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!