Italo Calvino, Into The War

 3 short autobiographical stories, not sure they would be published still if not by Calvino, who has written some brilliant stuff. Interesting in understanding more about the author and his wartime experiences, but that's it. We go on holiday to France tomorrow, I've sorted out the books I'm taking, but that's it - will need to start packing soon. . . 

Noreen Masud, A Flat Place: A Memoir

Somewhere between an exploration of flat environments - Orford Ness, The Fens, etc and a memoir, and much more about complex PTSD than I was expecting, and far more personal than other psychogeographies. The author, who grew up isolated in a strict conservative Pakistan bares her soul and writes candidly about her trouble connecting to others. Really I wanted to be reading about the places though, I'm not one for deeply personal discussions, which just shows how repressed I am and how it would do me good to have just such a discussion!

Kevin Barry, Night Boat to Tangier

 Read more like a script than a novel in places, and I'm definitely keen to watch the adaptation that is being made starring Michael Fassbender. The dialogue and interplay  between the two main characters, a pair of aging Irish gangsters is very entertaining, but there's not much in the way of plot. Not sure I'd read much more by Kevin Barry, another novelist described as incredibly funny like Flann O'Brien or John Kennedy Toole that just don't seem all that funny to me.

Iain Dale, British General Election Campaigns 1830-2019

Written with one eye on the 2024 election and dated slightly as a result, with references such as Ted Heath's 1970 election win being the only post-war occasion when a working majority for one party had turned into a working majority for another. Some excellent analyses in there of individual elections, particularly from the likes of John Curtice and Rob Ford. some are more disappointing, including Adam Boulton on 2010 and Stephen Parkinson on 2017, who decided to write about their own personal experiences as if they were central to each campaign rather than very, very peripheral figures. I've started to put my reading list together for our holiday to France which is less than a week away now. Not a huge amount of though has gone into it, just pick up some I fancy from the Tsundoku. Will try and frenchify the list as much as possible and am also going to take a Jilly Cooper as a beach read.

Jeremy Dyson & Andy Nyman, The Warlock Effect

 I bought this as I'm a big fan of the League of Gentlemen and really enjoyed it. It's not often I choose to read over other activities rather than using it to fill a hole, but with this I put off other things I needed to do. A mix of magic, a love of old British performers (Eric Sykes and Tommy Cooper have cameos) and a cold war espionage thriller. It also features Prague, which is a wonderful place for any magical book. The capers and misdirection were more gripping than the espionage, which got a bit silly with Ipcress File-style brainwashing, but still a really good read. Interesting to see Peter Hennessy get an acknowledgment too for this work on Whitehall and the Secret State, which was a key part of the book

Ryszard Kapuscinski, Travels with Herodotus

A mixture of travel writing, memoir and commentary on Herodotus. I have to admit to skipping the Herodotus bits, but K's writing about his own travels  was very engaging, particularly as it was parts of the world I'm not so familiar with - China, Saharan Africa and others. Going camping with William and the Cubs tomorrow, really should start packing. . . 

Roberto Bolano, Cowboy Graves

Three semi-autobiographical novellas, but very fragmented and dream like - almost like jigsaw pieces do be slotted together and combined with clues and pieces from other books to build the real picture of the author. Defintetly deserves closer analysis and attention, but I just wanted some weekend reading so not what I was after! 

Samuel Earle, Tory Nation: The Dark Legacy of the World's Most Successful Political Party

Very enjoyable and reinforced all my prejudices about the Tories, but strange to be reading a book about how extraordinarily electorally successful they have been just as they were getting wiped out in a landslide. There's no doubt that the Conservatives lost the election rather than Labour winning it, with Labour's vote share only increasing slightly, and, due to e reduced turnout, actually getting fewer votes than they did in 2019 (which was of course, the most electorally disastrous result for Labour since 1931). the conservatives have lost their reputation for competence and their coalition has fractured. If the Reform voters had voted conservative they would have had a majority. Let's see what happens now - Labour has 5 years to build their own coalition - which will be helped by extending the vote to 16 & 17 year-olds, and hopefully showing what a good job they can do managing the economy. I can't see them doing too much to win back the muslim and  left-wing voters they have lost; those in power in the party don't feel either group should be made welcome, sadly. I stayed up until 5 watching the results and a victory out of any proportion to Labour's mediocre vote count. that's the perversion of FPTP though. Will Labour look to change a broken system that dissuades many from voting and produces result that don't match what the country has voted for? Or do they continue with a system that they have benefitted so much from this time?

Charles Portis, The Dog of the South

 'True Grit' was really enjoyable, and written in such a convincing 19th Century firs-person narrative that it came as a surprise to realsie that 'The Dog of the South' was far more contemporary, set in the '70s and published in 1979. GQ called in 'the funniest novel in decades', so I had high hopes, but after hooking me in at the start to what seemed like a quest to recover a lost wife, it got very odd and weird and hallucinogenic, with the action switching to a swampy Belize best by hurricanes and full of eccentric characters.  I found myself nodding off while reading it and not able to follow the plot.