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.