Bibliography, October 2021

BOTM: M. Shipstead, Great circle (2021)

G. Tindall, The fields beneath (1977)
C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins (1938)
N. Gaiman, Norse mythology (2017)
P. Lively, Treasures of time (1979)
P. Lockwood, No-one is talking about this (2021)
M.S. Lovell, The Mitford Girls: The Biography of an Extraordinary Family (2001)
N. Mohamed, The fortune men (2021)
R. Powers, Bewilderment (2021)
B. Pym, Quartet in Autumn (1977)

A chance conversation with Anna revealed that she overwhelmingly reads books published since 2000. I do not: I've read 48 novels this year so far. Eight were published after 2000, and six of those were the Booker shortlist. In comparison, 17 were published before 1960. This seems reasonable to me. It would be a slightly weird position to believe that the majority of great literature was written in two decades when they've been writing good ones in volume for at least fifteen. This month, both Pym and Lively were really good novels: well observed, imaginatively done, and shining a light into stories less often told. Both are older than me. Non-fiction is usually more modern as the scholarship usually needs updating in a way a stories don't. Both Tindall's book on the history of Kentish Town and especially James' classic on Haiti have endured. The Black Jacobins is a product of Marxist theory, which does date it, but James is too good an historian to follow it blindly, and his analysis breaks free of ideology. It remains a shamefully neglected piece of history.

All that said, my favourite book this month was contemporary. I liked a lot of the Booker shortlist. Even Lockwood's sort of twitter one was not as bad as I thought. There were very funny bits. None were outstanding, but a number were decent. Best I thought was Shipstead's Great Circle which runs a strong, deep, central narrative around a female aviator (not a neglected subject) in the early age of flight. It has a secondary, parallel narrative that provides a lighter counterpart, which works really well. But the main narrative is the star - beautifully written, ranging over a wide canvas, and packing real punch at several points. It's not a masterpiece, but it's very good, and it was my favourite.

Rest of the Booker shortlist was tight. Mohamed (Second part) and Powers (first) both wrote very uneven books which, had they sustained them would have pushed them higher. Galgut, the favourite, I found underwhelming. My ranking:

1. Shipstead
2. Arudpragasam
3. Mohamed
4. Powers
5. Galgut
6. Lockwood