BOTM: C. Achebe, Anthills of the savannah (1987)
K. Amis, New maps of hell (1959)
C. Connelly, After the party (2018)
S. Corbett & B. Fikkert, When helping hurts: How to alleviate poverty without hurting the Poor (2014)
C. Criado - Perez, Invisible Women (2019)
I. Hardman, Why we get the wrong politicians (2018)
E. Mitchell, The silver brumby (1958)
D. Mosley, A life of contrasts (1978)
A.J. Symonds, The quest for Corvo (1934)
J. Tey, A daughter of time (1951)
I have lots to day about some of these. Firstly, Diana Mosley's book is astonishing. It was well reviewed and attracted compliments for style, but a) it's not that well written - there are no real moments of standout style and b), really importantly, it's really obviously really Nazi. I don't mean recognising the desperate times and sympathising with the spirit of the era; I mean, Hitler was quite nice really; all those reports about him lied. It's astonishing. Here's my, er, favourite. Remember, this is in 1978:
he truth is that in private life he was exceptionally charming, clever and original, and that he inspired affection. He also inspired fear, perhaps, but he was essentially one of those rare beings who make people want to please them, want to work for them, eager to sacrifice. He identified himself with Germany and this identification was accepted by his countrymen. In his make-up there was both pride and a modesty, even vulnerability, which aroused chivalrous feelings, a very powerful motive force. .... Hitler was the most unselfconscious politician I have ever come across. He never sought to impress, he never bothered to act a part. If he felt morose he was morose. If he was in high spirits he talked brilliantly and sometimes did wonderfully comic imitations.
Second: Josephine Tey. This was voted the best crime novel of all time in 1990. It is not. It is not even a crime novel,but a novelistic wrapper around an argument for the innocence of Richard III. I have simply no idea why it was written. If Tey had wanted to write a defence of Richard III, then she was welcome to, but presumably the footnotes were beyond her so she dressed it up as a novel to allow herself to play fast and loose with medieval reality, and facts about how succession or courts work. And miss out the boring bits. It was stress-inducingly dire.
Everything else was fine. I partly wanted to give this to a reread of one The Silver Brumby, which I read and loved as a pre-teen. I still do, and I was surprised by how much I remembered of it. However, I think it's probably Achebe that was the best. I didn't really enjoy Things fall apart when I read that, despite its reputation. I found it a bit laboured and the historicity didn't quite work, though of course the voice is the key thing. This I thought this was much better. The story excellent, and the writing direct and rich. Good end too.
