A Brief History with Documents. A short readable account of the atrocities which occurred in Paris early on the morning of August 24^th 1572 when after a Royal marriage the Catholics massacred the visiting Protestant Huguenots by the thousands in the streets of Paris. Shockingly relevant history of the endless animosities and atrocities committed in the name of religions. Was it in fact Marie de Medici who planned it, and persuaded her son Charles IX to go along with it, after she had opened fire on Admiral Coligny? Still the sexiest historical movie ever made. La Reine Margot.

Read in a day. A wonderfully accomplished original novel. Told from inside the womb where his mother is plotting to betray and murder his father. Nice Hamlet echoes but the omniscience and anxiety for the world he accords this helpless inmate and witness to dreadful things is what makes it so witty and original and fascinating. I loved it.

An odd one this. A retired Maigret definitely a fish out of water accompanies a young man to see his father in New York who then immediately disappears. Who is the young man? Why does he disappear? What is the crime. Maigret wanders around New York, and finally draws the strings together of thirty year old events. Strange. How much he depends on his Parisian milieu and how little he understands of New York.

I got about half way through this and got bored with the New York characters and their world and lovers. I think if you’re going to do adultery you have to be at least Tolstoy. I gave it another go when I got back and it still left me cold. I’m sad as I had him down to become great. He may yet I suppose.

This is a wonderful book. Elegant, eloquent and prescient. Published in 1957 it is more than science fiction, it raises issues that trouble us today. I had not expected it to be so well written, with many wonderful references. He terrified us as children with The Day of The Triffids on the radio. I’m happy to find him still just as entertaining.

The fictional confessions of a Vietnamese spy, evacuated to America in the fall of Saigon and then returned to his former side, who are of course far worse. Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Beautifully written and gripping novel.

A 1941 wartime paperback edition which says it’s from “Maigret to the Rescue.” I wish I could have a new Maigret every week.

A fascinating and extraordinary tale about how the North Korean film obsessed madman Kim Jung-Il kidnapped not only the leading film actress from South Korea but also her Top Film Director Husband, held them locked up for years then brought them together and made them make films! A hard to credit real true story and a great look at the monomaniacal locked-in State where fear rules all.

A wonderful Western tale from 1968, given me by Jeremy Clarke. I devoured it. Do you ever get to that point when you find yourself reading four books at once and not committed to any of them, but keep switching in a random fashion between them. Then you go Fuck It I'm going to stop this and look for something I'm really committed to. Sometimes I can't tell if it’s me or if it's the books. Here are some I'm leaving by the wayside in a quest for something gripping.

I’ve been reading this one for years. In parts fascinating, but it mixes somewhat dry academic literary criticism with tales of the far more exciting life of Marlowe, so it's somewhat annoying, unless you are studying for a degree.

The hilarious story of the South Pacific islanders (Vanuatu) who worshipped the Duke of Edinburgh. Funny, and odd, but could have been shorter I think.

I was enjoying this too. But he switched styles and became all modernist and I got fed up.

I really liked the essay on the most beautiful truck in the world, and even the French Navigation School, but got a bit tired on the barges of the Illinois river. I shall dip again as I think he is amazing.

A lovely read about the history and customers of the Ritz Hotel in Paris, from its founding in 1898 during the Dreyfuss Affair, through the German Occupation and beyond. A whole history of interesting characters wander in and out of its doors, behaving badly and bitchily, including Marcel Proust, Hemmingway, Goring, Goebbels, Marlene Dietrich, Ingrid Bergman, the awful Windsors, the collaborational Coco Chanel, Cocteau, Sartre, Scott Fitzgerald. Highly entertaining and most unusual social history. Great read.

A concept book of short stories based on “what if there was a ukulele in it?” Pastiches of the imaginary writings of famous people. In the end it’s too much pastiche and I turned to a pastis.

For once not a Maigret, but an excellent tale of love and lust and female determination. Fascinating.

Especially Hemmingway. The story behind The Sun Also Rises and the self-making of a legend. I have come to like Hemmingway less and less. Both as a writer and as a mythomaniac. Sorry, but give me Fitzgerald any day. Very enjoyable book about the real characters portrayed and betrayed in the novel.

Quite fun.

In search of a daughter. A man with foresight for disaster. This is a long novel, too long in my humble, but I stuck with it because he writes so well and it is interesting to see a writer becoming a master.

So happy to always have a Maigret to grab.

Short stories by the rather rough Elroy. Odd echoes of Chandler with modern brutalism and old fashioned racism.

More memoirs of an American in Paris from the beautiful prose of this very fine writer. It's a very enjoyable and immensely readable recollection of the many artists and intellectuals he met in his 16 years living and writing in Paris. Most of the really interesting people seem to be gay, and even when he is gossipy and revealing about their sex lives, some of which are very bizarre indeed, it is always without malice and with great human sympathy. There is a great deal of sadness in the many lovers and friends who died of AIDS but he remains cheerfully optimistic even when, as he says, he becomes old and fat. I bought his latest novel….

…But a bit gay for me. Can we say that these days? But I do intend reading more of him, though I think he is a remarkable memoirist. Is that even a word? Get The Flaneur and Inside a Pearl.

Quickie. All character driven by the wonderful suspicious and very difficult housekeeper of the murdered man.

Magnificent 1932 biography of this fascinating diplomat who outplayed and survived Napoleon, who called him a shit in silk Stockings. He saw through Napoleon, spotted the dangers of him, stuck with Louis XVIII and negotiated a strong position for France at the Congress of Vienna. Elegantly written by Duff Cooper, quondam English ambassador to France married to Lady Diana Cooper, one of the great beauties of the age. He writes well and almost as good as his pal Winston Churchill.