomorrow    Bob Cryer.

A funny and revealing and sweet remembrance of my old pal and mentor, his father the wonderful, legendary and sadly missed Barry Cryer.  Tears and laughter.

Territorial Rights           Muriel Spark

She is one of my favourite novelists. I just love her books. She never disappoints.

The Prague Orgy           Philip Roth

He still re-reads well.

Byron, A Life in Ten Letters             Andrew Stauffer

A lovely idea and a clever way of dealing with the life of the much biographied perhaps over rated poet.  He definitely poured his art into his life.   This is a fascinating and succinct romp through the limping upper class shagnasty, who poured his sperm into many of the most fascinating women of the early 19^th century.

I used to be charming.                      Eve Babitz

The rest of Eve Babitz.

Read in paper and Kindle.  Essential reading.  I adore her.

City of Dreams     Don Winslow

His penultimate novel, continuing the tale of Danny Ryan who fled  Providence providentially to discover gold in Las Vegas.

City in Ruins        Don Winslow

His final novel, which he very kindly sent me an advanced readers edition of, so I could start to miss him sooner.   Luckily he is going to pop up on television and movies rather a lot and he leaves us a huge body of work, which, at my age I can often re-read without knowing what is going to happen.  That is obviously why I began to keep a Reading Diary.  This, the third part of the crime trilogy loosely based on The Aeneid, which itself I must read one day …

Sex and Rage       Eve Babitz

A novel.  I prefer her more direct books.  This is about her writing a novel, and is of course about her attempts to write a novel.  She was always a writer.  And is a delightful read.

Dickens and Prince        Nick Hornby

A fascinating coupling.  Coming next Proust and Elvis.

Vertigo                         W.G. Sebald

I loved the opening chapter and always have, but a rereading of the rest of the book I found disappointing.

Agostino     Alberto Moravia

A wonderfully written, and absolutely touching novel.  I doubt I will read anything as great as this again this year. He is a magnificent novelist. An excellent translation too.

Answered Prayers          Truman Capote

This gets better over time.  Thanks to him who would ever have heard of these women?

He tried for Proust but he revealed something about the wealthy and entitled without changing their names and sexes like Proust did and so he was bashed around by the rich and powerful, as they do. Writers are always observing.  What else should they write about?

 

Somewhere along the way I fell in love with the short story.  Maybe because with the decline in memory it is easier to remember what just happened in a short story!  In particular the two great American masters of the modern short story Carver and Cheever.  Amongst the collections I read and enjoyed were:

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love  Raymond Carver

Exquisitely, and very briefly written stories.  Very short some of them.  Lightly sketched the caricatures seem to breathe effortlessly.

The stories of John Cheever             John Cheever

A wonderful collection of this admirable writer.  I had read them before, Mike Nichols gave them to me, but the great advantage of the memory loss of old age is you can read books again without remembering. Obviously all great books get better on re-reading.   This is one of them.

Gutshot Straight                     Lou Berney

Don Winslow recommended it and I bought it and I’m happy to say that even when I realised I had already read it, I carried on a read it with even more enjoyment.  As we have learned, that is the mark of a good book.

 

Springtime

Feel Free                      Zadie Smith

I very much enjoy her essays.  Some are a little esoteric for me.  If I don’t like the writers I skip.  But she is so clear headed and damn sensible I read 90 per cent of them with great enjoyment.

Knife                            Salman Rushdie

An account of the monstrous and fearful attack on him, which he barely, but mercifully survived.  As I wrote to him, “the last thing I expected from your book was that it would be a love story,” and yet indeed it is.  A hymn to his love for Eliza, who raced to him and whose love and patience encouraged him to continue life to all our great relief.   Sometimes a man can be married many times but only find his true love at the end.  So it was with Mike Nichols, so it seems with Salman.  A great, and deceptively simple read.

A Hitch in Time             Christopher Hitchens

Sometimes when Salman came to LA to do Bill Maher, he would bring Hitch over and we would have great conversation and fun.  I was very excited to learn that often at the end of a contentious interview Hitch would burst into my Philosophers Song – to which he knew all the words.  These collected articles on a variety of subjects are greatly entertaining and never less than fascinating.  A great and funny man, a wit, a philosopher, a great drinker and a great companion.   Subjects range from Princess Margaret to P.G. Wodehouse. You can’t get more eclectic than that.

Blood Rites                   Barbara Ehrenreich

Origins and History of the Passions of war.

I devoured this book when I first found it, but left it somewhere in France, so I was happy to stumble on this paperback in Vromans and raced through it.  A fascinating and deeply interesting discussion of the origins of war in homo sapiens with many intriguing new thoughts and suggestions.   I have always thought war was something we evolved once we had dispatched of predators, for we self-predate in order to keep evolving.  Though she does indeed go into the beginnings of when we were prey, this simplistic idea is far more interestingly explored here.  I want to read a lot more both from her and on this subject.  War is the curse of our planet.  Can it be cured?  Let us hope so.  It seems unlikely.   As long as they build armies, they will use them.

The Pole                       J. M. Coetzee

A poem of a book.  A sweet an delicate romance between a middle aged Spanish man and a courtly Chopin loving Polish pianist.  Delicately sketched but deeply felt.  I loved it and read it through again immediately.

Goodbye Columbus        Philip Roth

It is a short novella and I remember reading it with enjoyment.  This time reading it I was struck with what an amazing and precocious talent the young Roth possessed.   This Modern Library edition comes with five other short stories.

The Ghost Writer           Philip Roth

I have been re reading Roth with great enjoyment but this one I remembered not liking much the first time and my mind was not changed.  I think when he goes into the weird story of Ann Frank being still alive I remained puzzled and unconvinced.  I know some people love this, but it ain’t for me.

France  An Adventure History          Graham Robb

I fell on this book with delight and relief at the soi-disant Best Bookshop in Palm Springs when I had run out of reading matter on a short birthday break in Desert Hot Springs.   I loved it, but only got half way through as I was more interested in his wonderful scenes from history, than his own personal memoirs of a cycling tour of France, even if it was up Mont Ventoux.   Fortunately a couple of months later I picked it up again and I couldn’t put it down.  He is the most amazing writer of French history I know.  It kept me spell bound till the end.  Of particular interest to me is Louis Napoleon where history becomes almost buffoon like. A totally great read.

The Beginning of Spring         Penelope Fitzgerald.

A Moscow novel set in 1913.  I notice I had read this before in 2019, when I wrote briefly “Interesting but not perfect.”    I think I stopped around the same time this time.  Not for me.  Though I love many of her books.

Uncle Vanya                         Anton Chekhov

I gave it a read because it has been so successfully revived at Lincoln Centre, but I think I would have preferred to see it.  This to me was always the one play of Chekhov’s that never grabbed me.  It didn’t grab me this time and I think there is something I am missing.

Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?     Raymond Carver

I have recently become much more fond of Short Stories, largely because of this brilliant writer and in particular because of this almost flawless collection.  He is extraordinary.  Totally brilliant.

Dark Ride                     Lou Berney

A man sees two kids who have been tortured by cigarettes.  He sets out to discover them and their mother to see if he can get anyone to help him rescue them…. A charming thriller.  So I wrote a year ago but I went out and bought it again and was once more completely engrossed.

Black Swans         Eve Babitz

I picked this up and re-read them with even more enjoyment.  The first time I had scrolled in pencil in the back of her book “She’s half a journalist and half a novelist.  So occasionally the fiction gets too factoid and the facts get too factionary – with the occasional brilliant balance.”  On re-reading I think this is far too simplistic because as I also observed “she is interested in the truth” and it is this search to capture life in words that makes her such a captivating and deeply honest writer.  So I was happy re-reading.

Burn Book.  A tech love story            Kara Swisher

I loved this.  She was so in on tech and the people who would matter so early, that her story is fascinating to read.  When I recommended it online there were a few instant haters, but I think that’s because she is fearless and takes no prisoners.  Very much worth a read for all she has to say about men who have now become monsters.

 

Summer Reading

Everywhere an Oik Oik.                   David Mamet

I loved this book and I would have said so even if I hadn’t found later on in the book he says how I made him laugh his ass off.  I remember the occasion very well, Mike Nichols 75^th Birthday Party and I was determined to be funny and I went for it, shamelessly and successfully.  It’s rude its disgusting, and that’s just me. I looked up to see David Mamet choking for breath!  I was proud of Mamet for not holding back at all in this book, and slightly ashamed I hadn’t realised just how many movies he has directed.  Proud to be included.

The Beautiful and the Damned         F. Scott Fitzgerald.

For travel I took a tiny Collector’s Library edition of this book which I hadn’t read in a long time.  The satisfying clarity of the print and the fact it has a built in book mark ribbon makes it a good choice for a travelling companion.  Swiss Air ensures my ride is efficient, on time and I am well fed and pampered. The book is really a tragedy.  The love story of Anthony for Gloria, a wonderful romantic tale, declines into the demise of the bright young things in a heady mixture of balls, idleness and alcohol.  Having no purpose but pleasure ruins the pleasure of pleasure.   Managing to insult his rich and future benefactor his great expectations are snatched away, and he grasps at the straw of a long lawsuit.  Even his stint of self-punishment in the army leads to no overseas glory in WW1, as the armistice comes to soon for his glorious suicide and leads to further feminine distraction.  It is a harsh self-portrait of himself and Zelda and Tender is the Night will be a more accurate account of the inner secrets of both.  It ends both tragically with him as a bum being ejected for New York places where he once was heralded, and ironically, with him finally winning the lawsuit, and being wealthy confined to a wheelchair on the deck of a liner to Europe, sadly imagining that he has won.

Nero                    Anthony Everitt & Roddy Ashworth

Matricide and Murder in Imperial Rome

As a change I picked up this large but interesting new book on Nero.  We all know a little and indeed he does become history’s monster but before he does so there are many fascinating tales of him growing up an heir in the dangerous world of Augustus.  His mother Agrippina pushes him towards the Imperial throne in her own quest for power.  He will coldly remove her, after having poisoned his brother Germanicus at a banquet, removing any potential challenge to his power.   This is a highly readable history of Rome under the Caesars including quite a lot about the dangerous barbarians who live in the British Isles. (Clearly not much has changed.).  Enjoyable popular history which gives a fresh look at one of history’s greatest tyrants with many corrections of historical cliches.  Hint:  he didn’t fiddle while Rome burned.

Where Angels Fear to Tread             E.M. Forster

As a palate cleanser I turned to this beautiful short novella which highlights the delightful comedic talents of Morgan Forster. The Herriton family are worthy precursors of E. F. Benson’s Mapp and Lucia.  Mrs. Herriton is a monster and has brought up a priggish daughter whose smug British confidence will lead to tragedy. Lilia, an unhappy widow escapes from the rigid captivity of her controlling mother-in-law in the social sterility of the society of Sawson for freedom in Italy.   She finds escape in an unfortunate love affair with a young Italian, her friend Miss Abbot is unable to help her and Philip, Mrs. Herriton’s son, sent to prevent the match, fails to save her.  A delightful read.

Life as a novel               Martin Amis.

A sad and lovely book. Amis, aware he is pegging out invites you into his own demise.  Come in, sit down, have a drink.  He calls it a novel.   Of course.  It contains perhaps one of the most dislikeable and manipulative female characters in literature.  Poor Amis, both fascinated and disgusted with her, is easy meat.  Enter the dreadful Phoebe, who recurs throughout the book like a bad habit. With a masters or mistress degree in prick teasing which keeps the poor chap on the hooks long after he should have run for the hills.  (Perhaps rivaled only by Larkin’s appalling Monica.). But who Catriona now assures me is a fictional character, so I am completely confused!

I had read some of this before, for instance The death of Hitchens.  Like an 18th century painting.

Still as sad and as poignant, but his own demise shortly following had me completely and horribly shocked. I always thought he would be here with a new book to cheer me up.  Slightly too much Bellow for my taste.  This “fictional” highly readable autobiography. is an odd but lovely farewell.

The Island           Adrian McKinty

I find it odd that the only two books of this brilliant author I have had to abandon were his two best sellers.  This and The Chain.  I think it is because I am personally averse to horror, in books and the cinema.  I found both manipulative, whereas the Northern Irish novels, where horror is a daily fact, seem to me realistically and beautifully written.  I agree it’s my fault.  I apologize.  As a counterpoint to this let me mention three of his novels which I read recently and loved:

The Dead Yard              Adrian McKinty

City Street Girl              Adrian McKinty

Falling Glass                 Adrian McKinty

And any of his exquisite Northern Ireland detective novels you can lay your hands on.   He is very very good.

The Wager                    David Grann

In contrast to which I found The Wager, long, boring and dull, and was happy to jump overboard early.

The Kind worth Killing            Peter Swanson

Seizing on a palate cleanser I found after a few pages I remembered reading this recently.  It’s good, a little strangers on a train, and a little Gone Girl it is wonderfully crafted and it will keep you guessing.

Unless you had already read it.  Which is I guess the problem with Who Dunnits.  If you can remember who there’s no point in re-reading.

Cocktails with George and Marsha     Philip Gefter

I did very much enjoy this book about the making of the movie of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, not just because of my love for Mike Nichols, here revealed as a very powerful young first time director, able to stand up to Jack Warner, to insist that the movie be made in black and white and not colour, and to gently remove Ernest Lehman’s “improvements” from his film script adaptation of Edward Albee’s brilliant stage play, in favour of Albee’s own words.  To be able to direct Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, at the height of their tabloid fame, is in itself remarkable.  To pull it off and fight off the censors, and cleverly manipulate the widow Kennedy into saying at a screening “Jack would have loved it” cutting the feet from beneath the studio censors and the powerful nay sayors, is remarkable.

A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth      Henry Gee

4.6 billion years in 12 Pithy Chapters.

My favourite book of the year and maybe the decade.  Henry Gee is both brilliantly funny and brilliantly informative.  So many times I found myself  saying out loud “Oh my gawd” as some fact or information came at me.  We are not the end of evolution.  We are not even the summit of it.  We are mistaken about our place in the incredible and very long evolution and continuous breaking of new life forms on earth.  I shall read this book again and again.  You might find the early chapters a little dense because there are so many monocellular Latin forms of life.  Don’t be afraid to skip, move forward, the story gets better and better with incredible chapters on animal life and the evolution of mammals.  Learn your place in the Universe, which is both incredible and unlikely and puny.

Kindle Reads

Cocktails with George and Martha    Philip Gefter

Being just about to publish a book about Mike Nichols I naturally seized on this.  The balls of the man.  His first movie and he is telling Harry Warner it has to be in black and white.  He was so funny and so talented, he had told me a few tales but amazing to see him pulling a hit movie out of this unlikely Broadway hit play – mainly by cutting all the Hollywood apapted bits and letting the play speak.  Imagine your first cast are Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the prime of their fame but also their talent.  A fine tale well told.

(Sidebar: I fell in love with Edward Albee early, directing The Zoo Story with John Shrapnel and Johnny Lynn at Cambridge. I was at the same time an enormous fan of Mike Nichols and Elaine May and had their album.)

Eve’s Hollywood                     Eve Babitz

I am totally in love with Eve Babitz.  I think she is the most wonderful and fascinating writer.  I recommend trying all her writing. Some of her essays are to die for.  They can vary widely between autobiography, sexual reminiscences and barely disguised fiction.  But she is never boring and she tells the truth, shamelessly, breathlessly and wonderfully.  Many males can learn a lot from her tales.  Enjoy.

Ask Not.                        Maureen Callahan

The Kennedy’s and the Women they destroyed.   

A timely and essential reminder of just how appallingly the Kennedy boys sexual ethics were covered over and dismissed.  We must never let people behave like Kings.  Apart from their appalling Father, Joe, their avoiding mother Rose seems to have helped enormously into creating the entitled bastards so many of them became. No women should have to put up with this.  I found her insights insightful.  JFK sex was all about power and not enjoyment.  Jackie seems to have finally survived to become a normal person, but they wounded and used and injured and killed so many women, the horrible mound of Ted and his public display of cowardice, all in the name of achieving the Oval office, is a warning, that the pursuit of power attracts the most appalling people.  America was set up to avoid this officially, but it hasn’t and it is constantly at threat.

The Michael Forsyth Trilogy.  Adrian McKinty

Fifty Grand,

The Dead Yard,

Dead I May Well be.

Perfect holiday reading.  Check the order.  I love the way he writes.  Just a delight. I love his Belfast books.  I had a terrific time with these.  I think he writes wonderfully.  Such a relief to find many books of his I haven’t yet read.

The Accidental Species.           Henry Gee

Misunderstandings of Human Evolution.  Another fascinating book about our species and the contrast between how we perceive of ourselves and the reality of the fortune of our survival on this planet.

Bambi vs Godzilla                  David Mamet

On the nature, purpose and practice of the Movie Business

I love the disrespect with which he treats his subject!  Always funny and always on point.

The Neil Carey mysteries                  Don Winslow

I had to slow down to save a couple for my travels I was reading them with so much enjoyment.

I can’t wait to continue the final two.

A Cool Breeze on the Underground

The Trail to Buddha’s Mirror

Way Down on the High Lonely

Summer Reading in Books (continued)

Caste                   Isabel Wilkerson.

The Origins of Our Discontents.    She spots that Caste is a very basic and vile form of human social organisation most obviously with Slavery which goes back millennia, and of course builds Empires, and vast fortunes such as paid for and built huge houses during the British Empire, and that the most pernicious and easiest to continue form of slavery to continue is when it involves skin color.  The slavery in the Southern states affects US Society today, in a most invidious form for a supposed land of the free.  The tales in the book are horrendous, shocking and heart breaking.   Hard to read. But important.   I was struck how much Caste itself is present in most societies outside of the US.  For instance the English caste system which is kept in place by the Monarchy.

Butterfield 8         John O’Hara

A re-reading.  Stands up pretty well. Not a classic but a good yarn from that time.

Cathedral             Stories        Raymond Carver

Sad and wistful stories.  Nobody writes better about the US working classes.  The lack of money, the sadness, the marriages.  I suppose because traditionally in the novel – because they are writing for readers in those strata – people write more about the middle and aspiring or upper classes.  Very few D. H. Lawrence although a spate of working class books and plays in the UK in the Sixties.

A Clue to the Exit                   Edward St. Aubyn

A re reading.  A dying man intends to rid himself of his money gambling in the Monte Carlo Casino.  Not entirely successfully.   He is certainly the finest writer of prose novels currently in the UK.

No Orchids for Miss Blandish           James Hadley Chase

So I had no idea until just now that the author of this classic American crime noir novel first published in 1939 was born in England in 1906 as René Brabazon Raymond, began his career as a bookseller wrote this his first novel over six weekends with the aid of a dictionary of American slang and had never even been to America.  A very fine and totally convincing work of fiction.  It is a dark masterpiece.

Arctic Summer              E. M. Forster

Abandoned and unpublished by Forster shortly before he began work on A Passage to India  this subversive attack on the code of the gentleman would actually make a fine film and is very nicely written.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao      Junot Diaz

A superbly written brilliant book, which thoroughly deserves the Pulitzer Prize he won, it is the most wonderful novel set in the Dominican Republic, often during the time of the appalling dictator Trujillo largely about a Tolkien nerd, but actually about so much more.  I read it with so much joy I never wanted it to end.

Cadillac Jack                Larry McMurtry

I am very fond of his books, but I never quite finished this one.  Curate’s egg.  Good in parts.

Caesar’s Vast Ghost       Lawrence Durrell

Aspects of Provence.

I think Durell writes the best books on Provence even if I hadn’t visited his brother Gerry in the Maz he wrote this book in.  He frequently combines history with geography.  Here he adds biography and poetry.  Once again we get the amazing story of how Marius saves Rome, which I could read every day.

Fall Reading  (Books)

Goodbye Darkness         William Manchester

A magnificent beautifully written history of the nightmare that was the Pacific War in WW2.  We concentrate so much on the invasion of Europe and D Day that we sometimes forget the extraordinary and magnificent struggle the Marines waged against the Japanese, after Pearl Harbor and the tremendous loss and suffering on both sides.  William Manchester was there, he fought to take back every island and atoll en route to Japan, each at tremendous cost.  This is him revisiting this bloody journey and his memories of the bitter fight he and his companions waged before they were spared the ultimate horror of invading Japan by the atom bomb.  It is history from the battlefield itself and the most remarkable book I have read for a very long time.  I think it just might be the best war history ever written.   We owe them all so much.

A World Lit Only by Fire         William Manchester

Of course I then had to go back and read one of my all-time favourite history books also written by him, which is subtitled The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance, Portrait of an Age.  If you ever needed to remember just how evil mankind can be, this is the book.  The six Popes alone are enough to put you off religion forever.  There is much about Martin Luther and the Reformation, where you soon discover that one kind of nastiness is just replaced by another.  It is the most agreeable reading of history and ends with a virtual encomium to Magellan, whose genius I had not quite appreciated, and whose religious folly led him to trust in God and not in man, which meant he never made it home, although a few of his crew did stagger back to Spain, completing the circumnavigation of the globe.  The first to do it.   Sheer, wonderful, magnificent, narrative history.

Chess.    Stefan Zweig

A short but highly readable and finely written novella about a Chess Master and a strange confrontation about an Ocean liner.   Delightful.

Revenge of the Tipping Point.     Malcolm Gladwell

An interesting sequel to Malcolm Gladwell’s first book and filled with interesting facts about superspreaders of COVID and the overstory which he defines, but which ended for me with the most powerful explanation of the vile achievements of the Sackler Family to make a fortune by starting an Opioid crisis which continues to ravage America to this day.  Almost impossible to believe, and virtual impossible to stop, since it has spread to the black market and Fentanyl which continues to kill more and more Americans daily.

Paris in Ruins               Sebastian Smee

Another history, this time through the eyes and brushes of the contemporary French artists Manet, Monet, Degas and the amazing Berthe Morisot which shows the horrors that Paris undergoes after the idiot Emperor Napoleon 111rd led France into a disastrous war with Prussia.  It led to the siege of Paris with many of these artists remaining in Paris, where rats became a vital food, and then to the Commune, after France had capitulated to Bismarck, when Paris was once again besieged and bombarded, this time by the rest of France.  A terrible story, but brilliantly told through the painters who suffered it.

 

Some books I read on the plane to and from New York, promoting my own book: 

The Spamalot Diaries

 

Bonjour Tristesse           Francoise Sagan

The book that begin it all.  A very honest story of a young girl growing up in the South of France with her very French father, and his girlfriends.  Written when she was 19, this book changed everything.

Every Frenchman has one       Olivia de Havilland

A brilliant short and very, very funny reprint of a book by the film star Olivia de Havilland, about moving to and living in Paris, which had me laughing out loud.  And that my friends is very rare.  Chapeau to Crown Archetype for discovering and reprinting this hilarious book.

The Goodby People                 Gavin Lambert

Again a reprint, by McNally editions, of a classic collection on stories by a remarkable writer.

 

And as I head for Sydney and a long tour of Australia and New Zealand I very much continue to enjoy this on my I Pad – the gift to travellers.

Tune In                        Mark Lewisohn

The Beatles:  All These Years          Vol 1

A compulsive and terrific and incredibly in-depth history of the Beatles.   So detailed and wonderful that I am on Page 638 and Ringo still hasn’t joined.  Though we have learned all about him.  And them.

Just a magnificent and compelling and definitive history of the world’s pre-eminent Group.  I’m totally gripped and glad I have some long flights ahead!  Happy Reading!   October 12^th 2024

Eric

2023

 

This was the year of Downsize Abbey.   We pack up and leave our old home..  

The library of 4,000 books goes to a bookshop in Covina.  We move to a temporary rental round the corner.

Sadly, though I have been reading (and buying) of course, I seem to have fallen severely behind in my writing about reading, so with the news that it is now October – let me try and play Catch Up if I can.

We spent three months in Europe this summer so I’m going to start there.  I remember I had got rather tired of best-selling mysteries and had fallen back on my usual gambit of reaching for the classics.  This is a good stand by, even if they are new translations like the splendid Iliad which I am currently reading.

The Iliad              Homer

This is the first time I have read it through as a story.   It is spectacularly translated, and a gripping read. The characters come to life.  Even the Gods – often so annoying – have their place in the tale.  It is started really by Eris – God of Chaos – chucking the Golden Apple amongst three beautiful Goddesses.  For the Most Beautiful it says.  Like an Award Show for Gods.  Three immediately claim it and Paris is appointed to decide who should be the winner.  Bribed by Hera with the promised reward of the most beautiful woman in the world if he should choose her, he does and is rewarded with Helen of Troy.  Never mind she is someone else’s wife.  Possibly he should win the Poisoned Penis award for he abducts her back to Troy from her husband Menelaus, brother of the Greek King Agamemnon, starting the ten year Trojan War and costing hundreds of lives, when the Greeks raise a huge fleet and head off in pursuit, determined to rescue Helen.  The Iliad itself opens after the Greeks have spent nine years encamped by their boats outside the walls of Troy and are tired of this endless war.  Many wish to go back to their wives and children in Greece.   Many more are dead.  This is the point where the action of the poem begins.  I now believe Eris is the mother of all award shows.  Chuck ‘em a prize and make them fight for it and send the other buggers home empty handed.  That’ll teach ‘em.

A pair of true stories I read recently seemed to be sharing a similar theme, asking the question: when a couple is engaged sexually just how much is the woman not responsible for her actions in breaking the law, and how much is she “controlled.”   I mean these:

Going Infinite                        Michael Lewis

In this, straight from the headlines, story Michael Lewis tells us the odd story of Sam Bankman-Fried’s weird tale of becoming a Crypto Billionaire and the extraordinary collapse of his company.  Now he is on trial and the major testimony is coming from his former girl-friend Caroline Ellison.  Trial now over and he was found quite guilty.

Immediately afterwards I read

The Art Thief                         Michael Pinkel

A not dissimilar tale of a young Alsatian couple who stole major Renaissance art work from small museums in France, Switzerland, and Belgium, accumulating a huge treasure trove which they kept in an apartment they shared at his mother’s.  The similarity is in the influence the man had over the woman.  Here Anne Catherine seems very much part of the duo, until the trial where she testifies against him.  Breitweiser steals for the pure joy of owning art.  He is a hoarder.  He has no intention of selling.

The Shards                            Brett Easton Ellis

I began but he is too much for me. I didn’t get far. I’m not a horror fan.  I understand he can write.

The Romantic                         William Boyd

A picaresque novel, spanning several lives.  Very romantic in the early days when he is hanging out with Byron and witnessing the death of Shelley, and where he meets the love of his life, whom he will meet again towards the end.  When he moves to North America I found the tale less gripping band put it down for a bit but because I am a big fan I restarted it and enjoyed the eventual romantic reunion.

 

Summer reading 2023

 

I remember Nothing.               Norah Ephron

Fortunately she does and makes us laugh even as she lies dying.  What a terrible loss she is.  So funny, so smart, such good company.

A Passage to India

The first time I have read this since reading Damon Galgut’s Arctic Ice.  The underlying theme of homosexuality in this, one of Forster’s best books, is illuminated by Galgut’s own splendid novel, so that the two books seem to dance together and it is impossible to unrecognize the homo-erotic subtext of Forster’s great work, which only gives it greater resonance and truth.

The Metaphysical Ukulele.

A great title and quite interesting tales of the most unlikely instrument.

The Counter? The Comforters?                           Muriel Spark

A strange one.  It has the feel of something written first as a film.   Maybe it was.  As it is it’s the last of her many wonderful novels.

I discover that The Finishing School was the last of her novels.  I need to find this book again in France.  What can I mean?  The Comforters was her first novel, when she was recovering from amphetamine and discovered Catholicism and was aided in her career by Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh, both Catholic drug abusers… if you count alcohol.

See Is God a Mushroom?  A book I just made up.  Incidentally when you fast for forty days and forty nights in the desert eating only manna you are quite possibly off your bonce.

Mrs. Dalloway                        Virginia Woolf

No.  I’m still afraid of her.

Seize The Day                         Saul Bellow

The haunted wastrel son, the unforgiving father.  This short novella goes to the heart of money and it’s lack and lack of parental heart in New York.

The Duchess of Malfi              John Webster

Visiting Amalfi this summer I was minded to re-read this play, which actually isn’t so much about the Duchess as the intrigues at Court between her brother and her, leading to murder and mayhem.

A Sentimental Education                  Gustave Flaubert

Opened terrifically, like a great Dickens, but trickled away.  Maybe he spent too long on it.  It ran out of steam and I certainly did long before the conclusion.

Monsieur Monde Vanishes               Georges Simenon

The Interest                                     Michael Taylor

Still so shocking, this history of Slavery in the Sugar Trade, and how almost all of the 18^th Century profited and benefited from it.   I find it hard to read more than a few chapters at a time.   Sugar, slavery and the Success of Business in England.  Even in Mansfield Park. Mr. ? goes off to attend to his estates in Jamaica.  And guess what they are growing?  The triangular trade, protected by the British Navy, ensured the success and wealth of British society.  Based round Liverpool and Bristol (Bath!) the West Country profited but so did the woollen trade and shipping.

The Great Gatsby                    F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I always learn something new.  The ending always takes me by surprise.

Dark Ride                     Lou Berney

A man sees two kids who have been tortured by cigarettes.  He sets out to discover them and their mother to see if he can get anyone to help him rescue them…. A charming thriller.

The Fraud                    Zadie Smith

The book of the year for me.  She is an outstanding novelist.  Here she writes a brilliant story set in 1873 in Victorian London, which includes a scene with Dickens, The Tichbourne Trial, and the problems of being housekeeper to a less than brilliant novelist.  I read engrossed and happy and was sad when it stopped.

 

Fall Reading 2023

 

When I got back from France I fell in love again with Eve Babitz: First her collection of pieces

Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, The Flesh, and L.A.   Eve Babitz.

which seemed to mention so many of my friends, Derek Taylor, Steve Martin and David Giler.

“No one burned hotter than Eve Babitz. Possessing skin that radiated “its own kind of moral laws,” spectacular teeth, and a figure that was the stuff of legend, she seduced seemingly everyone who was anyone in Los Angeles for a long stretch of the 1960s and ’70s. One man proved elusive, however, and so Babitz did what she did best, she wrote him a book. Slow Days, Fast Company is a full-fledged and full-bodied evocation of a bygone Southern California that far exceeds its mash-note premise. In ten sun-baked, Santa Ana wind–swept sketches, Babitz re-creates a Los Angeles of movie stars distraught over their success, socialites on three-day drug binges holed up in the Chateau Marmont, soap-opera actors worried that tomorrow’s script will kill them off, Italian femmes fatales even more fatal than Babitz. And she even leaves LA now and then, spending an afternoon at the house of flawless Orange County suburbanites, a day among the grape pickers of the Central Valley, a weekend in Palm Springs where her dreams of romance fizzle and her only solace is Virginia Woolf. In the end it doesn’t matter if Babitz ever gets the guy—she seduces us.”

 

And then I read everything I could get my hands on.  Including:

L. A. Woman.  Eve Babitz

A novel.     Her stories are essential about herself and her friends anyway.

Black Swans         Eve Babitz

Stories.

After which I read:

Hollywood’s Eve, Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A. by Lil Anolik

which is a decent biography although she seems to suffer slightly from Venus Envy, as who wouldn’t when your best friend walks away with the best life, the best drugs, the best boyfriends, and was also the better writer.

But I also discovered The Sean Duffy Series by Adrian McKinty, to whose work I had been introduced by the extraordinary Don Winslow.   But I loved this series and read:

The Detective Up Late

The Cold Cold Ground

In the Morning I’ll be Gone

I Hear The Sirens in the Street

All of which are set in the civil war torn streets of Belfast.  A detective tries to solve “crime” amidst constant civil violence, death threats, turmoil and an armed insurrection. It’s not dissimilar to the trope

used so brilliantly by Philip Kerr in his unforgettable series about Bernie Gunther, where an oddball detective solves crime in Berlin first during the Weimar Republic and then under Hitler and the Nazi regime.

 

Now we are in November.

 

Something Wonderful                               Todd S. Purdum

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway Revolution.  A wonderful book, made even more joyful for me by the re- opening of Spamalot at The St. James Theater, where they opened so many of their wonderful shows…and where I was at the First Night of Mel Brooke’s The Producers, where he mercifully brought back Musical Comedy from its hiding place deep beneath the Paris sewers.  Musical comedy has been the most enjoyable theatrical form since Offenbach and then Gilbert and Sullivan brought it to London and then on to Broadway.

Flop Musicals of the Twenty-First Century    Stephen Purdy

Fortunately we’re not in this book!   A fun romp through other people’s misfortunes.  It is a fact that only 17 per cent of Broadway musicals make their money back.   But this is a tale of some musicals that didn’t even make it to the second night. So much ambition.  So much skill.  So  much hope.  So much disappointment. Failure is not spared even the finest of Creative teams.  And then there are the rock and rollers, and the repeat failures.  Some people keep on trying. Perhaps the most fascinating tale is the three year attempt to get Spiderman to fly.   Was it the single handed determination of Julie Tamor who led them into trouble?  Was it the mistake to put this on Broadway instead of in Vegas, where it belonged.  More of a ride than a musical, it would still be running there.   But alas trying to invent new technology is no way to solve the problems of the plot. Fascinating read.

See Postcards from The Edge another book I just made up.

On the flight home from Broadway Baby I re-read

The Left Handed Twin            Thomas Perry.

Which I re-read with just as much enjoyment as the first time.

Paul Auster                             Baumgartner

Day.            A Novel                Michael Cunningham

I tried hard – indeed I started over again – but he really isn’t my cup of tea.   I find it hard to concentrate on his writing…

The Last Tycoon            F. Scott Fitzgerald 

The last unfinished novel.   Fascinating reading.  The Narrator is female and Celia is the daughter of a Top Studio Executive so her insight into the boy genius boy of Hollywood should be more accurate than it appears.  It’s hard to tell whether he could have pulled this narration off, once he was sure of what he was writing and what was to happen.  Surely it would be the early death of Monroe Starr from overwork.  I am very fond of Fitzgerald’s bittersweet  Pat Hobby Stories and it’s possible this would have been the best book, but at the moment it seems a rather sentimental story about someone Scott clearly admires.

The Course of Love        Alain de Botton

Well I know precisely when I was reading this because a ticket from The Shed’s Griffin Theatre fell out, dated Friday December 29^th 2023 when I was attending the wonderful production of Sondheim’s last work, Here We Are with a book by another genius David Ives, based on two movies by Bunuel The Exterminating Angel and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie Bunuel’s 1972 film that was so popular with Python, back when we had our own screening room. I tried hard to get backstage to see David Hyde Pierce who was magnificent in it.  Only alas to discover we could not actually find backstage in the warren of interesting architecture that is that splendid place. So Alan Zweibel and our Spices fled to dinner.

On Love               Alain de Botton

So this must have been the first one I read previously back in November when we were opening at The St. James.  I remember reading it a very long time ago but this time it had a profound effect on me and I was considering even trying to make it a musical!   I loved the way he steps out of the narrative to explain what is going on.  I think you could do that with a play.  I guess the Chorus kinda did that in early Greek drama.  It’s both a novel and an advice book.  But it could be a very funny device.  If only I had the time…

The Greeks           Roderick Beaton

A Global History.   A very long book a very long time ago. It was taking me a long time to read but as I am pretty much totally ignorant of Ancient Greek History, with a few vague exceptions like the plays of Sophocles, I decided to go back and dip.  So it’s a dipping source not a main course.

Pax                     Tom Holland.       War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age

Rome is always interesting.  Did you know it was not built in a Day?   It just looks like that.

Regeneration Pat Barker
1917 Siegfried Sassoon at Craiglockhart. What to do with one of theirs who protests the war. With Wilfred Owen.
The Eye in the Door Pat Barker
The next in the series. I don’t find Prior a realistic character. Certainly not as realistic as the Poets.
Pandora’s Jar Natalie Haynes
Women in the Greek Myths. Eris is the one to watch out for. A real troublemaking Goddess.
Bad Actors Mick Herron
The latest in the series Slow Horses. Diana Taverner faces problems…
The God Equation Michio Kaku
The Quest for a Theory of Everything. Before the Big Bang. And after.
Rise and Kill First Ronen Bergman
The secret History of Israel’s targeted assassinations.
Gripping. Shocking. Fantastic. Extraordinary great history.
Charles Darwin’s Barnacle and David Bowie’s Spider
How scientific names celebrate Adventurers, Heroes, and Even a Few Scoundrels.
Doesn’t mention Monty Python’s extinct snake. Or the fact that the human need to name everything in the Universe is destined to be hopeless as there aren’t even enough words to fit the stars in our Galaxy.

June thru August
A Short History of Humanity Johannes Krause and Thomas Trappe
And a whole new science, the genetic journey of human kind, history found in DNA . Fascinating.
Tales from the Colony Room Darren Caulfield
All alcoholics are alike. Like junkies, people addicted to their own poison are often less interesting than they think. Despite a foreword by Barry Humphries I failed to be captured by these less than legendary tales from The Colony Club.
The Fall of Robespierre Colin Jones
I found this one of the most dissatisfactory books on one of the most fascinating reversals of fortune in all history – the fall of the monster Robespierre. I feared the worst when the opening sentences contained three of the most awful cliches in modern journalism: “all about optics,” “getting up close,” and “drilling down.” Unfortunately this is precisely what he promises to do, and indeed delivers, constantly shifting from one scene to another a bit further down the road, a few minutes later. Eschewing all attempts to keep the dramatic flow focused, instead we get tons of not on the spot reports. This is bewildering, confusing and irritating. I have never put down a book more frequently or picked it up to try again so frequently. The man may know history but he doesn’t know drama or storytelling at all. Constantly leaping from place to place, some fascinating, some not, he is always cutting away from the moment to pick it up elsewhere. It doesn’t work. A large blue pencil and the book would be shorter, simpler and more clearly defined. It is way too long, rambling, discursive and deeply frustrating. My tip is to skip – not the book – but when reading. Who doesn’t like what happened to that tyrant? I mean apart from Putin I guess…..
All My Friends Are Going to be Strangers Larry McMurtry
Containing one of the least attractive female leads of all time. You wonder why he puts up with her for more than a date. Sixties coming of age writer. I like him, but this one I found annoying. He should have left her behind in Houston….
Slouching Towards Bethlehem Joan Didion
Ages since I read this so I thought I’d give it a go and I enjoyed it. Essays from the mid Sixties and an examination of the West. LA, Vegas, Freeways. Her title essay is all about hippies in San Francisco, whom she examines with the pitiless glare of someone ten years too old to be fooled by the hippie dippie bullshit. But it is chilling to remember that there is a war on and these kids are being sent away to fight it. Who wouldn’t want to get stoned? Interconnected essays, for instance the Vegas Wedding Chapel sees 67 couples married on the last day that this will be allowed to delay the draft….Her reflections are ironic, and sometimes plain old funny. She cast a cynical eye on the emptiness of SOCAL life.
La Place de la Concorde Suisse John McPhee
Love John McFee. Re-read. About the Swiss preparedness for war.
All That Glitters Thomas Maier
Anna Wintour, Tina Brown and the Rivalry inside America’s Richest Media Empire.
A rivalry that would not be apparent if they were men, and that is in fact inspired by and encouraged by their employer. A man of course. Fascinating tales of publishing, Vanity Fair, Vogue and The New Yorker.
Otherwise Known As The Human Condition Geoff Dyer
Selected Essays and Reviews.
The Last Days of Roger Federer Geoff Dyer
Mercifully not a book about tennis.
This sweet sickness Patricia Highsmith
Another cracker up to scratch. “No one has created psychological suspense more densely and deliciously satisfying” says Vogue, and who would argue with that. She seems to get better and better as time goes on. The sign of a great writer.
The charismatic life and times of Tony Stratton Smith
He founded Charisma Records which was not particularly charismatic nor terribly successful. But he did support a lot of drinking in Soho Pubs, including Graham Chapman and Vivian Stanshall of the Bonzo’s who gave his life for booze. Python found a home on his label, and were later sold on to Neil Bogarde at Buddha Records, aided and encouraged by Nancy Lewis, perhaps the best help we ever had.
Tony also supported Python finding the funds for The Holy Grail movie from Led Zep and Jethro Tull and Pink Floyd. He even had a horse called Monty Python, and was famous down at Lambourne for extravagant enjoyment of life. A good man, and I was happy to read about him. In the same vein…
Miss O’Dell. Chris O’Dell with Katherine Ketcham
My hard days and long nights with the Beatles, The Stones, Bob Dylan, and Eric Clapton
A short memoir with a long subtitle. I think George Harrison wrote the song about her. What did they call them? – Apple Scruffs. Rock stars have always depended on the comfort of strangers. Any Autobiography that starts off with Derek Taylor is fine in my book. Highly readable and good fun.
Arctic Summer Damon Galgut.
A very fine novel about E.M. Forster and his writing A Passage to India. Jeremy found it recommended by Richard E. And he’s right, it is very good writing indeed.
Call for the Dead John Le Carré
I picked this one up and read it again. It’s a favourite of mine and I like it very much. It may be the first Smiley book, but in Mendel he has a very fine character. It begins with Smiley being married and it lead me on to re-read:
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy John Le Carré
This is really well written. Smiley of course. He seems to be on the top of his game. I noticed that large amounts of the book are dialogue. This differs noticeably from
The Honourable Schoolboy John Le Carré
Which has tons of description. This makes it harder to read and a bit less inspired than the former. Still it is very well plotted and a good yarn, it just hasn’t quite the flow. I barely put down Tinker, Tailor and finished it in a day.
Less Andrew Sean Greer
Less is more, more or less. It’s really Beck a Book (John Updike) with a gay protagonist. Not to mention three volumes of Zuckerman’s adventures from Phillip Roth. Or even Holly Martins from Graham Greene (The Third Man.) It’s not a new trope, the not very good writer facing the world, but the problem with it is that not very good authors tend to outsell very good authors by about a hundred to one. Often they make a great deal more money than great authors. Time washes them away eventually, but only long after all their readers are dead. I don’t object to it, and it is a way for authors to write about themselves and mock themselves and their profession. And this is amusing and often funny. But is it really Pulitzer Prize worthy?
The Promise Damon Galgut
Winner of the Booker Prize and deservedly so. Beautifully written, his prose is magnificent and his story telling wonderful. How did I live without knowing about this amazing author? It came from Richard E. Grant via Jeremy Clarke both of whom are no slouches when it comes to writing. Jeremy gave me the first one, but I bought the rest myself and will continue until I have exhausted his canon.
About a family and their struggles to survive, or not in the fast-changing world of South Africa, from apartheid to Invictus.
The Good Doctor Damon Galgut.
A Doctor in a small, fading hospital in the homelands of South Africa (impoverished and underdeveloped areas of land set aside by the apartheid government for the slef-determionation of its various black ‘nations.’ From this tiny backwater, it encompasses everything about the great changes in that society from Vorster to Mandela. He can make the smallest details significant. His eye is remarkable and his control enviable. It reads beautifully. A new doctor who wishes to do good upsets all apple carts. Beware those who wish to do good is his message.