Cormac McCarthy, The Road, Michael Frayn, The Tin Men

Two fiction books in a row? What is happening? 'The Tin Men' was read as some light relief a third of the way through Robert Caro's magisterial biography of Robert Moses, which weighs more than Bibs. 700 pages to go, including a world war and a state-wide  freeway building programme, as well as the inexorable descent into corruption of an idealist faced with the realities of power. 'The Road' was a very good read, set in a dystopian future where America is a wasteland, and a father and son are trying to survive and escape to a better future. The love and sacrifice of the (unnamed) father for his (unnamed) son was choking. Helen's having a read of it now. 'The Tin Men' is over 50 years old, but seemed so relevant - programming computers to carry out roles traditionally performed by humans, including producing novels, newspapers and resolving ethical dilemmas, and the boredom and ennui of office life. 

David Carlton, MacDonald versus Henderson: The Foreign Policy of the Second Labour Government

Back on home territory here! This was originally a phd thesis from the sixties, examining an aspect of the second Labour government that gets forgotten with all the domestic financial issues. Snowden still features as a bogeyman, insufferable in his intransigence and all-powerful in his domain as Chancellor, conducting his own foreign policy and diplomacy. If I'd read this 20 years ago it would have helped my own MA dissertation, I'm sure. Reading it reminds me that it's still 20th Century UK political history, particularly of the left that is where I feel most comfortable and knowledgable, despite all the forays into 18th Century politics, and the American Revolutionary period, and the Habsburgs and mitteleuropa, and the Byzantine empire and the Levant.

Kazuo Ishiguro, The Buried Giant, Gwyn A. Williams, Artisans and Sans-Culottes: Popular Movements in France and Britain during the French Revolution, Robert Merle, Heretic Dawn, Barry Cunliffe, By Steppe, Desert and Ocean: The Birth of Eurasia

Loved 'The Buried Giant', a very sweet and dreamlike story of an old couple very much in love in the dark ages trying to find their son. 'Heretic Dawn' is the 3rd in the Fortunes of France series which are gradually being translated into english. Everyone compares them to Dumas, and they're full of swordplay, intrigue and romance. Barry Cunliffe's book is a sweeping study of Eurasia and the interplay between the european peninsula, the near east and China via the steppe. Great to read the long view.

Right now, Tottenham are favourites to win the league, something I've never experienced before. We're spurs though, we'll find a way to blow it. It's Arsenal this weekend, let's see how that goes. Even more astonishingly, the bloviating oaf Donald Trump seems to have the republican presidential nomination sewn up. It's genuinely bizarre - the more idiotic and offensive his announcements, the more he goes up in the polls. He calls Mexicans rapists, he goes up in the polls. The sheer amount of chutzpah it takes for a draft dodger to claim John McCain isn’t a war hero is astounding. What’s more, how on earth is a privileged, divorced, unchristian Manhattan resident appealing to conservatives? It's like he's America's id, all knee jerk reaction, no filter.