Read (12)
BOTM: K. Fox, Watching the English
B. Bryson, At Home
A. Christie, Murder on the Links
J. Galsworthy, A man of property
J. Galsworthy, In Chancery
J. Galsworthy, To Let
Y. Kemal, Memed, my hawk
P. Leigh Fermor and D. Devonshire, In tearing haste
N. Lewis, Voices of the Old Sea
J. Morris, Oxford
N. Slater, Toast
R. Wilkinson and K. Pickett, The Spirit Level
The Spirit Level first. It is a very bad book. It is full of tendentious overclaiming and distorted methdology (not all best fit lines have to be linear for example); it writes repetitively and in that 'gosh, how astonishing' style that has served Malcolm Gladwell so well, but worse. It's ahistorical and culturally blind and its murder statistics will have taken a bit of a battering in Norway this month, undermining some of it's claims. But, it may be right - that inequality has risen to a level unseen for generations, and that is harmful. What can be done is less clear, nor how we should go about it. The Japanese example is illuminating for the confiscatory taxation principles. Food for thought.
A much better book, in which the Japanese also feature heavily (though in this case due to their similiarity to the English) is Fox's. It's engrossing and very recognisable, though inevitably I spent my time trying to work if I fell into cultural norms for upper middle or middle middle class.* But it does throw quite a bit of light on how we work and what we do unconsciously. While the headlines are generic, it's the precision and detail that really marks this out, it's also a great read. Fascinating.
* Except for the wearing of shorts. Apparently, only working class men wear those in their home town. I beg to differ.
Monday 1 August 2011
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