I am not buying or borrowing any more books until I read and review the 13 that I bought (for a grand total of £17.50) in London on Friday 10th October 2025. You can see the list and the rationale here. Title: Science for All Author: Anon Year of publication: 1958 Publisher and location: The... Continue Reading →
Pankaj Mishra is an Indian public intellectual. His new book "The World after Gaza" is most definitely worth your time. I will write about its argument, its gaps and its reception (predictably tedious and tediously predictable as that has been in some quarters) at a later date. For now, this. One SERIOUS flaw with the... Continue Reading →
So, gratitude is due to a) the gods for randomly assigning me to be born in a rich country at a time of relative peace (never mind the slow violence) and in a situation where I got a good education without succumbing (in all ways at least) to the indoctrination b) to the genetic lottery... Continue Reading →
There's an American sports journalist (? commentator?) called Warner Wolf, and one of his catchphrases was "let's go to the video tape." It came to mind while I was reading this rather good novel by the late Anita Shreve. The novel is told in mosaic format - chapters told by characters (central and peripheral) before,... Continue Reading →
The war machine eh? It springs to life, opens up one eager eye. It takes in farmboys and factory fodder and turns them into killers, who come home in a casket or deadened in other ways (often, not always). And as soon as the meatcogs are surplus to requirements, then see-ya-wouldn't-wanna-be-ya and you can be... Continue Reading →
This is a terrific thriller, with a nasty but plausible twist in the tail. I will admit, having grown up on 'The Professionals,' that I have a weakness for "pulp" fiction of Eurotrash terrorists terrorising Western European cities for - seemingly - the hell of it. This, however, is a cut above (or several cuts... Continue Reading →
Alison Lurie, I've read a bunch of books and feel that I can mention that there are common themes and methods. Her books tend to involve "smart" people, (or at least people with lots of cultural capital, especially around English Literature,) who think that they know themselves very well. Thanks to their knowledge of narratives,... Continue Reading →
And none shall be saved, not even those whose job it is to do the saving... Wish I'd read this one as a teenager, alongside "The Catcher in the Rye". Oh well. It's a hell of an achievement - a novella (75 pages or so) following the misadventures and mental decline (from a low baseline)... Continue Reading →
So I have a list of 42 books I am supposed to read before ("buying others" - yeah, good luck with that). And I absolutely have not read two Jack Reacher novels in the midst of this. Absolutely not. Now it is over to book 8, (there's no particular order, btw). It is a 2009... Continue Reading →
Love this, but can see it would not be everyone's cup of tea huge slabs of exposition/back story, with only minimal dialogue every few pages. Central characters some will find irritating (various shades of privileged white men blah blah). And animals dying (usually but not exclusively of natural causes) to indicate that Things Are Wrong... Continue Reading →
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