Bibliography, January 2026

BOTM: B. Dylan, The philosophy of modern song (2022)

K. Altenberg, Island of Wings (2011)
L. Hughes-Hallet, The Scapegoat (2024)
S. King, The Dark Tower: the gunslinger (1982)
J. Le Carre, Call for the Dead (1961)
R. Putnam, American Grace (2010)
K. Rundell, Wolf wilder (2015)
S. Sinek, Start with Why (2025)
A. Trollope, Rachel Ray (1863)
M. Twitty, The cooking gene (2017)
M. Piercy, Body of glass (1991)
R. Whippman, Boymuns (2024)
D. Zetland, Living with water scarcity (2014)
T. Wolfe, From Bauhaus to Our house ( 1981)

A lot of this wasn't great. That said, Trollope and Rundell did not disappoint - as ever, and I also enjoyed Wolfe's rant about modern architecture and King's opening book in the Dark Tower saga. It is also good to read a seventeenth century analysis around the commemoration of Charles I, and Lucy Hughes-Hallet was good on Buckingham too. Best, though, was Dylan's book on songs. It was very well observed, easy to reach and funny. I have written up at length my thoughts on that last point.

Joke philosophy

A few years after winning the Nobel prize for literature, Bob Dylan published this curious book of essays on songs. It has had mixed, largely positive, reviews, though with some dissent. Almost all of them talked about Dylan's knowledge of song and insightful listening. Sometimes, reviews talked about 'invention' and 'joyful zest'; if you liked it less, I think they used the word 'perversity'. What they didn't do, and I think really missed, was to say that these are funny. 

There isn't enough analysis of Bob Dylan's humour. I think that it is easy to miss this, especially if you tend to see him through the prism of protest, but he always been funny. Bob Dylan's 115th Dream is a funny song. In Love and Theft, one of his songs includes the line 'Calls down to room service, says, "Send up a room". '  It's just often forgotten. He's not the only one. There's a convincing analysis out there that Okie from Muskogee is also meant to be funny and everyone got caught out by the reception.

This book is a joke from the start. He knows this isn't a philosophy book. It's a joke. Nor is it the only one. Here he is on The Great Pretender - 'like many things even pretenders got devalued between the fifties and the seventies.' On Sony Bono - 'his greatest achievement was as a congressman, where he helped pass the Sonny Bono Act, which extended copyright terms for all songwriters.' Some of the jokes need a bit of a build up. Like this on Don't take your guns to town - 'Stories are simple. We all know them. Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy steals crust of bread. Boy gets gunned down in town square. Girl kills boy’s wife. Child grows up searching for father’s murderer. Girl marries boy. Boy burns down town.' These are all jokes.

And there are more elaborate, madcap sections too. Like this line on Your Cheating Heart - 'This song can be taken a couple of different ways. In one, for instance, you’re a psychic....' Equally, there is an elaborate set up about the distinction within I've always been crazy, when he imagines the following scenario - 'Suppose Waylon was on trial for murder and this song is Waylon telling his lawyer that he does not want to use the insanity plea when going in front of the judge. He’d rather be crazy and just take it like a man. The insanity plea would cut him off from the world.'

My favourite of all though is his analysis of Little Richard's Long tall Sally, where he writes, and this is the entire section - 'Long Tall Sally was twelve feet tall . She was part of the old biblical days in Samaria from the tribe called the Nephilim. They were giants that lived back before the cataclysm of the flood. You can see shots of these giants’ skulls and such. There were people as tall as one-story buildings. They’ve uncovered bones of these giants in Egypt and Iraq. And she was built for speed, she could run like a deer. And Uncle John was her counterpart giant. Little Richard is a giant of a different kind, but so as not to freak anybody out he refers to himself as little, so as not to scare anybody.'

Someone here is laughing, though possibly not as much as Bob Dylan. We don't need to find these funny, though I did, but Dylan certainly does. That's what he's doing. Note that his portrait of Johnny Cash notes that 'his best records are playful and full of wordplay and humor, miles from the august solemnity of the murder ballads, hardscrabble tales and Trent Reznor covers that his fans came to expect.' Bob Dylan likes people be playful, because so is he. 

As an aside, I also thought much of it was acutely well observed. I loved his description of Ruby, are you mad at your man as 'this song is church Latin, has plenty of backbone, and pieces of the whirlwind in it.' It really really is.

100 Plays!

Post-pandemic, at the start of 2022, recognising that I am never actually going to move to the Home Counties, I resolved that if I lived in London I needed to use it more. I've always been good at exhibitions, but I wanted to do much more live theatre. So I did. I committed myself to going around twice a month, specifically 25 times a year*. Yesterday, I went to the Young Vic for the nuts, but very good, Bengal tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, for #100. It's been superb. Here are some stats.

• 21 musicals, only eight written after I was born
• 25 Shakespeare, half way through a target to see them all
• 6 Pantomimes. We went to two a season in each of 2023 and 2024
• 2 with my own child in. I cannot comment on the quality of either.
• 35 attended alone
• 39 different theatres
• £60 average price, masking a £20 rise between 2022 and 2025

It's changed my life. Here's what I learnt:

• London has loads of theatre on. Twice a month feels like a lot, but I missed plenty.
• Going to the theatre alone is amazing. There is something thrillingly efficient about arriving just in time (ideally by bike), seeing a play, reading a book at the interval, and going straight home.
• I can cycle into pretty much every theatre in central London even if I leave home at 7pm.

Here were my favourites, in the order I saw them:

1. Oklahoma (2022, Young Vic) was a marvel, reimagined and exciting. I even enjoyed the dream ballet. The women - Anoushka Lucas and Marisha Wallace - both outstanding.
2. Night at the Kabuki (2022, Sadler's Wells). 12th century Japanese retelling of Romeo & Juliet and set to Queen’s A Night at the Opera. It was even madder than it sounds and huge huge fun.
3. My neighbour Totoro (2022, Barbican). Everyone loved this. It was charming.
4. The Motive and the Cue (2023, National). Truly mesmerising. Full of cleverness and good on that cultural hinge in the mid century. Absolutely astonishing performance by Mark Gatiss.
5. La Cage aux Folles (2023, Regents Park). I cannot believe I haven't seen this before. It was done exceptionally well.
6. Player Kings (2024, Noel Coward). Possibly Ian McKellan's stage swansong as he injured himself shortly after. I have never heard Shakespeare sound so natural before or since.
7. Fiddler on the Roof (2024, Regent's Park). The structure of this is always lopsided, but this made it work. To Life (L'Chaim) done like a whirlwind; Anatevka with enough lightness to make it heartbreaking. I felt very smug when it transferred to the Barbican.
8. Macbeth (2024, Pinter). David Tennant's Macbeth was superb; what I thought would be a gimmick of giving everyone headphones enabled a range and immediacy that amplified the impact.
9. Midsummer Night's Dream (2025, Barbican). I booked this because it had Mat Baynton in, who does the best Horrible History songs. He delivered a great Bottom, and the final playlet scene was distilled, perfect, pantomime, and the funniest Shakespeare I have ever seen.
10. Much Ado about Nothing (2025, Drury Lane). However much fun I had watching this (and I had a lot of fun), it was less fun than Tom Hiddleston had performing it.
11. The years (2025, Pinter). Powerfully done, very well staged, and fascinating. Extra points for surmounting the tedious audience fainting
12. The Producers (2025, Garrick). I loved this so much that I went home to watch the original film again.

* The exact rubric took a bit of working out, but I decided it was scripted performances, thus stand-up comedy is out (Andy Zaltzman), as are lectures (David Suchet, Christopher de Hamel), but one man shows are in (on Buffy, Life under Mugabe). The line is fuzzy.

Book of the year, 2025

I was nervous for a while, but a high read rate in December kept me exactly on target on reading book numbers, despite a lot of very long (and many cases very good) books. Goodreads stats tell me that though I'm almost exactly the same on number of books as last year, it's seven thousand more pages read. An exceptionally high rate of hard non-fiction topics too, with 41 (34%) history, politics or theology, only bettered in 2005 and 2010. I am thinking of reading more literary criticism next year and this will blow the segmentation.

Books of the month were less clear with a 4-5-3 split between fiction - hard - soft non fiction, though there are some outstanding novels lurking under some of the BOTMs. August was an outstanding month. I am slightly worried about whether monthly is the right way to assess it. I gave 15 five star ratings and these split 4-6-5. Either way, the big undercurrent here is the dominance of America. I wanted to read a lot in response to Trump, and I have: 17 novels (of 60), 11 historical works (of 27), 5 cultural books (of 19) were on America. The first of those is typical, the latter two very much not. For history, that's 40% of all books on US history I have ever read (previous annual record: 2) And almost all those history books were huge. 

Of all the non-fiction, it is therefore inevitable that my favourites would be American. There is a lot to be said for Nicolson's diaries and for Bayes, but this was a year dominated by Lyndon Johnson for me. I loved Caro (apart from the second one), and the best of them all was Master of the Senate. It's beautifully written, and acute on the way that people get things done in small forums. I do think it's hard to read unless you have read the earlier work though and its really really long. Sorry.

Novels were mixed this year and many of the best ones don't appear on BOTM lists. In particular, I also loved Half of a yellow sun and Flaubert's parrot (see above). They just lost out to non-fiction in July and August. The two best novels of all though were books of the month. I loved Rundell's follow up to Impossible Creatures and I think she is an exemplary and enchanting children's author. However, I thought Tan Twan Eng's House of Doors was superb. Evocative of both the people, place and time he was writing about. A jewel.

Jan: B. Wilson, The secret of cooking (2023)
Feb: H. Nicholson, Diaries and letters (2004)
Mar: R. Caro, The path to power (1982)
Apr: R. Caro, Master of the senate (2002)
May: A. Patchett, Those precious days (2021)
Jun: P. Morris, Black Butterflies (2022)
Jul: T. Chivers, Everything Is Predictable: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World (2023)
Aug: Tan Twan Eng, The house of doors (2023)
Sep: Guha, India after Gandhi (2017)
Oct: K. Rundell, The poisoned king (2025)
Nov: A. Aswany, The Yacoubian building (2002)
Dec: S. Charles, The Medieval Scriptorium (2024)

List of books rated 5*

Jan (2), B. Wilson, The secret of cooking (2023), G. Ehrlich, The Solace of Open Spaces (1986)

Feb: J. Dench, Shakespeare (2024), E. Morris, Colonel Roosevelt (2010), H. Nicholson, Diaries and letters (2004)

Mar: R. Caro, The path to power (1982)

Apr: R. Caro, Master of the senate (2002), R. Caro, The passage of power (2012)

May: A. Patchett, Those precious days (2021)

Jun: - 

Jul: T. Chivers, Everything Is Predictable: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World (2023), C. Adiche, Half of a Yellow Sun (2006)

Aug: H. Chang, Bad Samaritans (2007), J. Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot (1984), Tan Twan Eng, The house of doors (2023)

Sept: - 

Oct: K. Rundell, The poisoned king (2025)

Nov: - 

Dec: - 

Bibliography, December 2025

BOTM: S. Charles, The Medieval Scriptorium (2024)

C. Achebe, There was a country (2013)
A. Berkeley (as F. Iles), Before the fact (1932)
A. Drury, Advise and consent (1959)
M. Grant, Hunger (2010)
T. Harford, How to make the world add up (2020)
S. Mintz, Sweetness and power (1985)
C. Moran, Moranthology (2011)
T. Pratchett, The thief of time (2001)
S. Richards, The prime ministers we never had (2021)
K. Tordasi, Bramble Fox (2022)
G. Treasure, Huguenots (2014)
J. Wood, How fiction works (Revised edition. 2018)

I read widely this month, but not particularly well. Some of these were duffers and I was especially disappointed in Treasure, which was a turgid account of what should be a fascinating history, and Richards, which was facile and unthinkingly partisan. Some good ones here too, though none was a standout. I'm glad I read Wood, but the middle section did disappear into pretention, and Harford was reliably clear and effective, but I've read too many of this type of books. The best of them all was Charles' book on the medieval book production, which was stuffed full of insights and facts. It's a reminder of just how different reading is for us now, and how little attention we pay to that difference when we talk about medieval government. I bought it on sight. I am glad I did.

Bibliography, November 2025

BOTM: A. Aswany, The Yacoubian building (2002)

L. Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom (2016)

J. Lewis-Stempel, The Glorious life of the Oak (2018)
S. Loftus, Puligny-Montrachet (1992)

O. Matthews, Glorious Misadventures (2013)
Y. Ogawa, The Housekeeper and the Professor (2003)
M. Osman, The Ghost theatre (2023)
R. Perlstein, Reaganland (2020)

D.S. Tesdell (ed.) Shaken and Stirred: Intoxicating stories (2016)

I'm in a bit of a reading rut at the moment. Almost all of these were fine. They weren't bad (though Osman was disappointing), but few were really exciting. That's not to say I didn't learn anything. Reaganland, which I thought was the weakest of Perlstein's books, gave up details I am glad I know. Matthews opened a window onto a fascinating life in Russian America, though couldn't quite decide if it was a biography or an account of that view of US history.

However, the best of all was Aswany's Cairene farce, which was good. Like Loftus, it reminded me how alien the recent past is (that's a book I'd love to write). In this case, that's tripled by the fact that it's published in 2002, looking back at the 1990s, about characters who themselves hark back to the 1950s. I suspect it couldn't be written now, and that's a shame. Bizarrely, it reminded me of the aesthetic of The Producers, for some obvious reasons (the gays), and some less so (the precariousness of some long standing, but ramshackle groups in big cities). Someone should do a musical.

Bibliography, October 2025

BOTM: K. Rundell, The poisoned king (2025)

S. Choi, Flashlight (2025)
K. Desai, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny (2025)
G. Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism (2003)

K. Kitamura, Audition (2025)
B. Markovits, The Rest of Our Lives (2025)
A. Miller, The land in winter (2024)
R. Perlstein, The Invisible Bridge (2014)

C. Sheffield, Brother to Dragons (1992)
D. Szalay, Flesh (2025)

Katherine Rundell's book was published too late for the Booker, but it wouldn't have been nominated because it's for children. This is a shame, but it is unquestionably better than half of them, including the winner. It's not quite as good as Impossible Creatures, which was utterly enchanting, but it's still very very good. Like all good fantasy writers, she knows what she's doing with the genre, and she writes lightly and cleverly. My children were delighted to see a 6-7 reference in there too. She's paying attention.

It was also Booker month, so I've read them all. I'm writing this after we know the result, but I didn't know when I read them. It's not a vintage year I think. The depth of the list is far from superb. I woudl only really recommend reading half of them. The concepts behind Kitamura and Szalay I think flaws them as novels too much, and makes frustrating reading. While I'm don't feel they or Markovits had much to say. Desai and Choi were too long, though the core of both was good. I enjoyed them; I'd have enjoyed them more if they had been shorter. Miller was the best, and I think is a very well done miniature of life in a point of change in social and economic shift in the 60s, just before something happens. My ranking:

1. Miller
2. Desai
3. Choi
4. Markovits
5. Kitamura
6. Szalay