Bibliography, November 2022

BOTM: K. Miller, Augustown (2016)

J. Barker, Agincourt (2005)
M. Benn, People like us (2007)
Bendis & Gaydos, Jessica Jones, Vol 2: the secrets of Maria Hill (2016)
A.C. Doyle, The adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892)*
L. Henry, Who I am, Again? (2019)
C. Higgins, Under another sky (2013)
P. Lively, The road to Lichfield (1977)
I. Livingstone, Dice Men (2022)
W.S. Maugham, The Summing up (1938)
M. Renault, The Persian boy (1972)

Good month. Three pieces of marvellous fiction (Miller, Lively, Doyle). Huge affection too for Maugham's book, which was let down by the final section on philosophy. I loved the first three quarters, and it would have been my favourite of all. I think it really distills, in clear, readable, prose Maugham's own views on literature and the production of it. Obviously some of that as dated, and some of his views are plain wrong, but hugely enjoyable to read. I obviously also loved Livingstone's account of the first years of Games Workshop, but I won't claim profundity for it. 

So, all my favourites were fiction. I always like to reread Sherlock Holmes. I forget what triggered this one, but they were as excellent as I remembered. The road to Lichfield was also excellent. I do think Penelope Lively is one of finest novelists. I think she's slightly overlooked (not much - she is a Dame) because she writes about domesticity, not big issues. It's striking that her, richly deserved, Booker win came from a novel set in Egypt. This one is resolutely narrow, but well done. The writing is lovely, effortless and seemingly throwaway prose. But it's sharper than that underneath and a exemplar of 'show, don't tell' writing. It's also well crafted: the sub-plots dovetail, both as counterpoints and as tributaries, and it covers a lot of ground in a short period. Augustown is also a well crafted book. I do like their plots to work. It does what you might expect around local colour and myth, but it's in the bringing of that into the here and now that works really well. I also think it manages variance of tone exceptionally well. This makes it sound highly technical; it's not. It's enormously fun to read, and full of high drama. Nor is it very long either. 

Against the puritans

Preached Remembrance Sunday (13th November) 2022, St Michael's Church, Stockwell

Malachi 4:1-2
Psalm 98
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Luke 21:5-19

Now the Vicar isn’t here, I can admit that I really don’t want to give this sermon. I like giving sermons in general, just not this one, the Remembrance day sermon.

And I have three main problems with it:

• Firstly, the cricket is on, so I’m missing England’s batting in the final – this may be a blessing in disguise.
• Secondly, the timing is highly stressful. Up and down the country preachers are having their sermons timed carefully to ensure that we hit 11am. There is no time for improvisations.
• Most importantly, the tone is very difficult to get right. This is a national, secular, day of solemn remembrance, which sometimes makes preachers give half-baked political opinions and neglect the theology.

You can judge me later on how I do.

That tone issue is particularly relevant when we look at the readings that we have. The Old Testament does not appear to have been chosen for solemn remembrance. Malachi is all about retribution, the Psalm is a celebration: we are invited to make a joyful noise to the Lord. And we are promised the whole earth will resound with joy and celebration – the seas roar, the hills sing.

We are a long way from the Cenotaph.

It made me think of the places where the war still sits heavily. 104 years after the end of the First World War, there remain places in France where the earth has never recovered. In the ‘zone rouge’ in north east France, contamination from the battlefield means that the water remains poisoned, almost all plants die, and locals are still at risk from unexploded shells. There may be noises in the hills, but not singing. They are uninhabitable.

I could not ask for a less subtle metaphor: the scars from wars are deep and long. And that is why today we remember the Great War, and subsequent ones of course. But the First World War was a global war, with soldiers from every continent, and battles across the globe. For the remembrance of what was meant to be the war to end all wars, it is poignant that we do so in a Europe that is once again at war. In Ukraine, nation has once again risen against nation.

We in Europe rightly are gripped by this new, rare, war, but war itself is not new, it is certainly not news. Many of you will have first hand knowledge of it.

In first century Palestine, it was very present. In the century before the crucifixion, Jerusalem itself had been the scene of several wars and rebellions and control of Judea had changed hands several times. When Luke records Christ talking about war and hardship: ‘kingdom against kingdom … great earthquakes, … famines and plagues’ he could be talking about their recent history. By the time the gospel was written, later in the first century, the Romans had crushed the Jewish revolt and destroyed the temple.

The first audience of the gospels didn’t need warning about the future where nation fought nation, their nation had fought, and it had lost. What they needed to be told was what happens next. And the gospel gives them – and us – the answer. And it gets worse before it gets better:

• This isn’t just a normal war: ‘there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven’
• Nor will you face it with your compatriots and allies: ‘they will persecute you… you will be hated by all.’

This, rhetorically at least, is not like the wars we remember today. It requires much greater bravery than that. You will be alone.

But, in the end: you will gain your souls.

And this is why our readings on Remembrance Sunday start with jubilation. Not because there is no danger. There is. Not because the it will not hurt. It will. Not because sacrifice is not needed. Not because some sacrifices were misguided. They were. But because in the end, you will gain your souls. And we will rejoice.

This has always been the promise, but there are two dangers embedded in this:

• Firstly, that knowing one is saved, it is easy to stop trying. The writer of our epistle (possible Paul) has little time for this: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat … do not be weary in doing what is right. This danger lurks in the Calvinist theology of predestination, but for another time.
• But there is also a second risk. Not addressed directly, and that is that by fixing upon the future rejoicing, the church becomes miserable, dour, and joyless - a puritan Christianity that drives out all enjoyment. Calvin’s Geneva banned art, music with instruments, dancing, and theatre. We must not be so fixed on the narrowness of the path that we forget to laugh along the way.

For Remembrance must be tempered with laughter, just as the sacrifices of the war years were also tempered with joy. The pubs did not shut in either World War. And I wrote the last parts of this sermon last night, after Martin Kenyon’s memorial service in this church yesterday. Like all good funerals, while of course it was sad as we said goodbye to Martin, it also had jokes. Sorrow must be mingled with laughter. Afterwards, we debated about what to do with the flowers and I promised Wendy that it would be fitting to keep them. Remembrance should be solemn, but it need not be joyless.

Today is, in some churches, the feast of St John Chrysostom. He was THE superstar preacher of the late fourth century, later poached by the Emperor to become bishop of Constantinople, the biggest job in the church. It went terribly badly: John preaches against the excesses of the court, falls out with everybody and dies on the way to exile.

John did die alone, persecuted, I assume, the promise of his soul sustained him.

But I raise John not because of what he did, but because of what he wrote. This is his paschal homily, given every Easter in the Orthodox church:

Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord! First and last alike receive your reward; rich and poor, rejoice together! Sober and slothful, celebrate the day! You that have kept the fast, and you that have not, rejoice today for the Table is richly laden! Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one. Let no one go away hungry; partake, all, of the cup of faith. Enjoy all the riches of His goodness! Let no one grieve at his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed.

Remembrance is solemn. The sacrifices made are real, and we should, must and will honour them, but let us do so with our eyes fixed on the light that is coming and they joy. They all – and we all – will gain our souls.

Amen.

Bibliography, October 2022

M. Renault, Fire from Heaven (1969)

H. Atlee, The land where lemons grow (2014)

J. Didion, Slouching towards Bethlehem (1968)

R. Hoggart, Uses of Literacy (1957)

D. Landy, Skulduggery Pleasant (2007)

M. Le Conte, Haven't You Heard?: Gossip, Politics and Power (2019)

D. Orr, Motherwell (2017)

D. Simmons, the fall of Hyperion (1990)

  

Amongst my ever growing list of regrets, most of which were pointed out at the time to make them additionally galling, I include a regret that I didn't do Classics. I'm not sure I could have done Classics. I, as the memorable phrase has it, never had the Latin. Part of the problem is that I never really wanted the Latin, but I did and do want the Greek. As you'd expect, I still believe the most perfect expression of that is the Eastern Roman Empire, but reading Renault reminded me that there's a lot more Greek history I would have done. It's famous, it's very well done on the past, both the familiarity and the alien nature of it, it's bold on homosexuality, and it's compelling in the specific portraits of the protagonists. It's slightly too long, but still excellent.

Bibliography, September 2022

BOTM: D. Simmons, Hyperion (1989)

D. Athill, Alive, Alive Oh (2015)

N. Bulawayo, Glory (2022)
P.K. Dick, Lies Inc (2004)
P. Everett, The Trees (2022)
A. Garner, Treacle Walker (2021)
S. Karunatilaka, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (2022)
C. Keegan, Small things like these (2021)
J. Michener, Tales of the South Pacific (1947)
E. Strout, My name is Lucy Barton (2016)
E. Strout, Oh William! (2022)
D. Wolk, All of the Marvels (2021)

They weren't BOTM, but I loved Wolk's book on reading all the Marvel comics, and I loved Michener's Pulitzer prize winner behind South Pacific, and I loved Athill's clear eyed vignettes in her memoir.  I did not love most of the Booker shortlist. I thought it was one of the weakest I have ever read, though Everett's book is an exception. So all of those were great, but the best of all was Simmons multiple award winning Hyperion which is structurally engrossing (it advances the plot through a sequence of six single viewpoint narrative), literarily and historically clever (it integrates future and real history well and has some very nice references) and the plot and writing are compelling (and the ending bold). I believe the sequels are less good, but I feel they will take up most of my October.

2022 Booker ranking, and though I can only wholeheartedly recommend Everett, all of the top four were enjoyable. At the time of writing, the odds are almost a perfect inverse of this, so I have no idea who will actually win. Almost certain to be wrong:

1. Everett
2. Karunatilaka
3. Strout
4. Keegan
5. Bulawayo
6. Garner

Bibliography, August 2022

BOTM: J. Gardam, Old Filth (2004)

R. Adams, The Iron wolf and other stories (1980)
J. Berger, G (1974)
L. Booth (ed.), Wisden Cricketer's Almanack (2022)
J.A. Brillat-Saverin, The Physiology of Taste (1825)
M. Berkmann, Berkmann's cricketing miscellany (2019)
J. Gardam, The man in the wooden hat (2009)
---------, Last Friends (2013)
K. Hughes, George Eliot: the last Victorian (1998)
D. Levy, Real Estate (2021)
I. Mortimer, The fears of Henry IV (2007)
P. Ross, A tomb with a view (2020)

I do like a good summer's worth of reading, even though this one was almost entirely random, built on things I borrowed, recent presents and things coming out of recommendations and reviews. They were mostly good though, with one notable exception. Berger's G is terrible. With it, I've now read every Booker winner. It was amongst the very worst.

Gardam's trilogy was entirely impromptu and based on Anna's immediate recommendation. There are diminishing returns in the trilogy, though people less obsessed with proper chronology would enjoy them more than I did, but Old Filth itself is exceptionally good - precise, controlled, and very well done. It's incompleteness is far more affecting than the coloured in sections in the follow up books. is It should have been highly competitive for the 2005 Booker, but didn't even make the longlist.  

Bibliography, July 2022

BOTM: C. Isherwood, A single man (1964)

J. Anim-Addo et al. This is the canon; decolonise your bookshelves (2021)
J. Cortázar and C. Dunlop, Autonauts Of The Cosmoroute (1982)
P. Furtado (ed.), Great cities through travellers eyes (2019)
O. Manning, School for Love (1952)
N. Royle, White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collector (2021)
A. Seldon (ed.), How Tory governments fall (1996)
J. Steinbeck, Once there was a war (1958)
E. de Waal, Letters to Camondo (2021)

First, a warning: Autonauts Of The Cosmoroute sounds fun, a pastiche of travel writing that contains solely a month long journey down a French motorway. It's not. It's terrible. Do not read it.

Several lovely and / or interesting books you could read here, though not without their issues (here's my detailed thoughts on decolonising bookshelves). Best, actually easily, was Isherwood's brilliant novel. At the time, obviously, part of the fame came from depiction of a gay relationship, and obviously the semi-clandestine nature of that relationship reflects the time. But it's brilliant because it's brilliant. Even stripped of the context, it's very well written, very precise, and blissfully, very short.

Bibliography, June 2022

BOTM: J. Lahiri, The namesake (2003)

E. Bowen, The last summer (1929)
E.M. Forster, The hill of Devi (1953)
J. Lahiri, In other words (2015)
K. Lebo, The book of difficult fruit (2021)
A. Roberts, The history of science fiction (2005)
S. Tucci, Taste (2021)
V. Vinge, A fire upon the deep (1992)

I really like Lahiri's first novel. It's clear and direct and I found it rather lovely. I read her account of immersing herself in Italian on the strength of it and that was more quotable, but sometimes a little awkward. Both were highly worthwhile.

Bibliography, May 2022

BOTM: S. Ritchie, Science Fictions: the epidemic of fraud, bias, negligence and hype (2020)

R. Adams, A Woman of the Horseclans (1983)

Arnold Bennett, The Grand Babylon Hotel (1902)

J. Crowden, Cider country (2021)
Jilly and Leo Cooper, On cricket (1986) 

U., C. & A. Frith, Two Heads: Where Two Neuroscientists Explore How Our Brains Work with Other Brains (2022)
D. Galgut, In a strange room (2010)

B. Jacques, Redwall (1986)*
J.N. Johnson, My Monticello (2021)

J.M. Le Clezio, The Mexican Dream, Or, The Interrupted Thought of Amerindian Civilizations (1965)
E. Thompson, Why I am not a Buddhist (2020)

B. Tsui, Why we swim (2020)
A. Verghese, Cutting for stone (2009)

High volume month in May, and mostly good quality too. Even some of the weaker ones were ones that I'm pretty glad I read. It was close at the top between Bryan Jacques' brilliant epic about mice, Ritchie's quickfire rant on science methodology, and Verghese's Ethiopian saga.

They all were very good, though with some minor issues. Redwall is ultimately a children's book with the requisite plot, though I do love it. Cutting for stone was engrossing, though it dragged a little in the middle and I did keep expecting it to be about something more than it was.

Ritchie's book I'm sure has some data flaws and it is polemical so I suspect is overdone. But for me did work really well for me a) as a primer on some of the issues I'd never thought about - replicability vs reproducibility for example - and a string of key examples that allowed me as a non-scientist to get some insight into the issues that science is grappling with. It's well structured and very well done.

Of course, as soon as I write this, I can't help but think of the best description of the struggles that scientists and non-scientists have in taking to each other. This does not come up in the book, which is a shame:

Bibliography, April 2022

BOTM: R. Caro, The power broker: Robert Moses and the fall of New York (1924)

R.  Adams, The Witch Goddess (1982)
R.  Adams, Bili the Axe (1982)
R.  Adams, Champion of the Last Battle (1983)
Daunt books (ed.), In the kitchen: essays on food and life (2020)
I. B. Singer, The magician of Lublin  (1960)
E. Waugh, Decline and fall (1928)

Of course it was. I have many weaknesses, and amongst them is one for massive famous works of analysis. This one is no exception. Everyone says it's one of the best books on power and politics and America; everyone is right. Why is it so good? It's meticulously researched: there's a reason why it's so long. It's analytically absolutely rock solid. Those years of research aren't just regurgitated, but properly processed and worked through. What I was surprised by is how brilliantly written it is: lucid, fast moving, masterful at zooming in and our again. It tells it's story well, and it didn't feel like a chore, even when I had to read it at high pace to finish before I went to a play on the subject.

Decline and fall is also a masterpiece. In almost any other month, it would have won. I do think they should edit the bits about the black man though.

Bibliography, March 2022

BOTM: B. Lenon, Much promise: successful schools in England (2017)

J. Barber, Conquest (2015)
P. Baker, Fabulosa! The story of polari (2020)
W. Cather, O Pioneers (1915)*
K. Feiling, In Christ Church Hall (1960)
S. Hoare, Palaces of Power: History of London’s  Clubland (2019)
S. Leys, The death of Napoleon (1986)
P. Longworth, Russia's Empires (2005)
H. Morales, Pilgrimage to Dollywood (2014)
S. Plokhy, The gates of Europe: the history of Ukraine (2015)
W. Shakespeare, Henry V [Arden]
S. Weyman, Under the red robe (1894)

Several excellent options here - Feiling, Cather, and Morales were much of a par with Lenon's analysis of effective schools. None were perfect. Feiling is of course an absurd, though marvellously written, set of biographical sketches. Cather I have read before, though thoroughly enjoyed (massively disappointed to discover that the Song of Lark is twice as long). Morales was good on Dolly Parton, but hasn't done the wider reading about Country music in general and it showed. Lenon had flaws too, not least glossing over financial issues (one of his successful schools just has a £1.5k top up per pupil from HSBC) and social ones (I'd have liked even more analysis of the numbers especially for FSMs). But it was fascinating, easy to read, and at this stage of decisions about my children's education, highly relevant.

Bibliography, February 2022

BOTM: F. Dunlop, Shark's fin soup and sichuan pepper (2008)

C. Achebe, Arrow of God (1964)
O. Butler, The parable of the sower (1993)
O. Butler, The parable of the talents (1997)
P. Carey, Parrot and Oliver in America (2010)
R. Riordan, Percy Jackson and the lightening thief (2005)
A. Wilson, The old men at the zoo  (1961)

What a nice book Fuchsia Dunlop's memoir is. There's something thrilling about reading someone's extraordinary enthusiasm, and the detail they take you down. Obviously, that depends on the subject. I doubt I'd be quite so delighted with a memoir about cement, though even then I suspect I may find hidden treasures from a real enthusiast. No issues here. I love Dunlop's cookbooks and I love the food she writes about. And it's the star here too. What elevates the book though is also the context in which it is put - both of a China opening up (Dunlop first visits in the 90s) and a westerner engaging with it. Interestingly, because this is now 14 year's old, it's also a window back to the early part of her career. That all sounds lots heavier than it is. It's a much lighter read than that, and all the better for it.

Bibliography, January 2022

BOTM: P. Short, Mitterrand: a study in ambiguity (2013)

C. Achebe, A man of the people (1966)
A. Glenconner, Lady in Waiting (2019)
M. Kamman, When French women cook (1976)
W.S. Maugham, The painted veil (1925)
J. Rayner, The last supper (2019)
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007)*
I. Suzuki, Terminal boredom (2021)
O. Tokarczuk, Drive your plow over the bones of the dead (2009)

It's an effort, Short's monumental book on Mitterrand. It's almost 600 pages and it really covers the ground. This has downsides - it took a third of the month to read, and sometimes I think it does lose its way in the details of the Presidency. And it does help that I didn't know the background. I'm sure students of the (frankly, insane) French political system in the Fourth and Early Fifth Republics will find less new and interesting than I did. Equally, People whose knowledge of the resistance is not based largely on 'Allo 'Allo may find the earlier chapters less fresh. 

But, caveats aside, it does fulfil its very broad and ambitious scope. The writing is crisp, and though Short inherits a vast treasure trove of material, he marshals it well. He brings to life the background and underlying personality of Mitterand - with some great anecdotes. And that's important, because by the post-war period, that's clearly overlaid by his vast ambition and the layers of 'ambiguity' described here. It's very good on Mitterrand's pre-presidency career, and his critical decision to oppose De Gaulle, as well as how he sidestepped better placed rivals to lead that faction. I'm very glad I read it.

Quick note for The Painted Veil. I really like Maugham's writing and I think he's criminally underread now. This was again excellent. Everyone should start with Cakes and Ale, but it's all great. 

Bibliography, 2021

Tantalisingly close to the pre-baby benchmark of ten books a month, in the end I fell short by five. If I'm honest, I would have been a hollow victory, bulked up with a lot of science fiction and fantasy (28 books, more than any year since 2002). Much of that was excellent, and I am very glad I did a strong run through of golden age Sci-Fi too. It is, however, a) easier to read and b) doing nothing for my aim to hold down my white men percentage in fiction. 

Fiction in general was high. I actually read a little less non-fiction than last year, and it should also be noted that I read nine books by or about the Mitfords, which is probably too many. For the first time in a while, BOTMs were roughly in line with reading rates. Fiction about half my BOTMs (four of which were science fiction). History and cultural books three each.

Choosing a favourite novel was only slightly difficult. I do love Foundation and Dune, and Shipstead I thought was robbed of the Booker, but this was a straight choice between Achebe and a loving Martian pastiche of the Chalet School. I loved the latter, but Anthills of the Savannah was outstanding. I wish people talked about this more than Things fall apart.

Again this year, non-fiction was overwhelmingly harder. Three outstanding books in Didion, Trevor Roper and Alexievich. They are all massively famous which makes it embarrassing that I'd read none of them before. Of all of them Alexievich is the one that everyone should read. It's immediacy and remorseless illumination of a completely invisible part of World War Two is essential reading. But, for me, and for any historian I suspect, Trevor Roper's analysis of the end of that war is just an exemplary piece of writing and the historical method. I don't think schoolchildren should study the War, but if they are going to, I find it baffling that they aren't forced to read this.

Jan: The Mitford sisters (ed. C. Mosley), Letters between six sisters (2007)
Feb: C. Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah (1987)
Mar: H.R. Trevor Roper, The last days of Hitler (1947)
Apr: R. Heinlein, Double Star (1956)
May: S. Sturluson, The prose edda
Jun: S. Alexievich, The unwomanly face of war (1985)
Jul: L. Sprague de Camp, Literary swordsmen and sorcerers (1976)
Aug: J. Didion, The year of magical thinking (2005)
Sep: I. Asimov, Foundation (1951)*
Oct: M. Shipstead, Great circle (2021)*
Nov: F. Herbert, Dune (1965)*
Dec: C. Brenchley, Three twins at the Crater School (2021)

Bibliography, December 2021

BOTM: C. Brenchley, Three twins at the Crater school (2021)

D. Adams and M. Cawardine (1990)

E. Carrere, The kingdom (2014)
D. Devonshire, Wait for me (2010)
K. Addison, Witness for the dead (2021)
C. Mieville, Perdido Street station (2000)

M. Rubin, The hollow crown, 1307-1485 (2005)

E. Taylor, Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (1968)

C. Thubron, Emperor (1978)

I. Vincent, Dinner with Edward (2016)

Three great books here. Taylor is one of those largely forgotten novelists that deserve not to be, and this was excellent. Better though was Dinner with Edward. I read it in a single sitting and it was exactly what you would want this memoir to be. The right balance of introspection and external engagement, and in this case combined with a lovely bit of food porn. I am already committed to the apricot souffle. Looking online, I am not the only one.

However, and with full credit to Anna, my favourite book is intensely personal. I had never imagined that anyone other than me would write a loving pastiche of the Chalet School set on Mars under a steampunk future British Empire. But they have, and it is amazing. Tonally, it's near (though not absolutely) perfect, the world-building is unobtrusive, and the plot contains the right mix of excitement within a fundamentally secure environment. There's another one. I hope there are many more.  

Couple of final thoughts on The Kingdom. Lots of chat about how good this is in religious circles, but I found it very difficult to read. I felt, like I did with Tey's The Daughter of time (and in fact Thubron's on this list), that it was fatally flawed as a book because it couldn't decide what it wanted to be. Firstly, the autobiographical section, and especially the intrusions into the main text, were unnecessary (the section on the author's pornography watching habits was a particular low point). Then it falls between two stools: is it a novelistic treatment of Luke and Paul or is it a serious analytical work? I wish it had been the former, but it kept trying to be the latter, and you just can't do that without footnotes. Frustrating, though some sections were very good indeed.