PROMO VIDEO FOR THE BOOK
with thanks to the Is It Rolling, Bob? podcast interviews with me for most of the chat
I really don't keep this blog any longer, but just in case you visit it in 2021, let me make sure you know about this new book. It's over 350 pages and is a UK hardback compiling a series of essays and articles of mine, some published (everywhere from Rolling Stone to the Weekend Telegraph, from Melody Maker to ISIS and from Sight & Sound to the Japan Times and Canadian Folklore canadien) - plus some never previously published work, including a massive essay on Rough And Rowdy Ways.
If you order direct from the publisher at http://www.route-online.com/all-books/outtakes-on-bob-dylan.html BEFORE THE END OF APRIL 2021 you will receive an individually numbered copy. The book will not be available through bookshops or other online outlets until much later in the year. This is my first book about Bob Dylan since the updated Bob Dylan Encyclopedia 13 years ago!
rather late but here's my list of...
BOOKS READ IN 2018
A
READING DIARY: A Year Of Favourite Books, Alberto Manguel, 2004
many gemlike quotations & a nice restrained chattiness, but he's
often precious, and a bit of a name-dropper.
THE
SECRET LIFE OF COWS, Rosamund Young, 2017 edn Credible &
creditable close long-term observation of cows allowed to live
relatively free lives, yielding much about their quirks, feelings,
behaviour, differences, and levels of trust in the author and her
partners. No word about their responses to being taken for slaughter
by the same people though.
STATION
ELEVEN, Emily St.John Mandel, 2014 A surprising delight: elegaic,
well-written and unusually kindly novel while telling, very
thoughtfully, a tale of dystopian cataclysm; I was sorry to come to
the end of it.
KIM,
Rudyard Kipling, 1901 Strongly written - with British Empire
confidence yet huge respect for, and knowledge of, such variegated
Indian life - and though its long, slow beginning tries the patience
(and no modern child would persevere) it becomes beguiling and
includes too few of the depictions of landscape he does superbly.
RECENT
HISTORY, Anthony Giardina, 2001 Well-written novel in which a
sensitive, observant suburban youth grows up to be a drip.
MURDER,
MAYHEM & MUSIC HALL: The Dark Side of Victorian London, Barry
Anthony, 2015 Thoroughly researched, entertaining account centred
on theatre-world scandals & crime.
DOGS
FROM ALL ANGLES, Nina Scott-Langley & K.R.G.Browne, 1936
Largely hilarious commentaries (sometimes wildly inaccurate, eg re
Bedlington Terriers) & quaint angular drawings.
HALF
AN INCH OF WATER, Percival Everett, 2015 Short stories (a form
I've never liked) in each of which a decent, laconic man living in a
sparse western-state landscape that is described in spare prose
either solves or fails to solve a problem handed to him by someone he
hardly knows.
EUROPE
BY RAIL: The Definitive Guide, Nicky Gardner & Susanne Kries,
2017 Strikingly well-written, thoughtful guidebook not only to
train routes but to countries, cities and landscapes.
THE
ENGLISH PATIENT, Michael Ondaatje, 1992 A major WW2 novel I'd
never read. It's framed with great originality and in prose of
reverberating intensity.
MAGPIE
MURDERS, Anthony Horowitz, 2016 A whodunnit about whodunnits
predictably more concerned to be clever than to be plausible
(postmodernitis). Plus a horribly smug narrator; is this a deliberate
attack on people in publishing, or does he think this woman's ok?:
hard to tell. Tosh.
THE
HOUSE OF MIRTH, Edith Wharton, 1905 In the end a sad story but so
sharply witty in its observations of society I found myself thinking
it made Jane Austen seem myopic.
THE
DEATH OF THE HEART, Elizabeth Bowen, 1938 Penetrating scrutiny
of: a self-suffocating upper middle class 1930s London couple and
their obliviousness to their soon-to-vanish servants; a naive
teenager; lower middle class seaside life; and the wretchedness of a
redundant ex-soldier's poverty & social isolation.
MARCH
VIOLETS, Philip Kerr, 1989 Serviceable detective novel set in
Nazi Germany; hopeless about women characters (and this is not
defensible on period-attitude grounds because he uses a noticeably
more modern voice on other topics).
ORLEY
FARM, Anthony Trollope, 1862 For much of this long novel I felt
that it might well be a great 19th Century novel that somehow no-one
ever mentioned, but in the end it failed at a couple of hurdles,
especially in its surprising insipidity as the young romantic heroine
eventual gains the lover of her choice; but a fine novel all the
same, full of characters, a decent & dramatic plot and a
particularly moving scene of between a loving father and daughter.
A
CRIME IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD, Suzanne Berne, 1997 Strong portrait of
an American suburb in the early 1970s; well plotted, shifting our
view of the child-narrator cleverly as it goes; I appreciated it more
after discussing it later than during the reading.
THE
SINGER'S GUN, Emily St.John Mandel, 2010 Such a compelling story
of crime, conflicted loyalties and love - modern and brilliant (and
very different from 'Station Eleven') from a real writer. So many
strata above workaday crime fiction like the Philip Kerr. She's a
major find.
THE
HEAT OF THE DAY, Elizabeth Bowen, 1948 Patchy but important novel
of WWII London, exploring issues of identity, loyalty and trust, with
passages of improbable dialogue and a habit of awkardly arranged
sentence structure, yet the most superb, hyperreal, inspired
description of the psychology of Londoners in the Blitz.
THE
DISCOVERY OF SLOWNESS, Sten Nadolny, 1983 [English translation by
Ralph Freedman 1987] Beguiling, admirable novel not quite like
anything I've ever read; a fond and ingenious partly fictional
portrait of Sir John Franklin from boyhood to death; sorry I reached
the end.
A
SHILLING FOR CANDLES, Josephine Tey, 1936 Whodunit; useful
display of the class snobberies of England between the wars.
SO
LONG, SEE YOU TOMORROW, William Maxwell, 1979 A beautiful novel
of sensitive intelligence, compassion and sense of place (rural
Illinois 1920s-70s); reminded me in these ways of The Other Side of
The Bridge by Mary Lawson.
MR.
NORRIS CHANGES TRAINS, Christopher Isherwood, 1935 Another I'd
never read before. Disliked, early on, the exaggerated portrayal of
Norris and the sordid allusions to S&M, but grew to admire this
short, distinctive novel. Scrupulous portrait of German Weimar
Republic life.
BLIND
CORNER, Dornford Yates, 1927 A preposterous adventure yarn by a
favourite author of my father's, typifying what Alan Bennett calls
"that school of Snobbery with Violence that runs like a thread
of good-class tweed through [British] twentieth-century literature."
INTO
THE WATER, Paula Watkins, 2017 It's 90 years later and the crime
thriller is more real, but though it's a page-turner, no one
character is half as vivid or convincing as the narrator in her
terrific 'The Girl On The Train'.
ALL
THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE, Anthony Doerr, 2014 Unlike the
characters trapped in WWII, I wanted it to never end: the best book
about the coming of war and war itself that I have ever read; a
beautiful and great novel.
CHASING
THE MONSOON, Alexander Frater, 1990 I'm re-reading this after
many years (having now been to India, though only once). The copious
background research is too often introduced clunkily, but it's
otherwise entertaining and quite funny; there are also large chunks
of autobiography about his own childhood on a similarly rainy island
in Vanuatu.
ABOUT
GRACE, Anthony Doerr, 2005 Had to read this, his first novel; not
as outstanding as t'other, but a very unusual, compelling book,
suffused with a special sadness throughout.
WHEN
A CROCODILE EATS THE SUN, Peter Godwin, 2006 Shaky start but
becomes a well-written, convincing insider's account of watching
Mugabe's Zimbabwe descend into violence, cruelty, stupidity and
waste: an account that blends very skilfully and articulately a
detailed picture of his own white family life with the shameful
detail of national disintegration.
TWO
CARAVANS, Marina Lewycka, 2007 A lovely book: clever,
multi-faceted and funny, but at the same time a vivid education in
the gruesome exploitation of immigrant workers in today's UK.
ALWAYS
OTHER VOICES: Writings on Bob Dylan in the 21st Century, Stephen
Scobie, 2018 An attractive mixed bag, featuring Stephen's
distinctively appealing voice on many topics.
SMALL
ISLAND, Andrea Levy, 2004 Starts so badly I almost gave it up; so
glad I didn't. She has no style but the story she tells is so
multi-layered, so wide-ranging (Jamaica, India in WWII, London 1948)
and uses many character-narrators, all of whom work well except the
first. An important synthesis of many cultural strands told with
sympathy for all sides. Bit soulless, though.
THE
CLEARING, Tim Gautreaux, 2003 He's a great writer, and this is as
memorable a novel as 'The Next Step In The Dance' (1999). He makes a
world so vividly realised here, in such detail and yet with an
elegaic sweep; so atmospheric yet so specific. A novel of such
violence yet so much humanity, a time and place of tough realism
created with unerring poetic prose.
THE
SHIPPING NEWS, Annie Proulx, 1993 A masterpiece. Straight in to
my (unwritten) list of Best 5 Novels Ever Read. Came to the end with
the greatest possible reluctance. Cast adrift, bereft, without it.
AFRICA
EXPLORED: Europeans in the Dark Continent 1769-1889. Christopher
Hibbert, 1982 Efficiently told, well summarised accounts, yet in
some detail, of the extraordinary people who made these dangerous
explorations and the equally extraordinary people they encountered.
THE
TRANSLATION OF THE BONES, Francesca Kay, 2011 A beautifully
written and very English, very Roman Catholic novel mesmerised by the
language of liturgy, set mostly in a barely-present London but
terrific on parent-child love.
JANE EYRE, Charlotte Bronte, 1847 A re-read after many
decades. Remarkable novel, rather better than the more currently
modish 'Wuthering Heights" by her sister and at least as racy in
its time; and in St.John Rivers she has created one of the most truly
loathsome characters in English fiction.
MY
NAME IS LUCY BARTON, Elizabeth Strout, 2016 A short and very
American novel that took me by surprise: I spent the first 75% or so
finding it thin and insubstantial (and the wide high praise for it
inexplicable) and then suddenly I found it very moving indeed.
THE
GREEN YEARS, A.J. Cronin, 1944 Having only read 'The Citadel'
(and that many years ago), and aware that Cronin has fallen heavily
from literary favour in recent decades, I loved and admired this
exceptionally well-written, compelling coming-of-age novel set in a
time-past Scottish town.
THE
BREAKER, Minette Walters, 1998 Whodunit that begins ok but
plummets horribly: dodgy, flat characterisation and toe-curlingly bad
dialogue, especially when her characters are being friendly or
flirtatious. It makes Agatha Christie seem literary.
THE
ACCIDENTAL, Ali Smith, 2006 Rapturous.
RED
BIRDS, Mohammed Hanif, 2018 Starts badly with an uncertain
narrative tone, achieves a clever and inspired central 150-page
portrait of the mad relationship between foreign wars and the refugee
camps & rehabilitation programmes those wars create... and then a
final 70-odd pages so exasperatingly pointless and silly you wonder
why Hanif didn't just delete them.
THE
VANISHING ACT OF ESME LENNOX, Maggie O'Farrell, 2006 Moving novel
written with beautiful clarity and with a glorious main character
whose life is ruined but not quite crushed by her family and the
mores of the age in which she grew up.
________________
UPDATES ON MY AUTUMN TOUR:
 |
| photo © Andrea Orlandi |
I've added four November UK dates to my tour: in Inverness and on the Isle of Man on "Bob Dylan, Literature & the Poetry of the Blues" and two on "Searching For Blind Willie McTell: A Biographer in the Deep South": one in Peel, Isle of Man and the other in London. Here's the current list:
Tuesday October 30, 7.45pm
RIVERFRONT ARTS CENTRE, NEWPORT, SOUTH WALES
BOB DYLAN, LITERATURE & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
Riverfront Arts Centre
Bristol Packet Wharf
Newport NP20 1HG South Wales
box office: 01633 656757
https://tinyurl.com/bobdylanbooking
tickets £13 (includes £1 booking fee) on sale now
Thursday Nov 1, 7.30pm
QUEENS HALL, HEXHAM, NORTHUMBERLAND
BOB DYLAN, LITERATURE & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
Queens Hall Theatre & Arts Centre
Beaumont Street, Hexham NE46 3LS
box office: 01434 652477, or online here:
https://www.queenshall.co.uk/events/bob-dylan-literature-poetry-blues
www.queenshall.co.uk
tickets £10 (£8 concessions) on sale now
QUEENS HALL, HEXHAM, NORTHUMBERLAND
BOB DYLAN, LITERATURE & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
Queens Hall Theatre & Arts Centre
Beaumont Street, Hexham NE46 3LS
box office: 01434 652477, or online here:
https://www.queenshall.co.uk/events/bob-dylan-literature-poetry-blues
www.queenshall.co.uk
tickets £10 (£8 concessions) on sale now
Sunday Nov 4, 5pm
ORAN MOR, GLASGOW
BOB DYLAN, LITERATURE & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
Byres Rd,
Glasgow, G12 8QX
box office: 0141 357 6200, or online here:
https://tinyurl.com/dylaneventticketsoran-mor
https://oran-mor.co.uk/
tickets £10 (+ £1.50 fee) on sale now
Monday Nov 5, 7.30pm
ONE TOUCH THEATRE, EDEN COURT, INVERNESS
BOB DYLAN, LITERATURE & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
Bishops Road, Inverness, IV3 5SA
https://www.eden-court.co.uk/
Box Office: 01463 234 234
or online: details tba
tickets £10 (+ £1 fee) on sale soon
ONE TOUCH THEATRE, EDEN COURT, INVERNESS
BOB DYLAN, LITERATURE & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
Bishops Road, Inverness, IV3 5SA
https://www.eden-court.co.uk/
Box Office: 01463 234 234
or online: details tba
tickets £10 (+ £1 fee) on sale soon
Thursday Nov 8, 9pm
ARTHUR'S BLUES & JAZZ CLUB, DUBLIN
BOB DYLAN, LITERATURE & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
28 Thomas Street
D08 VF83 Dublin
(01) 402 0914
www.arthurspub.ie
for tickets in advance:
https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/bob-dylan-literature-the-poetry-of-the-blues-tickets-46827691887
tickets €15
ARTHUR'S BLUES & JAZZ CLUB, DUBLIN
BOB DYLAN, LITERATURE & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
28 Thomas Street
D08 VF83 Dublin
(01) 402 0914
www.arthurspub.ie
for tickets in advance:
https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/bob-dylan-literature-the-poetry-of-the-blues-tickets-46827691887
tickets €15
Saturday Nov 10, 6pm
EDGE HILL ARTS CENTRE, nr LIVERPOOL
BOB DYLAN, LITERATURE & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
Edge Hill University, St Helens Rd
Ormskirk Lancs. L39 4QP
https://www.edgehill.ac.uk./artscentre/
box office: 01695 584480 or https://tinyurl.com/edgehilldylan
tickets £5 (free to EHU students) on sale now
BOB DYLAN, LITERATURE & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
Edge Hill University, St Helens Rd
Ormskirk Lancs. L39 4QP
https://www.edgehill.ac.uk./artscentre/
box office: 01695 584480 or https://tinyurl.com/edgehilldylan
tickets £5 (free to EHU students) on sale now
Sunday Nov 11, 7.30pm
THE INSTITUTE, LAXEY, ISLE OF MAN
BOB DYLAN, LITERATURE & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
New Road, Laxey, Isle of Man IM4 7BD
07624 414299
http://theinstitute.im
but for tickets phone 07624 204320 or e-mail
bluejohnmedia@hotmail.co.uk
online booking details to come
tickets £12
THE INSTITUTE, LAXEY, ISLE OF MAN
BOB DYLAN, LITERATURE & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
New Road, Laxey, Isle of Man IM4 7BD
07624 414299
http://theinstitute.im
but for tickets phone 07624 204320 or e-mail
bluejohnmedia@hotmail.co.uk
online booking details to come
tickets £12
Monday Nov 12, 7.30pm
CENTENARY CENTRE, PEEL, ISLE OF MAN
SEARCHING FOR BLIND WILLIE McTELL:A Biographer in the Deep South (incl. tracks & possibly footage)
plus guest artist John Gregory performing selected McTell songs (guitar & vocals)
(The Atholl Room) 22 Atholl St, Peel IM5 1BD
http://www.centenarycentre.com/
but for tickets phone 07624 204320 or e-mail
bluejohnmedia@hotmail.co.uk
online booking details to come
tickets £10
Wednesday Nov 14, 5pm
GOLDSMITHS COLLEGE, LONDON
SEARCHING FOR BLIND WILLIE McTELL:
A Biographer in the Deep South (possibly including audio gems)
GoldsmithsCollege, University of London
New Cross, London SE14 6NW
https://www.gold.ac.uk/
room details tba in September
free admission
________
BOB DYLAN, LITERATURE & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
a tour of talks by Michael Gray with surprising tracks and rare footage
OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2018
one or two more dates may be added
Tuesday October 30, 7.45pm
RIVERFRONT ARTS CENTRE, NEWPORT, SOUTH WALES
BOB DYLAN, LITERATURE & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
Riverfront Arts Centre
Bristol Packet Wharf
Newport NP20 1HG South Wales
box office: 01633 656757
https://tinyurl.com/bobdylanbooking
tickets £13 (includes £1 booking fee) on sale now
RIVERFRONT ARTS CENTRE, NEWPORT, SOUTH WALES
BOB DYLAN, LITERATURE & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
Riverfront Arts Centre
Bristol Packet Wharf
Newport NP20 1HG South Wales
box office: 01633 656757
https://tinyurl.com/bobdylanbooking
tickets £13 (includes £1 booking fee) on sale now
Thursday Nov 1, 7.30pm
QUEENS HALL, HEXHAM, NORTHUMBERLAND
BOB DYLAN, LITERATURE & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
Queens Hall Theatre & Arts Centre
Beaumont Street, Hexham NE46 3LS
QUEENS HALL, HEXHAM, NORTHUMBERLAND
BOB DYLAN, LITERATURE & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
Queens Hall Theatre & Arts Centre
Beaumont Street, Hexham NE46 3LS
box office: 01434 652477, or online here:
https://www.queenshall.co.uk/events/bob-dylan-literature-poetry-blues
tickets £10 (£8 concessions) on sale now
https://www.queenshall.co.uk/events/bob-dylan-literature-poetry-blues
tickets £10 (£8 concessions) on sale now
Sunday Nov 4, 5pm
ORAN-MOR, GLASGOW
BOB DYLAN, LITERATURE & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
Byres Rd,
Glasgow, G12 8QX
box office: 0141 357 6200, or online here:
https://tinyurl.com/dylaneventticketsoran-mor
https://oran-mor.co.uk/
tickets £10 (+ £1.50 fee) on sale now
Thursday Nov 8, 9pm
ARTHUR'S BLUES & JAZZ CLUB, DUBLIN
BOB DYLAN, LITERATURE & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
28 Thomas Street
D08 VF83 Dublin
(01) 402 0914
www.arthurspub.ie
for tickets in advance:
https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/bob-dylan-literature-the-poetry-of-the-blues-tickets-46827691887
tickets €15
ARTHUR'S BLUES & JAZZ CLUB, DUBLIN
BOB DYLAN, LITERATURE & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
28 Thomas Street
D08 VF83 Dublin
(01) 402 0914
www.arthurspub.ie
for tickets in advance:
https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/bob-dylan-literature-the-poetry-of-the-blues-tickets-46827691887
tickets €15
Saturday Nov 10, 6pm
EDGE HILL ARTS CENTRE, nr LIVERPOOL
BOB DYLAN, LITERATURE & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
Edge Hill University, St Helens Rd
Ormskirk Lancs. L39 4QP
https://www.edgehill.ac.uk./artscentre/
box office: 01695 584480 or
EDGE HILL ARTS CENTRE, nr LIVERPOOL
BOB DYLAN, LITERATURE & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
Edge Hill University, St Helens Rd
Ormskirk Lancs. L39 4QP
https://www.edgehill.ac.uk./artscentre/
box office: 01695 584480 or
https://tinyurl.com/edgehilldylan
tickets £5 (free to EHU students) on sale now
tickets £5 (free to EHU students) on sale now
THE INSTITUTE, LAXEY, ISLE OF MAN
BOB DYLAN, LITERATURE & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
New Road, Laxey, Isle of Man IM4 7BD
07624 414299
http://theinstitute.im
for tickets phone 07624 204320 or e-mail
bluejohnmedia@hotmail.co.uk
online booking details to come
tickets £12
It's not often I review a book, but I have to review this one: "EUROPE BY RAIL: The Definitive Guide" by Nicky Gardner & Susanne Kries, 15th edition, Nov. 2017.
This is a beautifully produced paperback, with inside cover flaps you can use as bookmarks, clearly not made on the cheap.
It offers 50 suggested routes you might not have considered yourself,
each taking you through striking parts of Europe, and each properly
rail-tested by the authors, from 'Exploring the French Riviera' to
'Through Balkan Byways to Greece', and from 'Through Poland to Ukraine'
to 'Across the Alps: Bavaria to Northern Italy'.
In every case there's up-to-date info on how to take the slow route; where to break your journey overnight; how long each section will take... and which side of the train to sit for the significant views. There are also quite substantial asides (on pink backgrounds) on, for example, Kosovo, languages of Vojvodina, the Alps by bus, orthodoxy in Finland, the Aland Islands ("Although part of the European Union, this scatter of islands lies outside the EU's fiscal regime - a little accounting curiosity..."), "the wandering Arctic Circle", and Rhine versus Moselle.
At the back there's a 60+ page gazeteer covering 48 European countries and telling you about their currencies, time zones, languages, types of electric socket and more; and at the front there are glossy photographs showing, for example, that "enthusiasm for Soviet-style memorials has not waned in Belarus" and that "steam-hauled trains are still seen every day in the Harz Mountains in eastern Germany". There are also maps, thoughtful advice about tickets and rail-passes, stations worth a visit in their own rights, and an enormous amount more besides. And an index.
One of the great virtues of this book, and a key to its being so enjoyable to read (even when no real journey is planned), is that it's well written - which makes it a rarity among practical guidebooks. It reminds me, in this way, of the Cadogan Guides of the 1980s-90s written by Dana Facaros and Michael Pauls. They too had a relish for alert, vivid prose free of travel-hack cliche and addressed with generosity of spirit to readers assumed to be open-minded and interested.
In the end, taking in "Europe By Rail" without taking myself around Europe by rail, it's hard not to be mournfully wistful about all the places I've never been, all the rails not travelled. (It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry, perhaps.) But it's also a powerful reminder of the cacophanous splendour of Europe itself - a continent so compact yet so riddled with infinitely varied quirks, beauty, age and elan. This book replenishes the feeling those of us who've spent time in Los Angeles or Newfoundland always tend to harbour: thank god for Europe.
In every case there's up-to-date info on how to take the slow route; where to break your journey overnight; how long each section will take... and which side of the train to sit for the significant views. There are also quite substantial asides (on pink backgrounds) on, for example, Kosovo, languages of Vojvodina, the Alps by bus, orthodoxy in Finland, the Aland Islands ("Although part of the European Union, this scatter of islands lies outside the EU's fiscal regime - a little accounting curiosity..."), "the wandering Arctic Circle", and Rhine versus Moselle.
At the back there's a 60+ page gazeteer covering 48 European countries and telling you about their currencies, time zones, languages, types of electric socket and more; and at the front there are glossy photographs showing, for example, that "enthusiasm for Soviet-style memorials has not waned in Belarus" and that "steam-hauled trains are still seen every day in the Harz Mountains in eastern Germany". There are also maps, thoughtful advice about tickets and rail-passes, stations worth a visit in their own rights, and an enormous amount more besides. And an index.
One of the great virtues of this book, and a key to its being so enjoyable to read (even when no real journey is planned), is that it's well written - which makes it a rarity among practical guidebooks. It reminds me, in this way, of the Cadogan Guides of the 1980s-90s written by Dana Facaros and Michael Pauls. They too had a relish for alert, vivid prose free of travel-hack cliche and addressed with generosity of spirit to readers assumed to be open-minded and interested.
In the end, taking in "Europe By Rail" without taking myself around Europe by rail, it's hard not to be mournfully wistful about all the places I've never been, all the rails not travelled. (It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry, perhaps.) But it's also a powerful reminder of the cacophanous splendour of Europe itself - a continent so compact yet so riddled with infinitely varied quirks, beauty, age and elan. This book replenishes the feeling those of us who've spent time in Los Angeles or Newfoundland always tend to harbour: thank god for Europe.
BOOKS READ 2017
Here's the list of books I read last year, and what I felt about them:
Here's the list of books I read last year, and what I felt about them:
THE
WOMAN IN WHITE, Wilkie Collins, 1860 long
and wonderful, its suspense maintained very vividly across most of
the novel.
THE
SEED COLLECTORS, Scarlett Thomas, 2015
pretentious & self-regarding.
THE
GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY, Mary Ann Shaffer &
Annie Barrows, 2008 despite
the awful title, dual authorship & horribly perky first 20 pages
or so, this becomes a wonderful, moving book that works as fiction
and as a documentary portrait of wartime occupied Guernsey;
exceptional.
THE
OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE, Mary Lawson, 2006 an
even more admirably clear-sighted and deeply affecting novel than her
"Crow Lake"; too short, though.
THE
CROSSING, Andrew Miller, 2015 vital,
poetic prose &
a compelling
heroine.
CHARLES
DICKENS: A CRITICAL STUDY, George Gissing, 1898 to
my surprise (since I loved "Grub Street" and love a lot of
Dickens) I had to give this up after five chapters; far too stuck in
the agonies of late-Victorian moralising.
GRAY
MOUNTAIN, John Grisham, 2014 many
GoodReadsers have moaned about it being an "issue book",
but it's deeply researched about strip mining, black lung disease &
the corporate trashing of the Appalachians; commendable & timely
ROAD
ENDS, Mary Lawson, 2013 a lesser
work & even shorter, but recommended; I wish there were more of
her work - three novels aren't enough from this great writer (though
there's another one written in French, which I wouldn't be able to
tackle; there seems to be no English translation).
THE
TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL, Anne Bronte, 1848 both
narrators (speaking as letter & diary writers plagued by total
recall) seem foolish early on, and the ending is too pat, but the
portraint of the heroine's dissolute husband is absorbing.
The book never explores or questions reliance on and exploitation of
faithful servants, but it does examine the double standards in law &
marriage between men and women.
THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE,
Philip K. Dick, 1962 patchiest
book ever read; fresh sentences, long tedious passages, improbable
characters, one great character.
GEORGE
GISSING: A LIFE, Paul Delaney, 2008 diligently
researched sympathetic study of an affecting, hopelessly wretched
life & of a fascinating literary novelist; few people can ever
have shot themselves in the feet as repeatedly as Gissing did.
THE
ABORTIONIST'S DAUGHTER, Elisabeth Hyde, 2006 third-rate
crime novel with implausible plot detail; manages to be both glib and
clunky at the same time.
TRAVELS
WITH A DONKEY In The Cevennes, R L Stevenson, 1879 a
rare delight.
MRS.
DALLOWAY, Virginia Woolf, 1925
an absolute masterpiece.
THIS
SIDE OF BRIGHTNESS, Colum McCann, 1998 a
gruelling read: such sordid lives, such compelling & tragic
characters, such powerful prose.
TESS OF
THE D'URBERVILLES, Thomas Hardy, 1891
passionately written tale of tragic characters; a then-progressive
foregrounding of the rural working-class (though hardly Zola).
THE LAST
DETECTIVE, Peter Lovesey, 1991
superior whodunit of original construction and decent prose, though
the culprit perhaps too easy to guess.
THE
PACT, Jodi Picoult, 1998
gives readers no sense of whether her cringeworthy adults are meant
to be seen as awful; riddled with creativewritingschoolitis; but when
it becomes a courtroom drama it gets moderately compelling sub-Grisham.
DISSIDENT
GARDENS, Jonathan Lethem, 2013 a great
novel: of wide-ranging genius & lapidary intelligence; historical
accuracy fused with alert imagination.
THE
DIVIDE, Nicholas Evans, 2005 nature well described, people almost entirely one-dimensional &
self-regarding, as promised crime novel becomes long, tedious
family-agonies story; humourless & witless throughout.
THE
GIRL ON THE TRAIN, Paula Hawkins, 2015 mystifyingly compelling page-turner early on, when the two main
narrators seem creepy yet not sinister; develops into something
extraordinarily clever as the tension is racked up. Brilliantly
plotted. No wonder it was such a mega bestseller. Finest thriller
I've read since Gone Girl, but so beautifully English instead of
American.
PLOT
29, Allan Jenkins, 2017 a
beautiful, sad book about the agonies of his unknown antecedents &
his & his brother's abandonment, and of trying to uncover it all
and adjust to it, interspersed with a journal of his cathartic life
planting & growing veg, fruit and flowers. The first non-fiction
book I've read for months.
THE BRICKS THAT BUILT THE
HOUSES, Kate Tempest, 2016 probably
in the top ten greatest novels I've ever read; truly contemporary,
wide-ranging yet concentrated, wholly distinctive voice, moving &
funny & impassioned & so shrewdly observant, and pins down
situations we've all lived yet have never found in fiction before.
MR.
NICHOLAS, Thomas Hinde, 1952
at first I thought it just a very inferior Elizabeth Bowen, but it
grew on me. A bit.
THE GIRL
WHO KICKED THE HORNETS' NEST, Stieg Larsson, 2007; English
translation 2009 my
first read from Larsson; mind-bogglingly well-planned & plotted;
an intelligent, substantial page-turner; and it reads well in
English.
One
oddity: it's set in Sweden yet there's never any weather...
LOVE AMONG THE RUINS: A Memoir
of Life & Love in Hamburg 1945, Harry Leslie Smith, 2012 &
2015 should
be interesting re life for a British soldier staying on in Germany
when WWII has ended - but he's no writer so it isn't. I gave it up.
WHEN WE
WERE YOUNG: A Compendium of Childhood, ed. John Burningham, 2004 a
fresh, tremendously well-chosen range of childhood memoir pieces with
an admirable literary bent & no dumbing down; full of quotable moments.
ENGLEBY, Sebastian Faulks,
2007 compelling
story, dark humour, intellectually sharp; near total-recall of 1970s
minutiae; crucially, the tranparently unreliable narrator (an almost
common current device) comes within a highly inventive form of the
novel that is ingenious without postmodernism (ie without being
irritating).
ROBINSON CRUSOE, The Life and
Strange & Surprising Adventures of, Daniel Defoe, 1719 [1808
edition] I'd
read it as a child, but had no idea how ruthlessly this immensely long
book had been abridged for children; in this edition he doesn't see
the footprint till 27% of the way through, doesn't meet Friday till
almost 40% of the way through and has returned to Europe by 50%,
after several hundred pages. I gave up after that; the edition I read
(on Kindle) seems to have added in all Defoe's far less popular
follow-up novels. The original full-length novel, interesting &
skilfully done, was enough.
AGAINST
MISERABILISM, David Widgery, 2017
posthumous collection of his brilliantly prescient, wide-ranging essays
written 1968-92: admirably relevant on politics and soberingly good
(and affecting) on his experience as an NHS doctor in London.
A LESSON
BEFORE DYING, Ernest J. Gaines, 1993
a short, likeable novel compelling through its detail as well as its
quiet humanity; a portrait of racial injustice in the Deep South of
the 1940s, set in a rural black community full of its own tensions; but told
calmly.
WINTER
IN MADRID, C.J.Sansom, 2006 a
highly researched historical-adventure novel of politics &
intrigue set in 1930s-early '40s Spain; a page-turner through
accretion of detail long before it becomes one through tensions and
twists of plot.
IN COLD
BLOOD, Truman Capote, 1966
what a book! The perfect template for a historical crime non-fiction
case, inspirationally structured from its calm, detailed, intelligent and humane beginning to
its forgiveably sweetened end.
THE RED
BADGE OF COURAGE, Stephen Crane, 1895 uncanny maturity of tone & humour from a
21-year-old writer, and so innovative: the first Civil War novel
about ordinary soldiers instead of great generals. An easy read too.
THE VINYL DETECTIVE, Andrew
Cartmel, 2016 goes
on too long, many implausibilities but great fun for anyone who's
ever been or befriended a hi-fi freak or obsessive record collector.
A RIVER TOWN, Thomas Keneally,
1995 admirable,
vivid, unhurried novel from a major writer, and one of those
rare authors whose books truly differ from each other & are
unified only by his robust, engaged imagination. His adjectives dance
but are never showy.
HERE I AM, Jonathan Safran
Foer, 2016 provoking
in both senses, this unfunny "hilarious" novel is so
wearingly clever, so delighted by its own cutesy introspection and by
its self-absorbed main characters (a drippy couple and their
precocious children). It's also far too long, but that's another
outcome of its shouty self-indulgence. (And boo to Penguin for a UK
paperback with such a small typeface that they don't even admit what
it is on the copyright page.)
THE
HOUSE IN PARIS, Elizabeth Bowen, 1935 a
re-balancing after the horrors of "Here I Am": forensic
quiet intelligence in place of clever shouting, and that rare but
special pleasure, a striking child character (Leopold).
BOOKS READ IN 2016
This is the list of books I read last year, with brief comments:
SWANN’S
WAY, Marcel Proust, 1913 heavy going; acute;
far too wordy; unique
THE
CORRECTIONS, Jonathan Franzen, 2001 intelligent,
funny, dark, cheering, depressing, fresh, humane
BOB
DYLAN DREAM: My Life With Bob, Roy Kelly, 2015
touching, beautiful, intelligent memoir of an ordinary life roughly
contemporary with mine & Dylan’s
EMOTIONALLY
WEIRD, Kate Atkinson, 2000 sometimes very
funny, sometimes too silly (improbability not counteracted by enough
comic success), but the main character is likeable & it’s the
only postmodern novel I’ve read that works, so that it ends up
clever rather than irritatingly clever-clever
VANITY
FAIR:A Novel Without a Hero, William Makepeace Thackeray, 1847-8
fascinating
in its mix of modernity - pioneering C19 realism & an
anti-heroine yet using C18 literary devices (which have a touch of
postmodernism, we’d feel now); a sweeping satire on money, the
class system and snobbery (a word he coined)... BUT! he’s not as
deep or heartfelt as Dickens and his characters are mostly less vivid
DOWNHILL
ALL THE WAY, Leonard Woolf, 1967 upper/upper-middle
class man of letters and politics, Virginia’s husband, writing this
in his 80s; clear and conscientious prose from a very fair-minded man
acutely aware of both others’ even greater privilege and the great
majority’s lack of it; a real socialist with servants
FUGITIVE
PIECES, Anne Michaels, 1997 irksomely opaque
start but opens into one of the most articulately heartfelt,
intelligent, beautiful & distinctive of books
THE
THUNDERBOLT KID, The Life & Times of, Bill Bryson, 2003
auto-Bryson with clunky research padding out a very superficial account of his upbringing
THE
LIE, Helen Dunmore, 2014 moving and
vivid on rural Cornwall life in 1920 & on
the horrors of WWI trench warfare and its afterlife in the narrator’s
mind; an intelligent novel yet comfortingly English & traditional
THE
INVENTION OF WINGS, Sue Monk Kidd, 2014 potboiler
with a heart, but with none of the originality of "The Secret Life of Bees"
FLUSH,
Virginia Woolf, 1933 rather good: her language is very
alive and without showiness
SLANG
OF HANDS, Bernhard Widder, 2009 Austrian poems
about northern UK; ok
JOY
IN THE MORNING, Betty Smith, 1963 sister of the
more famous “A Tree Grows In Brooklyn”; had to give up on it. Too
cute, sprightly, implausible & 1950s-sordid: all virginity &
sweet-little-woman & manly cigarettes & plucky struggle
THE
JOKE, Milan Kundera, 1967 [1992 translation] gloom-inducing
portrait of mid-C20 Czechoslovakia & by extension general Eastern
European gloom; it may linger, but it was sententious, with terrible
attitudes to women, and mostly a pain in the arse to read
THE
MOONSTONE, Wilkie Collins, 1868 seldom resorts
to dodgy melodrama and overall a work of near-genius; pioneering
detective novel, and for the first half, very funny thanks to a
captivating narrator figure, old servant Betteredge
NOBODY
MOVE, Denis Johnson, 2009 an indifferent
contemporary Chandler, or perhaps a pale imitation of Cormac McCarthy
ANGEL,
Elizabeth Taylor, 1957 quiet, superior
page-turner about the power of vanity & self-deception, spanning
a lifetime; it deepens into pathos as it goes
THE
MILL ON THE FLOSS, George Eliot, 1860 tremendous,
and so substantial. Early
on, its pastorality (if that’s a word) strongly prefigures Hardy;
but Maggie Tulliver the child and Maggie the adult seem too much like
different people, which is its real flaw
TO
THE LIGHTHOUSE, Virginia Woolf, 1927 lapidary,
powerful
modernism yet with strongly drawn
characters and their vivid interaction (with the Chapter17 dinner party as fine as any I know in literature); lively, intensive prose, great
clarity and wit. A triumph
KNOTS
AND CROSSES, Ian Rankin, 1987 first
Rebus novel; surprisingly badly written; every character a cliché
with a quirk; less than thrilling story; pallid suspense
EARTH,
Emile Zola, 1887 good C19 solidity,
vivid characters & uncompromising portrait of wretched French
peasant life, in which degradation cheats just desserts
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, Cormac McCarthy, 2005
addictive, violent, very modern;
sometimes so stripped-down you can't work out what's happening; but
always saved by its brilliant dialogue
A
SEASON IN SINJI, J.L. Carr, 1967 a very
English & appealing personality well rendered, but lacking either
some essential depth or else some rapier thrust of asperity
CIRCLES
IN A FOREST, Dalene Matthee, 1984 it took
me 100 pages to like this, the first of her four "forest novels"
(too much on poor-noble-Afrikaans-woodcutters) but it became an
intensely detailed imaginative achievement and thoroughly absorbing
story
MURDER
ON A SUMMER'S DAY, Frances Brody, 2013 a
1924 setting allows for massive snobbery & conveniently primitive
evidence standards, but it's also a setting that recalls the English
atmosphere still prevalent in my 1950s childhood, and it's a satisfyingly lengthy read & a satisfyingly Christiesque trad
detective story
BERTOLT
BRECHT: A Literary Life, Stephen Parker, 2014 encyclopaedic
uber-detail, and using newly available post-Cold War archives, sewn
into a readable, attentive narrative... but I had to give it up on
realising, after long immersion in his adolescent tics, maladies &
hypochondria, that I still have absolutely no interest in Brecht or
his work
DYING
IN THE WOOL, Frances Brody, 2009 the first in
the series (I was given a set as a present); very readable but an arch, over-confident
heroine-narrator sorting out shorthand characters
CHARLES
DARWIN: VOYAGING, Janet Browne, 1995 The
first of her 2-volume biography. I've never read a better non-fiction
book in my life (except, possibly, 'The Road To Xanadu: A Study in the
Ways of the Imagination' by John Livingston Lowes, 1927, about Coleridge & his notebooks)
GONE
GIRL, Gillian Flynn, 2012 Exceptionally
sharp-minded (in a very American way), electrifying page-turner,
dazzlingly well plotted; a let-down ending, though not everyone will think so
MOBY-DICK,
Herman Melville, 1851 lively start, then
tediously garrulous for several hundred pages; a hard, grim voyage
for this reader, which surprised and disappointed him
CHARLES
DARWIN: THE POWER OF PLACE, Janet Browne, 2002
The second volume: a book I'm so grateful to have read and sorry
to have finished
FLIGHT
BEHAVIOUR, Barbara Kingsolver, 2012
Terrific; strong, convincingly detailed and sympathetic portrait of
today's deprived, Appalachian rural life
SIGNS
FOR LOST CHILDREN, Sarah Moss, 2015 half
the book extremely
gruelling, the other half boring; a
powerful writer but with such talent, why do this? And the story's
resolution isn't one, because the man in it never exists
MIKE
AND PSMITH, P G Wodehouse, 1953 light
jollity there's no point objecting to on political/class-snobbery
grounds; a much needed balm after "Signs for Lost Children"
THE
LADYBIRD BOOK OF THE HIPSTER, 2015 very funny
THE
DOG: A LADYBIRD BOOK, 2016 even funnier:
perfect Christmas trivia
________
FROM THE LARKIN SOCIETY JOURNAL: TERRY KELLY TRIBUTE
As already noted, Bob Dylan wasn't Terry Kelly's only interest. Thanks to Val Kelly via Roy Kelly, I've been sent this, written by James Booth and just published by the journal of the Philip Larkin Society:
TERRY KELLY
I'm extremely sorry to be saying that longterm Bobcat Terry Kelly has died, aged 57. I've written more about this here on my Facebook page, but here on this blog post I hand over to guest writer Roy Kelly (no relation), who knew Terry better than I did and who, especially, kept abreast of Terry's wide knowledge of, and writing about, poetry:
Terry knew and read a tremendous amount of
poetry, and had much wider interests than me, even though I write poems. He was
particularly interested in Ian Hamilton, and poetry associated with his circle,
and was really pleased when a posthumous big collected volume of him came out
and he got a chance to review it in London Magazine, where over the last
at least four years, and possibly more, he had had become a regular. He liked too Craig Raine, Derek Mahon, Seamus Heaney
and Hugo Williams, and was able to review his then latest volume (I
Knew The Bride), weaving into it a skilful, knowledgeable round up of Hugo's
whole career and technique and development. Recently he had reviewed Clive James
The Kid From Kogarah, and poetry by David Harsent and Robin Robertson, and the
big T S Eliot collected volume so eagerly awaited by aficionados. In his early
reporter life he worked with and later championed a poet called Barry McSweeney,
also a huge Bob fan, who had a difficult life but produced a lot of poetry.
Terry was involved in a memorial type volume for him, including essays. He
really did know an awful lot and liked an awful lot.
Of late he was really proud of the London
Magazine work because at first I think it was for nothing but developed into him
being a rated and paid reviewer. He knew the whole modern British and American
poetry scene very well. He liked what was the Hamilton template, the short,
slightly obtuse lyric, but was also way open to modern American forms. He was
endlessly getting books and telling you of his haul, either as review freebies
or what he'd bought. Poetry totally engaged him. In some ways the literary life
seemed more real to him than actual life, which was probably a help in the trial
of his last fourteen months. He had also recently starting reviewing for a newish
thing called The Next Review and was very pleased about that.
A major poetic interest, too, was the work of Philip Larkin. He wrote articles for About Larkin, the journal concerned with Larkin's work and life, reviewing there and elsewhere new Collected editions, and writing knowledgeably about the choices different editors of the volumes made. One of his most recent reviews was of the new book of photographs taken by Philip Larkin, and the connection that could be made with his poems.
I should say too he was always very kind. I think that was a big aspect of
his character. He was a networker and a giver, and, that old-fashioned word, a
gentleman. Unasked for and unexpected at different times he gave me various
books that he knew I would like. He did love Bob Dylan and his work and thought
he was a genius, and probably didn't think plagiarism was relevant to whether he
was or not, unlike me, but he knew and was interested in everything poetic
really. I mean everything. He was much more than someone who was crucial to a
Bob Dylan magazine [The Bridge]. Though of course he was always that.
_____
BOOKS READ IN 2015
I seem to have read more books this year than last - and far more than in any recent year before that. I haven't included here the Dylan-related books I've also read or skimmed through during 2015:
THE 8.55 TO BAGHDAD, Andrew Eames, 2004 so badly written it’s absurd that it won an award from the British Guild of Travel Writers, but good subject-matter
THE 8.55 TO BAGHDAD, Andrew Eames, 2004 so badly written it’s absurd that it won an award from the British Guild of Travel Writers, but good subject-matter
LET THE DEVIL SPEAK: Articles, Essays, & Incitements, Steven Hart, 2014 some substantial, brilliantly sleuthed essays
CHATTERTON, Peter Ackroyd, 1987 vivid, absorbing, but the insistent wackiness of every character is over the top, & really he says nothing about plagiarism, which is his theme
CROW LAKE, Mary Lawson, 2002 completely wonderful novel, fresh and true
THE DOCTOR & MR. DYLAN, Rick Novak, 2014 good on Hibbing, hopeless on humans; it's not about Bob Dylan, and it's a novel
THE ASSASSINATION OF MARGARET THATCHER, Hilary Mantel, 2014 short stories, with a whiff of using up old rejects; 2nd-rate by her standards
HISTORY OF MADNESS, Michel Foulcault, 1961 I gave it up: it's far too clever for me
GREAT APES, Will Self, 1997 I gave this up too: couldn’t stand his interminable showing off or his brutish arsehole-obsessing modernism
REVALUATION, F.R. Leavis, 1936 his least readable book
THE NIGGER OF THE NARCISSUS, Joseph Conrad, 1897 a slim volume but very demanding: intensive and poetical, with echoes of Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner
JOURNEYS: An Anthology, ed Robyn Davidson, 2001 snotty intro, sloppy edits, and a wayward selection of pieces, in that many aren’t really travel pieces at all
THE HUNGER GAMES [Bk 1], Suzanne Collins, 2008 clever, strongly plotted, decently-written dystopian-world page-turner; understandably a cult best-seller
TO FOLLOW THE LEAD, Annie S. Swan, c1911 appealing simplicity till the regrettable crescendo of god-bothering
THE SAFFRON KITCHEN, Yasmin Crowther, 2006 boring till p60, then a great central patch of affecting drama, and then a long ending of tiresome didactic hokum
THE OUTCAST, Sadie Jones, 2007 strikingly clear prose describing a slew of terrible events; compelling, sensitive, touching, and with strong characters
PRECIOUS BANE, Mary Webb, 1924 I was bereft at finishing this wonderful, beautiful, forcefully-written, unique book: so vivid, poetic, touching, sustained, humbling, sweet-natured - all without any cuteness or arch self-consciousness
THE GOLDFINCH, Donna Tartt, 2013 couldn’t be more different from ‘Precious Bane’ but its equal or better: phenomenally good - vast canvas (centred on a small one...)
FRANKIE & STANKIE, Barbara Trapido, 2003 terrible title and a bit shallow, but funny, fresh and quirky
WRITERS IN HOLLYWOOD 1915-1951, Ian Hamilton, 1990 very solid but afraid to be anything but studious, so too few Hollywood Babylonian anecdotes
THE EDWARDIANS, Vita Sackville-West, 1930 patchy writing; some implausible plot twists & characters; poor dialogue; fascinating material; glad I read it
DO NOT SELL AT ANY PRICE, Amanda Petrusich, 2014 loved it: a necessary look into the avid world of the 78rpm rare record collector; intelligent & humane
THE PAYING GUESTS, Sarah Waters, 2014 riveting, richly imaginative, a tense major work: nearly as good as ‘Fingersmith’ (high praise); so admirable
THE VERSIONS OF US, Laura Barnett, 2015 alluring premise, crap book: all so calculated instead of imagined; in shaming contrast to the Sarah Waters
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, Harper Lee, 1960 a book almost everyone read at school but I never did; lovely, though read now - in retrospect - a bit apologist about the very southern racism the book deplores
SKIOS, Michael Frayn, 2012 this is Wodehouse Lite (with similarly ingenious plotting)
THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS, John Boyne, 2006 a clever, touching, unusual, good novel by no means only for Young Readers
WHEN WE WERE THIN, C.P. Lee, 2007 a really interesting social history of the UK music biz 1968-1980s - and a great title
THE MAN IN THE QUEUE, Josephine Tey, 1929 engaging and well-written, except for the purple prose paragraphs designed to prove she’s a Real Writer; the usual whodunit cheat: introducing a surprise relationship we couldn’t have guessed at
SMALL CEREMONIES, Carol Shields, 1976 at times piercing observation in taut, captivating prose; at times I felt oh-for-fuck’s-sake-you-precious-twee-middle-class-wimp
THE TERRIBLE PRIVACY OF MAXWELL SIM, Jonathan Coe, 2010 the terrible title, the awful postmodern ending - both indicative of garrulousness - and in between, a deflating, depressing book; Time Out found it “hugely enjoyable”...
PURPLE HIBISCUS, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 2004 completely absorbing novel from a justifiably confident writer creating a refreshing, convincing Africa
THE TRAVELLING HORNPLAYER, Barbara Trapido, 1998 substantial, fiercely intelligent, dexterously plotted but with a horrible and improbable end section
BUDDY HOLLY, Dave Laing, 1971 captivating, modest, refreshing to read again now, full of acute small observations & quite right in its analysis of his influence [I wrote an earlier blogpost about this book]
THE MILLSTONE, Margaret Drabble, 1965 a slim volume in the best sense as well as literally; light touch, swift intelligence, subtlety & gaiety & delicacy of feeling and, now, a fascinating glimpse into pre-Carnaby St 1960s London life
STRAIGHT LIFE, Art & Laurie Pepper, 1994 edn mammoth oral autobiography + others’ testimony, of & to a very contradictory life: rich yet impoverished, creative yet sunk in addiction & its gruesome degradation; and vivid, espically about violent prison life; a hugely more candid autobiography than most
THE END OF THE AFFAIR, Graham Greene, 1951 occasional moments of sharp interest sticking out of the blancmange of dated Catholic hooey
THE L-SHAPED ROOM, Lynne Reid Banks, 1960 marvellous to find so belatedly: brilliantly plotted, vivid characters but subtly drawn, a glorious opinionatedness and such robust intelligence about human feeling and behaviour
THE BACKWARD SHADOW, Lynne Reid Banks, 1970 so very disappointing: contrived, ricketty plotting, shallowed characters who become hard to care about; a plunge into what would now be called Chick Lit
UNDER MILK WOOD, Dylan Thomas, 1954 [posthumous] pioneering but now a smaller thing than its reputation
BHOWANI JUNCTION, John Masters, 1954 powerful, compelling, brave, compassionate book it would be all too easy to dismiss today for its political incorrectness, yet in some ways ahead of its time, and from a really individual writer
THE LAST SEPTEMBER, Elizabeth Bowen, 1929 full of her exceptional brilliance, yet an oddly muted depiction of a crucial period in Irish history and the uncomfortable Anglo-Irish life clung to within it
SKATING TO ANTARCTICA, Jenny Diski, 1997 abiff with intelligence and self-indulgent pawing at the wounds of her appalling childhood; and brilliant, if brief, about penguins
A SPOOL OF BLUE THREAD, Anne Tyler, 2015 much lauded; I was left wondering why
THE DEATH OF THE HEART, Elizabeth Bowen, 1938 another piercing scrutiny
CANADA, Richard Ford, 2012 not a pleasurable read but a highly compelling and original novel
TIPPING THE VELVET, Sarah Waters, 1998 not a patch on ‘Fingersmith’: far too and-then-this-happened-and-then-this-happened, and too heavily playing the lesbian card - where ‘Fingersmith’ was a masterpiece of plot, character and prose
MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT, Charles Dickens, 1843-4 a great start but then filler and comparative failure: the least solid Dickens novel I've read
LONG BEFORE THE STARS WERE TORN DOWN, J.A. Wainwright, 2015 very readable cowboyish novel with a deft structure, though weak on women characters and with an unsatisfying semi-postmodern ending (aren’t they always?)
_
BOB DYLAN DREAM
I've written before of my admiration for Roy Kelly's writing about Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan fandom and the past and its impingement on the present, so it's no surprise that I should be glad to see, published at long last, Roy's book!:
As you may barely be able to see, I've written one of the endorsements for it - the one in the white ghetto by the barcode at the bottom of the back. But that aside, I like the whole cover - the very Woody Guthriesque Bob figure on the front, the pale blue, Roy's own very skilful blurb on the back, and the splendid quote from Nigel Hinton quite rightly there on the front.
It's available as a paperback and as an e-book, and the link to the paperback is here. Get it and read it. A Christmas present to yourself.
As you may barely be able to see, I've written one of the endorsements for it - the one in the white ghetto by the barcode at the bottom of the back. But that aside, I like the whole cover - the very Woody Guthriesque Bob figure on the front, the pale blue, Roy's own very skilful blurb on the back, and the splendid quote from Nigel Hinton quite rightly there on the front.
It's available as a paperback and as an e-book, and the link to the paperback is here. Get it and read it. A Christmas present to yourself.
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