Bibliography, January 2021 (Full Mitford)

 BOTM: The Mitford sisters, ed. C. Mosley, Letters between six sisters (2007)

T. Gooley, How to read water (2016)
N. Mitford, The Pursuit of Love (1945)
--------, Love in a Cold Climate (1949)
--------, Madame de Pompadour (1954)
--------, Don't tell Alfred (1960)
J. Mitford, Hons and Rebels (1960)
L. Spinney, Pale Rider (2017)
P. Vogler, Scoff: a history of food and class in Britain (2020)

This all got rather out of hand. By coincidence I asked for (and got) Hons and rebels and Madame de Pompadour at Christmas and then it rather snowballed. I've resisted Mitfordania for ages, so I wasn't really expecting to fall into such temptation. I think I'm out now. I'm just reading Diana's memoirs and then I'm done. They were clearly all mad, except possibly for the Duchess of Devonshire, and mostly dreadful to be around, except definitely for the Duchess of Devonshire. The most famous, and best bits, are the early family accounts because the domestic scene are even more bonkers than the rest and have all the family riffing off each other. 

As most of the reading was Nancy, I can confirm that the critical view is right. Her later work does decline fast and by 1960, it's Powellian in its failure to really grasp what it going on. The Pursuit of Love is great though. However, I enjoyed the letters best. They are a slog at over 800 pages, but they give the panorama of the relationships, and are almost merciless in what they reveal about the protagonists. None of them (save, predictably, the Duchess of Devonshire) come out well. With many thanks to K, who recommended them.

Bibliography, 2020

At one point this year, it looked like lockdown was going to deliver a post-baby record level of reading, but Autumn put paid to that, and the last few months have been mediocre, so I finished one behind. Still, I have kept myself at the relatively high level of post-doctoral reading. And a strong mix of reading too; I haven't read this much 'hard' non fiction (History, Philosophy, Politics) since 2010. And I'm glad I did that. Fiction was weak, accounting for only three of my BOTMs; it did mark the first time I read more women than men, though I don't think the two are related. Six other BOTMs were cultural, and three 'hard' non-fiction (all history).

This makes fiction pretty straightforward. I briefly wondered if there was an excellent piece of fiction sitting in other months, but there wasn't. The best two novels I read were both Mantel, and the best one remains Wolf Hall. I don't think it needs any more analysis from me, save that I liked it even more this time than I did first time round. I'd also note that a decade on we sort of take it for granted, and we shouldn't.

Non-fiction was overwhelmingly harder. I could make a case for at least three of these, but with mentions for Pope-Hennessy and Cohn, Meetings with remarkable manuscripts is an absolutely gem of a book. It's stylistically interesting, taking a complex and highly inaccessible subject and making it informal was a stroke of genius. But it's also robust, illuminating (pun intended) and important. I've never really been interested in manuscripts (or physical editions of books at all), but this made me look at the whole thing afresh. And I read it on kindle, when you can't even see the lovely pictures.

Jan: T. Salih, Season of migration to the north (1966)
Feb: J. Child, My life in France (2006)
Mar: P. Paphides, Broken Greek (2020) 
Apr: C. De Hamel, Meetings with remarkable manuscripts (2016)
May: V. Moore, How to Drink (2010)* 
Jun: J. Pope-Hennessy, The Quest for Queen Mary (2018)
Jul: H. Mantel, Wolf Hall (2009)*
Aug: L. Lee, A Rose in Winter (1955) 
Sep:  J. Gillingham, The Wars of the Roses (1981) 
Oct: M. Mengiste, The Shadow King (2020) 
Nov: C. Stevens, Born Brilliant: The Life of Kenneth Williams (2010)
Dec: N. Cohn, Awopbopaloobop Awopbamboom (1969)

Bibliography, December 2020

BOTM: N. Cohn, Awopbopaloobop Awopbamboom (1969)

J. Aiken, The wolves of Willoughby Chase (1962)

B. DeVoto, The Hour: a cocktail manifesto (1951)
R. Graves, I, Claudius (1934)*
S. Platt, Imperial twilight (2018)
H. Ranfurly, To war with Whitaker (1994)
A. Ransome, Old Peter's Russian Tales (1916)

I really liked all of these and I'd urge you to read them all. I loved The Countess of Ranfurly's wartime diaries, which are both fascinating, moving (the scene when she and her husband are reunited is genuinely tear inducing), slightly mad, and a splendid example of the formidable British woman, without whom we could not have run a small borough, still less an Empire. I would love to see a cross country comparative analysis of social roles played by women of a certain type before, say, 1950. Even better was Nik Cohn's pioneering, near contemporary, account of the emergence of modern pop. It's cited in every book on the genre, and I can see why. It's brilliantly funny, rooted in deep knowledge, spikeily written, endlessly judgemental, and acute in so many ways. It gets the country roots of Rock and Pop right too. It's a period piece obviously, but it does bring home how what he calls 'superpop' in the 1960s was new, and how unforeseen the next fifty years were.

The Original Tudor

I've been listening - on repeat - to Horrible Histories' magisterial Glam Rock pastiche for Henry VII, the original Tudor. Here it is. 

Obviously, you like best the HH songs that match your preferred genre. This certainly matches mine. Visually and musically, it echoes the early 1970s Glam Top of the Pops performances perfectly. It is therefore amazing. Here are all the things I love about it:

Sound...

• The semi-spoken intro makes the same point about Shakespeare's plays that Thomas Penn did in his outstanding Winter King (2011),  
• It sounds primarily like The Sweet and Jean Genie era Bowie (the title is of course another Bowie nod). 
• Specifically, it voicechecks Steve Priest's falsetto from The Sweet  to give emphasis to the following rhyming couplet: 'The only way to end war and avert further disaster, there's got to be a way to unite York and Lancaster.' I have failed to explain successfully to the children why this is so amusing.
• The Sparks reference (at 1m56s. This town ain't big enough for both of us = this crown ain't big enough... for The Perkin Warbeck / Lambet Simnel)
• The Slade reference (at 2mins exactly, for slayed)
• The Mud reference ('That's right, that's right' is straight out of Tiger Feet - it's at 0m57s)

...and Vision 

• The whole blurred lit up 'graphics' can be pretty specifically dated to the early 70s and look like a) the stone age and b) The Sweet's 1973 Blockbuster Top of the Pops performance 
• The cutaway shots to the drummer and the driving guitars are both staples of performance shots from the same era, I just can't find them. 
• In fact the commitment to the 70s aesthetics is absurdly detailed. Even the audience of girls dancing is much shot for shot of era Top of the Pops.

And, most importantly, it's right. Henry VII is vastly underrated in popular history. Henry VIII, who in my view is a fat, sexually incontinent buffoon, captures much of the real estate of the popular imagination, and much of the rest is taken by the contrarian revisionist faction that supports Richard III (who doesn't deserve condemnation for his political murders, but does deserve it for failing to hold the realm together). Henry VII, with far less of a claim than Richard, succeeds. His political murders work. He's 'the man who closes the Wars of the Roses.' 

Far more of a risk taker than his glamorous son; far more ruthless than even that other master of political murder, Henry I; just as decisive on the battlefield as William I (if less epochally significant); one of a handful of English kings to really grasp royal administration. He's absolutely the best Tudor, and probably my favourite English King, not least because he - and I love this line above, is the one 'returning power to the State.' He is not the one you would want to drink with, but he is definitely the one you would put in charge of, well, anything.

Bibliography, November 2020

BOTM: C. Stevens, Born Brilliant: The Life of Kenneth Williams (2010)

M Lynas, Six degrees (2009)
D. Goulson, A Sting in the Tale: My Adventures with Bumblebees (2013)
S. Mukherjee, The Emperor of maladies (2010)
J. Lewis-Stempel, Meadowland (2014)
F.W. Crofts, The Cask (1920)

I enjoyed almost all of these. Meadowland was a moving evocation of the life and rhythms of a tiny scrap of the world; Goulson's memoir-cum-bumblebee guide was also and unexpectedly charming, as well as fascinating. All were books I'd recommend, though Six degrees was deeply depressing. My favourite though, even if I'm not actually sure it was the best, was Kenneth Williams' biography. 

Having finished it, and checked the reviews, it is clearly flawed. It's a meticulous and well written book, but It does suffer slightly from an author who is clearly a huge fan: part of the narrative suffers from a desire to explain away some of the fairly awful behaviour, and it is also quite long, corresponding to the figure that the author believes he could have been, not necessarily that he was. But, but, but ... Kenneth Williams is iconic, and he's iconic for a reason. He occupies a huge place in popular culture (probably now receding among the under 30s, er 50s?), and I've always loved his work, much of the best of which absolutely stands up. It was thus a great pleasure to read, though not without without sadness. It's hard not to read it wistfully now, wondering if his life could have been different, or would have been different at a different context. Part of me wishes he could have gone to grammar school (he didn't go to as his parents couldn't pay for the uniform) and we could have seen one of the great eccentric dons of our age which the author thinks he could have been. But then we'd have missed the rest; and I wouldn't have wanted that.

Bibliography, October 2020

BOTM:  M. Mengiste, The Shadow King (2019)

B. Carruthers, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (2011)
T. Dangarembga, Nervous conditions (1988)
-----------, The Book of Not (2006)
-----------, This Mournable Body (2020)
M. Engle,  A wrinkle in time (1962)
R. Kapuscinski, The Emperor (1978)
P. Lay, Providence lost (2020)
E. Orczy, The scarlet pimpernel (1905)

When the Booker shortlist came out, I agonised over whether to read all of Dangarembga's trilogy (the third was nominated). I'm so glad I did, because the original is overwhelmingly the best, and it's pretty clear that they've given the nod to book three (which is fine, but only fine) because they didn't give it to Nervous conditions. That was excellent, and I'd recommend stopping there. Book two is appallingly structured and while not without good scenes, pretty poor. I spent a bit of time deciding between Dangarembga and Mengiste for BOTM, but in the end I felt that the story in The Shadow King edged it. I am not firm in that conclusion, but it is an excellent book. The narrative flows nicely, the writing tidy and, impressively, simultaneously understated and horrifyingly evocative of the brutality its describing. It's deceptive in its approach, often seeming to be heading one way before shifting focus and direction - the shadow king in question, is a) pretty shadowy in plot and significance terms and b) not mentioned till halfway through the book. I'm going to read more of hers. 

No surprises then, that this is my preferred Booker winner. It was a pretty solid (if not outstanding) list though and I'd be unable to make a strong case for my rankings 2-4. As follows:

1. Mengiste
2. Stuart
3. Cook 
4. Taylor
5. Doshi
6. Dangarembga

I'm pretty uncertain who will win. It may well be Shuggie Bain, but I think they will want to push for a black voice in which case they may like Brian Taylor's Real Life. On balance, I ultimately think it will be The Shadow King, which would be my third in a row.

Bibliography, September 2020

BOTM: J. Gillingham, The Wars of the Roses (1981)

D. Cook, The New Wilderness (2020)
A. Doshi, Burnt Sugar  (2020)

E. John, Me (2019)

N. MacGregor, Germany: memories of a nation (2014) 
M. Morris, A great and terrible king: Edward I and the forging of modern Britain (2010) 
V.T. Nguyen, The refugees (2017)

E. Shafak, How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division  (2020)
D. Stuart, Shuggie Bain (2020)
B. Taylor, Real Life (2020)

Rock solid list (except for Shafak, which was facile). The fiction was no more than solid, but some of the non-fiction was very good indeed. Elton John's autobiography was deliriously enjoyable, and generous in his descriptions of most people in it. MacGregor was elegant and insightful about Germany. 

Elsewhere, I'm catching up on British medieval history, and my favourite this month was from one of my favourite historians. John Gillingham's work on Richard I is pretty much solely responsible for my strong performance in my English medieval history paper in finals, and I'm forever grateful for his deployment of charter statistics to understand Richard's reign. He shows the same trademark ability to count, and brilliance to look for data, in his account of the Wars of the Roses. I found his opening chapters on the nature of the wars, and their peculiar character as battle-seeking campaigns, highly convincing; and I loved his use of city wall-tax rates as evidence. The rest of the book, on the events of the wars themselves, was done well, and made a complicated saga relatively easy to follow. It's also not very long.