Bibliography, September 2024

BOTM: A. Harvey, Orbital (2023)

J.M. Coetzee, Boyhood (1997)

A. Funder, Wifedom (2023)
A. Gurnah, Afterlives (2020)
L. Holland, Sistersong (2021)
R. Kushner, Creation lake (2024)
J. Roth, The imperial tomb (1938)
A. Michaels, Held (2023)
C. Wood, Stone yard devotional (2023)
Y. van der Wouden, The safekeep (2024)

Almost all fiction, though Boyhood is practically a memoir. I confess I am unsure of the validity of the distinction. The only definite non-fiction was mediocre. I don't like personal reflection in biography, especially not when it's facile. By contrast, but several novels were excellent. Honourable mentions to Gurnah, who I bought on the strength of his Nobel, and van der Wouden, which had too much sex in the middle, and a slightly overneat ending, but an excellent twist. My favourites were Coetzee and Harvey. Coetzee also has a Nobel, and wrote one of my favourite ever books. This is not Michael K but it's a brilliant evocation of provincial South Africa at a particular time. I'm not sure there's a deep message here, but I loved reading it. Orbital is completely different, though also short. It's a lush, lyrical imagination of a day in the space station. Nothing happens, but it happens beautifully. The prose can be a little purple, but the anchoring in the (invented) individuals on the station really works. It's the best of this year's Booker shortlist so far.

Bibliography, August 2024

BOTM: M. Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000)

K. Clark, Another part of the wood (1974)
S.R. Delany, The Einstein intersection (1967)
M. Enriquez, The dangers of smoking in bed (2009)
E. Fatland, High (2022)
K. Fitzherbert, True to both my selves (1998)
E.M. Forster, Alexandria (1922)
S. Hazareesingh, Black Spartacus (2020)
P. Hensher, The Emperor Waltz (2014)
V. McIntyre, Dreamsnake (1978)
J. Paul, The House of Dudley (2022)

It's the summer so I've read a lot of big books this month. I'm glad I did, though some were a bit disappointing (Delany, Hensher, Paul). The latter two of which could have written better books if they had been shorter. That's also true of my favourite, which could probably have been trimmed by 50-100 pages without too much pain. However, all of it was a delight to read. I'm increasingly entranced by the world of mid twentieth century American comic books, but I can never really be bothered to read them. I do like to read about them though, and this brilliantly blended that world with the other bleaker world that was happening alongside it. There are a thousand reviews saying the same thing better, but they are right. Honourable mention for the first volume of Kenneth Clark's (the art historian) autobiography. It's very much of its time and class, but huge fun. The first half is the best.

Bibliography, July 2024

BOTM: M. Lee, Eight lives of a century-old trickster (2023)

I. Calvino, Invisible cities (1972)
P. French, Younghusband (1995)
G. Grass, Peeling the onion (2008)
T. Jansson, Notes from an island (1996)
H. Jeffreys, Vines in a cold climate (2023)
F. Leiber, The wanderer (1964)
J. Morris, The Venetian Empire (1980)
R. Nye, Falstaff (1976)
P.G. Wodehouse, A damsel in distress (1919)

Part of me feels Wodehouse or Morris should be BOTMs. And part of me is right. Damsel in distress is Blandings before Blandings, and it's excellent. But I've read all the Blandings novels. I thoroughly enjoyed this one too. Similarly, while Morris' book is about Venice, a lot is about Byzantium. I'm a big fan of that, but I do know about it. There are some lovely touches, and the history is fine, and comforting. I'd recommend both.

However, for me, the most interesting was Lee's novel, which absolutely benefits from being the first Korean novel I've every read. It's great fun, despite what is a horrific story. And holding the madcap tone of much of it against the series of atrocities that is mid twentieth century Korean history is well done, and hard to do. I'm very glad I read it.

Bibliography, June 2024

BOTM: E. Morris, The rise of Roosevelt (1979)

J. Baldwin, Giovanni's room (1956)
C. McCarthy, Blood Meridian (1985)
C. Blattman, Why we fight (2022)
M. Fenton, Dr Challoner's Grammar School: the first 400 years (2022)
P. Fleming, News from Tartary (1935)
E. Maillart, Forbidden journey (1937)
A. Munro, The view from castle rock (2006)
P. Perry, The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (2019)
J. Vincent, Beyond measure (2022)

Some absolute crackers here. Giovanni's room is the best adult novel I have read all year; Morris' biography of Roosevelt an even better read (Morris had the advantage of his subject). Vincent and Munro were also stellar. I am glad Alice Munro won the Nobel. She was a marvel and this is no exception, while Vincent has done a lovely book on measurement and stats. I also read Maillart and (reread) Fleming's parallel narratives of their journey through 'Tartary' in the 30s. In any other month, I'd have talked extensively on those. But ...

Firstly, Baldwin. I'm glad I read the introduction to Giovanni's room first. It highlights what an extraordinarily brave piece of writing it is, not just about sexuality, but for a black author to write about white Americans in the 50s. That's easily forgotten now, but I think relevant. And it's easily forgotten because the work itself is so good. It's highly effective as communicating both place and context very economically. The layering of characters on top of that seems therefore entirely natural. Despite this, it's not an easy read, because it's so painful. I found it excruciating to read, but I'm very glad I did.

If Baldwin was writing a life lived in the shadows, Morris emphatically was not. Technically, this volume only goes up to Roosevelt's accession to the Presidency, but I don't think much changes. It's an extraordinary life (I took great sheaves of notes) and Roosevelt was aware he was living it at the time (a large number of those notes are quotations from the man himself). I always think authors get a boost if their subject is good - and there are few better - but they do choose them, so I think it's allowed. Morris is good though. It's very long, at over 700 pages, but it flew by. And the sheer volume of excellent copy, much by the protagonist, is marshalled expertly. I would love to (and will) read the counter argument to some of the stories here, but I don't think any revisionism will completely overcome the sheer force of personality. I've bought volumes 2 and 3 already. 

Bibliography, May 2024

BOTM: P. Fitzgerald, At Freddie's (1982)

A. Sattin, Nomads (2021)
A.B. Edwards, A thousand miles up the Nile (1876)
L. Booth, (ed.), Wisden cricketers Almanack (2024)
T. Fort, The A303 (2012)
R. Jefferies, After London (1885)
R. Zelazny, The best of Roger Zelazny (2023)

It is my firm, increasing, and possibly counterintuitive, contention that the greatest decade for novel-writing is the 1980s. This month has added evidence to this. I'm 80% of the way through McCarthy's 1985 Blood Meridian, but I think it would have lose out anyway to Fitzgerald's 1982 novel. This is one of her best books (along with The beginning of spring). It's marvelously evocative of 1960s theatre, with slight characters given real flesh with high levels of economy. It's short, but lingering. I think it takes a reputational hit from its lightness, but it is quite dark, it's just disguised by tone.

As an aside, Nomads was poor. If you were looking for both a decent history of the nomad empires of he steppe set in the context of the wider nomadic societies of the world, you would have been very disappointed - as I was. It's musings plus Mongols. He also appears not to know what words mean. At one point he referred, with numbers, to a 40% reduction from the Black Death as a decimation,  and oligarchic selection by soldiery as 'Mongol democracy'. It drove me up the wall.

Bibliography, April 2024

BOTM: P. Sands, East West Street (2016)

F. Bengtsson, The long ships (1941)
A. Berkeley, The silk stocking murders (1928)
R. Blanc, The lost orchard (2019)
N. Crane, Clear water rising (1996)
D. Duncan, Index, a history of (2021)
R. Easterway, Maths on the back of an envelope (2019)
J. Marais, All Souls (1992)
D. Mitchell, Unruly (2023) [Audiobook]
K. Rundell, Why you should read children’s books, even though you are so old and wise (2019)

Momentous month, where I include an audiobook in my reading, even though I think it's usually cheating. I listened to David Mitchell when I was ill, and in full while not doing anything else, so I'm counting it. No precedents. It was good too, with a healthy scepticism about feelings and trade, and strong support for the fun violent bits. Nicholas Crane's work was also nice, especially the sections east of Vienna, Raymond Blanc's book on his orchard was supremely self-indulgent, but thoroughly enjoyable for it. And I also liked The long ships, which does I think a good job about trying to think itself back into the Viking world c.1000 AD. 

Nice though they were, Sands was a cut above. I foolishly hesitated before reading this as when it was recommended to me two years ago because I'd just read another Jewish family memoir. This is a solid family memoir, and I think the stories of refugee Jewish families should be told, but it's much wider than that. I found the story of the evolution of legal thinking at Nuremberg fascinating, and it's a great primer on why the legal distinctions matter. Until this month, I had given no thought to the differences between crimes against humanity and genocide. I think it's probably important that we do have a view on this. This was great on that, without ever losing sight of the human stories behind it all.

Bibliography, March 2024

BOTM: M. Condé, Crossing the Mangrove (1989)

I. Ahmed, The Pakistan Garrison State (2013)
K.J. Anderson, (ed.), War of the worlds: global dispatches (1997)

C. Arseneault & B. Pierson (eds.), Wings of Renewal: A Solarpunk Dragon Anthology (2017)

M. Ba, So long a letter (1980)

K. Cashore, Graceling (2008)

M. Cavendish, The blazing world (1666)
A. Christie, The clocks (1963)
M. Freedman, Capitalism and Freedom (1962)

C. Fremlin, Uncle Paul (1959)
F. Herbert, Dune Messiah (1969)*
M.W. Montagu, Embassy Letters (1763)
P.G. Wodehouse, The code of the Woosters (1938)*

I read a lot of relatively short books this month. A lot that wasn't brilliant - I should stop picking up random books in the library, and I should remember that random science fiction is often bad. Dune Messiah is not bad, but it is a) mad, and b) not as good as I remember. Very pleased with a late Agatha Christie, which is nicely done, if not as tightly plotted as some. Freedman was surprisingly readable - though I think built on sand. And - the best of the trio of books written about 1960, I very much liked Uncle Paul - Wodehouse too was exemplary. This is one of his masterpieces, but I have read it before.

However, the best of them all was Condé. Again. A couple of years ago I read a terrible book about decolonising the canon. As an intellectual exercise, it wasn't serious, Or good. But the recommendations were sound, and best of all so far has been Maryse Condé. This isn't Segu, but it's still excellent. She has a real talent for the imagining of world's distant from ours, and these are ones where we lack the underpinning of the the core western narrative, and making them immediate. Crossing the Mangrove writes on a small scale what Segu did on the vast stage. She's a marvel. Or rather, was. She died in between me reading her last month and writing about it, though she'd have been BOTM anyway. There's a long list of further reading to follow up on.