Two weeks in one place, hot weather, and a suitcase of books. What’s a boy (who can’t get a tan) to do? To be honest, I’d recommend them all, just depends on what you like. Oh, and I shamelessly chose books that are easy to read on holiday.
Andrei Kurkov: Death and the Penguin
Recommended by someone at work - a masterclass in lean prose. The tale of a writer in Kiev who gets a job writing obituaries for a newspaper. He has a pet penguin. And the rest, you should find out for yourself.
Andrei Kurkov: The Case of the General’s Thumb
In which Kurkov’s prose gets slightly podgy and he adds a proper, if rather convoluted, thriller plot. Neither of which result in an improvement. That said, still good, but he was better with his bleak obituary writer and pet penguin.
Martin Cruz Smith: Gorky Park
Not sure how I ended up reading this now - very well known and has had a film made of it. Anyway, it’s pretty much the perfect cold war thriller. Good to be dealing with a bit of Soviet certainty, rather than all the post soviet doubt of Kurkov and Gary Steyngart.
Zoe Heller: Notes on a Scandal
Had been on my ‘must read’ list for quite a while, although I’d managed to avoid finding out exactly what it’s about which made it all the more satisfying. Well, you probably know by now it’s the tale of a teacher having an affair with one of her pupils, as told by another teacher. Everyone says it’s ‘dark’. And they’re right. Also very cleverly structured - but I’ll save that lit-crit essays.
Louis Sanchar: Holes
Again, I came to this very late. Already been turned into a film; and I know it’s really a teens book, but it’s a very special piece of writing. The tale of Stanley Yelnats in a camp for young offenders where they have to dig five foot by five foot holes in the baking sun. It reminded me of a slimmed down version of a John Irvine’s Owen Meany. Wish I’d read it when I was 12.
Stephen Armstrong: The White Island - two thousand years of pleasure on Ibiza
The first time that someone I know well has written a book. And fortunately, it’s a great read. A full history of Ibiza from Carthiginian times that manages to cover everything from the Phoenicians, the Romans, Moors, the Spanish Civil War, the islands’s salt industry, Cool artists in the 50s, the rise of tourism, current local politics and scandal as well as the obligatory stuff about clubbing (which looked at with this perspective is quite incidental). All very readable - and interspersed with interviews with all sorts of people around the island. Ideal for anyone who’s interested in general Mediterranean history, but especially ideal if you have done (or are about to do) the Ibiza thing, have more than half a brain and want to be the smartest kid on the beach.
David Liss: The Conspiracy of Paper
Now we move to 18th century London, against the backdrop of a nascent stock market and the start of the south sea bubble. Our hero is a Portuguese jewish ex boxer (who I sense might well re-appear for a sequel). Loads of social/historical detail and an easy enough read (despite a rather infuriating mock-C18th prose style), but the plotting wasn’t all it could be: the final twist and turn were of a let down given all the detail we’d had to wade through. Given the material he had to work with, not quite enough of a conspiracy for my tastes.
Francis Wheen: How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World
In which our author skewers everyone with his characteristic mix of eloquence and ruthlessness. Sloppy thinkers everywhere have nowhere to hide as astrologers, business gurus, homeopaths, new agers, new labour, free marketeers and post-modernists - to name but a few - are all skewered . It’s a great read, but in the end, it feels like there’s no government, corporation, intellectual movement, or individual in power that he doesn’t hold in contempt. I was sort of hoping he’d tie it up at the end with some sort of proposal for how things could be better. But he didn’t. I found this review that sort of said the same - it’s on Socialist World and concludes: “It shows that it is not arrogant to fight for truth and rationality against absolute nonsense. What it does not show specifically is a path away from this reaction. By inference, however, the political theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels must be this path.” Wonder if he’d agree. If so, he really should have said.
Gary Shteyngart: The Russian Debutante’s Handbook
My big mistake with this was to read the author’s biog before the book. He’s young (born in 1972 - well younger than me), and like his lead character Vladimir was born in Russia and moved with his family to the US. This a) made me deeply jealous (especially as the book as been so heavily praised) and b) made me feel this was simply a glamourised autobiography. Not the best mood to embark on a 400+ pager. Well, envy-aside, it’s a right ripping read as our hero who heads off to Prava (a thinly disgused Prague) in 1993 to esape from debt and various difficulties and gets involved with some Russian gangsters and American wannabes. There’s a pretty good comic novel hidden away in here, and at times he’s both witty and wise at the same time. But (and not unusually for a first novel) there’s just too much here: too much plot; too many characters; too many insights into humanity etc etc. Will be interesting to see whether he will go onto greatness or he’s blown it all on this (OK, I’ll admit it) rather impressive debut.
Geoff Dyer: Yoga for people who can’t be bothered to do it
If you have ever wanted to be a writer but ended up just having a proper job - reading this book will either send you into the pit of depression; or make you realise that you did the right thing after all because frankly, no matter how hard you tried, or how much you did, you’d never see it or write it like Geoff Dyer.
He’s a 40something, skunk-smoking semi-nomad (well he was when he wrote this), who headed off in the opposite direction while most his peers when down the road to steady jobs, stable relationships and happy families. The ingredients for this collection of essays make a perfect recipe for self indulgent nonsense: it’s basically him travelling the world, getting stoned, either with a girlfriend, or alone but never far from his next sexual encounter, and making observations about life, the universe and, well, stuff.
It’s not without its pretentious moments, but on the whole he pulls it off so well, you’re left with a rare mix of awe and envy. Oh and it’s funny.
I am slightly biased. I met him once. He was both friendly and interesting, and it involved a mildly humorous incident featuring a pipe of skunk and a moderately well known TV actor that I’ve dined out on for years..
Graham Greene: The ministry of fear
I always read a Graham Greene book when I go away. A few dozen more holidays and I’ll have finished the lot. This is one of his ‘entertainments’ - although I don’t really understand the difference between an entertainment and a novel, but there you go. An interesting set of twists and turns as Arthur Rowe goes into a garden fete in Bloomsbury, leaves with a cake from the Tombole and his life is never the same again. Good, but wouldn’t say it’s his best…fascinating most of all as a contemporaneous account of every day London during the Blitz.
One of life’s great joys is ploughing your way through a reasonably intelligent, breathless thriller. Preferably one that is well written enough to be reasonably easy to read; but also smart enough to slightly flatter your intelligence. Dan Brown’s the Da Vinci Code fits perfectly, so it was great fun reading it over the weekend: it’s semi-brainy and breathless in turns, like a punch drunk Umberto Eco mixed with Ben Elton: without the gags.