Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell To Arms, Jonathan Coe, Middle England

Some sombre reading while on a Scout trip to Ypres to commemorate the centenary of the armistice. Really should have had some light relief between the horrors of warfare and the senseless loss of life of WWI. AQOTWF isn’t on the list of 100 essential novels, the nearest equivalent is the Red Badge of Courage - I guess that reflects the American experience, and the Civil War is their touchstone of pointless slaughter and mechanised murder.'Middle England' is Jonathan Coe's Brexit novel, using his characters from The Rotters' Club. i enjoyed it and it was very good on the resentment and left-behindness of the Leave voters, and how we became 2 nations living in each other's midsts without realising it - and the shock that came to the liberal establishment when truths it took to be self-evident were rejected.

James Acaster, James Acaster's Classic Scrapes

Terrible title, but a funny book. Acaster is a comedian who suffers from the ability to get himself into strange situations. It  reminded me of Curb Your Enthusiasm, where a character's seemingly reasonable responses to a situation run up against a set of circumstances that move the character deeper and deeper into a hole despite their best efforts.  Makes for some very funny stories. William is singing some lovely songs at the moment 'Shiny-like a crab-spinning round' and 'I would wor fi hundred miles and I would wor Fi hundred miles.. .  .'. Fred and I are travelling to Flanders tomorrow for the Armistice centenary.

James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Maybe the ground-breaking style of this hasn't aged well - to me it didn’t seem anything special, but maybe it was the first 'warts and all' disguised autobiography that touched previous taboo subjects. I make it sound like Knausgaard, which I love - not sure why I didn't get this, but Ulysses and Finnegans Wake are presumably way beyond my comprehension!

Bernard Cornwell, The Winter King, Alec Ryrie, Protestants: The Radicals Who Made the Modern World

A bit of a comfort read first, the 3rd or 4th time I've read it, I think. I still remember reading part II in a deckchair on the beach at Wittering (1997?) and enjoying it very much. Still very readable. 'Protestants' was read in Devon where we had a few days in a house in Bideford. Lovely holiday but very short and very cold.

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

Nothing at all to do with The Handmaid's Tale, which I'd always lazily assumed. An ageing preacher is writing a letter to his young son, who he suspects he will not see grow up. He means to impart his wisdom and experience. John Ames comes across as a fine,gentle, loving man who loves his family. I got a bit lost in the theological debates, but apparently it was Robinson's attempts to humanise Calvinism and puritanism, so often seen as cold, intolerant and, well, puritanical. When it wasn;t dealing with religion, but the relationships between fathers and sons (I guess the religious would argue that you can't separate that), it was very affecting. We've just booked a last minute holiday in Devon, so have ordered Westward Ho! and too many maps

Dan Jones, The Templars: The Rise and Fall of God's Holy Warriors, Sally Rooney, Conversations With Friends, Geoffrey Wheatcroft, Le Tour: A History of the Tour de France, Philip Cowley & Dennis Kavanagh, The British General Election of 2017

Lovely reads, I've been waiting so long for the last one to come out. I took a day off to read it, but it didn't arrive in time. Freddie is doing a project on the Tour de France, so I've adopted the role of principal researcher. I need to remember it is his project though.  More important than books,  we have a new family member, Molly Sawyer being born on 4th October!

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Gavin Maxwell, Lords of the Atlas: The Rise and Fall of the House of Glaoua 1893-1956, Jez Butterworth, Jerusalem

Loved Fahrenheit 451, although some of the ideas went over my head a bit. But the whole idea of a future world where books are dangerous and subversive, and how this affects society was brilliantly imagined. Sadly, like so many dystopian visions, it seems apposite at the moment, in our era of celebrating ignorance and 'having had enough of experts'. Maxwell's book has been on my wishlist for over 12 years, since we went to the wonderful city of Marrakech. I'd love to go back, but our budget is now so tight it's just impossible. With 3 kids, we struggle to afford a caravan for a week in august - £1200! £1200!. I read 'Jerusalem' in one sitting, having given up on the chance of ever seeing Mark Rylance play Rooster

Gavin Fridell, Coffee, Douglas Adams, The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe.

'Coffee' was about coffee statecraft, and was a very dry economic study that critiqued the 'free market' approach to coffee production and trade. TRATUE made me smile a lot, but all very familiar. A bit of a comfort read

L.G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox, Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March

Here we go again, another Great American Novel that I struggled to wade through. It was just a slog. Augie, the 'born recruit' went from one job to another, never seemed to come alive to me as a character, and I just didn't care what happened to him. I'm obviously a philistine.

Fox surprised me - I know very little about him beyond the high regard he has among some politicians and historians. Reading his life, and his apparent dislike of active politics, I couldn't understand what it was that inspired such reverence. Was it just that in an era of conformity, he dared to be different by supporting the American and then the French Revolution? Neither seems to have cost him much as he relaxed in Chertsey, and nothing he did gave active support to either revolution from what I could glean.

Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway

 Nope, still don’t get it. A novel about an upper-class woman with no real concerns organising a party for the evening with some old flames interwoven with the story of a shell-shocked combatant. Like 'To The Lighthouse', I'm obviously missing something.

Catherine Nixey, The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World, Stefan Zweig, Beware Of Pity

Two books I really enjoyed, and with a rather depressing connection - both are concerned with the end days of great civilisations (the Roman Empire and Austria-Hungary) under assault from the book-burners and intolerant zealots. Horrible that this should ring so true in our era of Brexit and Trump.

Denis Johnson, Tree of Smoke

We've been sleeping in that tent ever since the last update, it's been so hot here. This doesn’t include Helen, obviously, but me and the kids have been out there every night and it's lovely and cool. I need to take it down tonight though as the lawn man comes tomorrow :(

I struggled with Tree of Smoke, a sprawling epic concerning the American experience in Vietnam that blurred the line between fiction and reality. It probably would have been easier to follow if I was American and older, and had experienced the impact of Vietnam on the previously accepted certainties of American life following the heroism of WWII - that America was the good guy and was saving the world for democracy and that the American military was all-powerful. Vietnam ended that perception for millions of people as it became clear that America wasn't particularly interested in democracy or self-determination for others, were more interested in protecting capitalism than liberty, were unwelcome by the locals who considered them an occupying force, and that their military wasn't nearly as effective as they'd assumed. Quite a jolt for the top nation

Sam Selvon, The Lonely Londoners, Annie Proulx, The Shipping News, Sarah Churchwell, Behold, America: A History of America First and the American Dream, China Mieville, The City And The City

Haven't enjoyed a book as much as 'The City And The City' in a long time. It's a standard police procedural, but set in a Balkan city that shares space with another city - they're in the same physical space but there is a collective agreement not to 'breach' the divide. 'Behold America' was chilling, a reminder of the white supremacist. 'pure American' tradition in US culture and politics. Hard to believe it's come to the forefront again with Trump. We saw her speak at Hay and she was so passionate

I've just bought a new tent as our old one was too small for the family. It's up in the garden at the moment and we've been sleeping in it as it is just too hot in the house

John Julius Norwich, France: A History: from Gaul to de Gaulle, Marie Phillips, The Table of Less Valued Knights, Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy, David Crystal, Listen to Your Child: A Parent's Guide to Children's Language, Martin Amis, Money, Marcus Tanner, The Raven King: Matthias Corvinus and the Fate of His Lost Library

John Julius Norwich has sadly passed away since I read his history of France. It reminded me of George Macdonald Fraser's last books - very indulgent, personal, irreverent and from a man out of step with the modern world. Very uncharitable view and in both cases I wonder if their publishers knew they were on the way out and either waived normal editorial standards or rushed through publication. 'An American Tragedy' was the dark side of the American Dream, and stands with 'Ragtime' with its claim to be the Great American Novel because it explores the exploitation, the social barriers, the ambition and drive of those without who are prepared to go to any lengths to enter the gilded world they see.

Read most of it in Hay at the festival, where I had a wonderful time with Helen. I've been excited about it for months - it was great for the two of us to get away, and we stayed in a gypsy caravan next to Stewart Lee. Him recognising me at a talk he was chairing and saying 'oh, hello there!' may be one of the highlights of my life.

Junot Diaz, The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Not the book I was expecting, about a young Hispanic nerd in NY. That's how it starts, but it soon expands to cover the tragic history of a Dominican family in the 20th Century and the horrors of the Trujillo regime. Really enjoyable and learnt a lot about Dominican history. It was William's 4th birthday at the weekend and we had a big party. He's a real handful at the moment. It's lovely as he's talking far more and loves to sing and mimics his brother and sister. He wants to go 'geocachin' all the time, despite not really understanding it.  Hard to believe he starts school in September, he seems so young!

Next Erlendur - Arctic Chill

China Mieville, The Last Days Of New Paris

Margaret Mitchell, Gone With The Wind, Lucy Mangan. Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading, Cyril Hare, An English Murder, Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, Elizabeth Drayson, The Moor's Last Stand: How Seven Centuries of Muslim Rule in Spain Came to an End

My holiday reading for the US. Gone With the Wind was breathtakingly racist, and the most alarming thing was the insouciance with which Margaret Mitchell and her characters just accepted the superiority of well-bred whites and that slavery was beneficial to all. It was still a gripping read though, and I ended up sneaking off most nights after the kids had gone to the bed to read a few more chapters while overdosing on free root beer and cakes at the Resort Food Hall in Disney World. Helen also had to tell me off for reading about Sherman's March to the Sea when I should have been watching the Orca display at Seaworld.

I'd read anything by Lucy Mangan, I've been a fan of her articles in The Guardian for years, and when she writes a book about childhood reading that's just the nuts. My responses to each chapter generally fell into one of two categories. A) I had read the book and nodded along enthusiastically with agreement or B) I had not read the book and stuck it straight on my Amazon wishlist so I was no longer missing out. One book she raved about, 'Private: Keep Out', is now out of print and battered second hand copies are changing hands for £700!

Cyril Hare's 'An English Murder' kept me diverted on the plane back via Iceland. It was a corking, classic english murder mystery. I was going to ask Alan if he had read it, but we weren't able to meet up in NY unfortunately as Alec was unwell. 'Blood Meridian' was unremittingly violent and I lost my way at times. No doubt a truer version of The West than Hollywood's, but I prefer the humour and verbosity of Deadwood over unending barbarity and depravity. Finally, a defence of Boabdil, the last Moorish ruler of Granada. His story is such a tragic one, it's no wonder it has inspired so many paintings, books etc. Makes me desperate to go back to Andalucia.

Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived In The Castle

A nice slice of chilling American Gothic centring on a reclusive oddball aristocratic family imprisoned in their stately pile following a hideous poisoning. Really enjoyable, I was forever sneaking a few extra pages when I got a chance. We're off to the US on Wednesday, so have just started 'Gone With The Wind', the first few chapters of which are outrageous in their faux-nostalgia and blinkered view of the antebellum south. Let's see how it continues. . .

Frank McLynn, The Road Not Taken: How Britain Narrowly Missed a Revoloution, 1381-1926

As a historian, McLynn can be a bit partial and iconoclastic. He takes aim at quite a few shibboleths of English history. It’s hardly new to hear Henry VIII and Churchill denounced, but McLynn is very disparaging about Elizabeth I and Edward III, our perfect queen and perfect king - which makes an interesting change. It was a bit blah for me until the home ground of the 1926 strike was reached. McLynn was in no doubt that it was a truly revolutionary moment, and if the TUC hadn’t caved then the opportunity was there. Of course, as he himself states, the TUC never wanted a revolution and weren't prepared to go there. It's chilling to remember the state's response to the strike though - the black propaganda of the British Gazette, the encouragement of fascists to violence, the willingness for the military to shoot strikers. The General Strike was not intended by the strikers to bring about revolution, but the response of Baldwin's Government and its supporters showed that they thought that a possibility and they were prepared to kill ordinary British working people to avoid that. To Save The Nation. It's easy to draw parallels with the state's approach to striking miners at Orgreave and to anti-capitalist demonstrators more recently.

Toni Morrison, Beloved

Still processing this a bit, the horror of what slavery does to the human psyche is something so beyond my experience it's difficult to digest. To murder your own child so they wouldn't have to endure life on the plantation - how horrifying. A book to recommend.

How do  I segue from that to our holiday in just over a week? I'm torn between some light reading or taking a great big tome that has been sitting there a while. Hmmm. In the meantime, Libby has become a fixture at cubs, despite being a year too young. I found a spare scarf and woggle, and she is now known as 'Black Six'. Daddy's Little Enforcer.

China Mieville, The Last Days Of New Paris

'New Paris' is  a city rebelling against Nazi occupation, where an explosion of such force has resulted in art manifesting itself as living organisms. So lobster telephones are biting people, the sky is obscured by sharks and more seriously, monstrous creatures roam the boulevards. The Nazis are fighting back in league with demons from hell. Bonkers. Just Bonkers. I rather enjoyed it though.  We're flying to the US in a few weeks, so Helen and I have been spending most of our evenings working out logistics and booking rides and restaurants for Disney World. It's mind-bogglingly complex. I've been reading an 'Unofficial Guide to DisneyWorld' which was 800 pages+ long. I think we're more excited than the kids (I am, anyway). Just have to remember that it’s not about an efficient checklist of seeing everything, it’s about having fun, and most kids that go to Disney say the best thing was mucking about by the pool at the resort.

Jean Manco, Ancestral Journeys: The Peopling of Europe from the First Venturers to the Vikings

Had to gloss over large parts where the book discussed genetic mutations between DH3a1bn and DH3a1bnx and how it could be due to an influx from AB1jyt34 at a later date. The conclusion seems to be that the peoples of Europe were far more mobile in prehistory than has previously been supposed, and that there were some mass migrations where indigenous people were mostly replaced rather than a change in culture or technology being relective of a static population adopting new methods or beliefs, or the changes being accompanied by an elite rather than significantly altering the genetic makeup. Of course, all of these models have been true at one time or another

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Michael Booth, The Almost Nearly Perfect People: The Truth About the Nordic Miracle, Jake Arnott, The Fatal Tree, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime And Punishment, Guillem Balague, Brave New World: Inside Pochettino's Spurs, Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove, Zadie Smith, White Teeth, Elizabeth Gee Nash, The Hansa , Jo Nesbo, The Son, Richard Ford, The Sportswrite

'The Sportswriter' was yet another mid 20th Century book by a white, middle-aged East Coast man about an introspective, prosperous white, middle-aged East Coast professional man and his (ahem) struggles. I should be the core constituency for this sort of stuff, but it just leaves me cold. Nothing seems to happen and I struggle to feel any sympathy for the protagonist. My heart plunged when I got to the end and realised it was part 1 of a trilogy.

'The Son' was Nesbo by numbers - grisly deaths in the seedier parts of Norway and a police procedural with dysfunctional detectives. Still enjoyed it, but they're just being churned out like episodes of Midsomer now. 'The Snowman' has been made into a film starring Michael Fassbender. It's meant to be terrible, but it might be ok for an evening's viewing, even for the mountain scenery alone.

'The Hansa' was a history of the Hanseatic League - I picked it up as Mum and Dad are going on a tour of the Baltic soon and I thought it might be a good pop history for Mum, but it was a wee bit too dry  - pages of extracts from Herring Inventories and medieval Flemish exchange rates.

'White Teeth' was on the 100 essential novels, which surprised me as I hadn’t realised quite how highly it was rated in the US. It's a love letter to London though, Dickens for the 20th Century.

'A Man Called Ove' was lovely and life-affirming, reminded me of Harold Fry. There were some sniffy reviews from critics who are expecting bleak existential angst from Scandinavian authors. It's not too sugar-coated though, it has its fair share of tragedy and rage against the failings of the Swedish social democrat model. It's the story of Ove, who tries his best to maintain his principles and values in a society that is changing, corrupt and doesn’t share his beliefs. The cast are there to reinforce his prejudices - the muslim wife, the husband who cannot repair anything, the cyclists who leaves his bike in a restricted area. . .

'Brave New World' was an indulgence - it was never going to share revelations about THFC, but if you read between the lines there were a few interesting comments about current players. What a time to be a Spurs fan. We're in the CL and outplaying Real, Juventus and Man Utd while Arsenal are imploding with their fans calling for Wenger to go. It won't last, so right now I'm just enjoying the moment.

'Crime and Punishment' was slogged through. I'm not clever enough to understand all the philosophising about guilt and its effect on the human psyche