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.
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