Guardian top 10 book lists
En/na Guardian top 10 book lists, part 2 (2004 onwards) ha continuat aquest tema.
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1Cynfelyn
The UK newspaper The Guardian (once affectionately known as The Grauniad because of a well-founded reputation for typos, since banished by spell-checkers) has been publishing top 10 book lists by guest contributors since at least 1999. Let's give some of them an airing.
From about 2008 the on-line versions of the lists have additional readers' suggestions 'below the line', but not yet:
From about 2008 the on-line versions of the lists have additional readers' suggestions 'below the line', but not yet:
2Cynfelyn
Richard Gollner's top 10 books on getting published
1999-11-19
Richard Gollner is a literary agent.
1. Barry Turner (ed.), The writer's handbook
Annual reference handbook for all writers, with useful advice and lists of publishers, agents, journals etc. Every kind of market and opportunity for writers is covered.
2. Keith Waterhouse, English our English (and how to sing it)
Short, amusing guide to grammar and how to correct mistakes.
3. R. L. Trask, The Penguin guide to punctuation
A concise and highly readable reference book (though with some debatable idiosyncrasies, such as its horror of footnotes).
4. Susan Curran, How to write a book and get it published : a complete guide to the publishing maze
This is a comprehensive and practical guide.
5. Ansen Dibell, Orson Scott Card and Lewis Turco, How to write a mi££ion : the complete guide to becoming a successful author
An American-biased approach to writing formulaic non-literary commercial fiction. To be consulted with caution, but good on such areas as the advantages of first-person, third-person and omniscient narration.
6. Jack Hodgins, A passion for narrative : a guide to writing fiction
Includes practical advice on getting started and defeating displacement activities.
7. David Michael Kaplan, Rewriting : a creative approach to writing fiction
Strategies for fixing problems, with examples from contemporary writers.
8. Julian Birkett, Word power : a guide to creative writing
Provides material and practical suggestions to help writers give shape to their ideas over a wide range of literary forms. Includes suggestions for subjects and approaches that will help develop skills and critical powers.
9. David Lodge, The practice of writing
Journalism, lectures and diaries by the author and academic, with a useful section on creative writing.
10. Albert J. Zuckerman, Writing the blockbuster novel
How to build a big commercial novel, by a successful New York agent (his clients include Ken Follett). Generally useful, if somewhat formulaic.
1999-11-19
Richard Gollner is a literary agent.
1. Barry Turner (ed.), The writer's handbook
Annual reference handbook for all writers, with useful advice and lists of publishers, agents, journals etc. Every kind of market and opportunity for writers is covered.
2. Keith Waterhouse, English our English (and how to sing it)
Short, amusing guide to grammar and how to correct mistakes.
3. R. L. Trask, The Penguin guide to punctuation
A concise and highly readable reference book (though with some debatable idiosyncrasies, such as its horror of footnotes).
4. Susan Curran, How to write a book and get it published : a complete guide to the publishing maze
This is a comprehensive and practical guide.
5. Ansen Dibell, Orson Scott Card and Lewis Turco, How to write a mi££ion : the complete guide to becoming a successful author
An American-biased approach to writing formulaic non-literary commercial fiction. To be consulted with caution, but good on such areas as the advantages of first-person, third-person and omniscient narration.
6. Jack Hodgins, A passion for narrative : a guide to writing fiction
Includes practical advice on getting started and defeating displacement activities.
7. David Michael Kaplan, Rewriting : a creative approach to writing fiction
Strategies for fixing problems, with examples from contemporary writers.
8. Julian Birkett, Word power : a guide to creative writing
Provides material and practical suggestions to help writers give shape to their ideas over a wide range of literary forms. Includes suggestions for subjects and approaches that will help develop skills and critical powers.
9. David Lodge, The practice of writing
Journalism, lectures and diaries by the author and academic, with a useful section on creative writing.
10. Albert J. Zuckerman, Writing the blockbuster novel
How to build a big commercial novel, by a successful New York agent (his clients include Ken Follett). Generally useful, if somewhat formulaic.
3Cynfelyn
Jon Snow's top 10 reads
1999-11-19.
Jon Snow is a news presenter for Channel Four.
1. Alan Clark, Diaries
The best insight I have ever read into how we are really governed.
2. John Woodward and Carl Bernstein, All the President's men
The best insight into how they are governed.
3. Tom Wolfe, Bonfire of the vanities
The best account of the 90s me-first greed and fuck you attitude I have ever read.
4. Louis de Bernières, Captain Corelli's mandolin
Just a sumptuous read. It made me cry.
5. Michael Foot, Aneurin Bevan
Because it gave me a wonderful insight into post-war Britain.
6. Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit
It tripped my social conscience and infected me for the rest of my life.
7. A. A. Milne, When we were very young
Simply because of childhood nostalgia.
8. Arthur Ransome, Swallows and Amazons
It taught me all I know about survival.
9. Ian McEwan, Enduring love
It has the most gripping first chapter of any book I have ever read.
10. John Wyndham, The day of the triffids
Because it was just so scary. I was terrified by it.
1999-11-19.
Jon Snow is a news presenter for Channel Four.
1. Alan Clark, Diaries
The best insight I have ever read into how we are really governed.
2. John Woodward and Carl Bernstein, All the President's men
The best insight into how they are governed.
3. Tom Wolfe, Bonfire of the vanities
The best account of the 90s me-first greed and fuck you attitude I have ever read.
4. Louis de Bernières, Captain Corelli's mandolin
Just a sumptuous read. It made me cry.
5. Michael Foot, Aneurin Bevan
Because it gave me a wonderful insight into post-war Britain.
6. Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit
It tripped my social conscience and infected me for the rest of my life.
7. A. A. Milne, When we were very young
Simply because of childhood nostalgia.
8. Arthur Ransome, Swallows and Amazons
It taught me all I know about survival.
9. Ian McEwan, Enduring love
It has the most gripping first chapter of any book I have ever read.
10. John Wyndham, The day of the triffids
Because it was just so scary. I was terrified by it.
4ironjaw
What a great list. I do like the one sentence review and/or insight. Have to pick up Alan Clark’s Diaries - have been pondering about this title for a while.
5PossMan
I've been unsubscribing from lots of mailing lists (lack of time to digest) but I've kept the Guardian daily news one and also the weekly (Sunday) book news and reviews.
6gilroy
https://www.librarything.com/search.php?search=guardian&searchtype=lists&...
https://www.librarything.com/search.php?search=guardian+10&searchtype=8&...
A few people have entered these lists as lists and as awards...
https://www.librarything.com/search.php?search=guardian+10&searchtype=8&...
A few people have entered these lists as lists and as awards...
7Cynfelyn
>4 ironjaw: Alan Clark's Diaries also get a mensh in the next list.
>5 PossMan: My favourite part of the Guardian is the Review section on Saturdays. We only get Saturday's Guardian and Sunday's Observer, and rely in the interwebs for the rest of the week, when I find myself spending too much time BTL of the UK Politics live feed; it probably counts as doomscrolling. Must stop it.
>6 gilroy: There's a few, but I thought I'd be a bit more systematic.
>5 PossMan: My favourite part of the Guardian is the Review section on Saturdays. We only get Saturday's Guardian and Sunday's Observer, and rely in the interwebs for the rest of the week, when I find myself spending too much time BTL of the UK Politics live feed; it probably counts as doomscrolling. Must stop it.
>6 gilroy: There's a few, but I thought I'd be a bit more systematic.
8Cynfelyn
Ewen MacAskill's top 10 politics books
1999-11-25
Ewen MacAskill is the Guardian's chief political correspondent.
1. Donald MacIntyre, Mandelson
The title suggests this book is biography, but it goes much wider than that: it is in fact a history of the Labour Party over the last 13 years. MacIntyre, a political columnist on the Independent at the time, has done lots of research and produced an authoritative work. Unfortunately, for legal reasons, the hardback has been pulped.
2. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist manifesto
Part of the coursework in the first year of my politics degree - huge excitement at reading a book that had had such an impact on this century, or at least the first three quarters of it.
3. Alan Clark, Diaries
Great on the atmosphere during the Thatcher years and the relationship between journalists and MPs.
4. Henry Pelling, Origins of the Labour Party, 1880-1900
Another book from university days, and still worth going back to for a reminder of the motivations and ideals that led to the birth of the Labour Party.
5. Anonymous, Primary colors
Although written as fiction, the cynicism and manipulation contained in this novel is more than matched by real-life spin-doctors.
6. Paul Routledge, Gordon Brown: The Biography
Routledge, Mirror columnist, veteran hack and great survivor, turns out biographies at speed. This one showed up the fault-line in the Labour government: the lingering resentment of Brown that he is not prime minister. It had an impact on politics in 1998, temporarily creating bad feeling between the Blair and Brown camps and contributing to a cull of Brown supporters in government in that summer's reshuffle.
7. Hugo Young, One of Us
The Guardian columnist's definitive biography of Margaret Thatcher.
8. Denis Healey, Time of my life
Shows huge conceit, but is well written and terrific on Labour in the immediate post-war years.
9. Kevin Toolis, Rebel hearts : journeys within the IRA's soul
Lots of journalists had tried to explain where the IRA came from - what motivated them and who led them. Maybe Toolis was lucky in that he began writing about the IRA at a time when they were less secretive than before: but he is a good writer and made the most of his timing, demystifying a movement.
10. Steve Bell, If... cartoon compilations
You'll need a laugh if you read that lot. But as well as humour, the Guardian's resident political cartoonist provides lots of insights into the Thatcher, Major and Blair years - and annoys the hell out of lots of the politicians who feature in his frames.
1999-11-25
Ewen MacAskill is the Guardian's chief political correspondent.
1. Donald MacIntyre, Mandelson
The title suggests this book is biography, but it goes much wider than that: it is in fact a history of the Labour Party over the last 13 years. MacIntyre, a political columnist on the Independent at the time, has done lots of research and produced an authoritative work. Unfortunately, for legal reasons, the hardback has been pulped.
2. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist manifesto
Part of the coursework in the first year of my politics degree - huge excitement at reading a book that had had such an impact on this century, or at least the first three quarters of it.
3. Alan Clark, Diaries
Great on the atmosphere during the Thatcher years and the relationship between journalists and MPs.
4. Henry Pelling, Origins of the Labour Party, 1880-1900
Another book from university days, and still worth going back to for a reminder of the motivations and ideals that led to the birth of the Labour Party.
5. Anonymous, Primary colors
Although written as fiction, the cynicism and manipulation contained in this novel is more than matched by real-life spin-doctors.
6. Paul Routledge, Gordon Brown: The Biography
Routledge, Mirror columnist, veteran hack and great survivor, turns out biographies at speed. This one showed up the fault-line in the Labour government: the lingering resentment of Brown that he is not prime minister. It had an impact on politics in 1998, temporarily creating bad feeling between the Blair and Brown camps and contributing to a cull of Brown supporters in government in that summer's reshuffle.
7. Hugo Young, One of Us
The Guardian columnist's definitive biography of Margaret Thatcher.
8. Denis Healey, Time of my life
Shows huge conceit, but is well written and terrific on Labour in the immediate post-war years.
9. Kevin Toolis, Rebel hearts : journeys within the IRA's soul
Lots of journalists had tried to explain where the IRA came from - what motivated them and who led them. Maybe Toolis was lucky in that he began writing about the IRA at a time when they were less secretive than before: but he is a good writer and made the most of his timing, demystifying a movement.
10. Steve Bell, If... cartoon compilations
You'll need a laugh if you read that lot. But as well as humour, the Guardian's resident political cartoonist provides lots of insights into the Thatcher, Major and Blair years - and annoys the hell out of lots of the politicians who feature in his frames.
9Cynfelyn
Alan Rusbridger's top 10 journalism books
1999-11-26
Alan Rusbridger is editor of the Guardian.
1. Letters of Junius (1768-1772)
No one ever knew who Junius was - but this collection of anonymous articles, which appeared in the London Public Advertiser and got the printers and publishers tried for "seditious libel", is required reading for anyone interested in the history of a free press in Britain.
2. Peter Chippindale and Chris Horrie, Stick it up your punter! (1990)
Anarchic account of the history of the Sun and Kelvin MacKenzie's years as Editor. Could be ascript for Carry On Up Fleet Street.
3. Harry Evans, Good Times, Bad Times (1983)
Professional autobiography of Evans in the days when he was known as the greatest editor of them all, rather than as Mr Tina Brown. Gripping accounts of his Thalidomide and Murdoch battles.
4. Hugh Cudlipp, Publish and be damned (1953)
The other great post-war editor: this is Cudlipp's account of editing the Mirror.
5. Evelyn Waugh, Scoop (1938)
As the classic novel of Fleet Street, never bettered...
6. Michael Frayn, Towards the end of the morning (1967)
... although Frayn comes close with this novel which may or may not be loosely based on the Guardian.
7. Neville Cardus, Autobiography (1947)
Days of cricket and music not so loosely based on the Guardian.
8. Francis Williams, Dangerous estate (1957)
300 years of potted newspaper history in a book which feels surprisingly contemporary.
9. Anthony Lewis, Make no law (1991)
Inspirational account of Sullivan v New York Times, the great 1960 libel case which to a large extent liberated the American press from fear of libel actions when writing about public figures.
10. Various, C. P. Scott
Centenary festchrift for the great editor (for 57 years!) of the Manchester Guardian.
1999-11-26
Alan Rusbridger is editor of the Guardian.
1. Letters of Junius (1768-1772)
No one ever knew who Junius was - but this collection of anonymous articles, which appeared in the London Public Advertiser and got the printers and publishers tried for "seditious libel", is required reading for anyone interested in the history of a free press in Britain.
2. Peter Chippindale and Chris Horrie, Stick it up your punter! (1990)
Anarchic account of the history of the Sun and Kelvin MacKenzie's years as Editor. Could be ascript for Carry On Up Fleet Street.
3. Harry Evans, Good Times, Bad Times (1983)
Professional autobiography of Evans in the days when he was known as the greatest editor of them all, rather than as Mr Tina Brown. Gripping accounts of his Thalidomide and Murdoch battles.
4. Hugh Cudlipp, Publish and be damned (1953)
The other great post-war editor: this is Cudlipp's account of editing the Mirror.
5. Evelyn Waugh, Scoop (1938)
As the classic novel of Fleet Street, never bettered...
6. Michael Frayn, Towards the end of the morning (1967)
... although Frayn comes close with this novel which may or may not be loosely based on the Guardian.
7. Neville Cardus, Autobiography (1947)
Days of cricket and music not so loosely based on the Guardian.
8. Francis Williams, Dangerous estate (1957)
300 years of potted newspaper history in a book which feels surprisingly contemporary.
9. Anthony Lewis, Make no law (1991)
Inspirational account of Sullivan v New York Times, the great 1960 libel case which to a large extent liberated the American press from fear of libel actions when writing about public figures.
10. Various, C. P. Scott
Centenary festchrift for the great editor (for 57 years!) of the Manchester Guardian.
10ironjaw
>7 Cynfelyn: interesting and thank you for reminding me. I forgot how much I enjoyed Guardian’s Saturday review. Switching off the TV and reading a weekend newspaper (I want to start the Sunday Times more of prosperity and a reminiscence of the past as my grandfather living in Uganda during when it was a British colony, used to read it after playing tennis on the weekends)
11Cynfelyn
Malcolm Gluck's top 10 wine books
1999-11-26
Malcolm Gluck is the Guardian's wine correspondent, contributing a weekly Saturday column entitled 'Superplonk' since 1989, and consultant wine editor to Sainsbury's. He produces three annual wine guides: a summer Superplonk and a winter Superplonk on supermarket wine, plus Streetplonk, featuring wines on sale in the high-street chains). He has presented a BBC2 TV series on wine and his new book is The sensational liquid - a guide to wine tasting.
1. Burton Anderson, Vino : the wines and winemakers of Italy
Now somewhat out of date, but a tremendous book nonetheless on the most complicated and impossible-to-classify wine country on the planet. Gallops a dusty trail gallantly and expeditiously, charting fascinating encounters with wine growers from every region in Italy.
2. Rosemary George, French country wines
An essential guide to the lesser known wines and regions of France, well written and pertinently organised.
3. John Livingston-Learmonth, The wines of the Rhone
A magnificent and unrivalled guide to the wines, vineyards, growers, wine practices and problems of one of the world's most compelling regions. Solidly written, excitingly so at times, and superbly researched and well organised.
4. Robert Parker, The wine buyer's guide
A periodic updating and listing of wines (some 7,500 of them) from all the world's major wine regions by the world's most independently minded outsider and systematic taster in the world. Parker works for no one but himself (and his adoring readers, who follow his meticulous rating system religiously) and is a grand writer - passionate, unstuffy, and he knows his own well-stocked mind.
5. Jancis Robinson (ed.), The Oxford companion to wine
An essential encyclopaedia which delves into everything vinous, from Abscisic acid to Zwiegelt. Over 1,000 pages of insight and up-to-date information from a phalanx of authorities.
6. Jancis Robinson, Vines, grapes and wines
A splendidly comprehensive, elegantly illustrated and well written book: unflinchingly well organised for so massive a subject as the world's wine grapes. An essential book for the taster who wishes to advance his or her knowledge of hundreds of grape varieties.
7. Hugh Johnson, The story of wine
The history of wine, extensively illustrated by a man with a fluent and unclichéd pen.
8. James Halliday and Hugh Johnson, The art and science of wine : the winemaker's option in the vineyard and the cellar
Systematically covers all vineyard practices, is well and pertinently illustrated, and not the least bit stuffy or pretentious. A very useful book.
9. Andrew Barr, Wine snobbery : an insider's guide to the booze business
This book received more writs than any wine book in history - yet, after the dust settled and certain amendments were made, we were richly entertained by an iconoclastic and lively individual to whom, I may as well admit, I owe more than I do to any other wine writer.
10. Robin Yapp, Drilling for wine
The man who, as the dentist who inspired the title, first introduced me in early 1970 to the obscure wines of the Rhone. Mr Yapp is now a successful wine merchant, and this is a fascinating ramble through wines.
11. Patrick Matthews, The wild bunch : great wines from small producers
This is less a wine guide than a timeless stroll through certain wine regions. It recounts meetings with small wine growers and other feisty characters, presenting as it ambles along an eclectic panorama of prejudices and predilections.
1999-11-26
Malcolm Gluck is the Guardian's wine correspondent, contributing a weekly Saturday column entitled 'Superplonk' since 1989, and consultant wine editor to Sainsbury's. He produces three annual wine guides: a summer Superplonk and a winter Superplonk on supermarket wine, plus Streetplonk, featuring wines on sale in the high-street chains). He has presented a BBC2 TV series on wine and his new book is The sensational liquid - a guide to wine tasting.
1. Burton Anderson, Vino : the wines and winemakers of Italy
Now somewhat out of date, but a tremendous book nonetheless on the most complicated and impossible-to-classify wine country on the planet. Gallops a dusty trail gallantly and expeditiously, charting fascinating encounters with wine growers from every region in Italy.
2. Rosemary George, French country wines
An essential guide to the lesser known wines and regions of France, well written and pertinently organised.
3. John Livingston-Learmonth, The wines of the Rhone
A magnificent and unrivalled guide to the wines, vineyards, growers, wine practices and problems of one of the world's most compelling regions. Solidly written, excitingly so at times, and superbly researched and well organised.
4. Robert Parker, The wine buyer's guide
A periodic updating and listing of wines (some 7,500 of them) from all the world's major wine regions by the world's most independently minded outsider and systematic taster in the world. Parker works for no one but himself (and his adoring readers, who follow his meticulous rating system religiously) and is a grand writer - passionate, unstuffy, and he knows his own well-stocked mind.
5. Jancis Robinson (ed.), The Oxford companion to wine
An essential encyclopaedia which delves into everything vinous, from Abscisic acid to Zwiegelt. Over 1,000 pages of insight and up-to-date information from a phalanx of authorities.
6. Jancis Robinson, Vines, grapes and wines
A splendidly comprehensive, elegantly illustrated and well written book: unflinchingly well organised for so massive a subject as the world's wine grapes. An essential book for the taster who wishes to advance his or her knowledge of hundreds of grape varieties.
7. Hugh Johnson, The story of wine
The history of wine, extensively illustrated by a man with a fluent and unclichéd pen.
8. James Halliday and Hugh Johnson, The art and science of wine : the winemaker's option in the vineyard and the cellar
Systematically covers all vineyard practices, is well and pertinently illustrated, and not the least bit stuffy or pretentious. A very useful book.
9. Andrew Barr, Wine snobbery : an insider's guide to the booze business
This book received more writs than any wine book in history - yet, after the dust settled and certain amendments were made, we were richly entertained by an iconoclastic and lively individual to whom, I may as well admit, I owe more than I do to any other wine writer.
10. Robin Yapp, Drilling for wine
The man who, as the dentist who inspired the title, first introduced me in early 1970 to the obscure wines of the Rhone. Mr Yapp is now a successful wine merchant, and this is a fascinating ramble through wines.
11. Patrick Matthews, The wild bunch : great wines from small producers
This is less a wine guide than a timeless stroll through certain wine regions. It recounts meetings with small wine growers and other feisty characters, presenting as it ambles along an eclectic panorama of prejudices and predilections.
12Cynfelyn
John Dugdale's top 10 media books
1999-11-26
John Dugdale is the deputy media editor of the Guardian and a contributor to the Sunday Times, The Listener, The Face, Arena, The New Statesman and the New Yorker.
1. Tom Wolfe & EW Johnson (ed's), The new journalism
Includes pieces from, besides Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, Joan Didion, Truman Capote, George Plimpton and Michael Herr, and shows that Wolfe's "new journalism" lies behind much contemporary newspaper and magazine writing, from profiles to political reporting, and not just (as is often assumed) style journalism.
2. Nicholas Coleridge, Paper tigers
Press barons from Wapping to Hong Kong, profiled by the UK head of Condé Nast magazines.
3. Robert Harris, The media trilogy
Brings together his books on the Hitler diaries fiasco, Bernard Ingham and coverage of the Falklands war, showing him to be as brilliant a non-fiction writer as he is a novelist.
4. Marshall McLuhan, Understanding media
The most comprehensive book by the Canadian theorist who was the first to see the media as an ensemble. In true 60s style, his ideas (eg "the medium is the message") are provocations rather than arguments obeying academic rules.
5. Roland Barthes, Mythologies
Not strictly a media book - it analyses a variety of cultural phenomena, from steak to the Tour de France - but it strays into media territory and its style of witty intelligence lies behind much of the work in media studies and pop-culture journalism.
6. Judith Williamson, Decoding advertisements
Barthes' approach applied to ads, with feminism giving the analysis extra bite.
7. Matthew Engel, Tickle the public
An entertaining history of Britain's popular press by the Guardian writer.
8. Paul Donovan, The radio companion
A unique and authoritative reference work, and also a nostalgic browse, by the Sunday Times's radio critic.
9. Peter Chippindale and Chris Horrie, Stick it up your punter!
A hilarious portrait of Kelvin MacKenzie's Sun in the 80s, which inspired a similar satirical study of the BSB and L!ve TV fiascos.
10. William Shawcross, Rupert Murdoch
Treats the titan too leniently, but it's still the most comprehensive and most recent full-length study.
1999-11-26
John Dugdale is the deputy media editor of the Guardian and a contributor to the Sunday Times, The Listener, The Face, Arena, The New Statesman and the New Yorker.
1. Tom Wolfe & EW Johnson (ed's), The new journalism
Includes pieces from, besides Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, Joan Didion, Truman Capote, George Plimpton and Michael Herr, and shows that Wolfe's "new journalism" lies behind much contemporary newspaper and magazine writing, from profiles to political reporting, and not just (as is often assumed) style journalism.
2. Nicholas Coleridge, Paper tigers
Press barons from Wapping to Hong Kong, profiled by the UK head of Condé Nast magazines.
3. Robert Harris, The media trilogy
Brings together his books on the Hitler diaries fiasco, Bernard Ingham and coverage of the Falklands war, showing him to be as brilliant a non-fiction writer as he is a novelist.
4. Marshall McLuhan, Understanding media
The most comprehensive book by the Canadian theorist who was the first to see the media as an ensemble. In true 60s style, his ideas (eg "the medium is the message") are provocations rather than arguments obeying academic rules.
5. Roland Barthes, Mythologies
Not strictly a media book - it analyses a variety of cultural phenomena, from steak to the Tour de France - but it strays into media territory and its style of witty intelligence lies behind much of the work in media studies and pop-culture journalism.
6. Judith Williamson, Decoding advertisements
Barthes' approach applied to ads, with feminism giving the analysis extra bite.
7. Matthew Engel, Tickle the public
An entertaining history of Britain's popular press by the Guardian writer.
8. Paul Donovan, The radio companion
A unique and authoritative reference work, and also a nostalgic browse, by the Sunday Times's radio critic.
9. Peter Chippindale and Chris Horrie, Stick it up your punter!
A hilarious portrait of Kelvin MacKenzie's Sun in the 80s, which inspired a similar satirical study of the BSB and L!ve TV fiascos.
10. William Shawcross, Rupert Murdoch
Treats the titan too leniently, but it's still the most comprehensive and most recent full-length study.
13Cynfelyn
Gary Younge's top 10 travel books
1999-12-02
Gary Younge is a Guardian journalist. His book No place like home, which was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, is part travel book, part inquiry into cultural history.
1. Ryszard Kapuściński, The soccer war
A brilliantly crafted portrayal of the human condition as it thrives and survives during times of great adversity in Africa and Central America.
2. Isobel Fonseca, Bury me standing
Sensitive and authoritative account of romany life, values and suffering in Eastern Europe.
3. Irma Kurtz, The great American bus ride
Very funny romp around America with a lively mind and several Greyhound buses.
4. Jonathan Raban, Bad land
Anyone who thought that America's pioneering culture was buried in its history should read this account of how life in Montana at the turn of the century continues to inform life in the West today.
5. Eva Hoffman, Exit into history
An perceptive and incisive journey around Eastern Europe shortly after the wall came down.
6. Bill Bryson, Notes from a big country
Bryson at his best, although having met him in America it's an experience I'd rather not repeat.
7. Langston Hughes, I wander as I wonder
One of America's greatest writers in a bizarre journey around the former Soviet Union and Caucasus exposing just how little the Soviets ever understood racial politics.
8. Angela Davies, If they come in the morning
Primarily an ideological journey as Macarthyism chases what was America's most wanted woman around the country on a trumped-up charge.
9. Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and loathing in Las Vegas
Las Vegas through hallucinogens seems about the only reasonable way to handle it.
10. Rian Malan, My traitor's heart
Thoroughly racist, thoroughly engaging excursion into the mind of an Afrikaaner in South Africa before the end of Apartheid.
1999-12-02
Gary Younge is a Guardian journalist. His book No place like home, which was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, is part travel book, part inquiry into cultural history.
1. Ryszard Kapuściński, The soccer war
A brilliantly crafted portrayal of the human condition as it thrives and survives during times of great adversity in Africa and Central America.
2. Isobel Fonseca, Bury me standing
Sensitive and authoritative account of romany life, values and suffering in Eastern Europe.
3. Irma Kurtz, The great American bus ride
Very funny romp around America with a lively mind and several Greyhound buses.
4. Jonathan Raban, Bad land
Anyone who thought that America's pioneering culture was buried in its history should read this account of how life in Montana at the turn of the century continues to inform life in the West today.
5. Eva Hoffman, Exit into history
An perceptive and incisive journey around Eastern Europe shortly after the wall came down.
6. Bill Bryson, Notes from a big country
Bryson at his best, although having met him in America it's an experience I'd rather not repeat.
7. Langston Hughes, I wander as I wonder
One of America's greatest writers in a bizarre journey around the former Soviet Union and Caucasus exposing just how little the Soviets ever understood racial politics.
8. Angela Davies, If they come in the morning
Primarily an ideological journey as Macarthyism chases what was America's most wanted woman around the country on a trumped-up charge.
9. Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and loathing in Las Vegas
Las Vegas through hallucinogens seems about the only reasonable way to handle it.
10. Rian Malan, My traitor's heart
Thoroughly racist, thoroughly engaging excursion into the mind of an Afrikaaner in South Africa before the end of Apartheid.
14Cynfelyn
Alice Nutter's top 10 music books
1999-12-10
Alice Nutter is a member of radical rock group Chumbawamba.
1. Penny Rimbaud aka JJ Ratter, Shibboleth : my revolting life
Crass were austere and funny, and Penny Rimbaud was the drummer no one would have told "thick drummer" jokes about. Shibboleth provides a glimpse of how Crass functioned as a musical and ideological unit; the audacity of Crass's assault on pop culture is hinted at, but Rimbaud plays down the dogged determination and mental agility which made Crass so different from all the other pissed punks.
2. Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond, The manual : how to have a number one the easy way
Essential reading for anybody planning an assault on the airwaves by rock 'n' roll mavericks Cauty and Drummond. It worked for them.
3. Simone Berteaut, Piaf
Piaf's life was as unconventional as her voice: abandoned by her mother and living on the streets as a kid, she went from brothels to Paris's best hotels and back again. As fragile as a tank, she could take a plentiful supply of drugs and men. As she got older the men got younger. No wonder she had no regrets.
4. Peter Guralnick, Last train to Memphis : the rise of Elvis Presley
For once Elvis isn't overshadowed by the myth or the bloated stereotype of the Vegas years. This is young Elvis, growing up with black gospel music and poverty. Lennon said that Elvis died the day he entered the army and this biography stops at that point. Reading Guralnick, it's easy to see why we're all mad about the boy.
5. Greil Marcus, Lipstick traces
Linking the cultural revolution that was punk rock to Da Da, 1968 and situationism, Greil traces an ancestral line through this century's blasphemous political and musical upstarts.
6. Martin Duberman, Paul Robeson
Robeson had a voice deeper than a pit shaft and the will to fight for black rights and communism at a time when supporting either was enough to get a black man lynched. McCarthy named Robeson as his personal nemesis and took away his passport and his right to perform. Robeson refused to recant his beliefs in a succession of witch trials and his bravery meant he was relegated to obscurity. One of America's great unsung heroes: anybody interested in black music or the forerunners of the civil rights movement should read this book.
7. Negativland Advertisement, The story of the letter U and the numeral 2
In 1991 Negativland released a single called U2. It contained parodies of a U2 song and an out-take of the orange-skinned DJ Casey Casem introducing a U2 song. There was also a 35-second blast of the stadium rockers at their most sincere. This book is the story of the ensuing legal battles for trademark and copyright infringement. The classic tale of the corporation firing an arsenal at the little man: if U2 had a sense of humour they'd have let the Negativland single pass, but they wouldn't know a joke if it bit them in the buttock. Negativland fought back, and in the process raised the issue of who owns culture.
8. Ronin Ro, Have gun, will travel
How white suburban kids lapped up gangsta rap while white record executives made a financial killing - and black record executives and rappers just killed each other. In the midst of all the blood and guts there's a cautionary tale about gangsta rappers believing, and acting on, their own mythology.
9. Jon Savage, England's dreaming
This is a detailed dissection of post-war Britain and the array of forces which came together to shape youth culture, of which punk rock was a defining moment, with reverberations still being felt today. Looking at the grinning scrubbed faces of today's boy and girl bands makes you want to pour oil over the stage before they step up to do their dance routines. Seems like the time is ripe for another cultural revolution.
10. Aerosmith and Stephen Davis, Walk this way : the autobiography of Aerosmith
In the classic rock'n'roll tradition of balling air hostesses at seven miles high while freebasing small children as a tribe of A&R men lick Steven Tyler's arse.
(Cynfelyn : amazingly, Alice Nutter isn't available as an LT author, so I've had to make do with a touchstone to Chumbawamba).
1999-12-10
Alice Nutter is a member of radical rock group Chumbawamba.
1. Penny Rimbaud aka JJ Ratter, Shibboleth : my revolting life
Crass were austere and funny, and Penny Rimbaud was the drummer no one would have told "thick drummer" jokes about. Shibboleth provides a glimpse of how Crass functioned as a musical and ideological unit; the audacity of Crass's assault on pop culture is hinted at, but Rimbaud plays down the dogged determination and mental agility which made Crass so different from all the other pissed punks.
2. Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond, The manual : how to have a number one the easy way
Essential reading for anybody planning an assault on the airwaves by rock 'n' roll mavericks Cauty and Drummond. It worked for them.
3. Simone Berteaut, Piaf
Piaf's life was as unconventional as her voice: abandoned by her mother and living on the streets as a kid, she went from brothels to Paris's best hotels and back again. As fragile as a tank, she could take a plentiful supply of drugs and men. As she got older the men got younger. No wonder she had no regrets.
4. Peter Guralnick, Last train to Memphis : the rise of Elvis Presley
For once Elvis isn't overshadowed by the myth or the bloated stereotype of the Vegas years. This is young Elvis, growing up with black gospel music and poverty. Lennon said that Elvis died the day he entered the army and this biography stops at that point. Reading Guralnick, it's easy to see why we're all mad about the boy.
5. Greil Marcus, Lipstick traces
Linking the cultural revolution that was punk rock to Da Da, 1968 and situationism, Greil traces an ancestral line through this century's blasphemous political and musical upstarts.
6. Martin Duberman, Paul Robeson
Robeson had a voice deeper than a pit shaft and the will to fight for black rights and communism at a time when supporting either was enough to get a black man lynched. McCarthy named Robeson as his personal nemesis and took away his passport and his right to perform. Robeson refused to recant his beliefs in a succession of witch trials and his bravery meant he was relegated to obscurity. One of America's great unsung heroes: anybody interested in black music or the forerunners of the civil rights movement should read this book.
7. Negativland Advertisement, The story of the letter U and the numeral 2
In 1991 Negativland released a single called U2. It contained parodies of a U2 song and an out-take of the orange-skinned DJ Casey Casem introducing a U2 song. There was also a 35-second blast of the stadium rockers at their most sincere. This book is the story of the ensuing legal battles for trademark and copyright infringement. The classic tale of the corporation firing an arsenal at the little man: if U2 had a sense of humour they'd have let the Negativland single pass, but they wouldn't know a joke if it bit them in the buttock. Negativland fought back, and in the process raised the issue of who owns culture.
8. Ronin Ro, Have gun, will travel
How white suburban kids lapped up gangsta rap while white record executives made a financial killing - and black record executives and rappers just killed each other. In the midst of all the blood and guts there's a cautionary tale about gangsta rappers believing, and acting on, their own mythology.
9. Jon Savage, England's dreaming
This is a detailed dissection of post-war Britain and the array of forces which came together to shape youth culture, of which punk rock was a defining moment, with reverberations still being felt today. Looking at the grinning scrubbed faces of today's boy and girl bands makes you want to pour oil over the stage before they step up to do their dance routines. Seems like the time is ripe for another cultural revolution.
10. Aerosmith and Stephen Davis, Walk this way : the autobiography of Aerosmith
In the classic rock'n'roll tradition of balling air hostesses at seven miles high while freebasing small children as a tribe of A&R men lick Steven Tyler's arse.
(Cynfelyn : amazingly, Alice Nutter isn't available as an LT author, so I've had to make do with a touchstone to Chumbawamba).
15Cynfelyn
Steve Bell's top 10 comic books
1999-12-10
Steve Bell's cartoon strip If... has appeared in the Guardian for many years. A compilation of 20 years of his work, Bell's eye, is published by Methuen.
1. George Perry and Alan Aldridge, The Penguin book of comics
This seminal volume, first published in 1967, introduced me to a whole raft of comic delights, including Barney Google and Robert Crumb's Fritz the Cat.
2. The Beezer Book 1959/60
This could equally be any Beano annual from the late 50s into the early 60s. It features much great work from the likes of Leo Baxendale (Bash St Kids, Banana Bunch, Little Plum), Dudley Watkins (Lord Snooty, Jimmy & His Magic Patch), Ken Reid (Jonah) and Davey Law (Dennis the Menace).
3. Art Spiegelman, Maus: a survivor's tale
The comic as a historical document. Spiegelman's record of his parents' experience of the nazi death camp at Auschwitz is deceptively simple and very compelling.
4. Posy Simmonds, True love
My favourite of several compilations of Posy's wonderful strip, which ran for many years in the Guardian through the 70s and 80s and is still sorely missed. Gemma Bovery came like sweet rain after a long drought.
5. Raymond Briggs, Father Christmas and Father Christmas goes on holiday
Funny, deadpan and sumptuously drawn. When a friend first showed me this book my jaw dropped and I drooled, because it was exactly the sort of thing I'd always wanted to do rather than teaching - which was what I was doing at the time.
6. The Penguin Charles Addams
This introduced me to Addams's delightfully sick suburban world. Packed with classics. Shepherd with flock of sheep to middle-aged lady standing at door of neat suburban house: "Crop Thy Lawn, Lady?" Man (with wife in background) to railway ticket office clerk: "A round trip and a one-way to Ausable Chasm."
7. Nicholas Garland and Barry Humphries, The complete Barry Mckenzie
Compilation of Private Eye's greatest-ever strip, about an innocent Australian with a unique vocabulary abroad in London.
8. Bryan Talbot, One bad rat
Harrowing but beautifully told tale of child sexual abuse. Meticulously drawn.
9. David Zane Mairowitz and Robert Crumb, Kafka for beginners
Anything by Crumb would go on my list, but this recent study of Kafka is particularly fascinating.
10. Richard Appignanesi and Chris Garrett, Postmodernism for beginners
A very handy guide to the insane contradictions of postmodernist thought, told in the perfect form for such a study - the comic book. Drawn by Chris Garrett of Biff fame.
1999-12-10
Steve Bell's cartoon strip If... has appeared in the Guardian for many years. A compilation of 20 years of his work, Bell's eye, is published by Methuen.
1. George Perry and Alan Aldridge, The Penguin book of comics
This seminal volume, first published in 1967, introduced me to a whole raft of comic delights, including Barney Google and Robert Crumb's Fritz the Cat.
2. The Beezer Book 1959/60
This could equally be any Beano annual from the late 50s into the early 60s. It features much great work from the likes of Leo Baxendale (Bash St Kids, Banana Bunch, Little Plum), Dudley Watkins (Lord Snooty, Jimmy & His Magic Patch), Ken Reid (Jonah) and Davey Law (Dennis the Menace).
3. Art Spiegelman, Maus: a survivor's tale
The comic as a historical document. Spiegelman's record of his parents' experience of the nazi death camp at Auschwitz is deceptively simple and very compelling.
4. Posy Simmonds, True love
My favourite of several compilations of Posy's wonderful strip, which ran for many years in the Guardian through the 70s and 80s and is still sorely missed. Gemma Bovery came like sweet rain after a long drought.
5. Raymond Briggs, Father Christmas and Father Christmas goes on holiday
Funny, deadpan and sumptuously drawn. When a friend first showed me this book my jaw dropped and I drooled, because it was exactly the sort of thing I'd always wanted to do rather than teaching - which was what I was doing at the time.
6. The Penguin Charles Addams
This introduced me to Addams's delightfully sick suburban world. Packed with classics. Shepherd with flock of sheep to middle-aged lady standing at door of neat suburban house: "Crop Thy Lawn, Lady?" Man (with wife in background) to railway ticket office clerk: "A round trip and a one-way to Ausable Chasm."
7. Nicholas Garland and Barry Humphries, The complete Barry Mckenzie
Compilation of Private Eye's greatest-ever strip, about an innocent Australian with a unique vocabulary abroad in London.
8. Bryan Talbot, One bad rat
Harrowing but beautifully told tale of child sexual abuse. Meticulously drawn.
9. David Zane Mairowitz and Robert Crumb, Kafka for beginners
Anything by Crumb would go on my list, but this recent study of Kafka is particularly fascinating.
10. Richard Appignanesi and Chris Garrett, Postmodernism for beginners
A very handy guide to the insane contradictions of postmodernist thought, told in the perfect form for such a study - the comic book. Drawn by Chris Garrett of Biff fame.
16Cynfelyn
Tariq Ali's top 10 reads
1999-12-10
Tariq Ali's latest novel, The clash of fundamentalisms : crusades, jihads and modernity, is published in hardcover by Verso.
1. Robert Irwin, Night and horses and the desert : an anthology of classical Arab literature
Satire, erotic poetry by Arab women writers and many other joys await the reader in this brilliantly recreated forgotten medieval world.
2. J. Arch Getty and Oleg V Naumov, The road to terror
The first account of the top-secret Soviet documents revealing how Stalin carried out his purges.
3. Louis Althusser (transl. Gregory Elliot), Machiavelli and us
A brilliant introduction to Machiavelli by one of France's leading twentieth-century philosophers.
4. Varda, The rites of men : manhood, politics and the culture of sport
A thoughtful, devastating feminist critique of contemporary sport.
5. Imre Lakatos and Paul Feyerabend, For and against method
A stimulating exchange of letters on philosophy by two philosophical entertainers.
6. Peter Gowan, The global gamble : Washington's faustian bid for world dominance
This book coincided with the Balkan war and has deservedly acquired a cult following.
7. Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's ghost : a story of greed, terror and heroism in colonial Africa
This book tells the story of an African holocaust that marked the Congo for a century.
8. Serge Filippini, The man in flames
An engaging historical novel based on the life of Giordano Bruno, the heretic philosopher burned in Rome 400 years ago.
9. Edward Said, Out of place : a memoir
A trenchant self-analysis by the leading Palestinian critic which reads like a novel.
10. T. J. Clark, Farewell to an idea : episodes from a history of modernism
My favourite book of 1999, with incredible illustrations and a brilliant analysis of twentieth-century art.
1999-12-10
Tariq Ali's latest novel, The clash of fundamentalisms : crusades, jihads and modernity, is published in hardcover by Verso.
1. Robert Irwin, Night and horses and the desert : an anthology of classical Arab literature
Satire, erotic poetry by Arab women writers and many other joys await the reader in this brilliantly recreated forgotten medieval world.
2. J. Arch Getty and Oleg V Naumov, The road to terror
The first account of the top-secret Soviet documents revealing how Stalin carried out his purges.
3. Louis Althusser (transl. Gregory Elliot), Machiavelli and us
A brilliant introduction to Machiavelli by one of France's leading twentieth-century philosophers.
4. Varda, The rites of men : manhood, politics and the culture of sport
A thoughtful, devastating feminist critique of contemporary sport.
5. Imre Lakatos and Paul Feyerabend, For and against method
A stimulating exchange of letters on philosophy by two philosophical entertainers.
6. Peter Gowan, The global gamble : Washington's faustian bid for world dominance
This book coincided with the Balkan war and has deservedly acquired a cult following.
7. Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's ghost : a story of greed, terror and heroism in colonial Africa
This book tells the story of an African holocaust that marked the Congo for a century.
8. Serge Filippini, The man in flames
An engaging historical novel based on the life of Giordano Bruno, the heretic philosopher burned in Rome 400 years ago.
9. Edward Said, Out of place : a memoir
A trenchant self-analysis by the leading Palestinian critic which reads like a novel.
10. T. J. Clark, Farewell to an idea : episodes from a history of modernism
My favourite book of 1999, with incredible illustrations and a brilliant analysis of twentieth-century art.
17PossMan
Today's list had the top 10 books on revenge.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/apr/14/top-10-books-about-revenge?utm_ter...
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/apr/14/top-10-books-about-revenge?utm_ter...
18anglemark
>17 PossMan: All characters after the question mark in the URL is tracking information to chart how well their marketing works, and is best deleted.
19PossMan
>18 anglemark:: Thank you. I didn't know that. Although to be honest I am more concerned on how it affects the time for the page to load than people mining my pretty boring reading data.
20Cynfelyn
Dick Jude's top 10 science fiction books
1999-12-10
Dick Jude has managed and bought science fiction for Forbidden Planet, London for 15 years and has written on SF for the Bookseller and the Guardian. He is the author of Fantasy Art Masters.
Read his beginner's guide to Science Fiction.
1. J. G. Ballard, Crash
The head-on auto smash as the ultimate sex act. SF enough for me.
2. Iain M. Banks, Use of Weapons
One of the best Culture books, with some terrible secrets in the summerhouse.
3. Stephen Baxter, Vacuum Diagrams
A short story collection providing a backdrop to his Xeelee cycle of novels. Written with a vertiginous sense of wonder.
4. Greg Egan, Distress
Describing the Theory Of Everything brings an infinity of possibilities... and some problems.
5. Karen Joy Fowler, Sarah Canary
The tale of a very alien female in the days of the Wild West. The most discreet of first-contact novels.
6. Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division
A morality play for the far future.
7. Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow
Jesuits in space, and a first contact that goes disastrously wrong. Marketed as mainstream fiction, but excellent SF.
8. Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
A pyrotechnic debut. The Mafia as the ultimate pizza delivery service is just one of many wry wonders in this near-future fantasy.
9. Jack Womack, Random Acts of Senseless Violence
The collapse of modern American society as recorded in a young girl's diary: Dickens for our time.
10. David Zindell, Requiem For Homo Sapiens
An enormous space-opera trilogy unlike anything of its kind yet published. Frank Herbert for the 90s.
(Cynfelyn: Strange. "Requiem ..." in no. 10 in triple square brackets created the touchstone to the series, as it should. But the same triple square brackets around the words Culture and Xeelee in no's 2 and 3 above didn't create series touchstones, but changed the wording in the preview to Use of Weapons and Vacuum Diagrams, with touchstones to the books).
1999-12-10
Dick Jude has managed and bought science fiction for Forbidden Planet, London for 15 years and has written on SF for the Bookseller and the Guardian. He is the author of Fantasy Art Masters.
Read his beginner's guide to Science Fiction.
1. J. G. Ballard, Crash
The head-on auto smash as the ultimate sex act. SF enough for me.
2. Iain M. Banks, Use of Weapons
One of the best Culture books, with some terrible secrets in the summerhouse.
3. Stephen Baxter, Vacuum Diagrams
A short story collection providing a backdrop to his Xeelee cycle of novels. Written with a vertiginous sense of wonder.
4. Greg Egan, Distress
Describing the Theory Of Everything brings an infinity of possibilities... and some problems.
5. Karen Joy Fowler, Sarah Canary
The tale of a very alien female in the days of the Wild West. The most discreet of first-contact novels.
6. Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division
A morality play for the far future.
7. Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow
Jesuits in space, and a first contact that goes disastrously wrong. Marketed as mainstream fiction, but excellent SF.
8. Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
A pyrotechnic debut. The Mafia as the ultimate pizza delivery service is just one of many wry wonders in this near-future fantasy.
9. Jack Womack, Random Acts of Senseless Violence
The collapse of modern American society as recorded in a young girl's diary: Dickens for our time.
10. David Zindell, Requiem For Homo Sapiens
An enormous space-opera trilogy unlike anything of its kind yet published. Frank Herbert for the 90s.
(Cynfelyn: Strange. "Requiem ..." in no. 10 in triple square brackets created the touchstone to the series, as it should. But the same triple square brackets around the words Culture and Xeelee in no's 2 and 3 above didn't create series touchstones, but changed the wording in the preview to Use of Weapons and Vacuum Diagrams, with touchstones to the books).
21Cynfelyn
Okay. After playing around with triple square brackets, perhaps I needn't have worried. Although the preview looks corrupted, the series touchstones in the posted message seem to be alright. So here comes no's 2 and 3 again:
2. Iain M. Banks, Use of Weapons
One of the best Culture books, with some terrible secrets in the summerhouse.
3. Stephen Baxter, Vacuum Diagrams
A short story collection providing a backdrop to his Xeelee cycle of novels. Written with a vertiginous sense of wonder.
2. Iain M. Banks, Use of Weapons
One of the best Culture books, with some terrible secrets in the summerhouse.
3. Stephen Baxter, Vacuum Diagrams
A short story collection providing a backdrop to his Xeelee cycle of novels. Written with a vertiginous sense of wonder.
22Cynfelyn
Simon Schama's top 10 history books
1999-12-10
Simon Schama studied history at Cambridge University. Among his books are The embarrassment of riches : an interpretation of Dutch cultures in the golden age (1987); Citizens : a chronicle of the French revolution (1989); the historical novel Dead certainties (1991) and Landscape and memory (1995). He presented 'History of Britain' and 'The Power of Art' documentary series for BBC television.
1. Richard Cobb, The police and the people : French popular protest 1789-1820
Cobb has the ability to inhabit the world he describes, and in this book he brings together archival sources with amazing literary power.
2. Edward Gibbon, Decline and fall of the Roman empire
Predictable, I'm afraid. Not for historical truth, but for the jokes and the fantastic footnotes - and the music of Gibbon is utterly wonderful.
3. Garrett Mattingly, The defeat of the Spanish armada
An incredible piece of writing. From the very first line it takes you on an amazing literary adventure.
4. Bernard Bailyn, The ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson
A very unlikely book about a man in paradoxical torment. An incredible book about a loyalist, and the ultimate biography of a loser, which simultaneously puts you in hisposition and makes you incredibly glad you're not him. He's demanding andrepulsive at the same time: it's an incredible history of an impossible man in an impossible situation.
5. Roy Porter, London : a social history
Roy is a Londoner, like me, and his book lives and breathes the story of the city.
6. Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world in the age of Philip II
In a way he's doing natural history, history and geography all married together, and the prose is wonderful. I love it for its Rabelaisian lists - of, say, an entire cargo dropped off at Aleppo. Cobb was like that too - he was a huge list person.
7. John Keegan, The face of battle
A stunning, extraordinary, fantastic book. It has a wonderful opening. He attempts a different kind of military history and concentrates on three battles: Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme. No book until this one had put you right in the middle of the action and asked questions like "Why didn't everybody run away?" It stopped old-style military history, with shaded triangles facing each other, in its tracks.
8. Thomas Carlyle, The French revolution
I love this for its craziness. There are parts of the politics which are repulsive - parts of Carlyle which are repulsive - but the sheer volcanic literary eruptions are stunning. Carlyle tried to face up to evil - an issue we grew up thinking was embarrassing - and you have to admire his honesty. I like the mad way he charges towards his subject.
9. Carlo Ginzburg, The cheese and the worms : the cosmos of a sixteenth-century miller
How can you not love a book which takes the cosmology of a heretical 16th-century miller who believes that God created the world as a kind of indeterminate cheese from which came angelic worms, and makes you believe in its plausibility? This is a very great book, written entirely from Inquisition documents.
10. Tacitus, Annals and Histories
I love Tacitus: I think he has the most subtle, understated jokes. He's also very underrated as a prose painter: there are moments that are just jaw-droppingly powerful, whether in Latin or English.
(Cynfelyn: The Grauniad was well-named. Each and every one of these lists so far has had mistakes to the titles and/or authors and/or other typos. Still, it's all part of the fun of the game).
1999-12-10
Simon Schama studied history at Cambridge University. Among his books are The embarrassment of riches : an interpretation of Dutch cultures in the golden age (1987); Citizens : a chronicle of the French revolution (1989); the historical novel Dead certainties (1991) and Landscape and memory (1995). He presented 'History of Britain' and 'The Power of Art' documentary series for BBC television.
1. Richard Cobb, The police and the people : French popular protest 1789-1820
Cobb has the ability to inhabit the world he describes, and in this book he brings together archival sources with amazing literary power.
2. Edward Gibbon, Decline and fall of the Roman empire
Predictable, I'm afraid. Not for historical truth, but for the jokes and the fantastic footnotes - and the music of Gibbon is utterly wonderful.
3. Garrett Mattingly, The defeat of the Spanish armada
An incredible piece of writing. From the very first line it takes you on an amazing literary adventure.
4. Bernard Bailyn, The ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson
A very unlikely book about a man in paradoxical torment. An incredible book about a loyalist, and the ultimate biography of a loser, which simultaneously puts you in hisposition and makes you incredibly glad you're not him. He's demanding andrepulsive at the same time: it's an incredible history of an impossible man in an impossible situation.
5. Roy Porter, London : a social history
Roy is a Londoner, like me, and his book lives and breathes the story of the city.
6. Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world in the age of Philip II
In a way he's doing natural history, history and geography all married together, and the prose is wonderful. I love it for its Rabelaisian lists - of, say, an entire cargo dropped off at Aleppo. Cobb was like that too - he was a huge list person.
7. John Keegan, The face of battle
A stunning, extraordinary, fantastic book. It has a wonderful opening. He attempts a different kind of military history and concentrates on three battles: Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme. No book until this one had put you right in the middle of the action and asked questions like "Why didn't everybody run away?" It stopped old-style military history, with shaded triangles facing each other, in its tracks.
8. Thomas Carlyle, The French revolution
I love this for its craziness. There are parts of the politics which are repulsive - parts of Carlyle which are repulsive - but the sheer volcanic literary eruptions are stunning. Carlyle tried to face up to evil - an issue we grew up thinking was embarrassing - and you have to admire his honesty. I like the mad way he charges towards his subject.
9. Carlo Ginzburg, The cheese and the worms : the cosmos of a sixteenth-century miller
How can you not love a book which takes the cosmology of a heretical 16th-century miller who believes that God created the world as a kind of indeterminate cheese from which came angelic worms, and makes you believe in its plausibility? This is a very great book, written entirely from Inquisition documents.
10. Tacitus, Annals and Histories
I love Tacitus: I think he has the most subtle, understated jokes. He's also very underrated as a prose painter: there are moments that are just jaw-droppingly powerful, whether in Latin or English.
(Cynfelyn: The Grauniad was well-named. Each and every one of these lists so far has had mistakes to the titles and/or authors and/or other typos. Still, it's all part of the fun of the game).
23Cynfelyn
Hugo Young's top 10 books on the EU
1999-12-10
Hugo Young, Political Columnist, has worked for the Guardian for 15 years. Before that he was a columnist and editor on the Sunday Times, which he left shortly after it was taken over by Rupert Murdoch's News International. His books include One of Us, a biography of Margaret Thatcher (1990), and This blessed plot: Britain and Europe from Churchill to Blair (1998). An updated paperback edition appeared from Macmillan (Papermac) in October 1999.
1. Michael Charlton, The price of victory
An irreplaceable exercise in oral history, capturing the recollections of scores of the principal officials and politicians who were at the heart of the development of post-war Europe. Brings back, as nothing else can, the contemporary reality of the 50s.
2. Francois Duchene, Jean Monnet, the first statesman of interdependence
A scholarly but gripping and sympathetic biography of the self-effacing egotist who dreamed up the idea of the European Community.
3. Alan Bullock, Ernest Bevin
A gigantic account in three volumes of the last British foreign secretary to sit at the global top table - yet who frustrated the first opportunity for Britain to become a European country.
4. Linda Colley, Britons
One of the most influential texts of the 90s, presenting a learned yet intensely readable account of how England and her Celtic neighbours became "Britain". A book much reviled by Eurosceptics for deconstructing some of their illusions about the origins of their own nation-state.
5. Charles Grant, Delors - Inside the house that Jacques built
A thorough journey through the life of the most influential modern European and around the power centre of Brussels.
6. Timothy Bainbridge, The Penguin companion to the European Union
An indispensable collection of answers to every historical and factual question you could have about the highly complex institution which the British tabloid press manages to demonise into reductive, mendacious simplicity.
7. Roy Jenkins, A life at the centre
Among the best of all post-war British political autobiographies, this is especially relevant to the development of Europe, which Jenkins passionately believed in and, latterly, helped to run as President of the Commission.
8. William Cash, Against a federal Europe
From the myriad of Eurosceptic texts, this can be recommended as being as good - passionate, venomous and reasonably scholarly - as any.
9. John Newhouse, Europe adrift
An American reporter, unequalled as a chronicler of diplomatic complexities, journeys around modern Europe. He focuses especially on the tensions between nation-state leaders, many of them near-federalists, and the competing ambitions of regions such as Bavaria and Catalonia.
10. Jean Lacouture, De Gaulle: the ruler, 1945-1970
It is impossible to understand the European Union without getting to grips with France, and this biography of the man who detested the European Community but then vetoed British entry in 1963 is an accessible place to start.
(Cynfelyn: The on-line top 10 book list feature on the Guardian website is a bit skew-whiff in the early days, and has dumped thirteen lists on 1999-12-10. Just in case anyone had noticed and was wondering).
1999-12-10
Hugo Young, Political Columnist, has worked for the Guardian for 15 years. Before that he was a columnist and editor on the Sunday Times, which he left shortly after it was taken over by Rupert Murdoch's News International. His books include One of Us, a biography of Margaret Thatcher (1990), and This blessed plot: Britain and Europe from Churchill to Blair (1998). An updated paperback edition appeared from Macmillan (Papermac) in October 1999.
1. Michael Charlton, The price of victory
An irreplaceable exercise in oral history, capturing the recollections of scores of the principal officials and politicians who were at the heart of the development of post-war Europe. Brings back, as nothing else can, the contemporary reality of the 50s.
2. Francois Duchene, Jean Monnet, the first statesman of interdependence
A scholarly but gripping and sympathetic biography of the self-effacing egotist who dreamed up the idea of the European Community.
3. Alan Bullock, Ernest Bevin
A gigantic account in three volumes of the last British foreign secretary to sit at the global top table - yet who frustrated the first opportunity for Britain to become a European country.
4. Linda Colley, Britons
One of the most influential texts of the 90s, presenting a learned yet intensely readable account of how England and her Celtic neighbours became "Britain". A book much reviled by Eurosceptics for deconstructing some of their illusions about the origins of their own nation-state.
5. Charles Grant, Delors - Inside the house that Jacques built
A thorough journey through the life of the most influential modern European and around the power centre of Brussels.
6. Timothy Bainbridge, The Penguin companion to the European Union
An indispensable collection of answers to every historical and factual question you could have about the highly complex institution which the British tabloid press manages to demonise into reductive, mendacious simplicity.
7. Roy Jenkins, A life at the centre
Among the best of all post-war British political autobiographies, this is especially relevant to the development of Europe, which Jenkins passionately believed in and, latterly, helped to run as President of the Commission.
8. William Cash, Against a federal Europe
From the myriad of Eurosceptic texts, this can be recommended as being as good - passionate, venomous and reasonably scholarly - as any.
9. John Newhouse, Europe adrift
An American reporter, unequalled as a chronicler of diplomatic complexities, journeys around modern Europe. He focuses especially on the tensions between nation-state leaders, many of them near-federalists, and the competing ambitions of regions such as Bavaria and Catalonia.
10. Jean Lacouture, De Gaulle: the ruler, 1945-1970
It is impossible to understand the European Union without getting to grips with France, and this biography of the man who detested the European Community but then vetoed British entry in 1963 is an accessible place to start.
(Cynfelyn: The on-line top 10 book list feature on the Guardian website is a bit skew-whiff in the early days, and has dumped thirteen lists on 1999-12-10. Just in case anyone had noticed and was wondering).
24Cynfelyn
John Marenbon's top 10 books on philosophy
1999-12-10
John Marenbon is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and teaches the History of Philosophy. His books include Early medieval philosophy (480-1150) : an introduction, and Later medieval philosophy (1150-1350) : an introduction and The philosophy of Peter Abelard. He is also the author of a number of pamphlets dealing with matters of political philosophy and their relation to policy, which are published by Politeia.
He writes: "Philosophy, like science, can be studied without much reference to its history. Yet the great works of the past are likely to be far more impressive and interesting than anything being done now - partly because modern philosophy has become highly technical, and partly because the great philosophers hazarded far greater claims for the importance of their ideas beyond the confines of specialised debate than most modern philosophers would make. In my choice of ten books, I give two which will introduce readers to the world of modern philosophy (2 and 3), a general book on the history of philosophy (1) and seven masterpieces of philosophy in reliable, usually well introduced and annotated (and often remarkably cheap) modern editions."
1. Anthony Kenny, A brief history of western philosophy
This history is remarkable for its breadth of coverage (including areas, such as medieval philosophy, which are usually skated over in general histories) and for its lucid, elegant discussions.
2. A. C. Grayling (ed.), Philosophy 1
Crisp, lively and very well-informed chapters by individual specialists cover in outline the topics which would be considered in the first couple of years of a good undergraduate course. The bibliographies give a good of idea of what is going on in modern analytical philosophy. A sequel, Philosophy 2, extends the scope of coverage beyond the central areas of analytical philosophy.
3. Richard Rorty, Contingency, irony and solidarity
Outside anglophone philosophy departments, the dominant school is at odds with the analytical approach: its heroes are Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault and Derrida. Rorty is one of the few analytically trained philosophers who is sympathetic to this other set of approaches and sets out to describe them with a clarity their originators consciously reject. I think he fails to make the views he describes fully coherent - because they aren't! - but it is a bold attempt, and many readers are more convinced than I am.
4. Plato, The republic
Excellent new translation of one of Plato's most ambitious dialogues, which ranges over ethics, metaphysics and the philosophy of art as well as being one of the first and greatest works of political philosophy.
5. Aristotle (transl. Terence Irwin), Nicomachean ethics
This is Aristotle's most approachable work - a rigorous theory of ethics rooted in the moral problems and judgments that are important for everyone in their lives. This clear translation provides the explanatory material Aristotle's terse style needs if his ideas are to be understood.
6. St Thomas Aquinas (ed. R. McInerny), Selected writings
Everyone (well, Bertrand Russell aside) recognises that Aquinas was a great philosopher: but how to approach his bewilderingly long and complex writings? This chronologically arranged and well-translated selection gives an idea of the range of Aquinas' philosophy. One can see Aquinas at work, developing his ideas as he thinks more deeply and comes more fully to grips with Aristotle.
7. René Descartes (ed. and transl. J. Cottingham and B. Williams), Meditations on first philosophy
Descartes' pretence that he is approaching the problem of knowledge of certainty afresh makes the Meditations an excellent starting point. It is also one of the most elegantly conceived and influential works of philosophy ever written: it would be hard to understand much about 17th-20th century philosophy without it.
8. Hume, Dialogues and natural history of religion
In the Dialogues, Hume presents a sophisticated critique of the argument for God's existence from design (that is, from the observation that the universe is ordered and its parts seem to serve purposes). It goes on to examine the problem of evil: how is the apparent evil in the universe compatible with a God who is not merely beneficent but also all-powerful?
9. Immanuel Kant (transl. Paul Guyer and Allen Wood), Critique of pure reason
Perhaps the greatest of all single philosophical works, Kant's first critique is a turning point in the history of philosophy. It shaped European philosophy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and its concerns are in many cases surprisingly similar to those of modern analytical philosophers. This new translation improves even on Kemp Smith's classic version in giving a faithful rendition of what Kant wrote and providing readers with editorial help in the difficult task of grasping Kant's thought.
10. John Stuart Mill, On liberty and other essays
This collection also contains Utilitarianism and On the subjection of women. These essays show how philosophical problems about value and freedom link with practical political concerns. Now, when political correctness threatens free speech, On liberty makes especially timely reading.
1999-12-10
John Marenbon is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and teaches the History of Philosophy. His books include Early medieval philosophy (480-1150) : an introduction, and Later medieval philosophy (1150-1350) : an introduction and The philosophy of Peter Abelard. He is also the author of a number of pamphlets dealing with matters of political philosophy and their relation to policy, which are published by Politeia.
He writes: "Philosophy, like science, can be studied without much reference to its history. Yet the great works of the past are likely to be far more impressive and interesting than anything being done now - partly because modern philosophy has become highly technical, and partly because the great philosophers hazarded far greater claims for the importance of their ideas beyond the confines of specialised debate than most modern philosophers would make. In my choice of ten books, I give two which will introduce readers to the world of modern philosophy (2 and 3), a general book on the history of philosophy (1) and seven masterpieces of philosophy in reliable, usually well introduced and annotated (and often remarkably cheap) modern editions."
1. Anthony Kenny, A brief history of western philosophy
This history is remarkable for its breadth of coverage (including areas, such as medieval philosophy, which are usually skated over in general histories) and for its lucid, elegant discussions.
2. A. C. Grayling (ed.), Philosophy 1
Crisp, lively and very well-informed chapters by individual specialists cover in outline the topics which would be considered in the first couple of years of a good undergraduate course. The bibliographies give a good of idea of what is going on in modern analytical philosophy. A sequel, Philosophy 2, extends the scope of coverage beyond the central areas of analytical philosophy.
3. Richard Rorty, Contingency, irony and solidarity
Outside anglophone philosophy departments, the dominant school is at odds with the analytical approach: its heroes are Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault and Derrida. Rorty is one of the few analytically trained philosophers who is sympathetic to this other set of approaches and sets out to describe them with a clarity their originators consciously reject. I think he fails to make the views he describes fully coherent - because they aren't! - but it is a bold attempt, and many readers are more convinced than I am.
4. Plato, The republic
Excellent new translation of one of Plato's most ambitious dialogues, which ranges over ethics, metaphysics and the philosophy of art as well as being one of the first and greatest works of political philosophy.
5. Aristotle (transl. Terence Irwin), Nicomachean ethics
This is Aristotle's most approachable work - a rigorous theory of ethics rooted in the moral problems and judgments that are important for everyone in their lives. This clear translation provides the explanatory material Aristotle's terse style needs if his ideas are to be understood.
6. St Thomas Aquinas (ed. R. McInerny), Selected writings
Everyone (well, Bertrand Russell aside) recognises that Aquinas was a great philosopher: but how to approach his bewilderingly long and complex writings? This chronologically arranged and well-translated selection gives an idea of the range of Aquinas' philosophy. One can see Aquinas at work, developing his ideas as he thinks more deeply and comes more fully to grips with Aristotle.
7. René Descartes (ed. and transl. J. Cottingham and B. Williams), Meditations on first philosophy
Descartes' pretence that he is approaching the problem of knowledge of certainty afresh makes the Meditations an excellent starting point. It is also one of the most elegantly conceived and influential works of philosophy ever written: it would be hard to understand much about 17th-20th century philosophy without it.
8. Hume, Dialogues and natural history of religion
In the Dialogues, Hume presents a sophisticated critique of the argument for God's existence from design (that is, from the observation that the universe is ordered and its parts seem to serve purposes). It goes on to examine the problem of evil: how is the apparent evil in the universe compatible with a God who is not merely beneficent but also all-powerful?
9. Immanuel Kant (transl. Paul Guyer and Allen Wood), Critique of pure reason
Perhaps the greatest of all single philosophical works, Kant's first critique is a turning point in the history of philosophy. It shaped European philosophy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and its concerns are in many cases surprisingly similar to those of modern analytical philosophers. This new translation improves even on Kemp Smith's classic version in giving a faithful rendition of what Kant wrote and providing readers with editorial help in the difficult task of grasping Kant's thought.
10. John Stuart Mill, On liberty and other essays
This collection also contains Utilitarianism and On the subjection of women. These essays show how philosophical problems about value and freedom link with practical political concerns. Now, when political correctness threatens free speech, On liberty makes especially timely reading.
25Cynfelyn
Jilly Cooper's top 10 romantic novels
1999-12-10
Jilly Cooper's latest novel, Score! (Bantam Press, £16.99), tells the story of the filming of Verdi's darkest opera, with tensions between a villainous conductor, a charismatic French director and a volatile cast of stars erupting in murder. How to survive Christmas (Bantam Press, £9.99) is a blackly comic light-hearted guide to coping with the festive season.
1. Jane Austen, Pride and prejudice
An incredibly funny, very upmarket love story with an enchanting heroine and the perfect romantic hero: a tartar with a heart of gold.
2. George Eliot, Middlemarch
Another great romantic story, in which the adorable intellectually pretentious heroine makes a disastrous marriage to a dessicated fossil before finding true love with a penniless somebody.
3. Walter Emmanuel (illus. Cecil Alden), A dog day
Quite the best dog story ever written, covering a day in the life of a stylish but wayward Victorian puppy.
4. Nancy Mitford, The pursuit of love
Another wonderful and incredibly funny love story, based on the antics of the legendary Mitford sisters and their eccentric parents. A seminal book for my generation - as schoolgirls we all dreamed of the hero, that marvel of Gallic sophistication the Duke de Sauveterre.
5. Elizabeth Jenkins, The tortoise and the hare
One of the most brilliant and saddest novels ever written. The feeling of menace is unbearable as a gentle, beautiful, sensitive wife loses her smooth, cold lawyer husband to a formidable boot.
6. Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers
The hugely satisfying and quite unputdownable story of high jinks and politicking in a cathedral town. Unforgettable characters include the bishop's wife, the thuggish Mrs Proudie, and her adversary, the unctuous, scheming Mr Slope.
7. Beatrix Potter, The tale of Mr Tod
Two of Potter's finest villains - Mr Tod, a suave fox, and Tommy Brook, a louche badger - slug it out while their rabbit victims escape. High comedy.
8. Barbara Pym, Excellent women
Another wonderfully funny novel, about the goings-on in a London parish. A handsome naval officer and his feckless, unprincipled wife cause havoc among the flower-arranging ladies and the local vicar.
9. Anthony Powell, A question of upbringing
The first touching and hilarious volume in Powell's magnificent 12-book series Dance to the music of time shows Jenkins and his cronies at Eton, then moving on to life in London. We also catch our first glimpse of the great comic creation Kenneth Widmerpool. All 12 volumes cannot be too highly recommended.
10. Charles Morgan, The judge's story
In this brief, marvellous novel by a woefully neglected author, a retired judge, poised to write his masterpiece, is caught up in the financial disaster of a glamorous young couple. Tragic consequences lead to a surprisingly satisfying ending. Subtlety of characterisation and Morgan's vast knowledge of classical literature add immensely to the story's charm.
1999-12-10
Jilly Cooper's latest novel, Score! (Bantam Press, £16.99), tells the story of the filming of Verdi's darkest opera, with tensions between a villainous conductor, a charismatic French director and a volatile cast of stars erupting in murder. How to survive Christmas (Bantam Press, £9.99) is a blackly comic light-hearted guide to coping with the festive season.
1. Jane Austen, Pride and prejudice
An incredibly funny, very upmarket love story with an enchanting heroine and the perfect romantic hero: a tartar with a heart of gold.
2. George Eliot, Middlemarch
Another great romantic story, in which the adorable intellectually pretentious heroine makes a disastrous marriage to a dessicated fossil before finding true love with a penniless somebody.
3. Walter Emmanuel (illus. Cecil Alden), A dog day
Quite the best dog story ever written, covering a day in the life of a stylish but wayward Victorian puppy.
4. Nancy Mitford, The pursuit of love
Another wonderful and incredibly funny love story, based on the antics of the legendary Mitford sisters and their eccentric parents. A seminal book for my generation - as schoolgirls we all dreamed of the hero, that marvel of Gallic sophistication the Duke de Sauveterre.
5. Elizabeth Jenkins, The tortoise and the hare
One of the most brilliant and saddest novels ever written. The feeling of menace is unbearable as a gentle, beautiful, sensitive wife loses her smooth, cold lawyer husband to a formidable boot.
6. Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers
The hugely satisfying and quite unputdownable story of high jinks and politicking in a cathedral town. Unforgettable characters include the bishop's wife, the thuggish Mrs Proudie, and her adversary, the unctuous, scheming Mr Slope.
7. Beatrix Potter, The tale of Mr Tod
Two of Potter's finest villains - Mr Tod, a suave fox, and Tommy Brook, a louche badger - slug it out while their rabbit victims escape. High comedy.
8. Barbara Pym, Excellent women
Another wonderfully funny novel, about the goings-on in a London parish. A handsome naval officer and his feckless, unprincipled wife cause havoc among the flower-arranging ladies and the local vicar.
9. Anthony Powell, A question of upbringing
The first touching and hilarious volume in Powell's magnificent 12-book series Dance to the music of time shows Jenkins and his cronies at Eton, then moving on to life in London. We also catch our first glimpse of the great comic creation Kenneth Widmerpool. All 12 volumes cannot be too highly recommended.
10. Charles Morgan, The judge's story
In this brief, marvellous novel by a woefully neglected author, a retired judge, poised to write his masterpiece, is caught up in the financial disaster of a glamorous young couple. Tragic consequences lead to a surprisingly satisfying ending. Subtlety of characterisation and Morgan's vast knowledge of classical literature add immensely to the story's charm.
26Cynfelyn
Alex James's top 10 books
1999-12-10
Alex James is the bassist in Blur.
1. Truman Capote, A Capote reader
Truman Capote is my favourite writer. He was a phenomenal under-achiever and wrote very little really - he was far too busy having fun, going on week-long vodka binges and hanging out with other famous people. Do I model myself on him? Well, you can't help admiring people and copying them. Breakfast at Tiffany's is the most romantic story ever written (and as usual there's a shite film of it). A man spends his life looking for the woman he's lost. There's no happy cat-in-the-rain ending like in the film.
2. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Basil and Josephine stories
It's about two posh Long Island kids. I like it really because no one's read it here, but any compendium of his stories would do. He's another Long Island glamour boy, another hopeless romantic. It all went so horribly wrong for him throughout his life - he was reduced to writing for magazines in the end. It's a familiar tale; The great Gatsby sells more now than it did in his lifetime. But he did once say, "You've got to write for the youth of your generation, the critics of the next and the schoolmaster of ever after." So he knew what he was about.
3. Laurie Lee, Cider with Rosie
One of two books that have stayed with me from school. It's like drinking Ribena - it just slips down. I like the fact that he was mythologising being a yokel, basically. The other-worldliness makes it seem really magical. After Cider with Rosie, I read As I walked out one midsummer morning. He walks to Spain, just like that - nice one! I guess that was the first insight I had into another world. I admire him for incisiveness; he was not afraid to say anything. Great writers today are naturally drawn to Hollywood which means there's a massive amount of censorship or editing, so it's nice to think you can just write about your life and it can be interesting. Woody Allen said, "80% of it is just turning up." If everyone wrote a book, 80% of them would be good. Everyone's story is interesting, if it's written in the right way. And Laurie Lee proves that.
4. Susan Hill, I'm the king of the castle
Another book from school. It's about two boys who become step-brothers, and one drives the other to suicide. It's stayed with me, even though I read it only once.
5. Albert Camus, The outsider
Because Camus smoked. And played football. And the Cure wrote a song about it. And because he once said, "Literature is about trying to capture the one or two moments in your life when your heart opened up."
6. Jeanette Winterson, Sexing the cherry
Great to read on aeroplanes - she doesn't half come out with some good lines. She's so funny, such a good writer, I'd love to have her round for dinner. I was gutted when I found out she was a lesbian - I had fallen in love with her writing.
7. Colette, Bella vista
Bella Vista is a wonderfully spooky story. I read quite a lot of French at university, but there are just so many books; you need a map. Capote said he liked Colette, so I started reading her. She was a proper grande madame, rather naughty. She knew a lot about truffles.
8. P. G. Wodehouse, Carry on, Jeeves
Delightful, booze-soaked, hangover-curing, dainty writing. It's hard to choose one book, as all of them fit together in one massive sprawl. The characters wander in and out. It's like a contagious disease - you read one, think that's it, and then you have to buy another. A flavour to crave.
9. Bruce Robinson, Paranoia in the laundrette
One of the few who comes close to Wodehouse these days. This is only 40 pages long, but it's so wonderful I bought one copy, read it, then had to go back and buy the lot for all my friends. It's about an idiot trying to get his laundry done who thinks everyone's trying to kill him. Very funny indeed.
10. Arthur Conan Doyle, The complete Sherlock Holmes
About as politically incorrect as you can get, but definitely something to read if you live in London: a good, historically accurate picture of the place at the time. You also get to meet Holmes's cleverer brother, Mycroft. Sherlock Holmes is one of the great heroes, a cocaine-addled genius. But then again, you could get cocaine in Harrods in those days.
------
Edited to add some in-text touchstones.
1999-12-10
Alex James is the bassist in Blur.
1. Truman Capote, A Capote reader
Truman Capote is my favourite writer. He was a phenomenal under-achiever and wrote very little really - he was far too busy having fun, going on week-long vodka binges and hanging out with other famous people. Do I model myself on him? Well, you can't help admiring people and copying them. Breakfast at Tiffany's is the most romantic story ever written (and as usual there's a shite film of it). A man spends his life looking for the woman he's lost. There's no happy cat-in-the-rain ending like in the film.
2. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Basil and Josephine stories
It's about two posh Long Island kids. I like it really because no one's read it here, but any compendium of his stories would do. He's another Long Island glamour boy, another hopeless romantic. It all went so horribly wrong for him throughout his life - he was reduced to writing for magazines in the end. It's a familiar tale; The great Gatsby sells more now than it did in his lifetime. But he did once say, "You've got to write for the youth of your generation, the critics of the next and the schoolmaster of ever after." So he knew what he was about.
3. Laurie Lee, Cider with Rosie
One of two books that have stayed with me from school. It's like drinking Ribena - it just slips down. I like the fact that he was mythologising being a yokel, basically. The other-worldliness makes it seem really magical. After Cider with Rosie, I read As I walked out one midsummer morning. He walks to Spain, just like that - nice one! I guess that was the first insight I had into another world. I admire him for incisiveness; he was not afraid to say anything. Great writers today are naturally drawn to Hollywood which means there's a massive amount of censorship or editing, so it's nice to think you can just write about your life and it can be interesting. Woody Allen said, "80% of it is just turning up." If everyone wrote a book, 80% of them would be good. Everyone's story is interesting, if it's written in the right way. And Laurie Lee proves that.
4. Susan Hill, I'm the king of the castle
Another book from school. It's about two boys who become step-brothers, and one drives the other to suicide. It's stayed with me, even though I read it only once.
5. Albert Camus, The outsider
Because Camus smoked. And played football. And the Cure wrote a song about it. And because he once said, "Literature is about trying to capture the one or two moments in your life when your heart opened up."
6. Jeanette Winterson, Sexing the cherry
Great to read on aeroplanes - she doesn't half come out with some good lines. She's so funny, such a good writer, I'd love to have her round for dinner. I was gutted when I found out she was a lesbian - I had fallen in love with her writing.
7. Colette, Bella vista
Bella Vista is a wonderfully spooky story. I read quite a lot of French at university, but there are just so many books; you need a map. Capote said he liked Colette, so I started reading her. She was a proper grande madame, rather naughty. She knew a lot about truffles.
8. P. G. Wodehouse, Carry on, Jeeves
Delightful, booze-soaked, hangover-curing, dainty writing. It's hard to choose one book, as all of them fit together in one massive sprawl. The characters wander in and out. It's like a contagious disease - you read one, think that's it, and then you have to buy another. A flavour to crave.
9. Bruce Robinson, Paranoia in the laundrette
One of the few who comes close to Wodehouse these days. This is only 40 pages long, but it's so wonderful I bought one copy, read it, then had to go back and buy the lot for all my friends. It's about an idiot trying to get his laundry done who thinks everyone's trying to kill him. Very funny indeed.
10. Arthur Conan Doyle, The complete Sherlock Holmes
About as politically incorrect as you can get, but definitely something to read if you live in London: a good, historically accurate picture of the place at the time. You also get to meet Holmes's cleverer brother, Mycroft. Sherlock Holmes is one of the great heroes, a cocaine-addled genius. But then again, you could get cocaine in Harrods in those days.
------
Edited to add some in-text touchstones.
27Cynfelyn
Derek Draper's top 10 politics books
1999-12-10
Derek Draper describes himself as a "Labour spin doctor turned adman". He is also the author of Blair's 100 days.
1. Robert A. Caro, Means of ascent : the years of Lyndon Johnson
The most exciting political biography I have ever read about a consummate politician.
2. Roy Hattersley, Choose freedom
Still the best case for being a New or Old Labour social democrat.
3. Christopher Hitchens, For the sake of argument
The only great living left-wing polemicist.
4. Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and loathing on the campaign trail '72
Doing for Nixon what he did for Las Vegas.
5. Evan Davis (former BBC economics editor), Public spending
Dry by necessity, but still the basic primer for those on the left.
6. Labour's 1982 programme
A frightening reminder of how bonkers the Labour party once was.
7. Dick Morris, Behind the Oval Office
A reminder, even to me, that spin can go too far.
8. Alistair McAlpine, Once a jolly bagman
The true inside story of the Tories' years in power.
9. Paul Kennedy, The rise and fall of the great powers
A reminder that politics is about much more than the here and now.
10. Derek Draper, Blair's 100 days
Because I cannot imagine anyone else will choose it.
1999-12-10
Derek Draper describes himself as a "Labour spin doctor turned adman". He is also the author of Blair's 100 days.
1. Robert A. Caro, Means of ascent : the years of Lyndon Johnson
The most exciting political biography I have ever read about a consummate politician.
2. Roy Hattersley, Choose freedom
Still the best case for being a New or Old Labour social democrat.
3. Christopher Hitchens, For the sake of argument
The only great living left-wing polemicist.
4. Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and loathing on the campaign trail '72
Doing for Nixon what he did for Las Vegas.
5. Evan Davis (former BBC economics editor), Public spending
Dry by necessity, but still the basic primer for those on the left.
6. Labour's 1982 programme
A frightening reminder of how bonkers the Labour party once was.
7. Dick Morris, Behind the Oval Office
A reminder, even to me, that spin can go too far.
8. Alistair McAlpine, Once a jolly bagman
The true inside story of the Tories' years in power.
9. Paul Kennedy, The rise and fall of the great powers
A reminder that politics is about much more than the here and now.
10. Derek Draper, Blair's 100 days
Because I cannot imagine anyone else will choose it.
28Cynfelyn
Julian Critchley's top 10 reads
1999-12-10
Julian Critchley is a Conservative MP and the author of, among other books, Collapse of the stout party : decline and fall of the Tories. He has published an autobiography, A bag of boiled sweets.
1. Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The leopard
The ultimate Conservative novel: "If you want things to stay as they are, they must be permitted to change."
2. Sir Michael Howard, The Franco-Prussian war
A thrilling and profound description of a very close-run thing.
3. Professor Arthur Marder, From the Dreadnought to the Scapa Flow
One of the best books written about the Royal Navy at the time of its supremacy.
4. Sir John Verney, Going to the wars
Perhaps, with Waugh's work, the best book to come out of the second world war.
5. 'Chips' Channon, Diaries
Sex, gossip and snobbery in the inter-war years.
(Touchstone: Chips : the diaries of Sir Henry Channon)
6. Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers
Surely the funniest novel in the English language.
7. George Eliot, Middlemarch
The only English novel written for adults.
8. L. P. Hartley, The go-between
A story of love, pain and betrayal.
9. Alan Bullock, Hitler
The first and still the best account of the rise of that evil genius.
10. H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon's mines
The joy of the book you cannot put down: the best memories of childhood.
------
Yet another of the Guardian top 10 book lists piled up on 10 Dec. 1999 on the website. As the last featured date of 1999, I wonder whether this was a manifestation of the millenium bug.
1999-12-10
Julian Critchley is a Conservative MP and the author of, among other books, Collapse of the stout party : decline and fall of the Tories. He has published an autobiography, A bag of boiled sweets.
1. Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The leopard
The ultimate Conservative novel: "If you want things to stay as they are, they must be permitted to change."
2. Sir Michael Howard, The Franco-Prussian war
A thrilling and profound description of a very close-run thing.
3. Professor Arthur Marder, From the Dreadnought to the Scapa Flow
One of the best books written about the Royal Navy at the time of its supremacy.
4. Sir John Verney, Going to the wars
Perhaps, with Waugh's work, the best book to come out of the second world war.
5. 'Chips' Channon, Diaries
Sex, gossip and snobbery in the inter-war years.
(Touchstone: Chips : the diaries of Sir Henry Channon)
6. Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers
Surely the funniest novel in the English language.
7. George Eliot, Middlemarch
The only English novel written for adults.
8. L. P. Hartley, The go-between
A story of love, pain and betrayal.
9. Alan Bullock, Hitler
The first and still the best account of the rise of that evil genius.
10. H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon's mines
The joy of the book you cannot put down: the best memories of childhood.
------
Yet another of the Guardian top 10 book lists piled up on 10 Dec. 1999 on the website. As the last featured date of 1999, I wonder whether this was a manifestation of the millenium bug.
29Cynfelyn
Adrian Poole's top 10 tragedies
1999-12-10
Adrian Poole is Reader in English and Comparative Literature at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Trinity College. His books include Tragedy: Shakespeare and the Greek example, Coriolanus and Henry James. He has co-edited The Oxford book of classical verse in translation and edited several nineteenth-century classics, including Robert Louis Stevenson's The Master of Ballantrae and Charles Dickens's Our mutual friend.
1. Aeschylus, The Oresteia (5th century BC)
2. Sophocles, Antigone (5th century BC)
3. Euripides, Bacchae (5th century BC)
4. William Shakespeare, Hamlet (?1599-1601)
5. William Shakespeare, King Lear (?1604-1605)
6. John Milton, Samson Agonistes (1671)
7. Jean Racine, Phaedra (1677)
8. Richard Wagner, Tristan und Isolde (1856-1859)
9. Frederico Garcia Lorca, Blood wedding (1933)
10. Samuel Beckett, Not I (1973)
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The last of the Guardian top 10 book lists listed on the website as 10 Dec. 1999. Haleliwia. And tragically short on explanation.
One of the things I've discovered and really enjoyed while working from home during lock-down is the BBC Radio 4 series "Natalie Haynes stands up for the classics", online on BBC Sounds at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b077x8pc/episodes (may not be available in all jurisdictions). She casts her comedian's, her classicist's and her woman's eye over both Sophocles and Euripides, among others. Thoroughly recommended. A new series starts this Tuesday, with broadcast dates for Medusa, Pandora and Jocasta.
And of course, Melvyn Bragg's long-running radio series "In our time" (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl/episodes) (908 programmes!) will have covered all or most of these authors and/or books. I like him in small doses, but couldn't binge-listen.
1999-12-10
Adrian Poole is Reader in English and Comparative Literature at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Trinity College. His books include Tragedy: Shakespeare and the Greek example, Coriolanus and Henry James. He has co-edited The Oxford book of classical verse in translation and edited several nineteenth-century classics, including Robert Louis Stevenson's The Master of Ballantrae and Charles Dickens's Our mutual friend.
1. Aeschylus, The Oresteia (5th century BC)
2. Sophocles, Antigone (5th century BC)
3. Euripides, Bacchae (5th century BC)
4. William Shakespeare, Hamlet (?1599-1601)
5. William Shakespeare, King Lear (?1604-1605)
6. John Milton, Samson Agonistes (1671)
7. Jean Racine, Phaedra (1677)
8. Richard Wagner, Tristan und Isolde (1856-1859)
9. Frederico Garcia Lorca, Blood wedding (1933)
10. Samuel Beckett, Not I (1973)
------
The last of the Guardian top 10 book lists listed on the website as 10 Dec. 1999. Haleliwia. And tragically short on explanation.
One of the things I've discovered and really enjoyed while working from home during lock-down is the BBC Radio 4 series "Natalie Haynes stands up for the classics", online on BBC Sounds at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b077x8pc/episodes (may not be available in all jurisdictions). She casts her comedian's, her classicist's and her woman's eye over both Sophocles and Euripides, among others. Thoroughly recommended. A new series starts this Tuesday, with broadcast dates for Medusa, Pandora and Jocasta.
And of course, Melvyn Bragg's long-running radio series "In our time" (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl/episodes) (908 programmes!) will have covered all or most of these authors and/or books. I like him in small doses, but couldn't binge-listen.
30PossMan
>29 Cynfelyn:: One of the things I've discovered and really enjoyed while working from home during lock-down is the BBC Radio 4 series "Natalie Haynes stands up for the classics". I'm not much of a radio listener but recently read one of her books Pandora's Jar which discusses 10 women from the Greek myths. Very enjoyable.
31Cynfelyn
>30 PossMan: Thanks for that. It hadn't occurred to me to look up Natalie Haynes as an author on LT. Pandora's Jar looks worrying like a book bullet.
And of course Melvyn Bragg is on LT. He's so much of a Renaissance man, the suggested author combinations I'm about to delete include the Venerable Bede and Antonia Fraser!! But I wasn't expecting him to have been a screenwriter on the film version of Jesus Christ Superstar. You live and learn.
And of course Melvyn Bragg is on LT. He's so much of a Renaissance man, the suggested author combinations I'm about to delete include the Venerable Bede and Antonia Fraser!! But I wasn't expecting him to have been a screenwriter on the film version of Jesus Christ Superstar. You live and learn.
32Cynfelyn
John Tusa's top 10 books on culture
2000-01-07
John Tusa was responsible for relaunching the (BBC) World Service and is now the managing director of the Barbican Centre. He is the author of numerous books on culture and the arts, including Conversations with the world (1990) and Art matters : reflecting on culture (1999).
1. & 2. Kenneth Clark, Autobiography
Outstanding: the elegant, perceptive two-volume autobiography of a major figure in British arts for half a century. Fine presentation of the aesthetics of the arts as well as the politics of British arts.
(Touchstones: vol. 1, Another part of the wood : a self portrait (1974); vol. 2, The other half : a self portrait (1977).
3. Galina Vishnevskaya, Galina
How artists Vishnevskaya and her husband Rostropovich survived under communism: a revealing account of art under totalitarianism.
4. Peter Heyworth, Otto Klemperer : his life and times
Not just a wonderful account of the life of one of the century's great conductors, but also a revealing portrait of mid-century cultural life in the great European institutions.
5. Lin Cook (ed.), Something like fire : a memoir of Peter Cook
A troubled genius and an utterly original comedian; memorably funny, inimitable. Those who worked with Peter Cook throw various lights on his life and tragic decline.
(Touchstone: Something like fire : Peter Cook remembered).
6. Richard Ellman, James Joyce (Oxford University Press, 1959)
A masterly account of one of the century's greatest and most enigmatic writers who altered the way we think about writing and the novel.
7. Nikolaus Pevsner, An outline of European architecture
A definitive and personal overview of the buildings that make European cities the glories they are, written by one of the great critics of the century.
8. Jane Jacobs, The death and life of great American cities
The great account of how the Americans - and the Europeans, too - destroyed our great city fabric, but were able to renew it. Exhilarating and still topical.
9. Stendhal, Life of Rossini
One genius writing about another. If you have any doubts about Rossini's talents, then have them removed by Stendhal's wit and delight.
10. Marie Seton, Eisenstein
The definitive account of one of the great masters of the cinema; his use of montage achieves screen effects that today's filmmakers cannot approach.
2000-01-07
John Tusa was responsible for relaunching the (BBC) World Service and is now the managing director of the Barbican Centre. He is the author of numerous books on culture and the arts, including Conversations with the world (1990) and Art matters : reflecting on culture (1999).
1. & 2. Kenneth Clark, Autobiography
Outstanding: the elegant, perceptive two-volume autobiography of a major figure in British arts for half a century. Fine presentation of the aesthetics of the arts as well as the politics of British arts.
(Touchstones: vol. 1, Another part of the wood : a self portrait (1974); vol. 2, The other half : a self portrait (1977).
3. Galina Vishnevskaya, Galina
How artists Vishnevskaya and her husband Rostropovich survived under communism: a revealing account of art under totalitarianism.
4. Peter Heyworth, Otto Klemperer : his life and times
Not just a wonderful account of the life of one of the century's great conductors, but also a revealing portrait of mid-century cultural life in the great European institutions.
5. Lin Cook (ed.), Something like fire : a memoir of Peter Cook
A troubled genius and an utterly original comedian; memorably funny, inimitable. Those who worked with Peter Cook throw various lights on his life and tragic decline.
(Touchstone: Something like fire : Peter Cook remembered).
6. Richard Ellman, James Joyce (Oxford University Press, 1959)
A masterly account of one of the century's greatest and most enigmatic writers who altered the way we think about writing and the novel.
7. Nikolaus Pevsner, An outline of European architecture
A definitive and personal overview of the buildings that make European cities the glories they are, written by one of the great critics of the century.
8. Jane Jacobs, The death and life of great American cities
The great account of how the Americans - and the Europeans, too - destroyed our great city fabric, but were able to renew it. Exhilarating and still topical.
9. Stendhal, Life of Rossini
One genius writing about another. If you have any doubts about Rossini's talents, then have them removed by Stendhal's wit and delight.
10. Marie Seton, Eisenstein
The definitive account of one of the great masters of the cinema; his use of montage achieves screen effects that today's filmmakers cannot approach.
33Cynfelyn
Jenny Colgan's top 10 comic novels
2000-01-14
Jenny Colgan is the author of Amanda's wedding and Looking for Andrew McCarthy.
1. Douglas Adams, Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy
I could quote this at length at parties, although of course I don't. Well, not before midnight, or two pan-galactic gargle blasters. The first mention of the name "Slartibartfast" when I was eight nearly made me wet my knickers. I now have better bladder control, but even more respect for the consistency of this absolute blinder.
2. Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm
This needs no explanation - it's excruciatingly funny, warm, romantic and perfect. And, like The Blair witch project, it always serves to remind me why I hate the outdoors.
3. P. G. Wodehouse, any Jeeves at all
Bertie on meeting a dog in the dark: "What ho, Jeeves! There's something in there that bites you on the leg!"
4. Matt Groening, With love from hell
Not strictly a novel as such, but containing more bitter, twisted and hilarious insights into the human condition than most full-length fiction. And all told through the medium of rabbits: genius.
5. Daisy Ashford, The young visiters, or, Mr Salteena's plan
Daisy shows an entirely appropriate response towards the adult world at all times - incredulity, bossiness and bare-faced cheek. A definite influence and heroine.
6. Richard Russo, Nobody's fool
I picked this up in a library once because it had Paul Newman on the cover - well, who wouldn't? To date I still haven't seen the film, as I'm scared it might detract from the warmth and wit of Sully and his stinky friend.
7. Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
Somebody reading over my shoulder refuses to believe that I found Northanger Abbey funnier than Catch 22, but I did. So there.
8. Sue Townsend, The secret diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 and 3/4
Poor old Adrian. I still feel for him over the whole Kevin Keegan key ring incident. Actually, apart from the obvious ruler-related segments, I felt for him over absolutely everything.
9. Clive James, Unreliable memoirs
This was just the funniest thing ever. We were set it as a comprehension exercise in a school exam once and the whole class fell apart.
10. The Onion, Our dumb century
Dammit! Nancy Mitford and the Onion boys had a playoff, and the Onion boys won. Favourite headline of the week comes from 1981: "Hinckley, Foster to Wed - Actress 'Very Impressed' by Lone Nut Gunman's Attempt on President's Life."
2000-01-14
Jenny Colgan is the author of Amanda's wedding and Looking for Andrew McCarthy.
1. Douglas Adams, Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy
I could quote this at length at parties, although of course I don't. Well, not before midnight, or two pan-galactic gargle blasters. The first mention of the name "Slartibartfast" when I was eight nearly made me wet my knickers. I now have better bladder control, but even more respect for the consistency of this absolute blinder.
2. Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm
This needs no explanation - it's excruciatingly funny, warm, romantic and perfect. And, like The Blair witch project, it always serves to remind me why I hate the outdoors.
3. P. G. Wodehouse, any Jeeves at all
Bertie on meeting a dog in the dark: "What ho, Jeeves! There's something in there that bites you on the leg!"
4. Matt Groening, With love from hell
Not strictly a novel as such, but containing more bitter, twisted and hilarious insights into the human condition than most full-length fiction. And all told through the medium of rabbits: genius.
5. Daisy Ashford, The young visiters, or, Mr Salteena's plan
Daisy shows an entirely appropriate response towards the adult world at all times - incredulity, bossiness and bare-faced cheek. A definite influence and heroine.
6. Richard Russo, Nobody's fool
I picked this up in a library once because it had Paul Newman on the cover - well, who wouldn't? To date I still haven't seen the film, as I'm scared it might detract from the warmth and wit of Sully and his stinky friend.
7. Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
Somebody reading over my shoulder refuses to believe that I found Northanger Abbey funnier than Catch 22, but I did. So there.
8. Sue Townsend, The secret diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 and 3/4
Poor old Adrian. I still feel for him over the whole Kevin Keegan key ring incident. Actually, apart from the obvious ruler-related segments, I felt for him over absolutely everything.
9. Clive James, Unreliable memoirs
This was just the funniest thing ever. We were set it as a comprehension exercise in a school exam once and the whole class fell apart.
10. The Onion, Our dumb century
Dammit! Nancy Mitford and the Onion boys had a playoff, and the Onion boys won. Favourite headline of the week comes from 1981: "Hinckley, Foster to Wed - Actress 'Very Impressed' by Lone Nut Gunman's Attempt on President's Life."
34Cynfelyn
John Hegarty's top 10 books for would-be advertisers
2000-02-04
John Hegarty is the Chairman and Creative Director of BartleBogleHegarty.
1. William Goldman, Adventures in the screen trade
Even though this is a book about Hollywood by one of its foremost screenwriters, you'll learn how to write TV commercials.
2. Peter Biskind, Easy riders, raging bulls
Indulgence has always been the creative person's worst enemy. This book chronicles its rise and fall.
3. Robert Harris, Fatherland
Nothing to do with the media. But everything to do with lateral thinking.
4. Charles Leadbeater, Living on thin air : the new economy
What's happening, why and how to make sense of it.
5. Steven Bach, Final cut : art, money and ego in the making of Heaven's gate
Creativity out of control.
6. Ayn Rand, Fountainhead
A reminder that we are nothing but the ideas we develop.
7. Brian Burrough, Barbarians at the gate
An incredible insight into the world of high finance and corporate takeovers.
8. Jerry Della Femina, From those wonderful folks who brought you Pearl Harbor : front line dispatches from the advertising war
A humorous, personal view of Madison Avenue at work by one of its great copywriters.
9. Julian Lewis Watkins, 100 greatest advertisements
Where modern advertising started and what it looked like. Understanding the industry's past helps you to understand its future.
10. T. Coraghessan Boyle, The tortilla curtain
Absolutely nothing to do with the media, but a wonderful read about hopes, dreams and disappointment.
2000-02-04
John Hegarty is the Chairman and Creative Director of BartleBogleHegarty.
1. William Goldman, Adventures in the screen trade
Even though this is a book about Hollywood by one of its foremost screenwriters, you'll learn how to write TV commercials.
2. Peter Biskind, Easy riders, raging bulls
Indulgence has always been the creative person's worst enemy. This book chronicles its rise and fall.
3. Robert Harris, Fatherland
Nothing to do with the media. But everything to do with lateral thinking.
4. Charles Leadbeater, Living on thin air : the new economy
What's happening, why and how to make sense of it.
5. Steven Bach, Final cut : art, money and ego in the making of Heaven's gate
Creativity out of control.
6. Ayn Rand, Fountainhead
A reminder that we are nothing but the ideas we develop.
7. Brian Burrough, Barbarians at the gate
An incredible insight into the world of high finance and corporate takeovers.
8. Jerry Della Femina, From those wonderful folks who brought you Pearl Harbor : front line dispatches from the advertising war
A humorous, personal view of Madison Avenue at work by one of its great copywriters.
9. Julian Lewis Watkins, 100 greatest advertisements
Where modern advertising started and what it looked like. Understanding the industry's past helps you to understand its future.
10. T. Coraghessan Boyle, The tortilla curtain
Absolutely nothing to do with the media, but a wonderful read about hopes, dreams and disappointment.
35Cynfelyn
Libby Brooks's top 10 women's novels
2000-02-04
Libby Brooks is the Guardian women's editor.
1. Marilyn French, The women's room
A feminist classic. French's fictional examination of gender, power and radicalism through the life of one woman is as timeless as it is superlative.
2. Toni Morrison, Beloved
A haunting story of love, loss and rebirth in America's black community after emancipation.
3. Sylvia Plath, The bell jar
Plath's semi-autobiographical account of a successful young women's nervous collapse - funny, real, and not a word wasted.
4. Keri Hulme, The bone people
Language, myth and tradition meld in the story of the relationship between a mute little boy and a lonely woman.
5. Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
Passion and romance written like they ought to be.
6. Margaret Atwood, The handmaid's tale
An apocalyptic vision of the future, with too many present resonances for comfort.
7. Virginia Woolf, The voyage out
Woolf's first novel, written simultaneously with her own bouts of madness.
8. Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca
The young nameless wife palls in the shadow of Rebecca, her dead predecessor.
9. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Fertility, man playing God and unconditional love.
10. Janice Galloway, The trick is to keep breathing
A woman loses a lover, and finally regains her heart. A jewel of a book.
2000-02-04
Libby Brooks is the Guardian women's editor.
1. Marilyn French, The women's room
A feminist classic. French's fictional examination of gender, power and radicalism through the life of one woman is as timeless as it is superlative.
2. Toni Morrison, Beloved
A haunting story of love, loss and rebirth in America's black community after emancipation.
3. Sylvia Plath, The bell jar
Plath's semi-autobiographical account of a successful young women's nervous collapse - funny, real, and not a word wasted.
4. Keri Hulme, The bone people
Language, myth and tradition meld in the story of the relationship between a mute little boy and a lonely woman.
5. Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
Passion and romance written like they ought to be.
6. Margaret Atwood, The handmaid's tale
An apocalyptic vision of the future, with too many present resonances for comfort.
7. Virginia Woolf, The voyage out
Woolf's first novel, written simultaneously with her own bouts of madness.
8. Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca
The young nameless wife palls in the shadow of Rebecca, her dead predecessor.
9. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Fertility, man playing God and unconditional love.
10. Janice Galloway, The trick is to keep breathing
A woman loses a lover, and finally regains her heart. A jewel of a book.
36Cynfelyn
Mohamed Al Fayed's top 10 reads
2000-02-04
Mohamed Al Fayed is the owner of Harrods.
1. Thomas Paine, The rights of Man
2. Thomas Paine, Common sense
Together, a ringing call for the rights of ordinary people.
3. George Orwell, 1984
The finest political satire ever written.
4. Jonathan Freedland, Bring home the revolution
How America showed the way and Britain failed to follow.
5. Walter Bower, A history book for Scots
Scotland's debt to Egypt revealed at last.
6. Mark Hollingsworth & Nick Fielding, Defending the realm : MI5 and the Shayler affair
Charts the waste, incompetence and excessive secrecy that riddles the British establishment.
7. Maurice M. Cotterell, The Tutankhamun prophecies
Great detective work.
8. Anthony Seldon, How Tory governments fall
One rattling good yarn after another.
9. Hugo Vickers, The private world of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor
All for love - the most romantic story imaginable.
10. John Keane, Tom Paine
A prophet without honour in his own time or country - I know the feeling!
2000-02-04
Mohamed Al Fayed is the owner of Harrods.
1. Thomas Paine, The rights of Man
2. Thomas Paine, Common sense
Together, a ringing call for the rights of ordinary people.
3. George Orwell, 1984
The finest political satire ever written.
4. Jonathan Freedland, Bring home the revolution
How America showed the way and Britain failed to follow.
5. Walter Bower, A history book for Scots
Scotland's debt to Egypt revealed at last.
6. Mark Hollingsworth & Nick Fielding, Defending the realm : MI5 and the Shayler affair
Charts the waste, incompetence and excessive secrecy that riddles the British establishment.
7. Maurice M. Cotterell, The Tutankhamun prophecies
Great detective work.
8. Anthony Seldon, How Tory governments fall
One rattling good yarn after another.
9. Hugo Vickers, The private world of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor
All for love - the most romantic story imaginable.
10. John Keane, Tom Paine
A prophet without honour in his own time or country - I know the feeling!
37Cynfelyn
Mariella Frostrup's top 10 books to impress a prospective lover
2000-02-04
Mariella Frostrup is a film critic, journalist and TV presenter. She writes: "Your favourite books are the best you can hope for on a prospective lover's shelves: it means you have much in common, in terms of both interests and emotions. Obviously, along with the books you recognise you also hope there will be many you don't - the books I've read and enjoyed over the years have always been personally recommended rather than purchased on the back of a good review. Meeting a fellow booklover is always exciting because it means an opportunity to expand your own library (amongst other less elevated pursuits!). It's a wonderful bonding moment when you discover a mutual enthusiasm for a book."
1. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Chronicle of a death foretold
My favourite book by one of the world's greatest authors.The sense of foreboding that builds through this simply written but incredibly powerful story confirms you're in the hands of a master.
2. Malcolm Lowry, Under the volcano
Another beautifully written, incisive and to my mind classic piece of literature.
3. Tim Winton, Cloudstreet
A beautiful tragicomic tale of two dysfunctional families sharing a dilapidated house in a Melbourne suburb. Winton writes with a highly individual voice and the story is laced with love and hope and all the things that make life worth living.
4. Niall Williams, Four letters of love
A romantic, windswept, glorious piece of magic realism set on the west coast of Ireland.
5. Edward Behr, Anyone here been raped and speak English
One of the funniest and most fascinating examples of the foreign correspondent genre. Sadly frequently out of print which is a tragedy.
6. Redmond O'Hanlon, Into the heart of Borneo
Redmond O'Hanlon is one of my favourite travel writers and this book was my introduction to his work. His self effacing tales of an unlikely, unfit adventurer are always unusual, illuminating and hilarious. Billy Bunter meets Wilfred Thesiger.
7. Norman Lewis, Naples '44
Set in my favourite European city, Norman Lewis's experiences there during the second world war provide a unique and illuminating portrait of the extraordinary Neopolitans. To this day it remains a seething metropolis full of rogues, ruffians and humanity at its best and worst! Norman Lewis captures it magnificently.
8. Carl Hiaasen, Tourist season
A columnist and environmental campaigner for the Miami Herald, this is Hiaasen's first novel in what has evolved into a series of blackly comic and utterly readable satires set in his native Florida. Those who saw the dreadful screen adaptation of his novel Striptease shouldn't be put off the author himself. Essential holiday/aeroplane reading.
9. Salman Rushdie, The Moor's last sigh
In my opinion Rushdie is the only author in Britain today who can compete on the world stage with writers like Marquez and Don DeLillo. He's a master storyteller and this novel sees him at the height of his powers with its multi-layered, captivating and frequently comic story.
10. Delia Smith, The complete cookery course
There are few sexier things than a man cooking you dinner. This book is the perfect instruction manual for novices and experts alike. A top scorer on any prospective date's shelves!
2000-02-04
Mariella Frostrup is a film critic, journalist and TV presenter. She writes: "Your favourite books are the best you can hope for on a prospective lover's shelves: it means you have much in common, in terms of both interests and emotions. Obviously, along with the books you recognise you also hope there will be many you don't - the books I've read and enjoyed over the years have always been personally recommended rather than purchased on the back of a good review. Meeting a fellow booklover is always exciting because it means an opportunity to expand your own library (amongst other less elevated pursuits!). It's a wonderful bonding moment when you discover a mutual enthusiasm for a book."
1. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Chronicle of a death foretold
My favourite book by one of the world's greatest authors.The sense of foreboding that builds through this simply written but incredibly powerful story confirms you're in the hands of a master.
2. Malcolm Lowry, Under the volcano
Another beautifully written, incisive and to my mind classic piece of literature.
3. Tim Winton, Cloudstreet
A beautiful tragicomic tale of two dysfunctional families sharing a dilapidated house in a Melbourne suburb. Winton writes with a highly individual voice and the story is laced with love and hope and all the things that make life worth living.
4. Niall Williams, Four letters of love
A romantic, windswept, glorious piece of magic realism set on the west coast of Ireland.
5. Edward Behr, Anyone here been raped and speak English
One of the funniest and most fascinating examples of the foreign correspondent genre. Sadly frequently out of print which is a tragedy.
6. Redmond O'Hanlon, Into the heart of Borneo
Redmond O'Hanlon is one of my favourite travel writers and this book was my introduction to his work. His self effacing tales of an unlikely, unfit adventurer are always unusual, illuminating and hilarious. Billy Bunter meets Wilfred Thesiger.
7. Norman Lewis, Naples '44
Set in my favourite European city, Norman Lewis's experiences there during the second world war provide a unique and illuminating portrait of the extraordinary Neopolitans. To this day it remains a seething metropolis full of rogues, ruffians and humanity at its best and worst! Norman Lewis captures it magnificently.
8. Carl Hiaasen, Tourist season
A columnist and environmental campaigner for the Miami Herald, this is Hiaasen's first novel in what has evolved into a series of blackly comic and utterly readable satires set in his native Florida. Those who saw the dreadful screen adaptation of his novel Striptease shouldn't be put off the author himself. Essential holiday/aeroplane reading.
9. Salman Rushdie, The Moor's last sigh
In my opinion Rushdie is the only author in Britain today who can compete on the world stage with writers like Marquez and Don DeLillo. He's a master storyteller and this novel sees him at the height of his powers with its multi-layered, captivating and frequently comic story.
10. Delia Smith, The complete cookery course
There are few sexier things than a man cooking you dinner. This book is the perfect instruction manual for novices and experts alike. A top scorer on any prospective date's shelves!
38Cynfelyn
Joanna Trollope's top 10 nineteenth-century novels
2000-02-07
Joanna Trollope's novels include A village affair, Next of kin and Other people's children. Marrying the mistress is published by Bloomsbury. "The nineteenth century was, in my view, the golden age of fiction and the one I most admire."
1. George Eliot, Middlemarch
Perhaps the greatest novel of them all - an enormous canvas and a vast and poignant range of character. A marvellous portrait of nineteenth-century provincial life.
2. Anthony Trollope, The last chronicle of Barset
This novel contains that near impossibility - the sympathetic portrait of an incredibly unsympathetic hero. A masterpiece.
3. Jane Austen, Persuasion
A subtle and elegiac novel - more heartfelt than some of her earlier romances and with a truly appealing heroine.
4. W. M. Thackeray, Vanity Fair
The best thing he ever wrote - sharp, brilliant, touching, clever and cruel, with an unforgettable heroine.
5. Thomas Hardy, The mayor of Casterbridge
A tale of true tragedy - a man of potential brought down by his own fatal flaw - but a wonderfully vivid and strong picture of early nineteenth-century rural life.
6. Wilkie Collins, The moonstone
A great, bold, theatrical mystery story which never falters, written with huge confidence and style.
7. Charles Dickens, Bleak House
This has everything - joy, grief, success, failure, wealth, poverty, comedy, tragedy - and above all, atmosphere by the bucketload.
8. Mrs Gaskell, North and South
A really remarkable picture of the reality, as well as the prosperity, of northern industrial life, and an interesting examination of changing social conscience.
9. Henry James, Portrait of a lady
A very different voice, this, subtle and sophisticated and concerned with psychological nuance and social acceptability.
10. Sir Walter Scott, Rob Roy
Scott is very out of fashion just now, but this is a true adventure story in the traditional mould of the "good-hearted" hero.
2000-02-07
Joanna Trollope's novels include A village affair, Next of kin and Other people's children. Marrying the mistress is published by Bloomsbury. "The nineteenth century was, in my view, the golden age of fiction and the one I most admire."
1. George Eliot, Middlemarch
Perhaps the greatest novel of them all - an enormous canvas and a vast and poignant range of character. A marvellous portrait of nineteenth-century provincial life.
2. Anthony Trollope, The last chronicle of Barset
This novel contains that near impossibility - the sympathetic portrait of an incredibly unsympathetic hero. A masterpiece.
3. Jane Austen, Persuasion
A subtle and elegiac novel - more heartfelt than some of her earlier romances and with a truly appealing heroine.
4. W. M. Thackeray, Vanity Fair
The best thing he ever wrote - sharp, brilliant, touching, clever and cruel, with an unforgettable heroine.
5. Thomas Hardy, The mayor of Casterbridge
A tale of true tragedy - a man of potential brought down by his own fatal flaw - but a wonderfully vivid and strong picture of early nineteenth-century rural life.
6. Wilkie Collins, The moonstone
A great, bold, theatrical mystery story which never falters, written with huge confidence and style.
7. Charles Dickens, Bleak House
This has everything - joy, grief, success, failure, wealth, poverty, comedy, tragedy - and above all, atmosphere by the bucketload.
8. Mrs Gaskell, North and South
A really remarkable picture of the reality, as well as the prosperity, of northern industrial life, and an interesting examination of changing social conscience.
9. Henry James, Portrait of a lady
A very different voice, this, subtle and sophisticated and concerned with psychological nuance and social acceptability.
10. Sir Walter Scott, Rob Roy
Scott is very out of fashion just now, but this is a true adventure story in the traditional mould of the "good-hearted" hero.
39Helenliz
Thank you for posting these - I'm a latecomer to the series, I had no idea it had been running for that long.
>31 Cynfelyn: Natalie Hayes writes excellently, BTW. I give out 5 stars very sparingly; she's earnt 2 in a year. Pandora's Jar is full of wit and snark as well as being erudite. A Thousand Ships tells the story of the Trojan war in many female voices and is genuinely excellent.
>31 Cynfelyn: Natalie Hayes writes excellently, BTW. I give out 5 stars very sparingly; she's earnt 2 in a year. Pandora's Jar is full of wit and snark as well as being erudite. A Thousand Ships tells the story of the Trojan war in many female voices and is genuinely excellent.
40Cynfelyn
Malcolm McLaren's top 10 books of the moment
2000-02-21
Malcolm McLaren is an impresario and style guru. He plans to stand for the post of London's mayor.
1. J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan
The best sex story I ever read.
2. Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders
The toughest, bitchiest indictment of a dishonest society by the best writer England has ever produced.
3. Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
An unforgettable journey into criminal behaviour that takes me back to my own childhood fantasies. A book I read when I was extremely young, and one that justified all my desires to create an environment in which I could truthfully run wild, forever recreating those artful dodgers/Sex Pistols.
4. Francoise Giroud, Christian Dior
Does passion end in fashion? The ultimate luxury item to be browsed over in the bath.
5. Patrick Kearney, The private case
The dirtiest list of rudery ever published in England or elsewhere, all its contents available on request to the British Library's chief librarian. Information Hitler's spies were desperate to get their hands on during the war.
6. Kevin Kelly, Out of control
This is a wonderful, inspirational 21st-century thinking man's guide to the new culture - how machines are becoming more human and how humans, in turn, are becoming more like machines.
7. D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's lover
The most melancholic and blissfully romantic novel I have recently re-read.
8. Nicholas Negroponte, Being digital
The allure of the digital revolution, with all the necessary roadmaps so that you cannot help but fall in love with it.
9. Pauline Reage, The story of O
A strange and adorable journey into the sublime world of a girl's bad, mad and crazed sexual misadventures. Happiness in slavery; the laughter of genius in the bathroom of our mind.
------
A top ten list of nine. And a real mixed bag. I think I'd weed out no's 4, 6 and 8 as no longer being "of the moment", whatever that means. Perhaps it's a "style guru" thing.
2000-02-21
Malcolm McLaren is an impresario and style guru. He plans to stand for the post of London's mayor.
1. J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan
The best sex story I ever read.
2. Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders
The toughest, bitchiest indictment of a dishonest society by the best writer England has ever produced.
3. Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
An unforgettable journey into criminal behaviour that takes me back to my own childhood fantasies. A book I read when I was extremely young, and one that justified all my desires to create an environment in which I could truthfully run wild, forever recreating those artful dodgers/Sex Pistols.
4. Francoise Giroud, Christian Dior
Does passion end in fashion? The ultimate luxury item to be browsed over in the bath.
5. Patrick Kearney, The private case
The dirtiest list of rudery ever published in England or elsewhere, all its contents available on request to the British Library's chief librarian. Information Hitler's spies were desperate to get their hands on during the war.
6. Kevin Kelly, Out of control
This is a wonderful, inspirational 21st-century thinking man's guide to the new culture - how machines are becoming more human and how humans, in turn, are becoming more like machines.
7. D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's lover
The most melancholic and blissfully romantic novel I have recently re-read.
8. Nicholas Negroponte, Being digital
The allure of the digital revolution, with all the necessary roadmaps so that you cannot help but fall in love with it.
9. Pauline Reage, The story of O
A strange and adorable journey into the sublime world of a girl's bad, mad and crazed sexual misadventures. Happiness in slavery; the laughter of genius in the bathroom of our mind.
------
A top ten list of nine. And a real mixed bag. I think I'd weed out no's 4, 6 and 8 as no longer being "of the moment", whatever that means. Perhaps it's a "style guru" thing.
41Cynfelyn
Vic Marks' top 10 books on cricket
2000-02-21
Vic Marks is a cricket writer and the co-author of the Wisden illustrated history of cricket.
1. Mike Brearley, The art of captaincy
OK, he writes for the Observer, but this is the best book of its kind, enhanced by countless well-remembered examples from games in which he was involved.
2. Alan Gibson, The cricket captains of England
Gibson was a minor genius - whether as a broadcaster, writer or journalist, arriving late from Didcot.
3. David Foot, Harold Gimblett, tormented genius of cricket
Foot is obviously fascinated by tormented West Country geniuses - a biography of Hammond was to follow. Gimblett was his boyhood hero, but he explores him with rigour nonetheless.
4. R. C. Robertson Glasgow, 46 not out
Another tormented West Country genius who wrote beautifully.
5. John Clarke, Cricket with a swing
Probably not a classic, but the first tour book I read. It recalls the wonderful 1963 tour of England by Frank Worrell's West Indians.
6. Simon Hughes, A lot of hard yakka
Irreverent stuff about the era in which I played: most of it rings true.
7. Donald Bradman, The art of cricket
Because we ought to find out how the greatest batsman thought the game should be played.
8. David Hopps, A century of great cricket quotes
Not a great title, perhaps, and it could do with a proper index, but there are some gems in here.
(Touchstone: A century of great cricket quotes).
9. Peter Tinniswood, Tales From a long room
More gems, this time from the Brigidier who loves "fine claret, Vimto, quail in season, barrage balloons, blotting paper, EW Swanson and his sister, Gloria".
10. C. L. R. James, Beyond a boundary
Well, we should all read this at some time or another.
------
"Vic Marks' top 10 books on cricket". Grrr. This mis-use of the apostrophe is one of my noirest bête noires. The Guardian style guide says:
"The possessive in words and names ending in S normally takes an apostrophe followed by a second S (Jones’s, James’s), but be guided by pronunciation and use the plural apostrophe where it helps: Mephistopheles’, Waters’, Hedges’ rather than Mephistopheles’s, Waters’s, Hedges’s."
So it's deliberate behaviour by the Guardian. But it doesn't mean I have to like it.
2000-02-21
Vic Marks is a cricket writer and the co-author of the Wisden illustrated history of cricket.
1. Mike Brearley, The art of captaincy
OK, he writes for the Observer, but this is the best book of its kind, enhanced by countless well-remembered examples from games in which he was involved.
2. Alan Gibson, The cricket captains of England
Gibson was a minor genius - whether as a broadcaster, writer or journalist, arriving late from Didcot.
3. David Foot, Harold Gimblett, tormented genius of cricket
Foot is obviously fascinated by tormented West Country geniuses - a biography of Hammond was to follow. Gimblett was his boyhood hero, but he explores him with rigour nonetheless.
4. R. C. Robertson Glasgow, 46 not out
Another tormented West Country genius who wrote beautifully.
5. John Clarke, Cricket with a swing
Probably not a classic, but the first tour book I read. It recalls the wonderful 1963 tour of England by Frank Worrell's West Indians.
6. Simon Hughes, A lot of hard yakka
Irreverent stuff about the era in which I played: most of it rings true.
7. Donald Bradman, The art of cricket
Because we ought to find out how the greatest batsman thought the game should be played.
8. David Hopps, A century of great cricket quotes
Not a great title, perhaps, and it could do with a proper index, but there are some gems in here.
(Touchstone: A century of great cricket quotes).
9. Peter Tinniswood, Tales From a long room
More gems, this time from the Brigidier who loves "fine claret, Vimto, quail in season, barrage balloons, blotting paper, EW Swanson and his sister, Gloria".
10. C. L. R. James, Beyond a boundary
Well, we should all read this at some time or another.
------
"Vic Marks' top 10 books on cricket". Grrr. This mis-use of the apostrophe is one of my noirest bête noires. The Guardian style guide says:
"The possessive in words and names ending in S normally takes an apostrophe followed by a second S (Jones’s, James’s), but be guided by pronunciation and use the plural apostrophe where it helps: Mephistopheles’, Waters’, Hedges’ rather than Mephistopheles’s, Waters’s, Hedges’s."
So it's deliberate behaviour by the Guardian. But it doesn't mean I have to like it.
42Cynfelyn
Norman Spinrad's top 10 novels
2000-02-25
A peer of writers such as Harlan Ellison, Michael Moorcock and Samuel R. Delany, Spinrad's best known and most controversial novels, 1969's Bug Jack Barron and 1972's The iron dream - the latter featuring Adolf Hitler as a pulp SF author - were republished in the UK last year by Toxic Press. The French edition of The iron dream earned the author the Prix Apollo in 1974. A new novel, Greenhouse summer, was published last year, but as a protest at what he sees as publishers' cynical promotion of business over literary value, Spinrad is offering the US rights to his next novel, He walked among us, for $1 to anyone who will "publish it properly".
"A top 10 books of all time is a daunting and somehow quixotic list. Here are 10 favourites in different categories for different reasons."
1. Herman Melville, Moby Dick
I first read it at the age of 11, when I greatly enjoyed it, but found it a bit slow. Reading it again as an adult it had the same effect, but I had more patience for the slow discursive bits. Any novel that can be appreciated by such an age range is very impressive.
2. Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland and Alice through the looking glass
It's a toss-up between them for the best all time children's book. I love them - I'll even watch the Disney Looking Glass film any chance I get. Ordered it up in a hotel during an acid trip.
3. Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
My dad handed me this one when it was freshly unbanned in the US; I was about 16. "You've got to read this!" he said excitedly. Not for the dirty bits, though. "What prose! What use of language!" He was dead right.
4. Philip K. Dick, The three stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
My favourite by both the best SF writer of all time and the best metaphysical novelist of all time.
5. Alfred Bester, The stars my destination
A stupendous novel that breaks entirely out of both the form and straight prose at the end and into something indescribable. His Golem 100 is even more radical, combining prose,poetry, collage, musical score, illustration, but it's not as successful on a narrative level.
6. Alexandre Dumas, Le grand dictionnaire de cuisine
The ultimate cook book. 566 pages on how to cook anything, and I do mean ANYTHING, by the great French novelist and obsessive gourmet. Cook book as literature.
7. N. Lee Wood, Looking for the Mahdi
It admittedly takes chutzpah to choose a novel written by my own wife, but not as much chutzpah as it took a non-Arabic non-Muslim American woman to write an SF novel with a Palestinian-American heroine in the political atmosphere of the late 1980s.
8. T. H. White, The once and future king
The best all time fantasy novel, for both literary form and inventiveness. I'm no big fan of Arthurian fantasy, but this one is written as if no one had done it before, and no one need bother since.
9. Hokusai, Thirty six views of Mt Fuji
My all time favourite art book.
10. Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court
My favourite novel by one of my favourite writers. When I reread it recently, I was staggered by how contemporary it was a century after it was written. Here Twain not only invented the time-travel novel and the alternate history novel, but worked out all the paradoxes and techniques. And in a serious-minded comic novel whose humour remains sharp as a scalpel and still crazy after all these years.
2000-02-25
A peer of writers such as Harlan Ellison, Michael Moorcock and Samuel R. Delany, Spinrad's best known and most controversial novels, 1969's Bug Jack Barron and 1972's The iron dream - the latter featuring Adolf Hitler as a pulp SF author - were republished in the UK last year by Toxic Press. The French edition of The iron dream earned the author the Prix Apollo in 1974. A new novel, Greenhouse summer, was published last year, but as a protest at what he sees as publishers' cynical promotion of business over literary value, Spinrad is offering the US rights to his next novel, He walked among us, for $1 to anyone who will "publish it properly".
"A top 10 books of all time is a daunting and somehow quixotic list. Here are 10 favourites in different categories for different reasons."
1. Herman Melville, Moby Dick
I first read it at the age of 11, when I greatly enjoyed it, but found it a bit slow. Reading it again as an adult it had the same effect, but I had more patience for the slow discursive bits. Any novel that can be appreciated by such an age range is very impressive.
2. Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland and Alice through the looking glass
It's a toss-up between them for the best all time children's book. I love them - I'll even watch the Disney Looking Glass film any chance I get. Ordered it up in a hotel during an acid trip.
3. Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
My dad handed me this one when it was freshly unbanned in the US; I was about 16. "You've got to read this!" he said excitedly. Not for the dirty bits, though. "What prose! What use of language!" He was dead right.
4. Philip K. Dick, The three stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
My favourite by both the best SF writer of all time and the best metaphysical novelist of all time.
5. Alfred Bester, The stars my destination
A stupendous novel that breaks entirely out of both the form and straight prose at the end and into something indescribable. His Golem 100 is even more radical, combining prose,poetry, collage, musical score, illustration, but it's not as successful on a narrative level.
6. Alexandre Dumas, Le grand dictionnaire de cuisine
The ultimate cook book. 566 pages on how to cook anything, and I do mean ANYTHING, by the great French novelist and obsessive gourmet. Cook book as literature.
7. N. Lee Wood, Looking for the Mahdi
It admittedly takes chutzpah to choose a novel written by my own wife, but not as much chutzpah as it took a non-Arabic non-Muslim American woman to write an SF novel with a Palestinian-American heroine in the political atmosphere of the late 1980s.
8. T. H. White, The once and future king
The best all time fantasy novel, for both literary form and inventiveness. I'm no big fan of Arthurian fantasy, but this one is written as if no one had done it before, and no one need bother since.
9. Hokusai, Thirty six views of Mt Fuji
My all time favourite art book.
10. Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court
My favourite novel by one of my favourite writers. When I reread it recently, I was staggered by how contemporary it was a century after it was written. Here Twain not only invented the time-travel novel and the alternate history novel, but worked out all the paradoxes and techniques. And in a serious-minded comic novel whose humour remains sharp as a scalpel and still crazy after all these years.
43Cynfelyn
Toby Litt's top 10 crime novels
2000-03-20
Toby Litt is the author of several books, including Beatniks, Corpsing and deadkidsongs.
"Giving away plots is something I never do, so these may be a tad gnomic. Also, I have problems with the ultra-ultra-hardboiled - case in point: James Ellroy. Now, I got, and digged, Dick Contino's Blues. But reading White jazz is like decoding telegrams from the compiler of a dictionary of 50s cop slang; for the moment at least, it's got me beat. Here, however, is a wide selection of recent, decent reads."
(Note: Dick Contino's Blues And Other Stories (1994) doesn't appear to be on LT yet).
1. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A study in scarlet
Holmes meets Watson. Holmes mainlines some cocaine. Holmes and Watson go off to solve not particularly foxing crimes. You know the rest. Or maybe you don't...
2. Scarlett Thomas, Dead clever
The first Lily Pascale novel - feisty heroine, or what? If there's a dark, scary corridor, Lily will go down it. (Don't!) If there's a killer on the road, Lily will make him squirm like a toad. (Do!) And the little darling lives in deepest, darkest Devon. Emmets (or is it grockles?) beware.
3. Jim Thompson, The killer inside me
Everybody knows Thompson is weird. But if you get to the end of this - and I guarantee that if you start it, you will - you'll find he's outweirded even himself. Rule-breaking is what he does - sometimes you wonder if he even knows there are rules.
4. Ethan and Joel Coen, The big Lebowski
A bit of a cheat this one, but the screenplay just about edges in as a book. One of the most recent takes on Chandler/LA noir, and the use of Dylan's 'The Man In Me' on the soundtrack was inspired.
5. Philip Kerr, A philosophical investigation
A really interesting attempt to do high and low in one go (compare my new novel, Corpsing.) A super-literate villain with a weakness for Wittgenstein (the title's no accident) thinks he can easily outplot the plods.
6. James M. Cain, Double indemnity
Extraordinary plotting, and the storytelling voice is just exquisite: "All I saw was a living room like every living room in California, maybe a little more expensive than some, but nothing that any department store wouldn't deliver on one truck, lay out in the morning, and have the credit OK ready the same afternoon."
7. Patricia Cornwell, Cruel and unusual
Before the decadence of overproduction set in. This, I think, is the best of the Scarpetta novels - the last one, I couldn't even get started with.
8. Graham Greene, Brighton Rock
The opening is about as thrilling as Greene ever got - but then, it's about as thrilling as almost any English writer ever got. Razor boys in Brighton, a meditation on the nature of Divine Grace - what more could you want? (Footnote: Inspired Morrissey's last decent song, 'Now My Heart Is Full'.)
9. Len Deighton, The Ipcress file
Harry Palmer's first Burberryed and bespectacled outing. The self-conscious cool of Deighton's writing has dated in the best way possible; bear in mind that the man was almost single-handedly responsible for bringing coffee culture to the British Isles. Stone-cold Cold War classic.
10. Muriel Spark, The driver's seat
Short and very, very sweet. Spark is wonderful on the little details of a woman's perversion. Read this and foreign travel will never seem quite the same again.
2000-03-20
Toby Litt is the author of several books, including Beatniks, Corpsing and deadkidsongs.
"Giving away plots is something I never do, so these may be a tad gnomic. Also, I have problems with the ultra-ultra-hardboiled - case in point: James Ellroy. Now, I got, and digged, Dick Contino's Blues. But reading White jazz is like decoding telegrams from the compiler of a dictionary of 50s cop slang; for the moment at least, it's got me beat. Here, however, is a wide selection of recent, decent reads."
(Note: Dick Contino's Blues And Other Stories (1994) doesn't appear to be on LT yet).
1. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A study in scarlet
Holmes meets Watson. Holmes mainlines some cocaine. Holmes and Watson go off to solve not particularly foxing crimes. You know the rest. Or maybe you don't...
2. Scarlett Thomas, Dead clever
The first Lily Pascale novel - feisty heroine, or what? If there's a dark, scary corridor, Lily will go down it. (Don't!) If there's a killer on the road, Lily will make him squirm like a toad. (Do!) And the little darling lives in deepest, darkest Devon. Emmets (or is it grockles?) beware.
3. Jim Thompson, The killer inside me
Everybody knows Thompson is weird. But if you get to the end of this - and I guarantee that if you start it, you will - you'll find he's outweirded even himself. Rule-breaking is what he does - sometimes you wonder if he even knows there are rules.
4. Ethan and Joel Coen, The big Lebowski
A bit of a cheat this one, but the screenplay just about edges in as a book. One of the most recent takes on Chandler/LA noir, and the use of Dylan's 'The Man In Me' on the soundtrack was inspired.
5. Philip Kerr, A philosophical investigation
A really interesting attempt to do high and low in one go (compare my new novel, Corpsing.) A super-literate villain with a weakness for Wittgenstein (the title's no accident) thinks he can easily outplot the plods.
6. James M. Cain, Double indemnity
Extraordinary plotting, and the storytelling voice is just exquisite: "All I saw was a living room like every living room in California, maybe a little more expensive than some, but nothing that any department store wouldn't deliver on one truck, lay out in the morning, and have the credit OK ready the same afternoon."
7. Patricia Cornwell, Cruel and unusual
Before the decadence of overproduction set in. This, I think, is the best of the Scarpetta novels - the last one, I couldn't even get started with.
8. Graham Greene, Brighton Rock
The opening is about as thrilling as Greene ever got - but then, it's about as thrilling as almost any English writer ever got. Razor boys in Brighton, a meditation on the nature of Divine Grace - what more could you want? (Footnote: Inspired Morrissey's last decent song, 'Now My Heart Is Full'.)
9. Len Deighton, The Ipcress file
Harry Palmer's first Burberryed and bespectacled outing. The self-conscious cool of Deighton's writing has dated in the best way possible; bear in mind that the man was almost single-handedly responsible for bringing coffee culture to the British Isles. Stone-cold Cold War classic.
10. Muriel Spark, The driver's seat
Short and very, very sweet. Spark is wonderful on the little details of a woman's perversion. Read this and foreign travel will never seem quite the same again.
44Cynfelyn
Kate Atkinson's top 10 books
2000-03-20
Winner of the 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year award with Behind the scenes at the museum, Kate Atkinson's latest book, Emotionally weird, is published by Doubleday.
1. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The great Gatsby
Perhaps the best American novel (although see '10') or the best novel about America and the hollowness at the heart of the dream. The closing paragraphs of 'Gatsby' are surely some of the most poignant and powerful ever written.
2. Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five
The individuality of Vonnegut's style is a curious yet perfect match for the pain of the emotional content. A humane, human book that always remains a work of art rather than biography, no matter how apparent the author's presence.
3. Jane Austen, Pride and prejudice
The Mozart opera of novels and again a transcendent union of structure and content in which unhappy marriage is the reward for those who show a weakness of character and lifelong happiness is a province reserved only for those "who truly know themselves."
4. Richmal Crompton, Just William
The funniest English novels ever written?
5. Henry James, What Maisie knew
The other side of childhood and James' finest working of his preoccupation with the theme of innocence corrupted. James is the master of making what is not said the most important thing on the page.
6. Robert Coover, Pricksongs and descants / Donald Barthelme, Collected stories
Two of the most innovative of all American short story writers. Recklessly imaginative, they are both remarkable for the playfulness and sheer brio of their writing. Coover's ingenuity and Barthelme's absurdity made me look at writing in a different way. More than anyone else these are the writers who made me want to be a writer myself.
(Touchstone: Donald Barthelme : collected stories).
7. Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland and Through the looking-glass
And without these two books in my childhood I doubt whether my imagination would have developed at all.
8. Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
The finest American novel not written by an American. Perhaps the finest American novel ever (but see '1'. And don't forget '10'.) No one can emulate Nabokov's dizzyingly vertiginous prose and his command of the text.
9. George Eliot, Middlemarch
Eliot could write bad books (Romola) and half-brilliant books (Daniel Deronda - the first half) but in Middlemarch her serious intelligence produced a novel that no one else could have been capable of - a picture of society as an organic, living, breathing synthesis - order and disorder, hope and hopelessness, pride and humility, charity and greed. If only she had seen fit to marry Dorothea to Lydgate.
10. Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn
The perfect novel.
... And I can't believe there wasn't room for 11. Ford Madox Ford, The good soldier, a novel about the wanton destruction caused by passion and bad behaviour, written with the greatest delicacy and precision.
------
An author after many LT members' mind, and a good Yorkshirewoman, getting thirteen titles into a Top Ten list. And I say that as the partially-adopted son of the red-rose county.
Not that that excuses "James' finest working ..." (no. 5), the S apostrophe mentioned above (>41 Cynfelyn:). Why would a writer (and legal secretary for goodness' sake) do this? Even if you try to invoke the Guardian style book's cop-out, "be guided by pronunciation", you'd say Jameses not James. Grrr.
2000-03-20
Winner of the 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year award with Behind the scenes at the museum, Kate Atkinson's latest book, Emotionally weird, is published by Doubleday.
1. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The great Gatsby
Perhaps the best American novel (although see '10') or the best novel about America and the hollowness at the heart of the dream. The closing paragraphs of 'Gatsby' are surely some of the most poignant and powerful ever written.
2. Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five
The individuality of Vonnegut's style is a curious yet perfect match for the pain of the emotional content. A humane, human book that always remains a work of art rather than biography, no matter how apparent the author's presence.
3. Jane Austen, Pride and prejudice
The Mozart opera of novels and again a transcendent union of structure and content in which unhappy marriage is the reward for those who show a weakness of character and lifelong happiness is a province reserved only for those "who truly know themselves."
4. Richmal Crompton, Just William
The funniest English novels ever written?
5. Henry James, What Maisie knew
The other side of childhood and James' finest working of his preoccupation with the theme of innocence corrupted. James is the master of making what is not said the most important thing on the page.
6. Robert Coover, Pricksongs and descants / Donald Barthelme, Collected stories
Two of the most innovative of all American short story writers. Recklessly imaginative, they are both remarkable for the playfulness and sheer brio of their writing. Coover's ingenuity and Barthelme's absurdity made me look at writing in a different way. More than anyone else these are the writers who made me want to be a writer myself.
(Touchstone: Donald Barthelme : collected stories).
7. Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland and Through the looking-glass
And without these two books in my childhood I doubt whether my imagination would have developed at all.
8. Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
The finest American novel not written by an American. Perhaps the finest American novel ever (but see '1'. And don't forget '10'.) No one can emulate Nabokov's dizzyingly vertiginous prose and his command of the text.
9. George Eliot, Middlemarch
Eliot could write bad books (Romola) and half-brilliant books (Daniel Deronda - the first half) but in Middlemarch her serious intelligence produced a novel that no one else could have been capable of - a picture of society as an organic, living, breathing synthesis - order and disorder, hope and hopelessness, pride and humility, charity and greed. If only she had seen fit to marry Dorothea to Lydgate.
10. Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn
The perfect novel.
... And I can't believe there wasn't room for 11. Ford Madox Ford, The good soldier, a novel about the wanton destruction caused by passion and bad behaviour, written with the greatest delicacy and precision.
------
An author after many LT members' mind, and a good Yorkshirewoman, getting thirteen titles into a Top Ten list. And I say that as the partially-adopted son of the red-rose county.
Not that that excuses "James' finest working ..." (no. 5), the S apostrophe mentioned above (>41 Cynfelyn:). Why would a writer (and legal secretary for goodness' sake) do this? Even if you try to invoke the Guardian style book's cop-out, "be guided by pronunciation", you'd say Jameses not James. Grrr.
45Cynfelyn
Jon Courtenay Grimwood's top 10 cult SF novels
2000-03-20
Jon Courtenay Grimwood's latest book is redRobe, published by Simon and Schuster. Extracts from his previous novels can be found at www.j-cg.co.uk
"These range from cult classics to straight imposters which aren't really science fiction, cult or otherwise. But what they all have in common is the fact that their authors took a good look at this world and then wrote about some place different, or not..."
1. William Gibson, Mona Lisa overdrive
It's got everything a Gibson novel needs: Japanese gang bosses,double-dealing corporations, intelligent computers, reclusive billionaires and a ghost that is literally in the machine. His later books may be better written, but for me this one punches the buttons.
2. Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
Is it SF? Definitely not, but it still features regular time slips between Soviet Russia and Biblical Palestine, a large talking cat and Satan in Mosow. Not to mention Jesus as Pontius Pilate's alternative health practitioner.
3. Jeff Noon, Vurt
God, I love this book. Robo-crusties, a gnomic Game Cat and narcotics so real I'm suprised Jack Straw hasn't had his drug tsar slap government warnings all over Jeff Noon's work. A real walk on the dub side.
4. Neal Stephenson, The diamond age
Less flashy than Snow crash and a perfect example of what cyberpunk should be like now it's all grown up. Besides, how can anyone pass up a novel where one of main characters goes by the moniker 'A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer'?'
5. Martin Millar, The good fairies of New York
Two punk fairies hit East Fourth Street via a Cornish rave in a field full of magic mushrooms after being thrown out of Scotland for doing something obscene with a clan banner. Quite why MM isn't one of the UK's best-known novelists, God knows (maybe).
6. Bruce Sterling, Schismatrix
Philosophy, astute historical analysis, heart-felt moral statement, whatever... This novel is Sterling's claim to be, along with Gibson, more than just a founding father of the mirrorshades movement.
7. Haruki Murakami, The hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world
Somewhere in the near future our hero shuffles numbers from the right to the left side of his brain, laundering data. Unicorn skulls bring dreams. Weird shit happens.
8. Alan Garner, Red shift
This is what you get when you set Vietnam in Roman-age Britain, throw in the English Civil War and add a desolate modern-day teenage love story. A book that's too hard for adults, in every sense of those words.
9. Neil Gaiman/Chris Bachalo/Mark Bukingham, Death: the high cost of living
OK, so it's a graphic novel, but the writing is tight and so is the pencil and ink work. And the fact that I've got a model of Death sat next to my computer has nothing to do with it...
10. Walter M. Miller, A canticle for Leibowitz
In 1944 the allies reduced the monastery at Monte Cassino to rubble and the 20-year-old WM Millar helped. Ten years later he wrote a novella that became Canticle, as good a trashing of war, organised religion and politics as you'll find anywhere.
2000-03-20
Jon Courtenay Grimwood's latest book is redRobe, published by Simon and Schuster. Extracts from his previous novels can be found at www.j-cg.co.uk
"These range from cult classics to straight imposters which aren't really science fiction, cult or otherwise. But what they all have in common is the fact that their authors took a good look at this world and then wrote about some place different, or not..."
1. William Gibson, Mona Lisa overdrive
It's got everything a Gibson novel needs: Japanese gang bosses,double-dealing corporations, intelligent computers, reclusive billionaires and a ghost that is literally in the machine. His later books may be better written, but for me this one punches the buttons.
2. Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
Is it SF? Definitely not, but it still features regular time slips between Soviet Russia and Biblical Palestine, a large talking cat and Satan in Mosow. Not to mention Jesus as Pontius Pilate's alternative health practitioner.
3. Jeff Noon, Vurt
God, I love this book. Robo-crusties, a gnomic Game Cat and narcotics so real I'm suprised Jack Straw hasn't had his drug tsar slap government warnings all over Jeff Noon's work. A real walk on the dub side.
4. Neal Stephenson, The diamond age
Less flashy than Snow crash and a perfect example of what cyberpunk should be like now it's all grown up. Besides, how can anyone pass up a novel where one of main characters goes by the moniker 'A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer'?'
5. Martin Millar, The good fairies of New York
Two punk fairies hit East Fourth Street via a Cornish rave in a field full of magic mushrooms after being thrown out of Scotland for doing something obscene with a clan banner. Quite why MM isn't one of the UK's best-known novelists, God knows (maybe).
6. Bruce Sterling, Schismatrix
Philosophy, astute historical analysis, heart-felt moral statement, whatever... This novel is Sterling's claim to be, along with Gibson, more than just a founding father of the mirrorshades movement.
7. Haruki Murakami, The hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world
Somewhere in the near future our hero shuffles numbers from the right to the left side of his brain, laundering data. Unicorn skulls bring dreams. Weird shit happens.
8. Alan Garner, Red shift
This is what you get when you set Vietnam in Roman-age Britain, throw in the English Civil War and add a desolate modern-day teenage love story. A book that's too hard for adults, in every sense of those words.
9. Neil Gaiman/Chris Bachalo/Mark Bukingham, Death: the high cost of living
OK, so it's a graphic novel, but the writing is tight and so is the pencil and ink work. And the fact that I've got a model of Death sat next to my computer has nothing to do with it...
10. Walter M. Miller, A canticle for Leibowitz
In 1944 the allies reduced the monastery at Monte Cassino to rubble and the 20-year-old WM Millar helped. Ten years later he wrote a novella that became Canticle, as good a trashing of war, organised religion and politics as you'll find anywhere.
46Cynfelyn
Tim Radford's top 10 books on science
2000-03-22
"Strictly speaking, there are no science books. There are books about how the universe began, or how life began, or how humanity began, or why people die, fall in love, remember and forget. The authors use science to address the questions, not fairy tales. The results are just as thrilling. Here are 10 new and less new favourites"
1. Richard Panek, Seeing and believing
When Galileo put a tube with two lenses in it and looked upwards, the spectacle was awesome. So were the consequences - it was the making of modern science. This little book's an eye-opener, too.
2. Richard Dawkins, The blind watchmaker
How evolution works - by someone who knows how to make words work. This book looked like a classic on its first printing in 1986 and it's just come out again in a pert new Penguin jacket.
3. Martin Rees, Just six numbers
We're on this planet because of a few old-fashioned values: the cosmic number omega, epsilon the the number that defines the alchemy of the stars, and so on. Gawp at the dizzying improbability of existence, except in a finely tuned universe.
4. Matt Ridley, Genome : the autobiography of a species in 23 chapters
The latest rather than the greatest book on genetics, but in a fast moving field, up-to-date is what matters. A good read, and a good guide to people as packets of DNA.
5. Steven Pinker, The language instinct
Language - fecund, inventive, prodigal and rule-ridden - arrives suddenly and is mastered by children of three or four. How does this happen? A cracker by a connoisseur of headlines such as "Drunk gets six months in violin case".
6. Paul Davies, The fifth miracle : the search for the origin of life
A cosmic physicist contemplates the meaning of life: did it have to happen? Is there something about this universe that makes it inevitable? How did it begin, and where? Is it happening anywhere else?
7. Richard Fortey, Life : an unauthorised biography
Palaeontologists read stories in stones. And what a story: two billion years from slime to Sloane Ranger. Whenever anyone says "What shall I buy?" this is the first book I think of.
8. Jared Diamond, Guns, germs and steel
Life is a playing field, but not a level one. One of the great biologists takes a look at why some peoples have it all and some get the sticky end of the lollipop. Liberals will be relieved to know that it's nothing to do with inherent tribal talent.
9. Edward O. Wilson, The diversity of life
Not so much how evolution works, but what it works towards: a fantastic tapestry of creation, beyond numbering, but alas not beyond extinguishing, which is why this book may be the most important of all.
10. Bonnie Blackburn & Leofranc Holford-Strevens, The Oxford companion to the year
A salute to millennial contemplation: this is a day-book that covers all calendars and chronologies, feasts and fast days and other attempts to reckon time. You could spend a whole year enjoying it.
------
At last, a list where I have read more than one title: no's 2, 7, 8 and 9. But unlike most of these lists, a list of twenty-year old popular science books has limited value. I found Richard Fortey and Jared Diamond in particular had a pleasant writing style, but other than that, the science has moved on, and there are better popular interpretations, because they incorporate recent advances and exclude those matters that have since been disproved. None of the books in this list are foundational, like say The principles of geology, The origin of species or Silent spring, and let's face it, who reads them these days for their informational value rather than their historic interest? These are the book versions of the old saw re. newspapers, "Today's news is tomorrow's fish and chip paper". Ho hum.
2000-03-22
"Strictly speaking, there are no science books. There are books about how the universe began, or how life began, or how humanity began, or why people die, fall in love, remember and forget. The authors use science to address the questions, not fairy tales. The results are just as thrilling. Here are 10 new and less new favourites"
1. Richard Panek, Seeing and believing
When Galileo put a tube with two lenses in it and looked upwards, the spectacle was awesome. So were the consequences - it was the making of modern science. This little book's an eye-opener, too.
2. Richard Dawkins, The blind watchmaker
How evolution works - by someone who knows how to make words work. This book looked like a classic on its first printing in 1986 and it's just come out again in a pert new Penguin jacket.
3. Martin Rees, Just six numbers
We're on this planet because of a few old-fashioned values: the cosmic number omega, epsilon the the number that defines the alchemy of the stars, and so on. Gawp at the dizzying improbability of existence, except in a finely tuned universe.
4. Matt Ridley, Genome : the autobiography of a species in 23 chapters
The latest rather than the greatest book on genetics, but in a fast moving field, up-to-date is what matters. A good read, and a good guide to people as packets of DNA.
5. Steven Pinker, The language instinct
Language - fecund, inventive, prodigal and rule-ridden - arrives suddenly and is mastered by children of three or four. How does this happen? A cracker by a connoisseur of headlines such as "Drunk gets six months in violin case".
6. Paul Davies, The fifth miracle : the search for the origin of life
A cosmic physicist contemplates the meaning of life: did it have to happen? Is there something about this universe that makes it inevitable? How did it begin, and where? Is it happening anywhere else?
7. Richard Fortey, Life : an unauthorised biography
Palaeontologists read stories in stones. And what a story: two billion years from slime to Sloane Ranger. Whenever anyone says "What shall I buy?" this is the first book I think of.
8. Jared Diamond, Guns, germs and steel
Life is a playing field, but not a level one. One of the great biologists takes a look at why some peoples have it all and some get the sticky end of the lollipop. Liberals will be relieved to know that it's nothing to do with inherent tribal talent.
9. Edward O. Wilson, The diversity of life
Not so much how evolution works, but what it works towards: a fantastic tapestry of creation, beyond numbering, but alas not beyond extinguishing, which is why this book may be the most important of all.
10. Bonnie Blackburn & Leofranc Holford-Strevens, The Oxford companion to the year
A salute to millennial contemplation: this is a day-book that covers all calendars and chronologies, feasts and fast days and other attempts to reckon time. You could spend a whole year enjoying it.
------
At last, a list where I have read more than one title: no's 2, 7, 8 and 9. But unlike most of these lists, a list of twenty-year old popular science books has limited value. I found Richard Fortey and Jared Diamond in particular had a pleasant writing style, but other than that, the science has moved on, and there are better popular interpretations, because they incorporate recent advances and exclude those matters that have since been disproved. None of the books in this list are foundational, like say The principles of geology, The origin of species or Silent spring, and let's face it, who reads them these days for their informational value rather than their historic interest? These are the book versions of the old saw re. newspapers, "Today's news is tomorrow's fish and chip paper". Ho hum.
47Cynfelyn
Jacqueline Wilson's top 10 children's books
2000-03-29
Jacqueline Wilson is the winner of the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize 2000 with The illustrated mum
1. Noel Streatfield, Ballet shoes
I longed to go to ballet classes but my mother wouldn't let me, so I read Ballet Shoes again and again and pranced around our flat in my bedroom slippers pretending to be all three Fossil sisters at their stage school.
2. Louisa M. Alcott, Little women
I loved this book (and I especially loved Jo) so it was a treat to go to Concorde to visit Orchard House where Louisa lived. It was like stepping straight into the book.
3. Susan Coolidge, What Katy did
I was an only child so I loved reading about large families. I liked Katy best when she was naughty and wild and untidy at the beginning of the book.
4. Eve Garnett, The family from One End Street
The Ruggles were another large family. I identified strongly with the second child, Kate. I even looked a bit like her, with wispy hair and a drooping hemline!
5. Betty Macdonald, Nancy and Plum
This was my all-time favourite children's book, though no-one else has ever heard of it. Nancy and Plum were two orphan sisters who ran away - it was very stirring stuff.
6. Maurice Sendak, Where the wild things are
I've read this picture book with all kinds of small children and it's never failed. I think it's a masterpiece.
7. Kathleen Lines (compiler), Lavender's blue
My favourite nursery rhyme collection with Harold Jones' exquisite dream-like illustrations.
8. Karen Hesse, Out of the dust
The only modern children's book that has ever made me cry.
9. Karen Cushman, The midwife's apprentice
I usually don't care for historical novels but Karen Cuchman's medieval girls are so real and spirited that they beguile you back into the past.
10. Dodie Smith, I capture the castle
Cassandra keeps a journal, writing about her life in a ruined castle. I know the first paragraph off by heart!
------
My #2 was mad-keen on Jacqueline Wilson when she was younger. It helped that many of Wilson's books, written in English, have been translated into Welsh, and she got to read both versions, such as Lowri Angel and Vicky Angel, and Ffrindiau gorau and Best friends. The same goes for her other go-to author at the time, Michael Morpurgo, with many of his titles translated into Welsh, such as Caeau Fflandrys and Private Peaceful, and Gwrando ar y lloer and Listen to the moon.
As for the list, I'd say no's 1-4, 6 and 10 are pretty much English children's literature canon. The others look intriguing from their LT descriptions, especially perhaps The midwife's apprentice.
2000-03-29
Jacqueline Wilson is the winner of the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize 2000 with The illustrated mum
1. Noel Streatfield, Ballet shoes
I longed to go to ballet classes but my mother wouldn't let me, so I read Ballet Shoes again and again and pranced around our flat in my bedroom slippers pretending to be all three Fossil sisters at their stage school.
2. Louisa M. Alcott, Little women
I loved this book (and I especially loved Jo) so it was a treat to go to Concorde to visit Orchard House where Louisa lived. It was like stepping straight into the book.
3. Susan Coolidge, What Katy did
I was an only child so I loved reading about large families. I liked Katy best when she was naughty and wild and untidy at the beginning of the book.
4. Eve Garnett, The family from One End Street
The Ruggles were another large family. I identified strongly with the second child, Kate. I even looked a bit like her, with wispy hair and a drooping hemline!
5. Betty Macdonald, Nancy and Plum
This was my all-time favourite children's book, though no-one else has ever heard of it. Nancy and Plum were two orphan sisters who ran away - it was very stirring stuff.
6. Maurice Sendak, Where the wild things are
I've read this picture book with all kinds of small children and it's never failed. I think it's a masterpiece.
7. Kathleen Lines (compiler), Lavender's blue
My favourite nursery rhyme collection with Harold Jones' exquisite dream-like illustrations.
8. Karen Hesse, Out of the dust
The only modern children's book that has ever made me cry.
9. Karen Cushman, The midwife's apprentice
I usually don't care for historical novels but Karen Cuchman's medieval girls are so real and spirited that they beguile you back into the past.
10. Dodie Smith, I capture the castle
Cassandra keeps a journal, writing about her life in a ruined castle. I know the first paragraph off by heart!
------
My #2 was mad-keen on Jacqueline Wilson when she was younger. It helped that many of Wilson's books, written in English, have been translated into Welsh, and she got to read both versions, such as Lowri Angel and Vicky Angel, and Ffrindiau gorau and Best friends. The same goes for her other go-to author at the time, Michael Morpurgo, with many of his titles translated into Welsh, such as Caeau Fflandrys and Private Peaceful, and Gwrando ar y lloer and Listen to the moon.
As for the list, I'd say no's 1-4, 6 and 10 are pretty much English children's literature canon. The others look intriguing from their LT descriptions, especially perhaps The midwife's apprentice.
48Cynfelyn
Peter Ho Davies's top 10 short story collections
2000-03-30
Peter Ho Davies's latest book, Equal love, is published by Granta
1. Anton Chekhov (ed. Richard Ford), Essential tales of Chekhov
A wonderful introduction to the father of the modern short story, selected by a contemporary master.
2. James Joyce, Dubliners
Joyce wrote (arguably) the greatest novel of the last century, but only after he had written (unarguably) the greatest short story ever: The Dead.
3. Flannery O'Connor, The complete stories of Flannery O'Connor
You can hear God laughing (nastily) at the chilling black comedy of A Good Man is Hard to Find. And Good Country People must be the oddest retelling of Cinderella yet - with a prince called Manley Pointer and an artificial leg in place of a glass slipper it is even better than Angela Carter's reworked fairytales.
4. Borges, Collected fictions
Borges looks like the genius of laziness - a writer who'd rather review an imaginary novel than write it - but these brief stories, like the tardis (a simple device by Borgesian standards), are always mind-bendingly bigger on the inside than the outside. The South, one of Borges own favourites, is an overlooked masterpiece.
5. Ernest Hemingway, The collected stories
The most imitated American writer of the 20th century hasn't always been well-served by followers or fans, but his stories, perhaps his best work, continue to surprise, from the bleak poetry of A Clean Well Lighted Place to the super-human restraint of Hills Like White Elephants.
6. Raymond Carver, Where I'm calling from
We think of Carver as a kind of broken-down Hemingway: without the bullfights or safaris and left only with the failing relationships, and booze. But the last story here, Errand, about the death of Chekhov, written while Carver himself was dying, offers a glimpse of his range.
7. Grace Paley, The collected stories of Grace Paley
Only one collection every ten years or so since the 1950's, but then short stories are all about quality over quantity. In Time Which Made a Monkey of Us All, manages to be funny, profound and moving about both the Holocaust and the Bomb, all in less than 20 pages.
8. Julian Barnes, The history of the world in 10 1/2 chapters
A "closet" collection (Jim Crace's Continent is another) passing as anovel. Even if the title proclaims them chapters, these linked stories demonstrate one big advantage a collection has over a conventional novel:its ability to vault over time and space, from character to character; to be all encompassing without telling all.
9. Alice Munro, Selected stories
The Goddess of Small Things. The short story writer who does the impossible and makes stories flow and feel like nineteenth century novels.
10. Denis Johnson, Jesus' son
The exception to the rule that stories linked by one character are really unfinished novels. The fragmented, but overlapping form of a collection is perfect for the detached, numbed-out recurring character (known only as Fuckhead) and his disjointed druggy experience. An American Trainspotting? Better.
2000-03-30
Peter Ho Davies's latest book, Equal love, is published by Granta
1. Anton Chekhov (ed. Richard Ford), Essential tales of Chekhov
A wonderful introduction to the father of the modern short story, selected by a contemporary master.
2. James Joyce, Dubliners
Joyce wrote (arguably) the greatest novel of the last century, but only after he had written (unarguably) the greatest short story ever: The Dead.
3. Flannery O'Connor, The complete stories of Flannery O'Connor
You can hear God laughing (nastily) at the chilling black comedy of A Good Man is Hard to Find. And Good Country People must be the oddest retelling of Cinderella yet - with a prince called Manley Pointer and an artificial leg in place of a glass slipper it is even better than Angela Carter's reworked fairytales.
4. Borges, Collected fictions
Borges looks like the genius of laziness - a writer who'd rather review an imaginary novel than write it - but these brief stories, like the tardis (a simple device by Borgesian standards), are always mind-bendingly bigger on the inside than the outside. The South, one of Borges own favourites, is an overlooked masterpiece.
5. Ernest Hemingway, The collected stories
The most imitated American writer of the 20th century hasn't always been well-served by followers or fans, but his stories, perhaps his best work, continue to surprise, from the bleak poetry of A Clean Well Lighted Place to the super-human restraint of Hills Like White Elephants.
6. Raymond Carver, Where I'm calling from
We think of Carver as a kind of broken-down Hemingway: without the bullfights or safaris and left only with the failing relationships, and booze. But the last story here, Errand, about the death of Chekhov, written while Carver himself was dying, offers a glimpse of his range.
7. Grace Paley, The collected stories of Grace Paley
Only one collection every ten years or so since the 1950's, but then short stories are all about quality over quantity. In Time Which Made a Monkey of Us All, manages to be funny, profound and moving about both the Holocaust and the Bomb, all in less than 20 pages.
8. Julian Barnes, The history of the world in 10 1/2 chapters
A "closet" collection (Jim Crace's Continent is another) passing as anovel. Even if the title proclaims them chapters, these linked stories demonstrate one big advantage a collection has over a conventional novel:its ability to vault over time and space, from character to character; to be all encompassing without telling all.
9. Alice Munro, Selected stories
The Goddess of Small Things. The short story writer who does the impossible and makes stories flow and feel like nineteenth century novels.
10. Denis Johnson, Jesus' son
The exception to the rule that stories linked by one character are really unfinished novels. The fragmented, but overlapping form of a collection is perfect for the detached, numbed-out recurring character (known only as Fuckhead) and his disjointed druggy experience. An American Trainspotting? Better.
49Cynfelyn
Robert McCrum's top 10 books of the twentieth century
2000-04-06
Robert McCrum is The Observer's literary editor and the author of, among other books, My year off.
1. Marcel Proust, A la recherche du temps perdu
Proust redefined the terms of fiction with this great novel, a profound and often very witty 12-volume masterpiece whose influence continues to pervade the body politic of imaginative prose.
2. James Joyce, Ulysses
In the world of English language literature, this book casts a long shadow. Much of the last century's fiction would be impossible without it.
3. Robert Musil, The man without qualities
Seen by some as the A la recherche du temps perdu of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, this is a meditation on the plight of the little man lost in a great machine. One of Europe's unquestioned 20th-century masterpieces.
4. Franz Kafka, The trial
For many readers, this is the novel that captures the spirit of the age most comprehensively. The term Kakfaesque is one that seems appropriate to much of the century's history.
5. Samuel Beckett, Murphy
Beckett's fiction, which preceded his plays, shares many of their qualities and has proved immensely influential with many subsequent writers - even Roddy Doyle.
6. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One hundred years of solitude
The original novel of Magical Realism, this has sponsored generations of imitators.
7. Ford Madox Ford, The good soldier
The haunting masterpiece of Edwardian England.
8. Gunter Grass, The tin drum
Grass was recently awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and probably won it for this provocative assault on the poisoned legacy of the Third Reich.
9. V. S. Naipaul, A bend in the river
To my way of thinking, Naipaul is the greatest living writer of English prose, and this is his masterpiece, though some would nominate A house for Mr Biswas.
10. Josef Conrad, Nostromo
Conrad now looks and reads like a Victorian, but this - one of his finest - was actually published in 1904.
Top 10 US/English books of the last century
1. Evelyn Waugh, Sword of Honour trilogy
2. Jack Kerouac, On the road
3. John Dos Passos, USA
4. P. G. Wodehouse, The code of the Woosters
5. Ernest Hemingway, Stories. (Touchstone: The collected stories).
6. Robert Penn Warren, All the king's men
7. Graham Greene, The end of the affair
8. Salman Rushdie, Midnight's children
9. Paul Auster, New York trilogy
10. Toni Morison, Song of Solomon
2000-04-06
Robert McCrum is The Observer's literary editor and the author of, among other books, My year off.
1. Marcel Proust, A la recherche du temps perdu
Proust redefined the terms of fiction with this great novel, a profound and often very witty 12-volume masterpiece whose influence continues to pervade the body politic of imaginative prose.
2. James Joyce, Ulysses
In the world of English language literature, this book casts a long shadow. Much of the last century's fiction would be impossible without it.
3. Robert Musil, The man without qualities
Seen by some as the A la recherche du temps perdu of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, this is a meditation on the plight of the little man lost in a great machine. One of Europe's unquestioned 20th-century masterpieces.
4. Franz Kafka, The trial
For many readers, this is the novel that captures the spirit of the age most comprehensively. The term Kakfaesque is one that seems appropriate to much of the century's history.
5. Samuel Beckett, Murphy
Beckett's fiction, which preceded his plays, shares many of their qualities and has proved immensely influential with many subsequent writers - even Roddy Doyle.
6. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One hundred years of solitude
The original novel of Magical Realism, this has sponsored generations of imitators.
7. Ford Madox Ford, The good soldier
The haunting masterpiece of Edwardian England.
8. Gunter Grass, The tin drum
Grass was recently awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and probably won it for this provocative assault on the poisoned legacy of the Third Reich.
9. V. S. Naipaul, A bend in the river
To my way of thinking, Naipaul is the greatest living writer of English prose, and this is his masterpiece, though some would nominate A house for Mr Biswas.
10. Josef Conrad, Nostromo
Conrad now looks and reads like a Victorian, but this - one of his finest - was actually published in 1904.
Top 10 US/English books of the last century
1. Evelyn Waugh, Sword of Honour trilogy
2. Jack Kerouac, On the road
3. John Dos Passos, USA
4. P. G. Wodehouse, The code of the Woosters
5. Ernest Hemingway, Stories. (Touchstone: The collected stories).
6. Robert Penn Warren, All the king's men
7. Graham Greene, The end of the affair
8. Salman Rushdie, Midnight's children
9. Paul Auster, New York trilogy
10. Toni Morison, Song of Solomon
50Cynfelyn
Robin Houston's top 10 books on programming
2000-04-27
Robin Houston is a technical architect.
1. Philip Greenspun, Philip and Alex's guide to web publishing
Fittingly, available on the web in its entirety. Witty, readable and opinionated: I didn't put it down until I'd finished it, when I thrust it into the hands of the person nearest me and insisted that he read it immediately.
2. Gamma, Helm, Johnson and Vlissides, Design patterns
Drawing on the ideas of the architect Christopher Alexander (especially his classic A pattern language), the gang of four, as they have become known, applied the idea of a pattern, or re-usable technique, to the process of building object-oriented software. Depending on your experience, it either gives you a language to describe techniques you already knew, or puts the methods of the masters at your disposal.
3. Rick Booth, Inner loops
The perfect antidote to an overdose of joyless structured programming or excessively abstract code, this book masquerades as a guide to writing highly optimised assembly for Intel processors. Though it performs that function admirably, it's really a paean to the joys of speed-freak take-no-prisoners code. Booth knows he's at odds with conventional wisdom, and grins gleefully as he races past.
4. W. Richard Stevens, UNIX network programming
All of Stevens's books are good: this one is my favourite because it combines two of my favourite things, UNIX and TCP/IP. Encyclopaedic in its scope - Stevens knows his topic inside out and explains it to perfection.
5. Frederick P. Brooks Jr, The mythical man-month
Written in 1975, this is the software engineering classic. Apart from some of the examples, it is still as fresh and relevant today. Nobody should be allowed near a software project (and yes, a large website is a software project) until they've read this book at least twice.
6. Jeffrey Friedl, Mastering regular expressions
Regular expressions look like this - /("^"*"|^)*>/ - and Jeffrey Friedl knows the score. Clearly the work of an obsessed man, he claims that regexes are "one of the few outlets for the artist in me". Meticulous and definitive.
7. Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker
OK, not really a programming book, but truly great - the only post-apocalyptic novel that need ever be written. From Punch & Judy to nuclear war via the Littl Shyning Man. Written not in English but in a worn down, broken-up vernacular, Riddley Walker evokes a fragile, mysterious world.
8. Virginia Woolf, The waves
Arguably her greatest novel, this is ostensibly the intertwined first-person stories of six friends, from childhood into old age. The monologues are extraordinarily poetic, written in language which is not and has never been spoken. Possibly the single most beautiful thing in existence.
9. Douglas Hofstadter, Godel, Escher, Bach
A genuine masterpiece, though perhaps a predictable choice. Its most astonishing facet for me is that Hofstadter's explains Godel's world-changing incompleteness theorem in a fairly comprehensible (and very comprehensive) way via Bach & Lewis Carroll.
10. Lewis Carroll, Through the looking glass
Probably the funniest book I've ever read, suffused throughout with surreal humour and fantastic rhymes. Dated only by occasional reference to mutton pies, the humour is as fresh as ever.
2000-04-27
Robin Houston is a technical architect.
1. Philip Greenspun, Philip and Alex's guide to web publishing
Fittingly, available on the web in its entirety. Witty, readable and opinionated: I didn't put it down until I'd finished it, when I thrust it into the hands of the person nearest me and insisted that he read it immediately.
2. Gamma, Helm, Johnson and Vlissides, Design patterns
Drawing on the ideas of the architect Christopher Alexander (especially his classic A pattern language), the gang of four, as they have become known, applied the idea of a pattern, or re-usable technique, to the process of building object-oriented software. Depending on your experience, it either gives you a language to describe techniques you already knew, or puts the methods of the masters at your disposal.
3. Rick Booth, Inner loops
The perfect antidote to an overdose of joyless structured programming or excessively abstract code, this book masquerades as a guide to writing highly optimised assembly for Intel processors. Though it performs that function admirably, it's really a paean to the joys of speed-freak take-no-prisoners code. Booth knows he's at odds with conventional wisdom, and grins gleefully as he races past.
4. W. Richard Stevens, UNIX network programming
All of Stevens's books are good: this one is my favourite because it combines two of my favourite things, UNIX and TCP/IP. Encyclopaedic in its scope - Stevens knows his topic inside out and explains it to perfection.
5. Frederick P. Brooks Jr, The mythical man-month
Written in 1975, this is the software engineering classic. Apart from some of the examples, it is still as fresh and relevant today. Nobody should be allowed near a software project (and yes, a large website is a software project) until they've read this book at least twice.
6. Jeffrey Friedl, Mastering regular expressions
Regular expressions look like this - /("^"*"|^)*>/ - and Jeffrey Friedl knows the score. Clearly the work of an obsessed man, he claims that regexes are "one of the few outlets for the artist in me". Meticulous and definitive.
7. Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker
OK, not really a programming book, but truly great - the only post-apocalyptic novel that need ever be written. From Punch & Judy to nuclear war via the Littl Shyning Man. Written not in English but in a worn down, broken-up vernacular, Riddley Walker evokes a fragile, mysterious world.
8. Virginia Woolf, The waves
Arguably her greatest novel, this is ostensibly the intertwined first-person stories of six friends, from childhood into old age. The monologues are extraordinarily poetic, written in language which is not and has never been spoken. Possibly the single most beautiful thing in existence.
9. Douglas Hofstadter, Godel, Escher, Bach
A genuine masterpiece, though perhaps a predictable choice. Its most astonishing facet for me is that Hofstadter's explains Godel's world-changing incompleteness theorem in a fairly comprehensible (and very comprehensive) way via Bach & Lewis Carroll.
10. Lewis Carroll, Through the looking glass
Probably the funniest book I've ever read, suffused throughout with surreal humour and fantastic rhymes. Dated only by occasional reference to mutton pies, the humour is as fresh as ever.
51Cynfelyn
Susan Blackmore's top 10 books
2000-05-30
Susan Blackmore's latest book is The meme machine, published by Oxford University Press. "I am choosing mostly science books because they are what I enjoy. I sometimes think I should read more fiction for the health of my mind, but I find it too difficult. I can never remember who is who - except in the simplest children's books. So for pleasurable bedtime reading give me science books every time. The best are well written, not too long, and range from nit-picking detail to answering the grand questions of life such as who are we? Why are we here? Is there any point to it all?"
1. Richard Dawkins, The selfish gene
25 years old but still a wonderful book on evolution. At the end of the book Dawkins invents the "meme". Memes are ideas, skills, habits or technologies that are passed from person to person by imitation, evolving our minds and societies as they go. It is an idea that has captivated me and changed my intellectual life for ever.
2. Daniel Dennett, Consciousness explained
Consciousness is a great mystery. It feels as though there is an inner subjective world that is quite separate from the objective world of "reality" but this kind of dualism doesn't make sense. Dennett scythes through muddled thinking on consciousness and writes a wonderful book - even if the title is a little OTT.
3. Jared Diamond, Guns, germs and steel
A wonderful combination of prehistory, history and science that explores how the physical features of geography have shaped human evolution - giving some people all the goodies and leaving others isolated from the spread of ideas and without the resources to develop their own. In my terms it is a book all about the history of memes.
4. Matt Ridley, The red queen
This one's all about sex - how we humans evolved to have the peculiar sexual preferences and behaviours we do, and why sex is such fun. Beautifully written, a fun read as well as an education on evolutionary thinking.
5. Philip Roshi Kapleau, The three pillars of Zen
I have been practising Zen for many years. Although I rarely read books about the subject I like this one because it not only covers the basics but also includes stories of ordinary people who have really seen "how it is".
6. Steven Pinker, The language instinct
I was never much interested in language until I read this book. Pinker inspired me not only to realise how fascinating human language is, but to start inventing theories of my own about how we humans came to be the only species who have it.
7. E. Gurney, F. W. Myers and F. Podmore, Phantasms of the living (1886)
I used to love reading books about psychic phenomena but in the end got utterly sick of the whole subject. This wonderful classic from over a century ago shows great minds at work, exploring strange experiences. A dip into this one quickly reveals how little the subject has progressed since then.
8. Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont, Intellectual impostures
I have often been intimidated by people who use long words and incomprehensible logic to argue that truth is relative and any theory is as good as any other. Sokal not only got sick of postmodernist relativism but pulled off the stunt of getting a spoof article published in a prestigious postmodernist journal. This book tells the story. I loved it.
9. Douglas Adams, The hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy
What a laugh. I loved the radio series and then the book. Can be read again and again.
10. Arthur Ransome, Winter holiday
Of all our family books to read aloud, my favourites are Arthur Ransome, Roald Dahl, Harry Potter and C. S. Lewis's Narnia tales. But if I have to pick one it is Winter holiday in which there is snow and ice and fear, as well as sailing (and girls who do good boyish outdoor things and hate wearing dresses).
------
Yay for H2G2 and Winter holiday. My favourite books from two of my favourite authors.
Interesting that Susan Blackmore and Tim Radford (no >46 Cynfelyn: above) have four authors in common: Richard Dawkins, Jared Diamond, Matt Ridley and Steven Pinker, and even list the same book for two of them: Guns, germs and steel and The language instinct. Unfortunately I think Matt Ridley has become something of a busted flush since this column was published in 2000, being the chairman of Northern Rock in 2007 when it experienced the first run on a British bank in 130 years, due to being heavily invested in the subprime mortgage crisis; becoming a Tory peer in 2013; being the owner of coalfield land who also happened to be a climate change denier; an investor in and promotor in Parliament of shale gas fracking; a vocal Eurosceptic and Brexiteer; and a coronavirus lab leak conspiracy theorist. Not a good look.
2000-05-30
Susan Blackmore's latest book is The meme machine, published by Oxford University Press. "I am choosing mostly science books because they are what I enjoy. I sometimes think I should read more fiction for the health of my mind, but I find it too difficult. I can never remember who is who - except in the simplest children's books. So for pleasurable bedtime reading give me science books every time. The best are well written, not too long, and range from nit-picking detail to answering the grand questions of life such as who are we? Why are we here? Is there any point to it all?"
1. Richard Dawkins, The selfish gene
25 years old but still a wonderful book on evolution. At the end of the book Dawkins invents the "meme". Memes are ideas, skills, habits or technologies that are passed from person to person by imitation, evolving our minds and societies as they go. It is an idea that has captivated me and changed my intellectual life for ever.
2. Daniel Dennett, Consciousness explained
Consciousness is a great mystery. It feels as though there is an inner subjective world that is quite separate from the objective world of "reality" but this kind of dualism doesn't make sense. Dennett scythes through muddled thinking on consciousness and writes a wonderful book - even if the title is a little OTT.
3. Jared Diamond, Guns, germs and steel
A wonderful combination of prehistory, history and science that explores how the physical features of geography have shaped human evolution - giving some people all the goodies and leaving others isolated from the spread of ideas and without the resources to develop their own. In my terms it is a book all about the history of memes.
4. Matt Ridley, The red queen
This one's all about sex - how we humans evolved to have the peculiar sexual preferences and behaviours we do, and why sex is such fun. Beautifully written, a fun read as well as an education on evolutionary thinking.
5. Philip Roshi Kapleau, The three pillars of Zen
I have been practising Zen for many years. Although I rarely read books about the subject I like this one because it not only covers the basics but also includes stories of ordinary people who have really seen "how it is".
6. Steven Pinker, The language instinct
I was never much interested in language until I read this book. Pinker inspired me not only to realise how fascinating human language is, but to start inventing theories of my own about how we humans came to be the only species who have it.
7. E. Gurney, F. W. Myers and F. Podmore, Phantasms of the living (1886)
I used to love reading books about psychic phenomena but in the end got utterly sick of the whole subject. This wonderful classic from over a century ago shows great minds at work, exploring strange experiences. A dip into this one quickly reveals how little the subject has progressed since then.
8. Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont, Intellectual impostures
I have often been intimidated by people who use long words and incomprehensible logic to argue that truth is relative and any theory is as good as any other. Sokal not only got sick of postmodernist relativism but pulled off the stunt of getting a spoof article published in a prestigious postmodernist journal. This book tells the story. I loved it.
9. Douglas Adams, The hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy
What a laugh. I loved the radio series and then the book. Can be read again and again.
10. Arthur Ransome, Winter holiday
Of all our family books to read aloud, my favourites are Arthur Ransome, Roald Dahl, Harry Potter and C. S. Lewis's Narnia tales. But if I have to pick one it is Winter holiday in which there is snow and ice and fear, as well as sailing (and girls who do good boyish outdoor things and hate wearing dresses).
------
Yay for H2G2 and Winter holiday. My favourite books from two of my favourite authors.
Interesting that Susan Blackmore and Tim Radford (no >46 Cynfelyn: above) have four authors in common: Richard Dawkins, Jared Diamond, Matt Ridley and Steven Pinker, and even list the same book for two of them: Guns, germs and steel and The language instinct. Unfortunately I think Matt Ridley has become something of a busted flush since this column was published in 2000, being the chairman of Northern Rock in 2007 when it experienced the first run on a British bank in 130 years, due to being heavily invested in the subprime mortgage crisis; becoming a Tory peer in 2013; being the owner of coalfield land who also happened to be a climate change denier; an investor in and promotor in Parliament of shale gas fracking; a vocal Eurosceptic and Brexiteer; and a coronavirus lab leak conspiracy theorist. Not a good look.
52Cynfelyn
Mike Phillips's top 10 crime novels
2000-05-31
(Touchstone: Mike Phillips (1)).
Mike Phillips's latest book, A shadow of myself, is published by HarperCollins.
1. Eric Ambler, A coffin for Demetrios
Extraordinary originality for a time when the anodyne Agatha Christie was a bestseller. Still fresh as new, it is a political satire and a travelogue round eastern Europe as well as a gripping thriller.
2. Umberto Eco, Name of the rose
Like walking a maze through history. Wonderful characters and an intricate, coruscatingly brilliant plot.
3. Martin Cruz Smith, Gorky Park
Displays an amazing grasp of the social geography of cold war Russia, predicting the issue of organised crime in the east.
4. Josef Skvorecky, The miracle game
Funny, original, acute outline of Czech society. It argues the social construction of 'crime' and its role as an instrument of political power.
5. Joseph Conrad, The secret agent
Bitter satire about a corrupt society. There's not been anything better about terrorism and the state.
6. Dashiell Hammett, Red harvest
Often imitated but no one has done it better. Chandler was cuter but he lacked Hammett's knowledge, passion and political bite. In his hands Hammett's satirical lambasting of California society eventually became an endlessly cliched formula.
7. Wilkie Collins, The woman in white
Union of gothic horror, mystery, and the leisurely detail of 19th century characterisation, along with a pre-cinematic approach to narration. Reading it again is a surprising pleasure.
8. Charles Willeford, The way we die now
One of the few American crime writers to avoid propagating a rightwing agenda. This book is exceptional in focusing on the cruel exploitation and murder of migrant workers in Southern farms.
9. Manuel Vazquez Montalban, Murder in the Central Committee
Neglected Spanish master.
10. Graham Greene, Brighton Rock
Greene's entertainments look better now than most of his pretentious and overpraised 'serious novels'. One of the few British crime novels of the time which matched the modernist tone of the Americans, while remaining completely authentic.
2000-05-31
(Touchstone: Mike Phillips (1)).
Mike Phillips's latest book, A shadow of myself, is published by HarperCollins.
1. Eric Ambler, A coffin for Demetrios
Extraordinary originality for a time when the anodyne Agatha Christie was a bestseller. Still fresh as new, it is a political satire and a travelogue round eastern Europe as well as a gripping thriller.
2. Umberto Eco, Name of the rose
Like walking a maze through history. Wonderful characters and an intricate, coruscatingly brilliant plot.
3. Martin Cruz Smith, Gorky Park
Displays an amazing grasp of the social geography of cold war Russia, predicting the issue of organised crime in the east.
4. Josef Skvorecky, The miracle game
Funny, original, acute outline of Czech society. It argues the social construction of 'crime' and its role as an instrument of political power.
5. Joseph Conrad, The secret agent
Bitter satire about a corrupt society. There's not been anything better about terrorism and the state.
6. Dashiell Hammett, Red harvest
Often imitated but no one has done it better. Chandler was cuter but he lacked Hammett's knowledge, passion and political bite. In his hands Hammett's satirical lambasting of California society eventually became an endlessly cliched formula.
7. Wilkie Collins, The woman in white
Union of gothic horror, mystery, and the leisurely detail of 19th century characterisation, along with a pre-cinematic approach to narration. Reading it again is a surprising pleasure.
8. Charles Willeford, The way we die now
One of the few American crime writers to avoid propagating a rightwing agenda. This book is exceptional in focusing on the cruel exploitation and murder of migrant workers in Southern farms.
9. Manuel Vazquez Montalban, Murder in the Central Committee
Neglected Spanish master.
10. Graham Greene, Brighton Rock
Greene's entertainments look better now than most of his pretentious and overpraised 'serious novels'. One of the few British crime novels of the time which matched the modernist tone of the Americans, while remaining completely authentic.
53Cynfelyn
Caroline Sullivan's top 10 books on rock and pop
2000-06-23
Caroline Sullivan is a Guardian feature writer and pop critic. Bye bye baby : my tragic love affair with the Bay City Rollers is published by Bloomsbury.
1. Bob Greene, Billion dollar babies
On tour with Alice Cooper in 1973, by a bemused Chicago newspaperjournalist. Hilarious analysis of spoilt rock-star lifestyle makes it one of the best on-the-road books ever.
2. Robert Greenfield, S.T.P. : a journey through America with the Rolling Stones
The Stones on their famously excessive 1972 tour. Greenfield had complete access and doesn't hesitate to reveal Jagger and friends in all their whingeing glory. Great sense of time and place, too.
3. Kevin Sampson, Powder
Novel by the former manager of The Farm concerning a fictitious Liverpool band's rise and fall. Lots of really gross sex and drugs details: a salutary tale.
4. Jenny Fabian, Johnny Byrne and Jonathon Green, Groupie
Cultish swinging 60s novel (recently republished) of a London pop fan who's not satisfied with just an autograph. Fabian was a real-life groupie, and got to know some of the era's stars very well indeed. Half the fun is working out who's who behind the pseudonyms.
5. Pamela Des Barres, I'm with the band
Des Barres is a California version of Fabian - except that she names names and rates performance (Jimmy Page gets five stars). Well-written, too, with a great sense of humour.
6. Simon Price, Everything: a book about the Manic Street Preachers
The definitive story of the most passionately loved band of the 90s, with lots of hitherto unpublished information about Richey Edwards's disappearance. The best rock biography of the decade.
(Touchstone: Richey Edwards).
7. Ian Hunter, Diary of a rock'n'roll star
Mott the Hoople's lead singer is no Dostoevsky, but his story of a 1972 US tour is straight from the poodle-permed horse's mouth.
8. Anthony Decurtis (ed.), The Rolling Stone album guide
Acerbic, colloquial dissertations on virtually every album ever released make this worth reading in its own right.
9. Fred and Judy Vermorel, Starlust
This husband and wife pop-culture team analyse fan worship through interviews, diaries and letters. There are some strange people out there, and they all love Nick Heyward of Haircut 100...
10. Tony Tyler, I hate rock & roll
A former NME hack who, as the title says, hates rock 'n' roll. Excrutiatingly funny, and probably out of print due to its sacrilegous theme.
2000-06-23
Caroline Sullivan is a Guardian feature writer and pop critic. Bye bye baby : my tragic love affair with the Bay City Rollers is published by Bloomsbury.
1. Bob Greene, Billion dollar babies
On tour with Alice Cooper in 1973, by a bemused Chicago newspaperjournalist. Hilarious analysis of spoilt rock-star lifestyle makes it one of the best on-the-road books ever.
2. Robert Greenfield, S.T.P. : a journey through America with the Rolling Stones
The Stones on their famously excessive 1972 tour. Greenfield had complete access and doesn't hesitate to reveal Jagger and friends in all their whingeing glory. Great sense of time and place, too.
3. Kevin Sampson, Powder
Novel by the former manager of The Farm concerning a fictitious Liverpool band's rise and fall. Lots of really gross sex and drugs details: a salutary tale.
4. Jenny Fabian, Johnny Byrne and Jonathon Green, Groupie
Cultish swinging 60s novel (recently republished) of a London pop fan who's not satisfied with just an autograph. Fabian was a real-life groupie, and got to know some of the era's stars very well indeed. Half the fun is working out who's who behind the pseudonyms.
5. Pamela Des Barres, I'm with the band
Des Barres is a California version of Fabian - except that she names names and rates performance (Jimmy Page gets five stars). Well-written, too, with a great sense of humour.
6. Simon Price, Everything: a book about the Manic Street Preachers
The definitive story of the most passionately loved band of the 90s, with lots of hitherto unpublished information about Richey Edwards's disappearance. The best rock biography of the decade.
(Touchstone: Richey Edwards).
7. Ian Hunter, Diary of a rock'n'roll star
Mott the Hoople's lead singer is no Dostoevsky, but his story of a 1972 US tour is straight from the poodle-permed horse's mouth.
8. Anthony Decurtis (ed.), The Rolling Stone album guide
Acerbic, colloquial dissertations on virtually every album ever released make this worth reading in its own right.
9. Fred and Judy Vermorel, Starlust
This husband and wife pop-culture team analyse fan worship through interviews, diaries and letters. There are some strange people out there, and they all love Nick Heyward of Haircut 100...
10. Tony Tyler, I hate rock & roll
A former NME hack who, as the title says, hates rock 'n' roll. Excrutiatingly funny, and probably out of print due to its sacrilegous theme.
54Cynfelyn
Linda Grant's top 10 Jewish books
2000-07-19
Linda Grant is the winner of the 2000 Orange Prize with When I lived in modern times.
1. Primo Levi, The truce
Levi's journey back to Italy after the liberation. One of the great life-affirming works - and extremely funny.
2. Claudia Roden, The book of Jewish food
Not merely a recipe book but a history of the Diaspora told through the medium of the Jews' real religion, eating.
3. Philip Roth, American pastoral
Hard to know which of Roth's fantastic big-hitters of the past decade to choose, but this is probably the best.
4. Saul Bellow, The adventures of Augie March
The chronicle of American Jewish immigration.
5. Delmore Schwartz, In dreams begin responsibilities and other stories
Collection of stories by a now almost forgotten genius.
6. Amos Oz, Don't call it night
Israel's leading contemporary novelist.
7. Vivian Gornick, The romance of American communism
Gornick's oral history of the first- and second-generation Jewish immigrants who formed the American Communist Party.
8. Stephan Zweig, Buchmendel
A short story set in his beloved Jewish Vienna, later destroyed by fascism.
9. Deborah Dwork and Robert van der Pelt, Auschwitz: 1270 to the present
Definitive account of what, when, where, how and why.
10. Theo Richmond, Konin: a quest
Reconstruction from the ashes of history of a turn-of-the-century shtetl.
(and Bernard Malamud's The fixer, and Joachim Joachim Shlor's Tel Aviv: from dream to reality, and George Steiner's In Bluebeard's castle, and ...)
------
The curse of the Grauniad. Touchstone: Joachim Schlör, Tel Aviv : from dream to city.
2000-07-19
Linda Grant is the winner of the 2000 Orange Prize with When I lived in modern times.
1. Primo Levi, The truce
Levi's journey back to Italy after the liberation. One of the great life-affirming works - and extremely funny.
2. Claudia Roden, The book of Jewish food
Not merely a recipe book but a history of the Diaspora told through the medium of the Jews' real religion, eating.
3. Philip Roth, American pastoral
Hard to know which of Roth's fantastic big-hitters of the past decade to choose, but this is probably the best.
4. Saul Bellow, The adventures of Augie March
The chronicle of American Jewish immigration.
5. Delmore Schwartz, In dreams begin responsibilities and other stories
Collection of stories by a now almost forgotten genius.
6. Amos Oz, Don't call it night
Israel's leading contemporary novelist.
7. Vivian Gornick, The romance of American communism
Gornick's oral history of the first- and second-generation Jewish immigrants who formed the American Communist Party.
8. Stephan Zweig, Buchmendel
A short story set in his beloved Jewish Vienna, later destroyed by fascism.
9. Deborah Dwork and Robert van der Pelt, Auschwitz: 1270 to the present
Definitive account of what, when, where, how and why.
10. Theo Richmond, Konin: a quest
Reconstruction from the ashes of history of a turn-of-the-century shtetl.
(and Bernard Malamud's The fixer, and Joachim Joachim Shlor's Tel Aviv: from dream to reality, and George Steiner's In Bluebeard's castle, and ...)
------
The curse of the Grauniad. Touchstone: Joachim Schlör, Tel Aviv : from dream to city.
55Cynfelyn
Professor Jean E. Howard's top 10 books on Shakespeare from the 90s
2000-08-10
Professor Jean E. Howard teaches early modern literature at Columbia University, USA. She is president of the Shakespeare Association of America and co-editor of Marxist Shakespeares. Her previous publications include Engendering a nation: a feminist account of Shakespeare's English histories and The stage and social struggle in early modern England.
1. Janet Adelman, Suffocating mothers: fantasies of maternal origin in Shakespeare's plays
Smart feminist psychoanalytic readings of the Bard's most canonised plays.
2. Gail Paster, The body embarrassed: drama and the disciplines of shame
Penetrating and often hilarious account of how early modern conceptions of the body differ from our own. Chapters focus on bodily products such as blood, breast milk and urine.
3. Margreta de Grazia, Shakespeare verbatim: the reproduction of authenticity and the 1790 apparatus
Sophisticated account of how 18th-century editors constructed our modern understanding of Shakespeare's canon and his status as a literary giant.
4. Jonathan Goldberg, Sodometries: renaissance texts, modern sexualities
Theoretically dazzling inquiry into early modern sexual categories and practices. Stinging critique of the heterosexism that has dogged much modern Shakespeare criticism.
5. Richard Halpern, Shakespeare among the moderns
Incisive Marxist analysis of how Shakespeare was read and used by major figures of British modernism.
6. Kim Hall, Economies of race and gender in early modern England
Groundbreaking inquiry into the discourses of race in the early modern period.
7. Richard Helgerson, Forms of nationhood: the Elizabethan writing of England
Prize-winning book showing how early modern texts, including Shakespeare's, helped create the idea of England as a modern nation rather than a feudal kingdom.
8. Karen Newman, Fashioning femininity and English renaissance drama
Theoretically astute and historically grounded inquiry into the languages and social practices that constructed early modern ideas of the feminine.
9. Patricia Parker, Shakespeare from the margins: language, culture, context
Dazzling work about Shakespeare's language, showing how politics is played out at the level of rhetoric.
10. Dympna Callaghan, Shakespeare without women
Trenchant analysis of the gap between Shakespeare's representations of women and people from different ethnic backgrounds and the reality of all-male, and probably all-white, acting troupes.
------
ETA a touchstone for William Shakespeare himself. Duh.
2000-08-10
Professor Jean E. Howard teaches early modern literature at Columbia University, USA. She is president of the Shakespeare Association of America and co-editor of Marxist Shakespeares. Her previous publications include Engendering a nation: a feminist account of Shakespeare's English histories and The stage and social struggle in early modern England.
1. Janet Adelman, Suffocating mothers: fantasies of maternal origin in Shakespeare's plays
Smart feminist psychoanalytic readings of the Bard's most canonised plays.
2. Gail Paster, The body embarrassed: drama and the disciplines of shame
Penetrating and often hilarious account of how early modern conceptions of the body differ from our own. Chapters focus on bodily products such as blood, breast milk and urine.
3. Margreta de Grazia, Shakespeare verbatim: the reproduction of authenticity and the 1790 apparatus
Sophisticated account of how 18th-century editors constructed our modern understanding of Shakespeare's canon and his status as a literary giant.
4. Jonathan Goldberg, Sodometries: renaissance texts, modern sexualities
Theoretically dazzling inquiry into early modern sexual categories and practices. Stinging critique of the heterosexism that has dogged much modern Shakespeare criticism.
5. Richard Halpern, Shakespeare among the moderns
Incisive Marxist analysis of how Shakespeare was read and used by major figures of British modernism.
6. Kim Hall, Economies of race and gender in early modern England
Groundbreaking inquiry into the discourses of race in the early modern period.
7. Richard Helgerson, Forms of nationhood: the Elizabethan writing of England
Prize-winning book showing how early modern texts, including Shakespeare's, helped create the idea of England as a modern nation rather than a feudal kingdom.
8. Karen Newman, Fashioning femininity and English renaissance drama
Theoretically astute and historically grounded inquiry into the languages and social practices that constructed early modern ideas of the feminine.
9. Patricia Parker, Shakespeare from the margins: language, culture, context
Dazzling work about Shakespeare's language, showing how politics is played out at the level of rhetoric.
10. Dympna Callaghan, Shakespeare without women
Trenchant analysis of the gap between Shakespeare's representations of women and people from different ethnic backgrounds and the reality of all-male, and probably all-white, acting troupes.
------
ETA a touchstone for William Shakespeare himself. Duh.
56Cynfelyn
Anthony Bourdain's top 10 books about food
2000-09-05
Anthony Bourdain was born in New York in 1956 and has worked as dishwasher, prep-drone, fry-cook, grillardin, saucier, sous-chef and chef on both sides of the Atlantic for 25 years. He is now executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles, NYC. He is the author of two novels, Gone bamboo and Bone in the throat; his first non-fiction work, Kitchen confidential, takes the reader into the kitchens to reveal the seamy side of the smartest restaurants. Sex, drugs and haute cuisine ... read an extract from Kitchen confidential here
1. Thomas Keller, The French laundry cookbook
The mad monk of Napa Valley's unsurpassed cookery book - the ultimate in porno for chefs.
2. Marco Pierre White, White heat
A chef who looks like a chef! A revelationto professional culinarians when it came out. Great food, recognisable worldview of the culinary perfectionist - and a ground-breaking shot of a chefsmoking.
3. George Orwell, Down and out in Paris and London
The first account of what it's REALLY like in a professional kitchen, and as true today as it was when it waswritten.
4. Nicolas Freeling, The kitchen
Another seminal work on the business, fromthe point of view of the professional.
5. Emile Zola, The belly of Paris
The Citizen Kane of foodie books: escaped convict becomes food inspector in 19th-century Paris marketplace Les Halles.
6. Paul Bocuse, La Cuisine du Marche
The Big Daddy of Nouvelle Cuisine's widely imitated cookbook. Still useful, decades later.
7. Charles Ranhofer, The epicurean
The turn-of-the-century Delmonico's chefspills everything he knows about cooking. Ranhofer's work was unprecedented - and was considered high treason by his peers at the time. A fascinating and imposing tome and an important piece of culinary history.
8. A. A. Gill, The Ivy
As fascinating for its account of a day in the life of a swanky restaurant as for its recipes.
9. Eric Ripert, Le Bernardin cookbook
Modern, clean, impeccable and austere recipes from New York's brilliant seafood Dauphin.
10. Fergus Henderson, Nose to tail eating
Absolutely uncompromising ode to British cooking by the awesome chef of St John's. A rare and unpretentious collection of recipes for the neglected (but often tastiest) parts of edible creatures. Who says British cooking isn't great? This book ROCKS!
2000-09-05
Anthony Bourdain was born in New York in 1956 and has worked as dishwasher, prep-drone, fry-cook, grillardin, saucier, sous-chef and chef on both sides of the Atlantic for 25 years. He is now executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles, NYC. He is the author of two novels, Gone bamboo and Bone in the throat; his first non-fiction work, Kitchen confidential, takes the reader into the kitchens to reveal the seamy side of the smartest restaurants. Sex, drugs and haute cuisine ... read an extract from Kitchen confidential here
1. Thomas Keller, The French laundry cookbook
The mad monk of Napa Valley's unsurpassed cookery book - the ultimate in porno for chefs.
2. Marco Pierre White, White heat
A chef who looks like a chef! A revelationto professional culinarians when it came out. Great food, recognisable worldview of the culinary perfectionist - and a ground-breaking shot of a chefsmoking.
3. George Orwell, Down and out in Paris and London
The first account of what it's REALLY like in a professional kitchen, and as true today as it was when it waswritten.
4. Nicolas Freeling, The kitchen
Another seminal work on the business, fromthe point of view of the professional.
5. Emile Zola, The belly of Paris
The Citizen Kane of foodie books: escaped convict becomes food inspector in 19th-century Paris marketplace Les Halles.
6. Paul Bocuse, La Cuisine du Marche
The Big Daddy of Nouvelle Cuisine's widely imitated cookbook. Still useful, decades later.
7. Charles Ranhofer, The epicurean
The turn-of-the-century Delmonico's chefspills everything he knows about cooking. Ranhofer's work was unprecedented - and was considered high treason by his peers at the time. A fascinating and imposing tome and an important piece of culinary history.
8. A. A. Gill, The Ivy
As fascinating for its account of a day in the life of a swanky restaurant as for its recipes.
9. Eric Ripert, Le Bernardin cookbook
Modern, clean, impeccable and austere recipes from New York's brilliant seafood Dauphin.
10. Fergus Henderson, Nose to tail eating
Absolutely uncompromising ode to British cooking by the awesome chef of St John's. A rare and unpretentious collection of recipes for the neglected (but often tastiest) parts of edible creatures. Who says British cooking isn't great? This book ROCKS!
57Cynfelyn
Neil Rhodes and Jonathan Sawday's top 10 internet and technology books
2000-09-26
Neil Rhodes and Jonathan Sawday are co-editors of The renaissance computer: knowledge technology in the first age of print. Jonathan Sawday is Professor of English Studies at the University of Strathclyde. Neil Rhodes is Reader in English Renaissance Literature at the University of St Andrews.
1. Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg galaxy
Still seems remarkably prescient. McLuhan invented the concept of electronic 'surfing' (his term) back in the early 60s.
2. Walter J. Ong, Interfaces of the word
A classic of media studies from a formidably learned Jesuit priest.
3. George P. Landow, Hypertext 2.0
An upgrade of Hypertext: the convergence of contemporary critical theory and technology. The messiah of hypertext explores its relationship with theory and literary form and what it means for authorship and education.
4. Donna Haraway, Modest_Witness@Second Millenium.FemaleMan Meets OncoMouse
Crossing and recrossing many boundaries, Haraway describes the fascinating reconfigurations of the relationship between the human and the non-human in the new age of scientific experiment.
(Touchstone: Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan©_Meets_OncoMouse™)
5. Sherry Turkle, Life on the screen: identity in the age of the internet
Highly readable book about how we live with computers and how they are altering our lives, especially in our conceptions of subjectivity.
6. Jay David Bolter, Writing space: the computer, hypertext and the history of writing
A wonderfully wide-ranging history of the evolving forms of communication and textuality.
7. Chris Gray, The cyborg handbook
Invaluable collection of documents tracing the history of the fusion between machines and humans.
8. Richard Lanham, The electronic word
A lucidly argued and provocative account of the conditions of electronic textuality by an expert in the history of rhetoric.
9. William Gibson, Neuromancer
The bladerunner of the internet: a dystopic romance which may yet prove to mirror the reality of the virtual world we are creating.
10. Gordon Graham, The internet: a philosophical inquiry
A fascinating discussion of what philosophy can tell us about virtual reality.
2000-09-26
Neil Rhodes and Jonathan Sawday are co-editors of The renaissance computer: knowledge technology in the first age of print. Jonathan Sawday is Professor of English Studies at the University of Strathclyde. Neil Rhodes is Reader in English Renaissance Literature at the University of St Andrews.
1. Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg galaxy
Still seems remarkably prescient. McLuhan invented the concept of electronic 'surfing' (his term) back in the early 60s.
2. Walter J. Ong, Interfaces of the word
A classic of media studies from a formidably learned Jesuit priest.
3. George P. Landow, Hypertext 2.0
An upgrade of Hypertext: the convergence of contemporary critical theory and technology. The messiah of hypertext explores its relationship with theory and literary form and what it means for authorship and education.
4. Donna Haraway, Modest_Witness@Second Millenium.FemaleMan Meets OncoMouse
Crossing and recrossing many boundaries, Haraway describes the fascinating reconfigurations of the relationship between the human and the non-human in the new age of scientific experiment.
(Touchstone: Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan©_Meets_OncoMouse™)
5. Sherry Turkle, Life on the screen: identity in the age of the internet
Highly readable book about how we live with computers and how they are altering our lives, especially in our conceptions of subjectivity.
6. Jay David Bolter, Writing space: the computer, hypertext and the history of writing
A wonderfully wide-ranging history of the evolving forms of communication and textuality.
7. Chris Gray, The cyborg handbook
Invaluable collection of documents tracing the history of the fusion between machines and humans.
8. Richard Lanham, The electronic word
A lucidly argued and provocative account of the conditions of electronic textuality by an expert in the history of rhetoric.
9. William Gibson, Neuromancer
The bladerunner of the internet: a dystopic romance which may yet prove to mirror the reality of the virtual world we are creating.
10. Gordon Graham, The internet: a philosophical inquiry
A fascinating discussion of what philosophy can tell us about virtual reality.
58Cynfelyn
Alistair Beaton's top 10 New Labour bollocks
2000-09-28
Writer and broadcaster Alistair Beaton is the author of The little book of New Labour bollocks: the ultimate antidote to spin.
1. What they said:
Many of Labour's improvements will not occur overnight.
(Labour Party policy document, January 2000)
What they meant:
Many of Labour's improvements will not occur.
2. What he said:
For better or for worse, we have a democratic system in this country.
(Lord Falconer, minister of state in the Cabinet Office, on Question Time, BBC TV, 11 May 2000)
What he meant:
I didn't get where I am today by being elected.
3. What he said:
You can always tell when an election is about to happen. The Tories head straight for the gutter and start playing the race card.
(Jack Straw, shadow home secretary, speech to Labour Party conference, October 1996)
What he meant:
That's a very nice gutter you've got there. May I join?
4. What he said:
It's a pity we can't have a more intelligent debate.
(John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister, Speech to Labour Party Conference,September '99)
What he meant:
I wrote this speech myself.
5. What they said:
A fairer system of student grants.
(Lifelong Learning, Labour Party policy document, 1996)
What they meant:
No student grants.
6. What they said:
Labour aims to achieve a better qualtity of life for all by pursuing joined-up policies.
(Labour Party policy document, January 2000)
What they meant:
Tony Blair will be in charge in everything.
7. What they said:
Labour believes in the interdependence of town and country
(Labour Party policy document, January 2000)
What they meant:
We all have second homes.
8. What he said:
Responsibility is what I call the fourth R that is essential to successful schooling.
(Tony Blair, speech at the University of London, 23 June 1995)
What he meant:
The other three are:
Ranting at teachers
Rubbishing schools
Rogering LEA's
9. What he said:
A strong civic society takes seriously its obligations to our elderly.
(Gordon Brown, chancellor of the exchequer, House of Commons, 21 March 2000)
What he meant:
75p.
10. What they said:
The country needs a transport system that is safe, efficient, clean and fair.
(Labour Party policy document, January 2000)
What they meant:
France.
2000-09-28
Writer and broadcaster Alistair Beaton is the author of The little book of New Labour bollocks: the ultimate antidote to spin.
1. What they said:
Many of Labour's improvements will not occur overnight.
(Labour Party policy document, January 2000)
What they meant:
Many of Labour's improvements will not occur.
2. What he said:
For better or for worse, we have a democratic system in this country.
(Lord Falconer, minister of state in the Cabinet Office, on Question Time, BBC TV, 11 May 2000)
What he meant:
I didn't get where I am today by being elected.
3. What he said:
You can always tell when an election is about to happen. The Tories head straight for the gutter and start playing the race card.
(Jack Straw, shadow home secretary, speech to Labour Party conference, October 1996)
What he meant:
That's a very nice gutter you've got there. May I join?
4. What he said:
It's a pity we can't have a more intelligent debate.
(John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister, Speech to Labour Party Conference,September '99)
What he meant:
I wrote this speech myself.
5. What they said:
A fairer system of student grants.
(Lifelong Learning, Labour Party policy document, 1996)
What they meant:
No student grants.
6. What they said:
Labour aims to achieve a better qualtity of life for all by pursuing joined-up policies.
(Labour Party policy document, January 2000)
What they meant:
Tony Blair will be in charge in everything.
7. What they said:
Labour believes in the interdependence of town and country
(Labour Party policy document, January 2000)
What they meant:
We all have second homes.
8. What he said:
Responsibility is what I call the fourth R that is essential to successful schooling.
(Tony Blair, speech at the University of London, 23 June 1995)
What he meant:
The other three are:
Ranting at teachers
Rubbishing schools
Rogering LEA's
9. What he said:
A strong civic society takes seriously its obligations to our elderly.
(Gordon Brown, chancellor of the exchequer, House of Commons, 21 March 2000)
What he meant:
75p.
10. What they said:
The country needs a transport system that is safe, efficient, clean and fair.
(Labour Party policy document, January 2000)
What they meant:
France.
59Cynfelyn
Andrew Motion's top 10 poetry books
2000-10-04
Andrew Motion is currently poet laureate. Read some of Andrew Motion's recent poems (including 'Picture this: for the 100th birthday of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother') in the poetry archive.
1. Anon, Lyrical ballads (1798)
In fact by Wordsworth and Coleridge (who had only four poems in the volume); a defining moment in the Romantic revolution, and the evolution of our distinctly modern age.
2. John Keats, Lamia, Isabella, The eve of St Agnes and other poems (1820)
The title speaks for itself, especially when we remember those 'other poems' include the great odes.
3. Alfred (not yet Lord) Tennyson, Poems, chiefly lyrical (1830)
Why did Auden call Tennyson the stupidest English poet? This collection is crammed with evidence of a wonderfully intelligent heart.
4. Walt Whitman, Leaves of grass (1855)
This blows apart what 'lyrical' might mean, instigating its own extraordinary traditions as it adapts existing ones.
5. Robert Frost, North of Boston (1914)
An example of how the most intense kind of personal poetry and the most general kind of narrative can be brought together to create stories at once beautiful and true.
6. Edward Thomas, Poems (1917)
The volume that contains (among other things) 'As the team's head-brass', the sort of quiet-speaking masterpiece that made Thomas one of the most influential and best-loved 20th century poets.
7. W. H. Auden, Poems (1930)
The eruption of a completely new-sounding voice, yet resonant with the echoes of older voices.
8. Philip Larkin, The less deceived (1955)
His first 'mature' volume; the distinctive sad music of post-war British life.
9. Seamus Heaney, North (1975)
The authentic Heaney voice, at once earthy and ethereal.
10. Elizabeth Bishop, Complete poems (1983)
A lifetime's immaculate adventuring.
2000-10-04
Andrew Motion is currently poet laureate. Read some of Andrew Motion's recent poems (including 'Picture this: for the 100th birthday of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother') in the poetry archive.
1. Anon, Lyrical ballads (1798)
In fact by Wordsworth and Coleridge (who had only four poems in the volume); a defining moment in the Romantic revolution, and the evolution of our distinctly modern age.
2. John Keats, Lamia, Isabella, The eve of St Agnes and other poems (1820)
The title speaks for itself, especially when we remember those 'other poems' include the great odes.
3. Alfred (not yet Lord) Tennyson, Poems, chiefly lyrical (1830)
Why did Auden call Tennyson the stupidest English poet? This collection is crammed with evidence of a wonderfully intelligent heart.
4. Walt Whitman, Leaves of grass (1855)
This blows apart what 'lyrical' might mean, instigating its own extraordinary traditions as it adapts existing ones.
5. Robert Frost, North of Boston (1914)
An example of how the most intense kind of personal poetry and the most general kind of narrative can be brought together to create stories at once beautiful and true.
6. Edward Thomas, Poems (1917)
The volume that contains (among other things) 'As the team's head-brass', the sort of quiet-speaking masterpiece that made Thomas one of the most influential and best-loved 20th century poets.
7. W. H. Auden, Poems (1930)
The eruption of a completely new-sounding voice, yet resonant with the echoes of older voices.
8. Philip Larkin, The less deceived (1955)
His first 'mature' volume; the distinctive sad music of post-war British life.
9. Seamus Heaney, North (1975)
The authentic Heaney voice, at once earthy and ethereal.
10. Elizabeth Bishop, Complete poems (1983)
A lifetime's immaculate adventuring.
60Cynfelyn
Richard Vinen's top 10 history books
Wed 18 Oct 2000 00.00 BST
Richard Vinen is the author of A history in fragments: Europe in the twentieth century (Little, Brown).
1. George Orwell, England your England (1941)
The best history is always written by non-historians and no one has had more of an impact on the way in which we see modern Britain than George Orwell. This essay (first published in 1941 and reprinted in Inside the whale and other essays) manages in a very Orwellian, perhaps very English way, to be both sentimental wartime propaganda and a caustic scrutiny of national myth.
2. Bernard Cohn, An anthropologist among the historians and other essays (1987)
Bernard Cohn is another non-historian. Here he not only has much to say about Indian society but also about the rituals and superstitions of historians themselves.
3. Anne Kriegel, Ce que j'ai cru comprendre (What I thought I understood) (1991)
Anne Kriegel is very much an academic historian but her work is also informed by her personal experience as a Jewish girl in occupied Paris, and as a communist militant. Her memoirs reflect an uncomfortably fierce intelligence.
4. Teresa Toranska, Oni: Stalin's Polish puppets (1987)
A work of oral history based on encounters between a young Solidarity activist and the old men responsible for establishing communism in Poland. It captures the almost surreal atmosphere of meetings where, for example, a Polish politician danced a waltz with Molotov as Stalin worked the gramophone.
5. George Dangerfields, Strange death of liberal England (1997)
Dangerfields is wrong about everything but wrong in an interesting way.
6. Carlo Levis, Christ stopped at Eboli (1981)
A moving account of the experiences of a Milan intellectual who was exiled to a small southern village by Mussolini. It is about witchcraft, sex, fascism, America (half the village's male population had emigrated) and many other things.
7. Mark Mazower, Dark continent. Europe's twentieth century (1998)
This is an excellent book with particularly strong chapters on national/racial tension and constitution-making in the 1920s.
8. Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: the modernization of rural France, 1870-1914 (1977)
Even more ambitious than its title suggests. It backs up sweeping answers with a wealth of telling, often very funny, details and continues to raise questions even for those who disagree with Weber's answers.
9. Orlando Figes, A people's tragedy: the Russian revolution, 1891-1924 (1996)
Stalin said that one death is a tragedy and one million deaths is a statistic. Figes manages to find the individual tragedies and a lot of grotesque comedy behind the mass slaughter of the period.
10. Zdenek Mlynr, Night frost in Prague: the end of humane socialism (1980)
Mlynr, a Czech Stalinist turned reformer turned dissident, was remarkably prescient in his account of the Prague spring and its aftermath. His views are particularly interesting because he was, until 1967, an associate of Mikhail Gorbachev.
Wed 18 Oct 2000 00.00 BST
Richard Vinen is the author of A history in fragments: Europe in the twentieth century (Little, Brown).
1. George Orwell, England your England (1941)
The best history is always written by non-historians and no one has had more of an impact on the way in which we see modern Britain than George Orwell. This essay (first published in 1941 and reprinted in Inside the whale and other essays) manages in a very Orwellian, perhaps very English way, to be both sentimental wartime propaganda and a caustic scrutiny of national myth.
2. Bernard Cohn, An anthropologist among the historians and other essays (1987)
Bernard Cohn is another non-historian. Here he not only has much to say about Indian society but also about the rituals and superstitions of historians themselves.
3. Anne Kriegel, Ce que j'ai cru comprendre (What I thought I understood) (1991)
Anne Kriegel is very much an academic historian but her work is also informed by her personal experience as a Jewish girl in occupied Paris, and as a communist militant. Her memoirs reflect an uncomfortably fierce intelligence.
4. Teresa Toranska, Oni: Stalin's Polish puppets (1987)
A work of oral history based on encounters between a young Solidarity activist and the old men responsible for establishing communism in Poland. It captures the almost surreal atmosphere of meetings where, for example, a Polish politician danced a waltz with Molotov as Stalin worked the gramophone.
5. George Dangerfields, Strange death of liberal England (1997)
Dangerfields is wrong about everything but wrong in an interesting way.
6. Carlo Levis, Christ stopped at Eboli (1981)
A moving account of the experiences of a Milan intellectual who was exiled to a small southern village by Mussolini. It is about witchcraft, sex, fascism, America (half the village's male population had emigrated) and many other things.
7. Mark Mazower, Dark continent. Europe's twentieth century (1998)
This is an excellent book with particularly strong chapters on national/racial tension and constitution-making in the 1920s.
8. Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: the modernization of rural France, 1870-1914 (1977)
Even more ambitious than its title suggests. It backs up sweeping answers with a wealth of telling, often very funny, details and continues to raise questions even for those who disagree with Weber's answers.
9. Orlando Figes, A people's tragedy: the Russian revolution, 1891-1924 (1996)
Stalin said that one death is a tragedy and one million deaths is a statistic. Figes manages to find the individual tragedies and a lot of grotesque comedy behind the mass slaughter of the period.
10. Zdenek Mlynr, Night frost in Prague: the end of humane socialism (1980)
Mlynr, a Czech Stalinist turned reformer turned dissident, was remarkably prescient in his account of the Prague spring and its aftermath. His views are particularly interesting because he was, until 1967, an associate of Mikhail Gorbachev.
61Cynfelyn
Michele Hanson's top 10 books about mothers and daughters
2000-11-02
Michele Hanson writes a column in the Guardian, 'Age of dissent', about growing old. Her book, Age of dissent: the collected columns, is published by Virago She also wrote the 'Treasure' column for the Guardian which was published in two volumes: Treasure: the trials of a teenage terror and What Treasure did next (Virago).
1. Andrea Ashworth, Once in a house on fire
An account of growing up with domestic violence that is harrowing and crystal clear, yet somehow still funny, brave and illuminating. No self-pity, no bitter feelings, just triumph over adversity.
2. Linda Grant, Remind me who I am again
Grant's sister, Michele, hoped that this moving and beautifully written account of their mother's dementia would help others who live through such an experience to "feel just a little bit less alone". I'm sure that it will.
3. Carol Shields, The stone diaries
The true story of Daisy Goodwill, whose mother, herself an orphan, died in childbirth at the very beginning of this book. She lasted only 40 pages but I can still almost feel her physical presence. So Daisy grows up without a mother. Poignant, funny, ordinary life made extraordinary.
4. Phillip Roth, Portnoy's complaint
I'm cheating slightly here, as these books are meant to be about mothers and daughters, but Portnoy has the mother of all mothers. Puts my mother in the shade. Slightly. For which I will always be grateful. I thought it tremendously funny. My mother did not.
5. Jenny Diski, Skating to Antarctica
Vivid, caustic and compelling story of two journeys, one through Diski's bleak and messy childhood, the other out to comparatively clean and empty Antarctica. For thirty years Diski has not wanted to know about her mother. Now she finds out.
6. Samuel Richardson, Clarissa
Lock up your daughter because she won't marry the oaf of your choice and she's bound to run off with a duplicitous rake, as Clarissa did. Richardson was a vicar who listened carefully to women and seemed to understand what they felt. But he couldn't quite deal with rape (or was it?) and so Clarissa dies of what appears to be a severe attack of the religious vapours. However, the rest of the book is utterly gripping and it is the first woman's confessional (epistolary) novel.
7. Henry Fielding, Shamela
A brilliant parody of Richardson's Pamela (not a patch on Clarissa). Shamela's mother is a member of the oldest profession and Shamela is herself rather cavalier with her affections and her new husband's money, but she does manage to write letters like billy ho, what ever else is going on. I laughed out loud. And, as usual, Fielding's prose is sublime. The only snag is that one needs to read a little of prissy Pamela first, but it's definitely worth it.
8. Jeanette Winterson, Oranges are not the only fruit
The story of a young girl living in an evangelical household, who falls in love with another young girl. Makes something huge, colourful, humourous, light, airy and profound from a situation that you might expect to be pinched, dull and mean.
9. Jane Austen, Sense and sensibility
What a worry daughters are. This has everything: greed, poverty, romance, suffering, snobbery and love. It makes the commonplace fascinating, is utterly gripping and exquisitely written.
10. John Kennedy Toole, Confederacy of dunces
I couldn't resist one more son. Our hero, Ignatius J. Rielly, is a huge, dreadful and magnificent slob. He is intellectual, tormented by flatulence, enraged with the modern world, and must find a job when his mother's welfare money runs out. His only relationship is with his mother. Naturally, she still loves him. Set in New Orleans, this is a riotous, evocative, breathtakingly witty and superbly written book with a cast of hugely colourful characters. It is also heartrending. Ignacius is a spectacular failure at everything. And, tragically, J. Kennedy Toole committed suicide at 32.
------
Michele Hanson used the pseudonym Gina Davidson for her 'Treasure' books. She died in 2018. Her Guardian profile is here (970 articles).
2000-11-02
Michele Hanson writes a column in the Guardian, 'Age of dissent', about growing old. Her book, Age of dissent: the collected columns, is published by Virago She also wrote the 'Treasure' column for the Guardian which was published in two volumes: Treasure: the trials of a teenage terror and What Treasure did next (Virago).
1. Andrea Ashworth, Once in a house on fire
An account of growing up with domestic violence that is harrowing and crystal clear, yet somehow still funny, brave and illuminating. No self-pity, no bitter feelings, just triumph over adversity.
2. Linda Grant, Remind me who I am again
Grant's sister, Michele, hoped that this moving and beautifully written account of their mother's dementia would help others who live through such an experience to "feel just a little bit less alone". I'm sure that it will.
3. Carol Shields, The stone diaries
The true story of Daisy Goodwill, whose mother, herself an orphan, died in childbirth at the very beginning of this book. She lasted only 40 pages but I can still almost feel her physical presence. So Daisy grows up without a mother. Poignant, funny, ordinary life made extraordinary.
4. Phillip Roth, Portnoy's complaint
I'm cheating slightly here, as these books are meant to be about mothers and daughters, but Portnoy has the mother of all mothers. Puts my mother in the shade. Slightly. For which I will always be grateful. I thought it tremendously funny. My mother did not.
5. Jenny Diski, Skating to Antarctica
Vivid, caustic and compelling story of two journeys, one through Diski's bleak and messy childhood, the other out to comparatively clean and empty Antarctica. For thirty years Diski has not wanted to know about her mother. Now she finds out.
6. Samuel Richardson, Clarissa
Lock up your daughter because she won't marry the oaf of your choice and she's bound to run off with a duplicitous rake, as Clarissa did. Richardson was a vicar who listened carefully to women and seemed to understand what they felt. But he couldn't quite deal with rape (or was it?) and so Clarissa dies of what appears to be a severe attack of the religious vapours. However, the rest of the book is utterly gripping and it is the first woman's confessional (epistolary) novel.
7. Henry Fielding, Shamela
A brilliant parody of Richardson's Pamela (not a patch on Clarissa). Shamela's mother is a member of the oldest profession and Shamela is herself rather cavalier with her affections and her new husband's money, but she does manage to write letters like billy ho, what ever else is going on. I laughed out loud. And, as usual, Fielding's prose is sublime. The only snag is that one needs to read a little of prissy Pamela first, but it's definitely worth it.
8. Jeanette Winterson, Oranges are not the only fruit
The story of a young girl living in an evangelical household, who falls in love with another young girl. Makes something huge, colourful, humourous, light, airy and profound from a situation that you might expect to be pinched, dull and mean.
9. Jane Austen, Sense and sensibility
What a worry daughters are. This has everything: greed, poverty, romance, suffering, snobbery and love. It makes the commonplace fascinating, is utterly gripping and exquisitely written.
10. John Kennedy Toole, Confederacy of dunces
I couldn't resist one more son. Our hero, Ignatius J. Rielly, is a huge, dreadful and magnificent slob. He is intellectual, tormented by flatulence, enraged with the modern world, and must find a job when his mother's welfare money runs out. His only relationship is with his mother. Naturally, she still loves him. Set in New Orleans, this is a riotous, evocative, breathtakingly witty and superbly written book with a cast of hugely colourful characters. It is also heartrending. Ignacius is a spectacular failure at everything. And, tragically, J. Kennedy Toole committed suicide at 32.
------
Michele Hanson used the pseudonym Gina Davidson for her 'Treasure' books. She died in 2018. Her Guardian profile is here (970 articles).
62Cynfelyn
Marian Keyes's top 10 relationship books
2000-11-09
Marian Keyes's latest book is the bestselling Sushi for beginners. It tells the story of a group of thirtysomethings who work in the media and are trying to deal with the problems of love, friendship and happiness.
1. P. G. Wodehouse, Right ho, Jeeves
Co-dependence at its most charming.
2. Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm
First published in 1932, this is about city slicker Flora Poste who goes to stay with her country bumpkin cousins in Sussex and effects changes in all their lives. Screamingly funny and wildly subversive.
3. Marly Jong-Fast, Normal girl
Young, upper east side Jewish woman's interactions with her neurotic mother - a rich enough seam in itself. Throw an increasing dependence on narcotics into the mix and you have an edgy, fascinating, all-too-believable account of alienation.
4. Sophie Kinsella, Secret dream world of a shopaholic
Lighthearted tale, with a great truth at its heart, in these shopping-as-leisure, spending-as-therapy times.
5. Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the wind
Meaty, sagaesque love story between feisty minx Scarlett O'Hara and urbane cad Rhett Butler. Survives repeated rereading.
6. Ian McEwan, Enduring love
A random event kick-starts the unravelling of a once near-perfect relationship. Excruciatingly painful to read, yet car-crash compulsive.
7. Caroline Knapp, Drinking: a love story
Autobiographical account of a love affair with alcohol. Honest and terrifying, the unavoidable conclusion is that addicts only want relationships with their drug of choice.
8. Barbara Trapido, The travelling horn player
The book opens with a girl being visited by the ghost of her dead sister: the rest of the book is an extended flashback, examining the series of criss-crossing relationships and encounters which led to the death. One of the most moving things I've ever read.
9. Lee Tulloch, Fabulous nobodies
New York wannabe fashionista's love affair with great frocks. She even gives them names and personalities. Lighten up - it's enchanting. Currently shamefully out-of-print.
10. Flann O'Brien, The third policeman
Obviously, on the surface, this is an examination of the relationship between man and bicycle - just how much exchange of molecules actually does take place?! However, there is only one true conclusion to be drawn from this book: hell really is other people.
------
The first of two successive lists of top ten books on relationships, one by an Irishwoman and one by an Englishman. Compare and contrast.
2000-11-09
Marian Keyes's latest book is the bestselling Sushi for beginners. It tells the story of a group of thirtysomethings who work in the media and are trying to deal with the problems of love, friendship and happiness.
1. P. G. Wodehouse, Right ho, Jeeves
Co-dependence at its most charming.
2. Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm
First published in 1932, this is about city slicker Flora Poste who goes to stay with her country bumpkin cousins in Sussex and effects changes in all their lives. Screamingly funny and wildly subversive.
3. Marly Jong-Fast, Normal girl
Young, upper east side Jewish woman's interactions with her neurotic mother - a rich enough seam in itself. Throw an increasing dependence on narcotics into the mix and you have an edgy, fascinating, all-too-believable account of alienation.
4. Sophie Kinsella, Secret dream world of a shopaholic
Lighthearted tale, with a great truth at its heart, in these shopping-as-leisure, spending-as-therapy times.
5. Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the wind
Meaty, sagaesque love story between feisty minx Scarlett O'Hara and urbane cad Rhett Butler. Survives repeated rereading.
6. Ian McEwan, Enduring love
A random event kick-starts the unravelling of a once near-perfect relationship. Excruciatingly painful to read, yet car-crash compulsive.
7. Caroline Knapp, Drinking: a love story
Autobiographical account of a love affair with alcohol. Honest and terrifying, the unavoidable conclusion is that addicts only want relationships with their drug of choice.
8. Barbara Trapido, The travelling horn player
The book opens with a girl being visited by the ghost of her dead sister: the rest of the book is an extended flashback, examining the series of criss-crossing relationships and encounters which led to the death. One of the most moving things I've ever read.
9. Lee Tulloch, Fabulous nobodies
New York wannabe fashionista's love affair with great frocks. She even gives them names and personalities. Lighten up - it's enchanting. Currently shamefully out-of-print.
10. Flann O'Brien, The third policeman
Obviously, on the surface, this is an examination of the relationship between man and bicycle - just how much exchange of molecules actually does take place?! However, there is only one true conclusion to be drawn from this book: hell really is other people.
------
The first of two successive lists of top ten books on relationships, one by an Irishwoman and one by an Englishman. Compare and contrast.
63Cynfelyn
William Sutcliffe's top 10 relationship novels
2000-11-09
William Sutcliffe is the author of New boy, Are you experienced?, and The love hexagon, which follows the interrelated romantic and sexual adventures of six young Londoners.
1. Evelyn Waugh, A handful of dust
A concise, spare, funny yet brutal account of marital infidelity. Without ever losing a lightness of touch, this novel somehow amounts to one of the most misanthropic books you will ever read.
2. Anthony Burgess, Earthly powers
An entire lifetime of sexual (and just about every other kind of) angst. The protagonist is gay, but his endless struggle to fend off loneliness with love couldn't be more universal.
3. Iris Murdoch, A severed head
Of all the lots-of-people-screwing -lots-of-other-people novels this is probably the best, and certainly the weirdest. With less philosophising and more shagging than Murdoch's other books, it is a joy to see this wonderful writer let her hair (and her knickers) down.
4. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The great Gatsby
There must be hundreds of novels that call themselves "the greatest love story of our time" in the blurb. This is the only one where it's true.
5. Don DeLillo, Underworld
This novel belongs on any list, since it seems to achieve just about everything a work of fiction can. The various marriages, families and love affairs that twine through this epic narrative are as brilliantly conceived as everything else in this truly extraordinary novel.
6. John Updike, Rabbit, run
No marriage can have faced a sterner examination than that of the Angstroms. Rabbit, run seems like a stunning dissection of everything that can possibly go wrong in a marriage, until you read the rest of the tetralogy and discover that things can get worse, decade by decade. No one else so brilliantly reveals the extraordinary in the ordinary.
7. Nicholson Baker, The Fermata
Baker explores the dividing line between literature and pornography, and much of the time seems to decide that the latter is more interesting. Rarely have I read a more tumescent book. Which brings me to . .
8. Philip Roth, Portnoy's complaint
Winner of the literary tumescence prize, there is more to this novel than masturbation. Every variety of sexual frustration is explored here in hilarious detail. For auto-erotomanes everywhere this book has the status of a Bible.
9. Ian McEwan, The cement garden
While we're on the subject of sexual perversions, a little incest seems obligatory. This gruesome, twisted, filthy little novel is probably the best thing McEwan has ever written.
10. John Fowles, The French lieutenant's woman
Not wanting to end on too smutty a note, this is a proper love story again, with obsessive love thwarted by Victorian morality. If unrequited, suppressed passions are the kind that hit your spot, this is the place to look.
------
It's a pity a thread's list of touchstones doesn't show how often a title has been touchstoned. This is at least the third list to mention The great Gatsby and the second to mention Portnoy's complaint.
2000-11-09
William Sutcliffe is the author of New boy, Are you experienced?, and The love hexagon, which follows the interrelated romantic and sexual adventures of six young Londoners.
1. Evelyn Waugh, A handful of dust
A concise, spare, funny yet brutal account of marital infidelity. Without ever losing a lightness of touch, this novel somehow amounts to one of the most misanthropic books you will ever read.
2. Anthony Burgess, Earthly powers
An entire lifetime of sexual (and just about every other kind of) angst. The protagonist is gay, but his endless struggle to fend off loneliness with love couldn't be more universal.
3. Iris Murdoch, A severed head
Of all the lots-of-people-screwing -lots-of-other-people novels this is probably the best, and certainly the weirdest. With less philosophising and more shagging than Murdoch's other books, it is a joy to see this wonderful writer let her hair (and her knickers) down.
4. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The great Gatsby
There must be hundreds of novels that call themselves "the greatest love story of our time" in the blurb. This is the only one where it's true.
5. Don DeLillo, Underworld
This novel belongs on any list, since it seems to achieve just about everything a work of fiction can. The various marriages, families and love affairs that twine through this epic narrative are as brilliantly conceived as everything else in this truly extraordinary novel.
6. John Updike, Rabbit, run
No marriage can have faced a sterner examination than that of the Angstroms. Rabbit, run seems like a stunning dissection of everything that can possibly go wrong in a marriage, until you read the rest of the tetralogy and discover that things can get worse, decade by decade. No one else so brilliantly reveals the extraordinary in the ordinary.
7. Nicholson Baker, The Fermata
Baker explores the dividing line between literature and pornography, and much of the time seems to decide that the latter is more interesting. Rarely have I read a more tumescent book. Which brings me to . .
8. Philip Roth, Portnoy's complaint
Winner of the literary tumescence prize, there is more to this novel than masturbation. Every variety of sexual frustration is explored here in hilarious detail. For auto-erotomanes everywhere this book has the status of a Bible.
9. Ian McEwan, The cement garden
While we're on the subject of sexual perversions, a little incest seems obligatory. This gruesome, twisted, filthy little novel is probably the best thing McEwan has ever written.
10. John Fowles, The French lieutenant's woman
Not wanting to end on too smutty a note, this is a proper love story again, with obsessive love thwarted by Victorian morality. If unrequited, suppressed passions are the kind that hit your spot, this is the place to look.
------
It's a pity a thread's list of touchstones doesn't show how often a title has been touchstoned. This is at least the third list to mention The great Gatsby and the second to mention Portnoy's complaint.
64Cynfelyn
Mary Warnock's top 10 philosophy books
Guardian, 2000-12-04
Lady Mary Warnock is a crossbench life peer, moral philosopher and author of a number of books on philosophy, including The intelligent person's guide to ethics. Her autobiography, Mary Warnock: a memoir, was published earlier this year by Gerald Duckworth.
(Touchstone: Mary Warnock, A memoir: people and places (2000)).
1. David Hume, A treatise on human nature
If I had to choose just one philosophical book, this would be it. It covers a huge range of continuing philosophical topics: knowledge, perception, imagination, personal identity, causation, emotions, the foundations of morality and justice. Hume is the most endearing of all philosophers as well as the most sceptical. His scepticism covers even his own conclusions but his thoroughly 18th-century down-to-earth good sense permits him to persevere. I would dearly love to have met him.
2. Aristotle, The Nicomachean ethics
Aristotle's philosophical interests were extraordinarily wide. He was more of a biological scientist than a metaphysician; everything he wrote is worth study, especially as part of the history of science. The Nicomachean ethics is not only historically fascinating, but it timelessly points the way to the development of a theory of ethics out of the concept of human beings as essentially rational, choice-making animals. I have learned more from this book than any other.
3. P. F. Strawson, Individuals
Published in 1959, this was a ground-breaking book of enormous importance to philosophers of my generation. After the second world war, we were not much into metaphysics. But this was a new descriptive metaphysics (to use Strawson's own phrase), not windbag speculation, but drawing general conclusions from how things are. It opened the way of a solution to the problem of personal identity and the relation between mind and body by insisting that persons, being both mental and physical entities, were among the basic particulars in the world, not to be atomised or further divided up.
4. P. F. Strawson, The bounds of sense
Sub-titled 'An essay on Kant's critique of pure reason', this is an illuminating analysis of Kant's main line of thought in the Critique, and it goes beyond Kant in its marvellously perceptive discussion of the relation between language and the world as we perceive it. Kant was perhaps the first truly professional philosopher. He had an immense influence on all subsequent philosophy but he was also a difficult and rebarbative writer. Strawson's book is not a simplification, but a demonstration of the profundity and significance of Kant's whole philosophical project, that of setting limits to what we can and cannot say and know. An indispensable guide.
5. John Stuart Mill, On liberty
Unlike Mill's other generally sensible and analytic books (on logic, political theory and utilitarian ethics) this is a passionate cry for the freedom of the individual from the tyranny of the majority, from prejudice, social convention and the bondage of correctness - what might today be thought of as the Daily Mail rule. It is a wrong-headed book in many ways but is irresistible to the young. Moreover it can plausibly be read as one of the most powerful feminist tracts, having been strongly influenced, if not actually partly written, by Mill's lover and later wife Harriet Taylor. At a time of general emancipation women alone were virtual slaves in 1859, when the book was published.
6. Mary Midgley, Beast and man
A wonderful breath of fresh air and a book for non-philosophers as much as for philosophers. Mary Midgley explores the relation between men and other animals in an original but common sense way which has even more relevance to bioethical controversies today than it had in 1978 when it was published. It forms an introduction to the kind of 'green' philosophy now developing in Europe and America, and it has certainly strongly influenced my own thought, both practical and philosophical.
7. Alasdair McIntyre, After virtue
An entirely new look at moral philosophy, which is nevertheless, as McIntyre acknowledges, highly Aristotelian. He is a truly original philosopher and all his books are worth reading but this is probably his best. It is of the greatest importance to provide a basis for morality in what is largely a secular age, and the question of what morality is needs a fresh look. This book was one of the first to attempt such a new perception.
8. J. L. Austin, Sense and sensibilia
Though in fact a collection of lectures published posthumously, this forms a wholly coherent book, and is the funniest philosophical book in existence (with the possible exception of Susan Stebbing's Philosophy and the Physicists) Largely negative and destructive, it calls attention to the impossible things philosophers may be led to assert, and even claim to believe. The main target is A. J. Ayer, and, to a lesser extent, Ayer's hero, Bertrand Russell, and their theory of perception. They both claimed that we do not see trees or tables, as "plain men" suppose, but only "sense data" or "percepts". The whole delightful and iconoclastic atmosphere of immediately post-war Oxford philosophy is contained here.
9. G. J. Warnock, The object of morality
I make no apology for choosing a book by G. J. Warnock, though he was my husband. He was a master of style and clarity, high virtues in philosophical writing. Like Alasdair McIntyre, and like Aristotle, he invites us to look at the nature of that man-made structure, morality, and to contemplate the need we have for it if the world is not to be even more intolerable than it often is. Those who are inclined to deny that morality can exist without a religious foundation should read every word of this book.
10. Gilbert Ryle, The concept of mind
Doubtless influenced by the later work of Wittgenstein (notably the thoughts that later appeared as The philosophical investigations), this is itself a highly influential and richly enjoyable book. It is a demolition job on Descartes' division of human beings into two substances - mind and body - the mind being, in Ryle's words, "the ghost in the machine". Though often exaggerated, and sometimes quite wrong, this is a wonderfully scintillating, stylish and accessible book. P. G. Wodehouse was Ryle's stylistic master, and it shows.
Guardian, 2000-12-04
Lady Mary Warnock is a crossbench life peer, moral philosopher and author of a number of books on philosophy, including The intelligent person's guide to ethics. Her autobiography, Mary Warnock: a memoir, was published earlier this year by Gerald Duckworth.
(Touchstone: Mary Warnock, A memoir: people and places (2000)).
1. David Hume, A treatise on human nature
If I had to choose just one philosophical book, this would be it. It covers a huge range of continuing philosophical topics: knowledge, perception, imagination, personal identity, causation, emotions, the foundations of morality and justice. Hume is the most endearing of all philosophers as well as the most sceptical. His scepticism covers even his own conclusions but his thoroughly 18th-century down-to-earth good sense permits him to persevere. I would dearly love to have met him.
2. Aristotle, The Nicomachean ethics
Aristotle's philosophical interests were extraordinarily wide. He was more of a biological scientist than a metaphysician; everything he wrote is worth study, especially as part of the history of science. The Nicomachean ethics is not only historically fascinating, but it timelessly points the way to the development of a theory of ethics out of the concept of human beings as essentially rational, choice-making animals. I have learned more from this book than any other.
3. P. F. Strawson, Individuals
Published in 1959, this was a ground-breaking book of enormous importance to philosophers of my generation. After the second world war, we were not much into metaphysics. But this was a new descriptive metaphysics (to use Strawson's own phrase), not windbag speculation, but drawing general conclusions from how things are. It opened the way of a solution to the problem of personal identity and the relation between mind and body by insisting that persons, being both mental and physical entities, were among the basic particulars in the world, not to be atomised or further divided up.
4. P. F. Strawson, The bounds of sense
Sub-titled 'An essay on Kant's critique of pure reason', this is an illuminating analysis of Kant's main line of thought in the Critique, and it goes beyond Kant in its marvellously perceptive discussion of the relation between language and the world as we perceive it. Kant was perhaps the first truly professional philosopher. He had an immense influence on all subsequent philosophy but he was also a difficult and rebarbative writer. Strawson's book is not a simplification, but a demonstration of the profundity and significance of Kant's whole philosophical project, that of setting limits to what we can and cannot say and know. An indispensable guide.
5. John Stuart Mill, On liberty
Unlike Mill's other generally sensible and analytic books (on logic, political theory and utilitarian ethics) this is a passionate cry for the freedom of the individual from the tyranny of the majority, from prejudice, social convention and the bondage of correctness - what might today be thought of as the Daily Mail rule. It is a wrong-headed book in many ways but is irresistible to the young. Moreover it can plausibly be read as one of the most powerful feminist tracts, having been strongly influenced, if not actually partly written, by Mill's lover and later wife Harriet Taylor. At a time of general emancipation women alone were virtual slaves in 1859, when the book was published.
6. Mary Midgley, Beast and man
A wonderful breath of fresh air and a book for non-philosophers as much as for philosophers. Mary Midgley explores the relation between men and other animals in an original but common sense way which has even more relevance to bioethical controversies today than it had in 1978 when it was published. It forms an introduction to the kind of 'green' philosophy now developing in Europe and America, and it has certainly strongly influenced my own thought, both practical and philosophical.
7. Alasdair McIntyre, After virtue
An entirely new look at moral philosophy, which is nevertheless, as McIntyre acknowledges, highly Aristotelian. He is a truly original philosopher and all his books are worth reading but this is probably his best. It is of the greatest importance to provide a basis for morality in what is largely a secular age, and the question of what morality is needs a fresh look. This book was one of the first to attempt such a new perception.
8. J. L. Austin, Sense and sensibilia
Though in fact a collection of lectures published posthumously, this forms a wholly coherent book, and is the funniest philosophical book in existence (with the possible exception of Susan Stebbing's Philosophy and the Physicists) Largely negative and destructive, it calls attention to the impossible things philosophers may be led to assert, and even claim to believe. The main target is A. J. Ayer, and, to a lesser extent, Ayer's hero, Bertrand Russell, and their theory of perception. They both claimed that we do not see trees or tables, as "plain men" suppose, but only "sense data" or "percepts". The whole delightful and iconoclastic atmosphere of immediately post-war Oxford philosophy is contained here.
9. G. J. Warnock, The object of morality
I make no apology for choosing a book by G. J. Warnock, though he was my husband. He was a master of style and clarity, high virtues in philosophical writing. Like Alasdair McIntyre, and like Aristotle, he invites us to look at the nature of that man-made structure, morality, and to contemplate the need we have for it if the world is not to be even more intolerable than it often is. Those who are inclined to deny that morality can exist without a religious foundation should read every word of this book.
10. Gilbert Ryle, The concept of mind
Doubtless influenced by the later work of Wittgenstein (notably the thoughts that later appeared as The philosophical investigations), this is itself a highly influential and richly enjoyable book. It is a demolition job on Descartes' division of human beings into two substances - mind and body - the mind being, in Ryle's words, "the ghost in the machine". Though often exaggerated, and sometimes quite wrong, this is a wonderfully scintillating, stylish and accessible book. P. G. Wodehouse was Ryle's stylistic master, and it shows.
65Cynfelyn
Rob Grant's top 10 comic science fiction novels
Guardian, 2000-12-30
Rob Grant created, co-wrote and co-produced the first six series of the BBC science fiction comedy Red dwarf. His latest book, Colony, is published by Viking. "Science fiction comedy, per se, is a very underpopulated field. I'm not quite sure why: there's a natural link in that both SF and comedy deal in the same currency - both look at the world from odd angles. Still, here's my stab at a top 10 of SF comedy novels, in no particular order. Naturally, modesty prevents my including my own books..."
1. Douglas Adams, The hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy
The obvious choice, really. The first three books are the best - bright, witty and chock full of brilliant concepts. Though some of the references (Mr Adams's irrational loathing of digital watches, for instance) seem dated now, it's still guaranteed to amuse.
(Touchstone: The hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy series).
2. Harry Harrison, The stainless steel rat
Harry Harrison's work spans the whole of SF: comedy, hard SF, fantasy, you name it. All of it is worth reading. The stainless steel rat series is not, on the whole, laugh-out-loud comedy, but it is funny. If you haven't tried any, ignore the gaudy covers and buy one. They're all good. Then read Captive universe which is not a comedy book, but it will make you go out and buy the rest of his work.
3. Terry Pratchett, Discworld
There are dozens of books in the Discworld series. Technically, they're science fantasy, involving dragons and other mythical creatures. If you're a fantasy fan, Mr Pratchett certainly delivers a good laugh consistently. If you haven't read any of them yet, where have you been?
4. Philip K. Dick, A scanner darkly
Mr Dick's work has been the source of a number of major movies: Blade runner and Total recall among them. A scanner darkly is a bizarre and often hysterically funny novel about an undercover drugs cop who finds himself on his own trail. Compulsory.
5. Kurt Vonnegut Jr, Slaughterhouse Five
A unique and original talent, Mr Vonnegut dislikes being pigeon-holed as an SF writer. The fact remains, though, that he's responsible for a lot of classic and extremely funny writing in this genre. Slaughterhouse Five is his masterpiece, and it veers from incredibly funny to as black as it gets, centred as it is around the firebombing of Dresden (at which the young author was present). Once you've read it, you'll want to rush out and buy Breakfast of champions and Player piano and Cat's cradle and ... well, everything else he's written.
6. Kilgore Trout, Venus on the half-shell
A curiosity, this one. Kilgore Trout is a fictional science fiction writer invented by Kurt Vonnegut Jr, who often used him as a way of making personal appearances in his own novels. However this book was written by Philip Jose Farmer, using Vonnegut's alter-ego character as a nom-de-plume, to break him out of a writer's block. Interesting.
7. Philip Jose Farmer, Riverworld
Again, not out-and-out comedy. The whole of humankind finds itself reincarnated on the banks of an enormous river. It's a big concept, spanning several volumes, and tremendous fun, the main heroes being the author's own favourite historical personages, including Tom Mix (the early cowboy movie actor in the 10 gallon hat), Mark Twain and a bizarrely reformed Herman Goering. Don't miss it. The series begins with To your scattered bodies go and ends with The dark design.
8. Larry Niven, Ringworld
Once again, not a drop dead funny comedy, but great, original characters and fantastic concepts with a wry sense of fun. A must-read. The sequel's just as good, too.
9. Rob Grant, Colony
All right, I've caved in. But then how can I provide a definitive top 10 without including this sparkling gem of the genre?
10. Rob Grant, Backwards
Outrageously, I've mentioned myself twice. Astonishing...
Guardian, 2000-12-30
Rob Grant created, co-wrote and co-produced the first six series of the BBC science fiction comedy Red dwarf. His latest book, Colony, is published by Viking. "Science fiction comedy, per se, is a very underpopulated field. I'm not quite sure why: there's a natural link in that both SF and comedy deal in the same currency - both look at the world from odd angles. Still, here's my stab at a top 10 of SF comedy novels, in no particular order. Naturally, modesty prevents my including my own books..."
1. Douglas Adams, The hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy
The obvious choice, really. The first three books are the best - bright, witty and chock full of brilliant concepts. Though some of the references (Mr Adams's irrational loathing of digital watches, for instance) seem dated now, it's still guaranteed to amuse.
(Touchstone: The hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy series).
2. Harry Harrison, The stainless steel rat
Harry Harrison's work spans the whole of SF: comedy, hard SF, fantasy, you name it. All of it is worth reading. The stainless steel rat series is not, on the whole, laugh-out-loud comedy, but it is funny. If you haven't tried any, ignore the gaudy covers and buy one. They're all good. Then read Captive universe which is not a comedy book, but it will make you go out and buy the rest of his work.
3. Terry Pratchett, Discworld
There are dozens of books in the Discworld series. Technically, they're science fantasy, involving dragons and other mythical creatures. If you're a fantasy fan, Mr Pratchett certainly delivers a good laugh consistently. If you haven't read any of them yet, where have you been?
4. Philip K. Dick, A scanner darkly
Mr Dick's work has been the source of a number of major movies: Blade runner and Total recall among them. A scanner darkly is a bizarre and often hysterically funny novel about an undercover drugs cop who finds himself on his own trail. Compulsory.
5. Kurt Vonnegut Jr, Slaughterhouse Five
A unique and original talent, Mr Vonnegut dislikes being pigeon-holed as an SF writer. The fact remains, though, that he's responsible for a lot of classic and extremely funny writing in this genre. Slaughterhouse Five is his masterpiece, and it veers from incredibly funny to as black as it gets, centred as it is around the firebombing of Dresden (at which the young author was present). Once you've read it, you'll want to rush out and buy Breakfast of champions and Player piano and Cat's cradle and ... well, everything else he's written.
6. Kilgore Trout, Venus on the half-shell
A curiosity, this one. Kilgore Trout is a fictional science fiction writer invented by Kurt Vonnegut Jr, who often used him as a way of making personal appearances in his own novels. However this book was written by Philip Jose Farmer, using Vonnegut's alter-ego character as a nom-de-plume, to break him out of a writer's block. Interesting.
7. Philip Jose Farmer, Riverworld
Again, not out-and-out comedy. The whole of humankind finds itself reincarnated on the banks of an enormous river. It's a big concept, spanning several volumes, and tremendous fun, the main heroes being the author's own favourite historical personages, including Tom Mix (the early cowboy movie actor in the 10 gallon hat), Mark Twain and a bizarrely reformed Herman Goering. Don't miss it. The series begins with To your scattered bodies go and ends with The dark design.
8. Larry Niven, Ringworld
Once again, not a drop dead funny comedy, but great, original characters and fantastic concepts with a wry sense of fun. A must-read. The sequel's just as good, too.
9. Rob Grant, Colony
All right, I've caved in. But then how can I provide a definitive top 10 without including this sparkling gem of the genre?
10. Rob Grant, Backwards
Outrageously, I've mentioned myself twice. Astonishing...
66Cynfelyn
Gillian Slovo's top 10 South African books
Guardian, 2001-01-12.
Gillian Slovo is the daughter of two of South Africa's most prominent anti-apartheid campaigners, and first became known as a crime writer. Her lastest novel, Red dust (Virago), is an examination of the workings and effects of the truth and reconciliation commission.
1. Noel Mostert, Frontiers
The story of the 18th- and 19th-century wars between whites and the Xhosa nation. Over 1,000 pages of fascinating detail that helps to explain the origins of the apartheid state.
2. J. M. Coetzee, The master of Petersburg
This short novel set in Dostoevesky's St Petersburg by the Booker prize-winner has the exquisite structure and style of a true master.
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3. Marlene van Niekerk, Triomf
A brilliant, grim comedy about a dysfunctional white family washed up by recent history.
4. Nadine Gordimer, Burger's daughter
Nobel prize-winner Gordimer examines the costs of commitment paid by the family of a white anti-apartheid activist. A gripping view of a world that has now disappeared.
5. Antjie Krog, Country of my skull
An in-depth look at the truth and reconciliation commission in all its complexity. A virtuoso attempt to let those contradictory voices speak out.
6. Thomas Pakenham, The Boer war
A blow-by-blow account of the turn-of-the-century conflict between the emergent Afrikaner nation and the British.
7. Mandla Langa, A rainbow on the paper sky
A journey into the time of armed struggle. A poet's-eye view from the ground.
8. Anthony Sampson, Mandela
The definitive biography of the man and the pressures that formed him.
9. Ronnie Kasrils, Armed and dangerous
Often hilarious account of the ANC military underground by the "terrorist" who is now South Africa's minister of water affairs.
10. Ruth First and Ann Scott, Olive Schreiner
A complex biography of Schreiner, South Africa's first major novelist, socialist and pacifist and one of the precursors of modern feminism.
Guardian, 2001-01-12.
Gillian Slovo is the daughter of two of South Africa's most prominent anti-apartheid campaigners, and first became known as a crime writer. Her lastest novel, Red dust (Virago), is an examination of the workings and effects of the truth and reconciliation commission.
1. Noel Mostert, Frontiers
The story of the 18th- and 19th-century wars between whites and the Xhosa nation. Over 1,000 pages of fascinating detail that helps to explain the origins of the apartheid state.
2. J. M. Coetzee, The master of Petersburg
This short novel set in Dostoevesky's St Petersburg by the Booker prize-winner has the exquisite structure and style of a true master.
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3. Marlene van Niekerk, Triomf
A brilliant, grim comedy about a dysfunctional white family washed up by recent history.
4. Nadine Gordimer, Burger's daughter
Nobel prize-winner Gordimer examines the costs of commitment paid by the family of a white anti-apartheid activist. A gripping view of a world that has now disappeared.
5. Antjie Krog, Country of my skull
An in-depth look at the truth and reconciliation commission in all its complexity. A virtuoso attempt to let those contradictory voices speak out.
6. Thomas Pakenham, The Boer war
A blow-by-blow account of the turn-of-the-century conflict between the emergent Afrikaner nation and the British.
7. Mandla Langa, A rainbow on the paper sky
A journey into the time of armed struggle. A poet's-eye view from the ground.
8. Anthony Sampson, Mandela
The definitive biography of the man and the pressures that formed him.
9. Ronnie Kasrils, Armed and dangerous
Often hilarious account of the ANC military underground by the "terrorist" who is now South Africa's minister of water affairs.
10. Ruth First and Ann Scott, Olive Schreiner
A complex biography of Schreiner, South Africa's first major novelist, socialist and pacifist and one of the precursors of modern feminism.
67Cynfelyn
Matt Thorne's top 10 new puritan novels
Guardian, 2001-01-17
"There have been a lot of misunderstandings about the New Puritan manifesto. Textual simplicity doesn't necessarily mean stripped-down; writing about film doesn't make us want to be film-makers. The following list is not in order and is made up mainly of novels by writers in the New Puritans collection. The two in the list that aren't written by New Puritans are Less than zero by Bret Easton Ellis, which seemed to come up fairly frequently as an inspiration for the writers we asked to be in this collection, and The royal family, which came out last year and showed a previously 'experimental' writer, Vollman, eschewing his former postmodernist devices to write something direct, honest, narrative-driven, but incredibly accomplished."
1. Bret Easton Ellis, Less than zero
People lump Ellis in with McInerney, but he's a much more sophisticated writer. So many writers I know started thinking seriously about writing after reading Ellis.
2. Scarlett Thomas, Bright young things
Due out later this year, Scarlett Thomas's novel absolutely defines a particular moment in time - by isolating her characters on an island and turning them inside out. Packed full of pop-references, this is a very entertaining read.
3. Matthew Branton, Coast
It can be frustrating trying to explain to someone why certain books are so good. Coast knocked me sideways and of all the books on this list, this is the one I'd tell everyone to read.
4. Rebecca Ray, A certain age
I first read Ray's novel two years ago. At the time I loved the book's simplicity and honesty, but had no idea how often I would find scenes haunting my memory.
5. Alex Garland, The beach
The first English novel in ages to thrill through story, a beautifully constructed novel that will still be read and enjoyed in a hundred years time.
6. Matt Thorne, Eight minutes idle
I know I shouldn't put myself on this list, but it is supposed to be a top ten New Puritans list, right? If I had to be judged on anything I've written, this would be the one I'd like taken into account.
7. Nicholas Blincoe, The dope priest
My co-editor's best book, and the one that seems most New Puritan, although I believe his next novel White Mice is going to be written entirely according to New Puritan rules.
8. William T. Vollmann, The royal family
Reading this novel earlier this year, I was struck how a lot of formerly postmodernist novelists have been returning to realism, with stunning results. This account of San Francisco prostitution pretty much follows all the New Puritan rules.
9. Toby Litt, Corpsing
Litt's second novel was a mainstream success. As with The beach, Toby Litt utilises his story-telling skills to create incredible excitement.
10. Ben Richards, A sweetheart deal
Richards, our most reluctant New Puritan, wishes to reserve the right to use poetic prose. Fair enough. The New Puritan project was intended as one-off, a way of bringing writers together and getting them to do something different, not restrict them for life. Richards is a writer I've admired for ages, and this is his best book.
------
"The New Puritans was a literary movement ascribed to the contributors to a 2000 anthology of short stories entitled All hail the New Puritans, edited by Nicholas Blincoe and Matt Thorne. The project is said to have been inspired by the Dogme 95 manifesto for cinematic minimalism and authenticity. The young writers in the anthology deliberately eschewed many of the devices favoured by the pre-eminent British literary generation exemplified by Julian Barnes, Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie. ..." (Wikipedia).
Guardian, 2001-01-17
"There have been a lot of misunderstandings about the New Puritan manifesto. Textual simplicity doesn't necessarily mean stripped-down; writing about film doesn't make us want to be film-makers. The following list is not in order and is made up mainly of novels by writers in the New Puritans collection. The two in the list that aren't written by New Puritans are Less than zero by Bret Easton Ellis, which seemed to come up fairly frequently as an inspiration for the writers we asked to be in this collection, and The royal family, which came out last year and showed a previously 'experimental' writer, Vollman, eschewing his former postmodernist devices to write something direct, honest, narrative-driven, but incredibly accomplished."
1. Bret Easton Ellis, Less than zero
People lump Ellis in with McInerney, but he's a much more sophisticated writer. So many writers I know started thinking seriously about writing after reading Ellis.
2. Scarlett Thomas, Bright young things
Due out later this year, Scarlett Thomas's novel absolutely defines a particular moment in time - by isolating her characters on an island and turning them inside out. Packed full of pop-references, this is a very entertaining read.
3. Matthew Branton, Coast
It can be frustrating trying to explain to someone why certain books are so good. Coast knocked me sideways and of all the books on this list, this is the one I'd tell everyone to read.
4. Rebecca Ray, A certain age
I first read Ray's novel two years ago. At the time I loved the book's simplicity and honesty, but had no idea how often I would find scenes haunting my memory.
5. Alex Garland, The beach
The first English novel in ages to thrill through story, a beautifully constructed novel that will still be read and enjoyed in a hundred years time.
6. Matt Thorne, Eight minutes idle
I know I shouldn't put myself on this list, but it is supposed to be a top ten New Puritans list, right? If I had to be judged on anything I've written, this would be the one I'd like taken into account.
7. Nicholas Blincoe, The dope priest
My co-editor's best book, and the one that seems most New Puritan, although I believe his next novel White Mice is going to be written entirely according to New Puritan rules.
8. William T. Vollmann, The royal family
Reading this novel earlier this year, I was struck how a lot of formerly postmodernist novelists have been returning to realism, with stunning results. This account of San Francisco prostitution pretty much follows all the New Puritan rules.
9. Toby Litt, Corpsing
Litt's second novel was a mainstream success. As with The beach, Toby Litt utilises his story-telling skills to create incredible excitement.
10. Ben Richards, A sweetheart deal
Richards, our most reluctant New Puritan, wishes to reserve the right to use poetic prose. Fair enough. The New Puritan project was intended as one-off, a way of bringing writers together and getting them to do something different, not restrict them for life. Richards is a writer I've admired for ages, and this is his best book.
------
"The New Puritans was a literary movement ascribed to the contributors to a 2000 anthology of short stories entitled All hail the New Puritans, edited by Nicholas Blincoe and Matt Thorne. The project is said to have been inspired by the Dogme 95 manifesto for cinematic minimalism and authenticity. The young writers in the anthology deliberately eschewed many of the devices favoured by the pre-eminent British literary generation exemplified by Julian Barnes, Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie. ..." (Wikipedia).
68Cynfelyn
Jeff Noon's top 10 fluid fiction books
Guardian, 2001-01-17
Jeff Noon's latest book, Cobralingus, is published by Codex.
"I find it next to impossible to do these best-of lists, especially of books or music. I just love the stuff too much. So this particular inventory breaks down into two parts; the first three books are the cornerstones of my own work, the books I return to again and again for inspiration. Every word I've written drifts around somewhere in the weird shape formed by this trio. The last seven (in alphabetical order of the author) are books I've been getting into recently. Just a bunch of things that got me excited in the last few months."
1. Jorge Luis Borges, Collected fictions
The mother lode. Better than food. There's a rumour going round that only his first dozen or so stories are the jewels. I thought this myself, until this giant cartography came out. All through his career, Borges was capable of mining a deep seam. Dark sparkles of narrative, magic charms. I see it as a vast storehouse of ideas, the best ideas ever. I mean that. Ain't nobody coming near.
2. Lewis Carroll, edited by Martin Gardner, The annotated Alice
Two nightmare destinations. Wonderland and Looking Glass. The more I read these books, the darker they shine. Gardner picks at the invocation, without breaking the spell. They're stuff in here you don't even know about, nobody does. Carroll operates on language like a cruel, crazy surgeon. Beyond the wordplay, check out Alice's own explanation of the Jabberwocky poem: "Somebody killed something." Scary stuff.
3. Douglas R. Hofstadter, Godel, Escher, Bach: an eternal golden braid
A complex, ticking bomb. This is easily the most difficult book I've ever read. It took me four goes, starting from the beginning each time, and it's 750 pages, just to explain Godel's Theory of Incompleteness. Along the way Hofstadter takes in all human knowledge systems, including Lewis Carroll. Still not sure what it's all about, but that's beside the point. Again, ideas abound. There are passages in here, without which, Vurt would not exist.
4. Steve Beard, Digital leatherette
A novel. The word hardly contains the book. A narrative of sorts, all told through the fragments gathered from imaginary websites. Hardcore, fiercely committed, living by its own code, more than a little melancholic. When technology learns how to dream, this is what the English machines will wake up from, shaking their foggy terminals. Stick with it, there are delights to uncover.
5. Mark Z. Danielewski, House of leaves
When I first saw this, pardon me, but I just thought, "Shit, the bastard!" It's got the lot, including stuff that shouldn't really be in a novel. One of those books that makes up its own rules as it goes along. Also, it's a book that eats itself. It gorges on its own imaginative powers. In a slightly different universe (and country), I'd be writing a book like this. Perhaps I will, one day.
6. Richard Ford, Rock Springs
This is where I go when I just want some pure storytelling thrills. Ford writes a lovely sentence, and he piles them up to produce plots that never really close, so there's no sense of being manipulated. Glinting American prose, with a hard-bitten romanticism shot through. Losers predominate, searching for a way out.
7. Ben Marcus, The age of wire and string
Like House of leaves, this is another American book that filled me with envy. House was over a 1000 pages; this does the same but in 139 pages. It's a description of various objects, all seen in a unique light, with a kind of hidden narrative connecting them all. A bit confusing at first, until you give yourself up to the mood, then strangely addictive. Very, very powerful imagination at work here.
8. Rick Moody, The ring of brightest angels around heaven
A recent discovery. I want to read everything this guy has done. He writes stories set in the worst excesses of human life, a lot of stuff about junkies and S&M addicts. And yet, out of the hideousness, the desperation, Moody manages to forge some astonishing moments of beauty. Great freewheeling rock and roll prose style filled with sentences I wish I'd written.
9. Sylvia Plath, Collected poems
Never trust a writer who tells you they don't like poetry. It's like an oil painter saying he doesn't like paint. Plath has the intense love of language that I'm always searching for. I like work that belongs to one writer alone, and this is Plath's own, very personal realm, illuminated by her own personal language. Painful, truthful, magical and filled with riddles.
10. Tom Phillips, A humument
A favourite, and a big influence, especially on Cobralingus. Phillips is a visual artist. Here, he's treated an obscure Victorian novel called A human document. He's painted over every single page, with a different design on every page, but leaving words showing through here and there. All that's left of the first page is this: "The following sing I, a book, a book of art, of mind and art. That which he hid, reveal I." These words tell a fragmented story, and the page designs comment on this. A box of treasures, with many secret compartments.
Guardian, 2001-01-17
Jeff Noon's latest book, Cobralingus, is published by Codex.
"I find it next to impossible to do these best-of lists, especially of books or music. I just love the stuff too much. So this particular inventory breaks down into two parts; the first three books are the cornerstones of my own work, the books I return to again and again for inspiration. Every word I've written drifts around somewhere in the weird shape formed by this trio. The last seven (in alphabetical order of the author) are books I've been getting into recently. Just a bunch of things that got me excited in the last few months."
1. Jorge Luis Borges, Collected fictions
The mother lode. Better than food. There's a rumour going round that only his first dozen or so stories are the jewels. I thought this myself, until this giant cartography came out. All through his career, Borges was capable of mining a deep seam. Dark sparkles of narrative, magic charms. I see it as a vast storehouse of ideas, the best ideas ever. I mean that. Ain't nobody coming near.
2. Lewis Carroll, edited by Martin Gardner, The annotated Alice
Two nightmare destinations. Wonderland and Looking Glass. The more I read these books, the darker they shine. Gardner picks at the invocation, without breaking the spell. They're stuff in here you don't even know about, nobody does. Carroll operates on language like a cruel, crazy surgeon. Beyond the wordplay, check out Alice's own explanation of the Jabberwocky poem: "Somebody killed something." Scary stuff.
3. Douglas R. Hofstadter, Godel, Escher, Bach: an eternal golden braid
A complex, ticking bomb. This is easily the most difficult book I've ever read. It took me four goes, starting from the beginning each time, and it's 750 pages, just to explain Godel's Theory of Incompleteness. Along the way Hofstadter takes in all human knowledge systems, including Lewis Carroll. Still not sure what it's all about, but that's beside the point. Again, ideas abound. There are passages in here, without which, Vurt would not exist.
4. Steve Beard, Digital leatherette
A novel. The word hardly contains the book. A narrative of sorts, all told through the fragments gathered from imaginary websites. Hardcore, fiercely committed, living by its own code, more than a little melancholic. When technology learns how to dream, this is what the English machines will wake up from, shaking their foggy terminals. Stick with it, there are delights to uncover.
5. Mark Z. Danielewski, House of leaves
When I first saw this, pardon me, but I just thought, "Shit, the bastard!" It's got the lot, including stuff that shouldn't really be in a novel. One of those books that makes up its own rules as it goes along. Also, it's a book that eats itself. It gorges on its own imaginative powers. In a slightly different universe (and country), I'd be writing a book like this. Perhaps I will, one day.
6. Richard Ford, Rock Springs
This is where I go when I just want some pure storytelling thrills. Ford writes a lovely sentence, and he piles them up to produce plots that never really close, so there's no sense of being manipulated. Glinting American prose, with a hard-bitten romanticism shot through. Losers predominate, searching for a way out.
7. Ben Marcus, The age of wire and string
Like House of leaves, this is another American book that filled me with envy. House was over a 1000 pages; this does the same but in 139 pages. It's a description of various objects, all seen in a unique light, with a kind of hidden narrative connecting them all. A bit confusing at first, until you give yourself up to the mood, then strangely addictive. Very, very powerful imagination at work here.
8. Rick Moody, The ring of brightest angels around heaven
A recent discovery. I want to read everything this guy has done. He writes stories set in the worst excesses of human life, a lot of stuff about junkies and S&M addicts. And yet, out of the hideousness, the desperation, Moody manages to forge some astonishing moments of beauty. Great freewheeling rock and roll prose style filled with sentences I wish I'd written.
9. Sylvia Plath, Collected poems
Never trust a writer who tells you they don't like poetry. It's like an oil painter saying he doesn't like paint. Plath has the intense love of language that I'm always searching for. I like work that belongs to one writer alone, and this is Plath's own, very personal realm, illuminated by her own personal language. Painful, truthful, magical and filled with riddles.
10. Tom Phillips, A humument
A favourite, and a big influence, especially on Cobralingus. Phillips is a visual artist. Here, he's treated an obscure Victorian novel called A human document. He's painted over every single page, with a different design on every page, but leaving words showing through here and there. All that's left of the first page is this: "The following sing I, a book, a book of art, of mind and art. That which he hid, reveal I." These words tell a fragmented story, and the page designs comment on this. A box of treasures, with many secret compartments.
69Cynfelyn
Jonathan Maitland's top 10 business books
Guardian, 2001-02-01
Jonathan Maitland's book, How to make your million from the internet (and what to do if you don't) is published by Hodder and Stoughton.
1. Michael Lewis, Liar's poker
A true story of what it's like to work for one of the most powerful and profitable merchant banks on earth. Fear and greed drip from every page. A real life Wall Street.
2. Robert Spector, Amazon.com: get big fast
The story of Amazon's birth and infancy. From a desk in the garage, to the one of the biggest internet players in the world. Essential reading for fledgling e-entrepreneurs.
3. William Shawcross, Rupert Murdoch
The story of the great satan himself. An impressively researched biography that shows the terrifyingly thin line between worldwide domination and humiliating failure.
4. Jaclyn Easton, StrikingItRich.com: profiles of 23 incredibly successful websites you've probably never heard of
What it lacks in wit it makes up for in usefulness. The message: you can do it too!
5. Mark Macormack, What they don't teach you at Harvard Business School
Sports management guru shares his 'secrets' (eg: "NEVER underestimate the value of money. NEVER overestimate the value of money.") So humourless it's hilarious.
6. The FT guide to interpreting company reports
Not quite as exciting as a John Grisham thriller but essential reading for stockmarket anoraks. A favourite with insomniacs.
7. Alvin Hall, Money for life: everyone's guide to financial freedom
That nice bloke off the telly tells you how to get your financial house in order. Friendly, accessible and useful.
8. Jonas Ridderstrale & Kjell Nordstrom, Funky business
Groovy Swedish capitalists on what businesses will need to survive in the 21st century. My neighbour, who has his own company, liked this book so much he bought 10 for his clients.
9. Al Neuharth, Confessions of an S.O.B. (Signet)
The man behind USA Today tells how he took on America's press establishment - and won. Loud, racy, pacy and highly entertaining. Just like USA Today in fact.
10. Nigel Roberts, Motley Fool: the fool's guide to online investing (Boxtree, 2000)
If you don't know the difference between a bull and a bear then this one is for you. Basic stockmarket investing made easy.
Guardian, 2001-02-01
Jonathan Maitland's book, How to make your million from the internet (and what to do if you don't) is published by Hodder and Stoughton.
1. Michael Lewis, Liar's poker
A true story of what it's like to work for one of the most powerful and profitable merchant banks on earth. Fear and greed drip from every page. A real life Wall Street.
2. Robert Spector, Amazon.com: get big fast
The story of Amazon's birth and infancy. From a desk in the garage, to the one of the biggest internet players in the world. Essential reading for fledgling e-entrepreneurs.
3. William Shawcross, Rupert Murdoch
The story of the great satan himself. An impressively researched biography that shows the terrifyingly thin line between worldwide domination and humiliating failure.
4. Jaclyn Easton, StrikingItRich.com: profiles of 23 incredibly successful websites you've probably never heard of
What it lacks in wit it makes up for in usefulness. The message: you can do it too!
5. Mark Macormack, What they don't teach you at Harvard Business School
Sports management guru shares his 'secrets' (eg: "NEVER underestimate the value of money. NEVER overestimate the value of money.") So humourless it's hilarious.
6. The FT guide to interpreting company reports
Not quite as exciting as a John Grisham thriller but essential reading for stockmarket anoraks. A favourite with insomniacs.
7. Alvin Hall, Money for life: everyone's guide to financial freedom
That nice bloke off the telly tells you how to get your financial house in order. Friendly, accessible and useful.
8. Jonas Ridderstrale & Kjell Nordstrom, Funky business
Groovy Swedish capitalists on what businesses will need to survive in the 21st century. My neighbour, who has his own company, liked this book so much he bought 10 for his clients.
9. Al Neuharth, Confessions of an S.O.B. (Signet)
The man behind USA Today tells how he took on America's press establishment - and won. Loud, racy, pacy and highly entertaining. Just like USA Today in fact.
10. Nigel Roberts, Motley Fool: the fool's guide to online investing (Boxtree, 2000)
If you don't know the difference between a bull and a bear then this one is for you. Basic stockmarket investing made easy.
70Cynfelyn
Niall Griffiths's top 10 Welsh books
Guardian, 2001-02-07
Niall Griffiths's first novel, Grits, a vernacular tale of addicts and drifters in rural Wales, won him the title 'the Welsh Irvine Welsh'. His second novel, Sheepshagger, is set in the same landscape; it tells the story of Ianto, a feral mountain boy who wreaks terrible vengeance on those he feels have stolen his homeland.
"The difficulty in compiling such a list is, of course, keeping the books down to a mere 10. There's always a scrap with yourself over what to leave out; what you jettison today may seem utterly indispensable tomorrow, or even after tea. So what I've done here is list the 10 Welsh books which, in varying ways, influenced my most recent novel, Sheepshagger; the books which would undam the wordflow when it was temporarily blocked. Which is as good a criterion as any. The order is roughly chronological, although all but the first are 20th century. Nearly all of them are poetry, as well. Hmmmm. And they're all by men. Hmmmm again."
1. Dafydd ap Gwilym, Selected poems
Contemporary of, and superior to, Chaucer. This man roamed mountains and forests, got rat-arsed in hill inns, tupped wenches, and wrote poems about it. Raucous, irreverent, and dead, dead funny. And lovely in parts too, in his poems of birds and water, in his evocation of the cabin he built in the woods for himself and his favourite missus. Sadness for a world lost, but isn't that what we're made of? Random quote: "I am a leaper bold."
2. Caradoc Evans, My people blimey
Think of Royston Vasey, and then think of something darker, funnier, more absurd, more unsettling. Not easy I know, but here it is, in the tiny rural Welsh community of this collection of short stories. The transliteration of Welsh directly into English in economical, almost painfully spare language creates a deeply peculiar linguistic world, dreamlike and eerie. This man was willing to be reviled as the price of exposing the corruption and hypocrisy of non-conformism. Black-clad, thickly bearded big men booming in chapels; painful births on storm-torn mountains; old ladies eaten by rats. Mad, worrying, horrifying. Random quote: "fled from the house of sacrifice".
3. Caradog Pritchard, One moonlit night
See above. And see the black lake; the tiny houses in the night; the bodies floating bloated in the water. Unremittingly dark, determinedly cheerless. Or at least that's the prevailing memory; go back to it (which I do, again and again) and you'll find a perfect evocation of childhood and a twisted, quirky humour. Brave, bizarre, brilliant. Random quote: "He was going to be hanged in Caernarfon."
4. David Jones, In parenthesis
One of the best epic poems of the last century. No, one of the best epic poems ever. A speculum into the collective psyche. How myths of our making go to shape us for such things as the unimaginable carnage of the first world war. How everything we label 'civilisation' is founded on very thin ice, and how horrible are the things that lurk beneath. Phantasmagoric and, at the same time, true. Which is perfect for our age. Random quote: "Plug and splinter/Shin and fibula."
5. Dylan Thomas, Collected poems and Collected stories
He had to be in here, didn't he? Forget what you know of Dylan the pisshead, the letch, the boyo, and focus on Dylan the writer. He's the man for the joy in language, the rapture and terror in the world. He created forms of expression utterly, uniquely his. The mystery and innocence of all that we do. A bottle of Irish, a view of the mountains, and the words of this man = joy. Random quote: "a turtle in a hearse".
6. R. S. Thomas, Collected poems
Grumpy old clergyman, sour old sod. Extolled the virtues of forcing everyone west of the border to speak Cymraeg yet wrote in Saesneg so loads of people would read him. Would ignore people who asked him directions, or send them the wrong way. Truly, a cantankerous get. But lookit: few words, and the universalisation in them of human yearning. Amazing. Read a good definition of 'apophantism', read this book, and you'll be lost for months, years, ever. Essential. Random quote: You've just had one.
7. Ron Berry, So long, Hector Bebb
The book which, at the age of about nine, alerted me to the possibilities of speaking for and within one's own community. A vernacular mimetic truth, strong, lyrical, infinitely sad. A voice, a dialect, a commensurately firm identity and the rage resultant when that is lost or robbed. Talking of which, some immoral bugger half-inched my copy ages ago, and it's been long out of print. No luck in second-hand shops either. Somebody, please, reprint it - or failing that, somebody please send me a copy. I'd be eternally grateful, and a tad happier than I am now. Plus I'd pay. Honest. Random quote: can't remember. I was nine years old, for God's sake.
8. Ned Thomas, The Welsh extremist
Non-fiction, and frightening; not because of its promotion of militancy, heck no, but because of its revelations and analysis concerning the insidious and evil hegemonic takeover of whole countries, entire ways of life. On behalf of all oppressed nations, and for the individual creative effort threatened by the barren swamp of enforced uniformity. As vital now as it was in the 70s, and as important as Franz Fanon's The wretched of the earth. Endorsed by Raymond Williams, and he knew a thing or two. Random quote: "Cracach."
9. Mike Jenkins, Red landscapes: new and selected poems
A Welsh Lallans. Hopelessness in the sink estates, as brilliantly caught as in John Welch's Estates documentary. As far removed from the fudge box view of Wales as the reality is. The Welsh revival starts here: profound political commitment allied with a bone-deep sympathy for blighted lives. Surprising flashes of surreal humour, too. Random quote: "a tourist's luxury".
10. Lloyd Robson, Edge territory
Or indeed anything else by him, or even one of his intense, confrontational, energetic, inyerface machine gun-stutter readings. Some of the best dialect writing in these islands, ever. The way he plays with voice and typology is wondrous, life-affirming. Drugs, dialect, sex, violence, fun, anger, happiness; it's all here, in Kairdiff as well as Scotland. Read it. Random quote: "Dylan is dead or ain't you noticed? Read the living poets."
Which undermines my list somewhat, apart from the last two items, and Ned Thomas at number seven, but he's not a poet. So, yet again: Hmmmmm...
------
Touchstones etc.:
1. Dafydd ap Gwilym : a selection of poems.
2. He means Caradoc Evans, My people. Although Google does have hits on "My people blimey", it is surely nonsense.
3. Both my children read this, under the original title Un nos ola leuad, as part of their Welsh Literature GCSE. It's still very relevant.
6. R. S. Thomas, Collected poems. LibraryThing's touchstone system can't cope with two different books with the same title in the same message. Can't be helped.
As Niall Griffiths says, most of his "top 10 Welsh books" are poetry. They are also either originally written in English or written in Welsh but available in English translation. For a list of top ten 20th century Welsh language novels, see https://www.librarything.com/topic/301774#6699778
Guardian, 2001-02-07
Niall Griffiths's first novel, Grits, a vernacular tale of addicts and drifters in rural Wales, won him the title 'the Welsh Irvine Welsh'. His second novel, Sheepshagger, is set in the same landscape; it tells the story of Ianto, a feral mountain boy who wreaks terrible vengeance on those he feels have stolen his homeland.
"The difficulty in compiling such a list is, of course, keeping the books down to a mere 10. There's always a scrap with yourself over what to leave out; what you jettison today may seem utterly indispensable tomorrow, or even after tea. So what I've done here is list the 10 Welsh books which, in varying ways, influenced my most recent novel, Sheepshagger; the books which would undam the wordflow when it was temporarily blocked. Which is as good a criterion as any. The order is roughly chronological, although all but the first are 20th century. Nearly all of them are poetry, as well. Hmmmm. And they're all by men. Hmmmm again."
1. Dafydd ap Gwilym, Selected poems
Contemporary of, and superior to, Chaucer. This man roamed mountains and forests, got rat-arsed in hill inns, tupped wenches, and wrote poems about it. Raucous, irreverent, and dead, dead funny. And lovely in parts too, in his poems of birds and water, in his evocation of the cabin he built in the woods for himself and his favourite missus. Sadness for a world lost, but isn't that what we're made of? Random quote: "I am a leaper bold."
2. Caradoc Evans, My people blimey
Think of Royston Vasey, and then think of something darker, funnier, more absurd, more unsettling. Not easy I know, but here it is, in the tiny rural Welsh community of this collection of short stories. The transliteration of Welsh directly into English in economical, almost painfully spare language creates a deeply peculiar linguistic world, dreamlike and eerie. This man was willing to be reviled as the price of exposing the corruption and hypocrisy of non-conformism. Black-clad, thickly bearded big men booming in chapels; painful births on storm-torn mountains; old ladies eaten by rats. Mad, worrying, horrifying. Random quote: "fled from the house of sacrifice".
3. Caradog Pritchard, One moonlit night
See above. And see the black lake; the tiny houses in the night; the bodies floating bloated in the water. Unremittingly dark, determinedly cheerless. Or at least that's the prevailing memory; go back to it (which I do, again and again) and you'll find a perfect evocation of childhood and a twisted, quirky humour. Brave, bizarre, brilliant. Random quote: "He was going to be hanged in Caernarfon."
4. David Jones, In parenthesis
One of the best epic poems of the last century. No, one of the best epic poems ever. A speculum into the collective psyche. How myths of our making go to shape us for such things as the unimaginable carnage of the first world war. How everything we label 'civilisation' is founded on very thin ice, and how horrible are the things that lurk beneath. Phantasmagoric and, at the same time, true. Which is perfect for our age. Random quote: "Plug and splinter/Shin and fibula."
5. Dylan Thomas, Collected poems and Collected stories
He had to be in here, didn't he? Forget what you know of Dylan the pisshead, the letch, the boyo, and focus on Dylan the writer. He's the man for the joy in language, the rapture and terror in the world. He created forms of expression utterly, uniquely his. The mystery and innocence of all that we do. A bottle of Irish, a view of the mountains, and the words of this man = joy. Random quote: "a turtle in a hearse".
6. R. S. Thomas, Collected poems
Grumpy old clergyman, sour old sod. Extolled the virtues of forcing everyone west of the border to speak Cymraeg yet wrote in Saesneg so loads of people would read him. Would ignore people who asked him directions, or send them the wrong way. Truly, a cantankerous get. But lookit: few words, and the universalisation in them of human yearning. Amazing. Read a good definition of 'apophantism', read this book, and you'll be lost for months, years, ever. Essential. Random quote: You've just had one.
7. Ron Berry, So long, Hector Bebb
The book which, at the age of about nine, alerted me to the possibilities of speaking for and within one's own community. A vernacular mimetic truth, strong, lyrical, infinitely sad. A voice, a dialect, a commensurately firm identity and the rage resultant when that is lost or robbed. Talking of which, some immoral bugger half-inched my copy ages ago, and it's been long out of print. No luck in second-hand shops either. Somebody, please, reprint it - or failing that, somebody please send me a copy. I'd be eternally grateful, and a tad happier than I am now. Plus I'd pay. Honest. Random quote: can't remember. I was nine years old, for God's sake.
8. Ned Thomas, The Welsh extremist
Non-fiction, and frightening; not because of its promotion of militancy, heck no, but because of its revelations and analysis concerning the insidious and evil hegemonic takeover of whole countries, entire ways of life. On behalf of all oppressed nations, and for the individual creative effort threatened by the barren swamp of enforced uniformity. As vital now as it was in the 70s, and as important as Franz Fanon's The wretched of the earth. Endorsed by Raymond Williams, and he knew a thing or two. Random quote: "Cracach."
9. Mike Jenkins, Red landscapes: new and selected poems
A Welsh Lallans. Hopelessness in the sink estates, as brilliantly caught as in John Welch's Estates documentary. As far removed from the fudge box view of Wales as the reality is. The Welsh revival starts here: profound political commitment allied with a bone-deep sympathy for blighted lives. Surprising flashes of surreal humour, too. Random quote: "a tourist's luxury".
10. Lloyd Robson, Edge territory
Or indeed anything else by him, or even one of his intense, confrontational, energetic, inyerface machine gun-stutter readings. Some of the best dialect writing in these islands, ever. The way he plays with voice and typology is wondrous, life-affirming. Drugs, dialect, sex, violence, fun, anger, happiness; it's all here, in Kairdiff as well as Scotland. Read it. Random quote: "Dylan is dead or ain't you noticed? Read the living poets."
Which undermines my list somewhat, apart from the last two items, and Ned Thomas at number seven, but he's not a poet. So, yet again: Hmmmmm...
------
Touchstones etc.:
1. Dafydd ap Gwilym : a selection of poems.
2. He means Caradoc Evans, My people. Although Google does have hits on "My people blimey", it is surely nonsense.
3. Both my children read this, under the original title Un nos ola leuad, as part of their Welsh Literature GCSE. It's still very relevant.
6. R. S. Thomas, Collected poems. LibraryThing's touchstone system can't cope with two different books with the same title in the same message. Can't be helped.
As Niall Griffiths says, most of his "top 10 Welsh books" are poetry. They are also either originally written in English or written in Welsh but available in English translation. For a list of top ten 20th century Welsh language novels, see https://www.librarything.com/topic/301774#6699778
71Cynfelyn
David Walker and Polly Toynbee's top 10 books about politics
Guardian, 2001-02-15
Political commentators Polly Toynbee and David Walker are the authors of Did things get better? (Penguin), in which they explore the performance of Tony Blair's first administration. Here they choose the essential books to read if you want to understand New Labour, and some favourite political novels.
David Walker
1. John Dunn, The cunning of unreason
A subtle, pessimistic book about democracy by an original mind. Read Dunn and the future of elective self-government looks bleak.
Advertisement
2. Donald MacIntyre, Mandelson and the making of New Labour
More than just a biography of the prince of darkness, Don MacIntyre brilliantly conveys how Labour's defeats in 1983, 1987 and 1992 felt. This remains the great source book on why Mandelson and Gordon Brown fell out.
3. Anonymous (Joe Klein), Primary colors
This is still the best book about Bill Clinton - and Monica and Hillary - and the sheer exhilaration of running for national office in the USA. Of course it's a novel, but it speaks truth about power.
4. Philip Stephens, Politics and the pound
The essential book about the John Major premiership and the ERM debacle. Money is the mother's milk of politics, they say; sterling's fate was John Major's and may yet be Tony Blair's.
5. John Morley, The life of William Ewart Gladstone (Greenwood Press, ISBN: 0837105765)
Morley was himself a Liberal MP, and brings to the monumental task of describing the tree-chopping, prostitute-rescuing, three-hour-speechifying Victorian a shared love of the business of winning and using power for public purpose.
Polly Toynbee
6. Ronald Dworkin, Sovereign virtue: the theory and practice of equality
Liberty, fraternity, equality: the greatest of the three is equality, and Ronald proves it with rigour. He is the kind of author who makes his readers feel cleverer.
7. George Eliot, Felix Holt: the radical
Modern political novels never come close. Through her characters Eliot managed to explain class and (unfashionable idea these days but all too present in 1832) class conflict.
8. Peter Hennessy, The prime minister
Throughout the country politicians are making speeches using bons mots and stories culled from this set of portraits of premiers since Attlee. Is Blair Boney? Hennessy reminds us that the historians will remember Blair as a successful war leader.
9. Commission on Taxation and Citizenship, Paying for progress (Fabian Society)
Here, in one place, all the arguments for and against income and indirect taxes, with handy charts and some passionate pleas for higher spending, too.
10. Anthony Trollope, Phineas Finn
An Irish adventurer rises in the Commons then comes a cropper. If only real politics was this witty and exciting.
Guardian, 2001-02-15
Political commentators Polly Toynbee and David Walker are the authors of Did things get better? (Penguin), in which they explore the performance of Tony Blair's first administration. Here they choose the essential books to read if you want to understand New Labour, and some favourite political novels.
David Walker
1. John Dunn, The cunning of unreason
A subtle, pessimistic book about democracy by an original mind. Read Dunn and the future of elective self-government looks bleak.
Advertisement
2. Donald MacIntyre, Mandelson and the making of New Labour
More than just a biography of the prince of darkness, Don MacIntyre brilliantly conveys how Labour's defeats in 1983, 1987 and 1992 felt. This remains the great source book on why Mandelson and Gordon Brown fell out.
3. Anonymous (Joe Klein), Primary colors
This is still the best book about Bill Clinton - and Monica and Hillary - and the sheer exhilaration of running for national office in the USA. Of course it's a novel, but it speaks truth about power.
4. Philip Stephens, Politics and the pound
The essential book about the John Major premiership and the ERM debacle. Money is the mother's milk of politics, they say; sterling's fate was John Major's and may yet be Tony Blair's.
5. John Morley, The life of William Ewart Gladstone (Greenwood Press, ISBN: 0837105765)
Morley was himself a Liberal MP, and brings to the monumental task of describing the tree-chopping, prostitute-rescuing, three-hour-speechifying Victorian a shared love of the business of winning and using power for public purpose.
Polly Toynbee
6. Ronald Dworkin, Sovereign virtue: the theory and practice of equality
Liberty, fraternity, equality: the greatest of the three is equality, and Ronald proves it with rigour. He is the kind of author who makes his readers feel cleverer.
7. George Eliot, Felix Holt: the radical
Modern political novels never come close. Through her characters Eliot managed to explain class and (unfashionable idea these days but all too present in 1832) class conflict.
8. Peter Hennessy, The prime minister
Throughout the country politicians are making speeches using bons mots and stories culled from this set of portraits of premiers since Attlee. Is Blair Boney? Hennessy reminds us that the historians will remember Blair as a successful war leader.
9. Commission on Taxation and Citizenship, Paying for progress (Fabian Society)
Here, in one place, all the arguments for and against income and indirect taxes, with handy charts and some passionate pleas for higher spending, too.
10. Anthony Trollope, Phineas Finn
An Irish adventurer rises in the Commons then comes a cropper. If only real politics was this witty and exciting.
72Cynfelyn
Alison Hennegan's top 10 lesbian books
Guardian, 2001-03-07
Alison Hennegan, who was for many years literary editor of Gay News, is a member of the faculty of English at the University of Cambridge. She has recently edited The lesbian pillow book.
1. Peter Jay and Caroline Lewis (ed. and intro.), Sappho through English poetry
No self-respecting list of lesbian books could omit Sappho, but which Sappho? Over the centuries she's been all things to all people: the ancients' most admired poet and the target of their comic dramatists' obscenities; lovelorn heterosexual woman, hurling herself off the Leucadian rocks when the handsome Phaon spurns her; and the archetypal lover of women whose island home of Lesbos has, for more than two thousand years now, given its name to one form of sexuality. In this book history's many Sapphos are reflected in a host of English translations culled from across the centuries.
2. Emma Donoghue (ed.), What Sappho would have said
3. Gillian Spraggs (ed.), Love shook my senses
Many other fine poets can be found in these two recent British anthologies These highly intelligent books wander far away from the now rather heavily beaten tracks of (mainly American) collections.
4. Charlotte Charke, A narrative of the life of Mrs Charlotte Charke
5. Helena Whitbread (ed.), I know my own heart and No priest but love from The diaries of Anne Lister
If you're intrigued by the way in which women of earlier centuries made sense of their passionate feelings for other women and tried to understand the apparent conflict between their biological gender and their desires, try this trio of works. Charlotte Charke (daughter of the poet laureate, Colley Cibber) struggled against the constraints of gender all her life. Her spirited, albeit sometimes opaque, autobiography charts her precarious efforts to support herself as actress, writer, and man about town -but not, she insists, as highwayman. To many of her 18th century contemporaries she was known only as Sir Charles or Mr Brown (there was a Mrs Brown, too).
Anne Lister, the Yorkshire heiress, has left us marvellously explicit diaries, recounting the pleasures and perils of her many flirtations and affairs with women during the first decades of the 19th century, not only in her native country but also in France. These hitherto encoded diaries, magnificently transcribed and edited by Helena Whitbread, reveal an earlier lesbian world whose existence some historians have sought to deny.
Advertisement
6. Virginia Woolf, Orlando
7. Radclyffe Hall, The well of loneliness
Critics often use the first of these as a stick with which to beat the second, but they actually belong together. Both published in the same year, 1928, Hall's book was prosecuted and banned, Woolf's hailed by critics and readers alike (it was her first bestseller). Read them side by side and ponder anew why and how some forms of truth telling are venerated and rewarded, others silenced.
8. Rosemary Manning, The Chinese garden
This marvellous autobiographical novel, first published in 1961, is a little gem. Its author is perhaps best known for her Green Dragon children's books, but here she recreates her last, sixth form year (1928) at a fiercely repressive girls' boarding school. The fear and confusion generated by the very public prosecution of The Well of Loneliness affect both girls and staff in far-reaching ways. A wonderful book, in which angry content, perfect narrative control and the finest prose combine to create something very special.
9. Adrienne Rich, On lies, secrets and silence
10. Adrienne Rich, Collected poems
An outstanding critic and poet demonstrates here the way in which sexual politics in general and lesbian politics in particular have, during the past 30-something years, shaped and changed the way in which she reads and makes literature. Here is one of America's greatest living poets at work.
------
Touchstone for (10), although this is for a much later volume, published c.2016:
Adrienne Rich, Collected poems : 1950-2012.
Guardian, 2001-03-07
Alison Hennegan, who was for many years literary editor of Gay News, is a member of the faculty of English at the University of Cambridge. She has recently edited The lesbian pillow book.
1. Peter Jay and Caroline Lewis (ed. and intro.), Sappho through English poetry
No self-respecting list of lesbian books could omit Sappho, but which Sappho? Over the centuries she's been all things to all people: the ancients' most admired poet and the target of their comic dramatists' obscenities; lovelorn heterosexual woman, hurling herself off the Leucadian rocks when the handsome Phaon spurns her; and the archetypal lover of women whose island home of Lesbos has, for more than two thousand years now, given its name to one form of sexuality. In this book history's many Sapphos are reflected in a host of English translations culled from across the centuries.
2. Emma Donoghue (ed.), What Sappho would have said
3. Gillian Spraggs (ed.), Love shook my senses
Many other fine poets can be found in these two recent British anthologies These highly intelligent books wander far away from the now rather heavily beaten tracks of (mainly American) collections.
4. Charlotte Charke, A narrative of the life of Mrs Charlotte Charke
5. Helena Whitbread (ed.), I know my own heart and No priest but love from The diaries of Anne Lister
If you're intrigued by the way in which women of earlier centuries made sense of their passionate feelings for other women and tried to understand the apparent conflict between their biological gender and their desires, try this trio of works. Charlotte Charke (daughter of the poet laureate, Colley Cibber) struggled against the constraints of gender all her life. Her spirited, albeit sometimes opaque, autobiography charts her precarious efforts to support herself as actress, writer, and man about town -but not, she insists, as highwayman. To many of her 18th century contemporaries she was known only as Sir Charles or Mr Brown (there was a Mrs Brown, too).
Anne Lister, the Yorkshire heiress, has left us marvellously explicit diaries, recounting the pleasures and perils of her many flirtations and affairs with women during the first decades of the 19th century, not only in her native country but also in France. These hitherto encoded diaries, magnificently transcribed and edited by Helena Whitbread, reveal an earlier lesbian world whose existence some historians have sought to deny.
Advertisement
6. Virginia Woolf, Orlando
7. Radclyffe Hall, The well of loneliness
Critics often use the first of these as a stick with which to beat the second, but they actually belong together. Both published in the same year, 1928, Hall's book was prosecuted and banned, Woolf's hailed by critics and readers alike (it was her first bestseller). Read them side by side and ponder anew why and how some forms of truth telling are venerated and rewarded, others silenced.
8. Rosemary Manning, The Chinese garden
This marvellous autobiographical novel, first published in 1961, is a little gem. Its author is perhaps best known for her Green Dragon children's books, but here she recreates her last, sixth form year (1928) at a fiercely repressive girls' boarding school. The fear and confusion generated by the very public prosecution of The Well of Loneliness affect both girls and staff in far-reaching ways. A wonderful book, in which angry content, perfect narrative control and the finest prose combine to create something very special.
9. Adrienne Rich, On lies, secrets and silence
10. Adrienne Rich, Collected poems
An outstanding critic and poet demonstrates here the way in which sexual politics in general and lesbian politics in particular have, during the past 30-something years, shaped and changed the way in which she reads and makes literature. Here is one of America's greatest living poets at work.
------
Touchstone for (10), although this is for a much later volume, published c.2016:
Adrienne Rich, Collected poems : 1950-2012.
73Cynfelyn
Anne Enright's top 10 slim volumes
Guardian, 2001-03-21
Anne Enright's latest novel, What are you like?, tells the tale of twins who are separated at birth and lead dislocated lives until finally they meet at the age of 25. Anne Enright is also the author of The wig my father wore, and a collection of short stories, The portable virgin.
1. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Chronicle of a death foretold
This is a perfect book.
2. Joseph Conrad, Heart of darkness
Unfashionable and troubled, this small novel is written with intense clarity - sentence for sentence it is still more unsettling than many unpleasant books that have been written since.
3. John Banville, The Newton letter
A reclusive academic becomes entangled in the lives of two women who live in a decaying big house. An exquisitely written, classic threesome: wanting both he gets neither, or half gets them? Or something.
4. Marguerite Yourcenar, Coup de grace
Another threesome, this time involving two men and a woman on the run from the Russian revolution. The wrong people fall in love and, in a wonderful denoument, the wrong people get killed.
5. Amit Chaudhari, Afternoon Raag
Chaudhari's other books may be even better, but I am saving them for a rainy day. This is the story of a student who comes from Bombay to Oxford. Again there are two women, but in this version nothing at all seems to happen, in the most beautifully modulated way.
6. Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin
For the young girl in all of us. Onegin rejects Tatiana, then falls in love with her when it is too late. An incredibly graceful tale about the elusiveness of love.
7. Simon Leys, The death of Napoleon
An elegantly sustained historical whimsy. Napoleon escapes St Helena, leaving a proxy to die in his place. When he returns to France, he finds that his great moment has passed.
8. Jean Rhys, Good morning midnight
Drink, desperation and the search for a good hat. Jean Rhys is a terrifying writer and here she is on familiar ground as she charts the nervy, banal disaster that is a woman on her way down.
9. Thomas Pynchon, The crying of lot 49
This was the most exciting book of my adolescence: all the big questions packed into a small, highly ironic space. It was the first and neatest treatment of a very modern theme - too much information and the paranoia it provokes.
10. Wolf Mankovitz, A kid for two farthings
One of my favourite books as a child, this tale needs an adult reading to get the full poignancy. It tells the story of a boy in London's east end who buys a crippled goat that he thinks is a baby unicorn.
Guardian, 2001-03-21
Anne Enright's latest novel, What are you like?, tells the tale of twins who are separated at birth and lead dislocated lives until finally they meet at the age of 25. Anne Enright is also the author of The wig my father wore, and a collection of short stories, The portable virgin.
1. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Chronicle of a death foretold
This is a perfect book.
2. Joseph Conrad, Heart of darkness
Unfashionable and troubled, this small novel is written with intense clarity - sentence for sentence it is still more unsettling than many unpleasant books that have been written since.
3. John Banville, The Newton letter
A reclusive academic becomes entangled in the lives of two women who live in a decaying big house. An exquisitely written, classic threesome: wanting both he gets neither, or half gets them? Or something.
4. Marguerite Yourcenar, Coup de grace
Another threesome, this time involving two men and a woman on the run from the Russian revolution. The wrong people fall in love and, in a wonderful denoument, the wrong people get killed.
5. Amit Chaudhari, Afternoon Raag
Chaudhari's other books may be even better, but I am saving them for a rainy day. This is the story of a student who comes from Bombay to Oxford. Again there are two women, but in this version nothing at all seems to happen, in the most beautifully modulated way.
6. Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin
For the young girl in all of us. Onegin rejects Tatiana, then falls in love with her when it is too late. An incredibly graceful tale about the elusiveness of love.
7. Simon Leys, The death of Napoleon
An elegantly sustained historical whimsy. Napoleon escapes St Helena, leaving a proxy to die in his place. When he returns to France, he finds that his great moment has passed.
8. Jean Rhys, Good morning midnight
Drink, desperation and the search for a good hat. Jean Rhys is a terrifying writer and here she is on familiar ground as she charts the nervy, banal disaster that is a woman on her way down.
9. Thomas Pynchon, The crying of lot 49
This was the most exciting book of my adolescence: all the big questions packed into a small, highly ironic space. It was the first and neatest treatment of a very modern theme - too much information and the paranoia it provokes.
10. Wolf Mankovitz, A kid for two farthings
One of my favourite books as a child, this tale needs an adult reading to get the full poignancy. It tells the story of a boy in London's east end who buys a crippled goat that he thinks is a baby unicorn.
74Limelite
I don't have Jonathan Maitland's talent for writing book reviews using damnation with faint praise. And I don't read business books. See his review #6 above.
But I did read and review Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero back in the day when it was published. Here ya go.
But I did read and review Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero back in the day when it was published. Here ya go.
Out of respect to both literate and numerate audiences.
Literate: "Is."
Numerate: "-1"
75Cynfelyn
Peter Singer's top 10 books
Guardian, 2001-04-06
Controversial philosopher and professor of bioethics Peter Singer has been working in the field of 'practical ethics' for 30 years - "which means that when I began there was no such field". He was a passionate founder of the modern animal rights movement and has written on animal rights, abortion, euthanasia and the ethical implications of the global rift between rich and poor. His most recent book is Writings on an ethical life, a collection of his most provocative writings.
1. Charles Darwin, The descent of man
Together with Darwin's The origin of species - and a better read - this book ushered in the modern understanding of what we are, and our relationship to other animals.
2. Jane Austen, Pride and prejudice
If this is not the best novel ever written, I don't know what surpasses it for fine observation of manners, character and passions, all told with the most delightfully delicate sense of humour.
3. Henry Sidgwick, The methods of ethics
After 100 years, this remains the most careful, thorough and accurate study of ethics I know.
4. John Stuart Mill, On liberty
Mill's defence of individual liberty and freedom of expression is a model of political argument, and a pleasure to read.
5. Derek Parfit, Reasons and persons
Parfit's penetrating thought and spare prose make this one of the most exciting, if challenging, works by a contemporary philosopher.
6. Richard Dawkins, The selfish gene
A highly readable theory about how we came to be as we are. Dawkins is always stimulating and full of ideas, even if he needss to be read in a questioning frame of mind.
7. Rachel Carson, Silent spring
Probably the most important book on the environment ever written, and once you read it, it is easy to see why.
8. Jane Goodall, In the shadow of man
The classic study of our closest relative, the chimpanzee.
,
9. Jonathan Glover, Humanity
A philosopher's look at the moral history of the 20th century, full of remarkable information and wise reflections.
10. Derek Humphrey, Final exit
Unlike all the other books on this list, this is one that I hope you'll never want to read. But if the day comes when you need to be in control of how your life ends, and you can't find a doctor who will help, this is the book to get.
Guardian, 2001-04-06
Controversial philosopher and professor of bioethics Peter Singer has been working in the field of 'practical ethics' for 30 years - "which means that when I began there was no such field". He was a passionate founder of the modern animal rights movement and has written on animal rights, abortion, euthanasia and the ethical implications of the global rift between rich and poor. His most recent book is Writings on an ethical life, a collection of his most provocative writings.
1. Charles Darwin, The descent of man
Together with Darwin's The origin of species - and a better read - this book ushered in the modern understanding of what we are, and our relationship to other animals.
2. Jane Austen, Pride and prejudice
If this is not the best novel ever written, I don't know what surpasses it for fine observation of manners, character and passions, all told with the most delightfully delicate sense of humour.
3. Henry Sidgwick, The methods of ethics
After 100 years, this remains the most careful, thorough and accurate study of ethics I know.
4. John Stuart Mill, On liberty
Mill's defence of individual liberty and freedom of expression is a model of political argument, and a pleasure to read.
5. Derek Parfit, Reasons and persons
Parfit's penetrating thought and spare prose make this one of the most exciting, if challenging, works by a contemporary philosopher.
6. Richard Dawkins, The selfish gene
A highly readable theory about how we came to be as we are. Dawkins is always stimulating and full of ideas, even if he needss to be read in a questioning frame of mind.
7. Rachel Carson, Silent spring
Probably the most important book on the environment ever written, and once you read it, it is easy to see why.
8. Jane Goodall, In the shadow of man
The classic study of our closest relative, the chimpanzee.
,
9. Jonathan Glover, Humanity
A philosopher's look at the moral history of the 20th century, full of remarkable information and wise reflections.
10. Derek Humphrey, Final exit
Unlike all the other books on this list, this is one that I hope you'll never want to read. But if the day comes when you need to be in control of how your life ends, and you can't find a doctor who will help, this is the book to get.
76Cynfelyn
Martin Gorst's top 10 books on science
Guardian, 2001-04-25
Martin Gorst is a writer and director of science documentaries and the author of Aeons: the search for the beginning of time, a journey through the history of humankind's attempts to give the world a starting point. It is published by Fourth Estate.
1. John Carey (ed.), The Faber Book of science
This collection contains some of the best science writing since Leonardo da Vinci first picked up a quill. From Newton's discovery that white light is made up of a rainbow of colours, to Armstrong and Aldrin's first moon walk, Carey lets the history of science unfurl in the words of the people who made it happen. I can't recommend this book strongly enough.
2. J. B. S. Haldane, Possible worlds (Chatto and Windlass 1927)
The British biologist J. B. S. Haldane, who died in 1964, ranks as one of the best science writers we've ever had. A dedicated Marxist who wrote for newspapers and magazines in the 1920's and 30's, he combined clear explanation of scientific ideas with forthright political opinions and vivid personal anecdotes. This is one of the best collections of Haldane's articles but, for a taste of his work, read his essay On Being the Right Size in Carey's The Faber book of science.
3. Malba Tahan, The man who counted
In a series of tales straight out of the Arabian Nights, Beremiz Samir, an ingenious Persian mathematician, uses his mathematical skills to solve puzzles, settle quarrels, and overcome his adversaries, thereby winning his way to fame and fortune. A mathematical fantasy, originally aimed at children of 10 years and older (but with a narrative that will captivate any adult), this book deserves to be as widely read as Harry Potter. It must be good: I lent my copy to a friend several years ago and haven't had it back.
4. Michael Allin, Zarafa
Zarafa was the first giraffe ever seen in France. This delightful book tells the story of her capture in Africa, her journey down the Nile and her marathon 550 mile walk from Marseille to Paris. The sight of this extraordinary long-necked animal so astonished the people that by the time she arrived at le Jardin des Plantes, the French centre for research into natural history, in 1827 she was feted as a celebrity. I love this book for its meticulous research and beautiful writing. It's a simple tale, but one to treasure.
5. Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin
I don't think I've read a better biography. This one grips from beginning to end: the dilettante student; the adventure of the Beagle; the stress of his secret theory; the illnesses; the acclaim that greeted The Origin; it's all here, thrillingly written, wrapped in insight and peppered with so many brilliantly observed details that you feel you're walking in Darwin's shoes.
6. James D. Watson, The double helix
On a recent visit to the Science Museum I found myself marveling at how Crick and Watson's original model of DNA - the famous double helix - was held together, Heath-Robinson style, by a handful of retort stands. Watson's own account of how he and Crick unraveled its structure in Cambridge in the 1950's - between chasing girls and surviving the college food - is one of the classics of science literature.
7. Simon Singh, Fermat's last theorem
In the pages of an old text book the French mathematician Pierre de Fermat left a tantalising note: "I have a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain". His proof, however, was never found, and the proposition - Fermat's last theorem - remained unsolved for 358 years. Simon Singh's compelling account of the quest to solve the riddle is a tale of driven personalities, mathematical enigmas, and, ultimately, sheer determination.
8. Harold McGee, On food and cooking: the science and lore of the kitchen
This is more of a reference book to dip into, rather than a book to read in one go, but it's a great volume to have handy in the kitchen to answer those puzzling questions such as why sauces thicken, how toast browns, and why some meat is white and other meat red.
9. John Gribbin, Companion to the cosmos
This book is surely a must for amateur astronomers, or indeed anyone interested in the universe and what makes it tick. It's essentially an encylopaedia of astronomy, but Gribbin's explanations are beautifully clear, and the range of subjects covered - from aberration to ZZ-Ceti stars - is as comprehensive as most people could wish.
10. Ted Anton, Bold science: seven scientists who are changing our world
Entertaining short biographies of some of the major players at the cutting edge of science today: gene-mapper Craig Venter; neuroscientist Susan Greenfield; planet-hunter Geoffrey Marcy; immunobiologist Polly Matzinger; cosmologist Saul Perlmutter; conservation biologist Gretchen Daily; and physicist turned evolutionist Carl Woese.
Guardian, 2001-04-25
Martin Gorst is a writer and director of science documentaries and the author of Aeons: the search for the beginning of time, a journey through the history of humankind's attempts to give the world a starting point. It is published by Fourth Estate.
1. John Carey (ed.), The Faber Book of science
This collection contains some of the best science writing since Leonardo da Vinci first picked up a quill. From Newton's discovery that white light is made up of a rainbow of colours, to Armstrong and Aldrin's first moon walk, Carey lets the history of science unfurl in the words of the people who made it happen. I can't recommend this book strongly enough.
2. J. B. S. Haldane, Possible worlds (Chatto and Windlass 1927)
The British biologist J. B. S. Haldane, who died in 1964, ranks as one of the best science writers we've ever had. A dedicated Marxist who wrote for newspapers and magazines in the 1920's and 30's, he combined clear explanation of scientific ideas with forthright political opinions and vivid personal anecdotes. This is one of the best collections of Haldane's articles but, for a taste of his work, read his essay On Being the Right Size in Carey's The Faber book of science.
3. Malba Tahan, The man who counted
In a series of tales straight out of the Arabian Nights, Beremiz Samir, an ingenious Persian mathematician, uses his mathematical skills to solve puzzles, settle quarrels, and overcome his adversaries, thereby winning his way to fame and fortune. A mathematical fantasy, originally aimed at children of 10 years and older (but with a narrative that will captivate any adult), this book deserves to be as widely read as Harry Potter. It must be good: I lent my copy to a friend several years ago and haven't had it back.
4. Michael Allin, Zarafa
Zarafa was the first giraffe ever seen in France. This delightful book tells the story of her capture in Africa, her journey down the Nile and her marathon 550 mile walk from Marseille to Paris. The sight of this extraordinary long-necked animal so astonished the people that by the time she arrived at le Jardin des Plantes, the French centre for research into natural history, in 1827 she was feted as a celebrity. I love this book for its meticulous research and beautiful writing. It's a simple tale, but one to treasure.
5. Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin
I don't think I've read a better biography. This one grips from beginning to end: the dilettante student; the adventure of the Beagle; the stress of his secret theory; the illnesses; the acclaim that greeted The Origin; it's all here, thrillingly written, wrapped in insight and peppered with so many brilliantly observed details that you feel you're walking in Darwin's shoes.
6. James D. Watson, The double helix
On a recent visit to the Science Museum I found myself marveling at how Crick and Watson's original model of DNA - the famous double helix - was held together, Heath-Robinson style, by a handful of retort stands. Watson's own account of how he and Crick unraveled its structure in Cambridge in the 1950's - between chasing girls and surviving the college food - is one of the classics of science literature.
7. Simon Singh, Fermat's last theorem
In the pages of an old text book the French mathematician Pierre de Fermat left a tantalising note: "I have a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain". His proof, however, was never found, and the proposition - Fermat's last theorem - remained unsolved for 358 years. Simon Singh's compelling account of the quest to solve the riddle is a tale of driven personalities, mathematical enigmas, and, ultimately, sheer determination.
8. Harold McGee, On food and cooking: the science and lore of the kitchen
This is more of a reference book to dip into, rather than a book to read in one go, but it's a great volume to have handy in the kitchen to answer those puzzling questions such as why sauces thicken, how toast browns, and why some meat is white and other meat red.
9. John Gribbin, Companion to the cosmos
This book is surely a must for amateur astronomers, or indeed anyone interested in the universe and what makes it tick. It's essentially an encylopaedia of astronomy, but Gribbin's explanations are beautifully clear, and the range of subjects covered - from aberration to ZZ-Ceti stars - is as comprehensive as most people could wish.
10. Ted Anton, Bold science: seven scientists who are changing our world
Entertaining short biographies of some of the major players at the cutting edge of science today: gene-mapper Craig Venter; neuroscientist Susan Greenfield; planet-hunter Geoffrey Marcy; immunobiologist Polly Matzinger; cosmologist Saul Perlmutter; conservation biologist Gretchen Daily; and physicist turned evolutionist Carl Woese.
77Cynfelyn
Howard Sounes's top 10 music biographies
Guardian, 2001-05-10
Howard Sounes is the author of Down the highway: the life of Bob Dylan, published by Doubleday. Bob Dylan turns sixty in 2001.
1. Woody Guthrie, Bound for glory
In his wonderful 1943 autobiography, which reads like a picaresque novel, Guthrie shows he was a gifted prose writer as well as a genius songwriter. The young Bob Dylan was enthralled.
2. Frank Zappa with Peter Occhiogrosso, The real Frank Zappa book
The late great Frank Zappa expounds on music, and life in general, in characteristically iconoclastic style. Wise and laugh-out-loud funny.
3. Paul Zollo, Songwriters on songwriting
Leading songwriters talk to Paul Zollo, editor of SongTalk, about their craft. The impressive list of interviewees ranges from Pete Seeger to Madonna to Sammy Cahn and Bob Dylan. Fascinating.
4. Peter Guralnick, Last train to Memphis: the rise of Elvis Presley
Truly definitive. Even the taciturn Bob Dylan was moved to praise: "(Elvis) steps from these pages, you can feel him breathe?"
5. Joe Klein, Woody Guthrie: a life
Despite its strengths, Guthrie's autobiography took licence with the facts. Klein offers an exemplary straight biography: authoritative, non-judgmental, and not a word wasted.
6. Nick Tosches, Dino: living high in the dirty business of dreams
Best remembered as a drunk, the singer Dean Martin is not an obvious subject for a 572-page appreciation. In his elegant biography, however, Tosches persuades the reader they understand Martin and the fast times in which he lived.
7. Greil Marcus, Invisible republic: Bob Dylan's basement tapes
An exploration of Dylan's recording sessions with The Band following his 1966 motorcycle accident, sessions that resulted in The Basement Tapes album. Importantly, Marcus also draws the reader into the background story of American roots music.
8. Barry Miles, Paul McCartney: many years from now
The inside story of the greatest pop band of them all.
9. Fred Goodman, The mansion on the hill
An impeccably researched history of the business of popular music, reminding one, if reminder were needed, that record companies are principally interested in the manufacture, distribution and sale of plastic. The music recorded therein comes second.
10. Sammy Davis Jr with Jane and Burt Boyar, Why me? The autobiography of Sammy Davis Jr
An entertainer of great talent, but little discernible taste, recalls fortunes earned and wasted during a life in show business. Most amusing.
Guardian, 2001-05-10
Howard Sounes is the author of Down the highway: the life of Bob Dylan, published by Doubleday. Bob Dylan turns sixty in 2001.
1. Woody Guthrie, Bound for glory
In his wonderful 1943 autobiography, which reads like a picaresque novel, Guthrie shows he was a gifted prose writer as well as a genius songwriter. The young Bob Dylan was enthralled.
2. Frank Zappa with Peter Occhiogrosso, The real Frank Zappa book
The late great Frank Zappa expounds on music, and life in general, in characteristically iconoclastic style. Wise and laugh-out-loud funny.
3. Paul Zollo, Songwriters on songwriting
Leading songwriters talk to Paul Zollo, editor of SongTalk, about their craft. The impressive list of interviewees ranges from Pete Seeger to Madonna to Sammy Cahn and Bob Dylan. Fascinating.
4. Peter Guralnick, Last train to Memphis: the rise of Elvis Presley
Truly definitive. Even the taciturn Bob Dylan was moved to praise: "(Elvis) steps from these pages, you can feel him breathe?"
5. Joe Klein, Woody Guthrie: a life
Despite its strengths, Guthrie's autobiography took licence with the facts. Klein offers an exemplary straight biography: authoritative, non-judgmental, and not a word wasted.
6. Nick Tosches, Dino: living high in the dirty business of dreams
Best remembered as a drunk, the singer Dean Martin is not an obvious subject for a 572-page appreciation. In his elegant biography, however, Tosches persuades the reader they understand Martin and the fast times in which he lived.
7. Greil Marcus, Invisible republic: Bob Dylan's basement tapes
An exploration of Dylan's recording sessions with The Band following his 1966 motorcycle accident, sessions that resulted in The Basement Tapes album. Importantly, Marcus also draws the reader into the background story of American roots music.
8. Barry Miles, Paul McCartney: many years from now
The inside story of the greatest pop band of them all.
9. Fred Goodman, The mansion on the hill
An impeccably researched history of the business of popular music, reminding one, if reminder were needed, that record companies are principally interested in the manufacture, distribution and sale of plastic. The music recorded therein comes second.
10. Sammy Davis Jr with Jane and Burt Boyar, Why me? The autobiography of Sammy Davis Jr
An entertainer of great talent, but little discernible taste, recalls fortunes earned and wasted during a life in show business. Most amusing.
78Cynfelyn
Joan Smith's top 10 books for a more moral society
Guardian, 2001-05-24
Columnist, critic and novelist Joan Smith is the author of Misogynies, Different for girls and five detective novels. Her most recent book, Moralities: sex, money and power in the 21st century (Allen Lane), argues for the disentanglement of morality from sex.
1. Mary Wollstonecraft, A vindication of the rights of woman
200 years ahead of her time, Wollstonecraft described the way women's characters were stunted by inequality. She saw their economic dependence on men as a moral canker, and looked forward to a new relation between the sexes, based on affection and respect, that is only now beginning to be achieved.
2. John Stuart Mill, On liberty
Still the classic text on individual freedom, whose warning note about the tendency of majorities to oppress minorities is highly relevant to today's debate about Section 28.
3. John Stuart Mill, On the subjection of women
A clear-sighted analysis of the effects of discrimination not just on victims but on the people carrying it out.
4. Virginia Woolf, Professions for women
An essay, written in 1931, whose anodyne title conceals a devastating critique of the suppression of the female imagination and specifically desire. Women writers cannot tell the truth about sexual passion, Woolf argues, because men would be shocked. Like Wollstonecraft, Woolf's perception of the distorting effect of masculine values was ahead of her time.
5. Francesca Klug, Values for a godless age
Klug's highly readable account of the UK's Human Rights Act is also a magisterial survey of the evolution of ideas about universal human rights since the 18th century.
6. John Pilger, Hidden agendas
A personal account of some of the great liberation struggles of the late-20th century and the people who gave up so much for their ideals. From Vietnam to East Timor, Pilger is passionately on the side of ordinary people and their extraordinary efforts to free themselves from oppression.
7. Human Rights Watch, World report 2001
A practical and comprehensive guide to human rights around the world. It turns an unflinching eye not just on obvious abusers such as China but also on the US, whose racist penal system and commitment to the death penalty demand the moral condemnation of all civilised societies.
8. Naomi Klein, No Logo
An obvious choice, partly because of its impact on the teenagers and slightly older generation targeted by global corporations.
9. George Monbiot, Captive state
Another obvious choice, especially during a general election in which the Labour party is certain to play down its fawning attitude to big business.
10. Peter Singer, Animal liberation
Another classic, but one whose message is as relevant as ever, especially in a country where the foot and mouth disease outbreak is finally forcing us to confront our abusive relationship with animals, and many people are becoming vegetarian as a result.
------
4. Virginia Woolf, Professions for women
Being an essay, there are no copies on LT, and so no touchstone. However the essay is available online, including on the website of the Wheelersburg Local School District, Ohio, at https://www.wheelersburg.net/Downloads/Woolf.pdf . It's only six pages long, and makes, shall we say, an 'interesting' read.
Guardian, 2001-05-24
Columnist, critic and novelist Joan Smith is the author of Misogynies, Different for girls and five detective novels. Her most recent book, Moralities: sex, money and power in the 21st century (Allen Lane), argues for the disentanglement of morality from sex.
1. Mary Wollstonecraft, A vindication of the rights of woman
200 years ahead of her time, Wollstonecraft described the way women's characters were stunted by inequality. She saw their economic dependence on men as a moral canker, and looked forward to a new relation between the sexes, based on affection and respect, that is only now beginning to be achieved.
2. John Stuart Mill, On liberty
Still the classic text on individual freedom, whose warning note about the tendency of majorities to oppress minorities is highly relevant to today's debate about Section 28.
3. John Stuart Mill, On the subjection of women
A clear-sighted analysis of the effects of discrimination not just on victims but on the people carrying it out.
4. Virginia Woolf, Professions for women
An essay, written in 1931, whose anodyne title conceals a devastating critique of the suppression of the female imagination and specifically desire. Women writers cannot tell the truth about sexual passion, Woolf argues, because men would be shocked. Like Wollstonecraft, Woolf's perception of the distorting effect of masculine values was ahead of her time.
5. Francesca Klug, Values for a godless age
Klug's highly readable account of the UK's Human Rights Act is also a magisterial survey of the evolution of ideas about universal human rights since the 18th century.
6. John Pilger, Hidden agendas
A personal account of some of the great liberation struggles of the late-20th century and the people who gave up so much for their ideals. From Vietnam to East Timor, Pilger is passionately on the side of ordinary people and their extraordinary efforts to free themselves from oppression.
7. Human Rights Watch, World report 2001
A practical and comprehensive guide to human rights around the world. It turns an unflinching eye not just on obvious abusers such as China but also on the US, whose racist penal system and commitment to the death penalty demand the moral condemnation of all civilised societies.
8. Naomi Klein, No Logo
An obvious choice, partly because of its impact on the teenagers and slightly older generation targeted by global corporations.
9. George Monbiot, Captive state
Another obvious choice, especially during a general election in which the Labour party is certain to play down its fawning attitude to big business.
10. Peter Singer, Animal liberation
Another classic, but one whose message is as relevant as ever, especially in a country where the foot and mouth disease outbreak is finally forcing us to confront our abusive relationship with animals, and many people are becoming vegetarian as a result.
------
4. Virginia Woolf, Professions for women
Being an essay, there are no copies on LT, and so no touchstone. However the essay is available online, including on the website of the Wheelersburg Local School District, Ohio, at https://www.wheelersburg.net/Downloads/Woolf.pdf . It's only six pages long, and makes, shall we say, an 'interesting' read.
79Llyfryddwr
John Campbell's top 10 political biographies
Guardian, 2001-06-06
John Campbell is a political biographer. His most recent book is Margaret Thatcher: the grocer's daughter.
1. Isaac Deutscher, Trotsky: the prophet armed
Isaac Deutscher, Trotsky: the prophet unarmed
Isaac Deutscher, Trotsky: the prophet outcast
I have not read these for years, but I found them inspiring as a student for their historical sweep, their depiction of ideas in action, and the sympathetic portrait of a brilliant and humane but ultimately doomed revolutionary.
2. Robert Blake, Disraeli
Blake's book set the standard for the modern genre of political biography. It might seem a little old-fashioned today, but it is a classic which still reads as elegantly as when it first came out in 1966.
3. Richard Shannon, Gladstone Vol 1: Peel's inheritor, 1809-1865
An immensely subtle and detailed account of Gladstone's tortuous intellectual, spiritual and political journey. This volume remains both comprehensible and convincing; I found the second volume much less so.
4. Roy Jenkins, Asquith
Another classic, a perfect match of biographer and subject and a fine blend of research and political insight, written before Jenkins declined into self-parody.
5. John Grigg, The young Lloyd George
John Grigg, Lloyd George: the people's champion, 1902-1911
John Grigg, Lloyd George: from peace to war, 1912-1916
The early volumes of this ambitious project brought an unequalled freshness, insight and lightness of touch to a well-trawled and complex subject but, sadly, Grigg faltered before he reached the summit, and the series now seems unlikely to ever be completed.
6. David Marquand, Ramsay Macdonald
It was a brave undertaking for a Labour MP in the 1960s to attempt to rehabilitate the party's most vilified traitor. Marquand's book is a revelatory account of how much Macdonald did to create the Labour party before his tragic and pathetic decline.
7. Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes: hopes betrayed, 1883-1920
Robert Skidelsky, The economist as saviour, John Maynard Keynes, 1920-1937
This is a true intellectual biography, tracing Keynes's thinking from its roots in late-Victorian Cambridge to its elegant flowering between the wars. It is also an intimate personal study which revealed his dangerously promiscuous homosexuality and his surprising marriage. I regret that I have yet to read the final volume.
8. Ben Pimlott, Hugh Dalton
Another surprisingly intimate biography, it draws heavily on Dalton's very candid diary which succeeds in relating the ups and downs of a political career to the crises of private life better than any other biography I have read.
9. Anthony Sampson, Mandela
Inevitably perhaps, Sampson is still a little reverential, but his close knowledge of South African politics makes this the most authoritative account so far of Mandela's early life and his extraordinary human and political triumph through 27 years of imprisonment.
10. Michael Crick, Jeffrey Archer: stranger than fiction
Not a major subject, but Crick's biography is a wonderfully entertaining, meticulously-sleuthed exposé of an apparently indestructible chancer on the fringe of politics.
Guardian, 2001-06-06
John Campbell is a political biographer. His most recent book is Margaret Thatcher: the grocer's daughter.
1. Isaac Deutscher, Trotsky: the prophet armed
Isaac Deutscher, Trotsky: the prophet unarmed
Isaac Deutscher, Trotsky: the prophet outcast
I have not read these for years, but I found them inspiring as a student for their historical sweep, their depiction of ideas in action, and the sympathetic portrait of a brilliant and humane but ultimately doomed revolutionary.
2. Robert Blake, Disraeli
Blake's book set the standard for the modern genre of political biography. It might seem a little old-fashioned today, but it is a classic which still reads as elegantly as when it first came out in 1966.
3. Richard Shannon, Gladstone Vol 1: Peel's inheritor, 1809-1865
An immensely subtle and detailed account of Gladstone's tortuous intellectual, spiritual and political journey. This volume remains both comprehensible and convincing; I found the second volume much less so.
4. Roy Jenkins, Asquith
Another classic, a perfect match of biographer and subject and a fine blend of research and political insight, written before Jenkins declined into self-parody.
5. John Grigg, The young Lloyd George
John Grigg, Lloyd George: the people's champion, 1902-1911
John Grigg, Lloyd George: from peace to war, 1912-1916
The early volumes of this ambitious project brought an unequalled freshness, insight and lightness of touch to a well-trawled and complex subject but, sadly, Grigg faltered before he reached the summit, and the series now seems unlikely to ever be completed.
6. David Marquand, Ramsay Macdonald
It was a brave undertaking for a Labour MP in the 1960s to attempt to rehabilitate the party's most vilified traitor. Marquand's book is a revelatory account of how much Macdonald did to create the Labour party before his tragic and pathetic decline.
7. Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes: hopes betrayed, 1883-1920
Robert Skidelsky, The economist as saviour, John Maynard Keynes, 1920-1937
This is a true intellectual biography, tracing Keynes's thinking from its roots in late-Victorian Cambridge to its elegant flowering between the wars. It is also an intimate personal study which revealed his dangerously promiscuous homosexuality and his surprising marriage. I regret that I have yet to read the final volume.
8. Ben Pimlott, Hugh Dalton
Another surprisingly intimate biography, it draws heavily on Dalton's very candid diary which succeeds in relating the ups and downs of a political career to the crises of private life better than any other biography I have read.
9. Anthony Sampson, Mandela
Inevitably perhaps, Sampson is still a little reverential, but his close knowledge of South African politics makes this the most authoritative account so far of Mandela's early life and his extraordinary human and political triumph through 27 years of imprisonment.
10. Michael Crick, Jeffrey Archer: stranger than fiction
Not a major subject, but Crick's biography is a wonderfully entertaining, meticulously-sleuthed exposé of an apparently indestructible chancer on the fringe of politics.
80Cynfelyn
Douglas Rushkoff's top 10 books on designer reality
Guardian, 2001-06-07
Douglas Rushkoff is the author of seven books on new media and popular culture, including Cyberia, Media virus, Playing the future, and the novel Ecstasy Club. His latest novel, Bull, is an account of the dawn of e-commerce. "My favourite books remind us that reality can and should be hacked. We usually change the world using the rules that currently exist, but we can also raise ourselves above the playing field and change the rules themselves. They are all arbitrary, having been written by people just like us. How does one become conscious of the way in which our world has been modelled, and empowered enough to rewrite the rules? By reading books like these.
1. R. Buckminster Fuller, Operating manual for Spaceship Earth
Bucky Fuller's most concise and compelling argument for how humankind might be able to survive and transcend its own compulsion for increased industrialisation and economic growth - through new, more consciously executed industrialisation and economic growth! His brief history of how the 'great pirates' dominated global politics and economics for centuries, installing puppet monarchs and harnessing the resources of entire nations goes a long way towards demonstrating the relationship between power and perception.
2. Julian Jaynes, The origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind
Jaynes makes a good case for the theory that human beings, in an earlier state of brain evolution, used to 'hear' the voice of God. What makes this book so interesting to me is less the idea that two parts of the brain used to converse with one another in this fashion, but that real human beings experienced reality in such a fundamentally different way than we do - and that equally profound shifts in our perspective could be occurring right now. How can we tell if the ways in which we conceive of things differ from the conceptions of our parents, much less our ancestors? And is this just a change in perception??
3. Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic trigger
Bob has been a friend and mentor of mine for 20 years. Longer, actually, because I experienced his extraordinarily-narrated journey into cosmic consciousness when I was just a kid. This book chronicles the great quest to find the underlying order of our reality - and the many perils along this path of inquiry. Cosmic Trigger is at once startling, terrifying, reassuring, and life-affirming. It is a guided tour through the regions of mind that most people never get to, told in a way that forces you to reconsider your relationship to, well, everything.
4. Timothy Leary, Chaos and cyber culture
This might not be Timothy's very best book, but if you have to choose just one, Chaos and cyber culture sums up a whole lot of his thinking about technologies - chemical, digital, and intellectual. Leary, also a profound personal influence on me, believed that expanding consciousness required an almost revolutionary mindset. Getting smarter also means challenging stupidity by daring to question 'authority.' New tools, from psychedelics to computers, become consciousness weapons in the battle for a more cooperative global thought experiment.
5. Bertolt Brecht, Brecht on theatre: the development of an aesthetic
Brecht was a German playwright who developed something called "the alienation effect". His idea was that people shouldn't be wrapped up in the plot of a play; rather, they should be made conscious of the fact that they are watching a play all the time. Only then will they have the presence of mind to consider actions to take in the real world. Although Brecht's passions were largely political, his techniques were cosmic. His plays were 'meta'-theatre, in which meaning was transmitted outside the rules of storytelling.
6. Seymour Papert, Mindstorms
Papert understands developing minds, and broke all models for how children should be introduced to computers and technology. His LOGOS computer language, developed for kids, is responsible for introducing thousands of today's programmers to the freedom to create underlying software development. His explanations of how information can be transmitted to students in ways that allow them build concepts for themselves are invaluable to anyone in education.
7. Exodus in The five books of Moses (Fox translation)
Exodus is the story of how people break free of slavery. If we can understand this myth in the way it was most likely intended, it becomes a terrific allegory for the way we enslave ourselves through the worship of false gods. The 'plagues' are not attacks on a foreign people, but the desecration of Gods whom everyone worshipped. This is not the story of liberation from a place, but a state of mind: people who build pyramids are slaves.
8. John Briggs and F. David Peat, The turbulent mirror
This is my own personal favourite book explaining fractals and chaos. Because it's easy. Anyone who missed the chaos craze or still wonders why ravers talk so much about fractals can read this short, illustrated text and then understand more about these subjects than most. This is the book I read before writing Cyberia, and it was what forced me to connect my observations of culture and consciousness with the insights of mathematicians.
9. Grant Morrison et al., The invisibles
Grant's work is about the ongoing battle between the forces of chaos and those of order. This comic book series is about a band of young, sexy chaos magicians who mean to overturn an oppressive consensus reality. Grant understands magic, for real, and uses this engaging comic book series to teach his more clever readers how to direct their energy towards whatever ends they choose. This comic changed the way millions of young people think about the rules.
10. Jane Jacobs, Systems of survival
I don't agree with everything this urban planner and social philosopher says, but she has helped me recognise the importance and impact of design on social and economic behaviour. She has a unique way of reversing cause and effect that I've found very useful in rethinking how things happen, and how they can be changed. Her work keeps me aware that great ideas mean very little if they don't become integrated into the way we plan the physical landscape in which we live.
------
Has this list not aged well, or was it always guff? He sounds like an echo from 'Hair's Age of Aquarius.
Guardian, 2001-06-07
Douglas Rushkoff is the author of seven books on new media and popular culture, including Cyberia, Media virus, Playing the future, and the novel Ecstasy Club. His latest novel, Bull, is an account of the dawn of e-commerce. "My favourite books remind us that reality can and should be hacked. We usually change the world using the rules that currently exist, but we can also raise ourselves above the playing field and change the rules themselves. They are all arbitrary, having been written by people just like us. How does one become conscious of the way in which our world has been modelled, and empowered enough to rewrite the rules? By reading books like these.
1. R. Buckminster Fuller, Operating manual for Spaceship Earth
Bucky Fuller's most concise and compelling argument for how humankind might be able to survive and transcend its own compulsion for increased industrialisation and economic growth - through new, more consciously executed industrialisation and economic growth! His brief history of how the 'great pirates' dominated global politics and economics for centuries, installing puppet monarchs and harnessing the resources of entire nations goes a long way towards demonstrating the relationship between power and perception.
2. Julian Jaynes, The origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind
Jaynes makes a good case for the theory that human beings, in an earlier state of brain evolution, used to 'hear' the voice of God. What makes this book so interesting to me is less the idea that two parts of the brain used to converse with one another in this fashion, but that real human beings experienced reality in such a fundamentally different way than we do - and that equally profound shifts in our perspective could be occurring right now. How can we tell if the ways in which we conceive of things differ from the conceptions of our parents, much less our ancestors? And is this just a change in perception??
3. Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic trigger
Bob has been a friend and mentor of mine for 20 years. Longer, actually, because I experienced his extraordinarily-narrated journey into cosmic consciousness when I was just a kid. This book chronicles the great quest to find the underlying order of our reality - and the many perils along this path of inquiry. Cosmic Trigger is at once startling, terrifying, reassuring, and life-affirming. It is a guided tour through the regions of mind that most people never get to, told in a way that forces you to reconsider your relationship to, well, everything.
4. Timothy Leary, Chaos and cyber culture
This might not be Timothy's very best book, but if you have to choose just one, Chaos and cyber culture sums up a whole lot of his thinking about technologies - chemical, digital, and intellectual. Leary, also a profound personal influence on me, believed that expanding consciousness required an almost revolutionary mindset. Getting smarter also means challenging stupidity by daring to question 'authority.' New tools, from psychedelics to computers, become consciousness weapons in the battle for a more cooperative global thought experiment.
5. Bertolt Brecht, Brecht on theatre: the development of an aesthetic
Brecht was a German playwright who developed something called "the alienation effect". His idea was that people shouldn't be wrapped up in the plot of a play; rather, they should be made conscious of the fact that they are watching a play all the time. Only then will they have the presence of mind to consider actions to take in the real world. Although Brecht's passions were largely political, his techniques were cosmic. His plays were 'meta'-theatre, in which meaning was transmitted outside the rules of storytelling.
6. Seymour Papert, Mindstorms
Papert understands developing minds, and broke all models for how children should be introduced to computers and technology. His LOGOS computer language, developed for kids, is responsible for introducing thousands of today's programmers to the freedom to create underlying software development. His explanations of how information can be transmitted to students in ways that allow them build concepts for themselves are invaluable to anyone in education.
7. Exodus in The five books of Moses (Fox translation)
Exodus is the story of how people break free of slavery. If we can understand this myth in the way it was most likely intended, it becomes a terrific allegory for the way we enslave ourselves through the worship of false gods. The 'plagues' are not attacks on a foreign people, but the desecration of Gods whom everyone worshipped. This is not the story of liberation from a place, but a state of mind: people who build pyramids are slaves.
8. John Briggs and F. David Peat, The turbulent mirror
This is my own personal favourite book explaining fractals and chaos. Because it's easy. Anyone who missed the chaos craze or still wonders why ravers talk so much about fractals can read this short, illustrated text and then understand more about these subjects than most. This is the book I read before writing Cyberia, and it was what forced me to connect my observations of culture and consciousness with the insights of mathematicians.
9. Grant Morrison et al., The invisibles
Grant's work is about the ongoing battle between the forces of chaos and those of order. This comic book series is about a band of young, sexy chaos magicians who mean to overturn an oppressive consensus reality. Grant understands magic, for real, and uses this engaging comic book series to teach his more clever readers how to direct their energy towards whatever ends they choose. This comic changed the way millions of young people think about the rules.
10. Jane Jacobs, Systems of survival
I don't agree with everything this urban planner and social philosopher says, but she has helped me recognise the importance and impact of design on social and economic behaviour. She has a unique way of reversing cause and effect that I've found very useful in rethinking how things happen, and how they can be changed. Her work keeps me aware that great ideas mean very little if they don't become integrated into the way we plan the physical landscape in which we live.
------
Has this list not aged well, or was it always guff? He sounds like an echo from 'Hair's Age of Aquarius.
81Cynfelyn
Andrew Morton's top 10 biographies
Wed 20 Jun 2001 00.00 BST
Andrew Morton is the author of Diana: her true story. His most recent book - Posh and Becks - tells the story of the Beckhams, and he is currently working on a biography of Madonna.
1. Richard Ellman, Oscar Wilde
A witty yet sympathetic account of the life of the master of the arresting phrase, whose own arrest and incarceration led to the tragic early death of a towering talent.
2. Kathleen Tynan, The life of Kenneth Tynan
She deftly sketched his huge contribution to Britain's artistic health whilst fleshing out his foibles. A very humane biography.
3. Sarah Bradford, George VI
Meticulous and thorough research allied with a gimlet eye for detail and an absence of saccharine or biographical bile help bring this unassuming monarch to life.
4. Robert K. Massie, Peter the Great
Big subject, big book. A comprehensive account of the life of a Russian ruler who virtually single-handedly forced his country to look Europe full in the eye.
5. Ulick O'Connor, Oliver St John Gogarty
A beautifully written, witty and superbly researched account of this exuberant Irish poet.
6. Edmund Morris, Dutch: a memoir of Ronald Reagan
Morris integrates the process of writing a biography with the subject matter by introducing himself as a character to try and point up Ronald Reagan's blandly ambiguous personality. The furore that greeted this intriguing decision overshadowed the elegant style and scouring research.
7. David Maraniss, First in his class: a biography of Bill Clinton
Maraniss, like many American journalists, researches his material well but he also succeeds in effectively using the detail of Bill Clinton's life to illustrate his expansive personality.
8. Hugo Young, One of us
George Dangerfield, who wrote The strange death of liberal England, is often emulated because his passion, verve and focus gave the impression that he had written his seminal political tirade overnight. Young pulls off a similar trick with his acerbic account of Mrs T.
9. Roy Jenkins, Asquith
Elegantly crafted life conjuring up a bygone age but where the cut and thrust of politics was essentially the same as today. The tensions between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair mirror those of Asquith and Lloyd George.
10. Lord Moran, Churchill: the struggle for survival 1940-1965
Astutely and sympathetically observed memoir of a political giant snared by the tedious Lilliputian inevitability of old age and failing health.
Wed 20 Jun 2001 00.00 BST
Andrew Morton is the author of Diana: her true story. His most recent book - Posh and Becks - tells the story of the Beckhams, and he is currently working on a biography of Madonna.
1. Richard Ellman, Oscar Wilde
A witty yet sympathetic account of the life of the master of the arresting phrase, whose own arrest and incarceration led to the tragic early death of a towering talent.
2. Kathleen Tynan, The life of Kenneth Tynan
She deftly sketched his huge contribution to Britain's artistic health whilst fleshing out his foibles. A very humane biography.
3. Sarah Bradford, George VI
Meticulous and thorough research allied with a gimlet eye for detail and an absence of saccharine or biographical bile help bring this unassuming monarch to life.
4. Robert K. Massie, Peter the Great
Big subject, big book. A comprehensive account of the life of a Russian ruler who virtually single-handedly forced his country to look Europe full in the eye.
5. Ulick O'Connor, Oliver St John Gogarty
A beautifully written, witty and superbly researched account of this exuberant Irish poet.
6. Edmund Morris, Dutch: a memoir of Ronald Reagan
Morris integrates the process of writing a biography with the subject matter by introducing himself as a character to try and point up Ronald Reagan's blandly ambiguous personality. The furore that greeted this intriguing decision overshadowed the elegant style and scouring research.
7. David Maraniss, First in his class: a biography of Bill Clinton
Maraniss, like many American journalists, researches his material well but he also succeeds in effectively using the detail of Bill Clinton's life to illustrate his expansive personality.
8. Hugo Young, One of us
George Dangerfield, who wrote The strange death of liberal England, is often emulated because his passion, verve and focus gave the impression that he had written his seminal political tirade overnight. Young pulls off a similar trick with his acerbic account of Mrs T.
9. Roy Jenkins, Asquith
Elegantly crafted life conjuring up a bygone age but where the cut and thrust of politics was essentially the same as today. The tensions between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair mirror those of Asquith and Lloyd George.
10. Lord Moran, Churchill: the struggle for survival 1940-1965
Astutely and sympathetically observed memoir of a political giant snared by the tedious Lilliputian inevitability of old age and failing health.
82Cynfelyn
Jayne Anne Phillips's top 10 books about motherhood
Guardian, 2001-06-27
Jayne Anne Phillips is the author of Black tickets, Machine dreams, Fast lanes and Shelter. Her latest novel is MotherKind, which tells the story of Kate, whose care for her terminally ill mother coincides with the birth of her first child.
1. Beth Kephart, A slant of sun
A work of non-fiction essays quietly published by Norton in the US and nominated for the National Book Award. Kephart tells the story of her son, diagnosed as a toddler with "pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified" - a broad spectrum of difficulties with autistic features. This slender book testifies to the miraculous power of informed, day-by-day rescue, advocacy and love of any child.
2. Elizabeth Troop, Woolworth madonna
A beautifully nuanced, perfectly written story in which an embattled wife and mother copes with public housing and her children's diminished dreams. She finds her way into a different sensibility very gradually and believably; Troop's book is actually a political poem that questions all our perceptions about class and art.
3. Harriet Arnow, The dollmaker
This American classic traces rural migration to urban centres through the story of a back country woman whose immense resources of character are tested first by poverty and isolation and then by dislocation. She is an untutored artist whose delicate carvings are typical of her place and time. Early in the book, she walks miles to a doctor with her sick child in her arms; her 'art' will save his life in one of the most harrowing scenes in American fiction.
4. Sue Miller, The good mother
Still a well-written, classic look at single mothers who love both their children and themselves, and are caught between what society says and what society wants. The good mother pulls together around its protagonist like a finely spun web.
5. Helen Simpson, Hey yeah right get a life
The funny, moving, intricate complexities of the title story comprise a contemporary masterpiece; all of Helen Simpson's work sheds light on humankind of every description through the lens of female experience, and this book is her deepest, most enduring achievement yet.
6. Cynthia Ozick, The shawl
Find this story in any good collection of this American writer's work. Her writing on Jewish life and the Holocaust reaches its zenith in this tale of life, death and sustenance in Hitler's camps.
7. Grace Paley, The collected stories
This large volume encompasses decades of the work of Grace Paley, activist, writer, mother to the human race. Her humour, commitment and strength are gifts to readers everywhere.
8. Tillie Olsen, Tell me a riddle
Olsen's long-time affiliation with the labour movement in the US are not obvious in her classic stories, yet her political commitment to women and men inform every word. Graceful, powerful, unforgettable.
9. Jill McCorkle, Crash diet
Irreverent, laugh out loud funny stories by an American writer of the New South who takes as her subject popular culture and the women who make it popular. Published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
10. Ivy Goodman, A chapter from her upbringing
Goodman has achieved nearly cult status among American short story afficionados even though her work (for all the best reasons) has yet to be published by a commercial press. Her first, wildly imaginative, book is called Heart failure; this second volume of stories concerning women and men at various stages of parenting or being parented is extremely good news indeed.
Guardian, 2001-06-27
Jayne Anne Phillips is the author of Black tickets, Machine dreams, Fast lanes and Shelter. Her latest novel is MotherKind, which tells the story of Kate, whose care for her terminally ill mother coincides with the birth of her first child.
1. Beth Kephart, A slant of sun
A work of non-fiction essays quietly published by Norton in the US and nominated for the National Book Award. Kephart tells the story of her son, diagnosed as a toddler with "pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified" - a broad spectrum of difficulties with autistic features. This slender book testifies to the miraculous power of informed, day-by-day rescue, advocacy and love of any child.
2. Elizabeth Troop, Woolworth madonna
A beautifully nuanced, perfectly written story in which an embattled wife and mother copes with public housing and her children's diminished dreams. She finds her way into a different sensibility very gradually and believably; Troop's book is actually a political poem that questions all our perceptions about class and art.
3. Harriet Arnow, The dollmaker
This American classic traces rural migration to urban centres through the story of a back country woman whose immense resources of character are tested first by poverty and isolation and then by dislocation. She is an untutored artist whose delicate carvings are typical of her place and time. Early in the book, she walks miles to a doctor with her sick child in her arms; her 'art' will save his life in one of the most harrowing scenes in American fiction.
4. Sue Miller, The good mother
Still a well-written, classic look at single mothers who love both their children and themselves, and are caught between what society says and what society wants. The good mother pulls together around its protagonist like a finely spun web.
5. Helen Simpson, Hey yeah right get a life
The funny, moving, intricate complexities of the title story comprise a contemporary masterpiece; all of Helen Simpson's work sheds light on humankind of every description through the lens of female experience, and this book is her deepest, most enduring achievement yet.
6. Cynthia Ozick, The shawl
Find this story in any good collection of this American writer's work. Her writing on Jewish life and the Holocaust reaches its zenith in this tale of life, death and sustenance in Hitler's camps.
7. Grace Paley, The collected stories
This large volume encompasses decades of the work of Grace Paley, activist, writer, mother to the human race. Her humour, commitment and strength are gifts to readers everywhere.
8. Tillie Olsen, Tell me a riddle
Olsen's long-time affiliation with the labour movement in the US are not obvious in her classic stories, yet her political commitment to women and men inform every word. Graceful, powerful, unforgettable.
9. Jill McCorkle, Crash diet
Irreverent, laugh out loud funny stories by an American writer of the New South who takes as her subject popular culture and the women who make it popular. Published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
10. Ivy Goodman, A chapter from her upbringing
Goodman has achieved nearly cult status among American short story afficionados even though her work (for all the best reasons) has yet to be published by a commercial press. Her first, wildly imaginative, book is called Heart failure; this second volume of stories concerning women and men at various stages of parenting or being parented is extremely good news indeed.
83Cynfelyn
Paul Burston's top 10 gay fiction books
Guardian, 2001-07-17
Paul Burston is a journalist and writer. His first novel, Shameless, was described by Will Self as "the sharp truth about gay London" and is now available in paperback.
1. Oscar Wilde, The picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
Wilde is often credited with having invented modern homosexuality and, in Dorian Gray, he created an archetype - the beautiful young man who sells his soul in exchange for perpetual youth. This book should be required reading for the boys of Old Compton Street.
2. Jean Genet, Our lady of the flowers (1943)
For many gay men, Genet represents a self-loathing homosexuality that went out of fashion with the birth of gay liberation. He was certainly a pessimist, and one who would have had little sympathy with the feelgood, flag-waving gay politics of today. Our lady of the flowers is considered his masterpiece. Genet wrote it in prison, on pieces of brown paper used by the prisoners to make bags. When the papers were confiscated, he started again. So in that sense at least, there is an extraordinary optimism about it.
3. John Rechy, City of night (1963)
I was first switched on to John Rechy by listening to Soft Cell and Marc Almond. Rechy's is a world populated by hustlers, drag queens and men on the make, masking their longing for love with bitchy humour and casual sex. He's actually a far funnier writer than many people give him credit for. This was his first novel.
4.Armistead Maupin, Tales of the city (1978)
I must have read the Tales of the City series about a dozen times. Maupin was the first writer I ever read who presented gay characters as part of life's rich tapestry, rather than as creatures inhabiting a world all of their own. It's the happy mix of gay and straight characters that makes him so readable. The plots are often stretched beyond credibility, but the characters are so convincing that it hardly matters.
5. Andrew Holleran, Dancer from the dance (1978)
Set against the smoke-filled dives and gay discos of 70s New York, Dancer from the dance is a tale of doomed queens, professional faggots and the loneliness of lives lived out under the revolving glitter ball. There's an almost mythical quality to the story, as the various characters are enraptured by the arrival of Malone, a man whose physical beauty marks him out as some kind of saviour. A gay literary classic, and rightly so.
6. Edmund White, A boy's own story (1982)
Someone described this book as a cross between Catcher in the rye and De profundis. I'm not a huge fan of Edmund White generally (I find him rather pompous). Nor do I particularly like 'coming out' stories. But this book is a true original.
7. Pickles, Queens (1984)
Queens was published the same year I moved to London. Lambasted by the gay press for its allegedly 'negative' portrayal of London's gay community, it's a far more honest account of gay life in the big city than you'll ever read in any of the gay bar rags. For some strange reason, certain gay men seem to have a problem laughing at themselves. The writer of this book clearly doesn't.
8. Michael Cunningham, Flesh and blood (1995)
Michael Cunningham is one of the most gifted writers around. His last book, The Hours, won the Pulitzer prize for fiction and is currently being made into a film starring Nicole Kidman. This is his second novel. It tells the story of four generations of an American immigrant family and the various ways in which the parents cope with a gay child in the family and the gay child copes with the desire to create a family of his own. It's an ambitious book, epic in scale, and one which reminds us that rightwing fundamentalists aren't the only ones concerned with 'family values'.
9. Christos Tsiolkas, Loaded (1997)
The tale of a screwed-up, 19-year-old Greek gay lad who goes looking for kicks in suburban Melbourne, this is the kind of novel that you read in one or two sittings. Barely 150 pages long, and written in stark prose, it's a complete head rush from start to finish, packed with tales of anonymous sex, drug abuse and the harsh realities of life on the edge.
10. William Corlett, Two gentlemen sharing (1997)
Two gentlemen sharing is one of the funniest gay novels I've read in years. A comedy of manners set in a quiet village in middle England, it revolves around a cast of colourful country types whose tolerance is tested by the arrival of two gay men setting up home together. Corlett handles the clash of different lifestyles perfectly, using gentle humour to explore personal prejudices, and offering plenty of surprises along the way.
Guardian, 2001-07-17
Paul Burston is a journalist and writer. His first novel, Shameless, was described by Will Self as "the sharp truth about gay London" and is now available in paperback.
1. Oscar Wilde, The picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
Wilde is often credited with having invented modern homosexuality and, in Dorian Gray, he created an archetype - the beautiful young man who sells his soul in exchange for perpetual youth. This book should be required reading for the boys of Old Compton Street.
2. Jean Genet, Our lady of the flowers (1943)
For many gay men, Genet represents a self-loathing homosexuality that went out of fashion with the birth of gay liberation. He was certainly a pessimist, and one who would have had little sympathy with the feelgood, flag-waving gay politics of today. Our lady of the flowers is considered his masterpiece. Genet wrote it in prison, on pieces of brown paper used by the prisoners to make bags. When the papers were confiscated, he started again. So in that sense at least, there is an extraordinary optimism about it.
3. John Rechy, City of night (1963)
I was first switched on to John Rechy by listening to Soft Cell and Marc Almond. Rechy's is a world populated by hustlers, drag queens and men on the make, masking their longing for love with bitchy humour and casual sex. He's actually a far funnier writer than many people give him credit for. This was his first novel.
4.Armistead Maupin, Tales of the city (1978)
I must have read the Tales of the City series about a dozen times. Maupin was the first writer I ever read who presented gay characters as part of life's rich tapestry, rather than as creatures inhabiting a world all of their own. It's the happy mix of gay and straight characters that makes him so readable. The plots are often stretched beyond credibility, but the characters are so convincing that it hardly matters.
5. Andrew Holleran, Dancer from the dance (1978)
Set against the smoke-filled dives and gay discos of 70s New York, Dancer from the dance is a tale of doomed queens, professional faggots and the loneliness of lives lived out under the revolving glitter ball. There's an almost mythical quality to the story, as the various characters are enraptured by the arrival of Malone, a man whose physical beauty marks him out as some kind of saviour. A gay literary classic, and rightly so.
6. Edmund White, A boy's own story (1982)
Someone described this book as a cross between Catcher in the rye and De profundis. I'm not a huge fan of Edmund White generally (I find him rather pompous). Nor do I particularly like 'coming out' stories. But this book is a true original.
7. Pickles, Queens (1984)
Queens was published the same year I moved to London. Lambasted by the gay press for its allegedly 'negative' portrayal of London's gay community, it's a far more honest account of gay life in the big city than you'll ever read in any of the gay bar rags. For some strange reason, certain gay men seem to have a problem laughing at themselves. The writer of this book clearly doesn't.
8. Michael Cunningham, Flesh and blood (1995)
Michael Cunningham is one of the most gifted writers around. His last book, The Hours, won the Pulitzer prize for fiction and is currently being made into a film starring Nicole Kidman. This is his second novel. It tells the story of four generations of an American immigrant family and the various ways in which the parents cope with a gay child in the family and the gay child copes with the desire to create a family of his own. It's an ambitious book, epic in scale, and one which reminds us that rightwing fundamentalists aren't the only ones concerned with 'family values'.
9. Christos Tsiolkas, Loaded (1997)
The tale of a screwed-up, 19-year-old Greek gay lad who goes looking for kicks in suburban Melbourne, this is the kind of novel that you read in one or two sittings. Barely 150 pages long, and written in stark prose, it's a complete head rush from start to finish, packed with tales of anonymous sex, drug abuse and the harsh realities of life on the edge.
10. William Corlett, Two gentlemen sharing (1997)
Two gentlemen sharing is one of the funniest gay novels I've read in years. A comedy of manners set in a quiet village in middle England, it revolves around a cast of colourful country types whose tolerance is tested by the arrival of two gay men setting up home together. Corlett handles the clash of different lifestyles perfectly, using gentle humour to explore personal prejudices, and offering plenty of surprises along the way.
84Cynfelyn
The first of another of the Guardian's occasional his and hers shared /double lists. See also 'Relationship books' (no's 62-63 above) and 'Politics' (no. 71) above.
______
Jane Blanchard's top 10 midlife crisis books
Guardian, 2001-07-25
Jane Blanchard is features editor for Carlton Television. Her debut novel, In Cahoots!, is a guide to midlife dating, featuring three women who went through it all in their 20s and decide they want to do it all over again.
1. Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
The ultimate book of hope for anyone seeking Mr Right. Jane isn't exactly drop dead gorgeous nor does she have a filofax bulging with helpful connections but she gets her man in the end. Granted she has to wait for his mad wife to burn down the house, and he's blind when they reunite, but hey, who's worrying. One of the all time great romances.
2. Jilly Cooper, Rivals
Now they are all drop dead gorgeous in this book. This is Jilly's funniest, set in the world of television boardroom battles. Most of the women look like super models, are frighteningly intelligent and have fascinating telly jobs. Well, you can dream, can't you. Or make a start - consult Monday's Media Guardian.
3. Nick Hornby, High fidelity
A cautionary tale for all women. Beware of a man who makes lists, especially of ex-girlfriends, because you know one day you'll be right up there too. A good insight into what goes on inside men's heads, especially if you've been baffled up to now. Rob is a saddo thirtysomething who runs a secondhand record shop. A great fun read and especially nostalgic if you can still sing along with Showaddywaddy's hits.
4. Victoria Wood, Mens sana in thingummy doodah
I've slightly cheated here, because these are the scripts of Victoria Wood's side-splitting half-hours. Loads of self-help tips here on dating boring men, avoiding all forms of exercise at a health farm and making a complete dolt of yourself on a television programme. Your life can never be as bad as these characters'. Guffaws guaranteed.
5. Robin Norwood, Women who love too much
If you're stuck in a terrible relationship and can't seem to get out, this serious self-help book might provide the answers. Health warning: it might make you even more depressed and therefore more stuck. Sadly, I found myself shrieking, "Yes, yes, yes" at every case study years before the fake orgasm scene in When Harry met Sally. Read with caution and not in a New York diner.
6. Sophie Kinsella, The secret dreamworld of a shopaholic
Overdraft celebrating another anniversary? This will make you feel instantly better. Rebecca Bloomwood is a financial journalist and a very serious secret spendaholic. It's a hilarious read and it made me feel quite financially restrained. If you feel your wallet itching, then just buy this book. Even your bank manager will view it as a sound investment.
7. Bill Bryson, Notes from a small island
If you're feeling fed up, then perhaps you should get out more. Bill Bryson's indispensable and laugh-out-loud guide to Britain will give you some ideas on where to go and where to avoid. Try asking for directions from pub locals and compare results with Bill.
8. Pamela Brown, The swish of the curtain
My favourite childhood read and a great lesson in self-help via the fantasy route. Seven children renovate an old chapel into a theatre and put on shows. I spent years wanting to be one of them, particularly during boring Latin lessons. A truly wonderful story written by Pamela Brown when she was just 14.
9. Susie Jacobs, Recipes from a Greek island
My cooking sort of died in the 70s and there's a limit to how much prawn cocktail, steak and black forest gateau you can keep knocking up. I occasionally buy cookbooks but find them terribly unnerving. This one is perfect. The recipes are far too complicated for me but the photographs of Greece are just breathtaking. I hand it around for guests to admire while I'm ringing the takeaway.
10. Jane Austen, Pride and prejudice
Another classic that falls neatly into the fantasy category. A wonderful romantic tale of love triumphing over snobbery. Girls finally get their men, despite pushy mum. And if that doesn't grab you, just remember that fantastic TV version with Colin Firth, emerging from a lake in his drenched white shirt. I rest my case.
______
Jane Blanchard's top 10 midlife crisis books
Guardian, 2001-07-25
Jane Blanchard is features editor for Carlton Television. Her debut novel, In Cahoots!, is a guide to midlife dating, featuring three women who went through it all in their 20s and decide they want to do it all over again.
1. Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
The ultimate book of hope for anyone seeking Mr Right. Jane isn't exactly drop dead gorgeous nor does she have a filofax bulging with helpful connections but she gets her man in the end. Granted she has to wait for his mad wife to burn down the house, and he's blind when they reunite, but hey, who's worrying. One of the all time great romances.
2. Jilly Cooper, Rivals
Now they are all drop dead gorgeous in this book. This is Jilly's funniest, set in the world of television boardroom battles. Most of the women look like super models, are frighteningly intelligent and have fascinating telly jobs. Well, you can dream, can't you. Or make a start - consult Monday's Media Guardian.
3. Nick Hornby, High fidelity
A cautionary tale for all women. Beware of a man who makes lists, especially of ex-girlfriends, because you know one day you'll be right up there too. A good insight into what goes on inside men's heads, especially if you've been baffled up to now. Rob is a saddo thirtysomething who runs a secondhand record shop. A great fun read and especially nostalgic if you can still sing along with Showaddywaddy's hits.
4. Victoria Wood, Mens sana in thingummy doodah
I've slightly cheated here, because these are the scripts of Victoria Wood's side-splitting half-hours. Loads of self-help tips here on dating boring men, avoiding all forms of exercise at a health farm and making a complete dolt of yourself on a television programme. Your life can never be as bad as these characters'. Guffaws guaranteed.
5. Robin Norwood, Women who love too much
If you're stuck in a terrible relationship and can't seem to get out, this serious self-help book might provide the answers. Health warning: it might make you even more depressed and therefore more stuck. Sadly, I found myself shrieking, "Yes, yes, yes" at every case study years before the fake orgasm scene in When Harry met Sally. Read with caution and not in a New York diner.
6. Sophie Kinsella, The secret dreamworld of a shopaholic
Overdraft celebrating another anniversary? This will make you feel instantly better. Rebecca Bloomwood is a financial journalist and a very serious secret spendaholic. It's a hilarious read and it made me feel quite financially restrained. If you feel your wallet itching, then just buy this book. Even your bank manager will view it as a sound investment.
7. Bill Bryson, Notes from a small island
If you're feeling fed up, then perhaps you should get out more. Bill Bryson's indispensable and laugh-out-loud guide to Britain will give you some ideas on where to go and where to avoid. Try asking for directions from pub locals and compare results with Bill.
8. Pamela Brown, The swish of the curtain
My favourite childhood read and a great lesson in self-help via the fantasy route. Seven children renovate an old chapel into a theatre and put on shows. I spent years wanting to be one of them, particularly during boring Latin lessons. A truly wonderful story written by Pamela Brown when she was just 14.
9. Susie Jacobs, Recipes from a Greek island
My cooking sort of died in the 70s and there's a limit to how much prawn cocktail, steak and black forest gateau you can keep knocking up. I occasionally buy cookbooks but find them terribly unnerving. This one is perfect. The recipes are far too complicated for me but the photographs of Greece are just breathtaking. I hand it around for guests to admire while I'm ringing the takeaway.
10. Jane Austen, Pride and prejudice
Another classic that falls neatly into the fantasy category. A wonderful romantic tale of love triumphing over snobbery. Girls finally get their men, despite pushy mum. And if that doesn't grab you, just remember that fantastic TV version with Colin Firth, emerging from a lake in his drenched white shirt. I rest my case.
85Cynfelyn
Phil Hogan's top 10 midlife crisis books
Guardian, 2001-07-25
Phil Hogan is a journalist, broadcaster and Observer columnist. His first novel, Hitting the groove, deals with the midlife crisis of a Beatles-obsessed journalist.
1. Hanif Kureishi, Intimacy
The author got panned for this semi-autobiographical gem about a man who finds that being married and having children isn't as exciting as being free to sleep with other women and stay out late. A ruthlessly honest examination of what it feels like to be a horrible bastard with no thought for anyone but oneself.
2. Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
Written in the Forties and banned practically everywhere until the 60s, this exuberant tale of a whoring, begging and starving American in Paris (an undisguised Miller himself) is an inspiration to anyone who reaches their middle years and wants to write their first novel the hard way. It can be a bit incomprehensible in parts and feminists frown upon the casual misogyny and Rabelaisian-scale pornographic content, but it was my favourite book when I was 22, which admittedly wasn't yesterday.
3. Herman Melville, Moby Dick
I wouldn't actively recommend this book, owing to it being long and rather dull. But nevertheless a cautionary tale about a man's hobby getting the better of him. In recent years I have begun to see it as an allegory of husbands who go fishing and never come back.
4. Richard Ford, Women with men
Along with his rambling masterpieces The sportswriter and Independence day, these three stories (in particular The womanizer - a painful study in yearning and self-delusion) depict men of a certain age looking for that missing 'something' with unwarranted optimism. No one describes with more poignancy and attention to detail the emotional mismatch between men and women than Richard Ford. The perfect wedding present.
5. Tom Wolfe, Bonfire of the vanities
I think this terrific novel suffered from being dragged through the mire by the shite film version by Brian de Palma. A zeitgeisty satire of New York society in the greedy 80s jampacked with pathetic testosteronic males trying to have it all ways.
6. William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra
Early midlife crisis drama featuring an ageing Antony losing himself to the narcotic pleasures of the Nile (back then, this was the equivalent of going to Ibiza) in the company of a woman who is not his wife, when he's supposed to be at home helping to rule the Roman empire. I realise Cleopatra was no spring chicken but she was, by all accounts, quite a looker.
7. Alex Garland, The beach
This is, of course, about a young idler searching for a cool paradise to lay down his bed roll, but it will equally transport anyone in their 40s and 50s back to their hippy, backpacking days, if not actually encourage them to abandon their domestic duties to do it all again. Carefree, druggy, naive, exploratory, seductive ... I won't go on.
8. Melissa Bank, The girls' guide to hunting and fishing
One of my very favourite books from last year. I was particularly heartened by how the attractive young heroine shacks up with a man twice her age, even though he is not noticeably wealthy. Tip for male readers: display your sensitive side by openly reading it on the train.
9. Eugene O'Neill, The iceman cometh
Hugely powerful postwar American-Irish drama, and a warning to all men who spend their waking hours in the pub. Hickey, a hardware salesman, is eventually reduced to shooting his wife, not because she nags him too much about coming home hammered after three days on a bender, but because he can't bear to see her so disappointed in him. Don't try this at home.
10. Alan Ball (screenplay), American beauty
I loved this film so much that I had to go out and buy the screenplay (or at least have it sent to me from the publishers for nothing, which is almost the same thing). An exquisitely constructed account of a man self-destructing in the pursuit of life, liberty and his teenage daughter's best friend. You know it will end in tears - and, come to think of it, blood.
------
Edited to tweak a link.
Guardian, 2001-07-25
Phil Hogan is a journalist, broadcaster and Observer columnist. His first novel, Hitting the groove, deals with the midlife crisis of a Beatles-obsessed journalist.
1. Hanif Kureishi, Intimacy
The author got panned for this semi-autobiographical gem about a man who finds that being married and having children isn't as exciting as being free to sleep with other women and stay out late. A ruthlessly honest examination of what it feels like to be a horrible bastard with no thought for anyone but oneself.
2. Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
Written in the Forties and banned practically everywhere until the 60s, this exuberant tale of a whoring, begging and starving American in Paris (an undisguised Miller himself) is an inspiration to anyone who reaches their middle years and wants to write their first novel the hard way. It can be a bit incomprehensible in parts and feminists frown upon the casual misogyny and Rabelaisian-scale pornographic content, but it was my favourite book when I was 22, which admittedly wasn't yesterday.
3. Herman Melville, Moby Dick
I wouldn't actively recommend this book, owing to it being long and rather dull. But nevertheless a cautionary tale about a man's hobby getting the better of him. In recent years I have begun to see it as an allegory of husbands who go fishing and never come back.
4. Richard Ford, Women with men
Along with his rambling masterpieces The sportswriter and Independence day, these three stories (in particular The womanizer - a painful study in yearning and self-delusion) depict men of a certain age looking for that missing 'something' with unwarranted optimism. No one describes with more poignancy and attention to detail the emotional mismatch between men and women than Richard Ford. The perfect wedding present.
5. Tom Wolfe, Bonfire of the vanities
I think this terrific novel suffered from being dragged through the mire by the shite film version by Brian de Palma. A zeitgeisty satire of New York society in the greedy 80s jampacked with pathetic testosteronic males trying to have it all ways.
6. William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra
Early midlife crisis drama featuring an ageing Antony losing himself to the narcotic pleasures of the Nile (back then, this was the equivalent of going to Ibiza) in the company of a woman who is not his wife, when he's supposed to be at home helping to rule the Roman empire. I realise Cleopatra was no spring chicken but she was, by all accounts, quite a looker.
7. Alex Garland, The beach
This is, of course, about a young idler searching for a cool paradise to lay down his bed roll, but it will equally transport anyone in their 40s and 50s back to their hippy, backpacking days, if not actually encourage them to abandon their domestic duties to do it all again. Carefree, druggy, naive, exploratory, seductive ... I won't go on.
8. Melissa Bank, The girls' guide to hunting and fishing
One of my very favourite books from last year. I was particularly heartened by how the attractive young heroine shacks up with a man twice her age, even though he is not noticeably wealthy. Tip for male readers: display your sensitive side by openly reading it on the train.
9. Eugene O'Neill, The iceman cometh
Hugely powerful postwar American-Irish drama, and a warning to all men who spend their waking hours in the pub. Hickey, a hardware salesman, is eventually reduced to shooting his wife, not because she nags him too much about coming home hammered after three days on a bender, but because he can't bear to see her so disappointed in him. Don't try this at home.
10. Alan Ball (screenplay), American beauty
I loved this film so much that I had to go out and buy the screenplay (or at least have it sent to me from the publishers for nothing, which is almost the same thing). An exquisitely constructed account of a man self-destructing in the pursuit of life, liberty and his teenage daughter's best friend. You know it will end in tears - and, come to think of it, blood.
------
Edited to tweak a link.
86thorold
>85 Cynfelyn: Someone ought to do an anthology of pithy summaries of Moby-Dick sometime: I love that one!
Blanchard must have been furious at having her superficial choices being put side-by-side with something so clever. She should have picked one of her husband’s books, at least (he was a romantic novelist who wrote as Emma Blair).
Blanchard must have been furious at having her superficial choices being put side-by-side with something so clever. She should have picked one of her husband’s books, at least (he was a romantic novelist who wrote as Emma Blair).
87Cynfelyn
>86 thorold: Re. Iain Blair=Emma Blair.
You might have hoped that gendered genres, to the extent that some authors or publishers feel they have to publish under appropriately gendered pseudonyms, was a thing of the past. That this sort of behaviour belongs back in the days when Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell were more acceptable than Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë.
But perhaps Iain / Emma Blair (and Joanne Rowling=J. K. Rowling / Robert Galbraith) suggests otherwise.
You might have hoped that gendered genres, to the extent that some authors or publishers feel they have to publish under appropriately gendered pseudonyms, was a thing of the past. That this sort of behaviour belongs back in the days when Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell were more acceptable than Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë.
But perhaps Iain / Emma Blair (and Joanne Rowling=J. K. Rowling / Robert Galbraith) suggests otherwise.
88Cynfelyn
Michael Moorcock's top 10 science fiction novels
Guardian, 2001-08-01.
Michael Moorcock is the author of nearly 100 books, including dozens of fantasy novels. He also writes works of literary fiction based around his love of London, such as Mother London. The latest of these is the short story collection London bone.
LRB essay: Michael Moorcock's London (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/nov/23/londonreviewofbooks)
Moorcock's Multiverse site (https://www.multiverse.org/)
"I would guess that, Wells, Ballard and Aldiss aside, I only have about 10 SF novels I really like. Most SF is fundamentally retrospective, like modern politics. Big spaceships have an immediate soporific effect (the first time I fell asleep in 2001 I was with an amiable Arthur Clarke!) So, if you haven't read any SF, this list might suit you. Few of these books make any mention of spaceships, but they're all by substantial writers and most have a characteristic elegaic note inherited from the likes of Shelley and Wells."
1. Brian W. Aldiss, Greybeard
PD James used a similar plot which she corrupted with bad prose and poor thinking. An early eco-freak, Aldiss gives us a world fundamentally destroyed by consumerism. This is the original Grumpy-Old-People-in-a-childless-world parable. Humane, clever, lyrical, it's far and away the best.
2. J. G. Ballard, The drowned world
An early 60s vision of global warming! It's the more humanist writers who predict the future best. This novel first told me Ballard was more than just a superior writer of Bradburyesque SF stories. Ballard, like Aldiss and like me, was raised in an essentially post-modernist world and found in SF a way of describing specific experience. Another Earth elegaically returned to the womb. Alone at last.
3. Barrington Bayley, The knights of the limits (Wildwood e-book)
Bayley, with myself and Ballard, was one of the original plotters who met a couple of times a week to talk about New Worlds magazine, our forum for what became 'post-modernism'. A fine intellectual writer, Bayley is here sharper and more substantial than Borges.
4. Thomas M. Disch, 334
Camp Concentration is the other Disch I would recommend but 334 has richer characters and more humanity. 2021. All the characters live at No. 334 E 11th, NY. Mostly young, very engaging, the vivid characters are dealing with problems all our children will face. Wonderful stuff.
5. Joanna Russ, The female man
This is one of the first and best of the hardcore feminist SF writers who found in science fiction a fine means of dealing with their concerns. Smarter and grittier than Ursula LeGuin, angrier than Octavia Butler, it is a spirited look at the female condition.
6. Alfred Bester, Tiger! Tiger!
This also has a touch of space opera, but baroque rather than techno. This corporation-run Earth was done in 1955. Nestle, Heinz and IBM families rule. Byzantine future politics. Characters you fall in love with. I read this on a rainy day in Paris at the old Mistral, 1957, and it made me think SF might be worth a go. The opening's a Dickens quote, much of the plot is Jacobean Dumas. Revenge, redemption, social analysis in the context of McCarthyism. All the best American SF is from lefties encountering the madness of the 50s.
7. Philip K. Dick, The man in the high castle
In considering the madness of 50s and 60s US when presidents were prepared to risk destroying the world in order to get re-elected, Dick wondered what would be different if the Germans and Japanese had conquered America.
8. Frederich Pohl, The space merchants
Judith Merrill reveals in her recent memoir how most New York SF writers of the 40s and 50s were divided between Trots and Stalinists. The best American SF remains rooted in these angry originals. Consumerism carried to the planets, a la Star Wars. There is, friends, an American left tradition...
9. John Sladek, Roderick at random
Sladek was the subtlest and cleverest of all SF humorists. Like Bayley he wrote profoundly about the problems which an artifical intelligence might encounter for itself. He, too, was way ahead of his time in understanding the nature of the corporate beast. He died recently and most of his work is being reissued a little belatedly.
10. Maurice Richardson, The exploits of Engelbrecht
While not actually SF, this was such an enthusiasm of mine, Ballard's and several others that it deserves inclusion. Richardson certainly knew his science, his literature and his surrealism. If you do not know the Surrealist Sporting Club, The day we played Mars and the Night of the great witch shoot (illustrated by Searle, Hoffnung and Boswell in a superior edition) you do not know English literature.
______
The fourth sci-fi list so far, after Dick Jude's top 10 science fiction books (no. 20 above), Jon Courtenay Grimwood's top 10 cult SF novels (no. 45), and Rob Grant's top 10 comic science fiction novels (no. 65).
1. Brian W. Aldiss, Greybeard.
Just in case it's not blindingly obvious, the PD James book Michael Moorcock is saying isn't up to snuff is The children of men. Just saying.
7. Philip K. Dick, The man in the high castle.
I ought to be ashamed to admit that my only knowledge of this book comes from pandemic lockdown binge-watching YouTube clips from the 2015 TV series, made fourteen years after this list. I've no idea how closely the TV series sticks to the book. Not helped by binge-watching clips from Iron sky at much the same time.
10. Maurice Richardson, The exploits of Engelbrecht.
"If you do not know the Surrealist Sporting Club ... you do not know English literature."
Well, look at that. I don't know English literature. Hey ho.
Guardian, 2001-08-01.
Michael Moorcock is the author of nearly 100 books, including dozens of fantasy novels. He also writes works of literary fiction based around his love of London, such as Mother London. The latest of these is the short story collection London bone.
LRB essay: Michael Moorcock's London (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/nov/23/londonreviewofbooks)
Moorcock's Multiverse site (https://www.multiverse.org/)
"I would guess that, Wells, Ballard and Aldiss aside, I only have about 10 SF novels I really like. Most SF is fundamentally retrospective, like modern politics. Big spaceships have an immediate soporific effect (the first time I fell asleep in 2001 I was with an amiable Arthur Clarke!) So, if you haven't read any SF, this list might suit you. Few of these books make any mention of spaceships, but they're all by substantial writers and most have a characteristic elegaic note inherited from the likes of Shelley and Wells."
1. Brian W. Aldiss, Greybeard
PD James used a similar plot which she corrupted with bad prose and poor thinking. An early eco-freak, Aldiss gives us a world fundamentally destroyed by consumerism. This is the original Grumpy-Old-People-in-a-childless-world parable. Humane, clever, lyrical, it's far and away the best.
2. J. G. Ballard, The drowned world
An early 60s vision of global warming! It's the more humanist writers who predict the future best. This novel first told me Ballard was more than just a superior writer of Bradburyesque SF stories. Ballard, like Aldiss and like me, was raised in an essentially post-modernist world and found in SF a way of describing specific experience. Another Earth elegaically returned to the womb. Alone at last.
3. Barrington Bayley, The knights of the limits (Wildwood e-book)
Bayley, with myself and Ballard, was one of the original plotters who met a couple of times a week to talk about New Worlds magazine, our forum for what became 'post-modernism'. A fine intellectual writer, Bayley is here sharper and more substantial than Borges.
4. Thomas M. Disch, 334
Camp Concentration is the other Disch I would recommend but 334 has richer characters and more humanity. 2021. All the characters live at No. 334 E 11th, NY. Mostly young, very engaging, the vivid characters are dealing with problems all our children will face. Wonderful stuff.
5. Joanna Russ, The female man
This is one of the first and best of the hardcore feminist SF writers who found in science fiction a fine means of dealing with their concerns. Smarter and grittier than Ursula LeGuin, angrier than Octavia Butler, it is a spirited look at the female condition.
6. Alfred Bester, Tiger! Tiger!
This also has a touch of space opera, but baroque rather than techno. This corporation-run Earth was done in 1955. Nestle, Heinz and IBM families rule. Byzantine future politics. Characters you fall in love with. I read this on a rainy day in Paris at the old Mistral, 1957, and it made me think SF might be worth a go. The opening's a Dickens quote, much of the plot is Jacobean Dumas. Revenge, redemption, social analysis in the context of McCarthyism. All the best American SF is from lefties encountering the madness of the 50s.
7. Philip K. Dick, The man in the high castle
In considering the madness of 50s and 60s US when presidents were prepared to risk destroying the world in order to get re-elected, Dick wondered what would be different if the Germans and Japanese had conquered America.
8. Frederich Pohl, The space merchants
Judith Merrill reveals in her recent memoir how most New York SF writers of the 40s and 50s were divided between Trots and Stalinists. The best American SF remains rooted in these angry originals. Consumerism carried to the planets, a la Star Wars. There is, friends, an American left tradition...
9. John Sladek, Roderick at random
Sladek was the subtlest and cleverest of all SF humorists. Like Bayley he wrote profoundly about the problems which an artifical intelligence might encounter for itself. He, too, was way ahead of his time in understanding the nature of the corporate beast. He died recently and most of his work is being reissued a little belatedly.
10. Maurice Richardson, The exploits of Engelbrecht
While not actually SF, this was such an enthusiasm of mine, Ballard's and several others that it deserves inclusion. Richardson certainly knew his science, his literature and his surrealism. If you do not know the Surrealist Sporting Club, The day we played Mars and the Night of the great witch shoot (illustrated by Searle, Hoffnung and Boswell in a superior edition) you do not know English literature.
______
The fourth sci-fi list so far, after Dick Jude's top 10 science fiction books (no. 20 above), Jon Courtenay Grimwood's top 10 cult SF novels (no. 45), and Rob Grant's top 10 comic science fiction novels (no. 65).
1. Brian W. Aldiss, Greybeard.
Just in case it's not blindingly obvious, the PD James book Michael Moorcock is saying isn't up to snuff is The children of men. Just saying.
7. Philip K. Dick, The man in the high castle.
I ought to be ashamed to admit that my only knowledge of this book comes from pandemic lockdown binge-watching YouTube clips from the 2015 TV series, made fourteen years after this list. I've no idea how closely the TV series sticks to the book. Not helped by binge-watching clips from Iron sky at much the same time.
10. Maurice Richardson, The exploits of Engelbrecht.
"If you do not know the Surrealist Sporting Club ... you do not know English literature."
Well, look at that. I don't know English literature. Hey ho.
89Cynfelyn
Frank McLynn's top 10 books about Mexico
Guardian, 2001-09-12
Frank McLynn is the author of Villa and Zapata: A Biography of the Mexican Revolution. His previous books include biographies of Robert Louis Stevenson, Carl Gustav Jung and Napoleon, and several works relating to the Jacobite movement.
1. The poems of Juana de la Cruz (perhaps especially Rendonillas)
What Emily Dickinson is to the Protestant feminine sensibility, Sister de la Cruz is to the Catholic. Both were notable exceptions to Robert Graves's rule that the poet, needing inspiration from a muse, must be male.
2. Martin Luis Guzman, The eagle and the serpent
My favourite of all books written on the Mexican revolution. Brilliant on the events of 1910-20 and positively eye-popping on the personalities, especially Pancho Villa and Rodolfo Fierro.
3. Graham Greene, The power and the glory
What is there to say about this novel that has not been said dozens of times before? Even more than Scobie in The heart of the matter, Greene's whisky priest is the locus classicus of the sinner nearer to God than are the devout.
4. D. H. Lawrence, The plumed serpent
Not one of Lawrence's best novels, but containing some of the shrewdest insights ever penned on Mexico. For example: "a country where men despise sex and live for it ... which is suicide."
5. Carlos Fuentes, Terra nostra
Again, comment seems superfluous after all that has been said about this masterpiece. If you want to know what Latin America does and does not owe to Spain, this is the book. For my money Fuentes, even more than his exact contemporary Garcia Marquez, is 'the' Latin American novelist.
6. Carlos Fuentes, The old gringo
A briliant, fictionalised account of Ambrose Bierce's last days - what might have happened and even, given Bierce's final letter, what should have happened.
7. D. H. Lawrence, Mornings in Mexico
If you read only one book of travellers' tales on Mexico, it must be this one. A magnificent blood-and-ganglion pagan response to the primeval savagery south of the Rio Grande.
8. Graham Greene, Lawless roads
As Mornings in Mexico is to The plumed serpent, so is this to The power and the glory and, to make things even more 'organic', it in turn contains reflections on Lawrence's original observations.
9. Malcolm Lowry, Under the volcano
As a one-time gringo in Latin America my taste reflects an abiding interest in the clash between Anglo-Saxon and Hispanic cultures. This novel is currently underrated but the alcoholic consul and his night-sea journey on the Day of the Dead make a unique impact.
10. Aldous Huxley, Beyond the Mexique Bay
The patrician Huxley's de haut en bas attitude, evident even from the title (a quotation from Marvell), can at times be wearying. Even so, this most jaundiced view of Mexico ever written by a talented outsider is continually incisive, stimulating and argumentative.
------
Is it just me, or is this a very "Anglo" list? I wouldn't have been overly surprised to have seen a Lonely Planet or Rough Guide on the list.
Guardian, 2001-09-12
Frank McLynn is the author of Villa and Zapata: A Biography of the Mexican Revolution. His previous books include biographies of Robert Louis Stevenson, Carl Gustav Jung and Napoleon, and several works relating to the Jacobite movement.
1. The poems of Juana de la Cruz (perhaps especially Rendonillas)
What Emily Dickinson is to the Protestant feminine sensibility, Sister de la Cruz is to the Catholic. Both were notable exceptions to Robert Graves's rule that the poet, needing inspiration from a muse, must be male.
2. Martin Luis Guzman, The eagle and the serpent
My favourite of all books written on the Mexican revolution. Brilliant on the events of 1910-20 and positively eye-popping on the personalities, especially Pancho Villa and Rodolfo Fierro.
3. Graham Greene, The power and the glory
What is there to say about this novel that has not been said dozens of times before? Even more than Scobie in The heart of the matter, Greene's whisky priest is the locus classicus of the sinner nearer to God than are the devout.
4. D. H. Lawrence, The plumed serpent
Not one of Lawrence's best novels, but containing some of the shrewdest insights ever penned on Mexico. For example: "a country where men despise sex and live for it ... which is suicide."
5. Carlos Fuentes, Terra nostra
Again, comment seems superfluous after all that has been said about this masterpiece. If you want to know what Latin America does and does not owe to Spain, this is the book. For my money Fuentes, even more than his exact contemporary Garcia Marquez, is 'the' Latin American novelist.
6. Carlos Fuentes, The old gringo
A briliant, fictionalised account of Ambrose Bierce's last days - what might have happened and even, given Bierce's final letter, what should have happened.
7. D. H. Lawrence, Mornings in Mexico
If you read only one book of travellers' tales on Mexico, it must be this one. A magnificent blood-and-ganglion pagan response to the primeval savagery south of the Rio Grande.
8. Graham Greene, Lawless roads
As Mornings in Mexico is to The plumed serpent, so is this to The power and the glory and, to make things even more 'organic', it in turn contains reflections on Lawrence's original observations.
9. Malcolm Lowry, Under the volcano
As a one-time gringo in Latin America my taste reflects an abiding interest in the clash between Anglo-Saxon and Hispanic cultures. This novel is currently underrated but the alcoholic consul and his night-sea journey on the Day of the Dead make a unique impact.
10. Aldous Huxley, Beyond the Mexique Bay
The patrician Huxley's de haut en bas attitude, evident even from the title (a quotation from Marvell), can at times be wearying. Even so, this most jaundiced view of Mexico ever written by a talented outsider is continually incisive, stimulating and argumentative.
------
Is it just me, or is this a very "Anglo" list? I wouldn't have been overly surprised to have seen a Lonely Planet or Rough Guide on the list.
90Cynfelyn
Dannie Abse's top 10 20th century poetry collections
Guardian, 2001-09-20.
Dannie Abse is a doctor and poet who is inspired by both vocations, as well as his Welsh and Jewish ancestry. He has written fifteen books of poetry and his latest work is his autobiography, Goodbye, Twentieth Century.
1. T. S. Eliot, Collected poems (Faber)
Because this book contains The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock as well as the grand major sweep of The Waste Land and The Four Quartets.
2. R. M. Rilke, Poems from the Book of Hours, translated from the German by Babette Deutsch (Vision Press)
Because their excitements teach me how to silence the clamour made by my own senses.
3. George Seferis, Poems, translated from the Greek by Rex Warner (The Bodley Head)
Because Seferis's work makes my hair stand on end.
4. Edward Thomas, Collected poems (Faber)
Because I love his country verse and because he is the best poet of the first world war.
5. W. H. Auden, Collected poems (Faber)
Because I took this book to Roy Plomley's desert island and found the poems not merely brilliant but also durable.
6. Dylan Thomas, Collected poems (Dent)
Because the music of his words resonates in my mind and will as long as forever is.
7. Bernard Spencer, Collected poems (Oxford University Press)
Because he was a fine pleasure-giving poet too much neglected.
8. Robert Lowell, Life studies (Faber)
Because the poem's confessional nakedness is compelling.
9. Philip Larkin, Collected poems (Faber)
Because his poems with their sharp-eyed images portray the feelings of the man next door.
10. Wislawa Szymborska, View with a grain of sand, translated from the Polish by Baranczak and Cavanagh (Faber)
Because Szymborska is the best woman poet of our time and offers us accessible, ironically humorous poems underpinned by her life experience of her country's marked vicissitudes in the 20th century.
------
Collected poems must be the most over-used title on LibraryThing! I've had to touchstone the authors - aha, the active verb 'to touchstone'; I touchstone, you touchstone, he, she, it touchstones - as the system dosn't seem to be able to differentiate between multiple books with the same title in the same message.
Dannie Abse's episode of 'Desert Island Discs', referred to in no. 5 above, was broadcast in August 1977, and is available on BBC Sounds at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p009mzdb (geographic limits may apply). Both Abse and Roy Plomley are good value, even if the RP accents, the slightly staged conversation and the choice of music do rather hark back to another age.
Guardian, 2001-09-20.
Dannie Abse is a doctor and poet who is inspired by both vocations, as well as his Welsh and Jewish ancestry. He has written fifteen books of poetry and his latest work is his autobiography, Goodbye, Twentieth Century.
1. T. S. Eliot, Collected poems (Faber)
Because this book contains The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock as well as the grand major sweep of The Waste Land and The Four Quartets.
2. R. M. Rilke, Poems from the Book of Hours, translated from the German by Babette Deutsch (Vision Press)
Because their excitements teach me how to silence the clamour made by my own senses.
3. George Seferis, Poems, translated from the Greek by Rex Warner (The Bodley Head)
Because Seferis's work makes my hair stand on end.
4. Edward Thomas, Collected poems (Faber)
Because I love his country verse and because he is the best poet of the first world war.
5. W. H. Auden, Collected poems (Faber)
Because I took this book to Roy Plomley's desert island and found the poems not merely brilliant but also durable.
6. Dylan Thomas, Collected poems (Dent)
Because the music of his words resonates in my mind and will as long as forever is.
7. Bernard Spencer, Collected poems (Oxford University Press)
Because he was a fine pleasure-giving poet too much neglected.
8. Robert Lowell, Life studies (Faber)
Because the poem's confessional nakedness is compelling.
9. Philip Larkin, Collected poems (Faber)
Because his poems with their sharp-eyed images portray the feelings of the man next door.
10. Wislawa Szymborska, View with a grain of sand, translated from the Polish by Baranczak and Cavanagh (Faber)
Because Szymborska is the best woman poet of our time and offers us accessible, ironically humorous poems underpinned by her life experience of her country's marked vicissitudes in the 20th century.
------
Collected poems must be the most over-used title on LibraryThing! I've had to touchstone the authors - aha, the active verb 'to touchstone'; I touchstone, you touchstone, he, she, it touchstones - as the system dosn't seem to be able to differentiate between multiple books with the same title in the same message.
Dannie Abse's episode of 'Desert Island Discs', referred to in no. 5 above, was broadcast in August 1977, and is available on BBC Sounds at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p009mzdb (geographic limits may apply). Both Abse and Roy Plomley are good value, even if the RP accents, the slightly staged conversation and the choice of music do rather hark back to another age.
91Cynfelyn
Giles Foden's top 10 books on the Afghanistan crisis
Guardian, 2001-10-09.
Zanzibar, Giles Foden's novel about the bombing of the US embassies in Africa in 1998, is published by Faber next year.
1. Simon Reeve, The new jackals: Osama bin Laden and the future of terrorism (Andre Deutsch)
The best analysis of the 1993 WTC bombing and its connections to Bin Laden.
2. John K. Cooley, Unholy wars: Afghanistan, America and international terrorism (Pluto)
Excellent dissection of blowback: how US foreign policy in Afghanistan from 1979 onwards has come back to haunt America's citizens.
3. Yossef Bodansky, Bin Laden: the man who declared war on America (Prima)
Probably the most acute book about the man at the centre of the current crisis.
4. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Islam, oil and the new Great Game in central Asia (IB Tauris)
How oil companies and the US fostered relations with the Taliban.
5. Richard Labeviere, Dollars for terror: the US and Islam (Algora)
Another blowback chronicle, but this time the perpetrator/victim is Saudi Arabia, whom Swiss journalist Labeviere charges as the main sponsor of Islamist terror, channelling funds through bin Laden.
6. Judith Miller, Stephen Engleberg and William Broad, Germs: biological weapons and America's secret war (Simon & Schuster)
Judith Miller from the New York Times leads this investigation into the doomsday scenario of biological warfare.
7. Walter Laqueur, The new terrorism (Phoenix)
General analysis of how Islamist terrorism fits into the wider picture.
8. Yonah Alexander and Michael S. Swetnam, Usama Bin Laden's "Al-Qaida" (Transnational)
More on Bin Laden's organisation.
9. Akbar Ahmed, Islam today (IB Tauris)
Get a true picture of the religion distorted by Osama bin Laden in this Oprah-recommended guide to the Muslim world.
10. Michael Griffin, Reaping the whirlwind: the Taliban movement in Afghanistan (Pluto)
Ex-UNICEF expert on the rise and aims of the group thought to be sheltering Osama bin Laden.
------
Twenty years later, it may be time for a new reading list.
Guardian, 2001-10-09.
Zanzibar, Giles Foden's novel about the bombing of the US embassies in Africa in 1998, is published by Faber next year.
1. Simon Reeve, The new jackals: Osama bin Laden and the future of terrorism (Andre Deutsch)
The best analysis of the 1993 WTC bombing and its connections to Bin Laden.
2. John K. Cooley, Unholy wars: Afghanistan, America and international terrorism (Pluto)
Excellent dissection of blowback: how US foreign policy in Afghanistan from 1979 onwards has come back to haunt America's citizens.
3. Yossef Bodansky, Bin Laden: the man who declared war on America (Prima)
Probably the most acute book about the man at the centre of the current crisis.
4. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Islam, oil and the new Great Game in central Asia (IB Tauris)
How oil companies and the US fostered relations with the Taliban.
5. Richard Labeviere, Dollars for terror: the US and Islam (Algora)
Another blowback chronicle, but this time the perpetrator/victim is Saudi Arabia, whom Swiss journalist Labeviere charges as the main sponsor of Islamist terror, channelling funds through bin Laden.
6. Judith Miller, Stephen Engleberg and William Broad, Germs: biological weapons and America's secret war (Simon & Schuster)
Judith Miller from the New York Times leads this investigation into the doomsday scenario of biological warfare.
7. Walter Laqueur, The new terrorism (Phoenix)
General analysis of how Islamist terrorism fits into the wider picture.
8. Yonah Alexander and Michael S. Swetnam, Usama Bin Laden's "Al-Qaida" (Transnational)
More on Bin Laden's organisation.
9. Akbar Ahmed, Islam today (IB Tauris)
Get a true picture of the religion distorted by Osama bin Laden in this Oprah-recommended guide to the Muslim world.
10. Michael Griffin, Reaping the whirlwind: the Taliban movement in Afghanistan (Pluto)
Ex-UNICEF expert on the rise and aims of the group thought to be sheltering Osama bin Laden.
------
Twenty years later, it may be time for a new reading list.
92thorold
>90 Cynfelyn: For some reason that made me remember this passage in A poet in the family:
My mother was busy telling Joan how some months earlier she had called into Lear’s bookshop in Cardiff to enquire how my book of poems was selling. ‘I asked how is my son’s book selling and the assistant asked, “Who is your son, madam?” So naturally I said Dannie Abse and do you know what he said ?’
‘No,’ said Joan.
‘He said Not as well as Dylan Thomas’s Collected Poems, madam, which has also recently been published. So I told him — My son, I said, my son is the Welsh Dylan Thomas.’
93Cynfelyn
>92 thorold: I like it.
When I first became interested in politics and Welsh affairs in the late 1970s, "Abse" very much meant Dannie's politician brother Leo Abse. I remember him as being a mix of liberal causes (private members' bills, including the liberalisation of laws on homosexual relations and divorce) and small-c conservatism (including anti-devolution and anti-abortion). I tend to lump him in (probably unfairly) with George Thomas, sometime Speaker in the House of Commons and later Lord Tonypandy. Poetry at the time for me meant "Poems and pints" and Max Boyce. Leo seems to have entirely disappeared from the public memory, while Dannie's star, though never bright, does at least still shine.
When I first became interested in politics and Welsh affairs in the late 1970s, "Abse" very much meant Dannie's politician brother Leo Abse. I remember him as being a mix of liberal causes (private members' bills, including the liberalisation of laws on homosexual relations and divorce) and small-c conservatism (including anti-devolution and anti-abortion). I tend to lump him in (probably unfairly) with George Thomas, sometime Speaker in the House of Commons and later Lord Tonypandy. Poetry at the time for me meant "Poems and pints" and Max Boyce. Leo seems to have entirely disappeared from the public memory, while Dannie's star, though never bright, does at least still shine.
94Cynfelyn
Ray Monk's top 10 philosophy books of the 20th century
Guardian, 2001-11-01.
Ray Monk is professor of philosophy at the University of Southampton and is the author of Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, and Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude. His most recent book, Bertrand Russell: The Ghost of Madness 1921-1970, focuses on Russell's relationship with his son, John. "The following list is unashamedly 'unbalanced'. Of the 10 books listed, four are by a single philosopher: Ludwig Wittgenstein. I make no apologies for this. In my view, Wittgenstein towers above all other 20th century philosophers to such an extent that it is surprising to find any books not written by him included in such a list."
1. Bertrand Russell, The principles of mathematics
This is the nearest Russell came to writing a magnum opus. In its original conception it was to have been the book that established the truth of "logicism", the view that mathematics is nothing more nor less than a branch of logic. Unfortunately, this aim was scuppered by Russell's discovery, late in the book's development, of a paradox that threatened his whole system of logic. The book contains a tentative solution to this paradox, but, more than that, it established the lines of thinking that would dominate the philosophy of mathematics throughout the 20th century.
2. Bertrand Russell, Logic and knowledge
If one wants to know why Russell is regarded as a great philosopher, one should read this collection of his early essays. In particular, his 1905 paper, 'On Denoting', is arguably his greatest contribution to philosophy. It is in that paper that Russell expounds his famous Theory of Descriptions, a theory that has had a decisive influence on the style and content of the entire analytical tradition. In 'On Denoting', Russell set subsequent philosophers a great challenge: the challenge of seeing through the grammatical structures of everyday language in order to identify the logical structures that lie beneath them. In one way or another, most subsequent analytical philosophy can be seen as an attempt to rise to this challenge.
3. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus
This is the only book Wittgenstein published in his lifetime, and is universally acknowledged to be a masterpiece. Though it has now received 80 years of commentary, there is still no settled view as to what, exactly, Wittgenstein meant by the numbered oracular pronouncements of which the book is composed. It has been read as a logical positivist tract, a work of religious mysticism and an exercise in Kierkegaardian irony. Wittgenstein himself insisted that its central point was to distinguish that which can be said in language and that which has to be "shown". Perhaps because of its opaqueness, it is a book that grows in fascination the more often one reads it.
4. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical investigations
This is, in my view, the greatest philosophical book ever written. Compared to Tractatus logico-philosophicus, it is easy to read, but its true meaning is no less difficult to assimilate. At its heart is an assault upon the tendency, pervasive in almost all philosophical thinking, to "look for a substance whenever one sees a substantive". Thus, we ask: "what is the mind?" "what is consciousness?" and so on, without realising that our puzzlement will not be dispelled by finding something that is the mind, consciousness, etc. This is because the source of that puzzlement does not lie in the absence of such "substances", but rather in the assumption that there must be such things in order for the words we use to have any meaning. Wittgenstein's assault on this assumption is rich and many-faceted and has wide-reaching implications for all philosophical thinking.
5. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on the foundations of mathematics
Philosophical investigations was left unfinished at the time of Wittgenstein's death. His original intention was to include in it his investigations into mathematical concepts, which, he thought, mirrored the investigations into psychological concepts that now form the bulk of the book. Remarks on the Foundations of mathematics brings together the manuscript volumes from which Wittgenstein would have drawn the remarks on mathematics he had wished to include in his magnum opus. Mathematicians and logicians have been shocked by the radical tendency of Wittgenstein's remarks on mathematics, and philosophers, for the most part, have ignored them. But they seem to me to be essential reading for anyone interested in understanding Wittgenstein's approach to philosophy.
6. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and value
In his philosophical manuscripts Wittgenstein would often write paragraphs in code. These were usually either personal remarks or wide-ranging reflections on culture and society. A selection of the latter is included here, which provides an extraordinary insight into the spiritual and cultural preoccupations that lie, unspoken, at the root of Wittgenstein's philosophical work. Among other things, what they show is the degree to which Wittgenstein's whole work was animated by a deep dislike of the "scientism" that characterises 20th century intellectual life.
7. Edmund Husserl, The crisis of European sciences and transcendental phenomenology
This is Husserl's last work, left unfinished at the time of his death in 1938 and written when he was in exile from Germany, having lost his academic position because of his Jewishness. It represents a deep and moving attempt to respond to the crisis facing the intellectual world in the 1930s as a result of the rise of barbarism. Husserl connects this barbarism to what he regards as a pervasive misunderstanding of human reason, a misunderstanding he tries to correct through his notion of the Lebenswelt ("lifeworld"). The sciences, he insists, can be given meaning only if they are founded on phenomenology. Whether he is right or not, it is impossible not to regard this as a deeply serious attempt to deal with an issue of monumental importance.
8. P. F. Strawson, The bounds of sense
Peter Strawson is one of the very few 20th century British philosophers capable of writing elegant prose, and The bounds of sense is quite beautifully written. What it presents is an engagement with The critique of pure reason, determined to strip from Kant's seminal work its obscurity and its flirtation with a priori psychology. I have always found its last chapter on geometry particularly provocative, presenting as it does a sophisticated and penetrating argument that provides a partial defence of Kant's views on the subject, views that Russell thought he had demolished half a century earlier.
9. R. G. Collingwood, An autobiography
There are surprisingly few good autobiographies by philosophers. They tend to be disappointingly superficial and to give little sense of what it is like to be in the thrall of philosophical perplexity. Russell's My philosophical development is an exception to this, and so too is Collingwood's marvellous work, which, though militantly "internal" and intellectual (one gains almost no sense from it of what Collingwood's personal life was like), conveys vividly the forces which drove Collingwood's philosophical thinking. Collingwood's contributions to philosophy have been disgracefully under-valued, but this should not put anybody off reading this gem of a book.
10. Iris Murdoch, Metaphysics as a guide to morals
Based on a series of lectures, this provides a sweeping overview of the philosophical concerns that guided Murdoch's life and work. The Platonism she espouses is unfashionable, and with good reason, but what makes this such a compelling book is the sense it gives of the attractions of Platonism for someone with refined literary and artistic sensibilities. The arguments in this book may lack rigour, but what commands respect and attention is the way Murdoch conveys the sense, felt by many, that there has to be a metaphysical basis for our ethical judgments, otherwise we are forced to navigate our way through life without a rudder.
------
The third list of top ten books on philosophy, and not a lot of overlap between them. See also John Marenbon and Mary Warnock's lists (no's 24 and 64 above).
Guardian, 2001-11-01.
Ray Monk is professor of philosophy at the University of Southampton and is the author of Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, and Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude. His most recent book, Bertrand Russell: The Ghost of Madness 1921-1970, focuses on Russell's relationship with his son, John. "The following list is unashamedly 'unbalanced'. Of the 10 books listed, four are by a single philosopher: Ludwig Wittgenstein. I make no apologies for this. In my view, Wittgenstein towers above all other 20th century philosophers to such an extent that it is surprising to find any books not written by him included in such a list."
1. Bertrand Russell, The principles of mathematics
This is the nearest Russell came to writing a magnum opus. In its original conception it was to have been the book that established the truth of "logicism", the view that mathematics is nothing more nor less than a branch of logic. Unfortunately, this aim was scuppered by Russell's discovery, late in the book's development, of a paradox that threatened his whole system of logic. The book contains a tentative solution to this paradox, but, more than that, it established the lines of thinking that would dominate the philosophy of mathematics throughout the 20th century.
2. Bertrand Russell, Logic and knowledge
If one wants to know why Russell is regarded as a great philosopher, one should read this collection of his early essays. In particular, his 1905 paper, 'On Denoting', is arguably his greatest contribution to philosophy. It is in that paper that Russell expounds his famous Theory of Descriptions, a theory that has had a decisive influence on the style and content of the entire analytical tradition. In 'On Denoting', Russell set subsequent philosophers a great challenge: the challenge of seeing through the grammatical structures of everyday language in order to identify the logical structures that lie beneath them. In one way or another, most subsequent analytical philosophy can be seen as an attempt to rise to this challenge.
3. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus
This is the only book Wittgenstein published in his lifetime, and is universally acknowledged to be a masterpiece. Though it has now received 80 years of commentary, there is still no settled view as to what, exactly, Wittgenstein meant by the numbered oracular pronouncements of which the book is composed. It has been read as a logical positivist tract, a work of religious mysticism and an exercise in Kierkegaardian irony. Wittgenstein himself insisted that its central point was to distinguish that which can be said in language and that which has to be "shown". Perhaps because of its opaqueness, it is a book that grows in fascination the more often one reads it.
4. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical investigations
This is, in my view, the greatest philosophical book ever written. Compared to Tractatus logico-philosophicus, it is easy to read, but its true meaning is no less difficult to assimilate. At its heart is an assault upon the tendency, pervasive in almost all philosophical thinking, to "look for a substance whenever one sees a substantive". Thus, we ask: "what is the mind?" "what is consciousness?" and so on, without realising that our puzzlement will not be dispelled by finding something that is the mind, consciousness, etc. This is because the source of that puzzlement does not lie in the absence of such "substances", but rather in the assumption that there must be such things in order for the words we use to have any meaning. Wittgenstein's assault on this assumption is rich and many-faceted and has wide-reaching implications for all philosophical thinking.
5. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on the foundations of mathematics
Philosophical investigations was left unfinished at the time of Wittgenstein's death. His original intention was to include in it his investigations into mathematical concepts, which, he thought, mirrored the investigations into psychological concepts that now form the bulk of the book. Remarks on the Foundations of mathematics brings together the manuscript volumes from which Wittgenstein would have drawn the remarks on mathematics he had wished to include in his magnum opus. Mathematicians and logicians have been shocked by the radical tendency of Wittgenstein's remarks on mathematics, and philosophers, for the most part, have ignored them. But they seem to me to be essential reading for anyone interested in understanding Wittgenstein's approach to philosophy.
6. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and value
In his philosophical manuscripts Wittgenstein would often write paragraphs in code. These were usually either personal remarks or wide-ranging reflections on culture and society. A selection of the latter is included here, which provides an extraordinary insight into the spiritual and cultural preoccupations that lie, unspoken, at the root of Wittgenstein's philosophical work. Among other things, what they show is the degree to which Wittgenstein's whole work was animated by a deep dislike of the "scientism" that characterises 20th century intellectual life.
7. Edmund Husserl, The crisis of European sciences and transcendental phenomenology
This is Husserl's last work, left unfinished at the time of his death in 1938 and written when he was in exile from Germany, having lost his academic position because of his Jewishness. It represents a deep and moving attempt to respond to the crisis facing the intellectual world in the 1930s as a result of the rise of barbarism. Husserl connects this barbarism to what he regards as a pervasive misunderstanding of human reason, a misunderstanding he tries to correct through his notion of the Lebenswelt ("lifeworld"). The sciences, he insists, can be given meaning only if they are founded on phenomenology. Whether he is right or not, it is impossible not to regard this as a deeply serious attempt to deal with an issue of monumental importance.
8. P. F. Strawson, The bounds of sense
Peter Strawson is one of the very few 20th century British philosophers capable of writing elegant prose, and The bounds of sense is quite beautifully written. What it presents is an engagement with The critique of pure reason, determined to strip from Kant's seminal work its obscurity and its flirtation with a priori psychology. I have always found its last chapter on geometry particularly provocative, presenting as it does a sophisticated and penetrating argument that provides a partial defence of Kant's views on the subject, views that Russell thought he had demolished half a century earlier.
9. R. G. Collingwood, An autobiography
There are surprisingly few good autobiographies by philosophers. They tend to be disappointingly superficial and to give little sense of what it is like to be in the thrall of philosophical perplexity. Russell's My philosophical development is an exception to this, and so too is Collingwood's marvellous work, which, though militantly "internal" and intellectual (one gains almost no sense from it of what Collingwood's personal life was like), conveys vividly the forces which drove Collingwood's philosophical thinking. Collingwood's contributions to philosophy have been disgracefully under-valued, but this should not put anybody off reading this gem of a book.
10. Iris Murdoch, Metaphysics as a guide to morals
Based on a series of lectures, this provides a sweeping overview of the philosophical concerns that guided Murdoch's life and work. The Platonism she espouses is unfashionable, and with good reason, but what makes this such a compelling book is the sense it gives of the attractions of Platonism for someone with refined literary and artistic sensibilities. The arguments in this book may lack rigour, but what commands respect and attention is the way Murdoch conveys the sense, felt by many, that there has to be a metaphysical basis for our ethical judgments, otherwise we are forced to navigate our way through life without a rudder.
------
The third list of top ten books on philosophy, and not a lot of overlap between them. See also John Marenbon and Mary Warnock's lists (no's 24 and 64 above).
95Cynfelyn
Kathy Lette's top 10 books to read when you hit 40
Guardian, 2001-11-15.
Kathy Lette's latest novel is Nip 'n' Tuck, a 'shopping and tucking' tale of hitting 40 and suddenly having to deal with ageing, silicone and Husband Uncertainty Syndrome. "My mother always told me that beauty comes from within. Yeah, right - from within a jar marked 'Estee Lauder'. While it may seem that beauty is one of the most lovely and natural things money can buy, resist! The truth is, a woman is much more beautiful if she reads a book now and then."
1. Oscar Wilde, The picture of Dorian Gray
There's an incurable disease afflicting females - ageing. Men, on the other hand, never pass their amuse-by dates. Sean Connery is still cutting the sex god mustard and, if time flies, then HE has frequent air miles. Yet, you never hear a man described as mutton dressed as ram, now do you? This is a book about a bloke who realises that the night is young, but he is not...
2. Vatsysyana, The Kama Sutra
Because a woman reaches her sexual prime at 40.
3. Ernest Hemingway, The old man and the sea
Which suggests that recreational fishing in advanced age can be quite exciting.
4. 'Ithaca' in Cavafy, Collected poems
Go on, pluck your highbrows! It's a good look on a girl.
5. J. D. Salinger, The catcher in the rye
To remind yourself how truly bloody awful it is being a teenager.
6. John Mortimer, The summer of a dormouse
Proving that every cloud has a silver-haired lining. And that the best part of us is grey - the grey matter between our ears. It's the only truly unique part of our bodies.
7. Geoffrey Robertson, Crimes against humanity
Because despots' atrocities do tend to put a fear of wrinkles into perspective. It's good to remember that growing old is quite okay, when you consider the alternative.
8. Henrik Ibsen, Hedda Gabler
Who kills herself, rather than enjoy another day with her adoring, dim-witted husband. Life in the suburbs can be tough on some women, although on the whole it's wise to avoid the Sylvia Plath/Hedda Gabler approach to life. Nothing really disturbs kids as much as coming home to a note on the table that reads "Your mother's in the oven."
9. Simone de Beauvoir, A transatlantic love affair: letters to Nelson Algren
Though time is a great healer, it sure ain't no beauty therapist. But a toy boy, it seems, is much more rejuvenating than a face cream.
10. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One hundred years of solitude
Which shows that age is a state of mind over matter - if you don't mind, it don't matter.
Oh, and...
... almost anything by Alan Bennett, who seems to have been a woman of late middle years since he was 20.
Guardian, 2001-11-15.
Kathy Lette's latest novel is Nip 'n' Tuck, a 'shopping and tucking' tale of hitting 40 and suddenly having to deal with ageing, silicone and Husband Uncertainty Syndrome. "My mother always told me that beauty comes from within. Yeah, right - from within a jar marked 'Estee Lauder'. While it may seem that beauty is one of the most lovely and natural things money can buy, resist! The truth is, a woman is much more beautiful if she reads a book now and then."
1. Oscar Wilde, The picture of Dorian Gray
There's an incurable disease afflicting females - ageing. Men, on the other hand, never pass their amuse-by dates. Sean Connery is still cutting the sex god mustard and, if time flies, then HE has frequent air miles. Yet, you never hear a man described as mutton dressed as ram, now do you? This is a book about a bloke who realises that the night is young, but he is not...
2. Vatsysyana, The Kama Sutra
Because a woman reaches her sexual prime at 40.
3. Ernest Hemingway, The old man and the sea
Which suggests that recreational fishing in advanced age can be quite exciting.
4. 'Ithaca' in Cavafy, Collected poems
Go on, pluck your highbrows! It's a good look on a girl.
5. J. D. Salinger, The catcher in the rye
To remind yourself how truly bloody awful it is being a teenager.
6. John Mortimer, The summer of a dormouse
Proving that every cloud has a silver-haired lining. And that the best part of us is grey - the grey matter between our ears. It's the only truly unique part of our bodies.
7. Geoffrey Robertson, Crimes against humanity
Because despots' atrocities do tend to put a fear of wrinkles into perspective. It's good to remember that growing old is quite okay, when you consider the alternative.
8. Henrik Ibsen, Hedda Gabler
Who kills herself, rather than enjoy another day with her adoring, dim-witted husband. Life in the suburbs can be tough on some women, although on the whole it's wise to avoid the Sylvia Plath/Hedda Gabler approach to life. Nothing really disturbs kids as much as coming home to a note on the table that reads "Your mother's in the oven."
9. Simone de Beauvoir, A transatlantic love affair: letters to Nelson Algren
Though time is a great healer, it sure ain't no beauty therapist. But a toy boy, it seems, is much more rejuvenating than a face cream.
10. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One hundred years of solitude
Which shows that age is a state of mind over matter - if you don't mind, it don't matter.
Oh, and...
... almost anything by Alan Bennett, who seems to have been a woman of late middle years since he was 20.
96Cynfelyn
Tom Shippey's top 10 books on JRR Tolkien
Guardian, 2001-11-29.
Tom Shippey is the author of JRR Tolkien: Author of the Century, a companion to Tolkien's work and a spirited defence of fantasy writing, which puts Tolkien in the context of the legendary storytelling tradition. Tolkien's fame rests on The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. When these books first appeared, they were completely without precedent, but have created a whole literary genre of imitations: the heroic fantasy trilogy, set in the world of fairy tale. Since his death in 1973, much of Tolkien's previously unpublished writing has reached print, while his works have been variously explained, expanded, and set in context.
1. Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Silmarillion (Grafton Books, £6.99)
Tolkien's elvish mythology, which he had been working on for most of his life but never finished, was eventually edited by his son and published in 1977. It tells the story of the First and Second Ages, the coming of the elves, their wars with Morgoth and his lieutenant, Sauron, and gives a summary account of events up to the end of the Third Age and the War of the Ring. Written without concessions to novelistic convention, it is a demanding and challenging work: not at all a children's book.
2. The Annotated Hobbit with notes by Douglas R. Anderson
The Hobbit has undergone several changes since its first publication in 1937. In particular, once The Lord of the Rings had been written, the account of Bilbo's riddle match with Gollum, and his winning of the Ring, had to be revised to make them consistent with Tolkien's later conceptions. Douglas Anderson notes the changes, gives sources for the riddles, comments on names and parallels throughout the story, and enlivens the text with illustrations from the many editions and translations of The Hobbit. A new edition is to appear shortly.
3. Humphrey Carpenter, JRR Tolkien: A Biography (HarperCollins, £6.99)
This official and family-authorised biography appeared in 1977, before most of the posthumously published works had appeared, but it has worn very well. It tells the story of Tolkien's sad and traumatic youth, as well as his relatively uneventful academic career, with good sections on his relationship with CS Lewis and with his publishers. The bibliography is now incomplete, but accurate as far as it goes.
4. Pictures by JRR Tolkien
Tolkien did a number of illustrations for the first edition of The Hobbit, and drew and painted many scenes from The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. These were issued as a series of calendars from 1973 to 1979; here they are collected and expanded, with a foreword and notes by his son. The pictures give an idea of Tolkien's own visualisation of his stories, with paintings of Lothlórien, Moria Gate and many more.
5. The Road Goes Ever On: A Song-Cycle
Tolkien's works contain many songs by elves, hobbits and humans. With Tolkien's encouragement and assistance, Donald Swann set a number of them to music, including Bilbo's "The Road Goes Ever On", Treebeard's "In the Willow-meads of Tasarinen", and Sam Gamgee's "In Western Lands Beneath the Sun". They are printed here with Tolkien's comments and transcriptions in elvish script, and his own beautiful calligraphy.
6. Jim Allan et al., An Introduction to Elvish (Bran's Head Books, £10)
One of the unprecedented features of The Lord of the Rings was its repeated use of Tolkien's invented languages, especially the elvish languages Quenya and Sindarin, quoted sometimes without translation. In 1977 Jim Allan collated what could be deduced about these from the material published so far, with grammars and dictionaries of both languages. Though much has come out since 1977, Allan's remains the best starting guide for ambitious Middle-earth linguists.
7. JRR Tolkien, The Book of Lost Tales (2 volumes) (Grafton Books, £8.99)
These are the first two of the 12-volume History of Middle-earth, edited from 1983 to 1996 by Christopher Tolkien. They contain early drafts of what would become The Silmarillion, written during Tolkien's war service and in the immediate postwar years. It is surprising how faithful he remained to these early conceptions, which underlie much of the work he published almost 40 years later.
8. JRR Tolkien (ed. Christopher Tolkien), The Lost Road (HarperCollins, £9.99)
Some time in the 1930s, CS Lewis and Tolkien agreed to write stories on, respectively, space- and time-travel. Lewis's attempt became the trilogy which begins with Out of the Silent Planet, while Tolkien's remained unfinished. His first draft appears in this, volume 5 of The History of Middle-earth. It tries to relate Old English myth to Tolkien's personal vision of the Fall of Numenor, and his own myth of "the lost straight road", which led once upon a time to Valinor, or the Earthly Paradise. A later attempt on the same theme, "The Notion Club Papers", can be found in volume 9, Sauron Defeated.
9. Verlyn Flieger and Carl F Hostetter (eds), Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth (Greenwood Press, £43.95)
Dedicated to Christopher Tolkien, this work brings together some 15 essays on Tolkien's mythology, written with the benefit of nearly 30 years of posthumous publication. This is the most complete guide yet to Tolkien's life work, and concentrates on books other than The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Especially valuable are Charles Noad's essay on the development of The Silmarillion, David Bratman on The History of Middle-earth, and John Rateliff on "The Lost Road" and "The Notion Club Papers".
10. Karen Haber (ed.), Meditations on Middle-earth (St Martins Press, £19.64)
No author of fantasy nowadays can escape a debt to Tolkien. In this collection of essays, many of the most prominent contemporary authors of fantasy, including Terry Pratchett, George Martin, Ursula Le Guin, Orson Scott Card and Harry Turtledove explain what Tolkien has meant to them, both professionally and personally.
Guardian, 2001-11-29.
Tom Shippey is the author of JRR Tolkien: Author of the Century, a companion to Tolkien's work and a spirited defence of fantasy writing, which puts Tolkien in the context of the legendary storytelling tradition. Tolkien's fame rests on The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. When these books first appeared, they were completely without precedent, but have created a whole literary genre of imitations: the heroic fantasy trilogy, set in the world of fairy tale. Since his death in 1973, much of Tolkien's previously unpublished writing has reached print, while his works have been variously explained, expanded, and set in context.
1. Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Silmarillion (Grafton Books, £6.99)
Tolkien's elvish mythology, which he had been working on for most of his life but never finished, was eventually edited by his son and published in 1977. It tells the story of the First and Second Ages, the coming of the elves, their wars with Morgoth and his lieutenant, Sauron, and gives a summary account of events up to the end of the Third Age and the War of the Ring. Written without concessions to novelistic convention, it is a demanding and challenging work: not at all a children's book.
2. The Annotated Hobbit with notes by Douglas R. Anderson
The Hobbit has undergone several changes since its first publication in 1937. In particular, once The Lord of the Rings had been written, the account of Bilbo's riddle match with Gollum, and his winning of the Ring, had to be revised to make them consistent with Tolkien's later conceptions. Douglas Anderson notes the changes, gives sources for the riddles, comments on names and parallels throughout the story, and enlivens the text with illustrations from the many editions and translations of The Hobbit. A new edition is to appear shortly.
3. Humphrey Carpenter, JRR Tolkien: A Biography (HarperCollins, £6.99)
This official and family-authorised biography appeared in 1977, before most of the posthumously published works had appeared, but it has worn very well. It tells the story of Tolkien's sad and traumatic youth, as well as his relatively uneventful academic career, with good sections on his relationship with CS Lewis and with his publishers. The bibliography is now incomplete, but accurate as far as it goes.
4. Pictures by JRR Tolkien
Tolkien did a number of illustrations for the first edition of The Hobbit, and drew and painted many scenes from The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. These were issued as a series of calendars from 1973 to 1979; here they are collected and expanded, with a foreword and notes by his son. The pictures give an idea of Tolkien's own visualisation of his stories, with paintings of Lothlórien, Moria Gate and many more.
5. The Road Goes Ever On: A Song-Cycle
Tolkien's works contain many songs by elves, hobbits and humans. With Tolkien's encouragement and assistance, Donald Swann set a number of them to music, including Bilbo's "The Road Goes Ever On", Treebeard's "In the Willow-meads of Tasarinen", and Sam Gamgee's "In Western Lands Beneath the Sun". They are printed here with Tolkien's comments and transcriptions in elvish script, and his own beautiful calligraphy.
6. Jim Allan et al., An Introduction to Elvish (Bran's Head Books, £10)
One of the unprecedented features of The Lord of the Rings was its repeated use of Tolkien's invented languages, especially the elvish languages Quenya and Sindarin, quoted sometimes without translation. In 1977 Jim Allan collated what could be deduced about these from the material published so far, with grammars and dictionaries of both languages. Though much has come out since 1977, Allan's remains the best starting guide for ambitious Middle-earth linguists.
7. JRR Tolkien, The Book of Lost Tales (2 volumes) (Grafton Books, £8.99)
These are the first two of the 12-volume History of Middle-earth, edited from 1983 to 1996 by Christopher Tolkien. They contain early drafts of what would become The Silmarillion, written during Tolkien's war service and in the immediate postwar years. It is surprising how faithful he remained to these early conceptions, which underlie much of the work he published almost 40 years later.
8. JRR Tolkien (ed. Christopher Tolkien), The Lost Road (HarperCollins, £9.99)
Some time in the 1930s, CS Lewis and Tolkien agreed to write stories on, respectively, space- and time-travel. Lewis's attempt became the trilogy which begins with Out of the Silent Planet, while Tolkien's remained unfinished. His first draft appears in this, volume 5 of The History of Middle-earth. It tries to relate Old English myth to Tolkien's personal vision of the Fall of Numenor, and his own myth of "the lost straight road", which led once upon a time to Valinor, or the Earthly Paradise. A later attempt on the same theme, "The Notion Club Papers", can be found in volume 9, Sauron Defeated.
9. Verlyn Flieger and Carl F Hostetter (eds), Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth (Greenwood Press, £43.95)
Dedicated to Christopher Tolkien, this work brings together some 15 essays on Tolkien's mythology, written with the benefit of nearly 30 years of posthumous publication. This is the most complete guide yet to Tolkien's life work, and concentrates on books other than The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Especially valuable are Charles Noad's essay on the development of The Silmarillion, David Bratman on The History of Middle-earth, and John Rateliff on "The Lost Road" and "The Notion Club Papers".
10. Karen Haber (ed.), Meditations on Middle-earth (St Martins Press, £19.64)
No author of fantasy nowadays can escape a debt to Tolkien. In this collection of essays, many of the most prominent contemporary authors of fantasy, including Terry Pratchett, George Martin, Ursula Le Guin, Orson Scott Card and Harry Turtledove explain what Tolkien has meant to them, both professionally and personally.
97Cynfelyn
Terence Blacker's top 10 tales of literary villainy
Guardian, 2001-12-13.
Kill your darlings is a sly swipe at literary jealousy and celebrity. After a brilliant first novel, the author-narrator is mired in writer's block, hack work and jealousy of a certain successful author named Martin. Then a talented but suicidal student presents him with a ready-made masterpiece... Here Terence Blacker takes a tour of some of literature's other scoundrels.
1. George Gissing, New Grub Street
The exploited novelist, the embittered critic, the ruthless hack, the grasping publisher - they are all here in this magnificently hard-eyed view of literary life, proving that remarkably little has changed in the world of books over the past century.
2. George Eliot, Middlemarch
Few characters have so effectively embodied the desiccating effect of an obsession with writing and scholarship as Mr Casaubon, author of the unending and never-to-be-completed masterwork The key to all the mysteries. If one put a drop of Casaubon's blood under a microscope, says one character in Middlemarch, it would be all semi-colons and parentheses. It's a warning to writing obsessives everywhere.
3. Nicholson Baker, U & I: a true story
All right, it's not exactly a novel, but Baker's cringing love-hate relationship with his hero John Updike, towards whom he shows the authentic rage of the true fan (see also Misery), is really so weird and true that it should count as fiction.
4. John Updike, Bech at bay
The Bech books, featuring an author who is older yet less prolific than his creator (Bech has written a mere seven books), are not vintage Updike, but include some great moments. Here, even though he wins the Nobel Prize for Literature, Bech is still eaten up with dissatisfaction and corroded with envy of his critics and rivals. So he starts to kill them.
5. Paul Theroux, Sir Vidia's shadow
The dyspeptic, bilious author figure is something of a Theroux speciality, perhaps best expressed by his savagely playful spoof on autobiography, My other life; but no other book reveals the joys and jealousies of professional authorship as well as this wounded, angry portrait of his former friend and mentor, V. S. Naipaul.
6. William Donaldson, Is this allowed?
Writers are users - we all know that - but the narrator of this astonishingly funny and massively underrated novel uses more than most. A tale of sexual manipulation, narcotic indulgence and lethal game-playing, all for the sake of a story, it is enough to put you off writers for life.
7. Martin Amis, The information
Either Mart is less cool and more competitive than he appears, or this novel was a significant feat of the imagination. Richard Tull is the author of novels so impenetrable that readers keel over with migraines after the first few pages; his best friend Gwyn Barry is rich, celebrated and lauded by the critics. It's going to get nasty.
8. Stephen King, Misery
King specialises in taking writerly angst to new and extreme lengths, most notably in The Shining, but in Misery he lets the literary fan off the leash, revealing the dark side of those innocent-seeming types who turn up for book-signing sessions.
9. Susanna Moore, In the cut
This dark, erotic and extremely odd thriller is narrated by a creative-writing teacher who one night goes to a bar with one of her students to discuss irony - and witnesses a murder. Full of sly, not unaffectionate digs at teaching and language.
10. Frederick Exley, A fan's notes
In his introduction, the author concedes that, while it is billed as fiction, many of the events in the book "bear similarity to those of that long malaise, my life". Virtually every addiction and bad habit available to modern man is here, but through it all he keeps working; the writer as bad citizen personified.
Guardian, 2001-12-13.
Kill your darlings is a sly swipe at literary jealousy and celebrity. After a brilliant first novel, the author-narrator is mired in writer's block, hack work and jealousy of a certain successful author named Martin. Then a talented but suicidal student presents him with a ready-made masterpiece... Here Terence Blacker takes a tour of some of literature's other scoundrels.
1. George Gissing, New Grub Street
The exploited novelist, the embittered critic, the ruthless hack, the grasping publisher - they are all here in this magnificently hard-eyed view of literary life, proving that remarkably little has changed in the world of books over the past century.
2. George Eliot, Middlemarch
Few characters have so effectively embodied the desiccating effect of an obsession with writing and scholarship as Mr Casaubon, author of the unending and never-to-be-completed masterwork The key to all the mysteries. If one put a drop of Casaubon's blood under a microscope, says one character in Middlemarch, it would be all semi-colons and parentheses. It's a warning to writing obsessives everywhere.
3. Nicholson Baker, U & I: a true story
All right, it's not exactly a novel, but Baker's cringing love-hate relationship with his hero John Updike, towards whom he shows the authentic rage of the true fan (see also Misery), is really so weird and true that it should count as fiction.
4. John Updike, Bech at bay
The Bech books, featuring an author who is older yet less prolific than his creator (Bech has written a mere seven books), are not vintage Updike, but include some great moments. Here, even though he wins the Nobel Prize for Literature, Bech is still eaten up with dissatisfaction and corroded with envy of his critics and rivals. So he starts to kill them.
5. Paul Theroux, Sir Vidia's shadow
The dyspeptic, bilious author figure is something of a Theroux speciality, perhaps best expressed by his savagely playful spoof on autobiography, My other life; but no other book reveals the joys and jealousies of professional authorship as well as this wounded, angry portrait of his former friend and mentor, V. S. Naipaul.
6. William Donaldson, Is this allowed?
Writers are users - we all know that - but the narrator of this astonishingly funny and massively underrated novel uses more than most. A tale of sexual manipulation, narcotic indulgence and lethal game-playing, all for the sake of a story, it is enough to put you off writers for life.
7. Martin Amis, The information
Either Mart is less cool and more competitive than he appears, or this novel was a significant feat of the imagination. Richard Tull is the author of novels so impenetrable that readers keel over with migraines after the first few pages; his best friend Gwyn Barry is rich, celebrated and lauded by the critics. It's going to get nasty.
8. Stephen King, Misery
King specialises in taking writerly angst to new and extreme lengths, most notably in The Shining, but in Misery he lets the literary fan off the leash, revealing the dark side of those innocent-seeming types who turn up for book-signing sessions.
9. Susanna Moore, In the cut
This dark, erotic and extremely odd thriller is narrated by a creative-writing teacher who one night goes to a bar with one of her students to discuss irony - and witnesses a murder. Full of sly, not unaffectionate digs at teaching and language.
10. Frederick Exley, A fan's notes
In his introduction, the author concedes that, while it is billed as fiction, many of the events in the book "bear similarity to those of that long malaise, my life". Virtually every addiction and bad habit available to modern man is here, but through it all he keeps working; the writer as bad citizen personified.
98Cynfelyn
Simon Napier-Bell's top 10 books on music
Guardian, 2001-12-28.
During a career in the music business spanning over 30 years, Simon Napier-Bell discovered Marc Bolan and managed 80s groups Japan and Wham! Black Vinyl White Powder is his insider's account of the music business. His first book, You don't have to say you love me, is a history of 60s pop. "Just 10 out of the many hundreds of good ones - it's so difficult. With music books, many of them are three or four hundred pages long yet come with a few gems, perhaps just a paragraph long, which turn the whole book into essential reading. In the course of writing Black Vinyl White Powder I read, or reread, several hundred books. The ones I've picked here are simply those which provide an unforgettable read."
1. Joe Carducci, Rock and the pop narcotic
Joe Carducci loves rock and disapproves of pop, dance, soul and almost every other type of popular music. I disagree with nearly everything he writes, yet he's the most convincingly brilliant propagandist of his own views I've ever read.
2. Jon Savage, England's dreaming: the Sex Pistols and punk rock
Like Simon Frith, Jon usually writes in a style that's too intellectual to be easily understood and therefore requires too much effort for a lazy reader like me. In this book he totally changes his style and writes brilliantly and succinctly.
3. Danny Sugerman, Wonderland Avenue
This is an autobiography of Jim Morrison's protege and one-time manager of The Doors and Iggy Pop. It provides an account of a period in American music that simply cannot be better learnt about or assimilated from any other book.
4. Albert Goldman, Freakshow: misadventures in the counterculture, 1959-1971
Albert Goldman is the king of music writing - provocative, outrageous, indecently politically incorrect. He writes like a Who finale, like Iggy Pop shooting up onstage.
5. Harry Shapiro, Waiting for the man: the story of drugs and popular music
If Harry had only called his own book Black Vinyl White Powder, I'd have been out of a title. This is the REAL book on the subject.
6. Barry Miles, Paul McCartney: many years from now
Probably the most important period in the history of pop, through the eyes of one of its most important musicians, perfectly captured.
7. Mathew Collin & John Gregory, Altered state
The late 80s was the period in which the groundwork was laid for the day when leisure drugs will finally be legalised, yet many adults lived through this period without a clue what was going on all around them.
8. Nik Cohn, Ball the wall
Nik Cohn is one of the best ever British feature writers on pop music. This is a compilation of his best.
9. Charles Shaar Murray, Shots from the hip
Charles Murray Shaar is another of the best British writers on pop music, and this is a compilation of HIS best.
10. Nat Shapiro & Nat Hentoff, Hear me talkin' to ya
This is a book compiled from interviews with all the greats of jazz from the 1890s to the late 1950s and it's 'the story of jazz by the men who made it'. It was my bible from the age of 12 until, at the age of 17, I actually went to America and started playing jazz there. It's still the best book ever written about jazz.
Guardian, 2001-12-28.
During a career in the music business spanning over 30 years, Simon Napier-Bell discovered Marc Bolan and managed 80s groups Japan and Wham! Black Vinyl White Powder is his insider's account of the music business. His first book, You don't have to say you love me, is a history of 60s pop. "Just 10 out of the many hundreds of good ones - it's so difficult. With music books, many of them are three or four hundred pages long yet come with a few gems, perhaps just a paragraph long, which turn the whole book into essential reading. In the course of writing Black Vinyl White Powder I read, or reread, several hundred books. The ones I've picked here are simply those which provide an unforgettable read."
1. Joe Carducci, Rock and the pop narcotic
Joe Carducci loves rock and disapproves of pop, dance, soul and almost every other type of popular music. I disagree with nearly everything he writes, yet he's the most convincingly brilliant propagandist of his own views I've ever read.
2. Jon Savage, England's dreaming: the Sex Pistols and punk rock
Like Simon Frith, Jon usually writes in a style that's too intellectual to be easily understood and therefore requires too much effort for a lazy reader like me. In this book he totally changes his style and writes brilliantly and succinctly.
3. Danny Sugerman, Wonderland Avenue
This is an autobiography of Jim Morrison's protege and one-time manager of The Doors and Iggy Pop. It provides an account of a period in American music that simply cannot be better learnt about or assimilated from any other book.
4. Albert Goldman, Freakshow: misadventures in the counterculture, 1959-1971
Albert Goldman is the king of music writing - provocative, outrageous, indecently politically incorrect. He writes like a Who finale, like Iggy Pop shooting up onstage.
5. Harry Shapiro, Waiting for the man: the story of drugs and popular music
If Harry had only called his own book Black Vinyl White Powder, I'd have been out of a title. This is the REAL book on the subject.
6. Barry Miles, Paul McCartney: many years from now
Probably the most important period in the history of pop, through the eyes of one of its most important musicians, perfectly captured.
7. Mathew Collin & John Gregory, Altered state
The late 80s was the period in which the groundwork was laid for the day when leisure drugs will finally be legalised, yet many adults lived through this period without a clue what was going on all around them.
8. Nik Cohn, Ball the wall
Nik Cohn is one of the best ever British feature writers on pop music. This is a compilation of his best.
9. Charles Shaar Murray, Shots from the hip
Charles Murray Shaar is another of the best British writers on pop music, and this is a compilation of HIS best.
10. Nat Shapiro & Nat Hentoff, Hear me talkin' to ya
This is a book compiled from interviews with all the greats of jazz from the 1890s to the late 1950s and it's 'the story of jazz by the men who made it'. It was my bible from the age of 12 until, at the age of 17, I actually went to America and started playing jazz there. It's still the best book ever written about jazz.
99Cynfelyn
Seeing as we're about to cross from 2001 to 2002, I thought that this would be a good moment to start a new thread. Although there are only ninety-something messages here, and many LT threads run to c.200 mssages, there are an awful lot of touchstones, and I don't know how they affect the system's performance.
Anyway, I can't yet, as the "Continue this topic in another topic" button hasn't appeared yet. Let's see what happens when we hit 100.
Anyway, I can't yet, as the "Continue this topic in another topic" button hasn't appeared yet. Let's see what happens when we hit 100.
100AnnieMod
>99 Cynfelyn: It will offer the continuation at 150 or thereabouts.
101Cynfelyn
>100 AnnieMod: Thanks. Hei ho. Onwards and upwards, and aim for a new thread for 2003..
102Cynfelyn
Peter Watson's top 10 20th century non-fiction books
Guardian, 2002-01-17.
Peter Watson is a journalist, academic and author of 13 books. His latest, A terrible beauty, presents a narrative of the 20th century based on its significant thinkers and intellectual movements.
1. Sigmund Freud, The interpretation of dreams (1900)
The book that introduced the idea of a systematic unconscious, created the psychological age and changed the way we think about ourselves.
2. W. E. B. Dubois, The souls of Black folk (1903)
Dubois proved to blacks how badly they were being treated in America and stimulated the first moves towards what would become black power.
3. Franz Boas, The mind of primitive man (1911)
Proving that primitive man was not so primitive after all. The first step on the road to relativism.
4. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus (1922 in English)
The book that helped make logical positivism probably the most influential philosophical movement of the 20th century and, at the same time, accounts for our fascination with the position of language in experience.
5. Virginia Woolf, A room of one's own (1929)
How the female mind can complement the male mind; what literature has lost by the barriers erected against women; how these barriers can be overcome.
6. John Maynard Keynes, The general theory of employment, interest and money (1936)
The classic exposition of 'Keynesianism', which advanced the view that governments can, in certain circumstances, spend their way out of trouble. Shaped the views of two generations of economists, helped finance the second world war, and create the welfare state. Now coming back into fashion after being out in the cold in the 1980s and early 90s.
7. William Beveridge, Social insurance and allied services (1942)
The Beveridge Report is the bestselling government report apart from Lord Denning's account of the Profumo scandal. It created the welfare state and has shaped the delivery of social services for the past 50 years, not just in Britain but in many other countries too.
8. Gunnar Myrdal, An American dilemma (1944)
The book which told Americans, just as they were returning from saving Europe, that at home they were unremittingly racist. Myrdal's report also said America's institutions, especially congress, had let down the blacks and that in future the courts must be used to improve the situation. Thus hove into view the civil rights movement.
9. Simone de Beauvoir, The second sex (1947)
The first of several books that liberated women, in this case by accurately detailing the female predicament and comparing how, in some ways, things were better for women in America than Europe.
10. Clifford Geertz, Local knowledge (1983)
The classic book on relativism and postmodernism, arguing that we should beware of overarching generalisations and theories about human nature; that other cultures, outside western experience, are just as rich in content; and that we in the west should avoid imposing our prejudices and predilections on others.
Guardian, 2002-01-17.
Peter Watson is a journalist, academic and author of 13 books. His latest, A terrible beauty, presents a narrative of the 20th century based on its significant thinkers and intellectual movements.
1. Sigmund Freud, The interpretation of dreams (1900)
The book that introduced the idea of a systematic unconscious, created the psychological age and changed the way we think about ourselves.
2. W. E. B. Dubois, The souls of Black folk (1903)
Dubois proved to blacks how badly they were being treated in America and stimulated the first moves towards what would become black power.
3. Franz Boas, The mind of primitive man (1911)
Proving that primitive man was not so primitive after all. The first step on the road to relativism.
4. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus (1922 in English)
The book that helped make logical positivism probably the most influential philosophical movement of the 20th century and, at the same time, accounts for our fascination with the position of language in experience.
5. Virginia Woolf, A room of one's own (1929)
How the female mind can complement the male mind; what literature has lost by the barriers erected against women; how these barriers can be overcome.
6. John Maynard Keynes, The general theory of employment, interest and money (1936)
The classic exposition of 'Keynesianism', which advanced the view that governments can, in certain circumstances, spend their way out of trouble. Shaped the views of two generations of economists, helped finance the second world war, and create the welfare state. Now coming back into fashion after being out in the cold in the 1980s and early 90s.
7. William Beveridge, Social insurance and allied services (1942)
The Beveridge Report is the bestselling government report apart from Lord Denning's account of the Profumo scandal. It created the welfare state and has shaped the delivery of social services for the past 50 years, not just in Britain but in many other countries too.
8. Gunnar Myrdal, An American dilemma (1944)
The book which told Americans, just as they were returning from saving Europe, that at home they were unremittingly racist. Myrdal's report also said America's institutions, especially congress, had let down the blacks and that in future the courts must be used to improve the situation. Thus hove into view the civil rights movement.
9. Simone de Beauvoir, The second sex (1947)
The first of several books that liberated women, in this case by accurately detailing the female predicament and comparing how, in some ways, things were better for women in America than Europe.
10. Clifford Geertz, Local knowledge (1983)
The classic book on relativism and postmodernism, arguing that we should beware of overarching generalisations and theories about human nature; that other cultures, outside western experience, are just as rich in content; and that we in the west should avoid imposing our prejudices and predilections on others.
103Cynfelyn
John O'Farrell's top 10 funny books
Guardian, 2002-01-19.
John O'Farrell is the author of Things can only get better, a hilarious account of his "18 miserable years as a Labour supporter". His new novel, This is your life, is published on November 4 and his collection of newspaper columns, Global village idiot, is available now in paperback.
1. Joseph Heller, Catch-22
War is mad, apparently. But Heller says it with great wit, a compelling narrative and fantastic characters. When told that he had not written anything as good since, Heller allegedly replied, "No, but neither has anyone else." Good for him.
2. Jonathan Coe, The Rotters Club
A very funny book about being at a boys' school in the 70s set against the political backdrop of the time - all the horrors of the IRA, the National Front and knitted tank tops are in there. The sixth formers having sex with the sports bag could have been me, (except my sports bag would have wanted to wait a bit).
3. Anne Tyler, Breathing lessons
Anne Tyler's characters are simultaneously funny and sad, heroic and pathetic and none more so than Maggie and Ira. A mundane car journey brings out all the infuriating insecurities and well-meaning ineptitude of her wonderful heroine and you end up thinking you've known this family all your life.
4. Keith Waterhouse, Billy Liar
Billy Fisher is an inspiring role model for us all. A feckless wastrel who tells ridiculous unsustainable lies (claiming that relations have just had a leg amputated is a particular favourite) and yet you empathise with him from start to finish. His father's use of the word "bloody" seven times in every sentence never stops being funny.
5. Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim
A wonderfully warm and enjoyable book set in second division academia. Another low achieving first person narrator (or maybe this was the prototype) whose life is constantly knocked off course by the infuriating characters around him. The best thing Kingsley Amis ever produced, after Martin.
6. John Lanchester, The debt to pleasure
Imagine a cross between Niles Crane and Hannibal Lecter and you're only beginning to get close to the inspired central character of this bizarre debut. The prejudices of the psycho-gourmet hero made me laugh out loud; he has an intolerance and grudge for every sphere of life, even preferring the Plantagenets to the vulgar Welsh Tudors.
7. Tom Wolfe, The bonfire of the vanities
A highly entertaining satire of modern America charting the rapid decline of a Wall St dealer who considers himself to be a "Master of the Universe". Funny, compelling and fat enough to make you feel self-righteous and clever for reading such an important-sounding heavy novel.
8. Willy Russell, The wrong boy
A confused Morrissey fan writes letters to his hero and recalls a dismal childhood. I loved the moment when he picks up his guitar to entertain a coach load of shopkeepers. 'Shoplifters of the World Unite' turns out to be the wrong choice.
9. David Nobbs, Going gently
It must be maddening being constantly referred to as "the creator of Reginald Perrin" when you have written so much else. This is a wonderful story that spans the whole of the last century through the eyes of its centenarian heroine. A funny, warm and satisfying novel from the creator of Reginald Perrin.
10. Jeffrey Archer, The innocent convict
There is no fictional version of Lord Archer's sabbatical yet, but no doubt something like this will be published in a few years' time and I'm sure it'll give us more laughs than all the others put together.
------
Jeffrey Archer. Hmm. How do you separate the man (and why is it almost always a man?) and their art? Can you? Should you? Discuss, using examples including Eric Gill and Harvey Weinstein.
The prison book O'Farrell imagined Archer writing, turned into a trilogy, the Prison Diaries. Whether they are a memoir, as Archer claims, or fictional, as O'Farrell assumes they will be, I'll leave for others. Unreliable narrator.
Guardian, 2002-01-19.
John O'Farrell is the author of Things can only get better, a hilarious account of his "18 miserable years as a Labour supporter". His new novel, This is your life, is published on November 4 and his collection of newspaper columns, Global village idiot, is available now in paperback.
1. Joseph Heller, Catch-22
War is mad, apparently. But Heller says it with great wit, a compelling narrative and fantastic characters. When told that he had not written anything as good since, Heller allegedly replied, "No, but neither has anyone else." Good for him.
2. Jonathan Coe, The Rotters Club
A very funny book about being at a boys' school in the 70s set against the political backdrop of the time - all the horrors of the IRA, the National Front and knitted tank tops are in there. The sixth formers having sex with the sports bag could have been me, (except my sports bag would have wanted to wait a bit).
3. Anne Tyler, Breathing lessons
Anne Tyler's characters are simultaneously funny and sad, heroic and pathetic and none more so than Maggie and Ira. A mundane car journey brings out all the infuriating insecurities and well-meaning ineptitude of her wonderful heroine and you end up thinking you've known this family all your life.
4. Keith Waterhouse, Billy Liar
Billy Fisher is an inspiring role model for us all. A feckless wastrel who tells ridiculous unsustainable lies (claiming that relations have just had a leg amputated is a particular favourite) and yet you empathise with him from start to finish. His father's use of the word "bloody" seven times in every sentence never stops being funny.
5. Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim
A wonderfully warm and enjoyable book set in second division academia. Another low achieving first person narrator (or maybe this was the prototype) whose life is constantly knocked off course by the infuriating characters around him. The best thing Kingsley Amis ever produced, after Martin.
6. John Lanchester, The debt to pleasure
Imagine a cross between Niles Crane and Hannibal Lecter and you're only beginning to get close to the inspired central character of this bizarre debut. The prejudices of the psycho-gourmet hero made me laugh out loud; he has an intolerance and grudge for every sphere of life, even preferring the Plantagenets to the vulgar Welsh Tudors.
7. Tom Wolfe, The bonfire of the vanities
A highly entertaining satire of modern America charting the rapid decline of a Wall St dealer who considers himself to be a "Master of the Universe". Funny, compelling and fat enough to make you feel self-righteous and clever for reading such an important-sounding heavy novel.
8. Willy Russell, The wrong boy
A confused Morrissey fan writes letters to his hero and recalls a dismal childhood. I loved the moment when he picks up his guitar to entertain a coach load of shopkeepers. 'Shoplifters of the World Unite' turns out to be the wrong choice.
9. David Nobbs, Going gently
It must be maddening being constantly referred to as "the creator of Reginald Perrin" when you have written so much else. This is a wonderful story that spans the whole of the last century through the eyes of its centenarian heroine. A funny, warm and satisfying novel from the creator of Reginald Perrin.
10. Jeffrey Archer, The innocent convict
There is no fictional version of Lord Archer's sabbatical yet, but no doubt something like this will be published in a few years' time and I'm sure it'll give us more laughs than all the others put together.
------
Jeffrey Archer. Hmm. How do you separate the man (and why is it almost always a man?) and their art? Can you? Should you? Discuss, using examples including Eric Gill and Harvey Weinstein.
The prison book O'Farrell imagined Archer writing, turned into a trilogy, the Prison Diaries. Whether they are a memoir, as Archer claims, or fictional, as O'Farrell assumes they will be, I'll leave for others. Unreliable narrator.
104Cynfelyn
John Armstrong's top 10 books on love
Guardian, 2002-02-05.
John Armstrong is the author of The conditions of love, a book which aims to raise one of the deepest and most puzzling questions we can put to ourselves: "What is love?"
1. Plato, The symposium
Discussion of same-sex love at an Athenian drinking party; perhaps the most entertaining work of philosophy ever written (although the competition has not been terribly intense). The first really systematic and serious attempt to say what love is, weighing up the relative merits of different points of view. Two big claims. One: love is based in weakness - we love because there is something missing in us, because we are incapable of being happy on our own. Two: love is the most important experience in life - we love what is good in the beloved, and through this learn to love goodness itself.
2. St Paul, First letter to the Corinthians
Mixed in with bizarre pronouncements (many of them about women's hair) are some of the most profound and influential assertions about the nature of love. Love is essentially linked to kindness, forgiveness and modesty. Not a very romantic message.
3. Shakespeare, The sonnets
Often quite confusing, but Shakespeare's Sonnets include some of the most touching expressions of love. Filled with lovely, melancholy reflections.
4. Goethe, Roman elegies
Guilt-free holiday romance; intelligent erotic poetry.
5. Goethe, Elective affinities
Probably the first analysis of sexual chemistry. We don't have rational control over who we love. Tells the tragic story of the perfect couple whose idyllic life is destroyed when each falls in love with someone else.
6. Stendhal, Love
Obsessive, but insightful, study of the process of falling in love. Wonderful mixture of self-pity, philosophy and anecdote. Stendhal's 'tone' is a high point of civilisation - witty, cultivated, confessional.
7. Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
The most intelligent and perceptive romantic novel ever written. Contains amazingly lucid evocations of every stage of love. Superlative narrative treatment which holds everything together with complete naturalness.
8. Leo Tolstoy, Family happiness
Brilliant study of the revival of love in a marriage grown stale over many years.
9. Erich Fromm, The art of loving
Love as the antidote to loneliness - but only if we get past our own romantic egotism and concentrate on caring for the other person. Wise and mildly depressing. Modern life feeds our selfish demands and therefore makes love harder to achieve, but all the more necessary.
10. Alain de Botton, Essays in love
Charming analyses of the various phases of a relationship (from first sight to separation). The intellectual insights are so well digested and pleasantly expressed that one may fail to see just how serious they are. De Botton is currently the finest English prose stylist.
------
2.
"Others" includes loads of touchstones to commentaries, handbooks and leaders' guides to Paul's First letter to the Corinthians but nothing by Paul himself. You would almost think we couldn't be trusted to read it and interpret it for ourselves without intermediaries. And there was me thinking that was a good part of what the Protestant reformation was all about. Silly me. Whatever, this was the touchstone LT's algorithm chose. Otherwise, try St Paul for the old misogynist himself.
Guardian, 2002-02-05.
John Armstrong is the author of The conditions of love, a book which aims to raise one of the deepest and most puzzling questions we can put to ourselves: "What is love?"
1. Plato, The symposium
Discussion of same-sex love at an Athenian drinking party; perhaps the most entertaining work of philosophy ever written (although the competition has not been terribly intense). The first really systematic and serious attempt to say what love is, weighing up the relative merits of different points of view. Two big claims. One: love is based in weakness - we love because there is something missing in us, because we are incapable of being happy on our own. Two: love is the most important experience in life - we love what is good in the beloved, and through this learn to love goodness itself.
2. St Paul, First letter to the Corinthians
Mixed in with bizarre pronouncements (many of them about women's hair) are some of the most profound and influential assertions about the nature of love. Love is essentially linked to kindness, forgiveness and modesty. Not a very romantic message.
3. Shakespeare, The sonnets
Often quite confusing, but Shakespeare's Sonnets include some of the most touching expressions of love. Filled with lovely, melancholy reflections.
4. Goethe, Roman elegies
Guilt-free holiday romance; intelligent erotic poetry.
5. Goethe, Elective affinities
Probably the first analysis of sexual chemistry. We don't have rational control over who we love. Tells the tragic story of the perfect couple whose idyllic life is destroyed when each falls in love with someone else.
6. Stendhal, Love
Obsessive, but insightful, study of the process of falling in love. Wonderful mixture of self-pity, philosophy and anecdote. Stendhal's 'tone' is a high point of civilisation - witty, cultivated, confessional.
7. Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
The most intelligent and perceptive romantic novel ever written. Contains amazingly lucid evocations of every stage of love. Superlative narrative treatment which holds everything together with complete naturalness.
8. Leo Tolstoy, Family happiness
Brilliant study of the revival of love in a marriage grown stale over many years.
9. Erich Fromm, The art of loving
Love as the antidote to loneliness - but only if we get past our own romantic egotism and concentrate on caring for the other person. Wise and mildly depressing. Modern life feeds our selfish demands and therefore makes love harder to achieve, but all the more necessary.
10. Alain de Botton, Essays in love
Charming analyses of the various phases of a relationship (from first sight to separation). The intellectual insights are so well digested and pleasantly expressed that one may fail to see just how serious they are. De Botton is currently the finest English prose stylist.
------
2.
"Others" includes loads of touchstones to commentaries, handbooks and leaders' guides to Paul's First letter to the Corinthians but nothing by Paul himself. You would almost think we couldn't be trusted to read it and interpret it for ourselves without intermediaries. And there was me thinking that was a good part of what the Protestant reformation was all about. Silly me. Whatever, this was the touchstone LT's algorithm chose. Otherwise, try St Paul for the old misogynist himself.
105Cynfelyn
Christopher Hart's top 10 erotica books
Guardian, 2002-02-13.
Christopher Hart is literary editor of the Erotic Review. His second novel, Rescue me (Faber), a farcical comedy about a reluctant and incompetent male gigolo, is in no way autobiographical.
1. Song of Solomon
The Bible's a much sexier read than most people realise nowadays. In fact it's a much better read all round than most people realise nowadays. Solomon was not only famously wise, wealthy, and adored by the Queen of Sheba. He was also Judah's greatest love-machine, had a thousand wives and concubines, and wrote some of the best love poetry of all time (or, if you must be pedantic, at least had it collected in a book of his name.) If you can't read it in the ancient Hebrew, then you have to read it in the King James version:
As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons.
I lay down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick with love.
His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me.
My beloved is mine, and I am his; he feedeth among the lilies.
Until the day break, and the shadows flee away . . .
2. Ovid, Ars amatoria
It might have been something in this sexy, cynical little book that pissed off the Emperor Augustus so much that he had Ovid exiled for life to Tomis on the distant, desolate shores of the Black Sea. He was never allowed back. Poor Ovid, so urbane and Roman, must have hated it. Ars amatoria, The art of love, is a handbook of seduction, a guide to female psychology and seductibility - metropolitan, knowing, street-smart, very funny, and unrelieved by any notion of romantic love. That came much later. Ovid is most himself when grumbling about the poet's lot. "Girls praise a poem, but go for expensive presents. Any illiterate can catch their eye, provided he's rich."
3. Boswell, London journal
Like Casanova's Journals, a great social portrait of the period. And there's something breezily erotic in its bawdy energy, the rapidity with which our plump little diarist bustles around London looking for a likely lass to sate his lechery upon. "At the bottom of the Haymarket I picked up a strong, jolly young damsel, and taking her under the arm I conducted her to Westminster Bridge, and then in armour complete" (ie wearing a re-usable kid-skin condom) "did I engage her upon this noble edifice. The whim of doing it there with the Thames rolling below us amused me much." A hoot.
4. John Cleland, Memoirs of a woman of pleasure, aka Fanny Hill
One of the best-known erotic classics. Naive little country-girl, Fanny, comes up to London, is corrupted into prostitution within hours, and loves it, of course. Little minx can't get enough. She is further initiated into alt.sex in the tender arms of Phoebe. There are some striking metaphors: "Her soft laboratory of love," "Her pleasure-thirsty channel," and less happily perhaps, "Her embower'd bottom-cavity."
5. Guillaume Apollinaire, The amorous exploits of a young rakehell
French filth. Roger, a precocious schoolboy staying at his family's chateau one long hot summer, serially seduces the bailiff's wife, his aunt, his younger sister, his older sister, Kate the maid . . . When Kate catches Roger and his sister hard at it, she scolds them mildly - "Really, young people nowadays!" - and then joins in. It's that kind of book. There's also a lot of bestiality among the peasantry. One lad has a thing going with one of the cows in the barn, the shepherd does it with his goats, and Lucie the hired girl enjoys congress with the big gander in the yard.
6. Pierre Louys, The she-devils
More French filth, involving a mother, her three insatiable daughters, and a very fortunate young man who has just moved into the next-door apartment. Susan Sontag has written that this is one of the handful of erotic works that achieve true literary status. Of course, the ridiculous Sontag is wrong about almost everything, but in this case she might just be right.
7. John Fowles, The Magus
I read this when I was 16 and on holiday in Greece. I loved it so much I've never dared to read it again. It's all hot sunshine and blue seas and the scent of stone pines and shameless seduction. The wizenend little old Greek boy Conchis isn't up to much, but those mysterious and elusive girls are the very stuff of adolescent dreams.
8. Robert Nye, Merlin
In fact, all of Nye's historical novels are to be highly recommended, for their bawdy verve and lascivious relish as well as their readability and colour. In Merlin, a creature is created who is supposed to be the anti-Christ: half-man, half-beast, and all-satyr. He sets about merrily corrupting cold, Christian Camelot into a pagan wonderland of sexual excess. I remember with particular fondness a shaving scene between a woman and young girl . . .
9. Pauline Reage, Story of O
At last, some women! Well, nice girls didn't until 1963, did they? This little gem was Anon for a long time, until it turned out to have been written by a highly educated, sophisticated French lady in a bid to keep her husband. How very Gallic. English women just leave nagging notes by the kettle. They should try leaving dreamily pornographic notes instead. Fairytale, sado-masochistic, beautifully written - not one for feminists I fear, though it's just as much about female pleasure and desire as male - if not more so. Graham Greene said it was the only erotic novel worth reading.
10. Angela Carter, The bloody chamber
Any Angela Carter, in fact, but this is one of my favourites. Lustful wolves, mysterious specks of blood, glass slippers and ice-maidens . . . Grimm's Fairy Tales reshaped by a unique erotic imagination, so strange, beautiful and disturbing that they are neither dreams nor nightmares, but something in-between. Carter left an aching gap in the literary ranks. No one else can fill it.
------
1.
Once again, LT members seem to be keener on commentaries on scripture than on scripture itself. At least that's what the touchstone system suggests. Not a single Song of Solomon by King Solomon or Bible author or whatever. I've left the touchstone the LT algorithm suggested in the first place, Toni Morrison's 1977 novel of the same name; well worth the plug.
Guardian, 2002-02-13.
Christopher Hart is literary editor of the Erotic Review. His second novel, Rescue me (Faber), a farcical comedy about a reluctant and incompetent male gigolo, is in no way autobiographical.
1. Song of Solomon
The Bible's a much sexier read than most people realise nowadays. In fact it's a much better read all round than most people realise nowadays. Solomon was not only famously wise, wealthy, and adored by the Queen of Sheba. He was also Judah's greatest love-machine, had a thousand wives and concubines, and wrote some of the best love poetry of all time (or, if you must be pedantic, at least had it collected in a book of his name.) If you can't read it in the ancient Hebrew, then you have to read it in the King James version:
As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons.
I lay down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick with love.
His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me.
My beloved is mine, and I am his; he feedeth among the lilies.
Until the day break, and the shadows flee away . . .
2. Ovid, Ars amatoria
It might have been something in this sexy, cynical little book that pissed off the Emperor Augustus so much that he had Ovid exiled for life to Tomis on the distant, desolate shores of the Black Sea. He was never allowed back. Poor Ovid, so urbane and Roman, must have hated it. Ars amatoria, The art of love, is a handbook of seduction, a guide to female psychology and seductibility - metropolitan, knowing, street-smart, very funny, and unrelieved by any notion of romantic love. That came much later. Ovid is most himself when grumbling about the poet's lot. "Girls praise a poem, but go for expensive presents. Any illiterate can catch their eye, provided he's rich."
3. Boswell, London journal
Like Casanova's Journals, a great social portrait of the period. And there's something breezily erotic in its bawdy energy, the rapidity with which our plump little diarist bustles around London looking for a likely lass to sate his lechery upon. "At the bottom of the Haymarket I picked up a strong, jolly young damsel, and taking her under the arm I conducted her to Westminster Bridge, and then in armour complete" (ie wearing a re-usable kid-skin condom) "did I engage her upon this noble edifice. The whim of doing it there with the Thames rolling below us amused me much." A hoot.
4. John Cleland, Memoirs of a woman of pleasure, aka Fanny Hill
One of the best-known erotic classics. Naive little country-girl, Fanny, comes up to London, is corrupted into prostitution within hours, and loves it, of course. Little minx can't get enough. She is further initiated into alt.sex in the tender arms of Phoebe. There are some striking metaphors: "Her soft laboratory of love," "Her pleasure-thirsty channel," and less happily perhaps, "Her embower'd bottom-cavity."
5. Guillaume Apollinaire, The amorous exploits of a young rakehell
French filth. Roger, a precocious schoolboy staying at his family's chateau one long hot summer, serially seduces the bailiff's wife, his aunt, his younger sister, his older sister, Kate the maid . . . When Kate catches Roger and his sister hard at it, she scolds them mildly - "Really, young people nowadays!" - and then joins in. It's that kind of book. There's also a lot of bestiality among the peasantry. One lad has a thing going with one of the cows in the barn, the shepherd does it with his goats, and Lucie the hired girl enjoys congress with the big gander in the yard.
6. Pierre Louys, The she-devils
More French filth, involving a mother, her three insatiable daughters, and a very fortunate young man who has just moved into the next-door apartment. Susan Sontag has written that this is one of the handful of erotic works that achieve true literary status. Of course, the ridiculous Sontag is wrong about almost everything, but in this case she might just be right.
7. John Fowles, The Magus
I read this when I was 16 and on holiday in Greece. I loved it so much I've never dared to read it again. It's all hot sunshine and blue seas and the scent of stone pines and shameless seduction. The wizenend little old Greek boy Conchis isn't up to much, but those mysterious and elusive girls are the very stuff of adolescent dreams.
8. Robert Nye, Merlin
In fact, all of Nye's historical novels are to be highly recommended, for their bawdy verve and lascivious relish as well as their readability and colour. In Merlin, a creature is created who is supposed to be the anti-Christ: half-man, half-beast, and all-satyr. He sets about merrily corrupting cold, Christian Camelot into a pagan wonderland of sexual excess. I remember with particular fondness a shaving scene between a woman and young girl . . .
9. Pauline Reage, Story of O
At last, some women! Well, nice girls didn't until 1963, did they? This little gem was Anon for a long time, until it turned out to have been written by a highly educated, sophisticated French lady in a bid to keep her husband. How very Gallic. English women just leave nagging notes by the kettle. They should try leaving dreamily pornographic notes instead. Fairytale, sado-masochistic, beautifully written - not one for feminists I fear, though it's just as much about female pleasure and desire as male - if not more so. Graham Greene said it was the only erotic novel worth reading.
10. Angela Carter, The bloody chamber
Any Angela Carter, in fact, but this is one of my favourites. Lustful wolves, mysterious specks of blood, glass slippers and ice-maidens . . . Grimm's Fairy Tales reshaped by a unique erotic imagination, so strange, beautiful and disturbing that they are neither dreams nor nightmares, but something in-between. Carter left an aching gap in the literary ranks. No one else can fill it.
------
1.
Once again, LT members seem to be keener on commentaries on scripture than on scripture itself. At least that's what the touchstone system suggests. Not a single Song of Solomon by King Solomon or Bible author or whatever. I've left the touchstone the LT algorithm suggested in the first place, Toni Morrison's 1977 novel of the same name; well worth the plug.
106Cynfelyn
Peter Taylor's top 10 books on the Troubles
Guardian, 2002-02-22.
Peter Taylor, a journalist and documentary filmmaker, has covered the Irish conflict for 30 years. In his trilogy about the Troubles, he explores events from the points of view of the republicans, the loyalists, and now the British. Brits: the war against the IRA charts the covert operations against the IRA and the road to the peace process.
1. David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeley & Chris Thornton, Lost lives
This is perhaps the most important book to have been written about the Troubles, and has to be top of the list. An astonishing work of journalism and scholarship that details in personal terms every death on every side in the 30-year conflict, it is painful, illuminating, desperately moving and sad.
2. David Beresford, Ten men dead: the story of the 1981 hunger strike
A historic account of the great watershed of the conflict, this brings home in agonising detail what the IRA and INLA prisoners went through to prove their point. The Iron Lady versus the Iron Men, with short-term victory for Thatcher and long-term victory for the Provos.
3. David Sharrock & Mark Devenport, Man of war, man of peace? The unauthorised biography of Gerry Adams
An important corrective to Gerry Adams's own account of his life. Sharrock and Devenport bravely go where others fear to tread on to ground that Adams can't or won't traverse.
4. Toby Harnden, Bandit country: the IRA and South Armagh
Courageous journalism and compulsive reading as Harnden goes inside the most impenetrable and deadly of the IRA Brigades. Good judgment; great sources.
5. Eamonn Mallie & David McKittrick, The fight for peace: the secret story behind the Irish peace process
The most detailed and authoritative account of the road to the Good Friday Agreement. A classic of its kind by two of Northern Ireland's finest.
6. Kevin Toolis, Rebel hearts: journeys within the IRA's soul
Personal and highly readable account by one of the conflict's most acute observers. Not unsympathetic, but no panegyric either. Raw reality with no punches pulled.
7. Ruth Dudley Edwards, The faithful tribe: an intimate portrait of the Loyal institutions
A useful and controversial corrective to the predominantly pro-nationalist, pro-republican thrust of much of the literature. A Dublin Catholic goes Ulster native to produce a sympathetic and understanding portrayal of Protestant prisoners of history. To be read with an open mind.
8. Leon Uris, Trinity
One of the first books I read about the Troubles, way back in 1972, this is epic fiction bordering on soap. It gives the background to the ancient conflict between the trinity of nationalists, unionists and 'Brits' that painted Ireland's history in blood. Excellent on the roots of the conflict and with great characters, both goodies and baddies.
9. Gerry Seymour, Journeyman tailor
By one of the best fiction chroniclers of the conflict, this paints the mood, landscape and communities of East Tyrone in grim and realistic detail. A gripping page-turner to rival Seymour's earlier classics, Harry's game and Field of blood. Wish I'd written them first.
10. Bernard Maclaverty, Cal
A towering achievement, this is the finest novel to emerge from the conflict. A terrible beauty - beautifully written, beautifully observed. Violence without glamour, brief and painfully sad.
------
A list from only four years after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement brought an end of the Troubles. A time when you didn't need to specify you meant the Northern Ireland Troubles, and not some other Troubles.
An anecdote: In about 2015 my wife and teenage daughter went from Britain to a week-long residential course in Enniskillen. When they got back I asked whether they had seen any remains of the Troubles. "What's the Troubles?", asked my daughter. Which I suppose is as much a condemnation my never having mentioned them, as of the deficiencies of the school history curriculum. Then again, with "only" 456 UK deaths in Afghanistan, 2001-2021, half the 1,049 deaths among UK government forces during the Troubles, 1969-1998, perhaps we'll also forget Operation Enduring Freedom in half the time.
Guardian, 2002-02-22.
Peter Taylor, a journalist and documentary filmmaker, has covered the Irish conflict for 30 years. In his trilogy about the Troubles, he explores events from the points of view of the republicans, the loyalists, and now the British. Brits: the war against the IRA charts the covert operations against the IRA and the road to the peace process.
1. David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeley & Chris Thornton, Lost lives
This is perhaps the most important book to have been written about the Troubles, and has to be top of the list. An astonishing work of journalism and scholarship that details in personal terms every death on every side in the 30-year conflict, it is painful, illuminating, desperately moving and sad.
2. David Beresford, Ten men dead: the story of the 1981 hunger strike
A historic account of the great watershed of the conflict, this brings home in agonising detail what the IRA and INLA prisoners went through to prove their point. The Iron Lady versus the Iron Men, with short-term victory for Thatcher and long-term victory for the Provos.
3. David Sharrock & Mark Devenport, Man of war, man of peace? The unauthorised biography of Gerry Adams
An important corrective to Gerry Adams's own account of his life. Sharrock and Devenport bravely go where others fear to tread on to ground that Adams can't or won't traverse.
4. Toby Harnden, Bandit country: the IRA and South Armagh
Courageous journalism and compulsive reading as Harnden goes inside the most impenetrable and deadly of the IRA Brigades. Good judgment; great sources.
5. Eamonn Mallie & David McKittrick, The fight for peace: the secret story behind the Irish peace process
The most detailed and authoritative account of the road to the Good Friday Agreement. A classic of its kind by two of Northern Ireland's finest.
6. Kevin Toolis, Rebel hearts: journeys within the IRA's soul
Personal and highly readable account by one of the conflict's most acute observers. Not unsympathetic, but no panegyric either. Raw reality with no punches pulled.
7. Ruth Dudley Edwards, The faithful tribe: an intimate portrait of the Loyal institutions
A useful and controversial corrective to the predominantly pro-nationalist, pro-republican thrust of much of the literature. A Dublin Catholic goes Ulster native to produce a sympathetic and understanding portrayal of Protestant prisoners of history. To be read with an open mind.
8. Leon Uris, Trinity
One of the first books I read about the Troubles, way back in 1972, this is epic fiction bordering on soap. It gives the background to the ancient conflict between the trinity of nationalists, unionists and 'Brits' that painted Ireland's history in blood. Excellent on the roots of the conflict and with great characters, both goodies and baddies.
9. Gerry Seymour, Journeyman tailor
By one of the best fiction chroniclers of the conflict, this paints the mood, landscape and communities of East Tyrone in grim and realistic detail. A gripping page-turner to rival Seymour's earlier classics, Harry's game and Field of blood. Wish I'd written them first.
10. Bernard Maclaverty, Cal
A towering achievement, this is the finest novel to emerge from the conflict. A terrible beauty - beautifully written, beautifully observed. Violence without glamour, brief and painfully sad.
------
A list from only four years after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement brought an end of the Troubles. A time when you didn't need to specify you meant the Northern Ireland Troubles, and not some other Troubles.
An anecdote: In about 2015 my wife and teenage daughter went from Britain to a week-long residential course in Enniskillen. When they got back I asked whether they had seen any remains of the Troubles. "What's the Troubles?", asked my daughter. Which I suppose is as much a condemnation my never having mentioned them, as of the deficiencies of the school history curriculum. Then again, with "only" 456 UK deaths in Afghanistan, 2001-2021, half the 1,049 deaths among UK government forces during the Troubles, 1969-1998, perhaps we'll also forget Operation Enduring Freedom in half the time.
107Cynfelyn
Eoin Colfer's top 10 children's books
Guardian, 2002-03-13.
Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl has been hailed as the best thing since J. K. Rowling; he describes it as "Die Hard with fairies". The story of a 12-year-old criminal mastermind who kidnaps a leprechaun, it provoked a fierce bidding war and secured a £500,000 advance.
1. Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn
A classic tale of the misunderstood outsider made good, this is a big influence on my work. I especially like the quirky first-person narrative - something I would like to try some day.
2. Melvin Burgess, Bloodtide
A wonderfully rich epic of betrayal and revenge. It contains some of the most sustained passages of nerve-wracking excitement in modern fiction.
3. Gerard Whelan, The guns of Easter
If you want to understand how the Irish revolution split families apart read this book. History comes alive.
4. The amber spyglass by some guy!
He beat me to the Whitbread. Must be good. Of course I jest. Philip Pullman is not just good. He is the new standard.
5. William Goldman, The princess bride
This book has everything. Past, present, kidnapping, sword fighting and romance. Wonderful stuff.
6. Clive King, Stig of the dump
A favourite of mine for 25 years. I remember reading it three times in two days. Narrative that flows right to the last paragraph.
7. Harper Lee, To kill a mockingbird
This book introduced depth to my library. An evocative piece that doesn't need my superlatives to sell it. 30 million now apparently. Boo rules.
8. C. S. Lewis, Prince Caspian
My introduction to the world of fantasy. The first Narnia book that I read, and the one that made the biggest impression.
9. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
I moved directly from Narnia to Middle Earth. Thanks to Aslan and the Hobbits, I spent two years off the planet.
10. Siobhan Parkinson, The leprechaun who wished he wasn't
A crowd-pleaser with my students every year and a morale-booster for children of any age.
Guardian, 2002-03-13.
Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl has been hailed as the best thing since J. K. Rowling; he describes it as "Die Hard with fairies". The story of a 12-year-old criminal mastermind who kidnaps a leprechaun, it provoked a fierce bidding war and secured a £500,000 advance.
1. Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn
A classic tale of the misunderstood outsider made good, this is a big influence on my work. I especially like the quirky first-person narrative - something I would like to try some day.
2. Melvin Burgess, Bloodtide
A wonderfully rich epic of betrayal and revenge. It contains some of the most sustained passages of nerve-wracking excitement in modern fiction.
3. Gerard Whelan, The guns of Easter
If you want to understand how the Irish revolution split families apart read this book. History comes alive.
4. The amber spyglass by some guy!
He beat me to the Whitbread. Must be good. Of course I jest. Philip Pullman is not just good. He is the new standard.
5. William Goldman, The princess bride
This book has everything. Past, present, kidnapping, sword fighting and romance. Wonderful stuff.
6. Clive King, Stig of the dump
A favourite of mine for 25 years. I remember reading it three times in two days. Narrative that flows right to the last paragraph.
7. Harper Lee, To kill a mockingbird
This book introduced depth to my library. An evocative piece that doesn't need my superlatives to sell it. 30 million now apparently. Boo rules.
8. C. S. Lewis, Prince Caspian
My introduction to the world of fantasy. The first Narnia book that I read, and the one that made the biggest impression.
9. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
I moved directly from Narnia to Middle Earth. Thanks to Aslan and the Hobbits, I spent two years off the planet.
10. Siobhan Parkinson, The leprechaun who wished he wasn't
A crowd-pleaser with my students every year and a morale-booster for children of any age.
108Cynfelyn
Sarah Waters's top 10 Victorian novels
Guardian, 2002-03-20.
Sarah Waters is the author of three thrillers set in Victorian London. Her latest, Fingersmith, is on the Orange prize longlist, and has been described as a modern Woman in white.
1. Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Marred only by the fact that Charlotte clearly liked Mr Rochester too much; but we can forgive her that. Often given to schoolchildren to read, but you have to be a grown-up to really get it. Has to be one of the most perfectly structured novels of all time.
2. Charles Dickens, Great expectations
A story of the traumas of sex and class. My favourite moment is the one where Magwitch makes his stumbling way up the shadowy staircase towards an unnerved but unsuspecting Pip: the halting but inexorable rise of the repressed 'from the darkness beneath'.
3. W. M. Thackeray, Vanity Fair
Deserves its spot in the top 10 if only for the wonderful Becky Sharp.
4. George Gissing, New Grub Street
A devastating study of the late-Victorian literary industry, New Grub Street still has an unnervingly modern ring. It's also a kind of anti-romance: Gissing was uncompromising in his analysis of gender relations and his exposé of the withering impact of economics upon love.
5. Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
Commonly thought of as 'romantic', but try rereading it without being astonished by the comfortableness with which Brontë's characters subject one another to extremes of physical and psychological violence.
6. Charles Dickens, Our mutual friend
The most resonant of Dickens's novels, with an elusive moral centre and a gallery of grotesques - Jenny Wren, the dolls' dressmaker; Mr Venus, articulator of human bones; the demented stalker Bradley Headstone; the loathsome Lammles - which, even by Dickensian standards, are really very grotesque indeed.
7. Bram Stoker, Dracula
An exercise in masculine anxiety and nationalist paranoia, Stoker's novel is filled with scenes that are staggeringly lurid and perverse. The one in Highgate cemetery, where Arthur and Van Helsing drive a stake through the writhing body of the vampirised Lucy Westenra, is my favourite.
8. Oscar Wilde, The picture of Dorian Gray
A heady late-Victorian tale of double-living, in which Dorian's fatal, corruptive influence over women and men alike is left suggestively indistinct.
9. Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde
Another, more definitive, novel of shameful double-living. Even more so than Dorian Gray's, Mr Hyde's sordid and perhaps deviant excesses are rendered more suggestive through being left undescribed.
10. Wilkie Collins, The woman in white
The most popular novel of the 19th century, and still one of the best plots in English literature. Notable for its marvellous villains and, like all Collins's work, for its complex, spirited and believable female characters.
Guardian, 2002-03-20.
Sarah Waters is the author of three thrillers set in Victorian London. Her latest, Fingersmith, is on the Orange prize longlist, and has been described as a modern Woman in white.
1. Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Marred only by the fact that Charlotte clearly liked Mr Rochester too much; but we can forgive her that. Often given to schoolchildren to read, but you have to be a grown-up to really get it. Has to be one of the most perfectly structured novels of all time.
2. Charles Dickens, Great expectations
A story of the traumas of sex and class. My favourite moment is the one where Magwitch makes his stumbling way up the shadowy staircase towards an unnerved but unsuspecting Pip: the halting but inexorable rise of the repressed 'from the darkness beneath'.
3. W. M. Thackeray, Vanity Fair
Deserves its spot in the top 10 if only for the wonderful Becky Sharp.
4. George Gissing, New Grub Street
A devastating study of the late-Victorian literary industry, New Grub Street still has an unnervingly modern ring. It's also a kind of anti-romance: Gissing was uncompromising in his analysis of gender relations and his exposé of the withering impact of economics upon love.
5. Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
Commonly thought of as 'romantic', but try rereading it without being astonished by the comfortableness with which Brontë's characters subject one another to extremes of physical and psychological violence.
6. Charles Dickens, Our mutual friend
The most resonant of Dickens's novels, with an elusive moral centre and a gallery of grotesques - Jenny Wren, the dolls' dressmaker; Mr Venus, articulator of human bones; the demented stalker Bradley Headstone; the loathsome Lammles - which, even by Dickensian standards, are really very grotesque indeed.
7. Bram Stoker, Dracula
An exercise in masculine anxiety and nationalist paranoia, Stoker's novel is filled with scenes that are staggeringly lurid and perverse. The one in Highgate cemetery, where Arthur and Van Helsing drive a stake through the writhing body of the vampirised Lucy Westenra, is my favourite.
8. Oscar Wilde, The picture of Dorian Gray
A heady late-Victorian tale of double-living, in which Dorian's fatal, corruptive influence over women and men alike is left suggestively indistinct.
9. Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde
Another, more definitive, novel of shameful double-living. Even more so than Dorian Gray's, Mr Hyde's sordid and perhaps deviant excesses are rendered more suggestive through being left undescribed.
10. Wilkie Collins, The woman in white
The most popular novel of the 19th century, and still one of the best plots in English literature. Notable for its marvellous villains and, like all Collins's work, for its complex, spirited and believable female characters.
109Cynfelyn
Maggie O'Farrell's top 10 chillers
Guardian, 2002-04-24.
Maggie O'Farrell's debut novel, After you'd gone, won the Betty Trask award. Her follow-up, My lover's lover, plays with the supernatural: it is an unnerving story of obsession and the strange connection we have with our partners' past lovers.
1. James Hogg, The private memoirs and confessions of a justified sinner
A strangely lucid tale of a man haunted and pursued by Gilmartin, a sinister figure who seems capable of taking on any form. Proof that the Scots do Gothic better than anyone else.
2. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The yellow wallpaper
A woman diagnosed as 'nervous' is confined to a room by her overprotective husband and forbidden to write. While she's imprisoned there, she becomes obsessed by the labyrinthine pattern of the wallpaper. A brilliant and horrifying account of a suffocating marriage.
3. Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
A passionately independent orphan falls for the perfect romantic anti-hero. But then she discovers what he keeps in his attic...
4. R. L. Stevenson, The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Another genius Scottish take on the theme of split personalities. Needs no further introduction.
5. James Joyce, The dead
Hauntings don't have to be literal for the living to be affected and afflicted by the dead. I think this short story, the final in his collection Dubliners, is the most perfect piece of literature I've ever come across.
6. Ali Smith, Hotel World
Narrated by the ghost of a chambermaid on a quest to find out why she died, this book is breathtaking and original. I've never read anything like it.
7. Elspeth Barker, O Caledonia
Janet is found stabbed to death at the bottom of the stairs, wearing her mother's black lace evening dress. Her family are so barking mad that it's less a case of 'who did it?' than 'who didn't do it?' A surreal, hilarious and dark story of a troubled adolescence deep in the wilds of Scotland.
8. Herman Melville, Bartleby
A strange, pale man takes up residence in a legal office in mid-19th-century New York ... and refuses to leave.
9. Patricia Duncker, Hallucinating Foucault
A shy postgraduate student goes in search of the presumed-dead subject of his thesis, a charismatic French poet. Tracking him down to an asylum, the student helps him escape. This is an incisive dissection of love, madness and human motivation.
10. Wilkie Collins, The woman in white
A hypochondriac uncle, two girls who look identical, a count with a penchant for mesmerism and vanilla bonbons, a lunatic asylum, an evil husband... What more could you want?
------
Three titles on this list were also on Sarah Waters's top 10 Victorian novels (no. 108 immediately above). And two of them, Jane Eyre and The woman in white, are now each on their third mention.
Guardian, 2002-04-24.
Maggie O'Farrell's debut novel, After you'd gone, won the Betty Trask award. Her follow-up, My lover's lover, plays with the supernatural: it is an unnerving story of obsession and the strange connection we have with our partners' past lovers.
1. James Hogg, The private memoirs and confessions of a justified sinner
A strangely lucid tale of a man haunted and pursued by Gilmartin, a sinister figure who seems capable of taking on any form. Proof that the Scots do Gothic better than anyone else.
2. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The yellow wallpaper
A woman diagnosed as 'nervous' is confined to a room by her overprotective husband and forbidden to write. While she's imprisoned there, she becomes obsessed by the labyrinthine pattern of the wallpaper. A brilliant and horrifying account of a suffocating marriage.
3. Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
A passionately independent orphan falls for the perfect romantic anti-hero. But then she discovers what he keeps in his attic...
4. R. L. Stevenson, The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Another genius Scottish take on the theme of split personalities. Needs no further introduction.
5. James Joyce, The dead
Hauntings don't have to be literal for the living to be affected and afflicted by the dead. I think this short story, the final in his collection Dubliners, is the most perfect piece of literature I've ever come across.
6. Ali Smith, Hotel World
Narrated by the ghost of a chambermaid on a quest to find out why she died, this book is breathtaking and original. I've never read anything like it.
7. Elspeth Barker, O Caledonia
Janet is found stabbed to death at the bottom of the stairs, wearing her mother's black lace evening dress. Her family are so barking mad that it's less a case of 'who did it?' than 'who didn't do it?' A surreal, hilarious and dark story of a troubled adolescence deep in the wilds of Scotland.
8. Herman Melville, Bartleby
A strange, pale man takes up residence in a legal office in mid-19th-century New York ... and refuses to leave.
9. Patricia Duncker, Hallucinating Foucault
A shy postgraduate student goes in search of the presumed-dead subject of his thesis, a charismatic French poet. Tracking him down to an asylum, the student helps him escape. This is an incisive dissection of love, madness and human motivation.
10. Wilkie Collins, The woman in white
A hypochondriac uncle, two girls who look identical, a count with a penchant for mesmerism and vanilla bonbons, a lunatic asylum, an evil husband... What more could you want?
------
Three titles on this list were also on Sarah Waters's top 10 Victorian novels (no. 108 immediately above). And two of them, Jane Eyre and The woman in white, are now each on their third mention.
110Cynfelyn
China Miéville's top 10 weird fiction books
Guadian, 2002-05-16.
China Miéville is the author of King Rat and Perdido Street Station, which won the Arthur C Clarke Award 2001 and the British Fantasy Award 2001. His latest novel, The scar, is a seaborne fantasy. "I don't think you can distinguish science fiction, fantasy and horror with any rigour, as the writers around the magazine Weird Tales early in the last century (Lovecraft in particular) illustrated most sharply. So I use the term 'weird fiction' for all fantastic literature - fantasy, SF, horror and all the stuff that won't fit neatly into slots. Any list of favourites is subject to regular rapid change, of course, so what's here is just a fast-frozen moment."
In no particular order...
1. M. John Harrison, The course of the heart
A towering genius of modern fiction. That he's not won the Booker proves the bankruptcy and back-slapping generic snobbery of the literary establishment. I nearly chose his seminal Viriconium sequence, but this unforgiving story of gnosticism and loneliness worries and worries at me like a dog, so I gave in and picked it, scared.
2. Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast
The trilogy, not just the second volume, of course. Somehow this manages to be both rich and austere at the same time - the sense is of vastness, but of unbearable claustrophobia, too. The egregious BBC adaptation turned it into an Augustan costume romp and stripped out all the shadows and all the dust. Philistines.
3. Lewis Carroll, Through the looking glass
Not very original to choose an Alice book, but they loom so large in my head it would have been a lie not to. Both are magnificent, but this is the darker and stranger.
4. H. G. Wells, The island of Dr Moreau
Jorge Luis Borges called this book "an atrocious miracle" and he's bloody right. Short, cold, economic and totally unrelenting. An utterly terrifying book, Wells's outstanding achievement by far.
5. Philip K. Dick, The three stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
It's infuriating to have to choose just one of Dick's works - he is the outstanding figure in SF. In the end I went for Stigmata because I remember how I felt when I put it down. Hollow and beaten. I kept thinking: "That's it. It's finished. Literature has been finished."
6. Stefan Grabinski, The dark domain
Early in the last century, this shockingly underrated Polish writer saw the horror that haunted modernity. His ghosts and demons don't inhabit graveyard or ruins, but steam trains, electricity cables, and the rapidly growing cities. The antithesis of nostalgic fantasy.
7. Jane Gaskell, Strange evil
The book was written when Gaskell was 14, and though it suffers from all the flaws her youth would lead you to expect, it is a staggering achievement. A fraught fairyland full of sexuality, and containing the most extraordinary baddy in fiction.
8. Max Ernst, Une semaine de bonte
The best comic strip of all time. The best illustrated book of all time. The best sustained work of surrealism of all time. A magisterial whodunwhat, full of little deaths and high adventure, insurrection and freedom.
9. Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
The greatest work of horror ever. OK, technically there are no monsters or aliens or what-have-you, but there's no way this isn't horror. A book about madness, loneliness, manipulation, class and sex that's more frightening than any tentacled thing Lovecraft could come up with.
10. Kelly Link, Stranger things happen
This small-press short-story collection by a young American writer is a joy - a very tired word, and not one I use lightly. I've not been so moved and affected - and dammit, yes, inspired - by a book for a long time. Run, don't walk, to www.kellylink.net and get your copy.
------
Okay, that's a trio of consecutive recommendations for Jane Eyre, as "one of the most perfectly structured novels of all time", a top 10 chiller, and "the greatest work of horror ever". I'm clearly missing out, never having read the book, and only ever having seen the 1943 Orson Welles film and one of the other b/w versions. Hey ho.
Guadian, 2002-05-16.
China Miéville is the author of King Rat and Perdido Street Station, which won the Arthur C Clarke Award 2001 and the British Fantasy Award 2001. His latest novel, The scar, is a seaborne fantasy. "I don't think you can distinguish science fiction, fantasy and horror with any rigour, as the writers around the magazine Weird Tales early in the last century (Lovecraft in particular) illustrated most sharply. So I use the term 'weird fiction' for all fantastic literature - fantasy, SF, horror and all the stuff that won't fit neatly into slots. Any list of favourites is subject to regular rapid change, of course, so what's here is just a fast-frozen moment."
In no particular order...
1. M. John Harrison, The course of the heart
A towering genius of modern fiction. That he's not won the Booker proves the bankruptcy and back-slapping generic snobbery of the literary establishment. I nearly chose his seminal Viriconium sequence, but this unforgiving story of gnosticism and loneliness worries and worries at me like a dog, so I gave in and picked it, scared.
2. Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast
The trilogy, not just the second volume, of course. Somehow this manages to be both rich and austere at the same time - the sense is of vastness, but of unbearable claustrophobia, too. The egregious BBC adaptation turned it into an Augustan costume romp and stripped out all the shadows and all the dust. Philistines.
3. Lewis Carroll, Through the looking glass
Not very original to choose an Alice book, but they loom so large in my head it would have been a lie not to. Both are magnificent, but this is the darker and stranger.
4. H. G. Wells, The island of Dr Moreau
Jorge Luis Borges called this book "an atrocious miracle" and he's bloody right. Short, cold, economic and totally unrelenting. An utterly terrifying book, Wells's outstanding achievement by far.
5. Philip K. Dick, The three stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
It's infuriating to have to choose just one of Dick's works - he is the outstanding figure in SF. In the end I went for Stigmata because I remember how I felt when I put it down. Hollow and beaten. I kept thinking: "That's it. It's finished. Literature has been finished."
6. Stefan Grabinski, The dark domain
Early in the last century, this shockingly underrated Polish writer saw the horror that haunted modernity. His ghosts and demons don't inhabit graveyard or ruins, but steam trains, electricity cables, and the rapidly growing cities. The antithesis of nostalgic fantasy.
7. Jane Gaskell, Strange evil
The book was written when Gaskell was 14, and though it suffers from all the flaws her youth would lead you to expect, it is a staggering achievement. A fraught fairyland full of sexuality, and containing the most extraordinary baddy in fiction.
8. Max Ernst, Une semaine de bonte
The best comic strip of all time. The best illustrated book of all time. The best sustained work of surrealism of all time. A magisterial whodunwhat, full of little deaths and high adventure, insurrection and freedom.
9. Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
The greatest work of horror ever. OK, technically there are no monsters or aliens or what-have-you, but there's no way this isn't horror. A book about madness, loneliness, manipulation, class and sex that's more frightening than any tentacled thing Lovecraft could come up with.
10. Kelly Link, Stranger things happen
This small-press short-story collection by a young American writer is a joy - a very tired word, and not one I use lightly. I've not been so moved and affected - and dammit, yes, inspired - by a book for a long time. Run, don't walk, to www.kellylink.net and get your copy.
------
Okay, that's a trio of consecutive recommendations for Jane Eyre, as "one of the most perfectly structured novels of all time", a top 10 chiller, and "the greatest work of horror ever". I'm clearly missing out, never having read the book, and only ever having seen the 1943 Orson Welles film and one of the other b/w versions. Hey ho.
111Cynfelyn
Christina Koning's top 10 comic novels
Guardian, 2002-05-23.
Christina Koning's latest novel, Fabulous time, is a comedy of manners set in the English summer of 1967. Her previous book, Undiscovered country, won the Encore Prize and was longlisted for the Orange Prize. "The Golden Age of the English comic novel was (arguably) from the 1920s to 1950s, and most of the novels I've selected come from this period (not the first one obviously - although Jane Austen would probably have relished the era of Bright Young Things), incorporating all or some of the essential elements of the genre: rambling country houses, eccentric aunts, and comically awful love affairs."
1. Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
"I never read novels, (they) are all so full of nonsense and stuff," remarks a character in this one - Austen's hilarious spoof of the then fashionable Gothic romance. My favourite bit is where the impressionable heroine, Catherine Morland - who is of course addicted to tales of Gothic horror - spends her first night at the eponymous abbey, and is kept awake by what she thinks must be ghostly footsteps. While the novel's hero, Henry Tilney, may not be as sexy as Mr Darcy, he does have that other essential attribute of any self-respecting Mr Right - a GSOH.
2. Evelyn Waugh Scoop
When, in a case of mistaken identity, William Boot - writer of a column about rural life - is dispatched from the decaying family seat at Boot Magna to darkest Ishmaelia, to cover the civil war brewing there, the stage is set for some of Waugh's most brilliant and corrosive satire. Worth reading for its portrayal of Fleet Street types alone (such as archetypal newspaper magnate and all-round monster Lord Copper, proprietor of the Daily Beast), as well as for its account of how wars are fought and won by the press.
3. P. G. Wodehouse, Right ho, Jeeves
"What do you call it when two people of opposite sexes are bunged together in close association in a secluded spot, meeting each other every day and seeing a lot of each other?"
"Is 'propinquity' the word you wish, sir?"
"It is. I stake everything on propinquity, Jeeves."
The Jeeves and Wooster books are masterpieces of style and comic timing. This 1922 novel has everything: Bertie's wonderfully bossy Aunt Dahlia (not to be confused with his terrifying Aunt Agatha), a romance between stammering newt-fancier Gussie Fink-Nottle and frightfully drippy Madeline ("the stars are God's daisy-chain") Bassett, and of course Jeeves himself - that intellectual giant among valets.
4. Nancy Mitford, The pursuit of love
Growing up as one of the famous 'Mitford Girls' must have been tough enough (Unity was a friend of Hitler's, Diana married Oswald Mosley and Jessica, just to be different, became a communist), but Mitford managed to turn her difficult childhood into a witty and subversive comedy of manners. Brought up by her blue-stocking aunt after her mother ('the Bolter') has abandoned her, the narrator, Fanny, spends holidays with her adored cousins, as each in succession is launched into 'society'. Here, Fanny and her cousin Linda make themselves up for a clandestine tryst with an admirer: "Our cheeks had round scarlet patches, our lips were the same colour and our eyelids were blue, all out of Jassy's paint-box." Heaven.
5. E. F. Benson, Lucia's progress
As with Jeeves and Wooster, or Richmal Crompton's Just William books, the Mapp and Lucia novels should really be read as a series - although any one will do as an introduction to the universe portrayed. In this instance, this is the little market town of Tilling (based on Rye, where Benson himself lived, in a house formerly occupied by Henry James). Against this charmingly evoked backdrop, a fierce battle of wills is enacted between the two contenders for the (unofficial) title of Queen of Tilling - Mrs Emmeline Lucas and Mrs Elizabeth Mapp-Flint. What makes the hostilities all the more enjoyable is that they are concealed beneath a veneer of polite civility ("Cherie!" cried Mrs Elizabeth. "Too lovely to see you again!").
6. Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm
Gibbons' irresistible parody of Mary Webb's bucolic tragedies (and Thomas Hardy at his gloomiest) chronicles the misunderstandings which arise when sophisticated urbanite Flora Poste visits her country cousins, the Starkadders - presided over by Aunt Ada Doom, who has never recovered from the time she saw "something nasty in the woodshed". Here, Flora discovers for herself how unspeakably depressing rural life can be. The author thoughtfully provides asterisks to indicate the "finer passages", for the benefit of readers unsure "whether a sentence is literature or whether it is sheer flapdoodle."
7. Rose Macaulay, The Towers of Trebizond
"'Take my camel, dear,'" said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass." One of the best opening sentences in literature and one of the funniest books - an account of the narrator's expedition to Turkey as the companion of her formidable aunt and the latter's spiritual advisor, Father Chantry-Pigg. Only Barbara Pym can match this gently insidious satire of High Anglican eccentrics.
8. Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim
Miserably employed as a junior history lecturer at a provincial university, Jim Dixon struggles to control his loathing of his departmental head, Professor Welch, and his desire for the beautiful Christine, girlfriend of Welch's insufferable son, Bertrand. This 1954 tour de force contains some memorable comic set-pieces, such as the awful madrigal-singing party Jim is forced to attend at his professor's house. "It was much too late for Dixon to explain that he hadn't really meant it when he said that he could read music after a fashion; much too late. Nothing short of an epileptic fit could get him out of this."
9. Malcolm Bradbury, The history man
Taking his cue from Amis, perhaps, Bradbury gives us academia at its most pretentious and self-satisfied, with this mid-70s satire of university types, such as the appalling Howard Kirk, radical sociologist and ladies man. "Howard has long hair, though not quite so long as it was last year, and a Zapata moustache; he wears neat white sweatshirts, with rousing symbols on the front, like clenched fists." Anyone who was at university during the 1970s will have met Howard.
10. Martin Amis, The Rachel Papers
Few writers have written about sex in such hilariously nasty detail as Amis in his debut novel. His precociously clever and frequently annoying narrator Charles Highway fills the time not spent cramming for his Oxbridge entrance thinking about having sex, worrying about not having sex, and (occasionally) having sex. Then he falls in love. The novel's best jokes are much too rude to quote, but this remains one of the funniest - and most touching - accounts of growing up ever written.
Guardian, 2002-05-23.
Christina Koning's latest novel, Fabulous time, is a comedy of manners set in the English summer of 1967. Her previous book, Undiscovered country, won the Encore Prize and was longlisted for the Orange Prize. "The Golden Age of the English comic novel was (arguably) from the 1920s to 1950s, and most of the novels I've selected come from this period (not the first one obviously - although Jane Austen would probably have relished the era of Bright Young Things), incorporating all or some of the essential elements of the genre: rambling country houses, eccentric aunts, and comically awful love affairs."
1. Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
"I never read novels, (they) are all so full of nonsense and stuff," remarks a character in this one - Austen's hilarious spoof of the then fashionable Gothic romance. My favourite bit is where the impressionable heroine, Catherine Morland - who is of course addicted to tales of Gothic horror - spends her first night at the eponymous abbey, and is kept awake by what she thinks must be ghostly footsteps. While the novel's hero, Henry Tilney, may not be as sexy as Mr Darcy, he does have that other essential attribute of any self-respecting Mr Right - a GSOH.
2. Evelyn Waugh Scoop
When, in a case of mistaken identity, William Boot - writer of a column about rural life - is dispatched from the decaying family seat at Boot Magna to darkest Ishmaelia, to cover the civil war brewing there, the stage is set for some of Waugh's most brilliant and corrosive satire. Worth reading for its portrayal of Fleet Street types alone (such as archetypal newspaper magnate and all-round monster Lord Copper, proprietor of the Daily Beast), as well as for its account of how wars are fought and won by the press.
3. P. G. Wodehouse, Right ho, Jeeves
"What do you call it when two people of opposite sexes are bunged together in close association in a secluded spot, meeting each other every day and seeing a lot of each other?"
"Is 'propinquity' the word you wish, sir?"
"It is. I stake everything on propinquity, Jeeves."
The Jeeves and Wooster books are masterpieces of style and comic timing. This 1922 novel has everything: Bertie's wonderfully bossy Aunt Dahlia (not to be confused with his terrifying Aunt Agatha), a romance between stammering newt-fancier Gussie Fink-Nottle and frightfully drippy Madeline ("the stars are God's daisy-chain") Bassett, and of course Jeeves himself - that intellectual giant among valets.
4. Nancy Mitford, The pursuit of love
Growing up as one of the famous 'Mitford Girls' must have been tough enough (Unity was a friend of Hitler's, Diana married Oswald Mosley and Jessica, just to be different, became a communist), but Mitford managed to turn her difficult childhood into a witty and subversive comedy of manners. Brought up by her blue-stocking aunt after her mother ('the Bolter') has abandoned her, the narrator, Fanny, spends holidays with her adored cousins, as each in succession is launched into 'society'. Here, Fanny and her cousin Linda make themselves up for a clandestine tryst with an admirer: "Our cheeks had round scarlet patches, our lips were the same colour and our eyelids were blue, all out of Jassy's paint-box." Heaven.
5. E. F. Benson, Lucia's progress
As with Jeeves and Wooster, or Richmal Crompton's Just William books, the Mapp and Lucia novels should really be read as a series - although any one will do as an introduction to the universe portrayed. In this instance, this is the little market town of Tilling (based on Rye, where Benson himself lived, in a house formerly occupied by Henry James). Against this charmingly evoked backdrop, a fierce battle of wills is enacted between the two contenders for the (unofficial) title of Queen of Tilling - Mrs Emmeline Lucas and Mrs Elizabeth Mapp-Flint. What makes the hostilities all the more enjoyable is that they are concealed beneath a veneer of polite civility ("Cherie!" cried Mrs Elizabeth. "Too lovely to see you again!").
6. Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm
Gibbons' irresistible parody of Mary Webb's bucolic tragedies (and Thomas Hardy at his gloomiest) chronicles the misunderstandings which arise when sophisticated urbanite Flora Poste visits her country cousins, the Starkadders - presided over by Aunt Ada Doom, who has never recovered from the time she saw "something nasty in the woodshed". Here, Flora discovers for herself how unspeakably depressing rural life can be. The author thoughtfully provides asterisks to indicate the "finer passages", for the benefit of readers unsure "whether a sentence is literature or whether it is sheer flapdoodle."
7. Rose Macaulay, The Towers of Trebizond
"'Take my camel, dear,'" said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass." One of the best opening sentences in literature and one of the funniest books - an account of the narrator's expedition to Turkey as the companion of her formidable aunt and the latter's spiritual advisor, Father Chantry-Pigg. Only Barbara Pym can match this gently insidious satire of High Anglican eccentrics.
8. Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim
Miserably employed as a junior history lecturer at a provincial university, Jim Dixon struggles to control his loathing of his departmental head, Professor Welch, and his desire for the beautiful Christine, girlfriend of Welch's insufferable son, Bertrand. This 1954 tour de force contains some memorable comic set-pieces, such as the awful madrigal-singing party Jim is forced to attend at his professor's house. "It was much too late for Dixon to explain that he hadn't really meant it when he said that he could read music after a fashion; much too late. Nothing short of an epileptic fit could get him out of this."
9. Malcolm Bradbury, The history man
Taking his cue from Amis, perhaps, Bradbury gives us academia at its most pretentious and self-satisfied, with this mid-70s satire of university types, such as the appalling Howard Kirk, radical sociologist and ladies man. "Howard has long hair, though not quite so long as it was last year, and a Zapata moustache; he wears neat white sweatshirts, with rousing symbols on the front, like clenched fists." Anyone who was at university during the 1970s will have met Howard.
10. Martin Amis, The Rachel Papers
Few writers have written about sex in such hilariously nasty detail as Amis in his debut novel. His precociously clever and frequently annoying narrator Charles Highway fills the time not spent cramming for his Oxbridge entrance thinking about having sex, worrying about not having sex, and (occasionally) having sex. Then he falls in love. The novel's best jokes are much too rude to quote, but this remains one of the funniest - and most touching - accounts of growing up ever written.
112Cynfelyn
Tom Cox's top 10 coming-of-age books
Guardian, 2002-06-12.
Tom Cox is a journalist and music critic. His first book, Nice jumper, is a coming-of-age memoir about adolescent boys, golf and Nottingham.
1. Philip Roth, Goodbye Columbus
Philip Roth can be soft and vivid as well as ranting and impenetrable, and here's the proof: 97 pages that tell you everything you need to know about growing up and falling in love by a swimming pool in the late 50s. A novella you want to immobilise in time, like a perfect summer.
2. J. D. Salinger, Catcher in the rye
An obvious choice, I know, but still the blueprint for any literary exploration of the teen psyche. Which is spooky, really, since teenagers weren't even supposed to have been invented in 1946. I'm writing a book about adolescents at the moment, but can't hope I'll learn as much about them from the experience as I have from reading this.
3. Jonathan Coe, The Rotters' Club
You have to worry about a book that takes its title from a lyric by 70s pub-rockers Hatfield And The North, but this is close to perfect. So many likeable characters, so much lovely (yet realistic) innocence, and an unfeigned portrait of the 70s which serves as a perfect antidote to all that cheap-rate, let's-have-a-giggle-at-space-hoppers-out-the-sides-of-our-mouths nostalgia TV.
4. Donna Tartt, The secret history
Not strictly a coming-of-age novel, in that its principle characters seem to have well-formed personalities from the start, but certainly a coming-of-age novel in the sense that after one out-of-control night, life will never be as balmy and irresponsible for any of them. Tartt is an effortless master of suspense who can remember what it was like to be a teenager, and, amidst the book's thrilling, macabre set pieces, not only offer us a sense that the college years really are the best of our lives but tell us why too.
5. John Irving, The Hotel New Hampshire
Nobody writes about kids better than John Irving. I was torn between this and A prayer for Owen Meany, but opted for The Hotel New Hampshire because the teens here seem more universal, even when they're contemplating having sex with their siblings. Overflowing with life, and love for it.
6. Richard Rayner, The blue suit
Rayner was once a modern day Walter Mitty character, adrift in academic Cambridge with a fluctuating identity, a gargantuan collection of stolen literature, and a talent for credit card fraud. You can tell he learned a lot about himself - and his family - whilst writing this, which is a must-read for anyone a) interested in an outsider's take on the highest of higher education or b) planning to confront personal demons via prose.
7. Jeffrey Eugenides, The virgin suicides
The late Richey Edwards from the Manic Street Preachers once said this was one of his favourite books, but what such an attention-seeking doom-monger would have seen in it isn't as obvious as you might think. For all the death and bored self-loathing of the sisters in the book, I see it more as a book about the anonymous male narrators, and a perfect, virginal evocation of the way teenage boys put girls on a pedestal representing their collective hopes for the future.
8. Tom Perotta, Bad haircut
This collection of stories about growing up in the American hinterland in the mid-70s has a similar narrative voice to that of The virgin suicides: because the narrator is nameless, he aims to speak for teenagers as a whole. It's a deceptively difficult thing to pull off, but Perotta (who also wrote the brilliant i>Election) succeeds with a spare, Carver-with-a-heart style. Imagine a softer, literary version of the film Dazed and confused - a teenage community on the brink of terrible, indelible knowledge about the universe beyond the new Aerosmith LP.
9. Martin Amis, The Rachel papers
Amis at his least pretentious and most honest - about who he is, about who young men are. The only thing in his pantheon to rival Kingsley's Lucky Jim for heart or humour. After reading this, stained underpants can never quite be looked upon in the same way.
10. Michael Chabon, Wonder boys
Who's really coming of age here? The novel's narrator, creative(ly) (blocked) writing teacher Grady Tripp? Or his gifted, troubled student, James Leer? Chabon leaves us guessing right until the end in this lost weekend romp, not to mention highly refreshed by the limitless aptitude of middle-aged men for acting like spoilt teenagers.
Guardian, 2002-06-12.
Tom Cox is a journalist and music critic. His first book, Nice jumper, is a coming-of-age memoir about adolescent boys, golf and Nottingham.
1. Philip Roth, Goodbye Columbus
Philip Roth can be soft and vivid as well as ranting and impenetrable, and here's the proof: 97 pages that tell you everything you need to know about growing up and falling in love by a swimming pool in the late 50s. A novella you want to immobilise in time, like a perfect summer.
2. J. D. Salinger, Catcher in the rye
An obvious choice, I know, but still the blueprint for any literary exploration of the teen psyche. Which is spooky, really, since teenagers weren't even supposed to have been invented in 1946. I'm writing a book about adolescents at the moment, but can't hope I'll learn as much about them from the experience as I have from reading this.
3. Jonathan Coe, The Rotters' Club
You have to worry about a book that takes its title from a lyric by 70s pub-rockers Hatfield And The North, but this is close to perfect. So many likeable characters, so much lovely (yet realistic) innocence, and an unfeigned portrait of the 70s which serves as a perfect antidote to all that cheap-rate, let's-have-a-giggle-at-space-hoppers-out-the-sides-of-our-mouths nostalgia TV.
4. Donna Tartt, The secret history
Not strictly a coming-of-age novel, in that its principle characters seem to have well-formed personalities from the start, but certainly a coming-of-age novel in the sense that after one out-of-control night, life will never be as balmy and irresponsible for any of them. Tartt is an effortless master of suspense who can remember what it was like to be a teenager, and, amidst the book's thrilling, macabre set pieces, not only offer us a sense that the college years really are the best of our lives but tell us why too.
5. John Irving, The Hotel New Hampshire
Nobody writes about kids better than John Irving. I was torn between this and A prayer for Owen Meany, but opted for The Hotel New Hampshire because the teens here seem more universal, even when they're contemplating having sex with their siblings. Overflowing with life, and love for it.
6. Richard Rayner, The blue suit
Rayner was once a modern day Walter Mitty character, adrift in academic Cambridge with a fluctuating identity, a gargantuan collection of stolen literature, and a talent for credit card fraud. You can tell he learned a lot about himself - and his family - whilst writing this, which is a must-read for anyone a) interested in an outsider's take on the highest of higher education or b) planning to confront personal demons via prose.
7. Jeffrey Eugenides, The virgin suicides
The late Richey Edwards from the Manic Street Preachers once said this was one of his favourite books, but what such an attention-seeking doom-monger would have seen in it isn't as obvious as you might think. For all the death and bored self-loathing of the sisters in the book, I see it more as a book about the anonymous male narrators, and a perfect, virginal evocation of the way teenage boys put girls on a pedestal representing their collective hopes for the future.
8. Tom Perotta, Bad haircut
This collection of stories about growing up in the American hinterland in the mid-70s has a similar narrative voice to that of The virgin suicides: because the narrator is nameless, he aims to speak for teenagers as a whole. It's a deceptively difficult thing to pull off, but Perotta (who also wrote the brilliant i>Election) succeeds with a spare, Carver-with-a-heart style. Imagine a softer, literary version of the film Dazed and confused - a teenage community on the brink of terrible, indelible knowledge about the universe beyond the new Aerosmith LP.
9. Martin Amis, The Rachel papers
Amis at his least pretentious and most honest - about who he is, about who young men are. The only thing in his pantheon to rival Kingsley's Lucky Jim for heart or humour. After reading this, stained underpants can never quite be looked upon in the same way.
10. Michael Chabon, Wonder boys
Who's really coming of age here? The novel's narrator, creative(ly) (blocked) writing teacher Grady Tripp? Or his gifted, troubled student, James Leer? Chabon leaves us guessing right until the end in this lost weekend romp, not to mention highly refreshed by the limitless aptitude of middle-aged men for acting like spoilt teenagers.
113thorold
>111 Cynfelyn: >112 Cynfelyn: Martin Amis clearly still had a lot of friends in 2002! As far as I'm concerned The Rachel papers should only figure on the list of "top ten books you wish you hadn't bought"...
I think >111 Cynfelyn: is the first list so far where I've read all of them.
I think >111 Cynfelyn: is the first list so far where I've read all of them.
115Cynfelyn
>113 thorold: I did wonder whether, between Jane Eyre and The Rachel papers, the contributors were playing some sort of game of pass the parcel.
The best I can manage is Susan Blackmore's list (no. 51), where I've read five out of ten. Looking down the list of touchstones, I've only got ticks against 27 of the titles. My library is still a work in progress, but I think I've probably catalogued most of the books likely to make it onto this thread.
The best I can manage is Susan Blackmore's list (no. 51), where I've read five out of ten. Looking down the list of touchstones, I've only got ticks against 27 of the titles. My library is still a work in progress, but I think I've probably catalogued most of the books likely to make it onto this thread.
116AnnieMod
>115 Cynfelyn: Keep in mind that the ticks are a bit broken in the touchstones list in threads - even if you have the book, unless it is in one of the default collections, it will not show a tick. So depending on how your collections are organized, you may have more books really.
117Cynfelyn
Andrew Dalby on lost and threatened languages
Guardian, 2002-06-13.
Andrew Dalby is a linguist and historian; the languages in his repertoire include Sanskrit, Pali, French, Latin, Greek, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, German, and Burmese. His latest book, Language in danger, considers the consequences of the current language crisis, in which a language is dying every two weeks.
1. The Indus Valley script
Written on clay tablets of about 2200BC found at Mohenjo-Daro and other sites in what is now Pakistan. In spite of many attempts, the script is as yet undeciphered. Does it belong to one of the language families still spoken in southern Asia? Did the speakers of this unknown language eventually succumb to an Indo-Aryan invasion? You can read more about the script and the attempts to decipher it in Deciphering the Indus script by Asko Parpola, and Harappan civilization and its writing by Walter A. Fairservis.
2. Cornish
When did Cornish die? Was it in 1777 at the death of Dorothy Jeffrey? Out of the circle of fishwives of Mousehole, near Penzance, who still used Cornish in their everyday gossiping, she was the one who did the talking. Hers were the last conversations in Cornish. Or was it in 1891 at the death of John Davey of Zennor, who, when he was a boy, learnt to speak some words of Cornish from his grandfather? Those were the last words of inherited Cornish, and no one else who heard them could understand them. Will Cornish come back from the grave? Will anyone ever again learn it in infancy, as a first language? Perhaps not, but you can read about Cornish and its history in The story of the Cornish language by Peter Berresford Ellis.
3. Egyptian
When did Egyptian die? Not so very long ago. Hieroglyphs were last used at the time of the Roman Empire, 2,000 years ago. Egyptian was still the language of millions in Egypt, and it lived on. Known as Coptic, it was now written in a version of the Greek alphabet. Coptic had a flourishing literature under the Byzantine Empire. It had survived a thousand years of domination by Greeks and Romans, and it survived another thousand years of Arabic-speaking, Islamic domination. Even after that, as it finally disappeared from daily life, the liturgy of the Christian church of Egypt was still in Coptic, so the language was still heard. Now the Coptic liturgy is a thing of the past, and Egyptian Christian culture is under increasing pressure. The story of the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs is in The keys of Egypt by Lesley Adkins.
4. Eve's language
A Russian linguist recently claimed to have reconstructed 'Eve's language', the language that is ancestral to all those spoken today. But can we take the reconstruction seriously? DNA studies suggest that 'Eve', the female ancestor of all living human beings, is to be dated about 140,000 years ago. Most historical linguists believe they cannot take linguistic reconstruction back further than about 10,000 to 15,000 years. In any case, 'Eve', and the man or men privileged to impregnate her, were probably bilingual, like so many of their descendants. To find out more, read L. L. Cavalli-Sforza's The history and geography of human genes.
5. Cherokee
Cherokee is an Iroquoian language, although the Cherokee were not one of the original five nations of the Iroquois. Most Cherokee now live in Oklahoma, a long way west of their historic territory. Cherokee has its own unique writing system, a syllabary devised in 1821 by Sequoyah - just at the right time to be used in print by the early Christian missionaries to the Cherokee. With 10,000 speakers and plenty of printed texts, Cherokee is among the most flourishing of the indigenous languages of North America. But few if any children are now being brought up to speak it as a first language. Will it survive to the next generation? Find out in Thornton Russell's The Cherokees: a population history. And, for the Cherokee syllabary, read A dictionary of languages by Andrew Dalby.
6. Irish
The Irish language, after centuries of discrimination, became the national language of independent Ireland, with special privileges to encourage its use ahead of English. The 'Gaeltacht', the small districts where Irish was still in everyday use, were singled out for economic aid. 70 years later, a million people claim to speak Irish. Few of them use it regularly. Even in the Gaeltacht, the use of Irish is in decline and hardly any children are now learning it as their first language. On the interplay between Irish and English, try Compulsory Irish by Adrian Kelly. On the language itself, Irish by Joe Sheils.
7. Welsh
After an equally long struggle with official monolingualism, Welsh successfully reasserted itself in the second half of the 20th century. It has half a million speakers and a TV channel. Welsh comes first in all sorts of official contexts, from road signs to graduation ceremonies. Practically all of those speakers are bilingual; most of them use English regularly for some purposes. When the time comes, how many of their children will bring their children up in Welsh? On the language situation in Wales over the last 100 years, read Let's do our best for the ancient tongue by Geraint H. Jenkins and Mari A. Williams. On the language itself, try Janet Davies's Welsh language.
8. Greek
Greek can be traced back in writing for 3,400 years - about as long as Chinese. No other living language can claim so long a recorded history as these two. Greek isn't threatened, surely. It's the language of two nation states, Greece and Cyprus. But what's the language of tourism in Greece? What language is spoken by young people in Greece who want to make money and get ahead? Follow the history of Greek in Greek by L. R. Palmer, and discover more about the language in David A. Hardy's Greek language and people.
9. French
French is threatened too. Count the words of English that are used in French teenspeak, or listen to the French media and pick out the English words that everyone in France is now assumed to understand. Watch the adverts: the brand names are in English, the catchphrases are in English, and the voice-over is in a caricatured, over-the-top English accent. And it works! You can read about language politics in France in Philip Thody's Le Franglais; or, on the language itself, try Celia Dixie's French language, life and culture.
10. English
No. English isn't threatened. When every other language in the world has gone, English will still be there. So why worry?...
------
5.
Sequoyah is not currently an LT author. See his Wikipedia article. Also available in English.
10.
"No. English isn't threatened. When every other language in the world has gone, English will still be there. So why worry?..."
I read a very different argument in Nicholas Ostler, Empires of the word : a language history of the world, which argues that most English speakers have English as their second, third or whatever language. Their relationship with the language is transactional rather than emotional, and they cannot be relied to pass it on to their next generations. Given a change in circumstances (China overtaking the USA as the world superpower; the UK leaving the EU) English could prove to be as ephemeral in many countries as French has proved to be since its pinnacle as the language of "society" in eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe, colonial Portuguese and Dutch have been in East Asia, and Russian has been in many ex-Warsaw Block countries. We'll see.
Guardian, 2002-06-13.
Andrew Dalby is a linguist and historian; the languages in his repertoire include Sanskrit, Pali, French, Latin, Greek, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, German, and Burmese. His latest book, Language in danger, considers the consequences of the current language crisis, in which a language is dying every two weeks.
1. The Indus Valley script
Written on clay tablets of about 2200BC found at Mohenjo-Daro and other sites in what is now Pakistan. In spite of many attempts, the script is as yet undeciphered. Does it belong to one of the language families still spoken in southern Asia? Did the speakers of this unknown language eventually succumb to an Indo-Aryan invasion? You can read more about the script and the attempts to decipher it in Deciphering the Indus script by Asko Parpola, and Harappan civilization and its writing by Walter A. Fairservis.
2. Cornish
When did Cornish die? Was it in 1777 at the death of Dorothy Jeffrey? Out of the circle of fishwives of Mousehole, near Penzance, who still used Cornish in their everyday gossiping, she was the one who did the talking. Hers were the last conversations in Cornish. Or was it in 1891 at the death of John Davey of Zennor, who, when he was a boy, learnt to speak some words of Cornish from his grandfather? Those were the last words of inherited Cornish, and no one else who heard them could understand them. Will Cornish come back from the grave? Will anyone ever again learn it in infancy, as a first language? Perhaps not, but you can read about Cornish and its history in The story of the Cornish language by Peter Berresford Ellis.
3. Egyptian
When did Egyptian die? Not so very long ago. Hieroglyphs were last used at the time of the Roman Empire, 2,000 years ago. Egyptian was still the language of millions in Egypt, and it lived on. Known as Coptic, it was now written in a version of the Greek alphabet. Coptic had a flourishing literature under the Byzantine Empire. It had survived a thousand years of domination by Greeks and Romans, and it survived another thousand years of Arabic-speaking, Islamic domination. Even after that, as it finally disappeared from daily life, the liturgy of the Christian church of Egypt was still in Coptic, so the language was still heard. Now the Coptic liturgy is a thing of the past, and Egyptian Christian culture is under increasing pressure. The story of the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs is in The keys of Egypt by Lesley Adkins.
4. Eve's language
A Russian linguist recently claimed to have reconstructed 'Eve's language', the language that is ancestral to all those spoken today. But can we take the reconstruction seriously? DNA studies suggest that 'Eve', the female ancestor of all living human beings, is to be dated about 140,000 years ago. Most historical linguists believe they cannot take linguistic reconstruction back further than about 10,000 to 15,000 years. In any case, 'Eve', and the man or men privileged to impregnate her, were probably bilingual, like so many of their descendants. To find out more, read L. L. Cavalli-Sforza's The history and geography of human genes.
5. Cherokee
Cherokee is an Iroquoian language, although the Cherokee were not one of the original five nations of the Iroquois. Most Cherokee now live in Oklahoma, a long way west of their historic territory. Cherokee has its own unique writing system, a syllabary devised in 1821 by Sequoyah - just at the right time to be used in print by the early Christian missionaries to the Cherokee. With 10,000 speakers and plenty of printed texts, Cherokee is among the most flourishing of the indigenous languages of North America. But few if any children are now being brought up to speak it as a first language. Will it survive to the next generation? Find out in Thornton Russell's The Cherokees: a population history. And, for the Cherokee syllabary, read A dictionary of languages by Andrew Dalby.
6. Irish
The Irish language, after centuries of discrimination, became the national language of independent Ireland, with special privileges to encourage its use ahead of English. The 'Gaeltacht', the small districts where Irish was still in everyday use, were singled out for economic aid. 70 years later, a million people claim to speak Irish. Few of them use it regularly. Even in the Gaeltacht, the use of Irish is in decline and hardly any children are now learning it as their first language. On the interplay between Irish and English, try Compulsory Irish by Adrian Kelly. On the language itself, Irish by Joe Sheils.
7. Welsh
After an equally long struggle with official monolingualism, Welsh successfully reasserted itself in the second half of the 20th century. It has half a million speakers and a TV channel. Welsh comes first in all sorts of official contexts, from road signs to graduation ceremonies. Practically all of those speakers are bilingual; most of them use English regularly for some purposes. When the time comes, how many of their children will bring their children up in Welsh? On the language situation in Wales over the last 100 years, read Let's do our best for the ancient tongue by Geraint H. Jenkins and Mari A. Williams. On the language itself, try Janet Davies's Welsh language.
8. Greek
Greek can be traced back in writing for 3,400 years - about as long as Chinese. No other living language can claim so long a recorded history as these two. Greek isn't threatened, surely. It's the language of two nation states, Greece and Cyprus. But what's the language of tourism in Greece? What language is spoken by young people in Greece who want to make money and get ahead? Follow the history of Greek in Greek by L. R. Palmer, and discover more about the language in David A. Hardy's Greek language and people.
9. French
French is threatened too. Count the words of English that are used in French teenspeak, or listen to the French media and pick out the English words that everyone in France is now assumed to understand. Watch the adverts: the brand names are in English, the catchphrases are in English, and the voice-over is in a caricatured, over-the-top English accent. And it works! You can read about language politics in France in Philip Thody's Le Franglais; or, on the language itself, try Celia Dixie's French language, life and culture.
10. English
No. English isn't threatened. When every other language in the world has gone, English will still be there. So why worry?...
------
5.
Sequoyah is not currently an LT author. See his Wikipedia article. Also available in English.
10.
"No. English isn't threatened. When every other language in the world has gone, English will still be there. So why worry?..."
I read a very different argument in Nicholas Ostler, Empires of the word : a language history of the world, which argues that most English speakers have English as their second, third or whatever language. Their relationship with the language is transactional rather than emotional, and they cannot be relied to pass it on to their next generations. Given a change in circumstances (China overtaking the USA as the world superpower; the UK leaving the EU) English could prove to be as ephemeral in many countries as French has proved to be since its pinnacle as the language of "society" in eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe, colonial Portuguese and Dutch have been in East Asia, and Russian has been in many ex-Warsaw Block countries. We'll see.
118thorold
>115 Cynfelyn: No, I was wrong: there was also Joanna Trollope’s list of Victoriana at >38 Cynfelyn:
Quite a few of the fiction-based lists are 8/10 or 9/10 for me, but then there’s always at least one book that is either “the only one I haven’t read from that author” or “one I know I should have read but haven’t”.
Of course, there wouldn’t be any point in them doing these lists if they were only listing books most people have already read. It’s the same principle as LT: This person likes (say) Northanger Abbey and The history man, which I like, so whatever else they like is likely to be at least worth looking at.
Quite a few of the fiction-based lists are 8/10 or 9/10 for me, but then there’s always at least one book that is either “the only one I haven’t read from that author” or “one I know I should have read but haven’t”.
Of course, there wouldn’t be any point in them doing these lists if they were only listing books most people have already read. It’s the same principle as LT: This person likes (say) Northanger Abbey and The history man, which I like, so whatever else they like is likely to be at least worth looking at.
119Cynfelyn
>116 AnnieMod: Aha. So books with a grey tick on author pages don't get any sort of a tick on Talk touchstone lists? Other members of the family's books are in non-default collections. Our only copy of The Lord of the Rings, already touchstoned above, is in my wife's collection, and sure enough, is unticked.
Thanks for the explanation. Do you know whether it is an intentional feature, or a bug waiting for LT v.2?
Thanks for the explanation. Do you know whether it is an intentional feature, or a bug waiting for LT v.2?
120AnnieMod
>119 Cynfelyn: It's a bug. Just not a high priority one...
121Cynfelyn
Philip Bobbitt's top 10 books on international affairs
Guardian, 2002-06-25.
Philip Bobbitt is a former senior official of the US government and holds a chair in constitutional law at the University of Texas. His latest book is The shield of Achilles: war, peace and the course of history.
1. Homer, The Iliad
It implicitly asserts that no particular people, era or group is intrinsically evil, and that no particular class or country is predestined as the one and only bearer of civilisation. The Iliad puts the concept of force at the centre of human relations. I especially like the recent translation by Robert Fagles.
2. Thucydides, The Pelopponesian War
Thucydides was the first historian to discard the role of gods in favour of human agency and thus integrated war and politics; Bolingbroke attributed to Thucydides the notion that history is philosophy by example.
3. Machiavelli, The discourses
Less well-known than The prince, these essays deal with the problem of legitimacy in a republic, and dispute the idea that economic relations are the principal determinants of success in war.
4. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, The Federalist papers
The key discourse on how to make a limited sovereign safe in the world and yet protective of its people's rights, thus uniting the subjects of strategy and law.
5. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical investigations
This book is as important for our time as Kant's Perpetual peace was for Wittgenstein's (it argued that international harmony can be the unintended result of discord). Wittgenstein too is concerned with the limits on what we can and cannot say and know, with lethal implications for natural law, much social science, and reductionism generally.
6. Hedley Bull, The anarchical society, and Adam Watson & Hedley Bull, The expansion of international society
Important works that, like Hobbes, relate the nature of the state to the international system, written in a clear, empirical style.
7. Lawrence Freedman (ed.), Collected essays: war, or Peter Paret (ed.), Makers of modern strategy
The former contains many more essays on contemporary issues, the latter features fewer essays of greater length including important discussions of Machiavelli and Clausewitz.
8. Czeslaw Milosz, New and collected poems
Many of these poems deal with the interrelation between history, warfare and legitimacy.
9. Michael Howard, The causes of war
This collection contains the classic essay 'The forgotten dimension of strategy' which alone is worth the price of admission. Some readers will note that Howard's most recent book, The invention of peace, is also destined for permanence.
10. B. S. Flowers (ed.), Global scenarios
The Royal Dutch Shell Corporation scenarios for the future, virtually a classified document in the business world but available every three years in a much-abridged pamphlet edition for the public.
------
I'm sure Philip Bobbitt is a very serious fellow, a good father to his children and all that, but it's difficult to see the surname without thinking, "That Bobbit?"
2.
Hooray for the Grauniad! I've been silently correcting typos, for which the Guardian was notorious. Perhaps in part because the paper was not afraid to use big words, when other papers pitched themselves at a reading age of nine years old. Anyway, "The Pelopponesian War" is too good to let go. Not that I am mocking; I have to check that I have got "Mediterranean" and "thousand" right every time.
10.
Speechless.
Guardian, 2002-06-25.
Philip Bobbitt is a former senior official of the US government and holds a chair in constitutional law at the University of Texas. His latest book is The shield of Achilles: war, peace and the course of history.
1. Homer, The Iliad
It implicitly asserts that no particular people, era or group is intrinsically evil, and that no particular class or country is predestined as the one and only bearer of civilisation. The Iliad puts the concept of force at the centre of human relations. I especially like the recent translation by Robert Fagles.
2. Thucydides, The Pelopponesian War
Thucydides was the first historian to discard the role of gods in favour of human agency and thus integrated war and politics; Bolingbroke attributed to Thucydides the notion that history is philosophy by example.
3. Machiavelli, The discourses
Less well-known than The prince, these essays deal with the problem of legitimacy in a republic, and dispute the idea that economic relations are the principal determinants of success in war.
4. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, The Federalist papers
The key discourse on how to make a limited sovereign safe in the world and yet protective of its people's rights, thus uniting the subjects of strategy and law.
5. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical investigations
This book is as important for our time as Kant's Perpetual peace was for Wittgenstein's (it argued that international harmony can be the unintended result of discord). Wittgenstein too is concerned with the limits on what we can and cannot say and know, with lethal implications for natural law, much social science, and reductionism generally.
6. Hedley Bull, The anarchical society, and Adam Watson & Hedley Bull, The expansion of international society
Important works that, like Hobbes, relate the nature of the state to the international system, written in a clear, empirical style.
7. Lawrence Freedman (ed.), Collected essays: war, or Peter Paret (ed.), Makers of modern strategy
The former contains many more essays on contemporary issues, the latter features fewer essays of greater length including important discussions of Machiavelli and Clausewitz.
8. Czeslaw Milosz, New and collected poems
Many of these poems deal with the interrelation between history, warfare and legitimacy.
9. Michael Howard, The causes of war
This collection contains the classic essay 'The forgotten dimension of strategy' which alone is worth the price of admission. Some readers will note that Howard's most recent book, The invention of peace, is also destined for permanence.
10. B. S. Flowers (ed.), Global scenarios
The Royal Dutch Shell Corporation scenarios for the future, virtually a classified document in the business world but available every three years in a much-abridged pamphlet edition for the public.
------
I'm sure Philip Bobbitt is a very serious fellow, a good father to his children and all that, but it's difficult to see the surname without thinking, "That Bobbit?"
2.
Hooray for the Grauniad! I've been silently correcting typos, for which the Guardian was notorious. Perhaps in part because the paper was not afraid to use big words, when other papers pitched themselves at a reading age of nine years old. Anyway, "The Pelopponesian War" is too good to let go. Not that I am mocking; I have to check that I have got "Mediterranean" and "thousand" right every time.
10.
Speechless.
122Cynfelyn
Jeffrey Moore's top 10 campus novels
Guardian, 2002-07-03.
Jeffrey Moore is the author of Red-rose chain, a tale of a romantic Yorkshireman who teaches Shakespeare with forged credentials at a Montreal university. Red-Rose Chain won the Commonwealth Best First Book Award in 2000.
Read a review.
1. Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim
Going out on a limb here, I know. With its themes of "orgiastic boredom" and soul-crushing pretension, this is the prototypical campus satire, savage and anarchic. What Amis knew better than anyone else, it seems to me, is that good satire depends on a light touch. If you push it, if you don't let the reader complete the equation, the humour vanishes. Does Lucky Jim still make us laugh today? I'm with Christopher Hitchens here, who recently ranked it as "the funniest book of the past half century".
2. Vladimir Nabokov, Pale fire
A poem of 999 lines by the murdered American poet John Shade is glossed by an emigré scholar named Charles Kinbote. In one of his footnotes, which take up most of the book, he shows us this mimeographed memo: "Several members of the Department of English are painfully concerned over the fate of a manuscript poem that fell into the hands of a person who not only is unqualified for the job of editing it, belonging as he does to another department, but is known to have a deranged mind..." One of the most singular and inventive novels of all time.
3. J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace
The heir to Kafka and Beckett writes spare, effortless prose that most writers couldn't match with the effort of two lifetimes. This unremittingly tense and disquieting novel recounts the fate of a scholar of Romantic poetry who resigns in disgrace after an affair with a young student. Among other awards, it won the Commonwealth Writer's prize in 2000. (The more interesting best first book category was won by your humble servant, and after the ceremonies in New Delhi I was mistakenly given one of Coetzee's trophies: a book-shaped wine case with four well-vinted bottles inside, which I took back to Canada. Coetzee was given my trophy - a pen, I think.)
4. David Lodge, Nice work and Changing places
Two campus novels par excellence. In the first, the factory clashes with the university, personified by engineer Vic Wilcox and English lecturer Dr Robyn Penrose. The plotting is ingenious and so are the comic debacles - Kingsley Amis loved this novel. In the second, two universities on opposite sides of the Atlantic have an annual exchange: this year Morris Zapp changes places with Philip Swallow, who are almost as polar as Jerry Lewis's Nutty Professor. They end up swapping not only positions, but homes and wives. Lots of self-referential techniques here, including an intrusive narrator and gags about omniscience.
5. Muriel Spark, The prime of Miss Jean Brodie
A deliciously disturbing portrait of an eccentric and egotistical Edinburgh schoolmistress and her group of favoured pupils, her "crème de la crème". The voice is clear and unforgettable: "I am descended, do not forget, of William Brodie, a man of substance, a cabinet maker and designer of gibbets, a member of the town council of Edinburgh and a keeper of two mistresses who bore him five children between them. Blood tells." With its flashbacks and flashforwards, its interweaving of politics, religion and treachery, the story has more moral ambiguity and complexity than you would have thought from watching the film.
6. Philip Roth, The human stain
Off-campus, a 71-year-old dean named Coleman Silk has an affair with an illiterate woman half his age; on-campus, he is accused of racism after asking his class this question about two black students who have missed the first five classes: "Do they exist or are they spooks?" Intricately constructed, masterfully written, and crammed with ideas and insights. It's hard to believe that Roth, who is at the top of his game here, will soon be the age of Coleman Silk.
7. Willa Cather, The professor's house
Cather writes in a crystalline prose influenced directly, a professor once told me, by the Latin classics. I wouldn't know. This novel, arguably her best, is structurally beyond praise: a realist section describes the middle-aged disillusion of Professor St Peter, and a mythopoeic section recounts his memories of his favourite student. Rich and resonant.
8. Malcolm Bradbury, The history man
Stealing a page from Lucky Jim perhaps, Bradbury portrays academia at its most pretentious and predatory. A bit more heavy-handed and dated than the Amis, it still contains some superb scenes of high farce and grim wit. A dashing, au courant sociologist teaches at a new university, "a still expanding dream in white concrete, glass, and architectural free form", where he practices his "radical sociology" on his wife, lovers, students and colleagues. Lots of orgiastic affairs, wine-drenched parties and intellectual jousting. When I read it years ago, I remember being irritated by the paragraphs, which go on for ever.
9. Dietrich Schwanitz, Der Campus
After allegedly raping a student, a star sociologist is pushed to the edge of sanity by the PC police, "conviction terrorists" and crucifying journalists. A bestseller in Germany in the 90s, this novel doesn't appear to be out in English yet. I wonder if Julian Barnes, who once translated a book of German cartoons, could manage this one.
10. Michael Chabon, Wonder boys
One of the more elegant stylists around, at least in America, and one of those who leave me emerald with envy. After his disgustingly precocious first novel Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Chabon spent five years on a follow-up called Fountain City. But around the 1,500-page mark he realised it was spinning out of control, so he jettisoned it and wrote Wonder boys in a matter of months. Its protagonist, a pot-smoking writer-professor who stumbles through the charred remnants of his marriage and career, is a novelist with an unfinished and unfinishable manuscript of 2,611 pages...
Guardian, 2002-07-03.
Jeffrey Moore is the author of Red-rose chain, a tale of a romantic Yorkshireman who teaches Shakespeare with forged credentials at a Montreal university. Red-Rose Chain won the Commonwealth Best First Book Award in 2000.
Read a review.
1. Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim
Going out on a limb here, I know. With its themes of "orgiastic boredom" and soul-crushing pretension, this is the prototypical campus satire, savage and anarchic. What Amis knew better than anyone else, it seems to me, is that good satire depends on a light touch. If you push it, if you don't let the reader complete the equation, the humour vanishes. Does Lucky Jim still make us laugh today? I'm with Christopher Hitchens here, who recently ranked it as "the funniest book of the past half century".
2. Vladimir Nabokov, Pale fire
A poem of 999 lines by the murdered American poet John Shade is glossed by an emigré scholar named Charles Kinbote. In one of his footnotes, which take up most of the book, he shows us this mimeographed memo: "Several members of the Department of English are painfully concerned over the fate of a manuscript poem that fell into the hands of a person who not only is unqualified for the job of editing it, belonging as he does to another department, but is known to have a deranged mind..." One of the most singular and inventive novels of all time.
3. J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace
The heir to Kafka and Beckett writes spare, effortless prose that most writers couldn't match with the effort of two lifetimes. This unremittingly tense and disquieting novel recounts the fate of a scholar of Romantic poetry who resigns in disgrace after an affair with a young student. Among other awards, it won the Commonwealth Writer's prize in 2000. (The more interesting best first book category was won by your humble servant, and after the ceremonies in New Delhi I was mistakenly given one of Coetzee's trophies: a book-shaped wine case with four well-vinted bottles inside, which I took back to Canada. Coetzee was given my trophy - a pen, I think.)
4. David Lodge, Nice work and Changing places
Two campus novels par excellence. In the first, the factory clashes with the university, personified by engineer Vic Wilcox and English lecturer Dr Robyn Penrose. The plotting is ingenious and so are the comic debacles - Kingsley Amis loved this novel. In the second, two universities on opposite sides of the Atlantic have an annual exchange: this year Morris Zapp changes places with Philip Swallow, who are almost as polar as Jerry Lewis's Nutty Professor. They end up swapping not only positions, but homes and wives. Lots of self-referential techniques here, including an intrusive narrator and gags about omniscience.
5. Muriel Spark, The prime of Miss Jean Brodie
A deliciously disturbing portrait of an eccentric and egotistical Edinburgh schoolmistress and her group of favoured pupils, her "crème de la crème". The voice is clear and unforgettable: "I am descended, do not forget, of William Brodie, a man of substance, a cabinet maker and designer of gibbets, a member of the town council of Edinburgh and a keeper of two mistresses who bore him five children between them. Blood tells." With its flashbacks and flashforwards, its interweaving of politics, religion and treachery, the story has more moral ambiguity and complexity than you would have thought from watching the film.
6. Philip Roth, The human stain
Off-campus, a 71-year-old dean named Coleman Silk has an affair with an illiterate woman half his age; on-campus, he is accused of racism after asking his class this question about two black students who have missed the first five classes: "Do they exist or are they spooks?" Intricately constructed, masterfully written, and crammed with ideas and insights. It's hard to believe that Roth, who is at the top of his game here, will soon be the age of Coleman Silk.
7. Willa Cather, The professor's house
Cather writes in a crystalline prose influenced directly, a professor once told me, by the Latin classics. I wouldn't know. This novel, arguably her best, is structurally beyond praise: a realist section describes the middle-aged disillusion of Professor St Peter, and a mythopoeic section recounts his memories of his favourite student. Rich and resonant.
8. Malcolm Bradbury, The history man
Stealing a page from Lucky Jim perhaps, Bradbury portrays academia at its most pretentious and predatory. A bit more heavy-handed and dated than the Amis, it still contains some superb scenes of high farce and grim wit. A dashing, au courant sociologist teaches at a new university, "a still expanding dream in white concrete, glass, and architectural free form", where he practices his "radical sociology" on his wife, lovers, students and colleagues. Lots of orgiastic affairs, wine-drenched parties and intellectual jousting. When I read it years ago, I remember being irritated by the paragraphs, which go on for ever.
9. Dietrich Schwanitz, Der Campus
After allegedly raping a student, a star sociologist is pushed to the edge of sanity by the PC police, "conviction terrorists" and crucifying journalists. A bestseller in Germany in the 90s, this novel doesn't appear to be out in English yet. I wonder if Julian Barnes, who once translated a book of German cartoons, could manage this one.
10. Michael Chabon, Wonder boys
One of the more elegant stylists around, at least in America, and one of those who leave me emerald with envy. After his disgustingly precocious first novel Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Chabon spent five years on a follow-up called Fountain City. But around the 1,500-page mark he realised it was spinning out of control, so he jettisoned it and wrote Wonder boys in a matter of months. Its protagonist, a pot-smoking writer-professor who stumbles through the charred remnants of his marriage and career, is a novelist with an unfinished and unfinishable manuscript of 2,611 pages...
123Cynfelyn
Randal Keynes's favourite books about evolution
Guardian, 2002-07-17.
Randal Keynes is Darwin's great-great-grandson. He is also the author of Annie's box, an exploration of family life in the Darwin household and the effect on Darwin of the death of his ten-year-old daughter Annie.
Thomas Glick & David Kohn (ed.), On evolution - the development of the theory of natural selection by Charles Darwin
Darwin was always toying with ideas as he observed and experimented, and one way to understand the theory of evolution is to follow in his mental footsteps. Glick and Kohn track his journey; they explain the central themes and provide the key passages together with Darwin's comments to friends as he faced up to all the questions he had to answer.
James Secord, Victorian sensation - the extraordinary publication, reception and secret authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
Robert Chambers had started the argument about evolution with his Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, 14 years before Darwin declared his theory. Secord explains how people read and reacted to Chambers's history of all life as a natural development towards humanity. The debates were fierce and Secord shows how they were shot through by social and religious concerns.
Colin Tudge, In Mendel's footnotes - an introduction to the science and technologies of genes and genetics from the nineteenth century to the twenty-second
Mendel's genetics is the key to the whole theory - a simple idea with implications that cut deep into our thinking about animal and human nature, and a developing technology that gives us Frankenstein's power to experiment with them. Tudge draws the idea out of Mendel's observations in his monastery garden, traces its growth into our present understanding and sets out today's questions about genetic manipulation and its use.
Advertisement
Daniel Kevles, In the name of eugenics - genetics and the uses of human heredity
A fascinating history of the most dangerous temptation of evolutionary theory. Kevles shows how eugenics became a 'cruel and problematic faith' as scientists and moralists groped their way through the politics of the last century. The book is a lesson for today about the perils of applying science in social thinking.
Jonathan Weiner, The beak of the finch - a story of evolution in our time
An obsessive finch-watch in the Galapagos has revealed evolutionary pressures working from season to season on flocks of different kinds struggling to survive among the cacti and scrub. Weiner's account of Peter Grant's discoveries brings the process of natural selection into close focus with rich and compelling detail.
Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful life - the Burgess Shale and the nature of history
Gould explains how the ancient lobsters of the Burgess Shale prompted a recasting of the fossil record, and weaves in a deeply unsettling moral about contingency in evolutionary trends. His writings about natural history are intoxicating, and Wonderful life is his masterpiece. It conveys the imaginative thrill of scientific understanding as vividly as any other book I know.
Matt Ridley, The origins of virtue
Dawkins has said that if The selfish gene were to have a second volume on humans, Matt Ridley's book is 'pretty much how it ought to be'. Ridley takes up Dawkins's idea and develops it to offer an explanation of human social origins. His examples and analogies add depth and range.
Jared Diamond, The rise and fall of the third chimpanzee
Diamond explains how embarrassingly close humans are to the man-like apes and invites us to rethink some of the darker aspects of human nature through an appreciation of our animal ancestry. Watch out for kung-fu kerosene drinking on which he hangs a point.
Charles Kingsley, The water babies
Nothing to do with Pears soap as I had presumed it was until I read it, but the first literary response to The origin of species and still unrivalled for its surreal fantasy and wit. This edition has the Victorian cartoonist Linley Sambourne's hauntingly naturalistic illustrations, and costs only £1. If you don't know the book, just treat yourself!
Guardian, 2002-07-17.
Randal Keynes is Darwin's great-great-grandson. He is also the author of Annie's box, an exploration of family life in the Darwin household and the effect on Darwin of the death of his ten-year-old daughter Annie.
Thomas Glick & David Kohn (ed.), On evolution - the development of the theory of natural selection by Charles Darwin
Darwin was always toying with ideas as he observed and experimented, and one way to understand the theory of evolution is to follow in his mental footsteps. Glick and Kohn track his journey; they explain the central themes and provide the key passages together with Darwin's comments to friends as he faced up to all the questions he had to answer.
James Secord, Victorian sensation - the extraordinary publication, reception and secret authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
Robert Chambers had started the argument about evolution with his Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, 14 years before Darwin declared his theory. Secord explains how people read and reacted to Chambers's history of all life as a natural development towards humanity. The debates were fierce and Secord shows how they were shot through by social and religious concerns.
Colin Tudge, In Mendel's footnotes - an introduction to the science and technologies of genes and genetics from the nineteenth century to the twenty-second
Mendel's genetics is the key to the whole theory - a simple idea with implications that cut deep into our thinking about animal and human nature, and a developing technology that gives us Frankenstein's power to experiment with them. Tudge draws the idea out of Mendel's observations in his monastery garden, traces its growth into our present understanding and sets out today's questions about genetic manipulation and its use.
Advertisement
Daniel Kevles, In the name of eugenics - genetics and the uses of human heredity
A fascinating history of the most dangerous temptation of evolutionary theory. Kevles shows how eugenics became a 'cruel and problematic faith' as scientists and moralists groped their way through the politics of the last century. The book is a lesson for today about the perils of applying science in social thinking.
Jonathan Weiner, The beak of the finch - a story of evolution in our time
An obsessive finch-watch in the Galapagos has revealed evolutionary pressures working from season to season on flocks of different kinds struggling to survive among the cacti and scrub. Weiner's account of Peter Grant's discoveries brings the process of natural selection into close focus with rich and compelling detail.
Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful life - the Burgess Shale and the nature of history
Gould explains how the ancient lobsters of the Burgess Shale prompted a recasting of the fossil record, and weaves in a deeply unsettling moral about contingency in evolutionary trends. His writings about natural history are intoxicating, and Wonderful life is his masterpiece. It conveys the imaginative thrill of scientific understanding as vividly as any other book I know.
Matt Ridley, The origins of virtue
Dawkins has said that if The selfish gene were to have a second volume on humans, Matt Ridley's book is 'pretty much how it ought to be'. Ridley takes up Dawkins's idea and develops it to offer an explanation of human social origins. His examples and analogies add depth and range.
Jared Diamond, The rise and fall of the third chimpanzee
Diamond explains how embarrassingly close humans are to the man-like apes and invites us to rethink some of the darker aspects of human nature through an appreciation of our animal ancestry. Watch out for kung-fu kerosene drinking on which he hangs a point.
Charles Kingsley, The water babies
Nothing to do with Pears soap as I had presumed it was until I read it, but the first literary response to The origin of species and still unrivalled for its surreal fantasy and wit. This edition has the Victorian cartoonist Linley Sambourne's hauntingly naturalistic illustrations, and costs only £1. If you don't know the book, just treat yourself!
124Cynfelyn
Mike Gayle's top 10 male confessionals
Guardian, 2002-07-25.
Mike Gayle's books include My legendary girlfriend, Mr commitment and Turning thirty. His latest, Dinner for two, is the tale of a music journalist turned agony uncle with a ticking biological clock.
1. Clive James, Unreliable memoirs
OK, so it's not strictly a novel but, as Mr James puts it, Unreliable memoirs isn't exactly a warts-and-all autobiography either. It is, however, the funniest book on men, relationships and life in general that has ever been written. The king of confessionals.
2. Sue Townsend, The secret diary of Adrian Mole
How a middle-aged woman from Leicester ever got inside my head I'll never know, but she got it scarily spot-on. Acne, girls, hardened nipples, and best mates who get off with your girlfriend - the lot.
3. Ethan Hawke, The hottest state
You'd be forgiven for assuming that actor Ethan Hawke couldn't write his way out of a paper bag (should the need inexplicably arise). You'd be wrong. The Hottest State is note-perfect about that seemingly most everyday of subjects: my woman gone done me wrong.
4. J. D. Salinger, Catcher in the rye
Me, me, me, me, me. Salinger's coming-of-age novel highlights the other mainstay of male confessionals - the importance of the all-powerful 'I'. Self-obsession at its very best.
5. Nick Hornby, High fidelity
Rule number 5.6 of the Book of Bloke says that you have to love this book, and I for one won't argue. It's like an evening down the pub listening to your funniest, most miserable best mate telling you exactly how the world is.
6. Alain de Botton, Essays in love
Despite obviously spending a lot of time dwelling on higher matters, de Botton took time out to devote a tome to 'the trouble with the ladies'. A funny, wry and sometimes touching novel about L.O.V.E.
7. William Sutcliffe, Are you experienced?
A gap-year guy goes travelling around India with his best friend's ridiculously pretentious girlfriend and gets more than he bargained for. So jaw-achingly funny that you will embarrass yourself reading it in public.
8. Tony Parsons, Man and boy
A flawed novel in many ways (how many 30-year-old men have fathers who fought in the second world war and four-year-old children who are obsessed by a 25-year-old sci-fi film, or make reference to the phrase 'gangster rap' without gagging?), but when Parsons gets it right you forgive him everything.
9. David Wilson, Love and nausea
If David Wilson's book had come out in 1998 instead of 1995 he would have been tagged a 'lad-lit' writer or, worse still, 'A male Bridget Jones' (even though Ms Jones is a fictional character - doh!). Not that it would have changed the fact that this book about a man's obsession with Sartre and relationships is hilarious.
10. Ben Richards, Throwing the house out of the window
Richards's first and possibly best novel, about the highs and lows of a housing officer in London. The opening chapter offers more truths about modern love and modern life than most novels contain in their entirety.
------
5.
Unless Book of Bloke is a rhetorical device (probably), he perhaps means Ben Pobjie's The Book of Bloke (Australian) or William Nicholson's The Book of Blokes (yet another typo).
Guardian, 2002-07-25.
Mike Gayle's books include My legendary girlfriend, Mr commitment and Turning thirty. His latest, Dinner for two, is the tale of a music journalist turned agony uncle with a ticking biological clock.
1. Clive James, Unreliable memoirs
OK, so it's not strictly a novel but, as Mr James puts it, Unreliable memoirs isn't exactly a warts-and-all autobiography either. It is, however, the funniest book on men, relationships and life in general that has ever been written. The king of confessionals.
2. Sue Townsend, The secret diary of Adrian Mole
How a middle-aged woman from Leicester ever got inside my head I'll never know, but she got it scarily spot-on. Acne, girls, hardened nipples, and best mates who get off with your girlfriend - the lot.
3. Ethan Hawke, The hottest state
You'd be forgiven for assuming that actor Ethan Hawke couldn't write his way out of a paper bag (should the need inexplicably arise). You'd be wrong. The Hottest State is note-perfect about that seemingly most everyday of subjects: my woman gone done me wrong.
4. J. D. Salinger, Catcher in the rye
Me, me, me, me, me. Salinger's coming-of-age novel highlights the other mainstay of male confessionals - the importance of the all-powerful 'I'. Self-obsession at its very best.
5. Nick Hornby, High fidelity
Rule number 5.6 of the Book of Bloke says that you have to love this book, and I for one won't argue. It's like an evening down the pub listening to your funniest, most miserable best mate telling you exactly how the world is.
6. Alain de Botton, Essays in love
Despite obviously spending a lot of time dwelling on higher matters, de Botton took time out to devote a tome to 'the trouble with the ladies'. A funny, wry and sometimes touching novel about L.O.V.E.
7. William Sutcliffe, Are you experienced?
A gap-year guy goes travelling around India with his best friend's ridiculously pretentious girlfriend and gets more than he bargained for. So jaw-achingly funny that you will embarrass yourself reading it in public.
8. Tony Parsons, Man and boy
A flawed novel in many ways (how many 30-year-old men have fathers who fought in the second world war and four-year-old children who are obsessed by a 25-year-old sci-fi film, or make reference to the phrase 'gangster rap' without gagging?), but when Parsons gets it right you forgive him everything.
9. David Wilson, Love and nausea
If David Wilson's book had come out in 1998 instead of 1995 he would have been tagged a 'lad-lit' writer or, worse still, 'A male Bridget Jones' (even though Ms Jones is a fictional character - doh!). Not that it would have changed the fact that this book about a man's obsession with Sartre and relationships is hilarious.
10. Ben Richards, Throwing the house out of the window
Richards's first and possibly best novel, about the highs and lows of a housing officer in London. The opening chapter offers more truths about modern love and modern life than most novels contain in their entirety.
------
5.
Unless Book of Bloke is a rhetorical device (probably), he perhaps means Ben Pobjie's The Book of Bloke (Australian) or William Nicholson's The Book of Blokes (yet another typo).
125Cynfelyn
Stella Duffy's top 10 tart noir books
Guardian, 2002-08-07.
"Tart noir, the loose conglomerate of like-minded women writers, is now an anthology. For this collection Lauren Henderson and I commissioned original stories from 20 women writers, half US-based and half in the UK. We asked the authors to 'push themselves' - to go for something nastier or sexier or funnier or darker. We wanted them to write a story that perhaps their own editor wouldn't usually let them get away with, just as long as it fell into the tart noir remit: maybe comedic, maybe violent, maybe sexual, definitely new-woman, neo-feminist, strong, smart and sharp. With not a dippy heroine walking into a dark cellar in sight. Not a lot of brave bloke heroes saving the day on the final page either. And so, my top 10 tart noir novels..."
1. Lauren Henderson, Strawberry tattoo
Impossible not to have my co-editor in here, this is my personal favourite of Lauren's Sam Jones series. Maybe it's the New York setting, maybe it's the best-girlfriend bonding, maybe the strawberry tattoo itself - certainly it's also the cocktail quotient - but this is an ideal taster of the tart noir type.
2. 'Kathryn Kenny', Trixie Belden and the mystery of the emeralds (the many books of this series were mostly ghost-written)
I was eight, bored senseless by the dull girls-following-boys of the Famous Five and Secret Seven, desperately searching for something with a real girl hero - and found it in Trixie Belden. She's the anti-Nancy Drew. More than a little too loud-mouthed, unlikely to get through a chapter without falling into a pond, running into trouble, or being helped out by her crew of useful friends, Trixie was the my first girl hero. (And in retrospect, possibly the template for my own Saz Martin series!)
3. Chris Niles, Hell's kitchen
More New York, even weirder goings-on, Chris Nile's usual slew of fantastic one-liners, and some strange stuff in the fridge. 'Psycho' for psychotics.
4. Val McDermid, The wire in the blood
Val calls herself the 'old slapper of tart noir' - she says this is because she's been doing it the longest. I'd say it's because she's so good at it. The wire in the blood has all the tense toughness we expect from Val. And it's really scary too.
5. Katy Munger, Legwork
Another of the core tarts noir, Katy Munger's Casey Jones series stars a big woman in every sense of the word. Cynical, classic wise-cracking and very smart. Pretty damn funny too.
6. Vicki Hendricks, 'ReBecca' (Richard Thomas (ed.), Vox n' Roll fiction for the 21st century)
Not a novel, but a truly brilliant story, deservedly award-winning, and the perfect introduction to Vicki Hendricks's wonderfully warped style.
7. Sarah Waters, Fingersmith
Suspense, passion and a quite shocking plot twist - if it's possible to have the Victoriana version of tart noir, this is it.
8. Liza Cody, Bucket nut
A gorgeously tough, hard, uncompromising heroine, in mean streets, with a fine sense of humour and impressive fists as well. Blessedly NOT a pretty, lithe, cute heroine.
9. Denise Mina, Garnethill
Denise Mina won the John Creasy Prize for best first crime novel with this debut, the beginning of an increasingly noir trilogy.
10. Nicholas Blincoe, Manchester slingback
Because boys can be tarts too - especially dressed like that.
Guardian, 2002-08-07.
"Tart noir, the loose conglomerate of like-minded women writers, is now an anthology. For this collection Lauren Henderson and I commissioned original stories from 20 women writers, half US-based and half in the UK. We asked the authors to 'push themselves' - to go for something nastier or sexier or funnier or darker. We wanted them to write a story that perhaps their own editor wouldn't usually let them get away with, just as long as it fell into the tart noir remit: maybe comedic, maybe violent, maybe sexual, definitely new-woman, neo-feminist, strong, smart and sharp. With not a dippy heroine walking into a dark cellar in sight. Not a lot of brave bloke heroes saving the day on the final page either. And so, my top 10 tart noir novels..."
1. Lauren Henderson, Strawberry tattoo
Impossible not to have my co-editor in here, this is my personal favourite of Lauren's Sam Jones series. Maybe it's the New York setting, maybe it's the best-girlfriend bonding, maybe the strawberry tattoo itself - certainly it's also the cocktail quotient - but this is an ideal taster of the tart noir type.
2. 'Kathryn Kenny', Trixie Belden and the mystery of the emeralds (the many books of this series were mostly ghost-written)
I was eight, bored senseless by the dull girls-following-boys of the Famous Five and Secret Seven, desperately searching for something with a real girl hero - and found it in Trixie Belden. She's the anti-Nancy Drew. More than a little too loud-mouthed, unlikely to get through a chapter without falling into a pond, running into trouble, or being helped out by her crew of useful friends, Trixie was the my first girl hero. (And in retrospect, possibly the template for my own Saz Martin series!)
3. Chris Niles, Hell's kitchen
More New York, even weirder goings-on, Chris Nile's usual slew of fantastic one-liners, and some strange stuff in the fridge. 'Psycho' for psychotics.
4. Val McDermid, The wire in the blood
Val calls herself the 'old slapper of tart noir' - she says this is because she's been doing it the longest. I'd say it's because she's so good at it. The wire in the blood has all the tense toughness we expect from Val. And it's really scary too.
5. Katy Munger, Legwork
Another of the core tarts noir, Katy Munger's Casey Jones series stars a big woman in every sense of the word. Cynical, classic wise-cracking and very smart. Pretty damn funny too.
6. Vicki Hendricks, 'ReBecca' (Richard Thomas (ed.), Vox n' Roll fiction for the 21st century)
Not a novel, but a truly brilliant story, deservedly award-winning, and the perfect introduction to Vicki Hendricks's wonderfully warped style.
7. Sarah Waters, Fingersmith
Suspense, passion and a quite shocking plot twist - if it's possible to have the Victoriana version of tart noir, this is it.
8. Liza Cody, Bucket nut
A gorgeously tough, hard, uncompromising heroine, in mean streets, with a fine sense of humour and impressive fists as well. Blessedly NOT a pretty, lithe, cute heroine.
9. Denise Mina, Garnethill
Denise Mina won the John Creasy Prize for best first crime novel with this debut, the beginning of an increasingly noir trilogy.
10. Nicholas Blincoe, Manchester slingback
Because boys can be tarts too - especially dressed like that.
126Cynfelyn
Hallgrímur Helgason's top 10 books
Wed 24 Jul 2002 00.00 BST
Hallgrímur Helgason is the author of 101 Reykjavik, a comic tale of slacker culture in the Icelandic capital. The book was recently made into a film with a soundtrack by Damon Albarn.
1. Halldor Kiljan Laxness, Independent people
The greatest Icelandic novel and surely one of the best books of the 20th century, this 1934 tale by the Nobel Prize winner tells the story of a poor farmer in the east of Iceland fighting for survival in one of the world's most barren countries at the turn of the century. A social novel of the old school; deep and dramatic, poetic and affectionate, very sad and very funny. I read it as a teenager and it had a life-lasting effect.
2. The Icelandic Sagas
The best-kept secret of world literature: 20 masterpieces that have been waiting on the shelf for 800 years for you anglo-fools to pick them up. The sagas were written in Iceland in the 13th century using berry-ink on calfskin, and tell stories of some of the early Icelanders that people had been gossiping about for over 200 years - Hello! magazine as high art. (Maybe this is why the authors did not put their names on the cover...) Some claim that these are the first novels of the western world, yet they are also very modern in their dry style. Full of ironies and understatements, they're a bit like Dashiel Hammett on horseback. For us Icelanders, the Sagas are like the Bible, only much better. The saga of Niall is the best, The saga of Grettir (the Strongest Man in the Universe in 1099) the most amusing.
3. Peter Handke, Das Gewicht der Welt
As a young art student in Munich in the early 1980s one could not escape Handke. Back then he was IT. He wrote books with titles like The goalkeeper's fear of the penalty kick and The left-handed woman, novels that were not really about anything. This one is a 'poetical diary', full of small everyday reflections and discoveries. I later gave up on Handke; although gifted, he's one of those authors who can only write from his own point of view. The last book by him I tried to read was Uber Dem Jukebox, a book about a writer admiring different jukeboxes in the Spanish countryside. Well, I guess that is where you end up when you run out of things to write about: looking for jukeboxes in rural Spain.
4. James Joyce, Ulysses
After waiting 70 years for an Icelandic translation, we finally got one, and even though it was good it still left me hungry for the real thing. I read them side by side. Still, I'm not sure Ulysses will last 1,000 years; groundbreaking works of art are not always the ones to be admired in the future. (Who gives a damn about Duchamp today?) Ulysses is like a strange old bulldozer which paved the modern road. We sometimes see it, still there, rusting by the roadside, while we rush by in faster books.
5. Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
I'm the kind of writer who thinks style is just as important as the story being told. I believe in Martin Amis's beautiful phrase that "every line should enchant". (Well... except that time has taught me that every sixteenth line is quite enough.) Nabokov can be almost too delicate at times, but in Lolita he puts his aristocratic sensitivity to use in such a dark tale that it creates this great tension between the story being told and the style that it's written in. And it's just amazing that one of the best novels in English was written by a Russian. Here every word is enchanting, like a beautiful butterfly fluttering at the scene of the most horrendous act.
6. Bret Easton Ellis, American psycho
This was so fresh, so new, so strong back in the early 1990s. None of us could continue to write in the same way after this. At the time, I was preparing to write 101 Reykjavik and I have to say that American psycho helped me a lot in finding the right tone. As I always find violence in books and films a bit silly, the strongest parts for me were the small bits on pop music: Genesis, Phil Collins, Whitney Houston, etc. This was an absolute revelation.
7. Philip Roth, Sabbath's theatre
The best novel of the 1990s; you can still hear it echoing in novels as different as Barney's version and The corrections. (And of course you can spot its very human stains in Roth's own recent work.) As Singer said, most books are bad, but sometimes, when you've read 100 good reviews in a row and tried to read 100 not so good books in a row, you might conclude that something is wrong with you and your silly old-fashioned taste. But then you come across a book like this and it saves your lost belief in contemporary fiction for the next 10 years. A full-force, fuck-it-all, incredibly funny, heart-burning tragedy of Shakespearean proportions that puts Mickey Sabbath up there among King Lear, Richard III, Falstaff and co.
8. William Shakespeare, Hamlet
You love it because you can read it again every month and see it on stage or screen every year without ever draining it. And you hate it because it doesn't matter how many times you read it, you can never quite figure it out, get to the heart of it or even get its whole picture into your head. It's the mountain in our literary landscape. You can climb it and look at it, but only from one side at a time. In the last few years I have dedicated most of my limited reading time to Shakespeare; earlier this year I did an Icelandic translation of Romeo & Juliet. The theatre is a higher art-form than our poor little two-dimensional novel-scribbling. As Harold Bloom put it, on stage each character is a whole novel in himself. All we can try to do is put forth the dramatic art in the disguise of a novel.
9. Michael Meyer, Ibsen, a biography
Like many writers I'm usually more interested in reading about authors than their actual works. We're more curious to know how they were written than what they are like to read. Meyer's Ibsen is one of those hugely entertaining, almost thriller-like author biographies. Ibsen is the greatest writer ever to come out of our part of the world and it's just so interesting to read about the obstacles he faced - how he had to overcome all the provincial ignorance of his homeland. Well, it's always a long road for us Nordics. It took Ibsen 40 years to find his voice and another 40 years to forgive his Norway for forcing him into an equally long exile abroad.
10. Michel Houellebecq, Les elements particulieres (translated into English as Atomised)
A milestone, like American psycho. It's just as strong and fresh and new. I really loved the aggressive attacking force of it, especially against the hippy generation and all those granted norms like pornography, rock music and contemporary art. It was so negative in the most positive way, and it made you think. Even though the poetry was new-age awful and the ending science-fiction tacky, this is the last "most important novel" to date. And how surprising it was to see it come out of Paris! We didn't even know they were still writing novels over there.
------
Oops. Missed this top ten list yesterday.
2.
There isn't a touchstone for the Icelandic sagas, so here's the tag instead, https://www.librarything.com/tag/Icelandic+Sagas . I read the Penguin Classics English translations by Hermann Pálsson and Magnus Magnusson (of blessed memory), and they are very readable. The Niall's Saga reference must mean Njal's Saga, 'The saga of burnt Njal'. Another Guardian typo. Go Guardian!! There must have been more Hibernophiles than Scandophiles on the Guardian's sub-editors' desk back in 2002.
Wed 24 Jul 2002 00.00 BST
Hallgrímur Helgason is the author of 101 Reykjavik, a comic tale of slacker culture in the Icelandic capital. The book was recently made into a film with a soundtrack by Damon Albarn.
1. Halldor Kiljan Laxness, Independent people
The greatest Icelandic novel and surely one of the best books of the 20th century, this 1934 tale by the Nobel Prize winner tells the story of a poor farmer in the east of Iceland fighting for survival in one of the world's most barren countries at the turn of the century. A social novel of the old school; deep and dramatic, poetic and affectionate, very sad and very funny. I read it as a teenager and it had a life-lasting effect.
2. The Icelandic Sagas
The best-kept secret of world literature: 20 masterpieces that have been waiting on the shelf for 800 years for you anglo-fools to pick them up. The sagas were written in Iceland in the 13th century using berry-ink on calfskin, and tell stories of some of the early Icelanders that people had been gossiping about for over 200 years - Hello! magazine as high art. (Maybe this is why the authors did not put their names on the cover...) Some claim that these are the first novels of the western world, yet they are also very modern in their dry style. Full of ironies and understatements, they're a bit like Dashiel Hammett on horseback. For us Icelanders, the Sagas are like the Bible, only much better. The saga of Niall is the best, The saga of Grettir (the Strongest Man in the Universe in 1099) the most amusing.
3. Peter Handke, Das Gewicht der Welt
As a young art student in Munich in the early 1980s one could not escape Handke. Back then he was IT. He wrote books with titles like The goalkeeper's fear of the penalty kick and The left-handed woman, novels that were not really about anything. This one is a 'poetical diary', full of small everyday reflections and discoveries. I later gave up on Handke; although gifted, he's one of those authors who can only write from his own point of view. The last book by him I tried to read was Uber Dem Jukebox, a book about a writer admiring different jukeboxes in the Spanish countryside. Well, I guess that is where you end up when you run out of things to write about: looking for jukeboxes in rural Spain.
4. James Joyce, Ulysses
After waiting 70 years for an Icelandic translation, we finally got one, and even though it was good it still left me hungry for the real thing. I read them side by side. Still, I'm not sure Ulysses will last 1,000 years; groundbreaking works of art are not always the ones to be admired in the future. (Who gives a damn about Duchamp today?) Ulysses is like a strange old bulldozer which paved the modern road. We sometimes see it, still there, rusting by the roadside, while we rush by in faster books.
5. Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
I'm the kind of writer who thinks style is just as important as the story being told. I believe in Martin Amis's beautiful phrase that "every line should enchant". (Well... except that time has taught me that every sixteenth line is quite enough.) Nabokov can be almost too delicate at times, but in Lolita he puts his aristocratic sensitivity to use in such a dark tale that it creates this great tension between the story being told and the style that it's written in. And it's just amazing that one of the best novels in English was written by a Russian. Here every word is enchanting, like a beautiful butterfly fluttering at the scene of the most horrendous act.
6. Bret Easton Ellis, American psycho
This was so fresh, so new, so strong back in the early 1990s. None of us could continue to write in the same way after this. At the time, I was preparing to write 101 Reykjavik and I have to say that American psycho helped me a lot in finding the right tone. As I always find violence in books and films a bit silly, the strongest parts for me were the small bits on pop music: Genesis, Phil Collins, Whitney Houston, etc. This was an absolute revelation.
7. Philip Roth, Sabbath's theatre
The best novel of the 1990s; you can still hear it echoing in novels as different as Barney's version and The corrections. (And of course you can spot its very human stains in Roth's own recent work.) As Singer said, most books are bad, but sometimes, when you've read 100 good reviews in a row and tried to read 100 not so good books in a row, you might conclude that something is wrong with you and your silly old-fashioned taste. But then you come across a book like this and it saves your lost belief in contemporary fiction for the next 10 years. A full-force, fuck-it-all, incredibly funny, heart-burning tragedy of Shakespearean proportions that puts Mickey Sabbath up there among King Lear, Richard III, Falstaff and co.
8. William Shakespeare, Hamlet
You love it because you can read it again every month and see it on stage or screen every year without ever draining it. And you hate it because it doesn't matter how many times you read it, you can never quite figure it out, get to the heart of it or even get its whole picture into your head. It's the mountain in our literary landscape. You can climb it and look at it, but only from one side at a time. In the last few years I have dedicated most of my limited reading time to Shakespeare; earlier this year I did an Icelandic translation of Romeo & Juliet. The theatre is a higher art-form than our poor little two-dimensional novel-scribbling. As Harold Bloom put it, on stage each character is a whole novel in himself. All we can try to do is put forth the dramatic art in the disguise of a novel.
9. Michael Meyer, Ibsen, a biography
Like many writers I'm usually more interested in reading about authors than their actual works. We're more curious to know how they were written than what they are like to read. Meyer's Ibsen is one of those hugely entertaining, almost thriller-like author biographies. Ibsen is the greatest writer ever to come out of our part of the world and it's just so interesting to read about the obstacles he faced - how he had to overcome all the provincial ignorance of his homeland. Well, it's always a long road for us Nordics. It took Ibsen 40 years to find his voice and another 40 years to forgive his Norway for forcing him into an equally long exile abroad.
10. Michel Houellebecq, Les elements particulieres (translated into English as Atomised)
A milestone, like American psycho. It's just as strong and fresh and new. I really loved the aggressive attacking force of it, especially against the hippy generation and all those granted norms like pornography, rock music and contemporary art. It was so negative in the most positive way, and it made you think. Even though the poetry was new-age awful and the ending science-fiction tacky, this is the last "most important novel" to date. And how surprising it was to see it come out of Paris! We didn't even know they were still writing novels over there.
------
Oops. Missed this top ten list yesterday.
2.
There isn't a touchstone for the Icelandic sagas, so here's the tag instead, https://www.librarything.com/tag/Icelandic+Sagas . I read the Penguin Classics English translations by Hermann Pálsson and Magnus Magnusson (of blessed memory), and they are very readable. The Niall's Saga reference must mean Njal's Saga, 'The saga of burnt Njal'. Another Guardian typo. Go Guardian!! There must have been more Hibernophiles than Scandophiles on the Guardian's sub-editors' desk back in 2002.
128Cynfelyn
Andre Brink's top 10 novels
Guardian, 2002-09-11.
Andre Brink's books include An instant in the wind and Rumours of rain, both of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. His new novel, The other side of silence, about colonial Africa in the early 20th century, is published by Secker.
1. Marcel Proust, Remembrance of things past
Still the most remarkable demonstration of memory in action in fiction; a lasting evocation of the power and the magic of the world within us.
2. Franz Kafka, The trial
No other book I know matches the devastation and the terrifying black humour with which Kafka captures the frailty of the individual as a victim of incomprehensible forces lurking within the everyday world.
3. Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter
The most moving and illuminating image I know of a woman's life from birth to death, embedded in the turmoil of a patriarchal world as it rages through the 14th century.
4. Robert Musil, The man without qualities
Musil demonstrates an astounding grasp of the mills of history as they grind around a group of individuals on the eve of the first world war. He recreates the subjective mind as a battlefield of good and evil, breaking through all the fictional conventions of time and place.
5. Haldor Laxness, Independent people
A 20th century saga and a "fanfare for the common man", discovering in a stark and unsentimental (yet profoundly compassionate) way the tragic heroism of a man pitted against the power of nature as he struggles to preserve his soul, even if he loses his life in the effort. The final scene, bringing together father and daughter after a lifetime of estrangement, is as close to perfection as anything I have ever read.
6. Albert Camus, The plague
An archetypal novel of the sickness of the century, anticipating parables as diverse and as terrifying as Golding's Lord of the flies or Saramago's Blindness: the slow crack-up of an ordered society as it succumbs to the chaos once contained within its own structures; informed by a profound humanity as it redefines courage and compassion in the face of death and oblivion.
7. Albert Cohen, Belle du Seigneur
Quite simply the most beautiful love story ever told in fiction, oscillating between the sublime and the grotesque, the lyrical and the crude, the splendour of the imagination and the horrors and banalities that lurk behind it.
8. Gunther Grass, The tin drum
Shaping the shapeless terror of the second world war into the discordant and anarchist life of Oskar Matzerath who refuses to take the place assigned to him in a world gone mad, and rages against the dying light with all the means that sex, politics, anger and (who knows) love place at his disposal.
9. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 100 years of solitude
In the microcosm of Macondo the reader encounters the magic and the illusions of the real, and the reality of the magical. As time captures the members of an unruly family in its unpredictable yet fatal loops it turns the history of a village into a founding myth.
10. Italo Calvino, If on a winter's night a traveller
The last century's most dazzling example of a story that exists purely by virtue of, and for the sake of, the processes of its telling; an exhilarating quest for meaning and closure in a world which has lost precisely the illusions of meaning and closure, and which restores to literature that great leap of the imagination with which fiction began as it poses the mother of all questions: "What if ...?"
Guardian, 2002-09-11.
Andre Brink's books include An instant in the wind and Rumours of rain, both of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. His new novel, The other side of silence, about colonial Africa in the early 20th century, is published by Secker.
1. Marcel Proust, Remembrance of things past
Still the most remarkable demonstration of memory in action in fiction; a lasting evocation of the power and the magic of the world within us.
2. Franz Kafka, The trial
No other book I know matches the devastation and the terrifying black humour with which Kafka captures the frailty of the individual as a victim of incomprehensible forces lurking within the everyday world.
3. Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter
The most moving and illuminating image I know of a woman's life from birth to death, embedded in the turmoil of a patriarchal world as it rages through the 14th century.
4. Robert Musil, The man without qualities
Musil demonstrates an astounding grasp of the mills of history as they grind around a group of individuals on the eve of the first world war. He recreates the subjective mind as a battlefield of good and evil, breaking through all the fictional conventions of time and place.
5. Haldor Laxness, Independent people
A 20th century saga and a "fanfare for the common man", discovering in a stark and unsentimental (yet profoundly compassionate) way the tragic heroism of a man pitted against the power of nature as he struggles to preserve his soul, even if he loses his life in the effort. The final scene, bringing together father and daughter after a lifetime of estrangement, is as close to perfection as anything I have ever read.
6. Albert Camus, The plague
An archetypal novel of the sickness of the century, anticipating parables as diverse and as terrifying as Golding's Lord of the flies or Saramago's Blindness: the slow crack-up of an ordered society as it succumbs to the chaos once contained within its own structures; informed by a profound humanity as it redefines courage and compassion in the face of death and oblivion.
7. Albert Cohen, Belle du Seigneur
Quite simply the most beautiful love story ever told in fiction, oscillating between the sublime and the grotesque, the lyrical and the crude, the splendour of the imagination and the horrors and banalities that lurk behind it.
8. Gunther Grass, The tin drum
Shaping the shapeless terror of the second world war into the discordant and anarchist life of Oskar Matzerath who refuses to take the place assigned to him in a world gone mad, and rages against the dying light with all the means that sex, politics, anger and (who knows) love place at his disposal.
9. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 100 years of solitude
In the microcosm of Macondo the reader encounters the magic and the illusions of the real, and the reality of the magical. As time captures the members of an unruly family in its unpredictable yet fatal loops it turns the history of a village into a founding myth.
10. Italo Calvino, If on a winter's night a traveller
The last century's most dazzling example of a story that exists purely by virtue of, and for the sake of, the processes of its telling; an exhilarating quest for meaning and closure in a world which has lost precisely the illusions of meaning and closure, and which restores to literature that great leap of the imagination with which fiction began as it poses the mother of all questions: "What if ...?"
129Cynfelyn
>127 AnnieMod: That'd do very nicely. I see there are several copies currently available on ABE, starting at £700, and another copy going cheap on eBay, for $499. One can dream.
130AnnieMod
>129 Cynfelyn: Get it from the source: http://sagas.is/vara.php :) It is indeed a great set. If you are worried, drop them a mail and so on before you drop the money (just in case something had changed and there are no copies and so on) - but at least a few years ago it worked as a charm for me.
131Cynfelyn
Jean McNeil's top 10 art books
Guardian, 2002-09-30.
Jean McNeil's latest novel is Private view, set amid the contemporary London art scene.
1. John Berger, Ways of seeing
Now dated and excessively undergraduate, this was the first popular study of art and aesthetics, done as a companion volume to a TV series in the early 70s. Berger, a painter, philosopher and art critic, gives us an illustrated historical analysis of ways in which we have engaged in representation and in seeing art, juxtaposing Renaissance art with advertising (hysterically naff early 1970s magazine ads). Although it now seems ponderously Marxist - "Publicity turns consumption into a substitute for democracy. Publicity helps to mask and compensate for all that is undemocratic within society" -its achievement is its 150-page whistlestop tour of representation and The Gaze in art and advertising.
2. Francoise Gilot, Matisse and Picasso: a friendship in art
A timely selection, hot on the heels of a recent major London exhibition curated as a kind of conversation between the work of the two great painters. The author was Picasso's lover from 1946 to 1954 and a talented painter in her own right. Gilot reveals herself as an insightful critic in her brisk and authoritative descriptions of their work, but an even more penetrating student of psychology, dissecting - in the dispassionate, almost disinterested tone only French intellectuals seem to possess -her own role between these two great men, and drawing fairly deft if familiar conclusions about Picasso's various complexes. On the gossip front, we learn that Georges Braque loved cars and employed a chauffeur, and that Matisse fell precipitously in love with Picasso's Winter Landscape.
3. Gaston Bachelard, The poetics of space
About intimacy and immensity, Bachelard's central premise is that we do not perceive space, or indeed the 'poetic image' (art) by dint of rationalism but by pure consciousness and instinct. With chapter titles such as Nests, The Significance of the Hut and Intimate Intensity, the abstract insubstantiality of the book will fail to appeal to those enraged by pomo posturing. Cheerily quantum, Bachelard urges us to transcend our experience in time, to release ourselves onto a plane where space replaces time, illustrated by quotes from other dreamy metaphysists - Rilke, Rimbaud, Poe. Great work, if you can get it.
4. Ronald de Leeuw (ed.), The letters of Vincent Van Gogh
A prolific correspondent, Van Gogh wrote over 650 letters in his lifetime, many of them to his brother Theo, with whom he had a symbiotic relationship. That Van Gogh is one of the most talented and visionary painters in the history of European art is now widely accepted, but he was no slouch as a writer, either. His prose, like his work, has an intense vividness, and the surprise is that this is as true for his verbal portraits of family and friends as his descriptions of landscape. Above all, the letters display Van Gogh's compassion and sensitivity, his vast talent for perception, without lingering voyeuristically on his troubled psychology.
5. Susan Sontag, On photography
The first modern critical study of photography as an art form, written with Sontag's trademark punishing clarity. The camera, according to Sontag writing on Diane Arbus, "is a device that captures it all, that seduces subjects into disclosing their secrets, that broadens experience." Like Berger, she is preoccupied with an ethics of seeing: "industrial societies turn their citizens into image-junkies; it is the most irresistible form of mental pollution." While she reveres photography as a form capable of a probing beauty, its social role is ambiguous. "Photographs," she notes, "are often invoked as an aid to understanding and tolerance." But forget those cherished Oxfam notions - "strictly speaking, one never understands anything from a photograph."
6. Matthew Collings, Blimey, and This is modern art
Collings has established a genre all his own, reliant on his insider knowledge, aphoristic prose and inclusive style. Blimey, his 1997 study of Britart in the late 1980s and 1990s has just been superseded by a recently-published update, but the original is a compelling and impressionistic snapshot of Britart, focusing on the role of galleries and the tension between new and established artists. Eclectic and chummy, it can seem too focused on the role of the media. Clubbiness is less a feature of This is modern art, the companion volume to the engaging Channel 4 series, and walks the treacherous line between art theory incantations and soundbite prose. His style is still the friendly parody of languid, aimless art world vernacular, and he has the gift - which not every critic possesses - of vividly describing the work of art at hand.
7. Guy Brett, Force fields, phases of the kinetic
A beautifully illustrated catalogue written to accompany a recent exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. Kinetic art is about movement and metamorphosis, and a long essay by London critic and curator Guy Brett takes the reader on a digestible theoretical trip through the cosmos, the space-time continuum, science and its evolution through the 50s, 60s and 70s, quantum theory, metaphysics and optics. Unusually wide-ranging - lesser-known artists are featured along with well-established figures Alexander Calder and Gordon Matta-Clark, and sculpture and performance art is included - it revitalises the kinetic art movement within contemporary trends.
8. David Malouf, Harland's half-acre
There are challenges to portraying art and artists in fiction, but Malouf aptly portrays the character and work of Frank Harland, a gifted artist born into a poor dairy farming family in Queensland. A child of misfortune, his mother dies from a rose thorn prick, and it is left to Frank to rescue the remnants of his family. But he is, like many artists, a dreamer, overwhelmed by the harsh realities of life, who gains a sense of control only when painting. Malouf's deft and empathetic novel portrays the struggle between artistic vision and family duty. As in all of Malouf's work there is poetic, deeply felt writing, and a probing instinct for the pitfalls and destinies of character.
9. Cynthia Freeland, But is it art?
An accessible survey of the diversity of art and art theory. Wildly inclusive for such a small book, it looks at, varyingly, the aesthetics of disgust, African nail fetish sculptures, the contributions of anthropology to art, Bill Viola's video work vs MTV, gender theory and the formal beauty of Japanese gardens. A particularly strong first chapter explores shock art from Goya to Serrano. More concerned with aesthetics in general than visual art, the book disentangles the insterstices between basic aesthetics: between beauty and purpose, disinterestedness and formality. Although tarred with the inevitable American political correctness, this little book is still refreshingly inclusive of other realities and cultures, and endearingly dismissive of Britart as a promotional label.
10. Julian Stallabrass, High art lite
Stallabrass upset the Britart applecart with this survey - some would say attack - of Britart in the 1990s. In essence the book has one theme - the corrosive symbiosis between the artist and the media during the decade. The result, Stallabrass decries, was a depthless cynicism, a shift from looking at the meanings inherent in art to how art is perceived, to the eventual vanishing point where art now "apes mass culture". Stallabrass is less gifted than, say, Collings in describing actual works, but at least he does contextualise the Britart phenomenon politically and economically, charting its beginnings in the post-recession dive in the art market, to the advent of New Labour and its tacit endorsement of the lifestyle magazine construct of Cool Britannia.
Guardian, 2002-09-30.
Jean McNeil's latest novel is Private view, set amid the contemporary London art scene.
1. John Berger, Ways of seeing
Now dated and excessively undergraduate, this was the first popular study of art and aesthetics, done as a companion volume to a TV series in the early 70s. Berger, a painter, philosopher and art critic, gives us an illustrated historical analysis of ways in which we have engaged in representation and in seeing art, juxtaposing Renaissance art with advertising (hysterically naff early 1970s magazine ads). Although it now seems ponderously Marxist - "Publicity turns consumption into a substitute for democracy. Publicity helps to mask and compensate for all that is undemocratic within society" -its achievement is its 150-page whistlestop tour of representation and The Gaze in art and advertising.
2. Francoise Gilot, Matisse and Picasso: a friendship in art
A timely selection, hot on the heels of a recent major London exhibition curated as a kind of conversation between the work of the two great painters. The author was Picasso's lover from 1946 to 1954 and a talented painter in her own right. Gilot reveals herself as an insightful critic in her brisk and authoritative descriptions of their work, but an even more penetrating student of psychology, dissecting - in the dispassionate, almost disinterested tone only French intellectuals seem to possess -her own role between these two great men, and drawing fairly deft if familiar conclusions about Picasso's various complexes. On the gossip front, we learn that Georges Braque loved cars and employed a chauffeur, and that Matisse fell precipitously in love with Picasso's Winter Landscape.
3. Gaston Bachelard, The poetics of space
About intimacy and immensity, Bachelard's central premise is that we do not perceive space, or indeed the 'poetic image' (art) by dint of rationalism but by pure consciousness and instinct. With chapter titles such as Nests, The Significance of the Hut and Intimate Intensity, the abstract insubstantiality of the book will fail to appeal to those enraged by pomo posturing. Cheerily quantum, Bachelard urges us to transcend our experience in time, to release ourselves onto a plane where space replaces time, illustrated by quotes from other dreamy metaphysists - Rilke, Rimbaud, Poe. Great work, if you can get it.
4. Ronald de Leeuw (ed.), The letters of Vincent Van Gogh
A prolific correspondent, Van Gogh wrote over 650 letters in his lifetime, many of them to his brother Theo, with whom he had a symbiotic relationship. That Van Gogh is one of the most talented and visionary painters in the history of European art is now widely accepted, but he was no slouch as a writer, either. His prose, like his work, has an intense vividness, and the surprise is that this is as true for his verbal portraits of family and friends as his descriptions of landscape. Above all, the letters display Van Gogh's compassion and sensitivity, his vast talent for perception, without lingering voyeuristically on his troubled psychology.
5. Susan Sontag, On photography
The first modern critical study of photography as an art form, written with Sontag's trademark punishing clarity. The camera, according to Sontag writing on Diane Arbus, "is a device that captures it all, that seduces subjects into disclosing their secrets, that broadens experience." Like Berger, she is preoccupied with an ethics of seeing: "industrial societies turn their citizens into image-junkies; it is the most irresistible form of mental pollution." While she reveres photography as a form capable of a probing beauty, its social role is ambiguous. "Photographs," she notes, "are often invoked as an aid to understanding and tolerance." But forget those cherished Oxfam notions - "strictly speaking, one never understands anything from a photograph."
6. Matthew Collings, Blimey, and This is modern art
Collings has established a genre all his own, reliant on his insider knowledge, aphoristic prose and inclusive style. Blimey, his 1997 study of Britart in the late 1980s and 1990s has just been superseded by a recently-published update, but the original is a compelling and impressionistic snapshot of Britart, focusing on the role of galleries and the tension between new and established artists. Eclectic and chummy, it can seem too focused on the role of the media. Clubbiness is less a feature of This is modern art, the companion volume to the engaging Channel 4 series, and walks the treacherous line between art theory incantations and soundbite prose. His style is still the friendly parody of languid, aimless art world vernacular, and he has the gift - which not every critic possesses - of vividly describing the work of art at hand.
7. Guy Brett, Force fields, phases of the kinetic
A beautifully illustrated catalogue written to accompany a recent exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. Kinetic art is about movement and metamorphosis, and a long essay by London critic and curator Guy Brett takes the reader on a digestible theoretical trip through the cosmos, the space-time continuum, science and its evolution through the 50s, 60s and 70s, quantum theory, metaphysics and optics. Unusually wide-ranging - lesser-known artists are featured along with well-established figures Alexander Calder and Gordon Matta-Clark, and sculpture and performance art is included - it revitalises the kinetic art movement within contemporary trends.
8. David Malouf, Harland's half-acre
There are challenges to portraying art and artists in fiction, but Malouf aptly portrays the character and work of Frank Harland, a gifted artist born into a poor dairy farming family in Queensland. A child of misfortune, his mother dies from a rose thorn prick, and it is left to Frank to rescue the remnants of his family. But he is, like many artists, a dreamer, overwhelmed by the harsh realities of life, who gains a sense of control only when painting. Malouf's deft and empathetic novel portrays the struggle between artistic vision and family duty. As in all of Malouf's work there is poetic, deeply felt writing, and a probing instinct for the pitfalls and destinies of character.
9. Cynthia Freeland, But is it art?
An accessible survey of the diversity of art and art theory. Wildly inclusive for such a small book, it looks at, varyingly, the aesthetics of disgust, African nail fetish sculptures, the contributions of anthropology to art, Bill Viola's video work vs MTV, gender theory and the formal beauty of Japanese gardens. A particularly strong first chapter explores shock art from Goya to Serrano. More concerned with aesthetics in general than visual art, the book disentangles the insterstices between basic aesthetics: between beauty and purpose, disinterestedness and formality. Although tarred with the inevitable American political correctness, this little book is still refreshingly inclusive of other realities and cultures, and endearingly dismissive of Britart as a promotional label.
10. Julian Stallabrass, High art lite
Stallabrass upset the Britart applecart with this survey - some would say attack - of Britart in the 1990s. In essence the book has one theme - the corrosive symbiosis between the artist and the media during the decade. The result, Stallabrass decries, was a depthless cynicism, a shift from looking at the meanings inherent in art to how art is perceived, to the eventual vanishing point where art now "apes mass culture". Stallabrass is less gifted than, say, Collings in describing actual works, but at least he does contextualise the Britart phenomenon politically and economically, charting its beginnings in the post-recession dive in the art market, to the advent of New Labour and its tacit endorsement of the lifestyle magazine construct of Cool Britannia.
132Cynfelyn
Julian Glover's top 10 political memoirs
Guardian, 2002-10-22.
Julian Glover is the Guardian's assistant news editor (politics). He edited the Guardian companion to the general election 2001 and the Guardian guide to Parliament.
1. Winston Churchill, My early life
The man who was probably Britain's greatest prime minister (he certainly saw himself as such) was also writer of a great many books. Most have failed to stand the test of time: critics who once acclaimed him as an impartial historian now point out how he used a series of memoirs about the second world war to enhance his own reputation and undermine the work of people he disliked. But My early life, the book that made his reputation as a writer, is different. It's sensational stuff, taking the author from the mountains of Afghanistan via the last great cavalry charge of the British army to a Boer prison and being hunted with a reward on his head. A pacy return to the days when Britain really did rule the waves.
2. Alan Clark, Diaries: in power
Alan Clark's diaries were so good that Edwina Currie attempted to copy them. The result, in her case, was less than impressive but his book will be read in a century's time thanks to its stylish writing, acute observation and dashes of insanity. The author's political judgement was terrible and his vanity seemingly endless but he caused a stir and not only because of his fixation on sex. The first volume of his diaries, published later as Diaries: into politics, are much less interesting because the author has less to describe, even though they are just as well written. The third volume, just published, is made painful by the author's description of his slow death from brain cancer.
3. Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street years and The path to power
Alan Clark suggested to Lady Thatcher that he write her memoirs for her. Sadly she turned him down. As a result the two fat volumes that record the rise and fall of Britain's only female prime minister lack the excitement of her premiership. They read like they were produced by committee - effectively they were, with the bulk of the writing done by two assistants. Some cynics doubt she has even read parts of her books. Nonetheless they were both political sensations when they were published, with criticism in the second volume playing a large part in John Major's extraordinary decision to resign and fight his own party for the leadership in 1995.
4. Joe Haines, Glimmers of twilight (not yet published)
Joe Haines was the Alastair Campbell of the 1960s and 70s: a pushy prime ministerial press secretary who became a political figure in his own right. His name has faded since and his memoirs have yet to find a publisher - "too libellous," according to one - but the Daily Mail has just serialised the most sensational passages. In them, Haines said that Harold Wilson's doctor offered to "dispose" of the prime minister's secretary, Marcia Williams, to avoid news of her affair with the prime minister reaching the public. Haines also revealed an alleged plot to out the supposed homosexuality of the Liberal leader, Jeremy Thorpe, in order to scupper Thorpe's plans to form a coalition government with Ted Heath. But the best line - recently dismissed by Lady Falkender (as she is now) as "beyond belief" - comes from Lady Falkender herself. She is said to have marched into the opposition leader's office in the House of Commons and walked up to the prime minister's wife. "I have only one thing to say to you. I went to bed with your husband six times and it wasn't satisfactory." Bet Edwina never said that to Norma.
5. John Major, The autobiography
I helped write this book and in so doing got to see the memoir business from the inside. In the year before publication journalists speculated constantly and at length about the shocking book Major was supposedly writing. When it was published all the stories in advance were proved wrong but the book shocked in another way: it was readable, human and interesting. As a result the myth of the grey prime minister stared to crumble but it took another book, Edwina Currie's diaries, to smash it completely.
6. Robert Rhodes James (ed.), Chips: the diaries of Sir Henry Channon
Chips Channon was a minor, rightwing politician of the late 1930s who moved in gilded circles, but his diaries - heavily edited and published after his death - have made him one of the best-remembered politicians of the period. He captures ambition perfectly - his own and that of others - and records the style of a pre-war London that was about to be changed completely by the second world war. The abdication crisis, the war and the early postwar years are all described beautifully. But there is a major omission. When the diaries were being edited, by a Conservative MP and would-be historian, Sir Robert Rhodes James, Chips's son Paul was building a political career of his own. As a result a central part of Chips was deleted from the published edition: his homosexuality. His bittersweet affair with a Yugoslavian prince is only hinted at. The full diaries still exist. One day they will be honestly edited and Chips can cause scandal all over again.
7. Gyles Brandreth, Breaking the code: Westminster diaries
A comic-turned-MP, Brandreth's diaries record his time as a junior whip in John Major's failing government. The book never quite got the attention it deserved. Badly-edited, overlong and printed with a cover that puts all but dedicated readers off, the book is worth a second look. The author reveals in better detail than anyone else how parliament worked in the 1990s and along the way rakes up plenty of gossip about the Tory figures who fell from grace at the time.
8. Tony Benn, Diaries 1940-2002 (The Benn diaries and Free at last!)
Not every front-rank politician writes an autobiography but Tony Benn has more than made up for the omission with the multivolume edition of his diaries. Covering his entire active life, the books record a changing Britain, a changing Labour party and a changing man. The Anthony Wedgwood-Benn of the early pages becomes first Viscount Stansgate and then plain Tony Benn. Along the way he exposes both his own weaknesses and those of the Labour party; never more so than when he was a cabinet minister in the 1970s.
9. Charles Greville, Journals of the reigns of George IV, William IV and Queen Victoria
The first modern political diarist, Charles Greville was a clerk to the privy council who told all in 1865. Queen Victoria was said to have complained that he had shown "disloyalty towards his sovereign", while Disraeli called the book "a social outrage". A century and a bit later and he would have received a fat fee from the Daily Mail.
10. Denis Healey, The time of my life
Healey was such a bruiser in real life that nothing he said in retrospect could really shock but this autobiography, one of the most readable by a postwar politician, grabbed the headlines nonetheless. In part this was because of the uncompromising picture the author painted of a period in which Labour went from being the natural party of government to a party near death, and in part because of the way Healey treated his former colleagues. By describing George Brown, foreign secretary under Wilson between 1966 and 1968, like this - "the strain of acting as psychiatric nurse to a patient who was often violent became intolerable" - he set the tone for books to come, creating a whole new genre of political revenge writing.
Guardian, 2002-10-22.
Julian Glover is the Guardian's assistant news editor (politics). He edited the Guardian companion to the general election 2001 and the Guardian guide to Parliament.
1. Winston Churchill, My early life
The man who was probably Britain's greatest prime minister (he certainly saw himself as such) was also writer of a great many books. Most have failed to stand the test of time: critics who once acclaimed him as an impartial historian now point out how he used a series of memoirs about the second world war to enhance his own reputation and undermine the work of people he disliked. But My early life, the book that made his reputation as a writer, is different. It's sensational stuff, taking the author from the mountains of Afghanistan via the last great cavalry charge of the British army to a Boer prison and being hunted with a reward on his head. A pacy return to the days when Britain really did rule the waves.
2. Alan Clark, Diaries: in power
Alan Clark's diaries were so good that Edwina Currie attempted to copy them. The result, in her case, was less than impressive but his book will be read in a century's time thanks to its stylish writing, acute observation and dashes of insanity. The author's political judgement was terrible and his vanity seemingly endless but he caused a stir and not only because of his fixation on sex. The first volume of his diaries, published later as Diaries: into politics, are much less interesting because the author has less to describe, even though they are just as well written. The third volume, just published, is made painful by the author's description of his slow death from brain cancer.
3. Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street years and The path to power
Alan Clark suggested to Lady Thatcher that he write her memoirs for her. Sadly she turned him down. As a result the two fat volumes that record the rise and fall of Britain's only female prime minister lack the excitement of her premiership. They read like they were produced by committee - effectively they were, with the bulk of the writing done by two assistants. Some cynics doubt she has even read parts of her books. Nonetheless they were both political sensations when they were published, with criticism in the second volume playing a large part in John Major's extraordinary decision to resign and fight his own party for the leadership in 1995.
4. Joe Haines, Glimmers of twilight (not yet published)
Joe Haines was the Alastair Campbell of the 1960s and 70s: a pushy prime ministerial press secretary who became a political figure in his own right. His name has faded since and his memoirs have yet to find a publisher - "too libellous," according to one - but the Daily Mail has just serialised the most sensational passages. In them, Haines said that Harold Wilson's doctor offered to "dispose" of the prime minister's secretary, Marcia Williams, to avoid news of her affair with the prime minister reaching the public. Haines also revealed an alleged plot to out the supposed homosexuality of the Liberal leader, Jeremy Thorpe, in order to scupper Thorpe's plans to form a coalition government with Ted Heath. But the best line - recently dismissed by Lady Falkender (as she is now) as "beyond belief" - comes from Lady Falkender herself. She is said to have marched into the opposition leader's office in the House of Commons and walked up to the prime minister's wife. "I have only one thing to say to you. I went to bed with your husband six times and it wasn't satisfactory." Bet Edwina never said that to Norma.
5. John Major, The autobiography
I helped write this book and in so doing got to see the memoir business from the inside. In the year before publication journalists speculated constantly and at length about the shocking book Major was supposedly writing. When it was published all the stories in advance were proved wrong but the book shocked in another way: it was readable, human and interesting. As a result the myth of the grey prime minister stared to crumble but it took another book, Edwina Currie's diaries, to smash it completely.
6. Robert Rhodes James (ed.), Chips: the diaries of Sir Henry Channon
Chips Channon was a minor, rightwing politician of the late 1930s who moved in gilded circles, but his diaries - heavily edited and published after his death - have made him one of the best-remembered politicians of the period. He captures ambition perfectly - his own and that of others - and records the style of a pre-war London that was about to be changed completely by the second world war. The abdication crisis, the war and the early postwar years are all described beautifully. But there is a major omission. When the diaries were being edited, by a Conservative MP and would-be historian, Sir Robert Rhodes James, Chips's son Paul was building a political career of his own. As a result a central part of Chips was deleted from the published edition: his homosexuality. His bittersweet affair with a Yugoslavian prince is only hinted at. The full diaries still exist. One day they will be honestly edited and Chips can cause scandal all over again.
7. Gyles Brandreth, Breaking the code: Westminster diaries
A comic-turned-MP, Brandreth's diaries record his time as a junior whip in John Major's failing government. The book never quite got the attention it deserved. Badly-edited, overlong and printed with a cover that puts all but dedicated readers off, the book is worth a second look. The author reveals in better detail than anyone else how parliament worked in the 1990s and along the way rakes up plenty of gossip about the Tory figures who fell from grace at the time.
8. Tony Benn, Diaries 1940-2002 (The Benn diaries and Free at last!)
Not every front-rank politician writes an autobiography but Tony Benn has more than made up for the omission with the multivolume edition of his diaries. Covering his entire active life, the books record a changing Britain, a changing Labour party and a changing man. The Anthony Wedgwood-Benn of the early pages becomes first Viscount Stansgate and then plain Tony Benn. Along the way he exposes both his own weaknesses and those of the Labour party; never more so than when he was a cabinet minister in the 1970s.
9. Charles Greville, Journals of the reigns of George IV, William IV and Queen Victoria
The first modern political diarist, Charles Greville was a clerk to the privy council who told all in 1865. Queen Victoria was said to have complained that he had shown "disloyalty towards his sovereign", while Disraeli called the book "a social outrage". A century and a bit later and he would have received a fat fee from the Daily Mail.
10. Denis Healey, The time of my life
Healey was such a bruiser in real life that nothing he said in retrospect could really shock but this autobiography, one of the most readable by a postwar politician, grabbed the headlines nonetheless. In part this was because of the uncompromising picture the author painted of a period in which Labour went from being the natural party of government to a party near death, and in part because of the way Healey treated his former colleagues. By describing George Brown, foreign secretary under Wilson between 1966 and 1968, like this - "the strain of acting as psychiatric nurse to a patient who was often violent became intolerable" - he set the tone for books to come, creating a whole new genre of political revenge writing.
133Cynfelyn
M. John Harrison's top 10 books
Guardian, 2002-10-28.
M. John Harrison's books include Viriconium, Signs of life and the short story collection, Travel arrangements. His new novel, Light, is published by Gollancz.
M. John Harrison's official website
"Ten books which link the inside to the outside, the scientific to the personal, the individual to the universal. In no particular order..."
1. Tim Etchells, Dream dictionary (for the modern dreamer)
These contemporary dream-interpretations map a social landscape of love-rats, failed consumerism, football, video games. Etchells examines each joke with a lizardlike deadpan as he delivers it. He's not going to let us get away with laughing.
2. Alan Wall, The school of night
Alan Wall has been described as "Secker & Warburg's best kept secret". This tale is a good place to start on his addictive oeuvre of metaphysics, literature and conspiracy.
3. Janna Levin, How the universe got its spots
A love affair with mathematical physics counterpoints cosmologist Janna Levin's relationship with a country & western musician, to produce this delightful merge of science and autobiography.
4. Iain Banks, The wasp factory
Banks dives with us into the murk of his inner landscape. Then we look around and he's abandoned us there. How will we get out now?
5. John Braine, The Vodi
Constructed round the fantasies of a recovering tuberculosis patient, this novel was the defining moment of an as-yet-unreported genre, kitchen sink gothic. One of my favourite books of all time, it doesn't seem to be in print with the rest of Braine's backlist.
6. Michael Marshall Smith, Only forward
Mike Smith's raw and compelling debut novel starts with a headless corpse knocking to get in. It ends with an admission. In between, you simply grow more and more guilty and uncomfortable. Everything bad you've ever done was a feint, wasn't it? It was to pull the wool over your own eyes...
7. Charles Williams, The place of the lion
A novel which constantly transgresses the line between Dennis Wheatley and Plato. Charles Williams was a member of the quasi-Rosicrucian "Order of the Golden Dawn", founder members of which included Aleister Crowley and W. B. Yeats. Once you've read Williams you won't need to read C. S. Lewis, which is a relief.
8. Patrick Harpur, Mercurius
This weird, compellingly batty novel describes an act of alchemy in a series of villagey, pungent human exchanges. A kind of Gothic Joanna Trollope, it has a nicely chemical, nicely noisome feel to it; also a mad vicar.
9. Scott Bradfield, The secret life of houses
Briefly associated with the 90s New Gothic of Patrick McGrath and others, Bradfield had already shown them the way home with this immaculate 1987 collection of short stories.
10. Thorne Smith, The night life of the gods
Thorne Smith's comic genius mixed weird science with mythology, bootlegged alcohol with a chilly eye for the hypocrisy of the very Americans he was entertaining. At worst, sentimental; at best, like a New Yorker cartoon wrapped round a knife.
------
The link above to M. John Harrison's official website (http://www.mjohnharrison.com/) no longer works. It is probably available on the Internet Archive website, if you ignore the squatters on the more recent trawls.
Much of the fun of these lists are when the contributors make it properly personal, including occasionally putting the knee in. Case in point, no. 7 above. Harrison clearly doesn't agree with the 1,445 LT members who have favourited C. S. Lewis.
Guardian, 2002-10-28.
M. John Harrison's books include Viriconium, Signs of life and the short story collection, Travel arrangements. His new novel, Light, is published by Gollancz.
M. John Harrison's official website
"Ten books which link the inside to the outside, the scientific to the personal, the individual to the universal. In no particular order..."
1. Tim Etchells, Dream dictionary (for the modern dreamer)
These contemporary dream-interpretations map a social landscape of love-rats, failed consumerism, football, video games. Etchells examines each joke with a lizardlike deadpan as he delivers it. He's not going to let us get away with laughing.
2. Alan Wall, The school of night
Alan Wall has been described as "Secker & Warburg's best kept secret". This tale is a good place to start on his addictive oeuvre of metaphysics, literature and conspiracy.
3. Janna Levin, How the universe got its spots
A love affair with mathematical physics counterpoints cosmologist Janna Levin's relationship with a country & western musician, to produce this delightful merge of science and autobiography.
4. Iain Banks, The wasp factory
Banks dives with us into the murk of his inner landscape. Then we look around and he's abandoned us there. How will we get out now?
5. John Braine, The Vodi
Constructed round the fantasies of a recovering tuberculosis patient, this novel was the defining moment of an as-yet-unreported genre, kitchen sink gothic. One of my favourite books of all time, it doesn't seem to be in print with the rest of Braine's backlist.
6. Michael Marshall Smith, Only forward
Mike Smith's raw and compelling debut novel starts with a headless corpse knocking to get in. It ends with an admission. In between, you simply grow more and more guilty and uncomfortable. Everything bad you've ever done was a feint, wasn't it? It was to pull the wool over your own eyes...
7. Charles Williams, The place of the lion
A novel which constantly transgresses the line between Dennis Wheatley and Plato. Charles Williams was a member of the quasi-Rosicrucian "Order of the Golden Dawn", founder members of which included Aleister Crowley and W. B. Yeats. Once you've read Williams you won't need to read C. S. Lewis, which is a relief.
8. Patrick Harpur, Mercurius
This weird, compellingly batty novel describes an act of alchemy in a series of villagey, pungent human exchanges. A kind of Gothic Joanna Trollope, it has a nicely chemical, nicely noisome feel to it; also a mad vicar.
9. Scott Bradfield, The secret life of houses
Briefly associated with the 90s New Gothic of Patrick McGrath and others, Bradfield had already shown them the way home with this immaculate 1987 collection of short stories.
10. Thorne Smith, The night life of the gods
Thorne Smith's comic genius mixed weird science with mythology, bootlegged alcohol with a chilly eye for the hypocrisy of the very Americans he was entertaining. At worst, sentimental; at best, like a New Yorker cartoon wrapped round a knife.
------
The link above to M. John Harrison's official website (http://www.mjohnharrison.com/) no longer works. It is probably available on the Internet Archive website, if you ignore the squatters on the more recent trawls.
Much of the fun of these lists are when the contributors make it properly personal, including occasionally putting the knee in. Case in point, no. 7 above. Harrison clearly doesn't agree with the 1,445 LT members who have favourited C. S. Lewis.
134Cynfelyn
William Cook's top 10 books by comedians
Guardian, 2002-11-04
William Cook writes the weekly comedy page in the Guardian Guide and a monthly comedy column for Guardian Unlimited. He is the author of Ha bloody ha - comedians talking and The Comedy Store - the club that changed British comedy. He is also the editor of Tragically I was an only twin - the complete Peter Cook, which has just been published by Century.
1. Spike Milligan, Adolf Hitler: my part in his downfall
The first and finest volume of Milligan's second world war memoirs, from enlistment in the British army in 1940 to his arrival in Africa in 1943. Intensely atmospheric, surprisingly poignant - but above all, heroically irreverent and absurd. "At Victoria Station (they) gave me a travel warrant, a white feather and a picture of Hitler marked 'this is your enemy'. I searched every compartment, but he wasn't on the train."
2. Barry Humphries, More please
An erudite and candid autobiography by the creator of Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson, with absorbing accounts of 50s Melbourne, 60s London and his harrowing battle with the bottle. "I always wanted more. I never had enough milk or money or socks or sex or holidays or first editions or solitude or gramophone records or free meals or real friends or guiltless pleasure or neckties or applause... "
3. Michael Bentine, The reluctant jester
The forgotten Goon, who went on to create children's classics like The Bumblies and Potty Time, Bentine was also an old Etonian, an RAF intelligence officer and the grandson of the vice-president of Peru. A warm, intimate, tragicomic autobiography by a fascinating all-rounder whose life-enhancing humour was just one of his many talents.
4. The essential Lenny Bruce
The original unexpurgated satirical routines, edited by John Cohen, of America's most original and unexpurgated satirist. "All my humour is based on destruction and despair," said Bruce. "If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I'd be standing in the breadline - right back of J Edgar Hoover."
5. Kenneth Williams, The complete acid drops
A collection of caustic bon mots, introduced by Gyles Brandreth, from the great British raconteur who was so much more than just another Carry On turn. "That he died a burden and disappointment to himself is so sad, and wrong," said Brandreth, "because he seems as potent a presence as ever." The Kenneth Williams diaries and The Kenneth Williams letters (both edited by Russell Davies) are equally scintillating.
6. Frank Skinner, Frank Skinner
Alcoholism, Catholicism and West Bromwich Albionism from the comedian formerly known as Chris Collins. An incredibly frank autobiography written in a naturalistic style that flits conversationally between past and present. As engaging as his classless stand-up comedy, but which confession will alarm his laddish fans more - the sobering account of how he lost his virginity to a prostitute called Corky, or the shocking revelation that this Rabelaisian comic has an MA in English literature from Warwick University?
7. Denis Leary, No cure for cancer
Transcript of the iconoclastic stand-up show that helped break British comedy's politically correct cartel, by the American comic who loves cows - just as long as they're in a hamburger or something you can wear. A red-blooded, red meat-eating, red pack Marlboro-smoking celebration of (virtually) everything that's bad for you - including drinking, drugs, war and pissing on the seat in public toilets.
8. Rich Hall, Self help for the bleak
Hilarious parody of those supermarket change-your-life manuals, by the brilliant Emmy award-winning David Letterman and Saturday Night Live veteran. "When someone says, 'It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all', keep in mind you're talking to a loser. Try to find someone who's never loved at all and get their side of the story."
9. Dave Gorman & Danny Wallace, Are you Dave Gorman?
Danny Wallace bet Dave Gorman he couldn't find 54 other people called Dave Gorman. Dave bet Danny he could. The resultant trek takes them as far afield as the USA (where they get caught in a tornado), Israel (where they cause a security alert at the airport) and Norway (where they lose their shoes). A life-affirming tale of English eccentricity about nothing in particular apart from having a good time all the time.
10. Oliver Double, Stand up! On being a comedian
Oliver Double is a comedian. He's also the first person to write a doctoral thesis about stand-up comedy. And now he teaches a practical stand-up module as a drama lecturer at the University of Kent. Yet despite its academic pedigree, this book isn't half as dry as it sounds. Part popular history, part practical how-to manual, it's an intelligent yet entertaining survey of the evolution of stand-up comedy, from music hall via working men's clubs to alternative comedy and beyond.
Guardian, 2002-11-04
William Cook writes the weekly comedy page in the Guardian Guide and a monthly comedy column for Guardian Unlimited. He is the author of Ha bloody ha - comedians talking and The Comedy Store - the club that changed British comedy. He is also the editor of Tragically I was an only twin - the complete Peter Cook, which has just been published by Century.
1. Spike Milligan, Adolf Hitler: my part in his downfall
The first and finest volume of Milligan's second world war memoirs, from enlistment in the British army in 1940 to his arrival in Africa in 1943. Intensely atmospheric, surprisingly poignant - but above all, heroically irreverent and absurd. "At Victoria Station (they) gave me a travel warrant, a white feather and a picture of Hitler marked 'this is your enemy'. I searched every compartment, but he wasn't on the train."
2. Barry Humphries, More please
An erudite and candid autobiography by the creator of Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson, with absorbing accounts of 50s Melbourne, 60s London and his harrowing battle with the bottle. "I always wanted more. I never had enough milk or money or socks or sex or holidays or first editions or solitude or gramophone records or free meals or real friends or guiltless pleasure or neckties or applause... "
3. Michael Bentine, The reluctant jester
The forgotten Goon, who went on to create children's classics like The Bumblies and Potty Time, Bentine was also an old Etonian, an RAF intelligence officer and the grandson of the vice-president of Peru. A warm, intimate, tragicomic autobiography by a fascinating all-rounder whose life-enhancing humour was just one of his many talents.
4. The essential Lenny Bruce
The original unexpurgated satirical routines, edited by John Cohen, of America's most original and unexpurgated satirist. "All my humour is based on destruction and despair," said Bruce. "If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I'd be standing in the breadline - right back of J Edgar Hoover."
5. Kenneth Williams, The complete acid drops
A collection of caustic bon mots, introduced by Gyles Brandreth, from the great British raconteur who was so much more than just another Carry On turn. "That he died a burden and disappointment to himself is so sad, and wrong," said Brandreth, "because he seems as potent a presence as ever." The Kenneth Williams diaries and The Kenneth Williams letters (both edited by Russell Davies) are equally scintillating.
6. Frank Skinner, Frank Skinner
Alcoholism, Catholicism and West Bromwich Albionism from the comedian formerly known as Chris Collins. An incredibly frank autobiography written in a naturalistic style that flits conversationally between past and present. As engaging as his classless stand-up comedy, but which confession will alarm his laddish fans more - the sobering account of how he lost his virginity to a prostitute called Corky, or the shocking revelation that this Rabelaisian comic has an MA in English literature from Warwick University?
7. Denis Leary, No cure for cancer
Transcript of the iconoclastic stand-up show that helped break British comedy's politically correct cartel, by the American comic who loves cows - just as long as they're in a hamburger or something you can wear. A red-blooded, red meat-eating, red pack Marlboro-smoking celebration of (virtually) everything that's bad for you - including drinking, drugs, war and pissing on the seat in public toilets.
8. Rich Hall, Self help for the bleak
Hilarious parody of those supermarket change-your-life manuals, by the brilliant Emmy award-winning David Letterman and Saturday Night Live veteran. "When someone says, 'It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all', keep in mind you're talking to a loser. Try to find someone who's never loved at all and get their side of the story."
9. Dave Gorman & Danny Wallace, Are you Dave Gorman?
Danny Wallace bet Dave Gorman he couldn't find 54 other people called Dave Gorman. Dave bet Danny he could. The resultant trek takes them as far afield as the USA (where they get caught in a tornado), Israel (where they cause a security alert at the airport) and Norway (where they lose their shoes). A life-affirming tale of English eccentricity about nothing in particular apart from having a good time all the time.
10. Oliver Double, Stand up! On being a comedian
Oliver Double is a comedian. He's also the first person to write a doctoral thesis about stand-up comedy. And now he teaches a practical stand-up module as a drama lecturer at the University of Kent. Yet despite its academic pedigree, this book isn't half as dry as it sounds. Part popular history, part practical how-to manual, it's an intelligent yet entertaining survey of the evolution of stand-up comedy, from music hall via working men's clubs to alternative comedy and beyond.
135Cynfelyn
Lisa Hilton's top 10 scandalous French novels
Guardian, 2002-12-02.
Lisa Hilton's Athénaïs, the real queen of France - a biography of Madame De Montespan, Louis XIV's official mistress - is published by Little, Brown at £17.99.
1. Emile Zola, Nana
The courtesan's courtesan, and possibly the funniest book he ever wrote.
2. Colette, The Claudine novels
So much naughtier than Gigi, Claudine is a deliciously vicious lesbian schoolgirl with an unnerving preference for the older man.
3. Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, Les liaisons dangereuses
No list would be complete without the libertine's bible, and John Malkovich's Valmont in the film version is the sexiest performance of his career.
4. Catherine Millet, La Vie Sexuelle de Catherine M
Believe it or not, Catherine Millet's memoirs of a veteran orgiast are elegantly reflective.
5. Marcel Proust, Sodom and Gomorrah
Enough said.
6. Philippe Djian, 37°2 le Matin
The book on which Betty Blue was based, and a racy read even without Béatrice Dalle.
7. Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
Obvious but necessary.
8. Michel Houellebecq, Atomised
Grim rather than joyful, but the most sophisticated take on postmodern sexuality.
9. Alina Reyes, The butcher
No sausage gags, but scrumptiously erotic.
10. Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian romances
Unlikely, but worth it for the scene with Lancelot and the comb.
Guardian, 2002-12-02.
Lisa Hilton's Athénaïs, the real queen of France - a biography of Madame De Montespan, Louis XIV's official mistress - is published by Little, Brown at £17.99.
1. Emile Zola, Nana
The courtesan's courtesan, and possibly the funniest book he ever wrote.
2. Colette, The Claudine novels
So much naughtier than Gigi, Claudine is a deliciously vicious lesbian schoolgirl with an unnerving preference for the older man.
3. Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, Les liaisons dangereuses
No list would be complete without the libertine's bible, and John Malkovich's Valmont in the film version is the sexiest performance of his career.
4. Catherine Millet, La Vie Sexuelle de Catherine M
Believe it or not, Catherine Millet's memoirs of a veteran orgiast are elegantly reflective.
5. Marcel Proust, Sodom and Gomorrah
Enough said.
6. Philippe Djian, 37°2 le Matin
The book on which Betty Blue was based, and a racy read even without Béatrice Dalle.
7. Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
Obvious but necessary.
8. Michel Houellebecq, Atomised
Grim rather than joyful, but the most sophisticated take on postmodern sexuality.
9. Alina Reyes, The butcher
No sausage gags, but scrumptiously erotic.
10. Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian romances
Unlikely, but worth it for the scene with Lancelot and the comb.
136Cynfelyn
Wendy Perriam's top 10 seriously sexy books
Guardian, 2002-12-11.
Wendy Perriam is the author of 15 novels, all of which tackle the themes of sex, religion and humour. Nominated three years running for the Literary Review Bad Sex award, she triumphed this year with a passage from her latest novel, Tread softly, in which she describes 'pin-striped sex'.
"I've always written explicitly about sex as I think (a) it's a highly serious subject (though often treated crudely or facetiously), (b) it sheds much light on character, and (c) despite the fact that we live in such a permissive age, the whole subject of sex remains to some extent mysterious and hedged about with deception and fabrication. This realm of 'secrets and lies' is natural terrain for the novelist."
1. Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
There's no explicit sex, of course, but we all know that Heathcliff is a wonderful lover, without having to see him go through his paces. Charlotte Brontë tells us that her sister didn't even know how the reproductive system worked, but does it matter? She understands passion. Who can ever forget the first Catherine's anguished statement of being torn between two loves: "My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. I am Heathcliff!" Every time I read that, it sends a frisson through me.
2. D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's lover
After the furore this novel caused, it's hard to view it objectively. Lawrence's mystic view of sex, his use of four-letter words, and his depiction of Mellors as Noble Savage have all been criticised, if not derided. But for me Lady Chatterley remains a masterpiece, for its acute psychological insight, its complex relationships (especially that between Clifford Chatterley and Mrs Bolton), and its intensity of feeling and expression. Lawrence originally called it Tenderness and indeed, far from approving of pornography, he insisted that tenderness and mutual respect should always accompany physical passion. He wrote in a letter about Lady Chatterley: "I always labour to make the sex relation valid and precious, instead of shameful. And this novel is the furthest I've gone. To me it is beautiful and tender and frail as the naked self is."
3. Anaïs Nin, Incest, from A Journal of Love, the unexpurgated diary of Anaïs Nin
Nin is as famous for her lovers (who included Henry Miller, Edmund Wilson, Gore Vidal, Otto Rank and even her own father - hence the title) as for her literary output. She treated her diary as the ultimate confidant and wrote it continuously from 1914 to 1974, declaring: "The role of the writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say." Certainly Incest breaks sexual taboos, as Nin describes in white-hot, turbulent prose her desire to enslave men through total sexual surrender. Combining the role of virgin-whore with that of artist and the analyst of artists, she hurls many disparate elements into this heady brew: dream-analysis, psychological acuity, poetic lyricism, flagrant lies and narcissism, and an often masochistic craving for love.
4. Philip Roth, Portnoy's complaint
The irrepressible sexuality of the theme is echoed in the exuberantly potent language, which seems to surge up and spill over on the page. And Portnoy's raging sexual desire is paralleled by the rage he feels towards his Jewish mother and the whole of Jewish culture. Roth has been called 'the historian of modern eroticism.' He's also hysterically funny.
5. Harold Brodkey, The abundant dreamer
The most erotic (and famous) of this collection of short stories is Innocence, which describes in minute detail the first orgasm of the beautiful Orra Philips. The 20-page description combines the clinical ("I whomped it in") with the baroque ("I saw myself as a Roman trireme, my tongue as the prow.") The orgasm itself is presented as a spiritual experience in the grandest of biblical images, yet Brodkey is also adept in giving us memorably vivid physical descriptions: "her body was smooth stone, and wet-satin paper bags, and snaky webs, thin and alive, made of woven snakes that lived, thrown over the stone; she held the great, writhing-skinned stone construction toward me, the bony marvel, the half-dish of bone with its secretive, gluey-smooth entrance."
6. Alan Hollinghurst, The swimming-pool library
The combination of near-pornographic gay sex scenes and an impeccable prose style make this a memorable read. Apart from a couple of allusions to the main character's sister, not a single woman appears in the book. The novel depicts the world of homosexual men - their lusts, their conquests and their obsession with physical exercise. The dialogue is masterly, and the range of emotions depicted in the sexual encounters is satisfyingly complex, encompassing everything from nervousness and tender compassion to almost brutal violence.
7. David Plante, The Catholic
Another homosexual novel featuring extremely explicit sex scenes, which again combine tenderness and violence. The new element here is religion; an exploration of the conflicting demands and constraints of both Catholicism and sexual obsession. Frequent references to sweat, spittle, sperm and scrotums co-exist with long reflective passages of analysis and philosophy. And sometimes there's even a religious dimension to the erotic scenes themselves - for example when Daniel talks of his 'religious fervour' whilst in bed with Henry, saying, "I would make blessed objects of his bare shoulder, his arm, his hand, his eyelids. . ."
8. John Updike, Roger's version
Updike is celebrated for his wry depiction of adultery in small-town America. But this, his 12th novel, is something rather different. Roger is a middle-aged professor in the Divinity School and into his staid life breezes Verna, his sluttish 19-year-old half-niece, who brazenly seduces him. The fevered excitement of this experience is followed by deep shame and guilt on Roger's part. Still clinging to Verna's naked body, he reflects on the existence of God, and the silence He maintains whilst allowing His human creatures to explore their freedom and, in so doing, commit sins of incest and child abuse. Again, sex and religion make fascinating bedfellows.
9. Josephine Hart, Damage
A chilling but brilliant study of sexual obsession. A 50-year-old doctor falls for his son's fiancee, Anna, and soon they become mutually enslaved. Short fevered copulations in Parisian backstreets and Marylebone love-nests plunge the pair of them into the lower depths. Their affair is uplifting and degrading in equal measure, and can only end in disaster.
10. The Bible
But of course. The couplings of Adam and Eve, David and Bathsheba, Samson and Delilah, Esther and King Xerxes, and many other biblical characters are an inescapable part of our culture, immortalised as they are in great works of art, music and literature. At my convent school, we were forbidden to read the Old Testament on account of its frequent references to fornication, adultery, concupiscence, and 'abominations' such as Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19) and the gang-rape of the concubine in Gibeah (Judges 19). And as for the Song of Solomon, it's been interpreted allegorically by both Christian and Jewish exegetes as a description of God's love for His Church and Israel respectively. I'm not convinced. These sound to me like love songs firmly rooted in the bedchamber. Sensuality and eroticism throb through every line.
Guardian, 2002-12-11.
Wendy Perriam is the author of 15 novels, all of which tackle the themes of sex, religion and humour. Nominated three years running for the Literary Review Bad Sex award, she triumphed this year with a passage from her latest novel, Tread softly, in which she describes 'pin-striped sex'.
"I've always written explicitly about sex as I think (a) it's a highly serious subject (though often treated crudely or facetiously), (b) it sheds much light on character, and (c) despite the fact that we live in such a permissive age, the whole subject of sex remains to some extent mysterious and hedged about with deception and fabrication. This realm of 'secrets and lies' is natural terrain for the novelist."
1. Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
There's no explicit sex, of course, but we all know that Heathcliff is a wonderful lover, without having to see him go through his paces. Charlotte Brontë tells us that her sister didn't even know how the reproductive system worked, but does it matter? She understands passion. Who can ever forget the first Catherine's anguished statement of being torn between two loves: "My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. I am Heathcliff!" Every time I read that, it sends a frisson through me.
2. D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's lover
After the furore this novel caused, it's hard to view it objectively. Lawrence's mystic view of sex, his use of four-letter words, and his depiction of Mellors as Noble Savage have all been criticised, if not derided. But for me Lady Chatterley remains a masterpiece, for its acute psychological insight, its complex relationships (especially that between Clifford Chatterley and Mrs Bolton), and its intensity of feeling and expression. Lawrence originally called it Tenderness and indeed, far from approving of pornography, he insisted that tenderness and mutual respect should always accompany physical passion. He wrote in a letter about Lady Chatterley: "I always labour to make the sex relation valid and precious, instead of shameful. And this novel is the furthest I've gone. To me it is beautiful and tender and frail as the naked self is."
3. Anaïs Nin, Incest, from A Journal of Love, the unexpurgated diary of Anaïs Nin
Nin is as famous for her lovers (who included Henry Miller, Edmund Wilson, Gore Vidal, Otto Rank and even her own father - hence the title) as for her literary output. She treated her diary as the ultimate confidant and wrote it continuously from 1914 to 1974, declaring: "The role of the writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say." Certainly Incest breaks sexual taboos, as Nin describes in white-hot, turbulent prose her desire to enslave men through total sexual surrender. Combining the role of virgin-whore with that of artist and the analyst of artists, she hurls many disparate elements into this heady brew: dream-analysis, psychological acuity, poetic lyricism, flagrant lies and narcissism, and an often masochistic craving for love.
4. Philip Roth, Portnoy's complaint
The irrepressible sexuality of the theme is echoed in the exuberantly potent language, which seems to surge up and spill over on the page. And Portnoy's raging sexual desire is paralleled by the rage he feels towards his Jewish mother and the whole of Jewish culture. Roth has been called 'the historian of modern eroticism.' He's also hysterically funny.
5. Harold Brodkey, The abundant dreamer
The most erotic (and famous) of this collection of short stories is Innocence, which describes in minute detail the first orgasm of the beautiful Orra Philips. The 20-page description combines the clinical ("I whomped it in") with the baroque ("I saw myself as a Roman trireme, my tongue as the prow.") The orgasm itself is presented as a spiritual experience in the grandest of biblical images, yet Brodkey is also adept in giving us memorably vivid physical descriptions: "her body was smooth stone, and wet-satin paper bags, and snaky webs, thin and alive, made of woven snakes that lived, thrown over the stone; she held the great, writhing-skinned stone construction toward me, the bony marvel, the half-dish of bone with its secretive, gluey-smooth entrance."
6. Alan Hollinghurst, The swimming-pool library
The combination of near-pornographic gay sex scenes and an impeccable prose style make this a memorable read. Apart from a couple of allusions to the main character's sister, not a single woman appears in the book. The novel depicts the world of homosexual men - their lusts, their conquests and their obsession with physical exercise. The dialogue is masterly, and the range of emotions depicted in the sexual encounters is satisfyingly complex, encompassing everything from nervousness and tender compassion to almost brutal violence.
7. David Plante, The Catholic
Another homosexual novel featuring extremely explicit sex scenes, which again combine tenderness and violence. The new element here is religion; an exploration of the conflicting demands and constraints of both Catholicism and sexual obsession. Frequent references to sweat, spittle, sperm and scrotums co-exist with long reflective passages of analysis and philosophy. And sometimes there's even a religious dimension to the erotic scenes themselves - for example when Daniel talks of his 'religious fervour' whilst in bed with Henry, saying, "I would make blessed objects of his bare shoulder, his arm, his hand, his eyelids. . ."
8. John Updike, Roger's version
Updike is celebrated for his wry depiction of adultery in small-town America. But this, his 12th novel, is something rather different. Roger is a middle-aged professor in the Divinity School and into his staid life breezes Verna, his sluttish 19-year-old half-niece, who brazenly seduces him. The fevered excitement of this experience is followed by deep shame and guilt on Roger's part. Still clinging to Verna's naked body, he reflects on the existence of God, and the silence He maintains whilst allowing His human creatures to explore their freedom and, in so doing, commit sins of incest and child abuse. Again, sex and religion make fascinating bedfellows.
9. Josephine Hart, Damage
A chilling but brilliant study of sexual obsession. A 50-year-old doctor falls for his son's fiancee, Anna, and soon they become mutually enslaved. Short fevered copulations in Parisian backstreets and Marylebone love-nests plunge the pair of them into the lower depths. Their affair is uplifting and degrading in equal measure, and can only end in disaster.
10. The Bible
But of course. The couplings of Adam and Eve, David and Bathsheba, Samson and Delilah, Esther and King Xerxes, and many other biblical characters are an inescapable part of our culture, immortalised as they are in great works of art, music and literature. At my convent school, we were forbidden to read the Old Testament on account of its frequent references to fornication, adultery, concupiscence, and 'abominations' such as Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19) and the gang-rape of the concubine in Gibeah (Judges 19). And as for the Song of Solomon, it's been interpreted allegorically by both Christian and Jewish exegetes as a description of God's love for His Church and Israel respectively. I'm not convinced. These sound to me like love songs firmly rooted in the bedchamber. Sensuality and eroticism throb through every line.
137Cynfelyn
David Peace's top 10 British true-crime books
Guardian, 2003-01-09.
David Peace's Red Riding quartet - 1974, 1977, 1980 and 1983 - is an ultra-noir crime series set in and around Leeds in the shadow of the Yorkshire Ripper murders. He is one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists of 2003. "Crimes happen in actual, specific places at actual, specific times to actual, specific people. Crimes, their victims and their perpetrators, sadly define the times in which we live. There is no puzzle, only pain. No humour, only horror. The following 10 books seek to understand the crimes they document through the context and circumstances of the places and the times in which they occurred"
1. Emlyn Williams, Beyond belief
Williams said this account of the Moors Murders case was composed of three elements: fact, interpretation of fact and surmise. It is the combination of these elements that set this book, and all the books on this list, above the voyeuristic or exploitative.
2. Gordon Burn, Somebody's husband, somebody's son
Both this book on Peter Sutcliffe and Happy like murderers, about the West family, are obsessive, yet utterly compassionate and honest. Gordon Burn is the best British writer there is and I can make a strong case for Alma Cogan as the best British novel since Brighton Rock. Read everything he's ever written, fact and fiction, and save yourself the cost of an MA in Creative Writing.
3. Brian Masters, Killing for company
Claustrophobic but compulsive account of the Dennis Nilsen case.
4. Nicole Ward Jouve, The streetcleaner
An original, feminist dissection of the local culture, media circus and police investigation surrounding the Yorkshire Ripper case.
5. Chris Mullin, Error of judgement
We are all guilty of the good we did not do, but some less so than others. This is the book that exposed the truth and lies about the Birmingham Bombings. Read it now and hate yourself for your own inaction in the face and knowledge of injustice.
6. Jim Coulter, Susan Miller & Martin Walker, State of siege
A report on the policing of the miners' strike of 1984-85, written and published during the event. See above and below.
7. Paul Foot, Who framed Colin Wallace?
Paul Foot has devoted his life to righting the wrongs in other people's lives. His books on James Hanratty, Helen Smith, Carl Bridgewater and Colin Wallace are both a testament to his investigative journalism and his own selflessness.
8. Stephen Dorril & Robin Ramsay, Smear!
The detailed, secret history of Britain from 1964 to 1979, and the role of the secret state in the fall of Harold Wilson and the rise of the Thatcher right. It should be a textbook, but it isn't. However, all the back issues of Lobster - Robin Ramsay's journal of parapolitics, which continues where this leaves off - are now available on one essential CD-rom.
9. Martin Dillon, The Terrorism Trilogy
Three books written on the Troubles - The Shankill butchers, God and the gun, and The dirty war - which were revelations to me when I first read them.
10. John Williams, Bloody Valentine
John Williams's Into the badlands opened up the world of American crime fiction for me and a generation. This very personal account of the death of a Cardiff prostitute is the most complex, emotional and moving book on this list. Read it.
------
Para 1, word 3: David Peace's 'Red Riding quartet', not, as per the original Guardian article, 'West Riding quartet'. Hooray for the sub-editors!
The only moment of levity in a pretty grim list. And this is just some of the shit that's gone down in our small islands in our lifetimes. Who needs the Home Secretary's crying wolf about "Monsters at the door"? We're quite capable of whipping up our own horrors.
Guardian, 2003-01-09.
David Peace's Red Riding quartet - 1974, 1977, 1980 and 1983 - is an ultra-noir crime series set in and around Leeds in the shadow of the Yorkshire Ripper murders. He is one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists of 2003. "Crimes happen in actual, specific places at actual, specific times to actual, specific people. Crimes, their victims and their perpetrators, sadly define the times in which we live. There is no puzzle, only pain. No humour, only horror. The following 10 books seek to understand the crimes they document through the context and circumstances of the places and the times in which they occurred"
1. Emlyn Williams, Beyond belief
Williams said this account of the Moors Murders case was composed of three elements: fact, interpretation of fact and surmise. It is the combination of these elements that set this book, and all the books on this list, above the voyeuristic or exploitative.
2. Gordon Burn, Somebody's husband, somebody's son
Both this book on Peter Sutcliffe and Happy like murderers, about the West family, are obsessive, yet utterly compassionate and honest. Gordon Burn is the best British writer there is and I can make a strong case for Alma Cogan as the best British novel since Brighton Rock. Read everything he's ever written, fact and fiction, and save yourself the cost of an MA in Creative Writing.
3. Brian Masters, Killing for company
Claustrophobic but compulsive account of the Dennis Nilsen case.
4. Nicole Ward Jouve, The streetcleaner
An original, feminist dissection of the local culture, media circus and police investigation surrounding the Yorkshire Ripper case.
5. Chris Mullin, Error of judgement
We are all guilty of the good we did not do, but some less so than others. This is the book that exposed the truth and lies about the Birmingham Bombings. Read it now and hate yourself for your own inaction in the face and knowledge of injustice.
6. Jim Coulter, Susan Miller & Martin Walker, State of siege
A report on the policing of the miners' strike of 1984-85, written and published during the event. See above and below.
7. Paul Foot, Who framed Colin Wallace?
Paul Foot has devoted his life to righting the wrongs in other people's lives. His books on James Hanratty, Helen Smith, Carl Bridgewater and Colin Wallace are both a testament to his investigative journalism and his own selflessness.
8. Stephen Dorril & Robin Ramsay, Smear!
The detailed, secret history of Britain from 1964 to 1979, and the role of the secret state in the fall of Harold Wilson and the rise of the Thatcher right. It should be a textbook, but it isn't. However, all the back issues of Lobster - Robin Ramsay's journal of parapolitics, which continues where this leaves off - are now available on one essential CD-rom.
9. Martin Dillon, The Terrorism Trilogy
Three books written on the Troubles - The Shankill butchers, God and the gun, and The dirty war - which were revelations to me when I first read them.
10. John Williams, Bloody Valentine
John Williams's Into the badlands opened up the world of American crime fiction for me and a generation. This very personal account of the death of a Cardiff prostitute is the most complex, emotional and moving book on this list. Read it.
------
Para 1, word 3: David Peace's 'Red Riding quartet', not, as per the original Guardian article, 'West Riding quartet'. Hooray for the sub-editors!
The only moment of levity in a pretty grim list. And this is just some of the shit that's gone down in our small islands in our lifetimes. Who needs the Home Secretary's crying wolf about "Monsters at the door"? We're quite capable of whipping up our own horrors.
138Cynfelyn
Richard Grant's top 10 books about wandering
Guardian, 2003-01-15.
Richard Grant is a freelance journalist based in Arizona and the author of Ghost riders: travels with American nomads. "I have a restless personality, a compulsion to keep travelling, and I've always enjoyed reading about people who made their lives into a perpetual journey. The literature of wandering and nomadism is also in part a literature of harsh, arid environments - deserts, steppes, tundra - where trees, agriculture and sedentary societies have found it difficult to take root."
1. Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, Adventures in the unknown interior of America
The extraordinary, mesmerising and true adventure of a Spanish conquistador shipwrecked off the coast of Texas in 1527. Naked and barefoot, with three companions, he walked all the way to the Pacific coast of Mexico, accruing a procession of thousands of Indians who hailed him as a god and a healer. This is the first book ever written about the North American interior and still one of the best.
2. Bruce Chatwin, The songlines
A travel book about Australian Aborigines in which very little actually happens apart from Chatwin's speculations on the human urge to wander. Aborigines won't talk to him, he invents his main character, the book's structure dissolves into a mosaic of notebook entries - and yet he writes so beautifully, and thinks such interesting thoughts, that none of these flaws matter.
3. Cormac McCarthy, Blood meridian
McCarthy's dark, gory masterpiece about a party of scalp hunters roaming the American West in the mid-19th century. Closely modelled on real characters and events, written in prose descended from Faulkner and the Old Testament, it depicts the American frontier as an environment that brutalised whites, Indians and Mexicans alike.
4. Mark Twain, The adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Huck embodies the flipside of the American dream: burn down the house and light out of the territory. The bragging contest between Mississippi rivermen is my favourite exchange in American literature, and more than makes up for the doggerel at the end of the book, after the infuriating Tom Sawyer reappears.
5. Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian sands
A wayward, old-school English gentleman journeys by camel with the nomadic Bedouin across the Empty Quarter. Arduous travelling, keen anthropological observations and some of the finest writing about deserts I have ever read.
6. Edward Abbey, Desert solitaire
Who says Americans don't do irony? Abbey's acerbic wit, anarchist philosophy and hearty enjoyment of sex, booze, cigars and strong language brings a new dimension to the pious discipline of nature writing. My second favourite writer on deserts.
7. Mari Sandoz, Crazy Horse: the strange man of the Oglalas
A wonderful biography, impeccably researched and written with a novelist's eye for detail and plotting, about the great Sioux war chief, Custer's nemesis, a man who saw no point in living unless he was free to roam the plains. Sandoz grew up hearing stories from ancient Sioux warriors who remembered Crazy Horse.
8. Bernard DeVoto, Across the wide Missouri
DeVoto's magisterial history of the Rocky Mountain fur trade, told through the adventures of William Drummond Stewart, a restless Scottish nobleman who rode, hunted and fought alongside the white fur trappers and nomadic horse Indians who occupied the American north-west in the early 19th century.
9. Charles Bowden, Desierto
Bowden is a roving journalist and author whose chosen beat is the dark side of the American south-west: the rootless killers, drug traffickers and low-lifes, and the relentless destruction of nature by property developers and the hungers of modern civilisation. He combines incredible feats of reporting with angry, muscular, lyrical prose.
10. Ian Frazier, Great Plains
From a region often derided for its flatness and provincial dullness, Frazier crafts a charming and unfailingly interesting travel book. His enthusiasm for the American steppes is infectious. After reading this book, I walked out of a London office and spent a summer driving around them.
Guardian, 2003-01-15.
Richard Grant is a freelance journalist based in Arizona and the author of Ghost riders: travels with American nomads. "I have a restless personality, a compulsion to keep travelling, and I've always enjoyed reading about people who made their lives into a perpetual journey. The literature of wandering and nomadism is also in part a literature of harsh, arid environments - deserts, steppes, tundra - where trees, agriculture and sedentary societies have found it difficult to take root."
1. Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, Adventures in the unknown interior of America
The extraordinary, mesmerising and true adventure of a Spanish conquistador shipwrecked off the coast of Texas in 1527. Naked and barefoot, with three companions, he walked all the way to the Pacific coast of Mexico, accruing a procession of thousands of Indians who hailed him as a god and a healer. This is the first book ever written about the North American interior and still one of the best.
2. Bruce Chatwin, The songlines
A travel book about Australian Aborigines in which very little actually happens apart from Chatwin's speculations on the human urge to wander. Aborigines won't talk to him, he invents his main character, the book's structure dissolves into a mosaic of notebook entries - and yet he writes so beautifully, and thinks such interesting thoughts, that none of these flaws matter.
3. Cormac McCarthy, Blood meridian
McCarthy's dark, gory masterpiece about a party of scalp hunters roaming the American West in the mid-19th century. Closely modelled on real characters and events, written in prose descended from Faulkner and the Old Testament, it depicts the American frontier as an environment that brutalised whites, Indians and Mexicans alike.
4. Mark Twain, The adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Huck embodies the flipside of the American dream: burn down the house and light out of the territory. The bragging contest between Mississippi rivermen is my favourite exchange in American literature, and more than makes up for the doggerel at the end of the book, after the infuriating Tom Sawyer reappears.
5. Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian sands
A wayward, old-school English gentleman journeys by camel with the nomadic Bedouin across the Empty Quarter. Arduous travelling, keen anthropological observations and some of the finest writing about deserts I have ever read.
6. Edward Abbey, Desert solitaire
Who says Americans don't do irony? Abbey's acerbic wit, anarchist philosophy and hearty enjoyment of sex, booze, cigars and strong language brings a new dimension to the pious discipline of nature writing. My second favourite writer on deserts.
7. Mari Sandoz, Crazy Horse: the strange man of the Oglalas
A wonderful biography, impeccably researched and written with a novelist's eye for detail and plotting, about the great Sioux war chief, Custer's nemesis, a man who saw no point in living unless he was free to roam the plains. Sandoz grew up hearing stories from ancient Sioux warriors who remembered Crazy Horse.
8. Bernard DeVoto, Across the wide Missouri
DeVoto's magisterial history of the Rocky Mountain fur trade, told through the adventures of William Drummond Stewart, a restless Scottish nobleman who rode, hunted and fought alongside the white fur trappers and nomadic horse Indians who occupied the American north-west in the early 19th century.
9. Charles Bowden, Desierto
Bowden is a roving journalist and author whose chosen beat is the dark side of the American south-west: the rootless killers, drug traffickers and low-lifes, and the relentless destruction of nature by property developers and the hungers of modern civilisation. He combines incredible feats of reporting with angry, muscular, lyrical prose.
10. Ian Frazier, Great Plains
From a region often derided for its flatness and provincial dullness, Frazier crafts a charming and unfailingly interesting travel book. His enthusiasm for the American steppes is infectious. After reading this book, I walked out of a London office and spent a summer driving around them.
139Cynfelyn
A. L. Kennedy's top 10 controversial books
Guardian, 2003-02-03.
AL Kennedy appeared on the Granta best young British novelists lists of 1993 and 2003. The author of uncompromising, stylistically inventive and emotionally charged novels and short stories, her books include So I am glad, Everything you need and On bullfighting. Her most recent book is Indelible acts.
"Taking offence at books is a centuries old tradition. This may concern a question of personal taste, political expediency, or a desire to guard the malleable from dreadful things that they might take to. Plato wanted Homer kept from immature readers, Caligula was keen to suppress The Odyssey in case the Greek style freedoms it suggested caught on. What follows is a list of books which trouble, which are awkward, and many of which have offended at some point - although, Lord knows, not one of them leaped into an unwilling reader's hand and forced them to study every line. My aim is not to offend but to illustrate that freedom of the imagination is something we sacrifice only at great risk and that sometimes we may be prepared to resist real evil by meeting its fictional self. So, in no particular order."
1. John McGahern, The dark
An astonishing study in power, fear, sexuality and religion. Staggeringly well written and heartbreaking in every possible way. Famously banned for a time in Ireland.
2. Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and loathing on the campaign trail '72
Insanity, obscenity, profanity, illegality and reptilian paranoia - but which is more distressing, HST's lunatic chemical life and Gonzo prose style, or Richard Milhous Nixon and co taking a whole country for a nasty ride? And where, by the way, is the energy of Gonzo now when we need it?
3. C. S. Lewis, That hideous strength
Dreadful title, wonderfully savage book. This fantasy anticipated the postwar decline in British education with ghoulish clarity. No fauns and witches (they're banned in some US schools, by the way), only very adult evil, moral weakness and the kind of unremitting justice that unsettles the soul.
4. Joao Ubaldo Ribeiro, Sergeant Getulio
A stunningly written, unflinching journey with a man we should find appalling. And the sergeant does indeed horrify, but also emerges as terribly familiar, a monster we can feel under our skin. Not for the fainthearted, but worth it - a lovely, angry, truthful book.
5. Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
Great for a kneejerk banning, even today. A different monster here, in paedophile Humbert Humbert, but one who is equally unnerving and, ultimately, just as close at hand. A faultlessly crafted work without prurience and with considerable knowledge of human nature. Also rather more use than a lynch mob on the lookout for paediatricians.
6. Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
Lambasted when it came out as irredeemably perverse and, I quote, as practically "French".
7. Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five
This appears consistently on the American Library Association's list of "most frequently challenged books". Apparently the fact that it evokes the dreadfully disinterested havoc of war is offensive, rather than necessary. It also uses bad words and black humour, unforgivable in time of war, and employs phrases like "The gun made a ripping sound like the opening of the fly of God Almighty." Dear me.
8. Herman Melville, The confidence man
A rarely appreciated masterpiece by a writer pushing the boundaries of his craft. It's also subtly and very deeply alarming in its examination of personality, compromise and evil.
9. Miguel Cervantes, Don Quixote
Placed on the Index in Madrid for the sentence "Works of charity negligently performed are of no worth." Justifiably a classic of world literature and one a remarkable number of people have never actually read.
10. R. L. Stevenson, The beach at Falesa / The ebb tide / Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
They're all published together in at least one edition. Mr Hyde, of course, didn't fit with the image of everyone's favourite children's author and the two late stories didn't appear unedited until long after the author's death; implying, as they did, that the British Empire might not have been an entirely altruistic enterprise. For burning moral certainty and deep understanding of human frailty and hypocrisy, see all the above. For an additional savage attack on economic violence, abuse of power and the insanity of capital, The ebb tide can't be beaten.
Guardian, 2003-02-03.
AL Kennedy appeared on the Granta best young British novelists lists of 1993 and 2003. The author of uncompromising, stylistically inventive and emotionally charged novels and short stories, her books include So I am glad, Everything you need and On bullfighting. Her most recent book is Indelible acts.
"Taking offence at books is a centuries old tradition. This may concern a question of personal taste, political expediency, or a desire to guard the malleable from dreadful things that they might take to. Plato wanted Homer kept from immature readers, Caligula was keen to suppress The Odyssey in case the Greek style freedoms it suggested caught on. What follows is a list of books which trouble, which are awkward, and many of which have offended at some point - although, Lord knows, not one of them leaped into an unwilling reader's hand and forced them to study every line. My aim is not to offend but to illustrate that freedom of the imagination is something we sacrifice only at great risk and that sometimes we may be prepared to resist real evil by meeting its fictional self. So, in no particular order."
1. John McGahern, The dark
An astonishing study in power, fear, sexuality and religion. Staggeringly well written and heartbreaking in every possible way. Famously banned for a time in Ireland.
2. Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and loathing on the campaign trail '72
Insanity, obscenity, profanity, illegality and reptilian paranoia - but which is more distressing, HST's lunatic chemical life and Gonzo prose style, or Richard Milhous Nixon and co taking a whole country for a nasty ride? And where, by the way, is the energy of Gonzo now when we need it?
3. C. S. Lewis, That hideous strength
Dreadful title, wonderfully savage book. This fantasy anticipated the postwar decline in British education with ghoulish clarity. No fauns and witches (they're banned in some US schools, by the way), only very adult evil, moral weakness and the kind of unremitting justice that unsettles the soul.
4. Joao Ubaldo Ribeiro, Sergeant Getulio
A stunningly written, unflinching journey with a man we should find appalling. And the sergeant does indeed horrify, but also emerges as terribly familiar, a monster we can feel under our skin. Not for the fainthearted, but worth it - a lovely, angry, truthful book.
5. Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
Great for a kneejerk banning, even today. A different monster here, in paedophile Humbert Humbert, but one who is equally unnerving and, ultimately, just as close at hand. A faultlessly crafted work without prurience and with considerable knowledge of human nature. Also rather more use than a lynch mob on the lookout for paediatricians.
6. Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
Lambasted when it came out as irredeemably perverse and, I quote, as practically "French".
7. Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five
This appears consistently on the American Library Association's list of "most frequently challenged books". Apparently the fact that it evokes the dreadfully disinterested havoc of war is offensive, rather than necessary. It also uses bad words and black humour, unforgivable in time of war, and employs phrases like "The gun made a ripping sound like the opening of the fly of God Almighty." Dear me.
8. Herman Melville, The confidence man
A rarely appreciated masterpiece by a writer pushing the boundaries of his craft. It's also subtly and very deeply alarming in its examination of personality, compromise and evil.
9. Miguel Cervantes, Don Quixote
Placed on the Index in Madrid for the sentence "Works of charity negligently performed are of no worth." Justifiably a classic of world literature and one a remarkable number of people have never actually read.
10. R. L. Stevenson, The beach at Falesa / The ebb tide / Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
They're all published together in at least one edition. Mr Hyde, of course, didn't fit with the image of everyone's favourite children's author and the two late stories didn't appear unedited until long after the author's death; implying, as they did, that the British Empire might not have been an entirely altruistic enterprise. For burning moral certainty and deep understanding of human frailty and hypocrisy, see all the above. For an additional savage attack on economic violence, abuse of power and the insanity of capital, The ebb tide can't be beaten.
140Cynfelyn
Giles Lyon's top 10 cricket books
Guardian, 2003-02-11.
Giles Lyon founded Bodyline Books, which specialises in Wisdens and all kinds of cricket memorabilia (150a Harbord Street, London, SW6 6PH; call 0207 385 2176). To buy any of the books below, browse his website, www.bodylinebooks.com.
1. David Foot, Harold Gimblett: tormented genius of cricket
Superb life study of the Bicknoller Biffer, a manic depressive who tragically ended his own life after bringing the Taunton faithful to life with his batting, a full generation before Botham. A classic biography that reveals both the psyche of a brooding, difficult man and sheer ebullience of his batsmanship.
2. Mike Brearley, The art of captaincy
The master tactician explains every aspect of captaincy, a subject which he clearly knows better than most; well enough, in fact, to make him the only player in Test history to be selected for his skippering skills.
3. John Barclay, The appeal of the championship: Sussex in the summer of 1981
How very "Sussex" to write a book about coming second. Barclay is a natural raconteur and the Sussex dressing room in 1981 provides pukka material for his eagle-eyed wit.
4. F. S. Ashley-Cooper, The Hambledon Cricket Chronicle 1772-1796
Ah, the flickering ghosts of Hambledon! Superbly entertaining revue of the original club minutes of meetings, including entries such as: "Ordered that Mr Richards be desired to send to Mr Gauntlett for a Hogshead of the best Port in bottle fit to drink immediately."
5. David Frith, Bodyline autopsy
Frith's magnum opus on the most dramatic Ashes series of them all. This is a fine example of a potentially daunting book to read actually turning out to be a pleasant amble through a dastardly phase of cricket.
6. C. W. Alcock (ed.), Famous cricketers and cricket grounds
Brilliant pageant of lovely old stars of the Victorian era handsomely captured in elegant poses by E. Hawkins & Co. of Brighton. Nothing surpasses this magnificent book for sheer pomp and ceremony.
7. Alan Ross, Through the Caribbean
Ross follows the 1959-60 England tour to West Indies for what turned out to be a "grim, ruthless, evenly contested and sometimes dramatic group of matches". But this is much more than just a tour book, for Ross soaks up the cultural nuances of each destination without ever stooping to stereotypes.
8. Leslie Frewin, The best of cricket fiction (2 vols)
Lip-smacking bedside material, corralling fictional stories of the magic and lore of cricket.
9. J. H. Fingleton, Brightly fades the Don
The daddy of all the books on the 1948 Australian tourists, who many plump for as the greatest touring combo of all time. Fingleton leads us by the hand round the counties and through the Tests, showing us what English county cricket was like just after the war. A gem of a tour book.
10. F. S. Ashley-Cooper, Cricket highways and byways
A treasure chest of bits 'n pieces, with sections on "Cricket and the Church", "Slow Scoring in the Olden Times", and "Books and Writers". I wouldn't want to be without this on a desert island.
------
Bodyline Books, and perhaps Giles Lyon, seem to have gone the way of all things. The website has squatters, and copies of the shop's catalogues are for sale on ABE. "Nothing beside remains."
Guardian, 2003-02-11.
Giles Lyon founded Bodyline Books, which specialises in Wisdens and all kinds of cricket memorabilia (150a Harbord Street, London, SW6 6PH; call 0207 385 2176). To buy any of the books below, browse his website, www.bodylinebooks.com.
1. David Foot, Harold Gimblett: tormented genius of cricket
Superb life study of the Bicknoller Biffer, a manic depressive who tragically ended his own life after bringing the Taunton faithful to life with his batting, a full generation before Botham. A classic biography that reveals both the psyche of a brooding, difficult man and sheer ebullience of his batsmanship.
2. Mike Brearley, The art of captaincy
The master tactician explains every aspect of captaincy, a subject which he clearly knows better than most; well enough, in fact, to make him the only player in Test history to be selected for his skippering skills.
3. John Barclay, The appeal of the championship: Sussex in the summer of 1981
How very "Sussex" to write a book about coming second. Barclay is a natural raconteur and the Sussex dressing room in 1981 provides pukka material for his eagle-eyed wit.
4. F. S. Ashley-Cooper, The Hambledon Cricket Chronicle 1772-1796
Ah, the flickering ghosts of Hambledon! Superbly entertaining revue of the original club minutes of meetings, including entries such as: "Ordered that Mr Richards be desired to send to Mr Gauntlett for a Hogshead of the best Port in bottle fit to drink immediately."
5. David Frith, Bodyline autopsy
Frith's magnum opus on the most dramatic Ashes series of them all. This is a fine example of a potentially daunting book to read actually turning out to be a pleasant amble through a dastardly phase of cricket.
6. C. W. Alcock (ed.), Famous cricketers and cricket grounds
Brilliant pageant of lovely old stars of the Victorian era handsomely captured in elegant poses by E. Hawkins & Co. of Brighton. Nothing surpasses this magnificent book for sheer pomp and ceremony.
7. Alan Ross, Through the Caribbean
Ross follows the 1959-60 England tour to West Indies for what turned out to be a "grim, ruthless, evenly contested and sometimes dramatic group of matches". But this is much more than just a tour book, for Ross soaks up the cultural nuances of each destination without ever stooping to stereotypes.
8. Leslie Frewin, The best of cricket fiction (2 vols)
Lip-smacking bedside material, corralling fictional stories of the magic and lore of cricket.
9. J. H. Fingleton, Brightly fades the Don
The daddy of all the books on the 1948 Australian tourists, who many plump for as the greatest touring combo of all time. Fingleton leads us by the hand round the counties and through the Tests, showing us what English county cricket was like just after the war. A gem of a tour book.
10. F. S. Ashley-Cooper, Cricket highways and byways
A treasure chest of bits 'n pieces, with sections on "Cricket and the Church", "Slow Scoring in the Olden Times", and "Books and Writers". I wouldn't want to be without this on a desert island.
------
Bodyline Books, and perhaps Giles Lyon, seem to have gone the way of all things. The website has squatters, and copies of the shop's catalogues are for sale on ABE. "Nothing beside remains."
141Cynfelyn
David Smith's top 10 economics books
Guardian, 2003-02-18.
David Smith's previous books include Will Europe work?, about the prospects for European economic and monetary union, as well as The rise and fall of monetarism and From boom to bust, which analysed post-war economic policy in Britain. His latest work, Free lunch: easily digestible economics, is published by Profile.
1. Sylvia Nasar, A beautiful mind
Not many books about economists get made into Oscar-winning movies. This one about John Nash, the flawed genius of game theory, did and it is a lot better than the film.
2. Robert Skidelsky, Keynes
It won't be published as a single volume until next year but in the meantime the three-volume set - Hopes betrayed, 1883-1920, The economist as saviour, 1920-37, and Fighting for Britain, 1937-46 - tells the story of Britain's greatest modern economist.
3. J. M. Keynes, The general theory of employment, interest and money
Still worth reading in its original for its insights, despite being published nearly 70 years ago.
4. Adam Smith, The wealth of nations
On the subject of originals, Margaret Thatcher was said to carry a copy of this great work, which marked the birth of economics as we know it, in her handbag. Judge for yourself.
5. Richard Holt, Second amongst equals
Many books have tried to get inside the Treasury and how the office of chancellor of the exchequer works. This one succeeds and is amusing, too.
6. Stephen Landsburg, The armchair economist
I love this book, which is full of everyday economics explained in an unstuffy and humorous way. His speciality is explaining how economics reaches parts of life you wouldn't normally expect.
7. Paul Krugman, The accidental theorist
The other great American role model is Paul Krugman, currently working on a large textbook. This collection has him at his accessible, debunking best.
8. John Cassidy, Dot.con
The dot.com boom was the recent equivalent of tulipmania or the South Sea bubble. This is the best account of that boom, and its bust.
9. David Landes, The wealth and poverty of nations
Echoes of Adam Smith in the title of this brilliant book which explains, better than any other, why some countries are richer than others.
10. D. K. Miles & Andrew Scott, Macroeconomics - understanding the wealth of nations
More echoes of Adam Smith in this, a fresh new textbook. Not for the casual reader but ideal for those taking up serious study of the subject.
------
There's something like seventy David Smiths on LT, so perhaps it's worth saying this is David Smith (1). Also (no. 1) John Nash (1) and (no's 9-10) Adam Smith (1).
Guardian, 2003-02-18.
David Smith's previous books include Will Europe work?, about the prospects for European economic and monetary union, as well as The rise and fall of monetarism and From boom to bust, which analysed post-war economic policy in Britain. His latest work, Free lunch: easily digestible economics, is published by Profile.
1. Sylvia Nasar, A beautiful mind
Not many books about economists get made into Oscar-winning movies. This one about John Nash, the flawed genius of game theory, did and it is a lot better than the film.
2. Robert Skidelsky, Keynes
It won't be published as a single volume until next year but in the meantime the three-volume set - Hopes betrayed, 1883-1920, The economist as saviour, 1920-37, and Fighting for Britain, 1937-46 - tells the story of Britain's greatest modern economist.
3. J. M. Keynes, The general theory of employment, interest and money
Still worth reading in its original for its insights, despite being published nearly 70 years ago.
4. Adam Smith, The wealth of nations
On the subject of originals, Margaret Thatcher was said to carry a copy of this great work, which marked the birth of economics as we know it, in her handbag. Judge for yourself.
5. Richard Holt, Second amongst equals
Many books have tried to get inside the Treasury and how the office of chancellor of the exchequer works. This one succeeds and is amusing, too.
6. Stephen Landsburg, The armchair economist
I love this book, which is full of everyday economics explained in an unstuffy and humorous way. His speciality is explaining how economics reaches parts of life you wouldn't normally expect.
7. Paul Krugman, The accidental theorist
The other great American role model is Paul Krugman, currently working on a large textbook. This collection has him at his accessible, debunking best.
8. John Cassidy, Dot.con
The dot.com boom was the recent equivalent of tulipmania or the South Sea bubble. This is the best account of that boom, and its bust.
9. David Landes, The wealth and poverty of nations
Echoes of Adam Smith in the title of this brilliant book which explains, better than any other, why some countries are richer than others.
10. D. K. Miles & Andrew Scott, Macroeconomics - understanding the wealth of nations
More echoes of Adam Smith in this, a fresh new textbook. Not for the casual reader but ideal for those taking up serious study of the subject.
------
There's something like seventy David Smiths on LT, so perhaps it's worth saying this is David Smith (1). Also (no. 1) John Nash (1) and (no's 9-10) Adam Smith (1).
142Cynfelyn
Peter F. Stevens's top 10 nautical books
Guardian, 2003-02-24.
The author of The voyage of the Catalpa shares his top 10 nautical books, but hastens to explain, "As an aficionado of C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower books and Patrick O'Brian's great tales of the Royal Navy, there was no way I could select just one from each author."
1. Garrett Mattingly, The Spanish Armada
Mattingly's vivid, superbly told history of the ill-fated Armada is both a literary and nautical gem. At times, the disasters about to assail the Spaniards are almost palpable.
2. Nathaniel Philbrick, In the heart of the sea: the tragedy of the whaleship Essex
Herman Melville crafted his classic, Moby Dick, by drawing upon the dark ordeal of the Nantucket whaler, Essex. The leviathan wins in this incredible true-life saga of whaling, cannibalism, survival, and rescue. Philbrick's smoothly flowing prose and his knowledge of sailing ships and the men who signed aboard them are stellar. Not a book for the faint of heart or stomach.
3. Herman Melville, Moby Dick
Captain Ahab storming about with his one leg, the mighty white whale consuming the whaler's every thought, densely detailed passages chronicling whaling men's lives, in which long stretches of shipboard boredom could vanish with one cry of "Thar' she blows!" - this 1851 briny American classic is the grandfather of all whaling epics.
4. Sian Rees, The floating brothel
In July 1789, the Lady Julian slipped away from England and set course for the penal colony at Sydney Bay, New South Wales. She carried an unusual cargo of 240 women, mainly convicted of petty crimes and slated to bring 'sexual comfort' as well as potential marriage and children to the male convicts of Australia. Not as racy as the title hints, but Rees's chronicle of the Lady Julian's voyage is still riveting.
5. Diana Souhami, Selkirk's island
Scottish seaman Alexander Selkirk served as the salt- and sand-encrusted model for Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. In Diana Souhami's balanced and illuminating look at both the anti-hero Selkirk and the fictional Crusoe, the result is engrossing. One thing is certain: readers will never look at Robinson Crusoe in quite the same way.
6. Charles Nordhoff & James Norman Hall, Mutiny on the Bounty
Writers and film-makers continue to put their own stamp on the strange and controversial relationship between Captain William Bligh and Fletcher Christian. I loved this one as a boy and still pick up my well-worn copy from time to time. Of all the mutiny sagas, this one stands in a class by itself - not even the great Charles Laughton's cinematic Bligh could outdo the original article in the novel, or for that matter, the historical Bligh.
7. Richard Henry Dana, Two years before the mast
From bowsprit to mainmast, this one's a colorful 'tar's-eye' view of life aboard an 1830s merchantman sailing around Cape Horn and making the run to California. Dana, a Harvard student who decided that the best way to recover from a bout with the measles was to become a seaman, penned a vivid chronicle of shipboard life, storms, exotic ports of call, and the myriad emotions universal to all who venture into deep waters.
8. Alfred Lansing, Endurance: Shackleton's incredible voyage to the Antarctic
In the summer of 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton set off aboard the Endurance, bound for the South Atlantic and straight into one of the most amazing adventures of determination and survival in maritime annals. Lansing's tense, absorbing account of how the Endurance was trapped and crushed in ice and how Shackleton and his crew survived for some five months on shifting ice floes until they could finally set out in one of the ship's lifeboats is an astonishing and stirring epic.
9. Dava Sobel, Longitude: the true story of a lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time
This is not strictly a maritime saga, but the pages teem with 17th century mariners encountering disaster or near-disaster as they grapple with the most perplexing nautical problem since time immemorial: a means to determine longitude. In Dava Sobel's work, we meet the man who tackled the dilemma that had baffled the likes of Galileo and Newton. The conqueror's name was John Harrison, a clockmaker by trade, who solved the riddle of fixing an east-west position and thus earned the sobriquet 'Longitude' Harrison. I love this book for its unique hero, hardly the quintessential maritime legend, and for Sobel's fascinating, white-knuckle looks at the woes that ship's masters faced without the means to determine longitude.
10. Walter Lord, A night to remember
OK, I'll admit that much more scientific examinations of the Titanic's demise are readily available and that there was not a sail to be found on the state-of-the-art steamer. Still, Lord's 1955 work, with its you-are-aboard style and his interviews of dozens of the liner's survivors, bring the book an immediacy that stands up well. A good example comes as a boy and his mother in one of the lifeboats gaze at the sun reflecting off smaller icebergs than the one that ripped open the Titanic. The boy says, "Oh, look at the beautiful North Pole with no Santa Claus on it."
Guardian, 2003-02-24.
The author of The voyage of the Catalpa shares his top 10 nautical books, but hastens to explain, "As an aficionado of C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower books and Patrick O'Brian's great tales of the Royal Navy, there was no way I could select just one from each author."
1. Garrett Mattingly, The Spanish Armada
Mattingly's vivid, superbly told history of the ill-fated Armada is both a literary and nautical gem. At times, the disasters about to assail the Spaniards are almost palpable.
2. Nathaniel Philbrick, In the heart of the sea: the tragedy of the whaleship Essex
Herman Melville crafted his classic, Moby Dick, by drawing upon the dark ordeal of the Nantucket whaler, Essex. The leviathan wins in this incredible true-life saga of whaling, cannibalism, survival, and rescue. Philbrick's smoothly flowing prose and his knowledge of sailing ships and the men who signed aboard them are stellar. Not a book for the faint of heart or stomach.
3. Herman Melville, Moby Dick
Captain Ahab storming about with his one leg, the mighty white whale consuming the whaler's every thought, densely detailed passages chronicling whaling men's lives, in which long stretches of shipboard boredom could vanish with one cry of "Thar' she blows!" - this 1851 briny American classic is the grandfather of all whaling epics.
4. Sian Rees, The floating brothel
In July 1789, the Lady Julian slipped away from England and set course for the penal colony at Sydney Bay, New South Wales. She carried an unusual cargo of 240 women, mainly convicted of petty crimes and slated to bring 'sexual comfort' as well as potential marriage and children to the male convicts of Australia. Not as racy as the title hints, but Rees's chronicle of the Lady Julian's voyage is still riveting.
5. Diana Souhami, Selkirk's island
Scottish seaman Alexander Selkirk served as the salt- and sand-encrusted model for Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. In Diana Souhami's balanced and illuminating look at both the anti-hero Selkirk and the fictional Crusoe, the result is engrossing. One thing is certain: readers will never look at Robinson Crusoe in quite the same way.
6. Charles Nordhoff & James Norman Hall, Mutiny on the Bounty
Writers and film-makers continue to put their own stamp on the strange and controversial relationship between Captain William Bligh and Fletcher Christian. I loved this one as a boy and still pick up my well-worn copy from time to time. Of all the mutiny sagas, this one stands in a class by itself - not even the great Charles Laughton's cinematic Bligh could outdo the original article in the novel, or for that matter, the historical Bligh.
7. Richard Henry Dana, Two years before the mast
From bowsprit to mainmast, this one's a colorful 'tar's-eye' view of life aboard an 1830s merchantman sailing around Cape Horn and making the run to California. Dana, a Harvard student who decided that the best way to recover from a bout with the measles was to become a seaman, penned a vivid chronicle of shipboard life, storms, exotic ports of call, and the myriad emotions universal to all who venture into deep waters.
8. Alfred Lansing, Endurance: Shackleton's incredible voyage to the Antarctic
In the summer of 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton set off aboard the Endurance, bound for the South Atlantic and straight into one of the most amazing adventures of determination and survival in maritime annals. Lansing's tense, absorbing account of how the Endurance was trapped and crushed in ice and how Shackleton and his crew survived for some five months on shifting ice floes until they could finally set out in one of the ship's lifeboats is an astonishing and stirring epic.
9. Dava Sobel, Longitude: the true story of a lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time
This is not strictly a maritime saga, but the pages teem with 17th century mariners encountering disaster or near-disaster as they grapple with the most perplexing nautical problem since time immemorial: a means to determine longitude. In Dava Sobel's work, we meet the man who tackled the dilemma that had baffled the likes of Galileo and Newton. The conqueror's name was John Harrison, a clockmaker by trade, who solved the riddle of fixing an east-west position and thus earned the sobriquet 'Longitude' Harrison. I love this book for its unique hero, hardly the quintessential maritime legend, and for Sobel's fascinating, white-knuckle looks at the woes that ship's masters faced without the means to determine longitude.
10. Walter Lord, A night to remember
OK, I'll admit that much more scientific examinations of the Titanic's demise are readily available and that there was not a sail to be found on the state-of-the-art steamer. Still, Lord's 1955 work, with its you-are-aboard style and his interviews of dozens of the liner's survivors, bring the book an immediacy that stands up well. A good example comes as a boy and his mother in one of the lifeboats gaze at the sun reflecting off smaller icebergs than the one that ripped open the Titanic. The boy says, "Oh, look at the beautiful North Pole with no Santa Claus on it."
143Cynfelyn
Michael Rosen's top 10 books
Guardianm 2003-03-03.
Michael Rosen is a poet and children's author whose most recent books include Carrying the elephant: a memoir of love and loss and Uncle Billy being silly. He is one of the authors taking part in the live World Book Day Online Festival on March 6, along with Terry Pratchett, Meera Syal and many more. His top 10 covers books for all ages, from the very young and rising.
1. Binette Schroeder, Zebby gone with the wind
This wordless picture book, on boards, is pure magic. We see Zebby, a zebra, lose her stripes in some kind of terrible storm; as the wind subsides, the other animals bring the stripes back. One of an out-of-print series of books about Zebby, these are masterpieces of understatement inspired, I would guess, by Magritte.
2. Iona Opie (ed.) & Rosemary Wells (illus.), My very first Mother Goose
Nursery rhymes and their cousins, children's playground rhymes (collected by Iona Opie in I saw Esau with illustrations by Maurice Sendak), are an ideal introduction to the surreal and absurd. The world turned upside down - no odder than the real thing.
3. Janet and Allan Ahlberg, Each peach pear plum
This is one of the cleverest books ever written. In a beautiful circular structure we follow the characters from nursery rhymes and children's stories through a series of scenes, told by means of a rhyme, that is in itself a brand-new nursery rhyme.
4. Maurice Sendak, In the night kitchen
Maurice Sendak probed his unconscious and came up with a mysterious trilogy, of which this is the second part. Mickey drops through the night where three Oliver Hardy-esque figures are baking a cake. Mickey is stirred into the batter of the cake, but escapes in order to fetch (and also plunge into) the milk for the cake. Set against a 1930s New York skyline made out of food cartons, this book brought pyschoanalysis and postmodernity into children's literature.
5. Lewis Carroll (illus. Sir John Tenniel), Alice's adventures in Wonderland
One reason why this book is so profound and disturbing is that Carroll was troubled by it himself. He seems to have targeted many of the sacred cows of Victorian culture for interrogation and parody. He needed an innocent to do that - just as Voltaire needed a Candide - and Alice literally demolishes the whole edifice of Victorian society.
6. Benjamin Zephaniah, Refugee boy
Children's literature has no limits. Here, Zephaniah follows a refugee boy from his arrival in Britain through his first months of trying to survive, resist deportation and find affection and care.
7. Robert Westall, Gulf
This book, written at the time of the last Gulf war, is acutely on the ball as I write these words. Using the device of the doppelganger, an English boy merges identities with a boy in Iraq while the Gulf war is going on. With great empathy the late Robert Westall asked the crucial question, are all human lives worth the same, or are 'our' lives worth more than 'theirs'?
8. Siegfried Sassoon, The war poems
If ever you wanted to see how circumstances affect art, you could find no more obvious example than this group of poems. An upper class, rather effete young man found himself in one of the most hideous situations ever invented by human beings - the first world war. Appalled, distraught, shocked to the core, he turned his poetic powers to both describing what he saw and finding reasons for how it had come about. Then, with the war over, he returned to his old life and old ways of writing.
9. Eric Williams, Capitalism and slavery
It is entirely appropriate that we should have a sense of outrage as we read of the horrors of capture, transportation and exploitation that were slavery. With this book, Williams goes beyond that feeling to look into how the process benefited a layer of British society in the 18th century and laid the foundation for 19th-century capitalism, invention and industry. As Williams asks, where did James Watt get the money to develop his steam engine? From slavery.
10. Curtis Breight, Surveillance, militarism and drama in the Elizabethan era
One of the most difficult aspects of Shakespeare to get to grips with is the way in which many of the plays involve people butchering each other. Some critics make this acceptable by making it a matter of genre and convention. In this book, Breight brings home the nature of Elizabethan society with its apparatuses of war, espionage - and their devastating consequences. The carnage at the end of Hamlet, Macbeth, the history plays and Roman plays suddenly starts to seem rather normal.
------
"Poet and children's author" is a slightly spare description of Michael Rosen. Eighteen years later, he would be on my list of national treasures. Author of the immortal We're going on a bear hunt (1989), Children's Laureate (2007-2009), presenter of BBC Radio 4's 'Word of mouth' since at least 2011, his 'Letter from a curious parent' (2012-date), his monthly open letter in the Guardian to the Education Secretary, and the author of two very personal books, Michael Rosen's sad book (2004) about the death of his son, and Many different kinds of love : a story of life, death and the NHS (2021) about his hospitalisation and slow recovery from Covid.
Guardianm 2003-03-03.
Michael Rosen is a poet and children's author whose most recent books include Carrying the elephant: a memoir of love and loss and Uncle Billy being silly. He is one of the authors taking part in the live World Book Day Online Festival on March 6, along with Terry Pratchett, Meera Syal and many more. His top 10 covers books for all ages, from the very young and rising.
1. Binette Schroeder, Zebby gone with the wind
This wordless picture book, on boards, is pure magic. We see Zebby, a zebra, lose her stripes in some kind of terrible storm; as the wind subsides, the other animals bring the stripes back. One of an out-of-print series of books about Zebby, these are masterpieces of understatement inspired, I would guess, by Magritte.
2. Iona Opie (ed.) & Rosemary Wells (illus.), My very first Mother Goose
Nursery rhymes and their cousins, children's playground rhymes (collected by Iona Opie in I saw Esau with illustrations by Maurice Sendak), are an ideal introduction to the surreal and absurd. The world turned upside down - no odder than the real thing.
3. Janet and Allan Ahlberg, Each peach pear plum
This is one of the cleverest books ever written. In a beautiful circular structure we follow the characters from nursery rhymes and children's stories through a series of scenes, told by means of a rhyme, that is in itself a brand-new nursery rhyme.
4. Maurice Sendak, In the night kitchen
Maurice Sendak probed his unconscious and came up with a mysterious trilogy, of which this is the second part. Mickey drops through the night where three Oliver Hardy-esque figures are baking a cake. Mickey is stirred into the batter of the cake, but escapes in order to fetch (and also plunge into) the milk for the cake. Set against a 1930s New York skyline made out of food cartons, this book brought pyschoanalysis and postmodernity into children's literature.
5. Lewis Carroll (illus. Sir John Tenniel), Alice's adventures in Wonderland
One reason why this book is so profound and disturbing is that Carroll was troubled by it himself. He seems to have targeted many of the sacred cows of Victorian culture for interrogation and parody. He needed an innocent to do that - just as Voltaire needed a Candide - and Alice literally demolishes the whole edifice of Victorian society.
6. Benjamin Zephaniah, Refugee boy
Children's literature has no limits. Here, Zephaniah follows a refugee boy from his arrival in Britain through his first months of trying to survive, resist deportation and find affection and care.
7. Robert Westall, Gulf
This book, written at the time of the last Gulf war, is acutely on the ball as I write these words. Using the device of the doppelganger, an English boy merges identities with a boy in Iraq while the Gulf war is going on. With great empathy the late Robert Westall asked the crucial question, are all human lives worth the same, or are 'our' lives worth more than 'theirs'?
8. Siegfried Sassoon, The war poems
If ever you wanted to see how circumstances affect art, you could find no more obvious example than this group of poems. An upper class, rather effete young man found himself in one of the most hideous situations ever invented by human beings - the first world war. Appalled, distraught, shocked to the core, he turned his poetic powers to both describing what he saw and finding reasons for how it had come about. Then, with the war over, he returned to his old life and old ways of writing.
9. Eric Williams, Capitalism and slavery
It is entirely appropriate that we should have a sense of outrage as we read of the horrors of capture, transportation and exploitation that were slavery. With this book, Williams goes beyond that feeling to look into how the process benefited a layer of British society in the 18th century and laid the foundation for 19th-century capitalism, invention and industry. As Williams asks, where did James Watt get the money to develop his steam engine? From slavery.
10. Curtis Breight, Surveillance, militarism and drama in the Elizabethan era
One of the most difficult aspects of Shakespeare to get to grips with is the way in which many of the plays involve people butchering each other. Some critics make this acceptable by making it a matter of genre and convention. In this book, Breight brings home the nature of Elizabethan society with its apparatuses of war, espionage - and their devastating consequences. The carnage at the end of Hamlet, Macbeth, the history plays and Roman plays suddenly starts to seem rather normal.
------
"Poet and children's author" is a slightly spare description of Michael Rosen. Eighteen years later, he would be on my list of national treasures. Author of the immortal We're going on a bear hunt (1989), Children's Laureate (2007-2009), presenter of BBC Radio 4's 'Word of mouth' since at least 2011, his 'Letter from a curious parent' (2012-date), his monthly open letter in the Guardian to the Education Secretary, and the author of two very personal books, Michael Rosen's sad book (2004) about the death of his son, and Many different kinds of love : a story of life, death and the NHS (2021) about his hospitalisation and slow recovery from Covid.
144Cynfelyn
Julia Darling's top 10 books about northern England
Guadian, 2003-03-20.
Julia Darling is a playwright, poet and novelist and the winner of the 2003 Northern Rock Foundation writer's award. Her second novel, The taxi driver's daughter, is longlisted for the Booker Prize 2003.
1. Anthony Flowers & Derek Smith, Out of one eye: the photography of Jimmy Forsyth
This is a book about Jimmy's life and shows a range of his photographs up to the present day. I find these pictures both magical and memorable. Jimmy lets us look into the eyes of people in the north-east and see their dreams and hopes. It's a book I return to again and again.
2. Margaret Wilkinson (ed.), 1956: a collection of short stories
Some of these short stories show us a refreshing view of the north-east, as seen by a dazed New Yorker. Through Wilkinson's eyes we look with wonder at over-heated sitting rooms and coal fires in August. We hear the confusing dialect and puzzle over strange words. Some stories are set in New York and all have a sense of being 'outside.'
3. David Almond, Counting stars
Almond is a wonderful short story writer. His work is filled with a kind of visionary tenderness. You can feel the history of the north-east, as far back as St Bede, running through his veins. His writing makes me feel happy.
4. Sean O'Brien, Cousin Coat: selected poems
O'Brien inhabits an imaginary and dangerous north. his world is one that is filled with visions and demons and the dark and forgotten parts of England; his style is fruity and compelling. This poetry is full of new ideas and is always a joy to pull down from the shelf. Some of it is vehement and angry, but there are tender poems too that make me feel like weeping.
5. Peter Mortimer, Broke through Britain
Peter Mortimer has been living and writing in the north-east forever. Broke through Britain tells the story of Peter's journey on foot from south to north when he relied on the kindness of strangers, having not one penny in his pocket. It's a book about the English capacity for kindness (and cruelty) and is strangely gripping.
6. Gillian Allnut, Lintel
Allnut's poetry is vivid and ethereal and you have to work hard at it, but I have recently become a complete fan, and find her work marvelously other-worldly and important. You feel as if every line has been considered over months. I think she is a visionary.
7. Andrea Badenoch, Loving Geordie
Andrea has written several excellent crime books, and this one is the most recent. It inhabits the landscape of the slum clearances in Scotswood in the 60s at the time of the Mary Bell murders. She also used some of Jimmy Forsyth's images as inspiration. It's a really moving, cracking read that shows us a northern landscape at its most terrifying.
8. Andrew Waterhouse, 2nd: the second collection
This collection has just been published by Rialto Press. Waterhouse was an emerging poet at the time of his death in 2001. His work is tremendously intelligent and also fragile, and is filled with humour that is never cynical.
9. Cynthia Fuller, Only a small boat
Fuller's poems are thoughtful and impressive. She notices the details in domestic life, and speaks of subjects like grown up children visiting home, of old flames who won't leave you alone. These poems are full of female wisdom and sensitivity and, like all the poetry I enjoy, they 'speak to my condition.'
10. Chrissie Glazebrook, The madolescents
This is an entertaining, witty book about a great teenage character called Rowena. The cover makes it looks light and frothy, but in fact it's extremely sharp and very well written. It makes you laugh and cringe simultaneously.
Guadian, 2003-03-20.
Julia Darling is a playwright, poet and novelist and the winner of the 2003 Northern Rock Foundation writer's award. Her second novel, The taxi driver's daughter, is longlisted for the Booker Prize 2003.
1. Anthony Flowers & Derek Smith, Out of one eye: the photography of Jimmy Forsyth
This is a book about Jimmy's life and shows a range of his photographs up to the present day. I find these pictures both magical and memorable. Jimmy lets us look into the eyes of people in the north-east and see their dreams and hopes. It's a book I return to again and again.
2. Margaret Wilkinson (ed.), 1956: a collection of short stories
Some of these short stories show us a refreshing view of the north-east, as seen by a dazed New Yorker. Through Wilkinson's eyes we look with wonder at over-heated sitting rooms and coal fires in August. We hear the confusing dialect and puzzle over strange words. Some stories are set in New York and all have a sense of being 'outside.'
3. David Almond, Counting stars
Almond is a wonderful short story writer. His work is filled with a kind of visionary tenderness. You can feel the history of the north-east, as far back as St Bede, running through his veins. His writing makes me feel happy.
4. Sean O'Brien, Cousin Coat: selected poems
O'Brien inhabits an imaginary and dangerous north. his world is one that is filled with visions and demons and the dark and forgotten parts of England; his style is fruity and compelling. This poetry is full of new ideas and is always a joy to pull down from the shelf. Some of it is vehement and angry, but there are tender poems too that make me feel like weeping.
5. Peter Mortimer, Broke through Britain
Peter Mortimer has been living and writing in the north-east forever. Broke through Britain tells the story of Peter's journey on foot from south to north when he relied on the kindness of strangers, having not one penny in his pocket. It's a book about the English capacity for kindness (and cruelty) and is strangely gripping.
6. Gillian Allnut, Lintel
Allnut's poetry is vivid and ethereal and you have to work hard at it, but I have recently become a complete fan, and find her work marvelously other-worldly and important. You feel as if every line has been considered over months. I think she is a visionary.
7. Andrea Badenoch, Loving Geordie
Andrea has written several excellent crime books, and this one is the most recent. It inhabits the landscape of the slum clearances in Scotswood in the 60s at the time of the Mary Bell murders. She also used some of Jimmy Forsyth's images as inspiration. It's a really moving, cracking read that shows us a northern landscape at its most terrifying.
8. Andrew Waterhouse, 2nd: the second collection
This collection has just been published by Rialto Press. Waterhouse was an emerging poet at the time of his death in 2001. His work is tremendously intelligent and also fragile, and is filled with humour that is never cynical.
9. Cynthia Fuller, Only a small boat
Fuller's poems are thoughtful and impressive. She notices the details in domestic life, and speaks of subjects like grown up children visiting home, of old flames who won't leave you alone. These poems are full of female wisdom and sensitivity and, like all the poetry I enjoy, they 'speak to my condition.'
10. Chrissie Glazebrook, The madolescents
This is an entertaining, witty book about a great teenage character called Rowena. The cover makes it looks light and frothy, but in fact it's extremely sharp and very well written. It makes you laugh and cringe simultaneously.
145Cynfelyn
Michael Morpurgo's top 10 favourite books
Guardian, 2003-04-14.
Michael Morpurgo has written over 60 books for children, including The wreck of the Zanzibar, Dear Olly, Why the whales came and My friend Walter. His most recent book, Cool! (Collins), is about a boy in a coma.
1. Seamus Heaney & Ted Hughes (ed's), The rattle bag
My book to take to my desert island, or to keep in my bathroom if I never get that far. Either way, it needs to be read often. It's a cornucopia of wonderful poems from all over the world, from all times.
2. Ernest Hemingway, The old man and the sea
The perfect novella about a young boy, an old fisherman and the big fish he catches. Brilliantly conceived and crafted, it's an exploration of the elemental relationship between the hunter and the hunted, between age and youth. This is the book I should most like to have written.
3. George Orwell, Animal Farm
Read it any way you want, political parable, animal fable, it's simply riveting and full of unforgettable lines, "four legs good, two legs bad", "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others", etc. Sparely, beautifully written.
4. François Place, The last giants
Written and illustrated by the greatest French illustrator of our times, this is a terrific story of an English anthropologist who comes across a tribe of giants who are peaceable, close-knit and harmless. He studies them and comes to love them. He returns to tell the scientific world of his great discovery. The denouement is hauntingly predictable, but none the less telling for that.
5. Rudyard Kipling, The Just So stories
I grew up on these. They sing in my head even now, along with my mother's voice. She read them often to me, and so well. What a wonderful storyteller/poet he was. The cat going off "on his wild lone" in 'The cat that walked by itself' is unforgettable. 'The elephant's child' is my favourite, though.
6. Michael Foreman, Cat in the manger
The best Christmas story since Dickens. While having a nap in his usual place, a manger in a stable in Bethlehem, the cat's sleep is disturbed by a stream of unwelcome visitors - a couple with a baby and a donkey, a bunch of shepherds and their sheep, then three kings bearing gifts. Is there no peace? A wonderful tale with a wonderful twist.
7. Erich Maria Remarque, All quiet on the Western Front
Still, for me, the greatest of all books about war and the pity of war. We follow the fortunes of a company of young German recruits in the first world war; we don't want to, so searing is the experience, but we have to. A reminder - and one is sadly needed today - of the horror and suffering of war.
8. Quentin Blake, Clown
This extraordinary book says it all in pictures; words are redundant when we have Quentin Blake's images. A child finds a life-changing clown doll in a dustbin - life-changing to the child, life-changing to us. A work of rare genius.
9. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
This ancient poem is vividly told: the Green Knight's arrival in King Arthur's court, his ghastly decapitation, Gawain's journey through the Wastelands a year later to keep his promise of a return-match, his repeated temptations at the hands of his host's wife - all are utterly credible hundreds of years later. The pastoral changing of the seasons is Beethoven's 6th in three pages of wondrous description.
10. Theo & Michael Dudok De Wit, Oscar and Hoo
A gem of a picture book about Oscar, a lost child with only a friendly cloud for company. They wander the desert bringing comfort to each other. A warm gentle story, both touching and telling, with some lovely lines: "Oscar, I give you my cloud's word, I'll never leave you." Bravo!
------
At one point Michael Morpurgo (Children's Laureate, 2003-2005) was my younger daughter's favourite author. She devoured the books in Welsh translation and English original without distinction, so she got often two books for the price of one work.
Morpurgo has been well served by his Welsh translators. They include Emily Huws (Listen to the moon/Gwrando ar y lloer, Mr Nobody's eyes/Llygaid Mistar Neb and An elephant in the garden/Eliffant yn yr ardd), who has won the Tir na n-Og Prize five times, besides translating Beatrix Potter, Arlene Phillips's Alana Dancing Star series, and Harri Potter a Maen yr Athronydd, the only Harry Potter book available in Welsh; Elin Meek (Private Peaceful/Caeau Fflandrys and Kensuke's kingdom/Teyrnas Kensuke), who won the Tir na n-Og Prize in 2019, and is responsible for the Welsh translations of Thomas the tank engine, Horrid Henry, Roald Dahl and Jacqueline Wilson; and Casia Wiliam (War horse/Ceffyl rhyfel and The butterfly lion/Y llew pilipala) who was Bardd Plant Cymru (Welsh children's bard), 2017-2019, and the winner of the Tir na n-Og Prize in 2021. And my daughter devoured it all. And now she's next door, in the Sixth Form, with her nose stuck in her phone, wondering where all her free time has gone.
For some reason, Casia's touchstone doesn't want to work. https://www.librarything.com/author/wiliamcasia
Guardian, 2003-04-14.
Michael Morpurgo has written over 60 books for children, including The wreck of the Zanzibar, Dear Olly, Why the whales came and My friend Walter. His most recent book, Cool! (Collins), is about a boy in a coma.
1. Seamus Heaney & Ted Hughes (ed's), The rattle bag
My book to take to my desert island, or to keep in my bathroom if I never get that far. Either way, it needs to be read often. It's a cornucopia of wonderful poems from all over the world, from all times.
2. Ernest Hemingway, The old man and the sea
The perfect novella about a young boy, an old fisherman and the big fish he catches. Brilliantly conceived and crafted, it's an exploration of the elemental relationship between the hunter and the hunted, between age and youth. This is the book I should most like to have written.
3. George Orwell, Animal Farm
Read it any way you want, political parable, animal fable, it's simply riveting and full of unforgettable lines, "four legs good, two legs bad", "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others", etc. Sparely, beautifully written.
4. François Place, The last giants
Written and illustrated by the greatest French illustrator of our times, this is a terrific story of an English anthropologist who comes across a tribe of giants who are peaceable, close-knit and harmless. He studies them and comes to love them. He returns to tell the scientific world of his great discovery. The denouement is hauntingly predictable, but none the less telling for that.
5. Rudyard Kipling, The Just So stories
I grew up on these. They sing in my head even now, along with my mother's voice. She read them often to me, and so well. What a wonderful storyteller/poet he was. The cat going off "on his wild lone" in 'The cat that walked by itself' is unforgettable. 'The elephant's child' is my favourite, though.
6. Michael Foreman, Cat in the manger
The best Christmas story since Dickens. While having a nap in his usual place, a manger in a stable in Bethlehem, the cat's sleep is disturbed by a stream of unwelcome visitors - a couple with a baby and a donkey, a bunch of shepherds and their sheep, then three kings bearing gifts. Is there no peace? A wonderful tale with a wonderful twist.
7. Erich Maria Remarque, All quiet on the Western Front
Still, for me, the greatest of all books about war and the pity of war. We follow the fortunes of a company of young German recruits in the first world war; we don't want to, so searing is the experience, but we have to. A reminder - and one is sadly needed today - of the horror and suffering of war.
8. Quentin Blake, Clown
This extraordinary book says it all in pictures; words are redundant when we have Quentin Blake's images. A child finds a life-changing clown doll in a dustbin - life-changing to the child, life-changing to us. A work of rare genius.
9. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
This ancient poem is vividly told: the Green Knight's arrival in King Arthur's court, his ghastly decapitation, Gawain's journey through the Wastelands a year later to keep his promise of a return-match, his repeated temptations at the hands of his host's wife - all are utterly credible hundreds of years later. The pastoral changing of the seasons is Beethoven's 6th in three pages of wondrous description.
10. Theo & Michael Dudok De Wit, Oscar and Hoo
A gem of a picture book about Oscar, a lost child with only a friendly cloud for company. They wander the desert bringing comfort to each other. A warm gentle story, both touching and telling, with some lovely lines: "Oscar, I give you my cloud's word, I'll never leave you." Bravo!
------
At one point Michael Morpurgo (Children's Laureate, 2003-2005) was my younger daughter's favourite author. She devoured the books in Welsh translation and English original without distinction, so she got often two books for the price of one work.
Morpurgo has been well served by his Welsh translators. They include Emily Huws (Listen to the moon/Gwrando ar y lloer, Mr Nobody's eyes/Llygaid Mistar Neb and An elephant in the garden/Eliffant yn yr ardd), who has won the Tir na n-Og Prize five times, besides translating Beatrix Potter, Arlene Phillips's Alana Dancing Star series, and Harri Potter a Maen yr Athronydd, the only Harry Potter book available in Welsh; Elin Meek (Private Peaceful/Caeau Fflandrys and Kensuke's kingdom/Teyrnas Kensuke), who won the Tir na n-Og Prize in 2019, and is responsible for the Welsh translations of Thomas the tank engine, Horrid Henry, Roald Dahl and Jacqueline Wilson; and Casia Wiliam (War horse/Ceffyl rhyfel and The butterfly lion/Y llew pilipala) who was Bardd Plant Cymru (Welsh children's bard), 2017-2019, and the winner of the Tir na n-Og Prize in 2021. And my daughter devoured it all. And now she's next door, in the Sixth Form, with her nose stuck in her phone, wondering where all her free time has gone.
For some reason, Casia's touchstone doesn't want to work. https://www.librarything.com/author/wiliamcasia
146Cynfelyn
James Siegal's top 10 thrillers
Guardian, 2003-04-22.
James Siegel is a thriller writer and vice chairman and senior executive creative director of advertising agency BBDO New York. His latest book, Derailed (Time Warner), is set in the world of advertising.
1. Thomas Harris, Red dragon
The first appearance of the infamous Hannibal Lector and, in my opinion, a better book than Silence of the lambs. Taut, brutal, and truly creepy.
2. William Goldman, Marathon man
A Nazi from the past. A CIA killer. A history student tortured by his father's persecution and suicide. A hell of a ride.
3. Ira Levin, Rosemary's baby
A kind of occult thriller which feeds into everyone's urban paranoia. After all, who knows who's living in the apartment next to you?
4. John Grisham, The firm
The story of an innocent hot shot lawyer and a prestigious and - as it turns out - nefarious law firm that tries to buy his soul. They don't manage it.
5. James Ellroy, American tabloid
A poisonous stew of FBI, CIA, mafia and Cuban conspiracies. Electric, fascinating and stylish. Don't blink.
6. Francis King, Act of darkness
Not so much a thriller as a mystery concerning an act of evil in colonial India, and the consequences which reverberate in the years ahead.
7. William Peter Blatty, The exorcist
The original supernatural thriller, it somehow makes demons and exorcism seem perfectly real, plausible, and terrifying. Do not read in the dark.
8. Elmore Leonard, Anything
No one has a better ear for the low life American idiom than Mr Leonard. His novels are replete with loan sharks, thieves, hit men, and various flawed and soiled lawmen. Take your pick.
9. John Le Carré, The spy who came in from the cold
No better than Smiley's people or Tinker, Tailor, but every bit as brilliant. And with its lean, twisty, double-crossing story, it's more deserving of the 'thriller' tag. This is the first 'spy' book that showed the ugly reality of espionage rather than the fluff of a bed-hopping Bond.
10. Graham Greene, Ministry of Fear
A man trying to forget his past, and a wartime London conspiracy that keeps him suspensefully embroiled in the present. One of Greene's 'entertainments' - with his flair for character, story and drama shining through.
------
Not really my genre. Although I will say that for me the 1979 BBC adaptation of 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' is the best television ever. Period. Here's the Guardian's review on its release on BluRay in 2019.
Guardian, 2003-04-22.
James Siegel is a thriller writer and vice chairman and senior executive creative director of advertising agency BBDO New York. His latest book, Derailed (Time Warner), is set in the world of advertising.
1. Thomas Harris, Red dragon
The first appearance of the infamous Hannibal Lector and, in my opinion, a better book than Silence of the lambs. Taut, brutal, and truly creepy.
2. William Goldman, Marathon man
A Nazi from the past. A CIA killer. A history student tortured by his father's persecution and suicide. A hell of a ride.
3. Ira Levin, Rosemary's baby
A kind of occult thriller which feeds into everyone's urban paranoia. After all, who knows who's living in the apartment next to you?
4. John Grisham, The firm
The story of an innocent hot shot lawyer and a prestigious and - as it turns out - nefarious law firm that tries to buy his soul. They don't manage it.
5. James Ellroy, American tabloid
A poisonous stew of FBI, CIA, mafia and Cuban conspiracies. Electric, fascinating and stylish. Don't blink.
6. Francis King, Act of darkness
Not so much a thriller as a mystery concerning an act of evil in colonial India, and the consequences which reverberate in the years ahead.
7. William Peter Blatty, The exorcist
The original supernatural thriller, it somehow makes demons and exorcism seem perfectly real, plausible, and terrifying. Do not read in the dark.
8. Elmore Leonard, Anything
No one has a better ear for the low life American idiom than Mr Leonard. His novels are replete with loan sharks, thieves, hit men, and various flawed and soiled lawmen. Take your pick.
9. John Le Carré, The spy who came in from the cold
No better than Smiley's people or Tinker, Tailor, but every bit as brilliant. And with its lean, twisty, double-crossing story, it's more deserving of the 'thriller' tag. This is the first 'spy' book that showed the ugly reality of espionage rather than the fluff of a bed-hopping Bond.
10. Graham Greene, Ministry of Fear
A man trying to forget his past, and a wartime London conspiracy that keeps him suspensefully embroiled in the present. One of Greene's 'entertainments' - with his flair for character, story and drama shining through.
------
Not really my genre. Although I will say that for me the 1979 BBC adaptation of 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' is the best television ever. Period. Here's the Guardian's review on its release on BluRay in 2019.
147Cynfelyn
Paul Kingsnorth's top 10 dissenting books
Guardian, 2003-04-29.
Paul Kingsnorth was deputy editor of the Ecologist magazine. He is the author of One no many yeses: a journey to the heart of the global resistance movement (Free Press), an introduction to the new politics of anti-globalisation.
1. George Orwell, Essays
This collection of classic essays covers everything from English patriotism to political language, by way of life in the Burmese police and the Spanish civil war. Always forceful, never predictable, the quality of Orwell's writing serves to demonstrate how few good political writers are around today.
2. Eduardo Galeano, Upside down
One of the few is the Uruguayan Eduardo Galeano. In this, as in his other writing, he is playful, poetic and angry as he dissects the absurdities and injustices of the modern world. One to make you look at the world with new eyes.
3. John Gray, False dawn
For my money, the best book yet written about modern day capitalism. Gray's controversial thesis is that globalisation is doomed to fail, and he lays it out with a provocative erudition which, whatever your view, will probably make you reconsider it.
4. Subcomandante Marcos, Our word is our weapon
Masked spokesman of Mexico's Zapatista rebels and inspiration for the anti-globalisation movement, Marcos is also a political writer of real significance. And he has a sense of humour. These dispatches from the frontlines are essential reading.
5. Henry David Thoreau, Civil disobedience
One of the all-time benchmarks of dissenting writing, Civil disobedience, written in 1849, reflects on slavery, war, rebellion and every person's right to rebel. The inspiration behind many a non-violent resistance movement since.
6. Kate Evans, Copse
Subtitled 'the cartoon book of tree protesting', Copse shows what happens when people take Thoreau up on his ideas. An illustrated journey through the British road protest movement of the 1990s, it is funny, bizarre, acerbic and moving, often all at once. Already a classic.
7. Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
This great defence of the ideals of the French revolution was so controversial on its publication that Paine, seen as a genuine threat to the British establishment, was driven out of the country. So he must have been doing something right.
8. Noam Chomsky & Edward Herman, Manufacturing consent
If you want to understand how the modern media acts to 'filter out' radical views and inconvenient facts, read this book. Even if you disagree with every page, it will make you think hard about where you get your information - and who from.
9. Kalle Lasn, Culture jam
Lasn, editor of the Canadian magazine Adbusters, provides a cogent, funny, and sparkily written introduction to mass-marketing, consumer alienation and the 'culture jamming' that people are employing in response.
10. Alastair McIntosh, Soil and soul
To the trading floors of the global market via the mountains of McIntosh's home island of Lewis, in the Hebrides, this is an elegaic meditation on the link between people and place, and how it can be reforged in a globalised world.
Guardian, 2003-04-29.
Paul Kingsnorth was deputy editor of the Ecologist magazine. He is the author of One no many yeses: a journey to the heart of the global resistance movement (Free Press), an introduction to the new politics of anti-globalisation.
1. George Orwell, Essays
This collection of classic essays covers everything from English patriotism to political language, by way of life in the Burmese police and the Spanish civil war. Always forceful, never predictable, the quality of Orwell's writing serves to demonstrate how few good political writers are around today.
2. Eduardo Galeano, Upside down
One of the few is the Uruguayan Eduardo Galeano. In this, as in his other writing, he is playful, poetic and angry as he dissects the absurdities and injustices of the modern world. One to make you look at the world with new eyes.
3. John Gray, False dawn
For my money, the best book yet written about modern day capitalism. Gray's controversial thesis is that globalisation is doomed to fail, and he lays it out with a provocative erudition which, whatever your view, will probably make you reconsider it.
4. Subcomandante Marcos, Our word is our weapon
Masked spokesman of Mexico's Zapatista rebels and inspiration for the anti-globalisation movement, Marcos is also a political writer of real significance. And he has a sense of humour. These dispatches from the frontlines are essential reading.
5. Henry David Thoreau, Civil disobedience
One of the all-time benchmarks of dissenting writing, Civil disobedience, written in 1849, reflects on slavery, war, rebellion and every person's right to rebel. The inspiration behind many a non-violent resistance movement since.
6. Kate Evans, Copse
Subtitled 'the cartoon book of tree protesting', Copse shows what happens when people take Thoreau up on his ideas. An illustrated journey through the British road protest movement of the 1990s, it is funny, bizarre, acerbic and moving, often all at once. Already a classic.
7. Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
This great defence of the ideals of the French revolution was so controversial on its publication that Paine, seen as a genuine threat to the British establishment, was driven out of the country. So he must have been doing something right.
8. Noam Chomsky & Edward Herman, Manufacturing consent
If you want to understand how the modern media acts to 'filter out' radical views and inconvenient facts, read this book. Even if you disagree with every page, it will make you think hard about where you get your information - and who from.
9. Kalle Lasn, Culture jam
Lasn, editor of the Canadian magazine Adbusters, provides a cogent, funny, and sparkily written introduction to mass-marketing, consumer alienation and the 'culture jamming' that people are employing in response.
10. Alastair McIntosh, Soil and soul
To the trading floors of the global market via the mountains of McIntosh's home island of Lewis, in the Hebrides, this is an elegaic meditation on the link between people and place, and how it can be reforged in a globalised world.
148Cynfelyn
The 10 most popular misconceptions about Oscar Wilde
Guardian, 2003-05-07.
Merlin Holland is Oscar Wilde's grandson and the sole executor of his estate. He is the author of Irish peacock & scarlet marquess, the first unabridged publication of the famous libel trial.
1. 'Oscar' is the best-known 'Wilde'
True, but unfairly so. His father, Sir William, was a remarkable Dublin doctor whose medical work on the 1851 and 1861 censuses earned him his knighthood, and is still referred to today as essential source material for 19th century Irish history. Sir William also published important contributions to the study of Celtic antiquities and Irish folklore. Oscar's mother, Jane, was a prominent Irish Nationalist and poet who was nearly imprisoned for her inflammatory anti-English writing in 1848. As Oscar would write from prison in 1897: "She and my father had bequeathed me a name they had made noble and honoured not merely in literature, art, archaeology and science, but in the public history of my own country in its evolution as a nation."
Touchstones: Sir William R. Wilde, Lady Jane Wilde.
2. He was homosexual from his schooldays
This is most unlikely, to judge from his correspondence. He seems to have been infatuated with Florence Balcombe (who later married Bram Stoker) for two years until he left Oxford in 1878, and had previously flirted with other young women in Dublin. He married Constance Lloyd in 1884, swiftly had two children with her and, by his own account, was blissfully happy in the first few years of his marriage. His 'conversion' to homosexuality probably came about in 1886/7 with a young man who was to remain a lifelong friend, Robert Ross.
3. He coasted through university, with a reputation for langorousness and a love of lilies
Oscar was certainly influenced by the aesthetic theories of John Ruskin and Walter Pater while at Oxford, and he adopted the pose of an effete young man, but he went up as a scholar to Magdalen and came down with a double first in classics and the Newdigate prize for poetry. This took considerable application as his contemporaries later testified and his surviving Oxford notebooks demonstrate.
4. Apart from writing a couple of plays, a few children's stories, The ballad of Reading Gaol and The picture of Dorian Gray he doesn't seem to have done much
Oscar's 'serious' side is often overlooked. He spent a year in the US in 1882 lecturing about the decorative arts; he edited a high-profile woman's magazine for two years; he wrote thought-provoking and controversial critical essays as well as many art exhibition, theatre and book reviews. He also applied twice, unsuccessfully, to become an Inspector of Schools; his effect on English education could have been startling.
5. Being Irish was just an accident of birth; he was an English author, surely?
In the sense that The importance of being earnest and Lady Windermere's fan are archetypically 'English' plays - perhaps; but there is a profound Irishness underlying much of what Oscar wrote and thought, especially in his correspondence. He may have remarked that the first thing he forgot at Oxford was his Irish accent, but when his play Salomé was banned he openly accused the English of being narrow-minded saying, "I am not English; I'm Irish which is quite another thing."
6. 'Earnest' was a code-word for 'gay' and wearing a green carnation was a 'secret' sign of homosexuality
Both explanations seem to have been conveniently invented years later with little or no foundation in fact. 'Earnest' was supposedly a corruption of 'Uraniste' or one who practices Uranian or homosexual love, and the green carnation was said to be the badge of Parisian pederasts. If either had been true, Edward Carson, the Marquess of Queensberry's defence lawyer in the libel trial, would certainly have pinpointed them, as he did the overtly gay passages in the magazine publication of The picture of Dorian Gray (which were later suppressed in the book.)
7. Oscar Wilde's arrest was delayed by several hours to allow him to catch the last boat-train and escape to the continent
When Oscar's libel action against Queensberry collapsed, Queensberry's lawyers sent all their papers to the director of public prosecutions, who consulted the solicitor-general and the home secretary and then immediately applied to the magistrates for a warrant. Oscar was arrested at 6.20pm, though there were still four more trains to Paris that night. He was then twice prosecuted by the crown. The jury failed to agree on the first occasion, and the crown, though not obliged to do so, tried him again - hardly the action of a government anxious to see him escape.
8. Once Oscar Wilde was arrested, tried and imprisoned, Lord Alfred Douglas, who essentially got him into the mess, abandoned him
'Bosie' Douglas, in a devoted but often muddle-headed way, was remarkably supportive when the crash came. He visited Oscar on remand in Holloway every day and only went to France before the first trial at the insistence of his brother and Oscar's lawyers. After Oscar's conviction he wrote a defence of their love for a French journal, which would have done more harm than good, and was never published. He also helped Oscar financially after his release from prison.
9. Oscar Wilde died of syphilis
This is an old canard which has been doing the rounds for nearly a century, and was lately championed on the flimsiest of evidence by his best modern biographer, Richard Ellmann. Killing Oscar off with the classic 'disease of the decadents' has always seemed a suitably sensational way of rounding off a sensational life, but modern medical opinion agrees almost universally that it was an ear infection and meningitis which did for him in the end.
10. Oscar Wilde was merely a hedonist who, as he admitted, put his genius into his life but only his talent into his works
At his trial Wilde said that his aim in life had been self-realisation through pleasure rather than suffering. Later, in his long prison letter to Douglas, De Profundis, he recants and admits that only through pain and sorrow can true nobility of soul be achieved. He was undeniably a first-rate funny-man, but the jury is still out on whether Wilde belongs in the top division of literature, a paradox which is part of his enduring appeal.
------
Arthur Ransome, author of the Swallow and Amazons series, is one of my interests. He probably first came to public attention during his literary criticism phase when, long after Wilde's trial (1895) and death (1900), Lord Alfred Douglas sued Ransome for libel over his Oscar Wilde : a critical study (1912). Ransome was supported in his case by Robbie Ross (no. 2 above), who went on to edit De Profundis for publication, and to become Wilde's literary executor. Ransome won the libel case, which bankrupted Douglas, although it probably set Ransome on the road to Russia, Old Peter's Russian tales, and ultimately Swallows and Amazons.
So thank you, Oscar and Bosie, for Nancy, Peggy, Titty, Dick, Roger and the rest of the crews of the 'Swallow', 'Amazon' and 'Scarab'.
Guardian, 2003-05-07.
Merlin Holland is Oscar Wilde's grandson and the sole executor of his estate. He is the author of Irish peacock & scarlet marquess, the first unabridged publication of the famous libel trial.
1. 'Oscar' is the best-known 'Wilde'
True, but unfairly so. His father, Sir William, was a remarkable Dublin doctor whose medical work on the 1851 and 1861 censuses earned him his knighthood, and is still referred to today as essential source material for 19th century Irish history. Sir William also published important contributions to the study of Celtic antiquities and Irish folklore. Oscar's mother, Jane, was a prominent Irish Nationalist and poet who was nearly imprisoned for her inflammatory anti-English writing in 1848. As Oscar would write from prison in 1897: "She and my father had bequeathed me a name they had made noble and honoured not merely in literature, art, archaeology and science, but in the public history of my own country in its evolution as a nation."
Touchstones: Sir William R. Wilde, Lady Jane Wilde.
2. He was homosexual from his schooldays
This is most unlikely, to judge from his correspondence. He seems to have been infatuated with Florence Balcombe (who later married Bram Stoker) for two years until he left Oxford in 1878, and had previously flirted with other young women in Dublin. He married Constance Lloyd in 1884, swiftly had two children with her and, by his own account, was blissfully happy in the first few years of his marriage. His 'conversion' to homosexuality probably came about in 1886/7 with a young man who was to remain a lifelong friend, Robert Ross.
3. He coasted through university, with a reputation for langorousness and a love of lilies
Oscar was certainly influenced by the aesthetic theories of John Ruskin and Walter Pater while at Oxford, and he adopted the pose of an effete young man, but he went up as a scholar to Magdalen and came down with a double first in classics and the Newdigate prize for poetry. This took considerable application as his contemporaries later testified and his surviving Oxford notebooks demonstrate.
4. Apart from writing a couple of plays, a few children's stories, The ballad of Reading Gaol and The picture of Dorian Gray he doesn't seem to have done much
Oscar's 'serious' side is often overlooked. He spent a year in the US in 1882 lecturing about the decorative arts; he edited a high-profile woman's magazine for two years; he wrote thought-provoking and controversial critical essays as well as many art exhibition, theatre and book reviews. He also applied twice, unsuccessfully, to become an Inspector of Schools; his effect on English education could have been startling.
5. Being Irish was just an accident of birth; he was an English author, surely?
In the sense that The importance of being earnest and Lady Windermere's fan are archetypically 'English' plays - perhaps; but there is a profound Irishness underlying much of what Oscar wrote and thought, especially in his correspondence. He may have remarked that the first thing he forgot at Oxford was his Irish accent, but when his play Salomé was banned he openly accused the English of being narrow-minded saying, "I am not English; I'm Irish which is quite another thing."
6. 'Earnest' was a code-word for 'gay' and wearing a green carnation was a 'secret' sign of homosexuality
Both explanations seem to have been conveniently invented years later with little or no foundation in fact. 'Earnest' was supposedly a corruption of 'Uraniste' or one who practices Uranian or homosexual love, and the green carnation was said to be the badge of Parisian pederasts. If either had been true, Edward Carson, the Marquess of Queensberry's defence lawyer in the libel trial, would certainly have pinpointed them, as he did the overtly gay passages in the magazine publication of The picture of Dorian Gray (which were later suppressed in the book.)
7. Oscar Wilde's arrest was delayed by several hours to allow him to catch the last boat-train and escape to the continent
When Oscar's libel action against Queensberry collapsed, Queensberry's lawyers sent all their papers to the director of public prosecutions, who consulted the solicitor-general and the home secretary and then immediately applied to the magistrates for a warrant. Oscar was arrested at 6.20pm, though there were still four more trains to Paris that night. He was then twice prosecuted by the crown. The jury failed to agree on the first occasion, and the crown, though not obliged to do so, tried him again - hardly the action of a government anxious to see him escape.
8. Once Oscar Wilde was arrested, tried and imprisoned, Lord Alfred Douglas, who essentially got him into the mess, abandoned him
'Bosie' Douglas, in a devoted but often muddle-headed way, was remarkably supportive when the crash came. He visited Oscar on remand in Holloway every day and only went to France before the first trial at the insistence of his brother and Oscar's lawyers. After Oscar's conviction he wrote a defence of their love for a French journal, which would have done more harm than good, and was never published. He also helped Oscar financially after his release from prison.
9. Oscar Wilde died of syphilis
This is an old canard which has been doing the rounds for nearly a century, and was lately championed on the flimsiest of evidence by his best modern biographer, Richard Ellmann. Killing Oscar off with the classic 'disease of the decadents' has always seemed a suitably sensational way of rounding off a sensational life, but modern medical opinion agrees almost universally that it was an ear infection and meningitis which did for him in the end.
10. Oscar Wilde was merely a hedonist who, as he admitted, put his genius into his life but only his talent into his works
At his trial Wilde said that his aim in life had been self-realisation through pleasure rather than suffering. Later, in his long prison letter to Douglas, De Profundis, he recants and admits that only through pain and sorrow can true nobility of soul be achieved. He was undeniably a first-rate funny-man, but the jury is still out on whether Wilde belongs in the top division of literature, a paradox which is part of his enduring appeal.
------
Arthur Ransome, author of the Swallow and Amazons series, is one of my interests. He probably first came to public attention during his literary criticism phase when, long after Wilde's trial (1895) and death (1900), Lord Alfred Douglas sued Ransome for libel over his Oscar Wilde : a critical study (1912). Ransome was supported in his case by Robbie Ross (no. 2 above), who went on to edit De Profundis for publication, and to become Wilde's literary executor. Ransome won the libel case, which bankrupted Douglas, although it probably set Ransome on the road to Russia, Old Peter's Russian tales, and ultimately Swallows and Amazons.
So thank you, Oscar and Bosie, for Nancy, Peggy, Titty, Dick, Roger and the rest of the crews of the 'Swallow', 'Amazon' and 'Scarab'.
149Cynfelyn
Monty Don's top 10 gardening books
Guardian, 2003-05-13.
Monty Don is the main presenter of BBC TV's Gardener's World and has been gardening correspondent of the Observer since 1994. A committed proponent of organic gardening, he puts his principles into practice in his own garden in Herefordshire. His latest book is The complete gardener (Dorling Kindersley).
1. Derek Jarman, Derek Jarman's garden
This is the single most inspirational and best produced book on gardening of any kind. It is the benchmark by which to measure all other illustrated gardening books.
2. William Cobbett, The English gardener
Cobbett is cantankerous, opinionated and often outrageous, but he was a meticulous journalist and his thoroughness is as relevant today as it is a slice of life in the 1830s.
3. Richard Mabey, Flora Britannica
The best book ever produced about wild flowers and their folklore. I am constantly referring to it.
4. Joan Morgan & Alison Richards, The new book of apples
I love eating and growing apples and have (so far) 37 different varieties in my own garden. This is the best reference book on this wonderful fruit and by far the most readable.
5. Peter Beales, Classic roses
Peter Beales knows more about roses than anyone else alive and conveys his knowledge with grace, wisdom and accessibility. What more can a book do? A true classic.
6. Royal Horticultural Society, The vegetable garden displayed (1961 edition),
I adore this book. It was the very first gardening book I owned and read and I love the snapshot of 1950s life which exactly fits my own memories of the period. Although espousing a chemical regime that I find anathema, it is still an excellent reference book.
7. Hugh Johnson, The principles of gardening
This is quietly encyclopedic about gardening, written with the lucidity that Johnson first bought to wine. It has the freshness and articulacy of a writer and enthusiast with the knowledge of an expert.
8. Christopher Lloyd, Garden flowers
Christopher Lloyd is in his element writing about plants (as opposed to gardens) and this book has the weight of 80 years of experience behind it. Invaluable.
9. Joy Larcom, The organic salad garden
Joy Larcom manages to combine enthusiasm and common sense with meticulous research. The result is great authority.
10. Christopher Lloyd, The well-tempered garden
This book first showcased Christopher Lloyd's idiosyncratic, brilliant skills as a garden writer. I often disagree with him but am never, ever bored by him. A superb gardener and writer.
Guardian, 2003-05-13.
Monty Don is the main presenter of BBC TV's Gardener's World and has been gardening correspondent of the Observer since 1994. A committed proponent of organic gardening, he puts his principles into practice in his own garden in Herefordshire. His latest book is The complete gardener (Dorling Kindersley).
1. Derek Jarman, Derek Jarman's garden
This is the single most inspirational and best produced book on gardening of any kind. It is the benchmark by which to measure all other illustrated gardening books.
2. William Cobbett, The English gardener
Cobbett is cantankerous, opinionated and often outrageous, but he was a meticulous journalist and his thoroughness is as relevant today as it is a slice of life in the 1830s.
3. Richard Mabey, Flora Britannica
The best book ever produced about wild flowers and their folklore. I am constantly referring to it.
4. Joan Morgan & Alison Richards, The new book of apples
I love eating and growing apples and have (so far) 37 different varieties in my own garden. This is the best reference book on this wonderful fruit and by far the most readable.
5. Peter Beales, Classic roses
Peter Beales knows more about roses than anyone else alive and conveys his knowledge with grace, wisdom and accessibility. What more can a book do? A true classic.
6. Royal Horticultural Society, The vegetable garden displayed (1961 edition),
I adore this book. It was the very first gardening book I owned and read and I love the snapshot of 1950s life which exactly fits my own memories of the period. Although espousing a chemical regime that I find anathema, it is still an excellent reference book.
7. Hugh Johnson, The principles of gardening
This is quietly encyclopedic about gardening, written with the lucidity that Johnson first bought to wine. It has the freshness and articulacy of a writer and enthusiast with the knowledge of an expert.
8. Christopher Lloyd, Garden flowers
Christopher Lloyd is in his element writing about plants (as opposed to gardens) and this book has the weight of 80 years of experience behind it. Invaluable.
9. Joy Larcom, The organic salad garden
Joy Larcom manages to combine enthusiasm and common sense with meticulous research. The result is great authority.
10. Christopher Lloyd, The well-tempered garden
This book first showcased Christopher Lloyd's idiosyncratic, brilliant skills as a garden writer. I often disagree with him but am never, ever bored by him. A superb gardener and writer.
150Cynfelyn
Rose Elliot's top 10 vegetarian cookbooks
Guardian, 2003-05-20.
Rose Elliot is a renowned writer on vegetarian cooking. She has written over 50 cookery books, including Not just a load of old lentils, The bean book, Rose Elliot's vegetarian cookery and Vegetarian express. She is a patron of the Vegetarian Society and in 1999 was appointed MBE for services to vegetarian cookery. Her latest book is Forget the lentils (Little Books). Fast fresh and fabulous (BBC Books) will be out in September.
"So - what do I look for in a top ten vegetarian cookbook? Inspiration, first and foremost: the recipes have to leap off the page and make me want to rush off and cook them. Secondly, the atmosphere of the book: it has to be warm, friendly, accessible. And thirdly, of course, the recipes have got to work."
1. Denis Cotter, The Café Paradiso cookbook
This is a charming, idiosyncratic book of recipes from Café Paradiso in Ireland. I've never visited it, though reading this book makes me feel as though I have - and I'd like to do so one day. For me, this is a book more for inspiration than for actually doing the recipes, though the Thai Tofu-Cashew Fritters worked impeccably and were delicious and there are many other tempting ones.
2. Celia Brooks Brown, New vegetarian
A lovely book by an inspiring new cook, with beautiful photos by Philip Webb. The recipes range from easy Minted Char-Grilled Courgettes to sublime White Chocolate Mousse Torte. One of my favourites is the delicate, layered Japanese Omelette.
3. Patricia Richfield, Japanese vegetarian cookbook
I love Japanese food and this unassuming little book is a real favourite of mine. Try the Sweet Vinegared Rice with Mixed Vegetables, or spoil yourself and have some Vegetable Tempura with Dipping Sauce. The recipes are clearly explained and the ingredients are not difficult to find.
4. Jackum Brown, Vegetarian Thai
Thai food is another great favourite of mine, and this book, with its big colour pictures, makes it clear and easy. The Banana Soup, made with coconut milk, is delicious and so is the Cucumber Salad with Roasted Cashews. Looking through it again as I write this, I see many other recipes that I've been meaning to try including a gorgeous-looking Yellow Curry with Carrot.
5. Das Sreedharan, Fresh flavours of India
Jamie Oliver tells us on the cover "The bloke's a complete genius..." Having eaten at his restaurants and tried quite a few of the recipes in this book, which is another of my real favourites, I have to agree. Everything I've tried from the book has worked well and some of the recipes are reassuringly simple. The Sundal (chick peas with chilli and coconut), for instance, as well as the Lemon Rice and the pretty Pepper Masala. Just looking through it again as I write this makes me want to rush off to the kitchen and try some of the other tempting dishes.
6. Nadine Abensur, The Cranks Bible
This is a big, warm, generous book. I love the spirit with which it is written, I love the pictures and I love the recipes. These range from the simple, like Nadine's gorgeous Broad Bean Pilaff with Raisins, or Carrots Braised with Cumin, Saffron and Garlic, to the exotic Artichokes with Saffron and Green Olives Bound with Cream in a Puff Pastry Pie and some delectable-sounding chocolate puddings...
7. Anna Thomas, The vegetarian epicure
This is a real old favourite and my copy is literally falling apart but I still find it inspiring. The Potato Peel Broth is a revelation, the breads - particularly the French Bread and the Honey Wheat Berry Bread - are excellent and there are lots of other delicious recipes as well.
8. Leah Leneman, Easy vegan cooking
Leah was one of the pioneers of vegan cooking in the UK but you don't need to be vegan to enjoy this book. It covers everything from making vegan creams and ice creams to cakes - including cheesecake - as well as many delicious savoury ideas. I particularly like the recipes for using sea vegetables (the Wakame Fritters are delicious), but most of all I like the way Leah's witty and friendly personality and her 'no nonsense' approach to cooking comes through.
9. Madhur Jaffrey's world vegetarian
This book is arranged under ingredients, starting with vegetables and progressing through pulses and nuts, to grains and dairy foods, so it's useful for reference but as you'd expect, also contains some excellent recipes. The Spicy Aubergine Stew with Potatoes, Mushrooms and Chickpeas is a favourite in my home, and there are plenty more to try: the book contains over 600 and again, just looking through it makes me want to put my apron on.
10. Colin Spencer's vegetable book
Colin is another pioneer of vegetarian cooking and his books are as fresh today as ever. This vegetable book is a mine of information about every vegetable you can think of and all the recipes I've tried have been superb. I love a really simple one, Kale Dahl, which is a brilliantly spicy and delectable way to serve two very healthy (but often boring) ingredients - kale and brown lentils. His Rocket and Avocado Sandwiches are a feast, as is his Cucumber and Peanut Salad.
Guardian, 2003-05-20.
Rose Elliot is a renowned writer on vegetarian cooking. She has written over 50 cookery books, including Not just a load of old lentils, The bean book, Rose Elliot's vegetarian cookery and Vegetarian express. She is a patron of the Vegetarian Society and in 1999 was appointed MBE for services to vegetarian cookery. Her latest book is Forget the lentils (Little Books). Fast fresh and fabulous (BBC Books) will be out in September.
"So - what do I look for in a top ten vegetarian cookbook? Inspiration, first and foremost: the recipes have to leap off the page and make me want to rush off and cook them. Secondly, the atmosphere of the book: it has to be warm, friendly, accessible. And thirdly, of course, the recipes have got to work."
1. Denis Cotter, The Café Paradiso cookbook
This is a charming, idiosyncratic book of recipes from Café Paradiso in Ireland. I've never visited it, though reading this book makes me feel as though I have - and I'd like to do so one day. For me, this is a book more for inspiration than for actually doing the recipes, though the Thai Tofu-Cashew Fritters worked impeccably and were delicious and there are many other tempting ones.
2. Celia Brooks Brown, New vegetarian
A lovely book by an inspiring new cook, with beautiful photos by Philip Webb. The recipes range from easy Minted Char-Grilled Courgettes to sublime White Chocolate Mousse Torte. One of my favourites is the delicate, layered Japanese Omelette.
3. Patricia Richfield, Japanese vegetarian cookbook
I love Japanese food and this unassuming little book is a real favourite of mine. Try the Sweet Vinegared Rice with Mixed Vegetables, or spoil yourself and have some Vegetable Tempura with Dipping Sauce. The recipes are clearly explained and the ingredients are not difficult to find.
4. Jackum Brown, Vegetarian Thai
Thai food is another great favourite of mine, and this book, with its big colour pictures, makes it clear and easy. The Banana Soup, made with coconut milk, is delicious and so is the Cucumber Salad with Roasted Cashews. Looking through it again as I write this, I see many other recipes that I've been meaning to try including a gorgeous-looking Yellow Curry with Carrot.
5. Das Sreedharan, Fresh flavours of India
Jamie Oliver tells us on the cover "The bloke's a complete genius..." Having eaten at his restaurants and tried quite a few of the recipes in this book, which is another of my real favourites, I have to agree. Everything I've tried from the book has worked well and some of the recipes are reassuringly simple. The Sundal (chick peas with chilli and coconut), for instance, as well as the Lemon Rice and the pretty Pepper Masala. Just looking through it again as I write this makes me want to rush off to the kitchen and try some of the other tempting dishes.
6. Nadine Abensur, The Cranks Bible
This is a big, warm, generous book. I love the spirit with which it is written, I love the pictures and I love the recipes. These range from the simple, like Nadine's gorgeous Broad Bean Pilaff with Raisins, or Carrots Braised with Cumin, Saffron and Garlic, to the exotic Artichokes with Saffron and Green Olives Bound with Cream in a Puff Pastry Pie and some delectable-sounding chocolate puddings...
7. Anna Thomas, The vegetarian epicure
This is a real old favourite and my copy is literally falling apart but I still find it inspiring. The Potato Peel Broth is a revelation, the breads - particularly the French Bread and the Honey Wheat Berry Bread - are excellent and there are lots of other delicious recipes as well.
8. Leah Leneman, Easy vegan cooking
Leah was one of the pioneers of vegan cooking in the UK but you don't need to be vegan to enjoy this book. It covers everything from making vegan creams and ice creams to cakes - including cheesecake - as well as many delicious savoury ideas. I particularly like the recipes for using sea vegetables (the Wakame Fritters are delicious), but most of all I like the way Leah's witty and friendly personality and her 'no nonsense' approach to cooking comes through.
9. Madhur Jaffrey's world vegetarian
This book is arranged under ingredients, starting with vegetables and progressing through pulses and nuts, to grains and dairy foods, so it's useful for reference but as you'd expect, also contains some excellent recipes. The Spicy Aubergine Stew with Potatoes, Mushrooms and Chickpeas is a favourite in my home, and there are plenty more to try: the book contains over 600 and again, just looking through it makes me want to put my apron on.
10. Colin Spencer's vegetable book
Colin is another pioneer of vegetarian cooking and his books are as fresh today as ever. This vegetable book is a mine of information about every vegetable you can think of and all the recipes I've tried have been superb. I love a really simple one, Kale Dahl, which is a brilliantly spicy and delectable way to serve two very healthy (but often boring) ingredients - kale and brown lentils. His Rocket and Avocado Sandwiches are a feast, as is his Cucumber and Peanut Salad.
151Cynfelyn
Christopher Priest's top 10 slipstream books
Guardian, 2003-05-28.
Christopher Priest won the Arthur C. Clarke award and the British SF award for his alternate history of the second world war, The separation. His previous novels include The prestige, The extremes and the The quiet woman. The separation will be republished by Gollancz in October.
Slipstream does not define a category, but suggests an approach, an attitude, an interest or obsession with thinking the unthinkable or doing the undoable. Slipstream can be visionary, unreliable, odd or metaphysical. It's not magical realism: it's a larger concept that contains magical realism. Some familiar recent slipstream examples: Margaret Atwood's novel The handmaid's tale, the films Memento or Being John Malkovich, the opera Jerry Springer. Other novelists who have from time to time carried the slipstream torch include Anthony Burgess, Haruki Murakami, Don DeLillo, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, John Banville, John Fowles, Paul Auster and Dino Buzatti.
1. Jorge Luis Borges, The Aleph and other stories
It is impossible to overestimate the importance of Borges's work: in the last 30 years he has influenced every writer who is any good, as well as many film-makers and artists. Without Borges there would probably be no slipstream, or no proper understanding of it, and modern fiction would be a much poorer thing. Every story by Borges is a miniature cultural source-book.
2. J. G. Ballard, Crash
This is Ballard's most interesting novel, although his consistently best work is found in his short story collections, notably The terminal beach and The voices of time. Ballard has made the world of inner space - that neural zone between outer reality and subjective perception - his own. On one level, Crash is an absurd black comedy about the allegedly pornographic implications of car crashes. On another it is a stunning metaphor for the way man interfaces with machines and becomes sexualised by them. You don't believe that? Ballard probably won't convince you, but the M25 will never seem the same again.
3. Angela Carter, The passion of New Eve
British slipstream can be found in the work of Angela Carter, and this novel, originally published as a modern fantasy, is probably her most approachable, yet it is also among her most mysterious. With Carter's work you always felt there was a personal agenda, and in this novel you come close to discovering what it is.
4. Douglas Coupland, Girlfriend in a coma
A story of catastrophes: one is a global disaster, the other the long coma of the title. Both lead to a belated awakening, which is when the symbolism kicks in. There is a looseness to the narration that shifts the book away from the conventional disaster novel, and in the end the almost distracted quality of the writing becomes its authentic voice. Coupland is on the right tracks with this book, but others of his novels have shown a tendency to return to more conventional material.
5. Steve Erickson, The sea came in at midnight
One of the most original and unusual novels of the last decade; it's also one of Erickson's most approachable books, being structurally daring and thematically flexible but strongly paced and coherently narrated. I also liked another of his novels, Arc d'X, but had problems following some of it. Erickson is a hard, impressive writer.
6. M. John Harrison, Light
Space opera, that shagged-out fag-end of action-filled science fiction, has never looked so intellectually rigorous as in Harrison's most recent novel. It's a multi-level work, some of it set in the present day. Here, or in Harrison's terms 'then', a cosmologist solves a key matter of the universe, yet abases himself in serial murders as an atonement to a personal shadow. Centuries later, a freebooting spaceship with a human entity hotwired into its systems tours the shores of the cosmically brilliant Kefahuchi Tract. This is where the space action begins, but never before has it been told on such a scale, with such a peculiarly nihilistic mindset, nor in such endlessly inventive language.
7. Anna Kavan, Ice
Kavan was a heroin addict for most of her life. Ice is her best novel: a sustained and extended metaphor for the descent into, and traverse of, the ice-laden world of the addict. This description does not prepare you for what the book contains: it's a marvel of descriptive, chilling writing, rich in action and introspection.
8. Jerzy Kosinski, Being there
Kosinski's reputation suffered towards the end of his life because of allegations against him, always denied, of plagiarism. That's as maybe: what Kosinski should be read for is his cool, glassy prose, his other-worldly view, the callous and sometimes brutal violence both of ideas and actions. Being there is probably his best-known book, because of the Peter Sellers film, but Kosinski should be read as if his individual books are chapters of a larger novel. The first I read was Steps, which had a permanent effect on the way I understood modern fiction should be written. Later I read The painted bird, a novel of the second world war, and there has never been anything else remotely like it, before or after, in war fiction.
9. Steven Millhauser, The knife thrower and other stories
Millhauser is interestingly concerned with unlikely things: department stores, roller-coasters, underground theme parks, board games, magic acts. His prose is steady, exact and attentive, almost devoid of dialogue, a reasonable-sounding discourse on unreasonable subjects. Others by Millhauser worth trying are Edwin Mullhouse (a novel, which defies description in such a small space) and another wonderful collection, The Barnum Museum.
10. Bruno Schulz, The street of crocodiles
Schulz was a Polish writer, murdered in an almost offhand way by the Gestapo during the second world war. His canvas was small: few of his stories ventured outside the setting of his parents' house or the provincial town in which he lived, but his scope was cosmic. One story, The comet, achieves a Wellsian grandeur, a Kafkaesque intrigue when the author's father, who figures in most of the stories, emerges as a hero of science.
------
For those of us (self included) that still don't get what "slipstream" means in Newspeak, here's the Wikipedia article. Good luck, and see you on the other side of the Looking Glass.
Guardian, 2003-05-28.
Christopher Priest won the Arthur C. Clarke award and the British SF award for his alternate history of the second world war, The separation. His previous novels include The prestige, The extremes and the The quiet woman. The separation will be republished by Gollancz in October.
Slipstream does not define a category, but suggests an approach, an attitude, an interest or obsession with thinking the unthinkable or doing the undoable. Slipstream can be visionary, unreliable, odd or metaphysical. It's not magical realism: it's a larger concept that contains magical realism. Some familiar recent slipstream examples: Margaret Atwood's novel The handmaid's tale, the films Memento or Being John Malkovich, the opera Jerry Springer. Other novelists who have from time to time carried the slipstream torch include Anthony Burgess, Haruki Murakami, Don DeLillo, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, John Banville, John Fowles, Paul Auster and Dino Buzatti.
1. Jorge Luis Borges, The Aleph and other stories
It is impossible to overestimate the importance of Borges's work: in the last 30 years he has influenced every writer who is any good, as well as many film-makers and artists. Without Borges there would probably be no slipstream, or no proper understanding of it, and modern fiction would be a much poorer thing. Every story by Borges is a miniature cultural source-book.
2. J. G. Ballard, Crash
This is Ballard's most interesting novel, although his consistently best work is found in his short story collections, notably The terminal beach and The voices of time. Ballard has made the world of inner space - that neural zone between outer reality and subjective perception - his own. On one level, Crash is an absurd black comedy about the allegedly pornographic implications of car crashes. On another it is a stunning metaphor for the way man interfaces with machines and becomes sexualised by them. You don't believe that? Ballard probably won't convince you, but the M25 will never seem the same again.
3. Angela Carter, The passion of New Eve
British slipstream can be found in the work of Angela Carter, and this novel, originally published as a modern fantasy, is probably her most approachable, yet it is also among her most mysterious. With Carter's work you always felt there was a personal agenda, and in this novel you come close to discovering what it is.
4. Douglas Coupland, Girlfriend in a coma
A story of catastrophes: one is a global disaster, the other the long coma of the title. Both lead to a belated awakening, which is when the symbolism kicks in. There is a looseness to the narration that shifts the book away from the conventional disaster novel, and in the end the almost distracted quality of the writing becomes its authentic voice. Coupland is on the right tracks with this book, but others of his novels have shown a tendency to return to more conventional material.
5. Steve Erickson, The sea came in at midnight
One of the most original and unusual novels of the last decade; it's also one of Erickson's most approachable books, being structurally daring and thematically flexible but strongly paced and coherently narrated. I also liked another of his novels, Arc d'X, but had problems following some of it. Erickson is a hard, impressive writer.
6. M. John Harrison, Light
Space opera, that shagged-out fag-end of action-filled science fiction, has never looked so intellectually rigorous as in Harrison's most recent novel. It's a multi-level work, some of it set in the present day. Here, or in Harrison's terms 'then', a cosmologist solves a key matter of the universe, yet abases himself in serial murders as an atonement to a personal shadow. Centuries later, a freebooting spaceship with a human entity hotwired into its systems tours the shores of the cosmically brilliant Kefahuchi Tract. This is where the space action begins, but never before has it been told on such a scale, with such a peculiarly nihilistic mindset, nor in such endlessly inventive language.
7. Anna Kavan, Ice
Kavan was a heroin addict for most of her life. Ice is her best novel: a sustained and extended metaphor for the descent into, and traverse of, the ice-laden world of the addict. This description does not prepare you for what the book contains: it's a marvel of descriptive, chilling writing, rich in action and introspection.
8. Jerzy Kosinski, Being there
Kosinski's reputation suffered towards the end of his life because of allegations against him, always denied, of plagiarism. That's as maybe: what Kosinski should be read for is his cool, glassy prose, his other-worldly view, the callous and sometimes brutal violence both of ideas and actions. Being there is probably his best-known book, because of the Peter Sellers film, but Kosinski should be read as if his individual books are chapters of a larger novel. The first I read was Steps, which had a permanent effect on the way I understood modern fiction should be written. Later I read The painted bird, a novel of the second world war, and there has never been anything else remotely like it, before or after, in war fiction.
9. Steven Millhauser, The knife thrower and other stories
Millhauser is interestingly concerned with unlikely things: department stores, roller-coasters, underground theme parks, board games, magic acts. His prose is steady, exact and attentive, almost devoid of dialogue, a reasonable-sounding discourse on unreasonable subjects. Others by Millhauser worth trying are Edwin Mullhouse (a novel, which defies description in such a small space) and another wonderful collection, The Barnum Museum.
10. Bruno Schulz, The street of crocodiles
Schulz was a Polish writer, murdered in an almost offhand way by the Gestapo during the second world war. His canvas was small: few of his stories ventured outside the setting of his parents' house or the provincial town in which he lived, but his scope was cosmic. One story, The comet, achieves a Wellsian grandeur, a Kafkaesque intrigue when the author's father, who figures in most of the stories, emerges as a hero of science.
------
For those of us (self included) that still don't get what "slipstream" means in Newspeak, here's the Wikipedia article. Good luck, and see you on the other side of the Looking Glass.
152ironjaw
You do know that you are making it very difficult indeed for a rational person not to succumb to the urge to splurge on all these books! It's like book-overdose-utopia
153Cynfelyn
I'm just recycling content. Please don't shoot the messenger.
In any case, can someone really be rational when their profile page says:
My Wants
- Oxford English Dictionary (20 Vols.) DONE
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition. DONE
- The Dictionary of National Biography (60 Vols.) SHOULD I?
In any case, can someone really be rational when their profile page says:
My Wants
- Oxford English Dictionary (20 Vols.) DONE
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition. DONE
- The Dictionary of National Biography (60 Vols.) SHOULD I?
154ironjaw
>153 Cynfelyn: Ha! I haven't updated it with a longer list of things I've since acquired. But, yes, one cannot!
155Cynfelyn
Stephen Jones's top 10 Americana
Guardian, 2003-06-02.
Stephen Jones is also known as the musician Babybird. His first novel, The bad book, was about a damaged childhood; his second, Henry and Ida swop teeth, features Siamese twins who forsake their lives as drug-addled scientific guinea pigs to go on the run.
Touchstone : Harry and Ida swap teeth
1. Daniel Jeffreys, America's back porch
Being a poor reader, I am naturally and lazily drawn to short stories. This travel book digs into everything I want to know about America's dirty underbelly.
2. Hubert Selby Jr, Waiting period
This book, about a man who isn't able to commit suicide because there's a mistake in his application to buy a gun, is a great rail against American society and bureaucracy.
3. Andy Warhol, From A to B and back again
I've never been a Warhol fan, so this was a big surprise. It's autobiographical but written as though it was a novel and reads wonderfully. It feels very eerie, as though someone else had written it.
4. Charles Bukowski, Factotum
I have collected over 50 of his books and will dip in and out of them till I'm dead. He is my ultimate read and sums up simplicity perfectly. Those who associate him with womanising and ale have only just tipped his iceberg. If anybody has any of his early books for sale, email baby.zip@virgin.net.
5. William S. Burroughs, Junky
As with Factotum, I got this in its original pocketsize pulp novel format. I knew nothing about drugs and seediness before I naively read this. Along with Orwell's Down and out in London and Paris, it opened my eyes to degradation.
6. Phyllis Burke, Atomic candy
Beautiful turn of phrase. This deals with an era when TV was beginning to saturate the world: commercialism and politics, and huge finned cars. It drives you through America from beginning to end.
7. Arthur Bradford, Dogwalker
Reviewers said this was weird but to me it's as normal as pie. It reminded me of Eraserhead and how we care for the fucked-up. It's a collection of short stories, all concerning freaky dogs and the strange relationships humans have with them. You don't have to like dogs to enjoy it.
8. Mark Poirier, Naked pueblo
This is another short story collection. In one of them a kid, later named Jackpot, is born with a dime stuck to her forehead, all because her stripper mother doled out change for her clients' dollar bills from her vagina. Now, that's weird.
9. Barry Gifford, Wild at heart
I rarely read a book then see the film, for fear of spoiling the movie experience. But this is a masterful rollercoaster, and that's before even knowing that Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern were in the wonderful Lynch version.
10. John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
This is based in Monterey, California, my favourite place in the world. It reads like an A to Z of things I've seen there. Monterey's just off Highway 1 on the coast, the most beautiful drive I was ever lucky to ride.
------
There are a number of really interesting-looking Stephen Joneses on the disambiguation page. Add in Steve Jones, and you've got the foundation of a library. (Steven Jones less so). Today's voice from 2003 is Stephen Jones (10).
Guardian, 2003-06-02.
Stephen Jones is also known as the musician Babybird. His first novel, The bad book, was about a damaged childhood; his second, Henry and Ida swop teeth, features Siamese twins who forsake their lives as drug-addled scientific guinea pigs to go on the run.
Touchstone : Harry and Ida swap teeth
1. Daniel Jeffreys, America's back porch
Being a poor reader, I am naturally and lazily drawn to short stories. This travel book digs into everything I want to know about America's dirty underbelly.
2. Hubert Selby Jr, Waiting period
This book, about a man who isn't able to commit suicide because there's a mistake in his application to buy a gun, is a great rail against American society and bureaucracy.
3. Andy Warhol, From A to B and back again
I've never been a Warhol fan, so this was a big surprise. It's autobiographical but written as though it was a novel and reads wonderfully. It feels very eerie, as though someone else had written it.
4. Charles Bukowski, Factotum
I have collected over 50 of his books and will dip in and out of them till I'm dead. He is my ultimate read and sums up simplicity perfectly. Those who associate him with womanising and ale have only just tipped his iceberg. If anybody has any of his early books for sale, email baby.zip@virgin.net.
5. William S. Burroughs, Junky
As with Factotum, I got this in its original pocketsize pulp novel format. I knew nothing about drugs and seediness before I naively read this. Along with Orwell's Down and out in London and Paris, it opened my eyes to degradation.
6. Phyllis Burke, Atomic candy
Beautiful turn of phrase. This deals with an era when TV was beginning to saturate the world: commercialism and politics, and huge finned cars. It drives you through America from beginning to end.
7. Arthur Bradford, Dogwalker
Reviewers said this was weird but to me it's as normal as pie. It reminded me of Eraserhead and how we care for the fucked-up. It's a collection of short stories, all concerning freaky dogs and the strange relationships humans have with them. You don't have to like dogs to enjoy it.
8. Mark Poirier, Naked pueblo
This is another short story collection. In one of them a kid, later named Jackpot, is born with a dime stuck to her forehead, all because her stripper mother doled out change for her clients' dollar bills from her vagina. Now, that's weird.
9. Barry Gifford, Wild at heart
I rarely read a book then see the film, for fear of spoiling the movie experience. But this is a masterful rollercoaster, and that's before even knowing that Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern were in the wonderful Lynch version.
10. John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
This is based in Monterey, California, my favourite place in the world. It reads like an A to Z of things I've seen there. Monterey's just off Highway 1 on the coast, the most beautiful drive I was ever lucky to ride.
------
There are a number of really interesting-looking Stephen Joneses on the disambiguation page. Add in Steve Jones, and you've got the foundation of a library. (Steven Jones less so). Today's voice from 2003 is Stephen Jones (10).
156Cynfelyn
Brenda Maddox's top 10 Joycean books
Guardian, 2003-06-13.
To celebrate the 100th Bloomsday - that's June 16 1904, the date on which Ulysses takes place, and James Joyce first walked out with Nora Barnacle - biographer Brenda Maddox introduces her 10 favourite books by and about Joyce.
1. Dubliners (intro. Terence Brown, Penguin)
The first book to read is Joyce's first, Dubliners. In no way Joyce for Juniors, all his later themes are here; each of the 15 stories is perfection, culminating in probably the finest short story in English, "The Dead". An excellent critical and illustrated edition is James Joyce's Dubliners: an annotated edition by John Wyse Jackson and Bernard McGinley (Sinclair-Stevenson, 1993).
2. A portrait of the artist as a young man (ed. Seamus Deane, Penguin)
This did for repressive Catholicism what D. H. Lawrence did for Puritanism; that is, it showed the rebellious young the way out. Not incidentally, it beautifully states Joyce's personal and artistic creed.
3. Ulysses (ed. Seamus Deane, Penguin)
The book to take to the desert island. No need to be afraid of it. Jump into the scene at Barney Kiernan's pub (Episode 12: The Cyclops) where the wandering advertising man, the Jewish Leopold Bloom, tells the mocking Dublin bigots that "Force, hatred, history, all that" is not life. So what is? Love, says Bloom. "I mean the opposite of hatred."
4. Finnegans wake (Faber)
Go ahead. Try it. Read the opening page which begins with the end of the final sentence, then turn to the last page, where the sentence begins. As Dublin's river Anna Livia flows into the sea, illustrating the universal truth that all things die and are born again, Joyce justifies the 17 years put into the book and a lifetime of inventing his own language.
5. Richard Ellman, James Joyce (2nd ed., OUP 1982)
It is not flawless - it internationalises Joyce and underplays his alcoholism - but it is one of the great biographies of the 20th century, and unputdownably follows the artist and his family from Dublin to Trieste to Zurich to Paris and, fleeing the Nazis in late 1939, back to Zurich, where Joyce died in early 1941.
6. John McCourt, James Joyce: the years of Bloom (The Lilliput Press, 2000)
A life after Ellmann, and a highly accomplished one, concentrating on the important Trieste years (1904-1920, excluding the world war I years spent in Zurich).
7. Jane Lidderdale & Mary Nicolson, Dear Miss Weaver: Harriet Shaw Weaver 1876-1961 (Viking, 1970)
An account of the selfless London spinster who first published Joyce in London and who, during the 1920s as his devoted patron, scrimped and lived in a cold-water flat to keep the Joyces in luxury in Paris. Her subsidy gave him, for better or worse, the economic freedom to indulge in Finnegans wake.
8. Stanislaus Joyce, My brother's keeper (Faber)
Stanislaus Joyce's invaluable account of why James (and later he) fled Ireland for Europe, and his own efforts at keeping his older brother and family afloat in Trieste. It should be supplemented by the much rawer Complete Dublin diary, ed. George Healy (Cornell University Press, 1971).
9. Andrew Gibson, Joyce's revenge: history, politics and aesthetics in Ulysses (OUP)
A fresh academic reading, grounding Joyce's book in the British-Irish relations of a century ago: the coloniser colonised.
10. Frank Budgen, James Joyce and the making of Ulysses (Bloomington Indiana University Press)
A rare view of Joyce seriously at work in Zurich, and honest glimpses of his common-law-wife Nora weeping "Jim wants me to go with other men so he can write about it".
Guardian, 2003-06-13.
To celebrate the 100th Bloomsday - that's June 16 1904, the date on which Ulysses takes place, and James Joyce first walked out with Nora Barnacle - biographer Brenda Maddox introduces her 10 favourite books by and about Joyce.
1. Dubliners (intro. Terence Brown, Penguin)
The first book to read is Joyce's first, Dubliners. In no way Joyce for Juniors, all his later themes are here; each of the 15 stories is perfection, culminating in probably the finest short story in English, "The Dead". An excellent critical and illustrated edition is James Joyce's Dubliners: an annotated edition by John Wyse Jackson and Bernard McGinley (Sinclair-Stevenson, 1993).
2. A portrait of the artist as a young man (ed. Seamus Deane, Penguin)
This did for repressive Catholicism what D. H. Lawrence did for Puritanism; that is, it showed the rebellious young the way out. Not incidentally, it beautifully states Joyce's personal and artistic creed.
3. Ulysses (ed. Seamus Deane, Penguin)
The book to take to the desert island. No need to be afraid of it. Jump into the scene at Barney Kiernan's pub (Episode 12: The Cyclops) where the wandering advertising man, the Jewish Leopold Bloom, tells the mocking Dublin bigots that "Force, hatred, history, all that" is not life. So what is? Love, says Bloom. "I mean the opposite of hatred."
4. Finnegans wake (Faber)
Go ahead. Try it. Read the opening page which begins with the end of the final sentence, then turn to the last page, where the sentence begins. As Dublin's river Anna Livia flows into the sea, illustrating the universal truth that all things die and are born again, Joyce justifies the 17 years put into the book and a lifetime of inventing his own language.
5. Richard Ellman, James Joyce (2nd ed., OUP 1982)
It is not flawless - it internationalises Joyce and underplays his alcoholism - but it is one of the great biographies of the 20th century, and unputdownably follows the artist and his family from Dublin to Trieste to Zurich to Paris and, fleeing the Nazis in late 1939, back to Zurich, where Joyce died in early 1941.
6. John McCourt, James Joyce: the years of Bloom (The Lilliput Press, 2000)
A life after Ellmann, and a highly accomplished one, concentrating on the important Trieste years (1904-1920, excluding the world war I years spent in Zurich).
7. Jane Lidderdale & Mary Nicolson, Dear Miss Weaver: Harriet Shaw Weaver 1876-1961 (Viking, 1970)
An account of the selfless London spinster who first published Joyce in London and who, during the 1920s as his devoted patron, scrimped and lived in a cold-water flat to keep the Joyces in luxury in Paris. Her subsidy gave him, for better or worse, the economic freedom to indulge in Finnegans wake.
8. Stanislaus Joyce, My brother's keeper (Faber)
Stanislaus Joyce's invaluable account of why James (and later he) fled Ireland for Europe, and his own efforts at keeping his older brother and family afloat in Trieste. It should be supplemented by the much rawer Complete Dublin diary, ed. George Healy (Cornell University Press, 1971).
9. Andrew Gibson, Joyce's revenge: history, politics and aesthetics in Ulysses (OUP)
A fresh academic reading, grounding Joyce's book in the British-Irish relations of a century ago: the coloniser colonised.
10. Frank Budgen, James Joyce and the making of Ulysses (Bloomington Indiana University Press)
A rare view of Joyce seriously at work in Zurich, and honest glimpses of his common-law-wife Nora weeping "Jim wants me to go with other men so he can write about it".
157Cynfelyn
George Monbiot's top 10 world-changing books
Guardian, 24-06-2003.
George Monbiot is the author of Captive state: the corporate takeover of Britain, and is a Guardian columnist. His most recent book, The age of consent: a manifesto for a new world, proposes a global democratic revolution.
1. Bernard Lietaer, The future of money
Lietaer was once the world's top currency trader, but stepped back to ponder what he and his colleagues were doing to other people, and how the global money supply could be designed to protect people's livelihoods and the environment, rather than destroying them. It is a brilliant, visionary book which makes you itch to start applying some of his ideas.
2. Alastair McIntosh, Soil and soul
One day, when the value of this book is finally recognised, it will transform our perception of ourselves, our history and our surroundings, much as the work of Alice Miller and Sven Lindqvist has done. It is a first step towards the decolonisation of the soul: the essential imaginative process we have to undergo if we are to save the world from the political and environmental catastrophes which threaten it.
3. Thomas Paine, The rights of Man
This remains both the definitive defence of democracy and, arguably, the finest piece of political writing ever published in English. Paine skewers his opponents with agile and often hilarious arguments, while, with tremendous energy and drive, laying out a fiercely convincing democratic philosophy.
4. Paulo Freire, The pedagogy of the oppressed
Despite Freire's tangled rhetoric and mystifying enthusiasm for Mao Tse Tung, this is the foremost work on the key democratic task: helping people to identify and challenge the sources of their oppression. While it is rightly recognised in Latin America as a transformative text, in Europe we still suffer from the assumption that we have no need to educate ourselves about our political circumstances, as the media will do the job for us. Which suggests, of course, that we have an even greater need than the Latin Americans...
5. Jaroslav Hasek, The good soldier Svejk
Perhaps the funniest novel ever written, and a brilliant study on how to get one up on the authorities while seeming to co-operate. Svejk appears to be the most loyal soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army, yet all his energies are dedicated to trying to desert.
6. Gerrard Winstanley, Selected writings
Winstanley is Britain's great neglected revolutionary, the man who in 1649 sought to use the opportunity created by the bourgeois revolt against the Crown to precipitate a peasant and proletarian revolution. He was hundreds of years ahead of his time, demanding universal education for men and women, the annual election of all officials, an end to foreign wars of aggression prosecuted by Britain and the abolition of private landed property. As we can see, he didn't get very far.
7. Leo Tolstoy, Resurrection
This is by no means Tolstoy's finest novel, but it's a powerful description of the means by which someone can overcome his class interests and come to fight on behalf of his class enemies. Prince Nekhlyudov finds himself serving as a juror at the trial of a woman he ruined, and is forced to confront the oppression to which he contributes.
8. Robert Tressell, The ragged trousered philanthropists
Tressell's novel reminds me of nothing so much as Moby Dick. It's a big, rambling novel with a weak plot and endless diversions, roughly held together by a big idea. The author was a self-educated signwriter who, because of his social status, could find no publisher to take it: it was published posthumously. His political prescriptions are a little kooky, but his rendition of the desperate lives of working people in the early years of the 20th century is faultless.
9. Todd Gitlin, Letters to a young activist
A wise, compassionate, beautifully-written book about what constitutes effective revolutionary action. It permits contemporary activists a glimpse into the successes and failures of the New Left in the 1960s, and there is plenty we should learn from both.
10. Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, The Communist manifesto
The definitive example of how inspiring a bad idea can be. It is hard to read this book without wanting to pick up a gun and shoot the nearest industrialist. But because the theory so woefully failed to fit society, society had to be remodelled to fit the theory. The peasants, aristocrats, artisans and shopkeepers did not, as Marx suggested, disappear of their own accord: they had to be eliminated. The "social scum" of the lumpenproletariat, which came to include indigenous people, had to be disposed of just as hastily, in case they became, as Marx warned, "the bribed tool of reactionary intrigue". Contemporary communists often claim that Marx's prescriptions were corrupted by Stalin and Mao. My impression is the opposite: the problem is that they were rigidly applied.
Guardian, 24-06-2003.
George Monbiot is the author of Captive state: the corporate takeover of Britain, and is a Guardian columnist. His most recent book, The age of consent: a manifesto for a new world, proposes a global democratic revolution.
1. Bernard Lietaer, The future of money
Lietaer was once the world's top currency trader, but stepped back to ponder what he and his colleagues were doing to other people, and how the global money supply could be designed to protect people's livelihoods and the environment, rather than destroying them. It is a brilliant, visionary book which makes you itch to start applying some of his ideas.
2. Alastair McIntosh, Soil and soul
One day, when the value of this book is finally recognised, it will transform our perception of ourselves, our history and our surroundings, much as the work of Alice Miller and Sven Lindqvist has done. It is a first step towards the decolonisation of the soul: the essential imaginative process we have to undergo if we are to save the world from the political and environmental catastrophes which threaten it.
3. Thomas Paine, The rights of Man
This remains both the definitive defence of democracy and, arguably, the finest piece of political writing ever published in English. Paine skewers his opponents with agile and often hilarious arguments, while, with tremendous energy and drive, laying out a fiercely convincing democratic philosophy.
4. Paulo Freire, The pedagogy of the oppressed
Despite Freire's tangled rhetoric and mystifying enthusiasm for Mao Tse Tung, this is the foremost work on the key democratic task: helping people to identify and challenge the sources of their oppression. While it is rightly recognised in Latin America as a transformative text, in Europe we still suffer from the assumption that we have no need to educate ourselves about our political circumstances, as the media will do the job for us. Which suggests, of course, that we have an even greater need than the Latin Americans...
5. Jaroslav Hasek, The good soldier Svejk
Perhaps the funniest novel ever written, and a brilliant study on how to get one up on the authorities while seeming to co-operate. Svejk appears to be the most loyal soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army, yet all his energies are dedicated to trying to desert.
6. Gerrard Winstanley, Selected writings
Winstanley is Britain's great neglected revolutionary, the man who in 1649 sought to use the opportunity created by the bourgeois revolt against the Crown to precipitate a peasant and proletarian revolution. He was hundreds of years ahead of his time, demanding universal education for men and women, the annual election of all officials, an end to foreign wars of aggression prosecuted by Britain and the abolition of private landed property. As we can see, he didn't get very far.
7. Leo Tolstoy, Resurrection
This is by no means Tolstoy's finest novel, but it's a powerful description of the means by which someone can overcome his class interests and come to fight on behalf of his class enemies. Prince Nekhlyudov finds himself serving as a juror at the trial of a woman he ruined, and is forced to confront the oppression to which he contributes.
8. Robert Tressell, The ragged trousered philanthropists
Tressell's novel reminds me of nothing so much as Moby Dick. It's a big, rambling novel with a weak plot and endless diversions, roughly held together by a big idea. The author was a self-educated signwriter who, because of his social status, could find no publisher to take it: it was published posthumously. His political prescriptions are a little kooky, but his rendition of the desperate lives of working people in the early years of the 20th century is faultless.
9. Todd Gitlin, Letters to a young activist
A wise, compassionate, beautifully-written book about what constitutes effective revolutionary action. It permits contemporary activists a glimpse into the successes and failures of the New Left in the 1960s, and there is plenty we should learn from both.
10. Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, The Communist manifesto
The definitive example of how inspiring a bad idea can be. It is hard to read this book without wanting to pick up a gun and shoot the nearest industrialist. But because the theory so woefully failed to fit society, society had to be remodelled to fit the theory. The peasants, aristocrats, artisans and shopkeepers did not, as Marx suggested, disappear of their own accord: they had to be eliminated. The "social scum" of the lumpenproletariat, which came to include indigenous people, had to be disposed of just as hastily, in case they became, as Marx warned, "the bribed tool of reactionary intrigue". Contemporary communists often claim that Marx's prescriptions were corrupted by Stalin and Mao. My impression is the opposite: the problem is that they were rigidly applied.
158Cynfelyn
Patrick Neate's top 10 hip-hop books
Guardian, 2003-07-02.
Patrick Neate is the author of Where you're at: notes from the frontline of a Hip Hop Planet. His second novel, Twelve bar blues, won the 2001 Whitbread prize for best novel.
1. Paul Beatty, The white boy shuffle
Paul Beatty won't thank me for describing him as the premier hip-hop novelist but, if there were such a genre, that's what he'd be. This is a genuinely wet-yourself-funny tale of race and identity about growing up as a young black man in LA.
2. Nelson George, Hip hop America
Arguably the best recent study of hip-hop by arguably its best critic. Nelson George eschews a simple timeline and draws instead on personal experience to explain just how hip-hop came to dominate American popular culture.
3. William Shaw, Westsiders
A vivid and riveting account of the life of hip-hop wannabes in the broad no-mans-land between success and the streets of South Central LA. Always brutal, never unsympathetic and completely compelling.
4. Egotrip's book of rap lists
Hilarious, encyclopaedic, alternative hip-hop primer. Favourite lists include '10 MC Hammer songs you can't dance to' and '10 reasons why Will Smith loves Miami' (Number 10: 'If he's lucky, Will sees his main man Sly Stallone at clubs.').
5. Jess Mowry, Six out seven
Not strictly hip-hop but one of my favourite novels and worth a place in any top 10. Coming of age tale of a small town boy picking his way through the grisly reality of Oakland gangland.
6. Sun-Tzu, The art of war
I must confess I haven't read it but this 2500-year-old book of military strategy has been name-checked to me by so many hip-hop heads, the Rza in particular, that I guess it must be important. "Though effective appear to be ineffective," says Sun-Tzu. A comment on the state of hip-hop?
7. David Toop, Rap attack: African rap to global hip hop
The daddy of hip-hop books. First published in 1984, this loving explanation of hip-hop's origins paved the way for every analysis that has followed.
Touchstone: The rap attack: African jive to New York hip hop
8. Iceberg Slim, Pimp
A netherworld documentary that educates and chills in equal measure. A bible for all aspiring pimpologists and a field study for all aspiring pimpnographers.
9. Naomi Klein, No logo
Vital reading for late night sessions listening to Wu-Tang and Dead Prez and breaking down the global state of play while scratching your beard.
10. Tricia Rose, Black noise: rap music and Black culture in contemporary America
The most successful attempt to relocate hip-hop music within wider social and cultural contexts. It does, however, occasionally slide into hilariously obscure academic speak. When you've finished scratching your beard to Naomi, scratch your head to Tricia.
Guardian, 2003-07-02.
Patrick Neate is the author of Where you're at: notes from the frontline of a Hip Hop Planet. His second novel, Twelve bar blues, won the 2001 Whitbread prize for best novel.
1. Paul Beatty, The white boy shuffle
Paul Beatty won't thank me for describing him as the premier hip-hop novelist but, if there were such a genre, that's what he'd be. This is a genuinely wet-yourself-funny tale of race and identity about growing up as a young black man in LA.
2. Nelson George, Hip hop America
Arguably the best recent study of hip-hop by arguably its best critic. Nelson George eschews a simple timeline and draws instead on personal experience to explain just how hip-hop came to dominate American popular culture.
3. William Shaw, Westsiders
A vivid and riveting account of the life of hip-hop wannabes in the broad no-mans-land between success and the streets of South Central LA. Always brutal, never unsympathetic and completely compelling.
4. Egotrip's book of rap lists
Hilarious, encyclopaedic, alternative hip-hop primer. Favourite lists include '10 MC Hammer songs you can't dance to' and '10 reasons why Will Smith loves Miami' (Number 10: 'If he's lucky, Will sees his main man Sly Stallone at clubs.').
5. Jess Mowry, Six out seven
Not strictly hip-hop but one of my favourite novels and worth a place in any top 10. Coming of age tale of a small town boy picking his way through the grisly reality of Oakland gangland.
6. Sun-Tzu, The art of war
I must confess I haven't read it but this 2500-year-old book of military strategy has been name-checked to me by so many hip-hop heads, the Rza in particular, that I guess it must be important. "Though effective appear to be ineffective," says Sun-Tzu. A comment on the state of hip-hop?
7. David Toop, Rap attack: African rap to global hip hop
The daddy of hip-hop books. First published in 1984, this loving explanation of hip-hop's origins paved the way for every analysis that has followed.
Touchstone: The rap attack: African jive to New York hip hop
8. Iceberg Slim, Pimp
A netherworld documentary that educates and chills in equal measure. A bible for all aspiring pimpologists and a field study for all aspiring pimpnographers.
9. Naomi Klein, No logo
Vital reading for late night sessions listening to Wu-Tang and Dead Prez and breaking down the global state of play while scratching your beard.
10. Tricia Rose, Black noise: rap music and Black culture in contemporary America
The most successful attempt to relocate hip-hop music within wider social and cultural contexts. It does, however, occasionally slide into hilariously obscure academic speak. When you've finished scratching your beard to Naomi, scratch your head to Tricia.
159Cynfelyn
Amanda Craig's top 10 romantic comedies
Guardian, 2003-07-14.
Amanda Craig's latest novel is Love in idleness, a reworking of A midsummer night's dream set in modern-day Tuscany.
1. Jane Austen, Pride and prejudice
Witty Lizzie Bennet tries to ensure her sister's happiness and inadvertently causes the rich, snobbish Mr Darcy to fall in love with her. Emma is more perfect a novel, but this is the ultimate romantic comedy.
2. Anthony Trollope, Ayala's angel
The romantic, impoverished Ayala is forced to choose between three men: vulgar, callow or ugly. The ugly suitor's kindness and good sense triumph in a captivating Victorian version of Beauty and the beast.
3. Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm
Every teenaged girl should receive this at puberty as proof that common sense and the perusal of Vogue is a prerequisite for romantic happiness, no matter how mad and unpromising the family.
4. Meg Cabot, The guy next door
Best-known for The princess diaries, in this one Cabot creates an entire world of New York journalism and romance through office emails. Funny, clever and pure bliss.
5. Kate Saunders, The marrying game
Does anyone still marry for money? That is what the beautiful and impoverished Handy sisters are determined to do, cutting a swathe in society with unexpected and hilarious results.
6. Fay Weldon, The hearts and lives of men
Weldon is at her best and richest in this story where a divorced couple who lose their child are finally reunited through goodness, compassion and growing wisdom.
7. E. M. Forster, A room with a view
The story of Lucy Honeychurch's reluctant romance with a working-class intellectual in Tuscany is made even more hilarious by its cast of snooty English characters.
8. Robyn Sisman, Perfect strangers
A shy, preppy American and a bold, chaotic English girl swap jobs, problems and eventually hearts in an utterly engaging, thoroughly amusing transatlantic romance.
9. Mary Wesley, Harnessing peacocks
Single mother Hebe learns to survive and appal her posh relations by becoming a successful prostitute. Naughty, and unexpectedly nice.
10. Elizabeth von Arnim, The enchanted April
Essential for those who appreciate wisteria and sunshine, this tale of how four women revive their marriages or find love brims with magic and laughter.
------
2.
Beauty and the beast, originally written by Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve, was first pubished in 1740. There are 329 copies on LT, here, but it doesn't make it on to the touchstone's "others" list, sqeezed out by other versions. Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont's 1757 version is "near enough", at least chronologically.
Guardian, 2003-07-14.
Amanda Craig's latest novel is Love in idleness, a reworking of A midsummer night's dream set in modern-day Tuscany.
1. Jane Austen, Pride and prejudice
Witty Lizzie Bennet tries to ensure her sister's happiness and inadvertently causes the rich, snobbish Mr Darcy to fall in love with her. Emma is more perfect a novel, but this is the ultimate romantic comedy.
2. Anthony Trollope, Ayala's angel
The romantic, impoverished Ayala is forced to choose between three men: vulgar, callow or ugly. The ugly suitor's kindness and good sense triumph in a captivating Victorian version of Beauty and the beast.
3. Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm
Every teenaged girl should receive this at puberty as proof that common sense and the perusal of Vogue is a prerequisite for romantic happiness, no matter how mad and unpromising the family.
4. Meg Cabot, The guy next door
Best-known for The princess diaries, in this one Cabot creates an entire world of New York journalism and romance through office emails. Funny, clever and pure bliss.
5. Kate Saunders, The marrying game
Does anyone still marry for money? That is what the beautiful and impoverished Handy sisters are determined to do, cutting a swathe in society with unexpected and hilarious results.
6. Fay Weldon, The hearts and lives of men
Weldon is at her best and richest in this story where a divorced couple who lose their child are finally reunited through goodness, compassion and growing wisdom.
7. E. M. Forster, A room with a view
The story of Lucy Honeychurch's reluctant romance with a working-class intellectual in Tuscany is made even more hilarious by its cast of snooty English characters.
8. Robyn Sisman, Perfect strangers
A shy, preppy American and a bold, chaotic English girl swap jobs, problems and eventually hearts in an utterly engaging, thoroughly amusing transatlantic romance.
9. Mary Wesley, Harnessing peacocks
Single mother Hebe learns to survive and appal her posh relations by becoming a successful prostitute. Naughty, and unexpectedly nice.
10. Elizabeth von Arnim, The enchanted April
Essential for those who appreciate wisteria and sunshine, this tale of how four women revive their marriages or find love brims with magic and laughter.
------
2.
Beauty and the beast, originally written by Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve, was first pubished in 1740. There are 329 copies on LT, here, but it doesn't make it on to the touchstone's "others" list, sqeezed out by other versions. Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont's 1757 version is "near enough", at least chronologically.
160Cynfelyn
Michael Marshall Smith's top 10 horror books
Guardian, 2003-07-29.
Michael Marshall Smith's SF/fantasy novels include Only forward, described by Clive Barker as an "extraordinary debut", and Spares. His latest, as Michael Marshall, is the bestselling serial-killer thriller The straw men.
1. Ramsey Campbell, Dark feasts
Any list of top horror books must contain a sprinkling of short story collections because that's where so much of the genre's very best work is done. Campbell is one of the field's true giants and a master of the short form. Elegiac, disturbing and very memorable, this collection of beautifully crafted tales is modern British horror at its very best. Eerie.
2. Stephen King, Pet sematary
I could fill half this list with King novels, of course, and there are others like The shining, The stand and It which perhaps deserve to be here more on individual merit. But Pet sematary wins the nomination by being the one that disturbed me the most on first reading. Lean, sombre and veined with dread, this is horror, pure and simple. Chilling.
3. Peter Straub, Ghost story
Many of Straub's novels are hard to categorise, skating somewhere along the literature/crime/horror boundary. They're all good, but Ghost Story is more straight-down-the-line horror, a wonderfully subtle and complex tale of the impact of a visitor on a small community. A modern classic.
4. Martin Amis, Dead babies
Yes, OK, so this isn't a horror novel as such. But it's a good example of the kind of more mainstream novel that inhabits much of the same emotional territory while managing to avoid being tarred with the "horror" brush. Check out John Fowles's The collector and, of course, Bret Easton Ellis's American psycho for other examples. Literary.
5. Ray Bradbury, Something wicked this way comes
Bradbury is perhaps best known for his lyrical science fiction short stories. However, he wrote a lot of stunning horror ones, too - check out The October country or The illustrated man for some great examples. This, one of his relatively few novels, is a charming tale of small-town scares that successfully brings his strengths into the longer form. Old school.
6. Stephen King, Night shift
Oh, go for it, here's another King. This was his earliest collection and was one of the first things I read when starting into the genre. Creepy par excellence. Few writers are as skilled at both the long and short form: King walks all over both. Novellas, too, of course - look at Different seasons for four superb examples, three of which you'll recognise from the cinema. Masterful.
7. Shirley Jackson, The haunting of Hill House
Horror is blessed with a number of great stylists and Jackson is right up there. Both this and We have always lived in the castle demonstrate an extraordinary ability to evoke disquiet and melancholy from the simplest of things, and to keep gradually racking them up until you think your head will melt. Has one of the greatest opening paragraphs in horror, too. Spooky.
8. Jim Thompson, The killer inside me
Another matter of definition, this one. Thompson's a crime writer, without doubt, and this story of a local sheriff out of control is certainly pitched nothing like horror. But as a glimpse into the mind of the dangerous, it's far more effective than an armful of typical serial killer-style horror novels. Noir.
9. H. P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness
Lovecraft's over-the-top verbal styling and unique vision of crawling chaos and dread is one of the gems of the genre. Much of his best work is in his short fiction (collected in several volumes) but this novel set in the Antarctic is my favourite of all. I like to read it on flights to America, so you can look down out of the window and use the icy wastes below as a kind of audio-visual aid... Fetid.
10. Stephen Jones (ed.), Best new horror
I have every single one of these on my shelf. Produced each autumn by an anthologist with an unparalleled knowledge of the field (and a great eye for new talent), this anthology is where you'll find an up-to-date illustration of the best the horror field is capable of. Scary, well-balanced and classy. The yardstick.
Guardian, 2003-07-29.
Michael Marshall Smith's SF/fantasy novels include Only forward, described by Clive Barker as an "extraordinary debut", and Spares. His latest, as Michael Marshall, is the bestselling serial-killer thriller The straw men.
1. Ramsey Campbell, Dark feasts
Any list of top horror books must contain a sprinkling of short story collections because that's where so much of the genre's very best work is done. Campbell is one of the field's true giants and a master of the short form. Elegiac, disturbing and very memorable, this collection of beautifully crafted tales is modern British horror at its very best. Eerie.
2. Stephen King, Pet sematary
I could fill half this list with King novels, of course, and there are others like The shining, The stand and It which perhaps deserve to be here more on individual merit. But Pet sematary wins the nomination by being the one that disturbed me the most on first reading. Lean, sombre and veined with dread, this is horror, pure and simple. Chilling.
3. Peter Straub, Ghost story
Many of Straub's novels are hard to categorise, skating somewhere along the literature/crime/horror boundary. They're all good, but Ghost Story is more straight-down-the-line horror, a wonderfully subtle and complex tale of the impact of a visitor on a small community. A modern classic.
4. Martin Amis, Dead babies
Yes, OK, so this isn't a horror novel as such. But it's a good example of the kind of more mainstream novel that inhabits much of the same emotional territory while managing to avoid being tarred with the "horror" brush. Check out John Fowles's The collector and, of course, Bret Easton Ellis's American psycho for other examples. Literary.
5. Ray Bradbury, Something wicked this way comes
Bradbury is perhaps best known for his lyrical science fiction short stories. However, he wrote a lot of stunning horror ones, too - check out The October country or The illustrated man for some great examples. This, one of his relatively few novels, is a charming tale of small-town scares that successfully brings his strengths into the longer form. Old school.
6. Stephen King, Night shift
Oh, go for it, here's another King. This was his earliest collection and was one of the first things I read when starting into the genre. Creepy par excellence. Few writers are as skilled at both the long and short form: King walks all over both. Novellas, too, of course - look at Different seasons for four superb examples, three of which you'll recognise from the cinema. Masterful.
7. Shirley Jackson, The haunting of Hill House
Horror is blessed with a number of great stylists and Jackson is right up there. Both this and We have always lived in the castle demonstrate an extraordinary ability to evoke disquiet and melancholy from the simplest of things, and to keep gradually racking them up until you think your head will melt. Has one of the greatest opening paragraphs in horror, too. Spooky.
8. Jim Thompson, The killer inside me
Another matter of definition, this one. Thompson's a crime writer, without doubt, and this story of a local sheriff out of control is certainly pitched nothing like horror. But as a glimpse into the mind of the dangerous, it's far more effective than an armful of typical serial killer-style horror novels. Noir.
9. H. P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness
Lovecraft's over-the-top verbal styling and unique vision of crawling chaos and dread is one of the gems of the genre. Much of his best work is in his short fiction (collected in several volumes) but this novel set in the Antarctic is my favourite of all. I like to read it on flights to America, so you can look down out of the window and use the icy wastes below as a kind of audio-visual aid... Fetid.
10. Stephen Jones (ed.), Best new horror
I have every single one of these on my shelf. Produced each autumn by an anthologist with an unparalleled knowledge of the field (and a great eye for new talent), this anthology is where you'll find an up-to-date illustration of the best the horror field is capable of. Scary, well-balanced and classy. The yardstick.
161Cynfelyn
Tim Pears's top 10 20th-century political novels
Guardian, 2003-08-05.
Tim Pears is the author of In the place of fallen leaves, In a land of plenty and A revolution of the sun. His most recent novel, Wake up - described in the Guardian as a 'pungent, deeply unsettling modern parable' - is the story of a pioneering businessman whose investment in genetically engineered potatoes is going awry. He explains his choice of genre: 'Is the purpose of fiction to engage with or escape from the here and now? It's surprising so little fiction takes up the challenge of the former. A novel can't change the world. But a great novel opens the mind like nothing else. And when the mind opens, so too does the future.'
1. Robert Tressell, The ragged trousered philanthropists (1910)
A rambling, revealing, woolly, dignified account of poverty-stricken working class life 100 years ago, written by an in and out of work painter and decorator. A British novel that inspired generations towards social justice; to be read when young and forgiving of the awkward weight of polemic.
2. Jaroslav Hasek, The good soldier Svejk (1923)
Shaggy-dog stories of beautiful incompetence, of effortless anarchy spread through the Austrian army in 1914 by our eponymous idiot hero. A comic handbook on how to undermine authority in the most enjoyable way possible, written by a notorious hoaxer, drinker and vagrant Bohemian.
3. Arthur Koestler, Darkness at noon (1940)
A Russian communist general is imprisoned in one of Stalin's purges. The novel concentrates on his incarceration and interrogation, and extracts both political complexity and a burnished portrait of an individual's irreducible sovereignty, even as he is being destroyed.
4. Ivo Andric, The bridge over the Drina (1945)
Episodes from the small Bosnian town of Visegrad since its stone bridge was built in the 16th century: the stories of Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox Christians, individuals enmeshed in tribal loyalties, ending with the conflagration of 1914. An indispensable insight into the Yugoslav tragedy.
5. Dino Buzzati, The Tartar steppe (1945)
The daily futile life of Giovanni Drogo and his comrades in a remote garrison overlooking an empty plain. Is that movement out there in the distance? Is that dust the enemy? Among other things this hallucinatory novel describes the insecurity of empires: the frontier is vulnerable. What to do? Expand. And saddle yourself with wider, yet more vulnerable frontiers.
6. Alan Paton, Cry the beloved country (1948)
A Zulu pastor searches for his lost, errant son through the lower depths of Johannesburg, and encounters the degrading reality of the country he'd ignored. A novel of illuminating beauty and power.
7. Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (1961)
Astonishingly inventive masterpiece. About 30 years after its publication, I heard Joseph Heller being asked if he was sad that he'd not written a book to equal his first. He confessed that he was, but took some consolation from the fact that no one else had either! After reading this satire, it's hard to believe armies still have the effrontery to mobilise.
8. Stratis Haviaras, When the tree sings (1979)
How is this extraordinary book out of print? Set in German-occupied Greece during the second world war, it's a coming-of-age novel, full of striking characters, but it is also about tyranny, collaboration, hope, desolation and exile. There's a Laurie Lee-like quality to the writing despite it being in the author's second language.
9. J. M. Coetzee, The life and times of Michael K (1983)
Michael K, a poor young gardener, decides to take his mother out of a collapsing South African city and walk to a new life in the emptied country. As he loses what little he has - his possessions, his mother, his liberty - Coetzee portrays the resistance of a man who has nothing.
10. Michael Ondaatje, Anil's ghost (2000)
A forensic anthropologist in America returns to her birthplace, Sri Lanka, with a human rights group to study the bodies of murder victims. Against her will and better judgment she is drawn into the political turmoil behind the violence, forcing herself open to the messy complexity of truth. A dark, challenging, beautiful novel that both describes and answers the writer's (and the reader's) challenge: escape or engagement?
Guardian, 2003-08-05.
Tim Pears is the author of In the place of fallen leaves, In a land of plenty and A revolution of the sun. His most recent novel, Wake up - described in the Guardian as a 'pungent, deeply unsettling modern parable' - is the story of a pioneering businessman whose investment in genetically engineered potatoes is going awry. He explains his choice of genre: 'Is the purpose of fiction to engage with or escape from the here and now? It's surprising so little fiction takes up the challenge of the former. A novel can't change the world. But a great novel opens the mind like nothing else. And when the mind opens, so too does the future.'
1. Robert Tressell, The ragged trousered philanthropists (1910)
A rambling, revealing, woolly, dignified account of poverty-stricken working class life 100 years ago, written by an in and out of work painter and decorator. A British novel that inspired generations towards social justice; to be read when young and forgiving of the awkward weight of polemic.
2. Jaroslav Hasek, The good soldier Svejk (1923)
Shaggy-dog stories of beautiful incompetence, of effortless anarchy spread through the Austrian army in 1914 by our eponymous idiot hero. A comic handbook on how to undermine authority in the most enjoyable way possible, written by a notorious hoaxer, drinker and vagrant Bohemian.
3. Arthur Koestler, Darkness at noon (1940)
A Russian communist general is imprisoned in one of Stalin's purges. The novel concentrates on his incarceration and interrogation, and extracts both political complexity and a burnished portrait of an individual's irreducible sovereignty, even as he is being destroyed.
4. Ivo Andric, The bridge over the Drina (1945)
Episodes from the small Bosnian town of Visegrad since its stone bridge was built in the 16th century: the stories of Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox Christians, individuals enmeshed in tribal loyalties, ending with the conflagration of 1914. An indispensable insight into the Yugoslav tragedy.
5. Dino Buzzati, The Tartar steppe (1945)
The daily futile life of Giovanni Drogo and his comrades in a remote garrison overlooking an empty plain. Is that movement out there in the distance? Is that dust the enemy? Among other things this hallucinatory novel describes the insecurity of empires: the frontier is vulnerable. What to do? Expand. And saddle yourself with wider, yet more vulnerable frontiers.
6. Alan Paton, Cry the beloved country (1948)
A Zulu pastor searches for his lost, errant son through the lower depths of Johannesburg, and encounters the degrading reality of the country he'd ignored. A novel of illuminating beauty and power.
7. Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (1961)
Astonishingly inventive masterpiece. About 30 years after its publication, I heard Joseph Heller being asked if he was sad that he'd not written a book to equal his first. He confessed that he was, but took some consolation from the fact that no one else had either! After reading this satire, it's hard to believe armies still have the effrontery to mobilise.
8. Stratis Haviaras, When the tree sings (1979)
How is this extraordinary book out of print? Set in German-occupied Greece during the second world war, it's a coming-of-age novel, full of striking characters, but it is also about tyranny, collaboration, hope, desolation and exile. There's a Laurie Lee-like quality to the writing despite it being in the author's second language.
9. J. M. Coetzee, The life and times of Michael K (1983)
Michael K, a poor young gardener, decides to take his mother out of a collapsing South African city and walk to a new life in the emptied country. As he loses what little he has - his possessions, his mother, his liberty - Coetzee portrays the resistance of a man who has nothing.
10. Michael Ondaatje, Anil's ghost (2000)
A forensic anthropologist in America returns to her birthplace, Sri Lanka, with a human rights group to study the bodies of murder victims. Against her will and better judgment she is drawn into the political turmoil behind the violence, forcing herself open to the messy complexity of truth. A dark, challenging, beautiful novel that both describes and answers the writer's (and the reader's) challenge: escape or engagement?
162Cynfelyn
Jude Fisher's top 10 tales of adventure
Guardian, 2003-08-18.
Jude Fisher's latest book is Wild magic, the second volume of the Fool's Gold trilogy. She also wrote the companion books to the Lord of the Rings film trilogy and, as Jane Johnson, is publishing director of HarperCollins's SF/fantasy/horror imprint, Voyager.
1. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
Surely the ultimate adventure story - which for me is defined as vivid, page-turning, thrilling action which whisks you a long way away from your armchair, bed, bath or beach-towel. For me, it was under the blankets with a torch at age 12, all evening, all night and skipping school with well-feigned illness the next day to finish this glorious, magical, inspiring tale of courage against all odds. It was a true life-changer: I eventually ended up as publisher of the books, wrote tie-ins to the movie trilogy and an epic adventure of my own, none of which would have happened without reading Tolkien.
2. Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure island
Ah, pirates, parrots and treasure maps! By turns terrified, thrilled and captivated by RLS's classic tale, I spent my childhood exploring caves on the local beach searching for the bones of long-dead sailors and pieces of eight. As an adult, rereadings reward you with superb writing and characterisation: John Silver is a far more intricate and subtle creation than the hundred and one parodies he spawned.
3. Joe Simpson, Touching the void
I defy anyone not to read this gripping story, Simpson's first book, in a single sitting. Even though my rational mind was whispering that the author must by some miracle have survived his horrifying fall on the way back down from an Andean peak, my heart was racing and (as a climber) my palm sweating in sympathy as the tale unfurled in all its appalling detail. Amazing, real-life adventure.
4. Nathaniel Philbrick, In the heart of the sea
Philbrick, director of maritime studies in Nantucket, serves up the phenomenal true story which inspired Melville to write Moby-Dick. A rogue white whale really did attack a whaling ship (the Essex, in 1820) and the tale which subsequently unrolls is even more bizarre, baroque and gothic than anything in Melville. The gory descriptions of shipwrecked sailors driven to madness and cannibalism provided fine source material for a disastrous voyage in my own fiction.
5. Daphne Du Maurier, Jamaica Inn
I went to school very close to Bodmin Moor, where the real Jamaica Inn stands today, sadly transformed into a disappointing tourist trap rather than the stark, forbidding and thoroughly atmospheric setting for this fabulous story of wreckers and smugglers and black secrets.
6. Robin Hobb, Ship of magic
The gripping first instalment of a tale of adventure on the high seas from the author of the wonderful Farseer novels. Althea Vestrit, a terrifically feisty heroine, dreams of captaining her own family liveship - a vessel made from magical wizardwood, a sentient material with mysterious connections to the world's last dragons which talks back to its sailors. Hobb writes wonderful characters and magnificent narratives.
7. Jon Krakauer, Into thin air
The harrowing tale of a number of doomed attempts on Everest told by the world's craziest and finest adventure sportswriter, himself a member of one of the disaster-struck expedition teams. Like , Touching the void, this is utterly gripping and unputdownable: I read it while on holiday in Spain and despite 95-degree heat, found myself shivering at his extraordinary evocations of the death zone. Brilliant, scary stuff.
8. Henry Treece, The road to Miklagard
My obsession with the Viking age I attribute directly to reading Henry Treece when I was eight. Here you'll find longships, duels, axes and fearsome voyages across unimaginable expanses of ocean all the way from Norway to far Byzantium, delivered in an elegantly sparse style. Treece gives you an awful lot of story for not very many words; which meant I devoured book after book and learned a fair bit of very digestible history on the way.
9. Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe's Eagle
The first of the series introduces the bold, intelligent, roguish and engaging Richard Sharpe, a man used to living off his wits and taking whatever opportunities life affords him. This one tells the cracking tale of how, under the command of Wellesley - not yet the Duke of Wellington - Sharpe fights at the bloody battle of Talavera, in the Peninsular War. Despite danger from enemies on his own side of the battlefield, through guts, cunning and sheer luck Sharpe saves his own life and the honour of the regiment. I've read the entire lot - they're completely addictive.
10. Kim Stanley Robinson, Antarctica
Robinson is better known for his massive future history of the terraforming and colonisation of Mars but this eco-thriller is a tremendous rollercoaster ride set in this world's last wilderness, a mineral-rich area targeted by multinational oil companies, conniving governments and the tourist industry. Robinson creates brilliant people who carry his idea-packed narratives effortlessly and entertainingly, all the while prompting you to think pretty hard about the state of the world today and how we may preserve it.
Guardian, 2003-08-18.
Jude Fisher's latest book is Wild magic, the second volume of the Fool's Gold trilogy. She also wrote the companion books to the Lord of the Rings film trilogy and, as Jane Johnson, is publishing director of HarperCollins's SF/fantasy/horror imprint, Voyager.
1. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
Surely the ultimate adventure story - which for me is defined as vivid, page-turning, thrilling action which whisks you a long way away from your armchair, bed, bath or beach-towel. For me, it was under the blankets with a torch at age 12, all evening, all night and skipping school with well-feigned illness the next day to finish this glorious, magical, inspiring tale of courage against all odds. It was a true life-changer: I eventually ended up as publisher of the books, wrote tie-ins to the movie trilogy and an epic adventure of my own, none of which would have happened without reading Tolkien.
2. Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure island
Ah, pirates, parrots and treasure maps! By turns terrified, thrilled and captivated by RLS's classic tale, I spent my childhood exploring caves on the local beach searching for the bones of long-dead sailors and pieces of eight. As an adult, rereadings reward you with superb writing and characterisation: John Silver is a far more intricate and subtle creation than the hundred and one parodies he spawned.
3. Joe Simpson, Touching the void
I defy anyone not to read this gripping story, Simpson's first book, in a single sitting. Even though my rational mind was whispering that the author must by some miracle have survived his horrifying fall on the way back down from an Andean peak, my heart was racing and (as a climber) my palm sweating in sympathy as the tale unfurled in all its appalling detail. Amazing, real-life adventure.
4. Nathaniel Philbrick, In the heart of the sea
Philbrick, director of maritime studies in Nantucket, serves up the phenomenal true story which inspired Melville to write Moby-Dick. A rogue white whale really did attack a whaling ship (the Essex, in 1820) and the tale which subsequently unrolls is even more bizarre, baroque and gothic than anything in Melville. The gory descriptions of shipwrecked sailors driven to madness and cannibalism provided fine source material for a disastrous voyage in my own fiction.
5. Daphne Du Maurier, Jamaica Inn
I went to school very close to Bodmin Moor, where the real Jamaica Inn stands today, sadly transformed into a disappointing tourist trap rather than the stark, forbidding and thoroughly atmospheric setting for this fabulous story of wreckers and smugglers and black secrets.
6. Robin Hobb, Ship of magic
The gripping first instalment of a tale of adventure on the high seas from the author of the wonderful Farseer novels. Althea Vestrit, a terrifically feisty heroine, dreams of captaining her own family liveship - a vessel made from magical wizardwood, a sentient material with mysterious connections to the world's last dragons which talks back to its sailors. Hobb writes wonderful characters and magnificent narratives.
7. Jon Krakauer, Into thin air
The harrowing tale of a number of doomed attempts on Everest told by the world's craziest and finest adventure sportswriter, himself a member of one of the disaster-struck expedition teams. Like , Touching the void, this is utterly gripping and unputdownable: I read it while on holiday in Spain and despite 95-degree heat, found myself shivering at his extraordinary evocations of the death zone. Brilliant, scary stuff.
8. Henry Treece, The road to Miklagard
My obsession with the Viking age I attribute directly to reading Henry Treece when I was eight. Here you'll find longships, duels, axes and fearsome voyages across unimaginable expanses of ocean all the way from Norway to far Byzantium, delivered in an elegantly sparse style. Treece gives you an awful lot of story for not very many words; which meant I devoured book after book and learned a fair bit of very digestible history on the way.
9. Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe's Eagle
The first of the series introduces the bold, intelligent, roguish and engaging Richard Sharpe, a man used to living off his wits and taking whatever opportunities life affords him. This one tells the cracking tale of how, under the command of Wellesley - not yet the Duke of Wellington - Sharpe fights at the bloody battle of Talavera, in the Peninsular War. Despite danger from enemies on his own side of the battlefield, through guts, cunning and sheer luck Sharpe saves his own life and the honour of the regiment. I've read the entire lot - they're completely addictive.
10. Kim Stanley Robinson, Antarctica
Robinson is better known for his massive future history of the terraforming and colonisation of Mars but this eco-thriller is a tremendous rollercoaster ride set in this world's last wilderness, a mineral-rich area targeted by multinational oil companies, conniving governments and the tourist industry. Robinson creates brilliant people who carry his idea-packed narratives effortlessly and entertainingly, all the while prompting you to think pretty hard about the state of the world today and how we may preserve it.
163Cynfelyn
Joyce Hackett's top 10 musical novels
Guardian, 2003-08-26.
Joyce Hackett is the author of Disturbance of the inner ear, a novel about music, history and love. Narrated by a cellist who has been playing her instrument without sound for over a decade, the novel recounts how Isabel regains her ability to play via an affair with an Italian male prostitute.
1. Thomas Bernhard, The loser
Two talented pianists are studying at the Salzburg Mozarteum when the celebrated Glenn Gould arrives and blows them out of the water. How they cope with their lack of greatness is the story of the novel. The eponymous loser's suicide opens the book and, while the narrator tries to understand it, he wrestles with the Herculean human task of finding his own "unique and autonomous being." You either love Bernhard's ranting, breathless style or you hate it - he's not an acquired taste - and The loser, while not his funniest book, is his best.
2. J. D. Landis, Longing
Dense, and sometimes convoluted, Longing is a strikingly beautiful book about Schumann's relationship with Clara Weick. Landis's Schumann is a victim of his own demons; his love for Weick, the greatest pianist of the 19th century, begins when she is eight. The book explores the way the experience of artistic transcendence can destroy us because it either inspires us to an impossible quest to create it, or discourages us from even the most meagre attempts to do so.
3. Ann Patchett, Bel canto
Occasionally, after a few books, a writer gathers her bearings and hits pure, unalloyed ore. In this operatic novel, a group of international glitterati are taken hostage in a South American embassy by hapless terrorists. Trapped for weeks among them is a mega-soprano and her accompanist. As she practises day after day, her gorgeous singing shakes up everyone's assumptions about the identities they have formulated, and each person, hostage or captor, begins to find his or her best self. Under the spell of beautiful music, everyone becomes equal. Patchett's writing is spare, her spirit profoundly generous.
4. Rebecca West, The fountain overflows
My piano teacher, an overweight woman with chipped orange fingernail polish, was a sadistic taskmaster with a metronome; the more Bach suites I played by ear, the more she lashed me to boring Czerny exercises. After I quit I read this book, desperately wishing I had been born into the musical Aubreys. The father's gone, and they are descending from poverty into destitution, yet their world seems magical; Mamma, an ex-concert pianist, is a wonderful mentor and, apart from Cordelia, who saws on the violin unaware of her lack of talent, the children are delightful prodigies. A world to sink into and never leave.
5. Kate Chopin, The awakening
Reviled in its time as "gilded dirt," now regarded as the first masterpiece by an American woman, this Creole Bovary is the story of an ordinary woman who tries to break out of the narrative society has written for her. After a Whitmanesque sexual awakening, Edna leaves her husband and takes a lover for sex. Her emotional revelation begins when Mademoiselle Reisz, an ugly, pushy, celibate woman, moves Edna to tears by playing Frederic Chopin. Their encounters depict music's terrible power to pull us beyond where we might wish to remain.
6. Willa Cather, The song of the lark
A gifted Swedish immigrant girl's sisyphean struggle to realise her talents as an opera singer, in a petty-bourgeois midwestern society where women's singing is supposed to be limited to church. A generation after Edna, Thea's journey takes her further, but the price of recognition, when it finally comes, is steep. Partly based on Wagnerian soprano Olive Fremstad, the achingly beautiful prose depicts the search for an artistic voice. As far as I know, the first all-out portrait of the artist as a young woman.
7. Alexander Chee, Edinburgh
A choir director in Maine molests his singers, including Fee, the novel's hero, who later finds himself the teacher of the choir director's son. A complex, sophisticated, elegant investigation of trauma and desire - like a white hot flame.
8. Ralph Ellison, The invisible man
"Invisibility... gives one a slightly different sense of time, you're never quite on the beat." Ellison takes the linear, progressive marching rhythms of Eurocentric music and turns them on their ear with a prose that, while it does not discuss much music, embodies jazz. In this story of a gifted black valedictorian who is tortured, taunted, and made invisible by the whites who must impose their myths upon him, Ellison explores, perhaps more intensely than any other prose writer, the literary possibilities of musical rhythm, time and form.
9. Gayl Jones, Corregidora
My favorite music is gospel, a raw, emotional call-and-response that opens the possibility of communal spirituality more than any other experience in my life. Blues comes out of a variant of this tradition, of slave laments sung as a way of relieving pain by enabling it to be shared by a community. In Jones's gorgeous, brutal novel, blues singer Ursa is consumed by the 19th century slave master, Corregidora, who fathered both her grandmother and mother. This novel is narrative as lament, and it is haunting.
10. Rose Tremain, Music and silence
Arriving in Copenhagen in 1629 to join the Royal Orchestra of King Christian IV, Peter Claire learns that he will be playing in a cold winecellar exposed to the elements so that the wine may breathe. Through an ingenious system of pipes, the music rises upward from a place of miserable confinement, so that the sound appears heaven-sent. Music and silence is a feast, encompassing a wide range of characters, and though the love story is drawn out like the slow movement of a Boccherini trio, the rich details keep one well-fed.
Guardian, 2003-08-26.
Joyce Hackett is the author of Disturbance of the inner ear, a novel about music, history and love. Narrated by a cellist who has been playing her instrument without sound for over a decade, the novel recounts how Isabel regains her ability to play via an affair with an Italian male prostitute.
1. Thomas Bernhard, The loser
Two talented pianists are studying at the Salzburg Mozarteum when the celebrated Glenn Gould arrives and blows them out of the water. How they cope with their lack of greatness is the story of the novel. The eponymous loser's suicide opens the book and, while the narrator tries to understand it, he wrestles with the Herculean human task of finding his own "unique and autonomous being." You either love Bernhard's ranting, breathless style or you hate it - he's not an acquired taste - and The loser, while not his funniest book, is his best.
2. J. D. Landis, Longing
Dense, and sometimes convoluted, Longing is a strikingly beautiful book about Schumann's relationship with Clara Weick. Landis's Schumann is a victim of his own demons; his love for Weick, the greatest pianist of the 19th century, begins when she is eight. The book explores the way the experience of artistic transcendence can destroy us because it either inspires us to an impossible quest to create it, or discourages us from even the most meagre attempts to do so.
3. Ann Patchett, Bel canto
Occasionally, after a few books, a writer gathers her bearings and hits pure, unalloyed ore. In this operatic novel, a group of international glitterati are taken hostage in a South American embassy by hapless terrorists. Trapped for weeks among them is a mega-soprano and her accompanist. As she practises day after day, her gorgeous singing shakes up everyone's assumptions about the identities they have formulated, and each person, hostage or captor, begins to find his or her best self. Under the spell of beautiful music, everyone becomes equal. Patchett's writing is spare, her spirit profoundly generous.
4. Rebecca West, The fountain overflows
My piano teacher, an overweight woman with chipped orange fingernail polish, was a sadistic taskmaster with a metronome; the more Bach suites I played by ear, the more she lashed me to boring Czerny exercises. After I quit I read this book, desperately wishing I had been born into the musical Aubreys. The father's gone, and they are descending from poverty into destitution, yet their world seems magical; Mamma, an ex-concert pianist, is a wonderful mentor and, apart from Cordelia, who saws on the violin unaware of her lack of talent, the children are delightful prodigies. A world to sink into and never leave.
5. Kate Chopin, The awakening
Reviled in its time as "gilded dirt," now regarded as the first masterpiece by an American woman, this Creole Bovary is the story of an ordinary woman who tries to break out of the narrative society has written for her. After a Whitmanesque sexual awakening, Edna leaves her husband and takes a lover for sex. Her emotional revelation begins when Mademoiselle Reisz, an ugly, pushy, celibate woman, moves Edna to tears by playing Frederic Chopin. Their encounters depict music's terrible power to pull us beyond where we might wish to remain.
6. Willa Cather, The song of the lark
A gifted Swedish immigrant girl's sisyphean struggle to realise her talents as an opera singer, in a petty-bourgeois midwestern society where women's singing is supposed to be limited to church. A generation after Edna, Thea's journey takes her further, but the price of recognition, when it finally comes, is steep. Partly based on Wagnerian soprano Olive Fremstad, the achingly beautiful prose depicts the search for an artistic voice. As far as I know, the first all-out portrait of the artist as a young woman.
7. Alexander Chee, Edinburgh
A choir director in Maine molests his singers, including Fee, the novel's hero, who later finds himself the teacher of the choir director's son. A complex, sophisticated, elegant investigation of trauma and desire - like a white hot flame.
8. Ralph Ellison, The invisible man
"Invisibility... gives one a slightly different sense of time, you're never quite on the beat." Ellison takes the linear, progressive marching rhythms of Eurocentric music and turns them on their ear with a prose that, while it does not discuss much music, embodies jazz. In this story of a gifted black valedictorian who is tortured, taunted, and made invisible by the whites who must impose their myths upon him, Ellison explores, perhaps more intensely than any other prose writer, the literary possibilities of musical rhythm, time and form.
9. Gayl Jones, Corregidora
My favorite music is gospel, a raw, emotional call-and-response that opens the possibility of communal spirituality more than any other experience in my life. Blues comes out of a variant of this tradition, of slave laments sung as a way of relieving pain by enabling it to be shared by a community. In Jones's gorgeous, brutal novel, blues singer Ursa is consumed by the 19th century slave master, Corregidora, who fathered both her grandmother and mother. This novel is narrative as lament, and it is haunting.
10. Rose Tremain, Music and silence
Arriving in Copenhagen in 1629 to join the Royal Orchestra of King Christian IV, Peter Claire learns that he will be playing in a cold winecellar exposed to the elements so that the wine may breathe. Through an ingenious system of pipes, the music rises upward from a place of miserable confinement, so that the sound appears heaven-sent. Music and silence is a feast, encompassing a wide range of characters, and though the love story is drawn out like the slow movement of a Boccherini trio, the rich details keep one well-fed.
164Cynfelyn
Terry Deary's favourite history books
Guardian, 2003-08-26.
Terry Deary is the author of 140 children's books translated into 32 languages; his Horrible Histories series has sold 10m copies worldwide. As well as completing, on average, a book every six weeks, Terry Deary is currently in training for the 13-mile-long Great North Run to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Relief. The Run takes place on 21 September 2003. If you'd like to sponsor him or make a donation call 020 7840 7887 or email greatnorthrun@macmillan.org.uk
Terry Deary's official site (*1)
1. Charles Nicholl, The reckoning: the murder of Christopher Marlowe
Historical detective work at its best. Not only does Nicholl recreate the Elizabethan underworld in all its chilling seediness, he investigates the murder with the pace and technique of a mystery novelist. In the end he doesn't quite convince me, but his book should be compulsory reading for all writers of popular history.
2. Lyn Macdonald, They called it Passchendaele
Books like this transcend ordinary literature and provide a service to humanity. Macdonald has collected the testimonies of the men who fought in the first world war and tells the story from their point of view. It's humanity in the raw and it's not all bleak.
3. Michael Wood, In search of the Trojan War
In children's non-fiction books it's not enough to inform the readers; first you have to engage them. Michael Wood is above all an engaging writer as well as an erudite historian. Whatever he writes about he brings to life. A rare talent.
4. Christopher Hibbert, The English: a social history 1066-1945
When I was at school history was all about the upper classes and their wars. But social history is far more fascinating - it's the lives and the stories of peasants like me! I learned more about my own country from reading Hibbert's book than in 12 tedious years of school history lessons.
5. Bill Bryson, Made in America
I am intrigued by words. Bryson's book is an entertaining and anecdotal history of American English. The book helps you become a connoisseur of fascinating facts: you say tomato, Thomas Jefferson said "tomata". Not a lot of people know that.
6. Michael K. Jones, Bosworth 1485: psychology of a battle
Controversial. He reckons the battle of Bosworth Field was not fought at Bosworth Field! I am not convinced (and the Bosworth visitor centre must be worried) but I enjoy the debate. I admire the fact that Jones has the courage to say that Richard III probably DID order the execution of the princes in the Tower. I've read a dozen books that argue (unconvincingly) that Richard was innocent.
7. Erik Durschmied, The hinge factor: how chance and stupidity have changed history
It's always a pleasure to see history approached from a new direction. Durschmied reminds us that history is not some pre-destined drama like a Shakespeare script. Sod's law rules. "The world would be a different place if only. . . " There's endless entertainment to be had from completing that sentence.
8. Matthew Johnson, Behind the castle gate: from medieval to renaissance
An academic and serious look at an abstract topic. Not my usual cup of tea, but an insight into the way academics think and write. It also changed forever the way I look at castles and challenges much of what my teachers told me.
9. Alison Weir, Mary Queen of Scots and the murder of Lord Darnley
My favourite historian. Always readable and challenging even when she is writing about an obnoxious woman like Mary. I'm impressed by an intellect that can assimilate and organise such a massive wealth of material and turn it into a cohesive and readable narrative. I cherish my signed copy.
10. Aubrey Dillon-Malone, Stranger than fiction: a book of literary lists
I'm a sucker for books of fascinating (and generally useless) facts. As a writer I am interested in the lives and deaths, loves and hates, working methods and personal peculiarities of other writers. It gives facts like "Author Erskine Childers was a naval spy in the second world war." Neat trick. . . since I know he was executed in 1922! Call me a nit-picker. It almost makes me feel like an historian.
------
*1. A note, just to say that links to author's official sites are cropping up pretty routinely in these articles now. I have been stripping them out after making sure they are linked on the LT author's page. Surprisingly, they have all still been working, so far. Perhaps they eventually become the responsibility of publishers or literary executors. If there are any dead official sites I'll see if there's a copy in the Internet Archive, https://archive.org
Guardian, 2003-08-26.
Terry Deary is the author of 140 children's books translated into 32 languages; his Horrible Histories series has sold 10m copies worldwide. As well as completing, on average, a book every six weeks, Terry Deary is currently in training for the 13-mile-long Great North Run to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Relief. The Run takes place on 21 September 2003. If you'd like to sponsor him or make a donation call 020 7840 7887 or email greatnorthrun@macmillan.org.uk
Terry Deary's official site (*1)
1. Charles Nicholl, The reckoning: the murder of Christopher Marlowe
Historical detective work at its best. Not only does Nicholl recreate the Elizabethan underworld in all its chilling seediness, he investigates the murder with the pace and technique of a mystery novelist. In the end he doesn't quite convince me, but his book should be compulsory reading for all writers of popular history.
2. Lyn Macdonald, They called it Passchendaele
Books like this transcend ordinary literature and provide a service to humanity. Macdonald has collected the testimonies of the men who fought in the first world war and tells the story from their point of view. It's humanity in the raw and it's not all bleak.
3. Michael Wood, In search of the Trojan War
In children's non-fiction books it's not enough to inform the readers; first you have to engage them. Michael Wood is above all an engaging writer as well as an erudite historian. Whatever he writes about he brings to life. A rare talent.
4. Christopher Hibbert, The English: a social history 1066-1945
When I was at school history was all about the upper classes and their wars. But social history is far more fascinating - it's the lives and the stories of peasants like me! I learned more about my own country from reading Hibbert's book than in 12 tedious years of school history lessons.
5. Bill Bryson, Made in America
I am intrigued by words. Bryson's book is an entertaining and anecdotal history of American English. The book helps you become a connoisseur of fascinating facts: you say tomato, Thomas Jefferson said "tomata". Not a lot of people know that.
6. Michael K. Jones, Bosworth 1485: psychology of a battle
Controversial. He reckons the battle of Bosworth Field was not fought at Bosworth Field! I am not convinced (and the Bosworth visitor centre must be worried) but I enjoy the debate. I admire the fact that Jones has the courage to say that Richard III probably DID order the execution of the princes in the Tower. I've read a dozen books that argue (unconvincingly) that Richard was innocent.
7. Erik Durschmied, The hinge factor: how chance and stupidity have changed history
It's always a pleasure to see history approached from a new direction. Durschmied reminds us that history is not some pre-destined drama like a Shakespeare script. Sod's law rules. "The world would be a different place if only. . . " There's endless entertainment to be had from completing that sentence.
8. Matthew Johnson, Behind the castle gate: from medieval to renaissance
An academic and serious look at an abstract topic. Not my usual cup of tea, but an insight into the way academics think and write. It also changed forever the way I look at castles and challenges much of what my teachers told me.
9. Alison Weir, Mary Queen of Scots and the murder of Lord Darnley
My favourite historian. Always readable and challenging even when she is writing about an obnoxious woman like Mary. I'm impressed by an intellect that can assimilate and organise such a massive wealth of material and turn it into a cohesive and readable narrative. I cherish my signed copy.
10. Aubrey Dillon-Malone, Stranger than fiction: a book of literary lists
I'm a sucker for books of fascinating (and generally useless) facts. As a writer I am interested in the lives and deaths, loves and hates, working methods and personal peculiarities of other writers. It gives facts like "Author Erskine Childers was a naval spy in the second world war." Neat trick. . . since I know he was executed in 1922! Call me a nit-picker. It almost makes me feel like an historian.
------
*1. A note, just to say that links to author's official sites are cropping up pretty routinely in these articles now. I have been stripping them out after making sure they are linked on the LT author's page. Surprisingly, they have all still been working, so far. Perhaps they eventually become the responsibility of publishers or literary executors. If there are any dead official sites I'll see if there's a copy in the Internet Archive, https://archive.org
165Cynfelyn
Neal Asher's top 10 fantasy novels
a href=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/sep/01/top10s.fantasy>Guardian, 2003-09-01.
SF/fantasy writer Neal Asher is the author of Gridlinked and The skinner. His latest book, The line of polity, is a complex, multilayered story about rebels in a slave world.
Neal Asher's homepage (*1)
1. Roger Zelazny, Chronicles of Amber
With fantasy one often has to think of a well-loved series before narrowing the selection to a favourite book. So it is with Zelazny. I've read his Chronicles of Amber books so often I know them almost verbatim, so much so that I am now trying to forget them so I can return to them with renewed pleasure. The best of the line is The guns of Avalon.
2. David Gemmell, Waylander
Gemmell's name guarantees a satisfying story and a thumping good read. I recommend all his heroic creations - Druss the axeman, The Jerusalem man, among others - but my favourite has to be Waylander: Clint Eastwood with a crossbow and the same 'make my day, punk' attitude.
3. J. R. R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings
It seems fashionable at the moment to pick holes in the greats, and Lord of the Rings gets the biggest hammering because it is the progenitor of most swords/wizards/elves/dwarves fantasy. People seem to forget that it is mimicked because it is very good, original for its time, and written with an understanding of story and language that few can match.
4. Terry Pratchett, Witches abroad
I enjoyed his neglected SF books, like Dark side of the sun, and every single one of his Discworld books. Foremost of these has to be Witches abroad. Who can fail to be amused by the travails of a vampire, transformed into a bat, being stunned by a piece of garlic sausage tossed out of a window, and then eaten by a dyspeptic cat?
5. Tanith Lee, Volkhavaar
I've been reading Tanith Lee since I was a teenager, beginning with The birthgrave and The storm lord. Only recently did I discover, to my delight, how many more of her books I've yet to read. This one presented the idea that the quality of worship creates the god long before Terry Pratchett's Small gods.
6. Michael Moorcock, Stormbringer
Moorcock's interlinked Eternal champion series is a constant source of enjoyment. Of its tragic hero incarnations, my favourite is Elric of Melnibone and the best book has to be Stormbringer. And as for that other sword, Excalibur? Pah! Use it to spread your butter.
7. Stephen Donaldson, Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
These are cursed by comparison to Tolkien: there's a dark lord, there's a gold ring... However, I have to say that this series shows a greater understanding of human nature and of evil. My favourite is The Illearth War, but read from the beginning and weep.
8. Tim Powers, Anubis Gates
This is fantasy without the usual trappings, and utterly unique for now. What a superb book. I think I'll have to sit down and read it again.
9. Jack Vance, The eyes of the overworld
I loved the invention in this: the strange lands, stranger peoples and a loathsome anti-hero who is just engaging enough that you want him to win through. Vance is a master of the weird.
10. Jan Lars Jensen, Shiva 3000
I'm including this for its portrayal of a weird future India, complete with lashings of colour and exuberance, a monstrous, roaming Jagannath and a battle in which spices are used as weapons (imagine getting a face full of chilli powder). Wonderful stuff.
------
*1. Follow-up note, just to say "Spoke too soon". Neal Asher's listed website was on Virgin.net Freespace, which as been defunct since 2015. What do people think? Is there any benefit in having a link to an Internet Archive copy of their former site on a defunct platform on the LT author's page, besides a link to their current site?
4.
I've read and enjoyed all of the Discworld stories and most of the associated short stories, and yes, Witches abroad is among my favourite dozen, along with Soul music, Mort, Pyramids, Night Watch, Thief of Time, Monstrous regiment, The fifth elephant, and ..., and ... and ... Including pretty much all of the Tiffany Aching books; I tend to think Pratchett got a second wind with Tiffany. So I was suprised to read the disappointed LT members' reviews for his SF book mentioned above, Dark side of the sun. One day, maybe, I'll see for myself. Although, in all honesty, I'm more likely to read through Discworld again.
a href=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/sep/01/top10s.fantasy>Guardian, 2003-09-01.
SF/fantasy writer Neal Asher is the author of Gridlinked and The skinner. His latest book, The line of polity, is a complex, multilayered story about rebels in a slave world.
Neal Asher's homepage (*1)
1. Roger Zelazny, Chronicles of Amber
With fantasy one often has to think of a well-loved series before narrowing the selection to a favourite book. So it is with Zelazny. I've read his Chronicles of Amber books so often I know them almost verbatim, so much so that I am now trying to forget them so I can return to them with renewed pleasure. The best of the line is The guns of Avalon.
2. David Gemmell, Waylander
Gemmell's name guarantees a satisfying story and a thumping good read. I recommend all his heroic creations - Druss the axeman, The Jerusalem man, among others - but my favourite has to be Waylander: Clint Eastwood with a crossbow and the same 'make my day, punk' attitude.
3. J. R. R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings
It seems fashionable at the moment to pick holes in the greats, and Lord of the Rings gets the biggest hammering because it is the progenitor of most swords/wizards/elves/dwarves fantasy. People seem to forget that it is mimicked because it is very good, original for its time, and written with an understanding of story and language that few can match.
4. Terry Pratchett, Witches abroad
I enjoyed his neglected SF books, like Dark side of the sun, and every single one of his Discworld books. Foremost of these has to be Witches abroad. Who can fail to be amused by the travails of a vampire, transformed into a bat, being stunned by a piece of garlic sausage tossed out of a window, and then eaten by a dyspeptic cat?
5. Tanith Lee, Volkhavaar
I've been reading Tanith Lee since I was a teenager, beginning with The birthgrave and The storm lord. Only recently did I discover, to my delight, how many more of her books I've yet to read. This one presented the idea that the quality of worship creates the god long before Terry Pratchett's Small gods.
6. Michael Moorcock, Stormbringer
Moorcock's interlinked Eternal champion series is a constant source of enjoyment. Of its tragic hero incarnations, my favourite is Elric of Melnibone and the best book has to be Stormbringer. And as for that other sword, Excalibur? Pah! Use it to spread your butter.
7. Stephen Donaldson, Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
These are cursed by comparison to Tolkien: there's a dark lord, there's a gold ring... However, I have to say that this series shows a greater understanding of human nature and of evil. My favourite is The Illearth War, but read from the beginning and weep.
8. Tim Powers, Anubis Gates
This is fantasy without the usual trappings, and utterly unique for now. What a superb book. I think I'll have to sit down and read it again.
9. Jack Vance, The eyes of the overworld
I loved the invention in this: the strange lands, stranger peoples and a loathsome anti-hero who is just engaging enough that you want him to win through. Vance is a master of the weird.
10. Jan Lars Jensen, Shiva 3000
I'm including this for its portrayal of a weird future India, complete with lashings of colour and exuberance, a monstrous, roaming Jagannath and a battle in which spices are used as weapons (imagine getting a face full of chilli powder). Wonderful stuff.
------
*1. Follow-up note, just to say "Spoke too soon". Neal Asher's listed website was on Virgin.net Freespace, which as been defunct since 2015. What do people think? Is there any benefit in having a link to an Internet Archive copy of their former site on a defunct platform on the LT author's page, besides a link to their current site?
4.
I've read and enjoyed all of the Discworld stories and most of the associated short stories, and yes, Witches abroad is among my favourite dozen, along with Soul music, Mort, Pyramids, Night Watch, Thief of Time, Monstrous regiment, The fifth elephant, and ..., and ... and ... Including pretty much all of the Tiffany Aching books; I tend to think Pratchett got a second wind with Tiffany. So I was suprised to read the disappointed LT members' reviews for his SF book mentioned above, Dark side of the sun. One day, maybe, I'll see for myself. Although, in all honesty, I'm more likely to read through Discworld again.
166Cynfelyn
Tibor Fischer's top 10 eastern European novels
Guardian, 2003-09-08.
Tibor Fischer, author of the Booker-shortlisted Under the frog and The thought gang, was selected as one of Granta's 20 best British young novelists in 1993. His latest novel is Voyage to the end of the room.
1. Jaroslav Hasek, The good soldier Svejk
What a novel. Hasek blew a lifetime's wit and wisdom in one splurge. Relentlessly funny and true; I read it every two years or so. But why did it have to be written by a Czech?
2. Sándor Márai, Embers
Not Márai's best novel, but it's the only one available in English. The Hungarians have been better at poetry than the novel, but Márai is the master of Hungarian prose, and soon the English-speaking world will bow down before him.
3. Fyodor Dostoevsky, The gambler
Written in under four weeks, this is Dostoevsky at his very best without any of the buggering about that mars the longer works. Tells you everything you need to know about the Russians.
4. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich
He fought the law when fighting the law was rather fatal. On balance his strongest work, and I'm not choosing him because one of his best mates in the Gulag was called Tibor.
5. Jerzy Andrzejewski, Ashes and diamonds
Want to know why the Poles are unchallenged as the hard men of eastern Europe? This staggeringly bleak work about postwar Poland goes a long way to explaining.
6. Viktor Pelevin, Omon Ra
One of the best short-story writers on the planet. Pelevin's first novel about the space race is both the burial of the Soviet era and the birth of new Russian writing. Last I heard he was in hiding in Germany because he'd upset the Russian far right.
7. Miklós Bánffy, The Transylvanian trilogy
Unemployed Hungarian foreign minister turns his hand to novel-writing. This is set in the runup to the first world war and features more about Hungarian politics than is really necessary, but no avant-garde flourishes; just good, old-fashioned storytelling. Page-turning, erotic and funny.
8. Milan Kundera, The joke
Another Czech. The great novel of Stalinist lunacy which isn't funny at all.
9. Ismail Kadare, The general of the Dead Army
It's never been much of a laugh in Albania. Grim but gripping novel about the Germans getting their dead back.
10. Eduard Limonov, Memoir of a Russian punk
Mad, bad and dangerous to know (he once attacked novelist Paul Bailey and machine-gunned Sarajevo), Eddie-Baby relives his days as a gangmember in the provincial city of Kharkov in the 50s.
------
If we had a totaliser, this would be The good soldier Svejk's third outing, after messages 157 and 161 above. Always a good sign.
On the other hand, first mentions for Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn. They took their time.
Guardian, 2003-09-08.
Tibor Fischer, author of the Booker-shortlisted Under the frog and The thought gang, was selected as one of Granta's 20 best British young novelists in 1993. His latest novel is Voyage to the end of the room.
1. Jaroslav Hasek, The good soldier Svejk
What a novel. Hasek blew a lifetime's wit and wisdom in one splurge. Relentlessly funny and true; I read it every two years or so. But why did it have to be written by a Czech?
2. Sándor Márai, Embers
Not Márai's best novel, but it's the only one available in English. The Hungarians have been better at poetry than the novel, but Márai is the master of Hungarian prose, and soon the English-speaking world will bow down before him.
3. Fyodor Dostoevsky, The gambler
Written in under four weeks, this is Dostoevsky at his very best without any of the buggering about that mars the longer works. Tells you everything you need to know about the Russians.
4. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich
He fought the law when fighting the law was rather fatal. On balance his strongest work, and I'm not choosing him because one of his best mates in the Gulag was called Tibor.
5. Jerzy Andrzejewski, Ashes and diamonds
Want to know why the Poles are unchallenged as the hard men of eastern Europe? This staggeringly bleak work about postwar Poland goes a long way to explaining.
6. Viktor Pelevin, Omon Ra
One of the best short-story writers on the planet. Pelevin's first novel about the space race is both the burial of the Soviet era and the birth of new Russian writing. Last I heard he was in hiding in Germany because he'd upset the Russian far right.
7. Miklós Bánffy, The Transylvanian trilogy
Unemployed Hungarian foreign minister turns his hand to novel-writing. This is set in the runup to the first world war and features more about Hungarian politics than is really necessary, but no avant-garde flourishes; just good, old-fashioned storytelling. Page-turning, erotic and funny.
8. Milan Kundera, The joke
Another Czech. The great novel of Stalinist lunacy which isn't funny at all.
9. Ismail Kadare, The general of the Dead Army
It's never been much of a laugh in Albania. Grim but gripping novel about the Germans getting their dead back.
10. Eduard Limonov, Memoir of a Russian punk
Mad, bad and dangerous to know (he once attacked novelist Paul Bailey and machine-gunned Sarajevo), Eddie-Baby relives his days as a gangmember in the provincial city of Kharkov in the 50s.
------
If we had a totaliser, this would be The good soldier Svejk's third outing, after messages 157 and 161 above. Always a good sign.
On the other hand, first mentions for Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn. They took their time.
167Cynfelyn
Marianne Elliott: top 10 Irish history books
Guardian, 2003-09-15.
Marianne Elliott is director of the Institute of Irish Studies at Liverpool University and author of Catholics of Ulster: a history and Wolfe Tone: prophet of Irish independence, which won the Irish Independent/Irish Life prize for biography. Her latest book is Robert Emmet: the making of a legend, about the leader of the doomed July 1803 rebellion.
1. J. C. Beckett, The making of Modern Ireland 1603-1923
J. C. Beckett's overview is an important milestone in Irish historiography, a lucid combination of factual information and reasoned analysis by one of the recognised giants of modern Irish history. Published in 1966, it is still a mine of information for today's students.
2. R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland 1600-1972
Roy Foster writes like a dream and it is difficult to decide which of his many books I like best. Unusually for a general survey, his Modern Ireland is difficult to put down. It manages the rare feat of combining clear and authoritative analysis, challenging new insights with a sense of humour and a command of the literary as well as the historical sources.
3. Terence Brown, Ireland: a social and cultural history 1922-1985
In this 1981 classic, Terence Brown gets to the very soul of contemporary Ireland, revealing the often bitter relations between the intelligentsia and politicians over the nature of the new Irish state. It was a battle that the intelligentsia ultimately won, but not before generations of Irish people had to endure the humourless and censorious nationalism imposed by an ideologically driven state.
4. A. T. Q. Stewart, The narrow ground: aspects of Ulster 1609-1969
A brilliant overview of Ulster Protestant identity, published in 1977 when the world was trying to understand the ferocity of Northern Ireland's troubles. The Narrow Ground is still unsurpassed as an accessible and readable introduction to this little understood subject.
5. I. R. McBride, Scripture politics: Ulster Presbyterians and Irish radicalism in late eighteenth century Ireland
This is an impressive first book by one of the most talented of a new generation of Irish historians. It explains with great clarity how the same distinctive intellectual tradition which can be found in later Ulster loyalism actually spawned early Irish republicanism - a complicated story, rendered accessible by a most readable and fluid writing style.
6. Donald Harman Akenson, Small differences: Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants 1815-1922
By the doyen of Irish diaspora history, this is an imaginative and highly readable analysis of the cultural and religious stereotyping which has so often distorted an understanding of Ireland. Akenson's conclusion, that Irish Catholics and Protestants once out of Ireland behave and think in remarkably similar ways, lies behind the choice of the Freudian subtitle 'the narcissism of small differences'.
7. David Fitzpatrick, Oceans of consolation: personal accounts of Irish migration to Australia
A moving and impressively researched series of personal accounts by Irish people of the experience of emigration, telling us as much about the situation in Ireland which prompted their departure as that in the new territory, and all drawn together by a masterly concluding discussion of the common themes in their correspondence.
8. Richard English, Armed struggle: the history of the IRA
A book whose time has come. At a historic moment when the IRA is redefining itself, a talented and courageous historian takes a non-judgmental approach and succeeds in getting inside the republican mind. This is an impressively fresh and balanced account, written in an accessibly clear style. A modern classic.
9. S. J. Connolly, The Oxford companion to Irish history
The bible of Irish history, providing facts and concise accounts of just about everything you ever wanted to know about Ireland, from the earliest of times to the present.
10. Alvin Jackson, Home Rule: an Irish history 1800-2000
Forget about the gulf which ostensibly separates the constitutional politicians in Ireland and the men of violence. This wonderful new book demonstrates how the former were always willing to use the latter to gain their aims and how home rule was a way of reconciling Irish nationalism and, since the 1920s, Ulster Unionism to the British connection. All in a lucid narrative style which makes for a compelling read.
------
Well, okay, if seventeenth to twentieth century modern history (plus an encyclopedia for the other stuff) is your idea of the whole of history. But honestly, it's more like an expansion kit to the "Top 10 books on the Troubles" (no. 106 above). Hopefully there's something deeper somewhere in the next eighteen years of lists.
Guardian, 2003-09-15.
Marianne Elliott is director of the Institute of Irish Studies at Liverpool University and author of Catholics of Ulster: a history and Wolfe Tone: prophet of Irish independence, which won the Irish Independent/Irish Life prize for biography. Her latest book is Robert Emmet: the making of a legend, about the leader of the doomed July 1803 rebellion.
1. J. C. Beckett, The making of Modern Ireland 1603-1923
J. C. Beckett's overview is an important milestone in Irish historiography, a lucid combination of factual information and reasoned analysis by one of the recognised giants of modern Irish history. Published in 1966, it is still a mine of information for today's students.
2. R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland 1600-1972
Roy Foster writes like a dream and it is difficult to decide which of his many books I like best. Unusually for a general survey, his Modern Ireland is difficult to put down. It manages the rare feat of combining clear and authoritative analysis, challenging new insights with a sense of humour and a command of the literary as well as the historical sources.
3. Terence Brown, Ireland: a social and cultural history 1922-1985
In this 1981 classic, Terence Brown gets to the very soul of contemporary Ireland, revealing the often bitter relations between the intelligentsia and politicians over the nature of the new Irish state. It was a battle that the intelligentsia ultimately won, but not before generations of Irish people had to endure the humourless and censorious nationalism imposed by an ideologically driven state.
4. A. T. Q. Stewart, The narrow ground: aspects of Ulster 1609-1969
A brilliant overview of Ulster Protestant identity, published in 1977 when the world was trying to understand the ferocity of Northern Ireland's troubles. The Narrow Ground is still unsurpassed as an accessible and readable introduction to this little understood subject.
5. I. R. McBride, Scripture politics: Ulster Presbyterians and Irish radicalism in late eighteenth century Ireland
This is an impressive first book by one of the most talented of a new generation of Irish historians. It explains with great clarity how the same distinctive intellectual tradition which can be found in later Ulster loyalism actually spawned early Irish republicanism - a complicated story, rendered accessible by a most readable and fluid writing style.
6. Donald Harman Akenson, Small differences: Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants 1815-1922
By the doyen of Irish diaspora history, this is an imaginative and highly readable analysis of the cultural and religious stereotyping which has so often distorted an understanding of Ireland. Akenson's conclusion, that Irish Catholics and Protestants once out of Ireland behave and think in remarkably similar ways, lies behind the choice of the Freudian subtitle 'the narcissism of small differences'.
7. David Fitzpatrick, Oceans of consolation: personal accounts of Irish migration to Australia
A moving and impressively researched series of personal accounts by Irish people of the experience of emigration, telling us as much about the situation in Ireland which prompted their departure as that in the new territory, and all drawn together by a masterly concluding discussion of the common themes in their correspondence.
8. Richard English, Armed struggle: the history of the IRA
A book whose time has come. At a historic moment when the IRA is redefining itself, a talented and courageous historian takes a non-judgmental approach and succeeds in getting inside the republican mind. This is an impressively fresh and balanced account, written in an accessibly clear style. A modern classic.
9. S. J. Connolly, The Oxford companion to Irish history
The bible of Irish history, providing facts and concise accounts of just about everything you ever wanted to know about Ireland, from the earliest of times to the present.
10. Alvin Jackson, Home Rule: an Irish history 1800-2000
Forget about the gulf which ostensibly separates the constitutional politicians in Ireland and the men of violence. This wonderful new book demonstrates how the former were always willing to use the latter to gain their aims and how home rule was a way of reconciling Irish nationalism and, since the 1920s, Ulster Unionism to the British connection. All in a lucid narrative style which makes for a compelling read.
------
Well, okay, if seventeenth to twentieth century modern history (plus an encyclopedia for the other stuff) is your idea of the whole of history. But honestly, it's more like an expansion kit to the "Top 10 books on the Troubles" (no. 106 above). Hopefully there's something deeper somewhere in the next eighteen years of lists.
168Cynfelyn
Max Jones's top 10 books about exploration
Guardian, 2003-10-14.
Max Jones is the author of The last great quest: Captain Scott's Antarctic sacrifice, an examination of the enduring appeal of the Scott story, the drive to explore hostile environments and the nature of heroism.
1. Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The worst journey in the world (1922)
The title of Cherry-Garrard's account of Scott's last Antarctic expedition refers not to the polar journey, but to the trek he endured with Edward Wilson and Henry Bowers in search of the eggs of the emperor penguin. The three men barely survived the first journey ever attempted during an Antarctic winter, experiencing temperatures as low as -77.5ºF (-25.3ºC), only to die only a few months later. Mourning for his lost friends, disillusioned by war and assisted by his neighbour George Bernard Shaw, Cherry-Garrard composed a work which transcends the confines of the expedition to offer a powerful meditation on the nature of exploration and intellectual curiosity in the modern world.
Touchstones: Edward Wilson (6) and Henry Bowers (2).
2. Tom Wolfe, The right stuff (1980)
The right stuff brilliantly captures the mentality of the first American astronauts and the nation which venerated their exploits at the height of the cold war. Wolfe is particularly good at charting the insular social world of the astronauts and their wives. His roller-coaster descriptions of disasters and near-misses eventually persuaded one dubious reader that excessive use of exclamation points can actually be very effective!
3. Friedrich Engels, The condition of the working class in England (1845)
The social explorers of modern urban life, from Henry Mayhew through Charles Booth to George Orwell, surely demand inclusion in any list of exploration narratives. But Engels' indictment of working-class living conditions comes out ahead, for using graphic descriptions of the new industrial city as the foundation for a groundbreaking intellectual critique.
Touchstone: Charles Booth (1).
4. Scott's last expedition vol I: the journals of Captain RF Scott (1913)
Captain Scott's last journals remain the ultimate expression of a particular type of expedition narrative, in which the journey to a distant land becomes a journey into the self. Scott's 'Message to the Public', scrawled in the back of his journal as he faced death in March 1912, is a remarkable articulation of the heroic fantasies of his age, fantasies which would collide with mud and metal in the trenches of the western front.
5. The travels of Sir John Mandeville
Consulted by Columbus and the only travel book known to be in the possession of Leonardo da Vinci, The travels of Sir John Mandeville first began to circulate in Europe in the 1360s. This classic work of medieval travel writing takes the reader on a fabulous romp through strange lands inhabited by marvellous monsters, including giant griffons, self-sacrificing fish and men without heads who have eyes in their shoulders.
6. Joan Didion, Slouching towards Bethlehem (1968)
A mesmerising collection of essays exploring California in the 1960s by one of America's greatest writers, on topics ranging from murder trials to the movies of John Wayne. Few cultural commentators have rivalled Didion's ability to express penetrating insights in such elegant prose.
7. Ernest Shackleton, South: the story of Shackleton's last expedition, 1914-1917 (1919)
Shackleton may not have written as well as Scott, but his astonishing tale of survival after the destruction of his ship Endurance in the Antarctic remains the most dramatic adventure story in the annals of exploration. I won't spoil it for those who don't know the story. I'll just say that the fact they still had to do THAT to reach safety, after doing THAT and THAT, gets me every time.
8. Horace Waller (ed.), The last journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa from 1865 to his death (1874)
Livingstone's first book, Missionary travels and researches in South Africa, sold 70,000 copies and caused a sensation in 1856. Yet his popularity had waned in the 1860s after his unsuccessful voyage up the River Zambesi. The Reverend Horace Waller's skilful editing of Livingstone's last journals did much to restore the heroic reputation of the most famous of the great Victorian explorers.
9. Sara Wheeler, Terra incognita (1998)
Many writers have mused on modern Antarctic life, but Sarah Wheeler's Terra incognita is my favourite. Wheeler skilfully interweaves accounts of the heroic exploits of the polar pioneers with observations from her own experience venturing into the very male environment of Antarctica in the 1990s.
10. The explorations of Captain James Cook in the Pacific: as told by selections of his own journals 1768-1779
Cook's meticulous account of his voyages in the Pacific between 1768 and 1779 is a monument to a distinctively Enlightenment sensibility. In marked contrast to Captain Scott's journal, the people and environment of the Pacific are the central actors, rather than the explorer's own character.
Guardian, 2003-10-14.
Max Jones is the author of The last great quest: Captain Scott's Antarctic sacrifice, an examination of the enduring appeal of the Scott story, the drive to explore hostile environments and the nature of heroism.
1. Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The worst journey in the world (1922)
The title of Cherry-Garrard's account of Scott's last Antarctic expedition refers not to the polar journey, but to the trek he endured with Edward Wilson and Henry Bowers in search of the eggs of the emperor penguin. The three men barely survived the first journey ever attempted during an Antarctic winter, experiencing temperatures as low as -77.5ºF (-25.3ºC), only to die only a few months later. Mourning for his lost friends, disillusioned by war and assisted by his neighbour George Bernard Shaw, Cherry-Garrard composed a work which transcends the confines of the expedition to offer a powerful meditation on the nature of exploration and intellectual curiosity in the modern world.
Touchstones: Edward Wilson (6) and Henry Bowers (2).
2. Tom Wolfe, The right stuff (1980)
The right stuff brilliantly captures the mentality of the first American astronauts and the nation which venerated their exploits at the height of the cold war. Wolfe is particularly good at charting the insular social world of the astronauts and their wives. His roller-coaster descriptions of disasters and near-misses eventually persuaded one dubious reader that excessive use of exclamation points can actually be very effective!
3. Friedrich Engels, The condition of the working class in England (1845)
The social explorers of modern urban life, from Henry Mayhew through Charles Booth to George Orwell, surely demand inclusion in any list of exploration narratives. But Engels' indictment of working-class living conditions comes out ahead, for using graphic descriptions of the new industrial city as the foundation for a groundbreaking intellectual critique.
Touchstone: Charles Booth (1).
4. Scott's last expedition vol I: the journals of Captain RF Scott (1913)
Captain Scott's last journals remain the ultimate expression of a particular type of expedition narrative, in which the journey to a distant land becomes a journey into the self. Scott's 'Message to the Public', scrawled in the back of his journal as he faced death in March 1912, is a remarkable articulation of the heroic fantasies of his age, fantasies which would collide with mud and metal in the trenches of the western front.
5. The travels of Sir John Mandeville
Consulted by Columbus and the only travel book known to be in the possession of Leonardo da Vinci, The travels of Sir John Mandeville first began to circulate in Europe in the 1360s. This classic work of medieval travel writing takes the reader on a fabulous romp through strange lands inhabited by marvellous monsters, including giant griffons, self-sacrificing fish and men without heads who have eyes in their shoulders.
6. Joan Didion, Slouching towards Bethlehem (1968)
A mesmerising collection of essays exploring California in the 1960s by one of America's greatest writers, on topics ranging from murder trials to the movies of John Wayne. Few cultural commentators have rivalled Didion's ability to express penetrating insights in such elegant prose.
7. Ernest Shackleton, South: the story of Shackleton's last expedition, 1914-1917 (1919)
Shackleton may not have written as well as Scott, but his astonishing tale of survival after the destruction of his ship Endurance in the Antarctic remains the most dramatic adventure story in the annals of exploration. I won't spoil it for those who don't know the story. I'll just say that the fact they still had to do THAT to reach safety, after doing THAT and THAT, gets me every time.
8. Horace Waller (ed.), The last journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa from 1865 to his death (1874)
Livingstone's first book, Missionary travels and researches in South Africa, sold 70,000 copies and caused a sensation in 1856. Yet his popularity had waned in the 1860s after his unsuccessful voyage up the River Zambesi. The Reverend Horace Waller's skilful editing of Livingstone's last journals did much to restore the heroic reputation of the most famous of the great Victorian explorers.
9. Sara Wheeler, Terra incognita (1998)
Many writers have mused on modern Antarctic life, but Sarah Wheeler's Terra incognita is my favourite. Wheeler skilfully interweaves accounts of the heroic exploits of the polar pioneers with observations from her own experience venturing into the very male environment of Antarctica in the 1990s.
10. The explorations of Captain James Cook in the Pacific: as told by selections of his own journals 1768-1779
Cook's meticulous account of his voyages in the Pacific between 1768 and 1779 is a monument to a distinctively Enlightenment sensibility. In marked contrast to Captain Scott's journal, the people and environment of the Pacific are the central actors, rather than the explorer's own character.
169Cynfelyn
Cornelia Funke's top 10 bedtime stories
Guardian, 2003-10-15.
Cornelia Funke is the author of bestselling children's book The thief lord. Her new novel is Inkheart (Chicken House)
1. Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer
Though of course one should leave the scary scenes in the graveyard for a sunny summer's evening.
2. Roald Dahl, The BFG
This is also quite scary, I admit, for a bedtime story but the tale does start at bedtime, and children are not as easily scared as adults think.
3. Eva Ibbotson, Which witch?
Like all Ibbotson's books, this is simply wonderful and enchanting.
4. Rudyard Kipling, Just so stories
This book is like a treasure box. The only difficulty is deciding which story to choose.
5. Michael Ende, Jim Button and Luke the engine driver
This was my favourite children's book. It is pure magic, even if I sometimes think that the girl is a little too girly.
6. J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan
Yes, I admit it, this is another scary one (and again the female character is not one of my favourites), but nevertheless there are not many books in the world as wonderful as Peter Pan.
7. Astrid Lindgren, The Brothers Lionheart
I know from many, many adults that this is their one and only favourite children's book. It is about death and fear and love between brothers, and it is unforgettable.
8. Louis Peraud, The war of the buttons
This classic isn't politically correct, or correct in any way. It is about the wild hearts of boys, and my son, who is eight, adores it - though he has to promise me each time we read it that he won't do any of the things the boys in the book do.
9. L. F. Baum, The wizard of Oz
A lion who is a coward, a tin man without a heart, the scarecrow who longs for a brain - three characters who will keep any child company.
10. William Goldman, The princess bride
This book, about a father reading to his sick son, may be too dark for some eight-year-olds, but no child or adult should miss this story.
Guardian, 2003-10-15.
Cornelia Funke is the author of bestselling children's book The thief lord. Her new novel is Inkheart (Chicken House)
1. Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer
Though of course one should leave the scary scenes in the graveyard for a sunny summer's evening.
2. Roald Dahl, The BFG
This is also quite scary, I admit, for a bedtime story but the tale does start at bedtime, and children are not as easily scared as adults think.
3. Eva Ibbotson, Which witch?
Like all Ibbotson's books, this is simply wonderful and enchanting.
4. Rudyard Kipling, Just so stories
This book is like a treasure box. The only difficulty is deciding which story to choose.
5. Michael Ende, Jim Button and Luke the engine driver
This was my favourite children's book. It is pure magic, even if I sometimes think that the girl is a little too girly.
6. J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan
Yes, I admit it, this is another scary one (and again the female character is not one of my favourites), but nevertheless there are not many books in the world as wonderful as Peter Pan.
7. Astrid Lindgren, The Brothers Lionheart
I know from many, many adults that this is their one and only favourite children's book. It is about death and fear and love between brothers, and it is unforgettable.
8. Louis Peraud, The war of the buttons
This classic isn't politically correct, or correct in any way. It is about the wild hearts of boys, and my son, who is eight, adores it - though he has to promise me each time we read it that he won't do any of the things the boys in the book do.
9. L. F. Baum, The wizard of Oz
A lion who is a coward, a tin man without a heart, the scarecrow who longs for a brain - three characters who will keep any child company.
10. William Goldman, The princess bride
This book, about a father reading to his sick son, may be too dark for some eight-year-olds, but no child or adult should miss this story.
170ironjaw
>168 Cynfelyn: Apsley Cherry-Garrard”s Worst Journey reads so vivid that you feel you are right next to him. Sad how his life turned out, he was plagued by taxes, mental health and couldn’t conform to the social changes.
171Cynfelyn
Andrew Lycett's essential Dylan Thomas
Guardian, 2003-11-06.
To mark the 50th anniversary of Dylan Thomas's death, Andrew Lycett, author of Dylan Thomas: a new life (Weidenfeld, £20), introduces his 10 favourite works
Poems
1. 'From love's first fever' (October 1933)
Read this to get a sense of the sonorous youthful Dylan (it was written when he was only 18). His later poems, such as 'Fern Hill', tend to be more popular than his early ones, which are thought to be complicated and therefore inaccessible. But I like the energy of this one; its tone and subject matter convey the 'boily boy' struggling to make sense of the world around him. It depicts the individual emerging from the womb and finding his or her way in the world where words give the capacity 'to twist the shapes of thoughts/Into the stony idiom of the brain'.
2. 'I see the boys of summer' (March 1934)
This has a more jaunty feel, mixing Dylan Thomas's acute observational skills (the result of his time as a journalist, perhaps) with his poet's sense of the ruin incipient in everything around him.
3. 'Poem in October' (August 1944)
Worked on for three years before seeing the light of day, this poem offers a harbinger of his later bucolic, lyrical style, and is one to set beside 'Fern Hill', 'Over Sir John's Hill' and 'Poem on his birthday'.
4. 'A refusal to mourn the death, by fire, of a child in London' (March 1945)
Dylan did not win many plaudits for sitting out the war, working in film, mainly in Soho. But that did not mean he did not recognise the horror of what was happening around him. This is simply one of the greatest second world war poems.
5. 'Do not go gentle into that good night' (May 1951)
Do not be put off by the way this is so often quoted at funerals and on memorial websites. Occasioned by his father's blindness and imminent death, this is a craftsman's poem, all the more powerful for its tight villanelle form.
Stories
6. The peaches
Dylan's inspired suburban boy's take on the raw, elemental world of his relations in the Carmarthenshire countryside. Notable for its satire of the spiritual yearnings of Cousin Gwilym (in real life Idris) who practised his sermons, including one - full of Welsh hwyl - which started, 'O God, Those everywhere all the time, in the dew of the morning, in the frost of the evening.' and ended, 'Thou canst see all the time, O God, mun, you're like a bloody cat.'
7. Old Garbo
A classic rites-of-passage tale, as a young man comes of age in the grown-up environments of newspaper office and Swansea pubs. Like The peaches, it is collected in the book Portrait of the artist as a young dog, which is the best introduction to Dylan's prose writing.
Broadcasts
8. 'Holiday memory'
The verbal equivalent of a Donald McGill postcard. A classic piece of social observation, mixing humour, detail and pathos.
9. 'Return journey'
The product of Dylan's return to Swansea after the war in 1947. He was shattered to find that his familiar world of the early 1930s had already disappeared - most of it destroyed by German bombs. In this piece he conducted imaginary interviews with people who had once known him, from the barmaid in the Three Lamps to the park-keeper in Cwmdonkin Drive. In a sense this was a variation on a favourite poetic theme - the inexorable passage of time.
Touchstone: Return journey to Swansea
A play for voices
10. Under Milk Wood
At one time called The town that was mad, all humanity is here in this tale of Llareggub (read it backwards for full Dylan effect), depicted in humorous and generous manner. Dylan's most lasting piece.
Guardian, 2003-11-06.
To mark the 50th anniversary of Dylan Thomas's death, Andrew Lycett, author of Dylan Thomas: a new life (Weidenfeld, £20), introduces his 10 favourite works
Poems
1. 'From love's first fever' (October 1933)
Read this to get a sense of the sonorous youthful Dylan (it was written when he was only 18). His later poems, such as 'Fern Hill', tend to be more popular than his early ones, which are thought to be complicated and therefore inaccessible. But I like the energy of this one; its tone and subject matter convey the 'boily boy' struggling to make sense of the world around him. It depicts the individual emerging from the womb and finding his or her way in the world where words give the capacity 'to twist the shapes of thoughts/Into the stony idiom of the brain'.
2. 'I see the boys of summer' (March 1934)
This has a more jaunty feel, mixing Dylan Thomas's acute observational skills (the result of his time as a journalist, perhaps) with his poet's sense of the ruin incipient in everything around him.
3. 'Poem in October' (August 1944)
Worked on for three years before seeing the light of day, this poem offers a harbinger of his later bucolic, lyrical style, and is one to set beside 'Fern Hill', 'Over Sir John's Hill' and 'Poem on his birthday'.
4. 'A refusal to mourn the death, by fire, of a child in London' (March 1945)
Dylan did not win many plaudits for sitting out the war, working in film, mainly in Soho. But that did not mean he did not recognise the horror of what was happening around him. This is simply one of the greatest second world war poems.
5. 'Do not go gentle into that good night' (May 1951)
Do not be put off by the way this is so often quoted at funerals and on memorial websites. Occasioned by his father's blindness and imminent death, this is a craftsman's poem, all the more powerful for its tight villanelle form.
Stories
6. The peaches
Dylan's inspired suburban boy's take on the raw, elemental world of his relations in the Carmarthenshire countryside. Notable for its satire of the spiritual yearnings of Cousin Gwilym (in real life Idris) who practised his sermons, including one - full of Welsh hwyl - which started, 'O God, Those everywhere all the time, in the dew of the morning, in the frost of the evening.' and ended, 'Thou canst see all the time, O God, mun, you're like a bloody cat.'
7. Old Garbo
A classic rites-of-passage tale, as a young man comes of age in the grown-up environments of newspaper office and Swansea pubs. Like The peaches, it is collected in the book Portrait of the artist as a young dog, which is the best introduction to Dylan's prose writing.
Broadcasts
8. 'Holiday memory'
The verbal equivalent of a Donald McGill postcard. A classic piece of social observation, mixing humour, detail and pathos.
9. 'Return journey'
The product of Dylan's return to Swansea after the war in 1947. He was shattered to find that his familiar world of the early 1930s had already disappeared - most of it destroyed by German bombs. In this piece he conducted imaginary interviews with people who had once known him, from the barmaid in the Three Lamps to the park-keeper in Cwmdonkin Drive. In a sense this was a variation on a favourite poetic theme - the inexorable passage of time.
Touchstone: Return journey to Swansea
A play for voices
10. Under Milk Wood
At one time called The town that was mad, all humanity is here in this tale of Llareggub (read it backwards for full Dylan effect), depicted in humorous and generous manner. Dylan's most lasting piece.
172Cynfelyn
Anthony Read's top 10 books about Hitler and the Third Reich
Guardian, 2003-11-17.
Anthony Read's latest book is The devil's disciples: the lives and times of Hitler's inner circle.
1. William L. Shirer, The rise and fall of the Third Reich
For me, this is the grandaddy of them all, the standard work by which all others on the subject are still measured. A brilliant and respected journalist, Shirer was actually there for much of the time and it shows. Erudite, comprehensive and detailed, always lively and readable, it is the model of what a popular narrative history should be. My own copy has been read and referred to so often it is falling apart.
2. Alan Bullock, Hitler: a study in tyranny
Another essential benchmark in the study of Hitler and the Third Reich. First published a mere seven years after Hitler's death, it remains as definitive now as it was then, as Bullock himself proved 40 years later when he incorporated much of it into his equally magisterial Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives.
3. Ian Kershaw, Hitler (2 vols)
With the benefit of a further half-century of international scholarship and research since Bullock and the other early biographers, Kershaw - despite describing himself as an 'anti-biographer' - has produced what may well be the ultimate version of Hitler's life and of the unique circumstances that made him possible. A masterful achievement.
4. Christabel Bielenberg, The past is myself
In contrast to the works of professional historians, personal diaries and memoirs putting a human face on the story of the Third Reich are essential to an understanding of life under Nazi rule. Among those on my shelves by anti-Nazis are Berlin underground by Ruth Andreas-Friedrich, The Berlin diaries of Marie 'Missie' Vassiltchikov, Schlage die Trommel... by my old friend Maria Gräfin von Maltzan, Ich will leben by Klaus Scheurenberg, and many others. But my favourite is this account by Christabel Bielenberg, who sadly died on November 2, 2003, aged 94. As she wrote in her introduction: 'I am English; I was German, and above all, I was there.'
Touchstone: Ich will leben: Ein autobiographischer Bericht.
5. Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich
This is the other side of the coin, the most readable and least repulsive of the Nazi memoirs. It provides a fascinating glimpse of working with Hitler - but should perhaps be read in conjunction with Gitta Sereny's aptly titled Albert Speer: his battle with truth.
6. Helmuth James von Moltke, Letters to Freya
This is one of the most moving testaments of the resistance to Hitler, a series of letters to his wife by a noble man on trial for his life after the July 20 plot. They reveal the intellectual and emotional honesty of Moltke, the archetypal 'good German', and his incredible bravery as he approached his execution on January 24, 1945, more concerned with saving his fellow victims than himself.
7. Joachim C. Fest, The face of the Third Reich
Unlike my new book, which I conceived as a multiple biography wrapped in a continuous narrative, Fest's masterpiece is a series of separate essays on leading personalities. Each is a psychological study of an individual, linked to an examination of the relevant aspect of National Socialism and the Nazi regime, all presented with intellectual rigour and considerable insight. A seminal work.
8. Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust
The literature on the Nazi persecution of the Jews and the so-called Final Solution is almost as vast as that on Nazism and the Third Reich. Trying to encompass the Holocaust in a single book would therefore seem to be a hopeless task, but Gilbert comes as close as is humanly possible with this deeply compassionate book, never letting us forget that though a million deaths may be a statistic, each one is a tragedy.
9. Norman Rich, Hitler's war aims
In this impressively comprehensive two-volume study, Rich manages to cover just about every aspect of Hitler's ambitions and achievements outside Germany, dealing with the ideology, the methods and the results of the great drive for Lebensraum beyond the old Reich.
10. Karl Dietrich Bracher, The German dictatorship
On its first publication in 1969, Bracher's book was described as 'the first, correct, full and comprehensive account of the origins, the structure and the machinery of the Nazi dictatorship'. Since then, it has been often emulated but never bettered. For anyone seeking to understand the roots and causes of the Nazi phenomenon, it is essential, and sobering, reading.
Guardian, 2003-11-17.
Anthony Read's latest book is The devil's disciples: the lives and times of Hitler's inner circle.
1. William L. Shirer, The rise and fall of the Third Reich
For me, this is the grandaddy of them all, the standard work by which all others on the subject are still measured. A brilliant and respected journalist, Shirer was actually there for much of the time and it shows. Erudite, comprehensive and detailed, always lively and readable, it is the model of what a popular narrative history should be. My own copy has been read and referred to so often it is falling apart.
2. Alan Bullock, Hitler: a study in tyranny
Another essential benchmark in the study of Hitler and the Third Reich. First published a mere seven years after Hitler's death, it remains as definitive now as it was then, as Bullock himself proved 40 years later when he incorporated much of it into his equally magisterial Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives.
3. Ian Kershaw, Hitler (2 vols)
With the benefit of a further half-century of international scholarship and research since Bullock and the other early biographers, Kershaw - despite describing himself as an 'anti-biographer' - has produced what may well be the ultimate version of Hitler's life and of the unique circumstances that made him possible. A masterful achievement.
4. Christabel Bielenberg, The past is myself
In contrast to the works of professional historians, personal diaries and memoirs putting a human face on the story of the Third Reich are essential to an understanding of life under Nazi rule. Among those on my shelves by anti-Nazis are Berlin underground by Ruth Andreas-Friedrich, The Berlin diaries of Marie 'Missie' Vassiltchikov, Schlage die Trommel... by my old friend Maria Gräfin von Maltzan, Ich will leben by Klaus Scheurenberg, and many others. But my favourite is this account by Christabel Bielenberg, who sadly died on November 2, 2003, aged 94. As she wrote in her introduction: 'I am English; I was German, and above all, I was there.'
Touchstone: Ich will leben: Ein autobiographischer Bericht.
5. Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich
This is the other side of the coin, the most readable and least repulsive of the Nazi memoirs. It provides a fascinating glimpse of working with Hitler - but should perhaps be read in conjunction with Gitta Sereny's aptly titled Albert Speer: his battle with truth.
6. Helmuth James von Moltke, Letters to Freya
This is one of the most moving testaments of the resistance to Hitler, a series of letters to his wife by a noble man on trial for his life after the July 20 plot. They reveal the intellectual and emotional honesty of Moltke, the archetypal 'good German', and his incredible bravery as he approached his execution on January 24, 1945, more concerned with saving his fellow victims than himself.
7. Joachim C. Fest, The face of the Third Reich
Unlike my new book, which I conceived as a multiple biography wrapped in a continuous narrative, Fest's masterpiece is a series of separate essays on leading personalities. Each is a psychological study of an individual, linked to an examination of the relevant aspect of National Socialism and the Nazi regime, all presented with intellectual rigour and considerable insight. A seminal work.
8. Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust
The literature on the Nazi persecution of the Jews and the so-called Final Solution is almost as vast as that on Nazism and the Third Reich. Trying to encompass the Holocaust in a single book would therefore seem to be a hopeless task, but Gilbert comes as close as is humanly possible with this deeply compassionate book, never letting us forget that though a million deaths may be a statistic, each one is a tragedy.
9. Norman Rich, Hitler's war aims
In this impressively comprehensive two-volume study, Rich manages to cover just about every aspect of Hitler's ambitions and achievements outside Germany, dealing with the ideology, the methods and the results of the great drive for Lebensraum beyond the old Reich.
10. Karl Dietrich Bracher, The German dictatorship
On its first publication in 1969, Bracher's book was described as 'the first, correct, full and comprehensive account of the origins, the structure and the machinery of the Nazi dictatorship'. Since then, it has been often emulated but never bettered. For anyone seeking to understand the roots and causes of the Nazi phenomenon, it is essential, and sobering, reading.
173Cynfelyn
Ian Mackersey's top 10 books on aviation
Guardian, 2003-11-24.
Ian Mackersey is an aviation biographer. His most recent book, The Wright brothers: the aviation pioneers who changed the world, tells the story of the aeroplane's inventors: eccentric geniuses Wilbur and Orville Wright.
1. V. M. Yeates, Winged victory
One of the great first world war novels, the aviation equivalent of All quiet on the Western Front. Yeates, who died of tuberculosis in 1934 soon after publication, wrote movingly of the horrors of the air war in France, about combat, loneliness, fear, fatigue, comradeship, women, excitement. During the second world war RAF pilots would pay up to £5 a copy to lay their hands on this powerful evocation of the horrors of life in the Royal Flying Corps.
2. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night flight
The book that made the celebrated French aviator famous. 'Saint Ex' was a 1930s airline pilot who flew the north African and south Atlantic mail routes. During his long hours in the cockpit he meditated on solitude, friendship, the meaning of life and liberty. Night flight is one of a string of novels in which he conveyed the unique magic of piloting an aeroplane, in lyrical poetic language that has rarely been equalled.
3. Richard Hillary, The last enemy
The great RAF novel of the second world war. A searing rendering of a young fighter pilot's operational life and terrible suffering in the Battle of Britain, during which he was shot down and his face grotesquely disfigured by burns.
4. Constance Babington Smith, Amy Johnson
Many books have been written about Britain's pioneer woman pilot - the young Yorkshire secretary whose solo flight to Australia in 1930 made her an enduring aviation folk hero. But this splendid biography, published in 1967, remains quite the best of them all.
5. Beryl Markham, West with the night
The vividly told story of a woman who grew up in the heady, promiscuous 'Out of Africa' white society of 1930s colonial east Africa. Markham learnt to fly in Kenya and her later spectacular solo north Atlantic flight provided the title of her book, praised by Ernest Hemingway, but just possibly written by her second husband, American screenwriter Raoul Schumacher. Nonetheless, a terrific read.
6. Alexander Frater, Beyond the blue horizon
Frater's engaging account of how he set out in the 1980s to retread, in modern airliners, the route of 1930s Imperial Airways services from England to Australia, a journey which could take 12 days to complete. A wonderfully told story skilfully cross-cutting between the two eras.
7. Nevil Shute, No highway
One of Shute's best suspense novels. The story of a British aeronautical structural engineer who tries to convince the flight crew of a transatlantic airliner that its tail is in imminent danger of falling off. The story eerily foretold the structural failures that two 1950s BOAC Comets were subsequently to suffer.
8. Antony Woodward, Propellerhead
How a successful London advertising copywriter set out to snag a girlfriend - by learning to fly a microlight in a bid for glamour. How Woodward became a dangerously incompetent pilot, terrifying the women he persuaded to join him in the air, is rivetingly and self-deprecatingly described in this seriously page-turning 1990s memoir. A definite must for every pilot.
9. J. Laurence Pritchard, Sir George Cayley
A comprehensive biography of the little-known Yorkshire baronet who invented the modern fixed-wing aeroplane over a century before the Wright brothers (in 1799, to be precise). Later, in 1853, unknown to most of the world, Cayley successfully launched his coachman on a glider flight across a Yorkshire valley - a feat colourfully re-enacted by Sir Richard Branson in 2003.
10. Sir Gordon Taylor, The sky beyond
Taylor was a brilliant 1930s Australian aerial navigator who accurately steered his country's great aviation hero, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, across the width of the Pacific with the aid of a sextant and a crude drift sight. His account of the perilous 1934 oceanic flight approaches at times the beauty and narrative power of Saint-Exupéry's writing.
------
7. Nevil Shute. One of my dad's favourite authors. The first part of his working life in the 1950s and 1960s as an airframe engineer in the RAF and Rolls-Royce made him liking Nevil Shute pretty much inevitable. I read Shute's A town like Alice for GCE English literature O-level in the 1970s, a time before school reading lists woke up to the fact that Empire was over. Other books, poems etc. we did included Shane, The gun, Sohrab and Rustum and - playing the part of the compulsory Shakespeare play - Richard the Third. Good enough fare for a boys' school, books to get boys to man up, but surely the JMB wasn't feeding the same stuff to girls' and mixed schools?
I digress. Is Nevil Shute still a popular read? I could imagine he's mostly remembered now, if at all, for the original story for the film On the beach. Talking of which, the few members' reviews suggest that On the beach (2000 film) is better than the original film, On the beach (1959 film); something that almost never happens with remakes. Yes, I'm looking at you, The Italian job, Titanic, St Trinian's.
Guardian, 2003-11-24.
Ian Mackersey is an aviation biographer. His most recent book, The Wright brothers: the aviation pioneers who changed the world, tells the story of the aeroplane's inventors: eccentric geniuses Wilbur and Orville Wright.
1. V. M. Yeates, Winged victory
One of the great first world war novels, the aviation equivalent of All quiet on the Western Front. Yeates, who died of tuberculosis in 1934 soon after publication, wrote movingly of the horrors of the air war in France, about combat, loneliness, fear, fatigue, comradeship, women, excitement. During the second world war RAF pilots would pay up to £5 a copy to lay their hands on this powerful evocation of the horrors of life in the Royal Flying Corps.
2. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night flight
The book that made the celebrated French aviator famous. 'Saint Ex' was a 1930s airline pilot who flew the north African and south Atlantic mail routes. During his long hours in the cockpit he meditated on solitude, friendship, the meaning of life and liberty. Night flight is one of a string of novels in which he conveyed the unique magic of piloting an aeroplane, in lyrical poetic language that has rarely been equalled.
3. Richard Hillary, The last enemy
The great RAF novel of the second world war. A searing rendering of a young fighter pilot's operational life and terrible suffering in the Battle of Britain, during which he was shot down and his face grotesquely disfigured by burns.
4. Constance Babington Smith, Amy Johnson
Many books have been written about Britain's pioneer woman pilot - the young Yorkshire secretary whose solo flight to Australia in 1930 made her an enduring aviation folk hero. But this splendid biography, published in 1967, remains quite the best of them all.
5. Beryl Markham, West with the night
The vividly told story of a woman who grew up in the heady, promiscuous 'Out of Africa' white society of 1930s colonial east Africa. Markham learnt to fly in Kenya and her later spectacular solo north Atlantic flight provided the title of her book, praised by Ernest Hemingway, but just possibly written by her second husband, American screenwriter Raoul Schumacher. Nonetheless, a terrific read.
6. Alexander Frater, Beyond the blue horizon
Frater's engaging account of how he set out in the 1980s to retread, in modern airliners, the route of 1930s Imperial Airways services from England to Australia, a journey which could take 12 days to complete. A wonderfully told story skilfully cross-cutting between the two eras.
7. Nevil Shute, No highway
One of Shute's best suspense novels. The story of a British aeronautical structural engineer who tries to convince the flight crew of a transatlantic airliner that its tail is in imminent danger of falling off. The story eerily foretold the structural failures that two 1950s BOAC Comets were subsequently to suffer.
8. Antony Woodward, Propellerhead
How a successful London advertising copywriter set out to snag a girlfriend - by learning to fly a microlight in a bid for glamour. How Woodward became a dangerously incompetent pilot, terrifying the women he persuaded to join him in the air, is rivetingly and self-deprecatingly described in this seriously page-turning 1990s memoir. A definite must for every pilot.
9. J. Laurence Pritchard, Sir George Cayley
A comprehensive biography of the little-known Yorkshire baronet who invented the modern fixed-wing aeroplane over a century before the Wright brothers (in 1799, to be precise). Later, in 1853, unknown to most of the world, Cayley successfully launched his coachman on a glider flight across a Yorkshire valley - a feat colourfully re-enacted by Sir Richard Branson in 2003.
10. Sir Gordon Taylor, The sky beyond
Taylor was a brilliant 1930s Australian aerial navigator who accurately steered his country's great aviation hero, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, across the width of the Pacific with the aid of a sextant and a crude drift sight. His account of the perilous 1934 oceanic flight approaches at times the beauty and narrative power of Saint-Exupéry's writing.
------
7. Nevil Shute. One of my dad's favourite authors. The first part of his working life in the 1950s and 1960s as an airframe engineer in the RAF and Rolls-Royce made him liking Nevil Shute pretty much inevitable. I read Shute's A town like Alice for GCE English literature O-level in the 1970s, a time before school reading lists woke up to the fact that Empire was over. Other books, poems etc. we did included Shane, The gun, Sohrab and Rustum and - playing the part of the compulsory Shakespeare play - Richard the Third. Good enough fare for a boys' school, books to get boys to man up, but surely the JMB wasn't feeding the same stuff to girls' and mixed schools?
I digress. Is Nevil Shute still a popular read? I could imagine he's mostly remembered now, if at all, for the original story for the film On the beach. Talking of which, the few members' reviews suggest that On the beach (2000 film) is better than the original film, On the beach (1959 film); something that almost never happens with remakes. Yes, I'm looking at you, The Italian job, Titanic, St Trinian's.
174thorold
>173 Cynfelyn: Shute’s an odd case: I think he falls a little bit awkwardly between categories. Not quite literary fiction, not quite straightforward thrillers. He kept trying to push the barriers of the genre, and it usually didn’t quite work: A town like Alice was one of the few where he got the mixture right. Round the bend and The chequer board are among the ones where he didn’t.
I’m quite fond of Trustee from the toolroom, because of the way it picks the most unlikely possible field for finding a main character in a thriller (model engineering!), but I don’t think it quite comes off either.
I’m pretty sure the JMB offered at least two different O-level Eng lit syllabuses, and there were various choices on each of those. Your teachers — if they were anything like ours — wouldn’t have told you about the decisions they were making for you, since they were most likely based on what was in the English department stock cupboard and whether there was any budget for new books that year. We did Far from the madding crowd, Death of a salesman (50s America turned out to be less intelligible for us than Shakespeare) and a poetry anthology with a lot of nice late-19th/early-20th century stuff. Maybe there were some short stories as well?
I’m quite fond of Trustee from the toolroom, because of the way it picks the most unlikely possible field for finding a main character in a thriller (model engineering!), but I don’t think it quite comes off either.
I’m pretty sure the JMB offered at least two different O-level Eng lit syllabuses, and there were various choices on each of those. Your teachers — if they were anything like ours — wouldn’t have told you about the decisions they were making for you, since they were most likely based on what was in the English department stock cupboard and whether there was any budget for new books that year. We did Far from the madding crowd, Death of a salesman (50s America turned out to be less intelligible for us than Shakespeare) and a poetry anthology with a lot of nice late-19th/early-20th century stuff. Maybe there were some short stories as well?
175Cynfelyn
Alexander McCall Smith's top 10 favourite humorous books
Guardian, 2003-12-03.
Alexander McCall Smith is a professor of medical ethics at Edinburgh university and the author of more than 50 books. He is best known for his series about a female Botswanan detective, The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency. His latest work is a collection of short stories, Portuguese irregular verbs.
1. E. F. Benson, Mapp and Lucia
All of Benson's Mapp and Lucia books deserve to be on this list; this is glorious comic writing, made all the funnier by the fact that the jokes are repeated many times. And one might always join the Tilling Society, which is composed of admirers of these books.
2. Tom Holt, Lucia in wartime
It may be cheating to add this, but Tom Holt deserves the very greatest praise for writing two quite brilliant Benson books with the blessing of the Benson Estate. A remarkable achievement.
3. Muriel Spark, The prime of Miss Jean Brodie
This is the classic Edinburgh novel. Miss Brodie teaches at an Edinburgh girls' school. She admires Mussolini and has a marvellous turn of phrase, especially when describing the gaseous domains of chemistry teachers. The humour here is dry as a dog biscuit, which suits Edinburgh very well.
4. Daisy Ashford, The young visiters (sic)
Mr Salteena, "an elderly man of 42", enjoys inviting young girls to stay with him. So we are told at the beginning of this extraordinary tale.
5. Evelyn Waugh, Decline and fall
Waugh's humour is biting. One might feel a bit sad reading him today, because we know the world of his characters is doomed and will be replaced by a new form of nastiness.
6. Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim
Academia is a very obvious target for the humorist. The modern academic comedy owes a great debt to Lucky Jim, which is still a very amusing book. Jim's misfortune with the counterpane is a warning to all house guests.
7. R. K. Narayan, The English teacher
R. K. Narayan's 'Malgudi' novels are humorous gems and it is a great pity that they are not better known. He wrote beautifully and with great compassion, something regrettably lacking in some humorous writing.
8. Michael von Poser, Die Gefangennahme eines Postboten ('The capture of a postman')
Michael von Poser is a contemporary German writer whose work reaches only a very small audience. This is a great pity, because it is achingly funny. This virtually unobtainable collection of stories includes the tale of a postman who is kidnapped by a small village which wishes to attract Rome's attention. As a result of the indifference of the German public to his work, von Poser now devotes himself to translating Chinese poetry into German and writing humorous essays on subjects such as hatmaking and the art of leaving the house.
9. Sigmund Freud, The analysis of a phobia in a five-year-old boy
The psychoanalytical movement has unintentionally produced the most remarkably funny works. This story of Little Hans who fears that he will be bitten by dray horses is unconsciously humorous. Most Freudians do not find this sort of thing at all funny, consciously or otherwise.
10. Malcolm Bradbury, The history man
This novel deserves to survive because it captures, so beautifully and so wittily, a form of posturing which afflicted our intellectual and cultural life for many decades and which is still alive and well in some quarters. Perhaps somebody should now write The art man.
------
1.
I think this is the first time one of these lists has mentioned a literary society. Unfortunately the Tilling Society has since died, having been active 1982-2006. Its papers are in the Bodleian Library archive. See http://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/archivesandmanuscripts/tag/tilling-society/
Fans of E. F. Benson are still served by the E. F. Benson Society, https://www.efbensonsociety.org, and the Friends of Tilling, https://www.friendsoftilling.com/
The Alliance of Literary Societies (ALS), https://allianceofliterarysocieties.wordpress.com/, is an umbrella group with links to the websites of over 100 mainly UK literary societies. Some of your favourite authors are probably represented. Well worth a browse.
7.
Although 'malgudi' is used as a tag, there isn't a Malgudi series, if they are a series. Just saying.
Guardian, 2003-12-03.
Alexander McCall Smith is a professor of medical ethics at Edinburgh university and the author of more than 50 books. He is best known for his series about a female Botswanan detective, The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency. His latest work is a collection of short stories, Portuguese irregular verbs.
1. E. F. Benson, Mapp and Lucia
All of Benson's Mapp and Lucia books deserve to be on this list; this is glorious comic writing, made all the funnier by the fact that the jokes are repeated many times. And one might always join the Tilling Society, which is composed of admirers of these books.
2. Tom Holt, Lucia in wartime
It may be cheating to add this, but Tom Holt deserves the very greatest praise for writing two quite brilliant Benson books with the blessing of the Benson Estate. A remarkable achievement.
3. Muriel Spark, The prime of Miss Jean Brodie
This is the classic Edinburgh novel. Miss Brodie teaches at an Edinburgh girls' school. She admires Mussolini and has a marvellous turn of phrase, especially when describing the gaseous domains of chemistry teachers. The humour here is dry as a dog biscuit, which suits Edinburgh very well.
4. Daisy Ashford, The young visiters (sic)
Mr Salteena, "an elderly man of 42", enjoys inviting young girls to stay with him. So we are told at the beginning of this extraordinary tale.
5. Evelyn Waugh, Decline and fall
Waugh's humour is biting. One might feel a bit sad reading him today, because we know the world of his characters is doomed and will be replaced by a new form of nastiness.
6. Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim
Academia is a very obvious target for the humorist. The modern academic comedy owes a great debt to Lucky Jim, which is still a very amusing book. Jim's misfortune with the counterpane is a warning to all house guests.
7. R. K. Narayan, The English teacher
R. K. Narayan's 'Malgudi' novels are humorous gems and it is a great pity that they are not better known. He wrote beautifully and with great compassion, something regrettably lacking in some humorous writing.
8. Michael von Poser, Die Gefangennahme eines Postboten ('The capture of a postman')
Michael von Poser is a contemporary German writer whose work reaches only a very small audience. This is a great pity, because it is achingly funny. This virtually unobtainable collection of stories includes the tale of a postman who is kidnapped by a small village which wishes to attract Rome's attention. As a result of the indifference of the German public to his work, von Poser now devotes himself to translating Chinese poetry into German and writing humorous essays on subjects such as hatmaking and the art of leaving the house.
9. Sigmund Freud, The analysis of a phobia in a five-year-old boy
The psychoanalytical movement has unintentionally produced the most remarkably funny works. This story of Little Hans who fears that he will be bitten by dray horses is unconsciously humorous. Most Freudians do not find this sort of thing at all funny, consciously or otherwise.
10. Malcolm Bradbury, The history man
This novel deserves to survive because it captures, so beautifully and so wittily, a form of posturing which afflicted our intellectual and cultural life for many decades and which is still alive and well in some quarters. Perhaps somebody should now write The art man.
------
1.
I think this is the first time one of these lists has mentioned a literary society. Unfortunately the Tilling Society has since died, having been active 1982-2006. Its papers are in the Bodleian Library archive. See http://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/archivesandmanuscripts/tag/tilling-society/
Fans of E. F. Benson are still served by the E. F. Benson Society, https://www.efbensonsociety.org, and the Friends of Tilling, https://www.friendsoftilling.com/
The Alliance of Literary Societies (ALS), https://allianceofliterarysocieties.wordpress.com/, is an umbrella group with links to the websites of over 100 mainly UK literary societies. Some of your favourite authors are probably represented. Well worth a browse.
7.
Although 'malgudi' is used as a tag, there isn't a Malgudi series, if they are a series. Just saying.
176Cynfelyn
Gwyneth Jones's top 10 science fiction by women writers
Guardian, 2003-12-08.
Gwyneth Jones won the Arthur C Clarke award in 2002 for Bold as love, the first book in a near-future rock'n'roll retelling of the Arthurian myth. The third instalment in the series, Midnight lamp, is published by Gollancz.
1. Ursula K. Le Guin, The left hand of darkness
This famous novel about sex and society is a politically sophisticated adventure story, in which the non-gendered Gethenians (who may take on either sex in their fertile period) are as morally complex and recalcitrantly various as the nations of the earth. What sticks in my mind, aside from the sheer beauty of this book, is the winter journey across the Gobrin Ice at the heart of it, and the elegy for an impossible friendship between Genly Ai, the human male, and Estraven, whose sexual nature Ai cannot accept.
2. Kate Wilhelm, Where late the sweet birds sang
A bleak fairytale account of human cloning which has since been overtaken by science and coloured by the disappointment and alienation of the post-radical 70s. It will seem dated in terms of social mores but nothing else has changed. This is still a chilling, gripping and heartbreaking landmark science fiction novel, one of the greatest of its time, about the death of the living world: an SF writer's response to Rachel Carson's Silent spring.
3. James Tiptree Jr, Up the walls of the world
James Tiptree Jr (Alice Sheldon in real life) was famous, or notorious, for very smart, harsh, and daring psychosexual stories (Love is the Plan, the Plan is Death; And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hillside) that were hailed as 'ineluctably masculine' before she was unmasked. You can find some of them in the collection Warm worlds and otherwise. Up the walls of the world is in a far different mode: this is joyous and positively starry-eyed SF, with great characters and my kind of SF outlaws handling the ethics, instead of the smug might-is-righters. In the Tyree fliers, it features the most convincing non-humanoid aliens I've ever met.
4. Joanna Russ, The female man
I must have walked past this book about 20 times before I bought it. What was she talking about? I didn't want to be a man! The futuristic dominatrix on the original cover, with her naked toyboy crouching on a leash, didn't impress me much, either. Eventually, I was sufficiently bothered to hand over my cash. It was a revelation. ,i>The female man,/i> is experimental, clever, funny, violent and startlingly prophetic. Also a great source of ideas for techno-green utopia.
5. C. J. Cherryh, Cyteen
C. J. Cherryh is one of the major space opera authors, always impressive for the realism of her great ships, the fiendish complexity of the intrigue on board and planetside, and for her bizarre, changed human characters of the future. Cyteen is the magnum opus of a series about a clash of empires, both human in origin, differing in their methods but identical in their lust for control. It's about domination and slavery, the monsters power makes and the twisted lives of the children born to perpetuate the dynasties. A dark mirror for the cold war era and a horrific science fiction boardroom drama, it will suck you in.
6. Sheri Tepper, Grass
Sheri Tepper's novels are a big hit with the punters but can be alarmingly didactic: this one's different. Grass is set on a stunning pampas world, not a million miles from the oceanic vastness of the Great Plains where Tepper was raised. It's about a diplomat, horse-lover, passionate human being whose engagement with the alien uncovers horror and takes over her life. The examination of the callous, destructive and aggressive culture of human colonial expansion points the moral, but the centre of this book lies in the character of Marjorie Westriding and her encounter with the sublime. Fabulously enjoyable.
7. Pat Cadigan, Synners
The queen of cyberpunk takes on the west coast entertainment industry in a prescient investigation of the unholy marriage between digital technology and the profit motive. What if we can grab consumers directly by going straight to a centre in their brains? A ragged band of music video-makers, hackers, slackers and tattoo artists must race against time to save humanity (well, the USA - the rest of us are relegated to a paragraph) from an awesome virus which has 'corrupted' - irony fully intentional - this brilliant scheme. Some techno-SF dates quickly; Synners seems newer and hotter now than in 1991.
8. Karen Joy Fowler, Sarah Canary
A white woman, seemingly deformed and mute except for her strange 'singing', wanders into a Chinese railway workers' camp in Washington Territory, 1873. A young man called Chin-Ah-Kin gets the job of returning her to her own community - and so begins a mystical journey, by turns brutal, weird and lyric. True-life news snippets between the chapters reveal that the real north-west of 1873 was every bit as surreal as the events of the story. Profound, disturbing and mysterious, this is a novel about the first encounter with an alien intelligence that goes far beyond genre.
9. Kathleen Ann Goonan, Light music
In some ways, Light music is a post-catastrophe novel, where an ensemble of characters discovers how shockingly the world has been changed by a bizarre cosmic plague. But more than that, it's a tour of the consequences of Lynn Margulis's radical thinking on evolution. This is how we could see ourselves if we weren't Darwin's slaves: every self a community, every human being a symbiote city, a node in the richly permeable network of life on Earth. But there's also a vision of a perfectly possible and daunting future. What happens when our organic, wireless, data/DNA information networks are so pervasive, so interpenetrative with the solid world, that we're just part of the software?
10. Justina Robson, Natural history
There was a time, not so long ago, when I was about the only British woman novelist active in science fiction. In spite of Mary Shelley we're extremely rare birds, and always have been. But it's not for want of talent. Look out for Molly Brown, Liz Williams, Stephanie Swainston (and excuse me for any names I've missed). Justina Robson is almost a veteran now with two nominations for the Arthur C Clarke award, for her near-future Silver screen and Mappa mundi. Her latest novel is a departure into deep space and esoteric hard science, leavened by acerbic humour and leftwing politics. It's one of the big UK SF books of the year, and an optimistic conclusion for my top 10.
Guardian, 2003-12-08.
Gwyneth Jones won the Arthur C Clarke award in 2002 for Bold as love, the first book in a near-future rock'n'roll retelling of the Arthurian myth. The third instalment in the series, Midnight lamp, is published by Gollancz.
1. Ursula K. Le Guin, The left hand of darkness
This famous novel about sex and society is a politically sophisticated adventure story, in which the non-gendered Gethenians (who may take on either sex in their fertile period) are as morally complex and recalcitrantly various as the nations of the earth. What sticks in my mind, aside from the sheer beauty of this book, is the winter journey across the Gobrin Ice at the heart of it, and the elegy for an impossible friendship between Genly Ai, the human male, and Estraven, whose sexual nature Ai cannot accept.
2. Kate Wilhelm, Where late the sweet birds sang
A bleak fairytale account of human cloning which has since been overtaken by science and coloured by the disappointment and alienation of the post-radical 70s. It will seem dated in terms of social mores but nothing else has changed. This is still a chilling, gripping and heartbreaking landmark science fiction novel, one of the greatest of its time, about the death of the living world: an SF writer's response to Rachel Carson's Silent spring.
3. James Tiptree Jr, Up the walls of the world
James Tiptree Jr (Alice Sheldon in real life) was famous, or notorious, for very smart, harsh, and daring psychosexual stories (Love is the Plan, the Plan is Death; And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hillside) that were hailed as 'ineluctably masculine' before she was unmasked. You can find some of them in the collection Warm worlds and otherwise. Up the walls of the world is in a far different mode: this is joyous and positively starry-eyed SF, with great characters and my kind of SF outlaws handling the ethics, instead of the smug might-is-righters. In the Tyree fliers, it features the most convincing non-humanoid aliens I've ever met.
4. Joanna Russ, The female man
I must have walked past this book about 20 times before I bought it. What was she talking about? I didn't want to be a man! The futuristic dominatrix on the original cover, with her naked toyboy crouching on a leash, didn't impress me much, either. Eventually, I was sufficiently bothered to hand over my cash. It was a revelation. ,i>The female man,/i> is experimental, clever, funny, violent and startlingly prophetic. Also a great source of ideas for techno-green utopia.
5. C. J. Cherryh, Cyteen
C. J. Cherryh is one of the major space opera authors, always impressive for the realism of her great ships, the fiendish complexity of the intrigue on board and planetside, and for her bizarre, changed human characters of the future. Cyteen is the magnum opus of a series about a clash of empires, both human in origin, differing in their methods but identical in their lust for control. It's about domination and slavery, the monsters power makes and the twisted lives of the children born to perpetuate the dynasties. A dark mirror for the cold war era and a horrific science fiction boardroom drama, it will suck you in.
6. Sheri Tepper, Grass
Sheri Tepper's novels are a big hit with the punters but can be alarmingly didactic: this one's different. Grass is set on a stunning pampas world, not a million miles from the oceanic vastness of the Great Plains where Tepper was raised. It's about a diplomat, horse-lover, passionate human being whose engagement with the alien uncovers horror and takes over her life. The examination of the callous, destructive and aggressive culture of human colonial expansion points the moral, but the centre of this book lies in the character of Marjorie Westriding and her encounter with the sublime. Fabulously enjoyable.
7. Pat Cadigan, Synners
The queen of cyberpunk takes on the west coast entertainment industry in a prescient investigation of the unholy marriage between digital technology and the profit motive. What if we can grab consumers directly by going straight to a centre in their brains? A ragged band of music video-makers, hackers, slackers and tattoo artists must race against time to save humanity (well, the USA - the rest of us are relegated to a paragraph) from an awesome virus which has 'corrupted' - irony fully intentional - this brilliant scheme. Some techno-SF dates quickly; Synners seems newer and hotter now than in 1991.
8. Karen Joy Fowler, Sarah Canary
A white woman, seemingly deformed and mute except for her strange 'singing', wanders into a Chinese railway workers' camp in Washington Territory, 1873. A young man called Chin-Ah-Kin gets the job of returning her to her own community - and so begins a mystical journey, by turns brutal, weird and lyric. True-life news snippets between the chapters reveal that the real north-west of 1873 was every bit as surreal as the events of the story. Profound, disturbing and mysterious, this is a novel about the first encounter with an alien intelligence that goes far beyond genre.
9. Kathleen Ann Goonan, Light music
In some ways, Light music is a post-catastrophe novel, where an ensemble of characters discovers how shockingly the world has been changed by a bizarre cosmic plague. But more than that, it's a tour of the consequences of Lynn Margulis's radical thinking on evolution. This is how we could see ourselves if we weren't Darwin's slaves: every self a community, every human being a symbiote city, a node in the richly permeable network of life on Earth. But there's also a vision of a perfectly possible and daunting future. What happens when our organic, wireless, data/DNA information networks are so pervasive, so interpenetrative with the solid world, that we're just part of the software?
10. Justina Robson, Natural history
There was a time, not so long ago, when I was about the only British woman novelist active in science fiction. In spite of Mary Shelley we're extremely rare birds, and always have been. But it's not for want of talent. Look out for Molly Brown, Liz Williams, Stephanie Swainston (and excuse me for any names I've missed). Justina Robson is almost a veteran now with two nominations for the Arthur C Clarke award, for her near-future Silver screen and Mappa mundi. Her latest novel is a departure into deep space and esoteric hard science, leavened by acerbic humour and leftwing politics. It's one of the big UK SF books of the year, and an optimistic conclusion for my top 10.
177Cynfelyn
Lynne Truss's top 10 books for wordsmiths
Guardian, 2003-12-22.
Author and broadcaster Lynne Truss's Eats, shoots & leaves: the zero tolerance approach to punctuation is this year's surprise Christmas bestseller. Her three novels, With one lousy free packet of seed, Tennyson's gift and Going loco, along with a collection of columns, Making the cat laugh, will all be reissued by Profile next summer.
1. B. A. Phythian (comp.), A concise dictionary of English idioms
Dictionaries of idioms are invaluable to people who love English, because they remind us how figurative our everyday language is. Definitions may seem redundant ("arm of the law - criminal law, personified by the police"), but open this book at any page and just revel in the imagery: not see the wood for the trees, run to seed, send packing, take leave of one's senses, separate the sheep from the goats, whited sepulchre, serve him right.
2. R. M. Ritter, The Oxford guide to style
This is the successor to the classic Hart's rules for compositors and readers, and the Bible of those who toil in print. Those who want to know the difference between "galley proof", "page proof", "clean proof", "author's proof", "marked proof", "first proof", "collated proof", "revised proof", "scatter proof" and "final proof" can confidently refer to its pages. This book deals with everything from the nitty gritty of the words on the page to the responsibility of the publisher in a case of "negligent misstatement". In its latest incarnation, it is quite beautifully produced and - at over 600 pages - an absolute steal at £17.99.
3. R. W. Burchfield, The new Fowler's modern English usage
To consult Fowler is to consult the oracle. Those of us who get worked up about English ("But I don't understand the double possessive!") can turn to Fowler: he smoothes one's fevered brow. Looking up "enormity, enormousness", for example, I find two columns of closely printed reasoning, and the useful conclusion: "It is recommended that for the present 'enormity' should not be used in plain contexts where the physical size of an object is the only feature involved: in other words, one should eschew the type 'the enormity of the pyramids'. It is more difficult to find fault with 'enormity' used of the size or immensity or overwhelmingness of abstract concepts, especially when any element of departure from a legal, moral or social norm is present or is implied." I can't tell you what a relief that is.
4. Kingsley Amis, The King's English: a guide to modern usage
Cantankerous but very enjoyable rulings on the state of the language. Personally, I wish Amis had not included the breathtakingly misogynist section on "womanese" (evidently women "are always getting set phrases wrong"). But there is much joy to be had elsewhere in the book. Where would we be without Amis's brilliantly abusive classification system of "berks and wankers"? (Berks being those who care less than us about the fate of the language; wankers being those who care more.)
5. Elizabeth Knowles (ed.), The Oxford dictionary of phrase, saying, & quotation
First: note the very prominent "Oxford comma" in the title of this book. What a big fat one, eh? To be honest, I haven't referred to this book as much as I thought I would, but it's an interesting concept for a reference book: to put together quotations with proverbs and phrases. Thus, under "meaning", there are quotations from Milton and so on ("Where more is meant than meets the ear"), then proverbs ("Every picture tells a story") and finally phrases ("all my eye and Betty Martin").
6. Eugene Ehrlich (ed.), Le mot juste: the Penguin dictionary of foreign terms and phrases
Very comprehensive listing of foreign words and phrases. I am always shocked if there's something it doesn't include. Although I have never searched for a phrase for "When they are silent, they cry loudest", it is good to know of the existence of the Latin "Cum tacent, clamant", which really does say it better, somehow.
7. William Strunk Jr & E. B. White, The elements of style
The classic American style guide, with its emphasis on "cleanliness, accuracy and brevity" and teaches "Omit needless words!" Marvellously out of touch with modern usage, it won't allow "contact" as a verb. The entry for "clever" reads: "Note that the word means one thing when applied to people, another when applied to horses. A clever horse is a good-natured one, not an ingenious one." Well, I didn't know that.
8. Keith Waterhouse, English our English (and how to sing it)
Another classic, full of good practical guidance on the elements of writing, from a great wordsmith. Very good on wandering participles, such as: "Being in need of a paint job, I got £200 knocked off the list price". Also very sound on punctuation. The book's conclusion is a typical piece of Waterhousean wisdom: "If, after all this advice, a sentence still reads awkwardly, then what you have there is an awkward sentence. Demolish it and start again."
9. Bill Bryson, Mother tongue: the English language
This is a book packed with love, but sometimes rather frighteningly erudite. For example, Bryson can't explain the principles of rhyming slang (china plate=mate; loaf of bread=head) without mentioning that when the rhyme comes from a part of the phrase that has been dropped (titfer=hat; tom=jewellery) this is technically known as "hemiteleia".
10. Oxford dictionary of English (2nd ed.)
The latest one-volume OED has no entry for "hemiteleia". Damn. Can't check up on Bryson, then. However, it is a splendid and beautiful dictionary, with helpful little boxes to explain thorny issues of usage. Looking up "enormity" (I know, I'm obsessed), I find a very tolerant attitude towards such phrases as "the enormity of French hypermarkets" which, I must admit, sends me back to Fowler for comfort.
------
Lynne Truss's Eats, shoots & leaves is one of the very few books I've ever bought based on the media hype when it was released. A jolly little stocking-filler.
4.
Well, now we'll see how broadminded any LT Talk list of stop-words is.
Guardian, 2003-12-22.
Author and broadcaster Lynne Truss's Eats, shoots & leaves: the zero tolerance approach to punctuation is this year's surprise Christmas bestseller. Her three novels, With one lousy free packet of seed, Tennyson's gift and Going loco, along with a collection of columns, Making the cat laugh, will all be reissued by Profile next summer.
1. B. A. Phythian (comp.), A concise dictionary of English idioms
Dictionaries of idioms are invaluable to people who love English, because they remind us how figurative our everyday language is. Definitions may seem redundant ("arm of the law - criminal law, personified by the police"), but open this book at any page and just revel in the imagery: not see the wood for the trees, run to seed, send packing, take leave of one's senses, separate the sheep from the goats, whited sepulchre, serve him right.
2. R. M. Ritter, The Oxford guide to style
This is the successor to the classic Hart's rules for compositors and readers, and the Bible of those who toil in print. Those who want to know the difference between "galley proof", "page proof", "clean proof", "author's proof", "marked proof", "first proof", "collated proof", "revised proof", "scatter proof" and "final proof" can confidently refer to its pages. This book deals with everything from the nitty gritty of the words on the page to the responsibility of the publisher in a case of "negligent misstatement". In its latest incarnation, it is quite beautifully produced and - at over 600 pages - an absolute steal at £17.99.
3. R. W. Burchfield, The new Fowler's modern English usage
To consult Fowler is to consult the oracle. Those of us who get worked up about English ("But I don't understand the double possessive!") can turn to Fowler: he smoothes one's fevered brow. Looking up "enormity, enormousness", for example, I find two columns of closely printed reasoning, and the useful conclusion: "It is recommended that for the present 'enormity' should not be used in plain contexts where the physical size of an object is the only feature involved: in other words, one should eschew the type 'the enormity of the pyramids'. It is more difficult to find fault with 'enormity' used of the size or immensity or overwhelmingness of abstract concepts, especially when any element of departure from a legal, moral or social norm is present or is implied." I can't tell you what a relief that is.
4. Kingsley Amis, The King's English: a guide to modern usage
Cantankerous but very enjoyable rulings on the state of the language. Personally, I wish Amis had not included the breathtakingly misogynist section on "womanese" (evidently women "are always getting set phrases wrong"). But there is much joy to be had elsewhere in the book. Where would we be without Amis's brilliantly abusive classification system of "berks and wankers"? (Berks being those who care less than us about the fate of the language; wankers being those who care more.)
5. Elizabeth Knowles (ed.), The Oxford dictionary of phrase, saying, & quotation
First: note the very prominent "Oxford comma" in the title of this book. What a big fat one, eh? To be honest, I haven't referred to this book as much as I thought I would, but it's an interesting concept for a reference book: to put together quotations with proverbs and phrases. Thus, under "meaning", there are quotations from Milton and so on ("Where more is meant than meets the ear"), then proverbs ("Every picture tells a story") and finally phrases ("all my eye and Betty Martin").
6. Eugene Ehrlich (ed.), Le mot juste: the Penguin dictionary of foreign terms and phrases
Very comprehensive listing of foreign words and phrases. I am always shocked if there's something it doesn't include. Although I have never searched for a phrase for "When they are silent, they cry loudest", it is good to know of the existence of the Latin "Cum tacent, clamant", which really does say it better, somehow.
7. William Strunk Jr & E. B. White, The elements of style
The classic American style guide, with its emphasis on "cleanliness, accuracy and brevity" and teaches "Omit needless words!" Marvellously out of touch with modern usage, it won't allow "contact" as a verb. The entry for "clever" reads: "Note that the word means one thing when applied to people, another when applied to horses. A clever horse is a good-natured one, not an ingenious one." Well, I didn't know that.
8. Keith Waterhouse, English our English (and how to sing it)
Another classic, full of good practical guidance on the elements of writing, from a great wordsmith. Very good on wandering participles, such as: "Being in need of a paint job, I got £200 knocked off the list price". Also very sound on punctuation. The book's conclusion is a typical piece of Waterhousean wisdom: "If, after all this advice, a sentence still reads awkwardly, then what you have there is an awkward sentence. Demolish it and start again."
9. Bill Bryson, Mother tongue: the English language
This is a book packed with love, but sometimes rather frighteningly erudite. For example, Bryson can't explain the principles of rhyming slang (china plate=mate; loaf of bread=head) without mentioning that when the rhyme comes from a part of the phrase that has been dropped (titfer=hat; tom=jewellery) this is technically known as "hemiteleia".
10. Oxford dictionary of English (2nd ed.)
The latest one-volume OED has no entry for "hemiteleia". Damn. Can't check up on Bryson, then. However, it is a splendid and beautiful dictionary, with helpful little boxes to explain thorny issues of usage. Looking up "enormity" (I know, I'm obsessed), I find a very tolerant attitude towards such phrases as "the enormity of French hypermarkets" which, I must admit, sends me back to Fowler for comfort.
------
Lynne Truss's Eats, shoots & leaves is one of the very few books I've ever bought based on the media hype when it was released. A jolly little stocking-filler.
4.
Well, now we'll see how broadminded any LT Talk list of stop-words is.
178AnnieMod
>166 Cynfelyn: I grew up reading Svejk together with Branislav Nushich. :) They were an interesting counterpart to the more serious Russians and other authors from the region.
179AnnieMod
>176 Cynfelyn: No Butler? That’s an odd list. And there are a few more I’d put in there. Not that any of the 10 selected are bad but…
180AnnieMod
>177 Cynfelyn: I remember the day when I switched from looking for books about English as a second language usage to just English usage. Not that the first group does not have gems I still may consult but it is a kind of a milestone. :) Interesting list.
181bluepiano
>85 Cynfelyn: Good lord, what a remarkable description of Moby Dick. Yup, old Ahab is a good example of someone who takes a hobby too far, isn't he? Not only that, he's the prime allegorical stand-in for those deadbeat dads who go down to the corner shop to buy cigarettes and never come home.
I advise you to take my word for this. The biography Melville wrote of Ahab has a lot of pages and is pretty boring.
(Many thanks, Cynfelyn. It must have taken up a lot of your time to post these, but heavens they're interesting.)
I advise you to take my word for this. The biography Melville wrote of Ahab has a lot of pages and is pretty boring.
(Many thanks, Cynfelyn. It must have taken up a lot of your time to post these, but heavens they're interesting.)
182Cynfelyn
>178 AnnieMod: The good soldier Svejk is definitely on my Mount TBR. One day.
>179 AnnieMod: By Butler I'm going to guess you mean Octavia E. Butler, but it is no more than a guess. Other than that I'm not in any position to pass an opinion. We've a couple of Ursula K. Le Guin books somewhere in the house that have yet to hit the catalogue, and a copy of Frankenstein that I for one will never read; it's not my cup of tea at all. My taste in SF runs towards the light and fluffy end of the spectrum: Isaac Azimov, Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett sort of thing. I may go back to the Foundation series and on to the Dune series if the new films tempt me.
>180 AnnieMod: I find the whole business of first and second languages really interesting. The UK has no idea how to take advantage of its immigrant language communities. Secondary schools teach a compulsory foreign language up to third form, but it's almost always French or German, and almost never languages you could hear in the local community: Polish, Vietnamese, Bengali, Urdu, Arabic, and I dare say, Bulgarian, to pick just half a dozen. When I worked in London in the late 1980s there was an ILEA report that said there were either (I forget which now) 130-something or 180-something mother tongues spoken at home by children attending Inner London schools. I doubt if the situation has changed much since then. The authorities have never seen this as an asset. Meanwhile the right-wing yobs and media scream "Speak English. You can't be a good Enger-lander if you don't speak English, with a side-order of liking cricket, marmite and cold lager" (most of the smartphone generation can't cope with the caricature warm beer of yesteryear). And so much for "Global Britain". More like "parochial England".
Me, I'll never be better than reasonably fluent in conversational Welsh, my only second language. I'm unlikely to ever get to the point were I'm consulting books on Welsh style and idiom. More's the pity.
>179 AnnieMod: By Butler I'm going to guess you mean Octavia E. Butler, but it is no more than a guess. Other than that I'm not in any position to pass an opinion. We've a couple of Ursula K. Le Guin books somewhere in the house that have yet to hit the catalogue, and a copy of Frankenstein that I for one will never read; it's not my cup of tea at all. My taste in SF runs towards the light and fluffy end of the spectrum: Isaac Azimov, Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett sort of thing. I may go back to the Foundation series and on to the Dune series if the new films tempt me.
>180 AnnieMod: I find the whole business of first and second languages really interesting. The UK has no idea how to take advantage of its immigrant language communities. Secondary schools teach a compulsory foreign language up to third form, but it's almost always French or German, and almost never languages you could hear in the local community: Polish, Vietnamese, Bengali, Urdu, Arabic, and I dare say, Bulgarian, to pick just half a dozen. When I worked in London in the late 1980s there was an ILEA report that said there were either (I forget which now) 130-something or 180-something mother tongues spoken at home by children attending Inner London schools. I doubt if the situation has changed much since then. The authorities have never seen this as an asset. Meanwhile the right-wing yobs and media scream "Speak English. You can't be a good Enger-lander if you don't speak English, with a side-order of liking cricket, marmite and cold lager" (most of the smartphone generation can't cope with the caricature warm beer of yesteryear). And so much for "Global Britain". More like "parochial England".
Me, I'll never be better than reasonably fluent in conversational Welsh, my only second language. I'm unlikely to ever get to the point were I'm consulting books on Welsh style and idiom. More's the pity.
183Cynfelyn
>181 bluepiano: Phil Hogan gives the impression of having been given a brief to come across as a hard-bitten journo, a wanna-be Hemmingway, and decided to have fun with it. Unfortunately his LT author page is just a bare list of his books, with no CK beyond his gender, and there's nothing obvious online. It's probably safe to assume that he's neither of the Phil Hogans with articles on Wikipedia.
(You're welcome. If it stops being fun, I'll stop. They don't take that much time, mostly spent on checking and sometimes doing a little light gardening of the touchstones' targets.)
PS. The YouTube video linked from your profile page is mad. Pure gold. Is that really your location?
(You're welcome. If it stops being fun, I'll stop. They don't take that much time, mostly spent on checking and sometimes doing a little light gardening of the touchstones' targets.)
PS. The YouTube video linked from your profile page is mad. Pure gold. Is that really your location?
184AnnieMod
>182 Cynfelyn: That's the Butler I meant, yes. Not that it did not take me years to get around to her and taste can be subjective of course but it surprises me not to see her on lists like that. As for Asimov and fluffy - well, yes, he does have fluffy I guess :) And as much as I like Terry Pratchett, he is fantasy :)
Read the first Dune if you never read it. While I have a soft spot for the whole extended series, the first novel is a complete work and much better than anything after that IMO. It does not work for everyone though.
The second (and later) language conversation is complicated sometimes. I am not sure how it should work when you are already in a gateway language. I am coming from a small one so the main principle there is to give you gateway language (or 2) - teaching another small one may be useful locally (for Bulgaria, speaking Serbian, Turkish or Greek makes a lot of sense for example; these days in some areas some of them are available as a mother tongue classes but rarely as a second/foreign language ones) but they won't help you see the external world as much as one of the big gateway languages (Russian until a few decades ago, English mainly these days; French and German in days past) do. I suspect that the England's second language program is just still following the same old patterns it always had - the languages of diplomacy and Western European culture.
Read the first Dune if you never read it. While I have a soft spot for the whole extended series, the first novel is a complete work and much better than anything after that IMO. It does not work for everyone though.
The second (and later) language conversation is complicated sometimes. I am not sure how it should work when you are already in a gateway language. I am coming from a small one so the main principle there is to give you gateway language (or 2) - teaching another small one may be useful locally (for Bulgaria, speaking Serbian, Turkish or Greek makes a lot of sense for example; these days in some areas some of them are available as a mother tongue classes but rarely as a second/foreign language ones) but they won't help you see the external world as much as one of the big gateway languages (Russian until a few decades ago, English mainly these days; French and German in days past) do. I suspect that the England's second language program is just still following the same old patterns it always had - the languages of diplomacy and Western European culture.
En/na Guardian top 10 book lists, part 2 (2004 onwards) ha continuat aquest tema.