PBS did a brilliant TV biography of this reclusive writer, which showed his heart-breaking year of first combat (D Day!) through the long fight up to liberate Paris, the Battle of the Bulge, the slog into Germany, finally ending with the surreal nightmare of liberating Auschwitz, a horrendous year which would be enough to make anyone a recluse. He carried with him bits of this novel, working on it when he had time. We shall see whether the interesting decision to turn his back on the world after the enormous success of his first novel, really pays off, as perhaps ten more of his books are due to be published at regular intervals throughout the next few years. I re-read the Glass stories recently and found them to be quite over rated. I’m afraid I started to re-read this “classic” and dropped it quite quickly. Perhaps Gore Vidal was right? And why did it became for a short time the murderers handbook. Questions for others I’m afraid. And now a treat for all of us. Penguin are publishing entirely new translations of the Inspector Maigret books of Georges Simenon, at regular intervals, one a month. I already can’t wait for the next having already devoured:

A beautiful book of a mysterious death in the Loire. Maigret is sent to investigate. His detective is as relentless and as instantly likeable as any great detective. More appealing than Poirot, more real than Sherlock.  Perhaps I like him because I have been so enjoying Bernie Gunther from Philip Kerr. The more cynical and realistic side of real policing, rather than the Home Counties crimes of Agatha Christie.

The first Maigret book.  He seems to have sprung to life fully formed. “…his frame was proletarian. He was a big, bony man. Iron muscles shaped his jacket sleeves and quickly wore through new trousers. He had a way of imposing himself just by standing there. His assertive presence had often irked many of his own colleagues.” Here he chases down the mysterious many presences of Pietr the Latvian, a man composed of a confusing melange of characters and associates.

I haven’t read much of her but I enjoyed this witty book which illustrates chaos theory, how one random event, a mugging on a London street, can lead to disruption and chaos in the lives of so many others who are variously interconnected. A marriage falls apart from a randomly discovered affair, a famous pompous historian attempts to become a TV celeb and a middle aged immigrant discovers love through learning the language. Wise and funny and thoroughly enjoyable.

Finally finished the last third of this last volume of the great Manchester biography, on my I Pad because the book is so heavy. Very exciting read with the finish of World War Two, after six bleak years for an exhausted country, the amazement of D-Day, the final horrendous civilian bombing of London by the V2’s, the first real rocket weapons, the liberation of Paris, the Battle of the Bulge and the invasion of Germany itself, which thanks to the millions Stalin was prepared to sacrifice, was a lot easier than it might have been. Stalin running rings around a dying Roosevelt, and a helpless Churchill, preparing to bring down the Iron Curtain over Europe. This was the world I was born into. It should be required reading. Then of course the Lion won’t leave the stage, and the servicemen vote him out of office. He still returns, and I can remember that election on the radio! A massive man, and a massive biography. The world owes him a lot.

You know, somewhere along the line Doctorow lost it. Oh he can write alright, but too often now I find it too easy to put his book down. I liked the last one (Homer) but this one I found I couldn’t read.

Described as the electrifying new Harry Jones thriller I’m afraid I only found his writing so-so, exactly what I felt when I read the books that led to the original magnificent BBC TV series House of Cards. It’s a certain Bond kind of thriller writing which is closer to wish fulfillment than real life. Escapist fiction is probably it. Jeffery Archer does it. And this chap too is apparently a Lord and worked in the House of Commons for Thatcher and Major. Affable enough, but in the end not good enough I’m afraid.

I had to download this to find out why the movie Mitty didn’t work and of course it’s evident, it’s about a dreamer. The tale doesn’t work if he actually does do brave adventures. It’s only then about a shy adventurer. Not at all Mitty. No irony. No fun.

One must always re-read Shakespeare and the more I do the more reasonable Iago’s mad and vicious playing of his master seems. He is spurned for the job he wants, he is jealous of Cassio. There is no mystery. He just takes to extremes what we all occasionally feel. That is why in many ways this is a double tragedy. I was reading it at The Ahmanson when I went to see Christopher Plummer’s wonderful one man show and the lovely girl greeting at the Restaurant said she kept a copy of Othello constantly by her bedside. Are you tragic? I asked. Not at all, she chuckled. I gave her an extra big tip for her grace, her beauty, but largely for her book choice.