John Le Carre, Smiley's People, Bob Mortimer & Andy Dawson, Athletico Mince, John Masefield, The Box Of Delights, John Kampfner, Why the Germans Do it Better: Notes from a Grown-Up Country, Stuart Turton, The Devil And The Dark Water, Paul embery, Despised: Why the Modern Left Loathes the Working Class

 More Holiday comfort reads as the post-Brexit trade deal is ratified and COVID cases continue to increase. Le Carre passed away over the period too, a superb writer who has been pigeon-holed as a 'spy writer', when in reality he has much to say about the state of post war Britain. 'Athletico Mince' was a cash-in spinoff from a very funny podcast featuring Bob Mortimer. It started as a football podcast, but quickly evolved into something much bigger and funnier that uses football as a jumping-off point for a series of grotesque characters. Roy Hodgson is a Warhammer obsessive, Harry Kane a pompous leader of a rubbish kids' gang, Peter Beardsley a tragic halfwit constantly abused by his poached egg-obsessed missus. I find myself laughing out loud at the absurdity, but really it's just two very funny blokes mucking about. 'The Box of Delights' was the purple pim and just right for Christmas Day, and then I've just finished Paul Embery's fascinating book. I agree with much of it, and how the Labour Party has abandoned and even come to despise many of the people who it should be representing, the economically left-wing but socially conservative working class. I do despair of the Labour party, and its obsession with minority issues like misgendering and shutting down of anything that questions the socially liberal orthodoxy.  The big question is whether the Labour Party, with an almost entirely socially and economically liberal PLP and overwhelmingly middle-class membership can ever reestablish its connection with the people it should be representing. As long as the unions back the party, I'll stay a member, but I'd happily jump ship for a viable alternative. I'm hardly a social conservative myself, but recognise that's a legitimate viewpoint for millions of people. The party doesn't speak to them, and it doesn't speak to me either. i find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with so much that Leanne Wood of Plaid and Caroline Lewis of the Greens say, and very little of what the leadership of the Labour Party say at the moment (Back Boris' awful trade deal, reopen schools as a priority, don't tax the wealthy more).

Susan Cooper, The Dark is Rising

 What a Christmas comfort read, just right amidst all the chaos of COVID restrictions and our shambolic government changing the rules at the last minute. I didn't savour it as I should have. My original plan was to read in real-time, starting as the novel does on the 20th December. But Helen wanted to watch the Strictly final, so I read and read a bit more. It's a shame as I raced through it rather, it is familiar territory after all. It will be a strange Christmas this year, but we'll make the best of it. I've just broken the 500 miles run target I set myself, which I'm v proud of given that I took 6 months off after the Surrey Half. I've lost 10kg over this year, cycled more than ever and if I make it to 552 miles over the next 10 days then will have run the furthest ever too. 5 miles a day though including Christmas. . . 

David Abulafia, The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans, JP Donleavy, A Fairytale of New York, Magnus Mills, Tales of Muffled Oars, Laurie Lee, As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning

 'Started with a mega-history of the world from the perspective of the oceans, and it was nice to read more about the Polynesian exploration and settlement of the Pacific and the trade and navigation of the Indian Ocean before getting on to familiar territory as the europeans explode out from the Med and Atlantic. 'A Fairytale of New York' was on my reading list purely because of the name, and it was a bit of a let-down. couldn't really get into it, wasn't at all funny as I had been led to believe. The latest Magnus Mills has been published through amazon and was like reading a printout, but was the usual Magnus Mills enclosed world or pubs, meetings, routing and surrealism with an anonymous narrator. Read in a day, a real treat. Finally, Laurie Lee's memoir of his travels in Spain. I thought it was about his wartime experience, but it ends as he ships out of Spain just before the war starts. In the real world, I'm becoming increasingly disillusions with the Labour Party. The Leadership's scorched earth policy to destroy the left of the party is seeing many good people suspended or expelled, and their timid policies and abstentions are thoroughly dispiriting. The awful shadow minister for schools, Wes Streeting, is supporting the government's policy of keeping schools open above all else when it is obvious that it is leading to an increase in cases. How can it possibly be that 2 people cannot meet in a house or pub or garden but 2000 kids and staff can spend six hours a day in the same building?   They seem to have reverted to the 'Tory lite' approach of 2010-2015. I'm not sure who they think they will attract, but they are losing committed Labour members like me. I stuck with it before Corbyn, but having seen how the right sabotaged and undermined the left, I'm in no mood to bite my tongue any longer. i think I'll stay in the party so  I can use my vote, but nothing else. 

Ned Palmer, A Cheesemonger's History of the British Isles, Stephen Lawhead, Hood, Alexander Watson, The Fortress: The Great Siege of Przemysl, John le Carre, The Honourable Schoolboy, Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys

 'Hood' was recommended by Lucy Mangan as a comfort read, a retelling of Robin Hood set in Wales.  Didn't grip me though, The dialogue was so clunky and cliched. 'Have at thee, thou varlet!' After that though, 3 gripping reads. Yet more on Eastern Europe and the twilight of the Habsburgs, a Le Carre and the new book from Colson Whitehead, a jarring tale of abuse and the dilemma of how to react to the authority of evil and oppression - oppose and suffer or accommodate and survive. I'm a coward, no doubt I'd take the latter. In the world outside books, a vaccine has been developed for the virus and the roll out started yesterday. We are all still distancing and the kids have had to isolate again following cases at school, but there is light at the end of the tunnel now. Unfortunately the light just means we can see the car crash that is Brexit.

Dee Brown, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West, Michael Frayn, Towards The End Of The Morning

 As I was reading Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, all the relentless exploitation and bad faith behaviour of the European settlers seemed to mirror contemporary politics and power struggles - and pulled into focus that 'the White Men' are so often on the dark side, and that the version of history we tell ourselves where we are the good guys is so far removed from reality. There's a few groups on both sides of the Atlantic pushing back against BLM and a more balanced view of history in schools and wanting to return to expounding the glories of the white man's mission to civilise the world. Craziness. 

Agatha Christie, Death In The Clouds, Magnus Mills, Three To See The King, Nick Hayes, The Book of Trespass: Crossing The Lines That Divide Us, John Steinbeck, The Acts of King Arthur And His Noble Knights, Agatha Christie, a Halloween Mystery, Daniel Levin, Nothing But A Circus, Ali Smith, Winter, Leonora Carrington, The Hearing Trumpet, Susanna Clarke, Piranesi, Eamonn Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580, Junichiro Tanizaki, A Cat, A Man, And Two Women, Sam Selvon, The Housing Lark, Owen Jones, This Land: The Story of a Movement, Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man, Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ, Keith Roberts, Pavane, John le Carre, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Robert Dallek, Franklin D Roosevelt: A Political Life, Hope Mirrlees, Lud-in-the-Mist, Saul Bellow, Herzog, Peter Sarris, Byzantium: A Very Short Introduction, Jerome K Jerome, Three Men In a Boat, John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

Still in a Steinbeck fanboy situation at the moment. 'The Winter of our Discontent' was superb. Unlike so much else of his fiction, it's set on the east coast in  a whaling town, where the scion of a once prosperous puritan family has been reduced to working as a grocery clerk. He's honest, happy and poor. Throughout the book a string of circumstances open up opportunities to him to enrich himself and be the person in town he is expected to be given his name. So he takes advantage at the expense of those that trust him, gains the power and money he has never craved but which he has been tempted by, and in the end, once it has been revealed that his son, following his example, cheated to win an award, he commits suicide. A candidate for the Great American Novel as the dream turns sour?

 'Three Men in a Boat' was a comfort read, and remains as joyful as ever, just what was needed as we enter a second lockdown. Our government continue to manage the whole thing ineptly, using it only as an excuse to enrich themselves and their chums. Public health, safety and the welfare of the economy don't even seem to exist in their calculation until they are forced to show some consideration by public opinion. In the meantime, Labour are doing well in the polls, but have chosen the Kinnock approach of bashing, marginalising and blaming the left as a precursor to electoral victory. It's horrible, and leaving aside the cynicism and realpolitik of it all that should render such a move reprehensible anyway, it's a strategy that seems doomed to me. The vast majority of Labour members and Labour voters are left wing. They want public services to be run in the interest of the community, not profit, they want the wealthy to pay their fair share and they want the government to be responsible for housing, education and health rather than leaving it to the marketplace. The people advising Starmer don't seem to agree and are wanting to present a future Labour government as non-ideological and just a more competent management team than the Tories. OK, this might attract the very small Change UK liberal, educated, wealthy remainers back to the party, but it offers nothing to the millions of voters who need a Labour Government and the hundreds of thousands of Labour members who want real, socialist change. Honestly, I'd be ok with just one thing. Keep the internal market in the NHS, continue privatising government agencies, keep academies and private schools, keep Trident, keep allowing the wealthiest to avoid paying a fair share of tax, but build decent public sector housing. Or leave housing to the failed market and do one, just one, of those other things. That's all I'd need to be enthusiastic for a new Labour government. 

Amongst all the other books, 'Piranesi' and 'Lud-in-the-Mist' stood out as fantastic novels in two senses. Susanna Clarke +must+ have read Lud-in-the-Mist before writing JS&MN.

Magnus Mills, The Forensic Records Society, Frank McLynn, 1759: The Year Britain Became The Master of the World, Agatha Christie, The Mystery of the Blue Train, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories, Tim Moore, French Revolutions: Cycling the Tour de France, Louis de Bernieres, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Andrew Adonis, Bevin: Labour's Churchill, Magnus Mills, The Field of the Cloth of Gold, John Steinbeck, Of Mice And Men, Thomas Penn, The Brothers York: An English Tragedy, Andrew Miller, Now We Shall Be Entirely Free, John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday, Tim Krabbé, The Rider, Agatha Christie, Murder in Mesopotamia, Mark Kurlansky, The Baasque History of the World, James Meek, To Calais, In Ordinary Time, Agatha Christie, Peril At End House, Seth Godin, Tribes:We Need You To Lead Us, Magnus Mills, The Maintenance of Headway, John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat, Ali Smith, Autumn, Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds, Attlee: A Life in Politics

 More lockdown reding, the last three read mostly in a cottage in Wales. It was our first hoiday since the lockdown, and we had booked for a week in Llanberis. Three days before we were due to go, Helen received her credit card statement and realised she had been refunded the cost of the holiday/ When she called the letting agency we worked out that the booking had been cancelled without us being informed - so no holiday. The next 24 hours were spent frantically trying to find a replacement. I was sat on varuoius search sites pressing 'refresh' hoping for a cancellation. One came up that looked suitable so I booked it straight away, paid in full and contacted the company to confirm. I asked them to double-check with the owner given what had happened, but tbh, I still didn't believe that is was possible this place was free. Even on the drive there I hadn't commited. We couldn't get in until 7 as they had to do a thorough clean, so we went to the beach at Barmouth and had tea in a cafe (the Lobster Pot Cafe, which William became obsessed with and wanted to eat at for every meal). We got to the cottage about 1920 and as we pulled up I had a sinking feeling in my stomach as there was another group outside unloading their car.

So i went up to them and politely explained that I rthought we had the cottage booked. They were confident that they too had booked the cottage quite some weeks ago. I knew it. We both checked out booking confirmation and called the owner to clarify what had happened. In the meantime the kids were in floods of tears at the thought of no holiday. Luckily one of the other group realised there was another holiday let around the back of the cottage, and they had unpacked and unloaded into the wrong cottage. What a relief. They were very apologetic and cleared out at a rapid rate, leaving lots of stuff begind which they kept popping back for - dog leads, loo rolls, crisps. . . 

We have a lovely holiday though, plenty of time n the beach, but the kids weren't that keen on walking. For books, I'm really enjoying Steinbeck and Magnus Mills at the moment, and dipping into Poirot for light relief

Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, Magnus Mills, All Quiet on the Orient Express, Simon Cooper, The Otter's Tale, Agatha Christie, Death's Folly, Robin Cooper, The Time Waster Letters, Mick Herron, Spook Street, Agatha Christie, The Hollow, Simon Winder, The Man Who Saved Britain. John Steinbeck, Cannery Row, Agatha Christie, Appointment With Death

3 Poirot novels as my comfort reading continues in lockdown. It really is an omnishambles at the moment in the UK. The government are utterly incompetent, the advice given is unclear and contradictory and they genuinely don’t seem to give a stuff about the welfare of ordinary people. Johnson appears on TV and just blusters and bullshits. Last night there was a photo of him holding up some Timtams in triumph at the prospect of a trade deal with Australia. I assumed it had been photoshopped, but it turns out that no, it was real. That's why he's triumphant. Because apparently the massive damage done to the economy and to our international standing  done by Brexit is all worth it because it means we will be able to buy some penguin knockoffs. It's too depressing to point out that we can buy them anyway, hence why he is fucking able to hold some. and yet this lazy, lying, adulterous, dim buffoon is running our country and still ahead in the polls. No wonder I'm taking refuge in the certainty of the rarefied, civilised locked rooms of Agatha Christie.

Agatha Christie, Before The Flood, Kapka Kassabova, To The Lake: A Balkan Journey of War and Peace, Niklas Natt och Dag, The Wolf And The Watchman, John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley

Two fantastic books in a row. Agatha Chrisie was comfort reading, to the Lake another examination of the nuttiness of ethnic, linguistic and religious differences in the Balkan. The Wolf and the Watchman took the Scandi-noir police procedural, with it's grizzled and flawed investigators, its seedy and depraved underbelly of a respectable society, and misogyny, cruelty and torture and moved them all to 18th Century Stockholm for a really refreshing spin. And then Steinbeck. I've not read much Steinbeck, and none of his non-fiction, but this was incredible. Later in life, Steinbeck sets off in a trailer with his dog Charley to go look for the real America. He writes so well - self-deprecating, honest, insightful. He was away a wee bit too long as he starts having conversations with Charley in print, but what he has to say about the creeping consumerism and materialism in America, and the peculiar issues of the Deep South are still as relevant today.

John Lewis Gaddis, On Grand Strategy, Shusaku Endo, The Samurai, Stephen Moss, Mrs Moreau's Warbler: How Birds Got Their Names, Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Still lockdown reading! Finding it hard to get the time to read as my normal routine of reading on the exercise bike is no longer an option. I did purchase a cheap exercise bike just before the lockdown started, but didn’t read the reviews and it is too small for me. So I bodged a seat post extension, sat on it happily reading a few times until the casing snapped and I went a over t taking the bike with me. I ended up on the floor of the garage with the bike on top of me and my right shin cut to shribbons. Couldn't help noting that throughout it all the book remained clenched in my left hand on the correct page. I've rebodged it, but not high enough to sit back and read, so instead I'm listening to podcasts. On the books, I loved The Samurai, a historical globe-trotting novel from a Japanese perspective. I've put the 100 essential novels on hold with just two to go, as the two remaining, William Gaddis' Recognitions and Roberto Bolano's 2666 are huge tomes and I just can't face them without dedicated reading time. Instead I'm going to try to read some classics or oldies, hence The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Agatha Christie is on the list next.

Suraiya Faroqhi, The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It, Sam Byers Perfidious Albion

Lockdown reading. The situation in the UK seems to be getting worse and wore, as the death count rises each day and Boris Johnson has been rushed to hospital.  The UK Government's response to the outbreak has been appalling, they've not taken it seriously enough, given out mixed messages -  'stay in!' 'it's ok to go out for exercise', and our PM was only a few weeks ago boasting about shaking hands with everyone in a hospital. It looks like it will hit harder in the UK than anywhere else in Europe because of a) our government's wrong headed response and b) the deliberate underfunding of our health and social infrastructure for the previous decades. Despite this, Johnson appears to have record levels of approval, is eulogised in the press and has people all over the country praying for him.

Magnus Mills, The Scheme for Full Employment, Jerzy Kosinski, The Painted Bird

Can completely understand why The Painted Bird was on the list. It's visceral, brutal and shocking, and presents a harrowing counter-picture to Eastern Europe under the Nazis. No wonder it was banned in the Eastern Bloc as it shows the fear, cruelty, superstition and collaboration of peasants in the persecution of others under the Nazis. Very different from the official history of heroic resistance and solidarity in occupied territories. It's semi-autobiographical apparently, and it's difficult to believe that this boy being beaten, raped, tortured and witnessing horrific acts carried out so casually is only 8 years old. another reminder, like the Handmaid's Tale, that for most of humanity in most of history their lives have been miserable, fearful and oppressed.
THSFFE was a reread, and a reminder of how much I enjoy Magnus Mills. Have just ordered a load more of his books to get through the lockdown

Helen Castor, She Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth

First book read under lockdown. The gym has shut so my normal time reading while on the bike has stopped. As my ankle is still painful following the Surrey Half, I cannot run either. We are all allowed out once a day for exercise, so I am walking a 5 mile circuit each morning. Great for catching up on podcasts, but no good for reading. So have been reading She Wolves as and when I can, so haven't really been absorbed by it.

Seishi Yokomizo, The Honjin Murders

A vintage Japanese locked-room mystery, translated into English for the first time. It was funny to read something so familiar but in an unfamiliar setting. It reminded me of nothing so much as an episode of Jonathan Creek, with an incredibly convoluted and complicated mechanism and set up. The suspension of disbelief and elaborate staging required is entirely unbelievable, but still very enjoyable. I guess the skill of the greatest like Agatha Christie lies in making an artificial unbelievable scenario seem credible.

Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Richard Ayoade, Ayoade On Top

I was reading Anna Karenina when TMATL was released, so I had to put it on hold for a few days. Reading two such heavy books appears to have brought on mild RSI in my left forearm. Need to stretch more. It's bad enough getting injured running, getting injured reading is silly. I really enjoyed Anna Karenina, but I am going to sound a bit chippy when describing it. It is essentially a posh soap opera, where you are invested in the characters and their story arcs. The more of the 'essential novels' I read, the more a common thread is emerging (not always there, but often). The books are about wealthy, privileged people who don't have any real problems and so invent some for themselves. The jeopardy comes from their fear of falling from their elevated position in society to a less elevated position. Still far more privileged than the majority of the population, but there you are. I'm not sure if this is because of the demographic of 'great' authors, who by definition are in the well-off, well-educated section of society, the demands of their market, as most readers will also be from the same demographic, or aspire to be in that demographic, whether the lives of the privileged genuinely ARE more interesting or whether that is just the perception. 'Ayoade on Top' was an indulgence for the very funny Richard Ayoade, but was essentially one joke - that the formulaic Gwyneth Paltrow movie 'View From The Top' is a triumph of cinema. The joke quickly wears thin unfortunately. In the meantime, If I looked up from whichever book I'm reading, I would notice the country shutting down slowly as a far-to-late half-arsed response to the spread of Coronavirus. At the moment schools are still open, but people are panic-buying and hoarding. Let's see what occurs.

Hilary Mantel, The Mirror & The Light

Read out of turn on the day of release, and the highlight of my year so far. I took 2 days off work to read it, was waiting at Waterstones in Woking for the shutters to go up to get my hands on it, and then spent the next 48 hours in various restaurants, coffee shops, pubs, exercise bikes and comfy chairs reading the last part of this incredible trilogy. Cromwell's life-long balancing act came crashing down after 1 misstep (maybe 2 - failure to engineer a divorce from Anne of Cleves and to assassinate the pretender Reginald Pole).

Robin Stevens, Murder Most Unladylike

Oh, that was good.. It came about because Libby's friend Lauren is reading the series at the moment. We bought her one in Waterstone's in Guildford, and the assistant, a grown man, gushed at how fantastic the series were and how obsessed he and his flatmate were. It's nothing revolutionary, but it's a well-crafted combination of Mallory Towers style boarding-school adventure and a locked room mystery. I'm far from the target demographic, but really enjoyed it! Why was I buying Lauren a book? It was on Libby's birthday, and I took the girls ice skating. Lauren had a fall and hurt her arm, so we cut it short. We had pizza for lunch and her arm was starting to feel better. So we went swimming in the afternoon. Then Lauren's mum picked her up and took her to gymnastics. The next day the arm was a bit swollen and so her mum took Lauren to the drop-in centre. Turns out she had fractured her arm. On my watch. And then I took her swimming. I owe her a book or two.

Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish, William S Burroughs, The Naked Lunch, Malcolm Hislop, How To Read Castles

Helen and I have been watching 'The Witcher' on Netflix, the latest attempt to fill the GoT gap in the schedules. Helen is really enjoying it, but I'm finding it a bit meh. However, I read an interview with the author of the books, and he came across as very dry and funny, so I wondered what the books would be like. It was an enjoyable slice of fantasy, much more than the tv series, but nothing really made me want to read more. It was certainly an easier read than 'The Naked Lunch', which I trudged through. No narrative to speak of, just a serious of disonected vignettes filtered through a drug addled hallucinogenic lens. 'How To Read Castles' was pitched just right. Freddie could have picked it up and learnt from it, it was written in such an accessible, organised way. The true test will be to take it to a castle and see how useful it is. So that's what we will be doing at Easter, whether the rest of the family want to or not!

David Markson, Wittgenstein's Mistress, Robert Macfarlane, Underland: A Deep time Journey

Wittgenstein's Mistress was one single stream of consciousness from the last surviving human on the planet. She was an unreliable narrator of course, and presumably mad, although how much was true and how much her fantasy is not clear. 'Underland' has had fabulous reviews and Robert Macfarlane gets a lot of praise on Twitter, but I didn't like it at all. Possibly I'm just too familiar now with the genre and have turned cynical. It's vicarious nature writing for the urban, urbane reader who wants to be at one with nature, receiving profound wisdom and a better lifestyle from communing with an unspoilt environment. all the charcarters met in these books are poets, or immensely talented musicians or craftsmen, as well as being world authorities on caving, or fungi, or tidal erosion, as well as living in windmills or on boats or in a hammock in a mountain cave. It's all wish-fulfilment tosh and what remains unsaid about all these characters (who are undoubtedly exaggerated and had their potted biographies very carefully curated), is that they are only able to live these lives because they have massive trust funds or made a fortune in the city at Daddy's bank.

Hilary Mantel, Bring Up The Bodies

Just wonderful. Cromwell walking the tightrope and deftly dancing around all the conflicting interests and courtiers that wish him ill while managing to make real a king's whims. Can't wait for the 3rd book in March. At home, William is coming in to his own and developing his own character. He's had trouble with speech and doesn't pay much attention to people either at home or school, but he's still a charmer. He took some chocolate 'dinosaur poo' into school on Friday for Show & Tell, and when he came home proudly announced that as a direct result he now has a girlfriend. A teacher must have said something to him, because he then declared 'Well, it's one way of getting a girlfriend!' Later on he rushed to the loo, and after the flush stated loudly 'That's that mystery solved!'  I investigated no further.

Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall, Fraz Kafka, Metamorphosis, Martyn Rady, The Habsburg Empire: A Very Short Introduction

I think that's the third time reading Wolf Hall, and I'm still spotting new things, Little throwaway lines or comments that you realise with hindsight will have massive repercussions later on - the appearance of Mark Smeaton, of Jane Seymour, Cromwell's profound thoughts about what he will have to do or forego to survive and navigate his way through court politics, and the quiet, assured and competent way he goes about avenging Wolsey. Just about to start Bring Up The Bodies so I am ready for the release of the third book, The Mirror and The Light, in March. I've booked the day off work to read it. 'Metamorphosis' was darkly comic and more of a satire of bourgeois mitteleuropean morality than I had realised. Apparently the biggest issue about having a son turn into a cockroach is what the lodgers and neighbours will think. 'The Habsburg Empire' was perfect for me. Facts and quirks that could be read in an hour or so and provide the most superficial understanding of a subject. It was part of the Oxford 'Very Short Introduction' series, and I think this could well become a rich seam of reading material. Very close to finishing the '100 essential novels', although the thumping 1000+ pages of 2666 and Anna Karenina are intimidating me from the bedside chest of drawers.

Ben Coates, Why The Dutch Are Different: A Journey into the Hidden Heart of the Netherlands

Was disappointed with this. A lazy, pop history by someone who has only lived in the Netherlands for a few years. There were whole sections, such as football or Amsterdam in the Golden Age, when I wondered why I was reading it, as the author obviously knew very little and was cribbing the information from other books. Was also a little unsettled when he talked about 'Dutch' people (meaning white) being hardworking and law-abiding while 'Moroccans' (dutch people of Moroccan descent) in his neighbourhood weren't. Not surprising to find out that the author used to work for the Conservative Party. On the home front, Freddie took part in a swimming competition for his school last week and did really well, and it seems to have rekindled his motivation after a tough few months. It's a tough period for him as he is getting a lot of growing pains and his hormones are all over the place. The littlest thing becomes a major disaster - misplaced pencil case, can't find his belt - but when he is laughing and happy he just seems so joyous.

Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Have been putting this off for a long, long time as I thought I knew what to expect - a bleak tale of one man's obsession overriding all over concerns and driving him to his own destruction. Or, alternatively, the first Great American Novel, an allegory for the zeal that drove Americans to conquer the wilderness and imposed man's manifest destiny on nature. Turns out it's neither of those things really, it's just a book about whaling, but someone who really really likes whaling. It reminded me in parts of a Radio 4 documentary where you have some eccentric old buffer enthusiastically explaining his love of horse brass collection,  or performing forgotten Slovakian folk songs. It was very funny too, it its bombastic use of language and determination to prove that whaling is a noble profession on a par or even superior to any other form of human activity, whether it be poetry, jousting or something more prosaic.

George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, Magnus Mills, The Restraint of Beasts

Two books I haven’t read for a long time but which I admire greatly. I remember being naively surprised at the political infighting on the republican side, which stayed with me more than the descriptions of the war. It's apposite at the moment as the Labour Party is particularly riven at the moment as the various factions battle for control. I'm now worried that after what the right sees a massive mistake in 'allowing' Corbyn to get onto the ballot sheet, they will seek to stitch up all future elections and also purge the left (including me) from the party. The latest is the list of demands from the Board of Deputies to restore confidence in the Labour Party in the Jewish community, which, if followed to the letter, could be used to expel tens of thousands. The 'zero-tolerance' approach means that people who defend, support or share a platform with people who are accused of anti-semitism can be expelled and never allowed back in. Given that there are many on the left who feel that some of the people accused, suspended or expelled like Jackie Walker and Chris Williamson have been unfairly treated and are not at all anti-semitic, this coud very easily be weaponised. All the leadership candidates have signed up to the pledge. The 'Restraint of Beasts' was not quite the novel I thought it was, I think I must have got it a little mixed up with other Magnus Mills novels. It was marvellous though, and stands in stark contrast to all the classics I have been trudging through, as it is about working people and their day-to-day existence. No worries about neuroses or ennui or angst, but about where the money for the next meal or catalogue payment is coming from. How odd to read a book I think of as contemporary, but set in a world with no internet or mobile phones.

William Golding, The Lord Of The Flies

Really should have read this before reaching the age of 45, although I think it would have scared the bejesus out of me at school, and I wouldn’t want Freddie, who is the same age as the older boys on the island, to read it just yet. A fantastic book and very thought provoking about how quickly mankind can descend into anarchy and savagery. a true horror story, being trapped and subjugated in a society from which there is no escape, and an increasingly irrational and cruel authority based on fear. I was very glad the ending was relatively happy.

Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers

That was my cup of tea, a western, a clear narrative, strong characters with believable interplay. It's been made into a film starring John C Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix that I am now very keen to see, and have added deWitt's other books to my wishlist.  This week i have bee trying to arrange a lift rota for Freddie's swimming club, as there are now potentially 7 sessions a week. I think I'm there now with the various parents, who is doing which session and so on. Feeling a bit like Milo Minderbinder keeping the plates spinning and the planes flying

Neil MacGregor, Living With The Gods

A very enjoyable romp through the entire history of mankind and our belief in the supernatural/religious belief. MacGregor uses his experience at the British Museum to draw parallels between artefacts from different times and cultures to illustrate human beliefs - the need for security, for inspiration, to control society, etc. On the home from, have managed to put back on all the weight I lost last year and am back above 95Kg again, only this time with a Captain Haddock beard. Have resolved to run 500 miles over the year, and am really enjoying running at the moment although my left ankle may disagree. My normal running routs is diverted due to the new bridge over the canal, so i'm combining picking up geocaches and running. Manged 7 miles yesterday while Fred was swimming - Park-Send-Pyrford-Park along the Wey without getting lost or overly muddy

Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

I've put off reading this for a while given the subject matter, but the book was very enjoyable and even funny in places. Humbert Humbert's confessional explains his actions and rationale and the lives ruined as a result.