A reprint by Daunt Books of a fine novel published in 1987. Reminded me of Jeanette Winterson in the intense and crippling relationship with the mother, here told in a series of flashbacks from the current state of bickering, mutual but clinging dislike in which they walk the streets of Manhattan to the eight year old girl, growing up under the mesmeric spell of a willful, possibly borderline, Jewish mamma, in a crowded tenement in the Bronx, filled with extraordinary neighbors, people and lives. Walking on egg shells and learning by hard knocks, never to quite trust herself, she reveals the neighborly world of the tenements. Nettie, the beautiful slut, etc. I think it not as good as the Winterson because the story is unresolved, the unhealthy relationship with the mother remains unbroken.

Another great one from the series of Maigret reprints. His usage of the grey, marshy coastline of the mussel fields is brilliant. Maigret has been exiled to Lucon and is grateful when a busybody neighbor seeks him out to bring him into an obscure little town with a murder and a mystery.

I love the writing of Otto Friedrich. I particularly love The End of the World: A History¸ which is the most fascinating book on the recurring mad moments of history; City of Nets, about Hollywood in the 1940’s and particularly good on the émigrés; Before The Deluge, about Berlin before the world ended…etc. This collection, first published in 1989, is a series of interesting essays, all of which inform, entertain and instruct. He writes easily and modestly about the many worlds he has crossed, Paris in the fifties, where he writes fascinatingly that it was Alice B. Toklas who defined the tastes of Gertrude Stein and not the other way round as we had always supposed. The book ends with a loving reminiscence of James Baldwin in Paris while he was a still struggling writer, struggling to eat, struggling to stay well. What comes through about Baldwin is his amazing confidence in his own creative talent, and his knowledge that he is head and shoulders above the other scribblers and scriveners around him. There are pieces on Wagner’s Parsifal, and the last year of Mozart’s life, the last Empress of Rome, and Fact Checking on News Magazines, for which he worked when he returned from Paris and Berlin.

A 1954 First edition in good order. Probably from Iliad. This is a sequel to Cannery Row which took off like a rocket and then became strangely sentimental. As if he was writing for a market. Always a fatal thing to do. The audience must always be you. It’s easy to fool the others. (Rutland Writers Hints, Part 146.)

A nice first edition I picked up at Hatchards. I enjoyed the South African stories particularly. It seems to me she was a very modern writer, always challenging form and shape and conventions and it gives her a most refreshing style which says “yes, life is like this. People talk and behave like this.”

I really do enjoy these Thai detective books. John Burdett writes a great yarn. His Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep of the Thai Police is a wonderful creation. They are a great series of books. This one is about transhumans. Apparently based on some real CIA program. Checking back I seem to have read all of the series so far with great enjoyment. Always a nice moment when a book you want to read comes out.