The story of success. Which I loved. And recommend. He makes a very good point about the 10,000 hours theory, and there seems to be plenty of evidence for its truth. His thesis in a nutshell, is that nobody got good by accident, nobody got good without some help from fate; Bill Gates had access to a computer paid for by wealthy neighbours, the Beatles prospered by learning their trade in Hamburg. He says the story of one man making it from impossible odds is simply untrue. He also makes the case that there are good times in which to be born and there are bad. You are better off being born on January 1st if you are to be a pro ice hockey player, than any other time, and if you are born after August forget it, you have no chance, because your peers have already six months physical development ahead of you. (Being born just after World War Two seems to be a good time too. At least to be British. We didn’t have to avoid the army or Vietnam.) He writes well and intelligently about all sorts of seemingly unrelated things like the accident patterns on Korean Air, and he says quite simply that the things we try and deny for political correctness say – like where we come from – are absolutely what define us and very much condition our response to various triggers, for example fighting, if we are from a particular line of Scottish descent, or revenge, say, if from Sicily. This early societal pre-patterning, he argues, persists long afterwards. So yay to him for opening that door once more. And a big thank you from comedians everywhere. Turns out that stereotyping is often accurate… Gladwell’s genius is he goes on to ask why it should be so, and evidences good examples of how things come to be. I loved his simple explanation of why Asians are good at Math – their numbering system makes it simple, whereas our convoluted, partially language-based counting systems, lead the brain into endless confusion. If you can grasp early that math can be a friend then it does not become a self-fulfilling torment. At eight I was beaten on the back of the legs with a wooden ruler by a sadistic Irishwoman for being unable to understand some problem, so now I freeze up whenever faced with even the simplest math. This is a most unusual and interesting book which I strongly recommend.

Inside the Doomsday Machine. Michael Lewis leads one gently through the crash, and the evil bastards, and the ignorant gits, who profited from and sold the poor into worthless loans, which would lead, almost inevitably, to the collapse of Wall Street. He writes of the brave few who saw what was to them inevitable and bet against it. What a system! Would they could have denounced it and had people arrested, but you mustn’t try and tame the Bear. It is sacrosanct to America that Wall Street must remain out of control. Since Reagan took the restraints off, paid for by the restrained, there have been at least three ugly meltdowns, Savings and Loans, Enron, and the Collapse of the Bond market. Finely told and I finally understood what the Bond market thing was. As I never tire of telling Americans , the American Revolution was not a revolution but a rebellion and they had better watch out for a real revolution if they continue to pick the pockets of the poor. In no other country in the world is health care considered an attack on liberty.

Essays and Reviews 1971 – 2000 I have been enjoying my resurgent interest in Amis since last summer’s eye-opening fabulous read of Koba the Geek, his demolition of the man monster Stalin. Here I see I have again bookmarked an essay on Philip Roth, so I’ll pick up from there; seems like there’ll be quite a delay before I start the new package of books I sent in from Mill Valley.

Here’s one I have no memory of, except I remember the hand free watch face which is a striking image of frozen timelessness. I see I am about two thirds through, somewhere through Apparition and I’ll give it another go and see.

Narratives about a conservationist and three of his natural enemies. So says the sub text. I’m not sure what the three natural enemies are apart from time, and the falling off of memory. I like McPhee but he is on occasion prolix. Oh that’s right, they are stumbling around the High Sierras, and I was geek enough to track their trail on an I Pad Map App. Conversations as they go, about primal land, and rights to open it for the people, and preserving it and so on.

This looks to be something I picked up in Washington probably attracted by his essay on Philip Roth. They look nice, and I was clearly dipping as there is no bookmark but a jacket flap turned back around an essay on Nabokov. I think I’ll leave it out for double dipping.

Selected stories. Short, dark, penetrating. He gets to character very quickly, through details and observation of small but revealing characteristics. I like them very much and shall continue dipping.

Usually when I leave for a long trip there are lots of unfinished orphans, odds and sods, incomplete things I have picked up, partially discarded, set aside for better times with the intention of finishing, and sometimes with the intention of abandoning, in order that they may quietly die while I’m away. My habit of reading two or three books at a time can also lead to a trail of books settling into the sand, often through no fault of their authors. Here is a partial list of the ‘found abandoned’, some of which I may pick up and continue with, in my own weird way.