The five steps….

Wonderful opening. Wonderful subject – the gap between self delusion, illusion, what we hold to be ourselves and the observation of our flawed character from the perspective of others. This is his finest writing, but sadly eventually the book peters out – as so many books do. The problem is that the story of Jim is told second hand – so Conrad has to contrive later and later encounters with other eye-witnesses to finish the tale – which to be honest – I never did…

The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne 1405 – 1433 An extraordinarily huge fleet left China headed towards the West. This might just have started the Renaissance. That’s the theory.

Picked up a first edition. He was a friend. I love his books. My favourite is The Color of Money.

I have always loved this play ever since I saw it with Bob Hoskins John Gielgud and John Mills at the Royal Court Theater. It is a fictitious and hilarious account of filming “The Charge of The Light Brigade” with Tony Richardson.

The Year of Four Emperors. History but not brilliantly written.

The Booker Winner and none the worse for that. Not a great book but not a bad one.

The cute one – writes quite nicely of his life on the road. He’s a water gypsy, of course, that makes sense, though when I knew him well he was a brandy gypsy. I always loved him and enjoyed his company.

Lest we forget what we do to each other. Animalis capax Rationis (Swift)

The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton. A wonderful biography of poor Emma, the supermodel who became a money-making star for the Portrait painter Romney – following early whoring, working her way up to becoming mistress of a nasty MP who gave her to his Uncle the wonderful Earl Hamilton. She persuaded him to marry her and take her off to Naples where she then seduced Nelson and the Navy to come to their rescue from Napoleon. She lived contentedly with Nelson (and her old husband Hamilton) until his untimely death at Trafalgar left her to the mercy of the ungrateful Brits. She sadly dies in poverty ignored by an ungrateful Nation.

Picked up a first edition. Pretty good but the film may just for once be better…