Bibliography, 2010

As before, here my summary of the year

January - E. Burke, Reflections on the revolution in France
February - R. Gildea, Children of the Revolution
March - N. Gordimer, None to remember me
April - Homer, tr. Lattimore, The Iliad
May - V. Seth, The Golden Gate
June- D. Erasmus, Praise of Folly
July - L. Sciascia, The wine dark sea
August - M.Banffy, They were found wanting
September - G. Elliot, Scenes from clerical life
October - W. Faulkner, Go down, Moses
November - M. Druon, La Louve de France
December -J. Banville, The Untouchable

Interesting. I read a lot this year (145 books, just short of 2008's record 148), but very differently. Must less fiction, only about a third, compared to well over half in the last three years. A lot of history - more (for fun) than fiction for the first time since 2005. However for BOTM, a different picture. No 'cultural' books, and a step up in fiction and history: last year's 6:5:1 has been replaced by 0:8:4. The fiction / non-fiction divide here is a little blurred, but the Iliad should be History, and Druon is historical fiction. Neither are books of the year.

Instead, Fiction has to go to The Golden Gate - a modern classic, even if it has taken me about eight years to read it since someone recommended it to me. Banffy was great too, but nothing like the unrestrained exuberance of what surely will be Seth's only real survival in a generation. His other stuff is fine, but limited. An honourable mention to Banville, but it's just not as good.

Non-fiction is more finely poised: Burke, Erasmus and Gildea were all excellent. But Burke's treatment of the revolution is magisterial, and his language a glory to behold. Brilliant. Everyone should read it; even if everyone doesn't agree. I, of course, did.

Bibliography, December 2010

Acquired (6)
O.S. Card, Xenocide
S. Hill, Howard's End is on the Landing
W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz
A. Trollope, The way we live now
M. Twain, A Tramp Abroad
H. Walpole, The Castle of Otranto
 Read (16)
BOTM: J. Banville, The Untouchable

J. Austen, Northanger Abbey
O.S. Card, Xenocide
E. Cruikshanks (ed.), The Stuart Courts
A. Gide, La symphonie pastorale
D. Goleman, Social Intelligence
R. Mistry, A fine balance
S. Hill, Howard's End is on the Landing
A.W. Montford, The Hockey Stick illusion
A. Ross, The rest is noise
A. Trollope, The way we live now
M. Twain, A Tramp Abroad

H. Walpole, The Castle of Otranto

M. Willaert, Servir au Congo
E. Zola, J'Accuse

New acquisition has begun!

Anyway, book of the month was Banville about the Cambridge spies, which was excellent. Finely tuned, and achingly sad. I think the ending was unnecessary, as the pathos has already happened, the final betrayal wasn't needed, and in some senses was a little overneat. However, it was within acceptable parameters. The rest was very sound indeed.

It's a fascinating area, our western Communists, and I've read a few novels on them. It remains to me astonishing how so many of our elites could be seduced by it, but that's hindsight for you. Christopher Hitchens put it well I think in the Blair debate, when he spoke of communism, in the context of the ANC and the brilliant intellectuals. I'm not sure I believe, as he does that it 'represent[ed] some high points in human history' though it clearly wasn't worth it. However, the attraction of the ideal was a real one, though as this novel shows loaded with ambiguity, self-delusion and a total inability to understand the reality of the game being played. As such, a tragedy for all concerned.

The end of the project, in numbers

With Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance, I am done. There are no readable books in the house bought by or for me that I have not read. And with Christmas round the corner, I am ready for new blood. Anyway, I've been running the stats from 2009 - 2010, and here's the summary. In those 23.5 months:

• I started with 320 unread books
• A further 37 books were bought (excl. Reference)
• Hence the eligible base was effectively 357
• I read 228 of the books
• I threw away 129 books unread
• Hence 36% of the books I hadn't read, I will never read

That last stat is a bit hideous. Essentially it points to my criteria for book acquisition being less stringent than my criteria for reading them; and that's a recipe for disaster. That's changing, and we're not allowing the buildup of such a large backlog again. No more than 25 unread books (c.1%) in the house from now on, especially as there are some pretty good selections of Anna's that I haven't fully excavated.

The project overall has been a triumph though. There have been a stellar set of books over the last two years that I am not sure I would have got round to reading, but were excellent. Of the books of the month, almost all were bought some time ago, and some were real gems. I'd single out:

• Catch 22 (Read Feb 09; bought 1997)
• Trollope's Palisers, but especially Phineas Redux (May 09; bought April 07)
• Kendall's biography of Louis XI (June 09; bought March 06)
• Tremlett's Ghosts of Spain (Sept 09; bought Jun 07)
• Burke (Jan 10; bought Feb 08)
• The Golden Gate (May 10; bought Jan 06)
• Praise of Folly (June 10; bought Sept 02)
• Faulkner, Go down, Moses (Oct 10, bought Jul 07)

Heller and Erasmus spent an impressive amount of time on the shelves unread, but were trumped. In December, I finally read this prize I won for maths in Belgium (M. Willaert, Servir au Congo) - more than 17 years after being given it; it was rubbish.

Otherwise, it's been a triumph. I'm off to read Susan Hill's book about reading all her books now (actually, due to the snow delay, I'm not. I'm downloading free books on the Kindle instead - Mark Twain for now)

Bibliography, November 2010

Books read (9)

BOTM: M. Druon, La Louve de France

Anon, Gawain and the Green Knight
M. Druon, Le Lis et le Lion
M. Druon, Quand un roi perde la France
B. Goldacre, Bad Science
J. Hannam, God's Philosophers
M. Keen, History of England in the Later middle ages
G. O'Collins, Christology
F. Raphael, The glittering prizes

Remaining - 9

Nearly there.

I struggled to find a Book of the Month, as many were flawed: Hannam, though interesting, seems to be labouring under the delusion that the Sixteenth century was in the medieval era; Goldacre was great fun, but too obviously his columns stitched into a book. Le Lis et le Lion, the conclusion of Druon's sextet, to which the seventh (shit) book was added later, was hugely enjoyable, but did have a dull start about law. So, that leaves me in a quandry. Druon's preceding work overcomes it. In English, the She-wolf of France, his account of the siezure of power by Isabella and Roger Mortimer was great. The whole lot were good though and I'm delighted I've read them, even though it is nearly two years since I was bought them at Christmas. Apparently, they are very famous in France; I can see why.

Bad numbers; bad reporting

Apparently, most of the US Congress are millionaires. The Guardian reports this with glee as a sign they are out of touch, ranting on out about how governments should be representative.

Toss.

There are two major problems with this analysis. Firstly, the philosophy behind it is flawed - I don't want a representative elected chamber, having a lot of stupid people doesn't make government better. But the second point is more important. The logic of the numbers are misleading.

How so, well:

• Firstly, they are dollar millionaires, so £650k in net worth. Still a lot, but less than reported
• Secondly, they are paid quite well. The salary of a congressman is $174k p.a.
• And taxes in the US are low, about an average of 33% (somewhere here), which means actually $115k p.a. post tax, so almost immediately on election, they won't be poor
• They have been around a while - average length of term 10 years, rising to 12 years in the senate
• And they are quite old, average age 57

So, suddenly this all seems stunningly uninteresting. After 10 years on $115k, which we might assume they put aside $40k on mortgage or savings, so paying $400k over the period + a bit of appreciation takes you to $500k on average. Given this solely refers to the half that are millionaires, probably a bit more than that.

Plus, we're not talking about slackers here. They've been working for say 25 years before then, so an average of $20k per annum payments into property or savings, or $1,500 per month is hardly the stuff of which legends are made, though not poor.

Actually, I am pretty sure that money does have too much of a role in congress; I just don't this stat illuminates it very well. In fact, it illuminates successful people in well paid jobs are pretty wealthy. That's not a story. Quite frankly I'm surprised that more of them aren't millionaires.

The rhetoric ends by saying we don't want poor people who made good. By definition, if they're in congress, they have. Thus, the author is a moron. Anathema.

And we're 0-1. Fucking hell. OK, no 10-1. Still rubbish.

We were wrong

One of the many reasons why I could never be a politician, apart from my lack of interest in people and general unlikeability, is that I could never do the evasions that are necessary.  For years I thought that successful politicians simply lied about their past beliefs out of opportunism. Recently having seen it first hand, it seems to me that they simply don't believe they held those positions for those reasons in the past at all.

Now we all do that to a degree, but I think it's important to recant when you're wrong. I've been wrong about many things in my time, and this won't be the last, but it's pretty spectacular: I spent much of the late 90s and 2000s on the wrong side of the single currency debate. At the outset of monetary union most of the fears seemed unjustified, and there is still some overblown rhetoric around - like this.

But, some of the issues were real, and poor judgement and lack of discipline about entry and membership has had the inevitable effect, as Ireland has shown and I suspect more will. There's a longer set of thinking about what it shows though. It doesn't mean that this was automatically doomed. Remember Benelux was yoked to the Mark for years before the Euro, and we've had currency union with Ireland in the past. Rather the experiment was too big, too soon, and with too little structure. I believe in the European project, but it needs discipline, and caution - things lacking in this construct and which I was too quick to overlook.

I don't think we're owed an apology from those who held a view that has turned out to be right, but I do think we should recognise we were wrong. For once, we were better off out.

Tough choices

I'm told we have to make these now, on account of the no money left.

However, few can be harder than this. On the same weekend next August:

• The fourth and final England - India test match, at the Oval
• The 22nd International Congress of Byzantine Studies, in Bulgaria

I don't think I can go to both - a crisis.