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Recent reading, March and Arpril

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By , April 29, 2018 8:59 am

April

Is the cruellest month bringing the news of the sudden death of a favour writer just when I was joyfully settling in with his latest book.   Philip Kerr passed away at the very young age of 62. I met him at a party and we talked away happily though I was entirely ignorant it was him, one of my favourite writers.  Fortunately for me another favourite writer Howard Jacobson told him what a fan I was of his Bernie Gunter novels.  When I learned of his death I reached out to Howard and he kindly sent me this:

I passed on your email to Jane Thynne, Philip’s widow.  She has just written back – 
‘Thank you for sending it. I know he was extremely chuffed that Eric Idle liked his books. Actually, beyond chuffed.’
So there’s the title for your critical study of his novels – Beyond Chuffed.

I also wrote to Tom Hanks who I’m know was also a big fan of his, and he responded: I was crazy shocked.  I had a dinner with him at his home in Wimbledon a few years ago – and have read every single one of the Bernie Gunther stories. 

It is heart breaking we no longer have him, but at least we have his books.

Greeks Bearing Gifts                        Philip Kerr

My heart went out of the reading.   When death walks unbidden into a book it’s hard to simply continue.   I shall return to this some other time.  Bernie starts work in a morgue, gets a job with an Insurance Company and investigates a fraud in Greece…

Maigret and the Headless Corpse      Georges Simenon

I turned for relief to my old standby favourite the latest translation of the life-saving series of newly translate Maigret’s in paperback Penguin, which I hope never end.

Chicago                        David Mamet

Truly a master of dialogue, this makes his book brilliant.  Totally readable.  The characters are immediately alive.  Set in the twenties in the windy city, around the mob and newspaper men, this is a big, broad wonderful book. You can’t put it down.

Maigret is Afraid                    Georges Simenon

Often Maigret’s short novellas are simple tragedies, frequently in a large family linked together by silence.  Often the family are set are against the local town, either above them socially, or beneath them through poverty, drink and disgrace.  Maigret’s arrival, here to visit an old friend on his way home, finds him greeted as well with fame, and the cautious respect due to the famous Parisian detective.  He watches from the outside while others,  less competent, pursue wrong leads, rival theories, and petty jealousies.  He wanders around the bars, drinking, listening and watching.  Simenon, like Maigret, is a fantastic observer of the ordinary lives of others, their jealousies, their sexual weaknesses, their alcoholism, their drugs.  What makes his stories so particularly satisfying are the characters, especially the females, whom he draws accurately, precisely, and without sentiment.  Their clothes, their laundry, their homes.  That, the countryside and the weather, and the love of Paris in the springtime.  In fact weather is vital in his writing: take two examples from this perfect short novel.  This:

The weather was so contrary and fierce that the rain wasn’t mere rain or the wind freezing wind – this was a conspiracy of the elements….There was no point trying to protect himself.  Water wasn’t just pelting down from the sky but was also dripping from the guttering, in fat, cold drops, streaming down the doors of the houses and racing along the gutters with the gurgling of a torrent; you had water all over your face and neck, in your shoes and even in the pockets of your clothes…

And then this:

            By around 5 p.m., the sky had become apocalyptically dark and it had been necessary for all the town’s streetlamps to be lit.  There had been two brief, dramatic rolls of thunder, and finally the heavens had opened, sending down not rain but hail.  All the people in the street vanished, as if blown away by the wind, and white hailstones bounced off the cobbles like ping pong balls.

            Maigret, who at that moment had been in the Café de la Poste, had jumped to his feet like everyone else, and they all stood at the window watching the street the way people watch a fireworks display.

This is masterful work.

The Only Story                       Julian Barnes

I have to confess that while the new Julian Barnes is beautifully written, and while I picked up a signed edition at Vromans, I became strangely uninterested in the affair of the nineteen year old teenager for the tennis club siren in the home counties.  I couldn’t quite decide why I cared so little.  The fifties are elegantly described.  The dull lives of the parents are precisely placed.  We understand the local middle class disapproval, and the weird withdrawal of her older husband.   I think in the end it’s in the bedroom the story falters.  This is a sexual novel, and while it may be “true” to say, as the narrator does, I don’t remember how it started, the love story is all and in the end it didn’t come alive for me.  It was too polite.  I suppose in the end she doesn’t come to life.  I’m going to read on because he is Julian Barnes, and I have also been known to be wrong!

The Nothing                  Hanif Kureishi

I like this short novella.  He is a terrific writer as we know.  Zadie Smith describes his importance to her in her wonderful book of essays (q.v.)  Here an old filmmaker, stuck in a wheelchair, plots an elaborate revenge on his betraying love.  It’s a Hitchcock plot, and probably deliberately, because there are film references throughout.   His skill keeps both the pacing and the twists of the plot coming at you.  Short, sharp, sweet.

The Captain and the Enemy.   Graham Greene

I always get to the same point in this book.  About half way through.  I have about three first editions, I think for the reason I keep thinking I haven’t read it.   I either have to stop buying first editions or start half way through…   This is the story of a funny/wicked Uncle who pulls a neglected boy out of a dull boarding school, and then like his father, also disappears.

March

Feel Free                                      Zadie Smith

I came across this new book of Essays by this terrific novelist and fell in love.  Not with just the book, with the author.   It’s alright, it happens at my age, and she is a Cambridge alum and lived in Willesden, and now lives in New York, writing fabulous essays.   I bought all her books again to read in the summer.  I loved this one,.

Zero K                                            Don DeLillo

I had a strong feeling I had read this before, but if I did I failed to note it.  Perhaps in France.  I also had the strong feeling I abandoned it at the same point.  I only like some of his work.

I’ll be gone in the Dark                    Michelle McNamara

Of course I bought this because of Patten.  I was at her memorial and remember being impressed by the number of police who had turned up.  The book is truly well written and fascinating, but I have a weakness.  I confess to a horror of horror.  I decided when I had to shut the curtains, and couldn’t sleep that while I loved the book it was simply too terrifying for me to read.  I cannot watch horror movies:  the last I saw was Psycho!, so I’m sorry, I’m a supporter, a sympathiser, but a dweeb.   What was brilliant is the recent arrest of the serial killer and she helped to keep the case alive, and even describes what will happen to him one day with the knock on the door and the arrest.  How wonderful that it did. A bitter sweet triumph for Patten, who shepherded the publication of his late wife’s work.

As Time Goes By                             Derek Taylor

Talking to Ringo the other day, now Sir Ringo hooray, he told me once again the story of how Derek Taylor entered the lives of the Beatles, kicking in the door of their dressing room backstage at a concert.  So impressed with such hutzpah where the Fabs that Derek, a Manchester reporter, immediately got the job of Beatles Press Officer.  I was privileged to have him as a friend for many years, and even as an Executive on The Rutles, where Michael Palin played him (Eric Manchester) interviewed by George.  We exchanged lengthy and giggly correspondence until his untimely death.  His books are being re-released and Apple sent me this one, which I loved before and love now.   More are promised.

When The Light Goes                      Larry McMurtry

He is some kind of wonderful.   Always readable, always entertaining. Always honest.

The Birth of Britain.                Winston S. Churchill

I bought all four volumes of this classic of A History of the English-Speaking Peoples in a nice first edition set at The Pasadena Book Fair.   I might quibble and say that in Volume One they speak mainly Anglo-Saxon and French, but his prose is so enjoyable that I settled in for an enjoyable trip through my peeps by the finest exponent of the English language.

The Adventures of Augie March        Saul Bellow

I finished this fabulous novel.   Perhaps one of the greatest novels I have ever read.  Simply the best.

Of course I prepare to binge…and have bought everything else.   Read this.

February Reading

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By , March 2, 2018 1:13 pm

The Rub of Time                                           Martin Amis

Various essays.    Wonderful on Nabokov, and Hitchens and Travolta.  Made me buy and read the Saul Bellow at once.

The Adventures of Augie March                 Saul Bellow

An almost perfect novel.   I don’t know how he does this.  I can understand how Dickens writes, how Jane Austen achieves her effects, but this pours out like poetry.  Quite extraordinary.   I see now how Martin Amis and Christopher Hitchens became such fans of his work.  I’m about halfway through, and dreading it coming to a close.   I think one of the finest books I have ever read.

The Angel Esmeralda                                   Don Delillo

Nine stories.   Exquisite.

Playback                                                        Raymond Chandler

Almost perfect.  A continuous pursuit of the mysterious lady who arrives on the train in LA.

The Monk of Mokha                                    Dave Eggers

A tale of coffee in the Yemen.

Maigret Goes to School                                 Georges Simenon

A school teacher from La Rochelle seeks help in a murder.

Great Contemporaries                                  Winston Churchill

Published in 1938 Churchill is the best prose writer of the twentieth century.  Fascinating people here from Hitler to H.G.Wells.

Righteous                                                       Joe Ide

An IQ Novel.   Having been bowled over by his debut I had to immediately send off for this his second novel.   Obviously he spent ten years on the first, and this can’t quite follow it, but he is the real thing.

Maigret’s Mistake                                         Georges Simenon

A charismatic brain surgeon and the death of a mysterious young woman.

 

 

January Reading

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By , February 3, 2018 5:26 pm

January

IQ                                                                               Joe Ide

A brilliant new writer.   Please enjoy this almost perfect First Novel.  I found it at Vromans in Pasadena.  A local LA thriller with a brilliant protagonist and perfect foil.  Such mature writing and such accomplished story telling is very rare.  It’s delightful.

A Man’s Head                                                           Georges Simenon

Another brilliant read for the plane.

The Old Man                                                             Thomas Perry

Thank heaven I threw this into my packing at the last minute.   I read it last year but it had me gripped again.  That is the great advantage of age.  You can immediately re-read books!  It’s really fine and wonderful.  He writes so well and is so consistent.  Thrilling.

Munich                                                                       Robert Harris

This is the second time I bought this book and took it away with me and the second time I abandoned it after a few chapters.  Are there two Robert Harris’s?  Some of his books I just adore and others I just cannot get into.   As Al Read said “Is it me, or can you smell gas?”    Must be me.

Striking Back                                                            Aaron J. Klein

I brought two books away with me about Munich, this one about the horrendous 1972 Olympic Massacre “and Israel’s Deadly Response.”   I love books about the Mossad.  This foul attack led to reprisals and I should bloody hope so.   What stunned me was that the Germans did not immediately halt the Olympic Games when the hostages were taken.   I could not believe that.  Also they made a terrible mess of the security arrangements for the athletes even after concerns were broached, and the rescue attempt, well the keystone cops could have done better.  Sadly the Israelis totally misunderstood just how incompetent the Bavarian authorities were and how in their system West Germany was not allowed to intrude.   So a deadly farce was played out on television with deadly results and the resulting Bavarian incompetence completely hushed up.  The resulting revenge was slow but deadly.

Power House                                                              Aaron J. Klein

The story of CAA, the little Californian Talent Agent that could.  I enjoyed ten per cent of it.   Kidding.   It’s a fascinating story, if not always fascinating, of how five agents broke away from William Morris to create their own Agency, poaching clients and luring others, mainly by working their butts off.  Of course Success leads to its own problems.   All Power corrupts is not just a tendency.   It is a rule.  Here we see what happens when Ovitz becomes the biggest and most powerful man in Hollywood.  I loved reading about the adorable and wonderful and hilarious Bill Haber, who would go on to such great things as producing Spamalot!  Also Stan Meyer is a wonderful chap.

 

The Man Who Invented Christmas                        Les Standiford

The story of Dickens writing, editing and creating (in effect Self Publishing) A Christmas Carol, his short but brilliant novella, which sold out immediately before Christmas 1843, saving his bacon and his turkey.  The recent film itself was fairly clumsy but then worked magnificently, almost like the book of a musical, because it is so wonderfully sentimental and moral and based on a genius book.  And it had Christopher Plummer as Scrooge.

The Old Man Dies                                                     Georges Simenon

A non Maigret about the death of a Parisian restaurant owner and the three sons.  The usual chaos and greed and infighting in the family that death seems to foster.   Beautifully written.  But no crime…

Fire and Fury                                                            Michael Wollf

Inside the Trump White House.  Such chaos, such court rivalries, such incompetence, laziness, arrogance and greed has not been seen since the Borgias.  A Kakocracy, a Cleptocracy, a Nepocracy… Michael Wollf sat on a chair in the West Wing and recorded it all.  You couldn’t have made it up.  Seems that Bannon made his move based on this book coming out. His own run for power.  A miscalculated play.  One thing this bald money laundering mobster knows is how to fight back.  “Where is my Roy Cohn?” he shouted recently like a Shakespearian villain.  (Enter from Hell a Ghost in chains.)

Great stories of infighting between the Javanka’s as he calls them, Bannon and Rince Previus.  But this is truly a Shite House, where they are all live in fear of the next Tweet, the next firing, even lining up to escape.  Where will it all end?   Will America ever become Great again?   Fingers crossed.  Read on.

The Man Who Owns The News                              Michael Wollf.

I so enjoyed the style of Michael Wollf I went back and downloaded a previous book on Rupert Murdoch.  Again he is fair.  No one could say this was a hatchet job, however the growth of the Ailes/Murdoch/ Fox News World is intensely depressing.  His newspaper world and attempts to own the Wall Street Journal, do paint him as a man vitally involved and in love with newspapers.  Also the growth of his love for power.  Which as we know corrupts and which led in his case to a monstrous control over politics.   He is not altogether dislikeable, but his dynasty is held together by his will alone.  It will crumble.

It’s Even Worse Than You Think                          David Cay Johnston

What the Trump Administration is doing to America.  Took the download.  Not as focused or as timely as Wolff’s book but in many ways interesting, slash, depressing.  Hashtag Follow The Money.  If this money lending mobster gets away with this America will be over.

 

December Reading.

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By , December 30, 2017 6:06 pm

A few friends are on my Christmas gift list, where I send them ten of the books I have most enjoyed reading in the year, wrapped in brown paper, string and ceiling wax, from Mr. B’s Bookshop in Bath.    This year these were my ten gift books.

A Legacy of Spies                   John Le Carré

The Golden House                  Salman Rushdie

Dead is Good                          Jo Perry

An Officer and a Spy              Robert Harris

The Comedians                       Graham Greene

Prussian Blue                          Philip Kerr

How To Build a Universe       Professor Brian Cox and Robin Ince

The Hand                                Georges Simenon.

The Bomb Maker by Thomas Perry would have made it but of course it’s only just now in the shops.

Happy New Year and have a great year of reading.

December

The Second World War                                           Antony Beevor

I spent most of the month reading this great narrative of World War Two.      Then I found….

Blitzed                                                                        Norman Ohler

A most wonderful read and a really informative book especially right after reading Anthony Beevor’s World War Two where I was constantly asking myself how could anybody do this.   Here is the answer.   They become a junkie.  Crystal meth, amphetamine, coke, morphine, half the Supreme Command was on something, and Hitler was on everything.   At the end his doctor/dealer could hardly find a vein.  The German army, navy and pilots were fed amphetamine to stay awake.  Blitzkrieg?   How did the army move so fast and without stopping?   Easy: Pervitin, a form of speed manufactured in enormous quantities by Merck to keep the armies rolling and the factories churning.  Why did the army stop and not continue their charge to obliterate the English at Dunkirk?  Hitler gave a stoner command!   How did he condemn an entire Army to die at Stalingrad?   Crystal meth.   Locked away in his bunkers he felt invincible.   Possessed of super powers.  This is an important book to read and solves some of the many puzzles about the war.   You can even begin to feel slightly sorry for the Germans, especially at the end when kids were given speed to help them face the Red Army. Ironically, much of the stuff was grown at Dachau.   Oh the unspeakable ironies of History.  This is also downright fucking hilarious.   The picture of the Fuhrer at the end in his bunker, strung out, suffering from withdrawal symptoms, drooling, shaking with reality finally breaking in is just wonderful.  We should check the Doctors of our leaders.

Just saying…

Maigret’s Revolver                                                    Georges Simenon

Another very fine tale from the Master of Maigret.   He is a constant bright spot in the months reading.

Regards                                                                      John Gregory Dunne

I very much enjoyed these excellent essays. He is particularly good on the film industry and the horrors of being a screenwriter.  In fact I enjoyed him so much I turned to:

Monster                                                                    John Gregory Dunne

which I enjoyed all of.   I also bought three of his novels at Iliad but then realized I had already read:

Red White and Blue.                                                John Gregory Dunne

And I wasn’t knocked out by the other two.    Too Irish too Catholic too much dialogue.

Nothing Lost                                                             John Gregory Dunne

True Confession.                                                       John Gregory Dunne

The thriller element is potentially very good but nothing much happens while they talk and talk.  And Apostolic intrigue is not interesting, not even when Trollope did it.

Tell Tale                                                                     Jeffery Archer

Each year the surprisingly nice Jeffery sends me his latest book, and last year he said sadly that I never read them.   It’s not true.   This year I had seen and bought this book of short stories before I even opened my mail.   I enjoyed them very much.  He is a real writer, not just an enormous world-wide best-selling author!    That’ll teach me to be a book snob.

The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve                       Stephen Greenblatt

My old friend Stephen warned me that I wouldn’t like this book, but I read and enjoyed a lot more than he would expect.

How to Build a Universe                                          Professor Brian Cox & Robin Ince

Despite a very churlish intro from me this is a wonderful book.  They have made it as simple as possible to understand as much as possible about the Universe and I really recommend it to everyone.