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.

Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

This has erroneously been on the 'read' shelves for some time, and I'm sure I tried to read it once and got nowhere. A friend of a friend remarked on Facebook how wonderful it is, and as the critics rave about it, I gave it a go. I struggled with it though, not really understanding why it was a satire of life under communism, and with such a huge cast I couldn't follow it. Mostly read on the train down from Derby. It probably didn't help that my mind kept wandering to the Labour leadership debate.

Phillip Pullman, The Book of Dust vol II: The Secret Commonwealth, VS Naipaul, A House For Mister Biswas, Diarmaid MacCulloch Thomas Cromwell: A Life, John Le Carre, Agent Running In The Field, Jean Rhys, The Wide Sargasso Sea, Billy Bragg, The Three Dimensions of Freedom, Antony Beevor, Arnhem: The Battle for the Bridges, 1944, Frank Herbert, Dune. James Agee, A Death In The Family, John Hooper, The Italians, Eric Vuillard, The Order Of The Day, Robert Stone, Dog Soldiers, Raynor Winn, The Salt Path, Sarah Perry, Melmoth, Norman Dixon, On The Psychology Of Military Importance

Ouch, have left it far too long and haven't commented on the last 16 books until now. It's the day after Boxing Day and I'm back at work.  Fred is in a permanent grumpy pre-teen phase, Libby is as lovely and loud as ever and William is very funny - dinosaur and biscuit obsessed. Dad has just had a triple heart bypass but seems to be making a very rapid recovery, the Tories won a majority at the election and everyone is blaming Corbyn. He was certainly part of the reason, but its not as simple as that, and even now, if her were to stand for reelection the majority of members would vote for him. I don't see any standout candidates. I would have voted for Angela Rayner, but she appears to be not standing. Ian Lavery is my next choice, in part because I have a fiver on him at 100/1.  On the books, it's worth noting that 'The Wide Sargasso Sea' is one of those rare things, an 'essential novel' that I enjoyed and that deserves it place. Not the novel I was expecting at all, as I have a deep dislike for the passive heroine and awful selfish hero of Jane Eyre. This book however showed Rochester as the sadistic snobby worthless shit he really was, and charted what had driven Bertha mad.

Robert Penn Warren, All The King's Men, David Kynaston & Francis Green, Engines of Privilege: Britain's Private School Problem, Mick Herron, London Rules, Christopher hill, God's Englishman: Oliver Cromwell & The English Revolution

Fred said to me last night 'How are you getting on with Mortal Engines'?', the book I was reading last week at his swimming practice. 'That was last week Fred!', I said, 'I've read 4 books since then!' He's still not reading for pleasure, which is also true of Libby. I really don't know what to do. Don't want to push as it could drive them away from reading. Fred is really struggling to enthuse about anything that requires effort at the moment. He used to love cycling, swimming, football, but now in all cases along with cello and other sports he is really down on them as he doesn't like the competitive element or pressure. Breaking his wrist really seems to have knocked him for six and we just can't find a regular physical exercise that he enjoys and which stretches him

Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex, Madeline Miller, Circe, Marcus Tanner, The Last Of The Celts, Robert Merle, League of Spies, Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday, Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises, Eugen Vodolazkin, Laurus, Peter Hennessy, Never Again: Britain 1945-51, Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Robert Harris, The Second Sleep, Stephen Ambrose, Pegasus Bridge: D-day: The Daring British Airborne Raid, Fiction, Richard Wright, Native Son, James Hogg, James Robertson Justice "What's The Bleeding Time?" A Biography, Philip Reeve, Mortal Engines

My late summer 2019  reading. I wasn't expecting much from Middlesex, but I loved it. I was vaguely aware it was something to do with an androgynous person, but didn't realise  it was an epic encompassing the American immigrant experience, the clash of cultures and lifestyles. 'Last of the Celts' was a tour round those last remaining outposts of celticness on the north-western fringes of Europe, and a lament for a dying but romanticised world. 'League of Spies' was the 4th in the series, and was read on holiday in Brittany and Normandy, as were the next few books. It was a lovely holiday, William in particular was charming and is coming into his own as a person. He loved playing with the dog at the farm, and I even had to run off after them in my slippers when they disappeared into the bocage up to some mischief of others. We also wrote sawyer lyrics to his favourites song, 'My favourite things' from The Sound of Music:

Daddy likes crosswords and Harry Kane hat tricks

Reading ‘bout castles, and Tintin and Asterix

Sleeping in tents and correcting spelling

These are a few of his favourite things

National Trust Tea Rooms and Tap Dancing classes

Cake decorating and free entrance passes

Skiving off boot camp and hoarding savings

These are a few of mum’s favourite things

Swimming and cycling and brick-wall defending

Puzzles and board games that are never-ending

Clash of Clans, parsnips and lots of pudding

These are a few of Fred’s favourite things

Libby likes milkshakes and singing out loudly

Doing gymnastics and dancing quite proudly

Swimming and make-up and a class for teaching

These are a few of her favourite things

Doing gymnastics and cuddling my mummy

Going to softplay with cake in my tummy

Dinosaurs, robots and going on swings

These are a few of my favourite things

When I’m told off

When I fall down

When I’m feeling sad

I simply remember by favourite things, and then I don’t feel so bad.

Zweig’s ‘The World of Yesterday’ was another lament for a lost world, but poignant as it was, I’m not sure the author fully realises that the wonderful world of tolerance and openness he remembers was nothing of the sort for most people in Europe who were downtrodden, denied a say in government and living in squalid conditions. Hemingway was meh, a failed romance from all I could tell, Laurus was a Russian novel I picked up from Daunt’s, and set in medieval times. Explored the themes of faith and human compassion. I remember Never Again as being an epic social history, full of chapters on the floods of 1947, or Compton’s exploits at the crease. Rereading it, it’s actually far more of the story of high politics and foreign policy at the time, so I’ve misremembered it completely. Maybe my perspective has changed, and the social history stayed with me as it was so novel for me when I read it. I can’t remember anything about Their Eyes Were Watching God, I’ve just had to google it to trigger the memory of Janie Crawford and her life in Eatonville. I should be ashamed of myself. Second Sleep was set in a future England after some great calamity when the world has returned to a pre-industrial civilisation where discussion of anything technological is forbidden and the church are running things. The fragility of civilisation can be terrifying. Pegasus Bridge was a straightforward Boy’s Own tale of derring-do and British stiff upper-lip behaviour on the battlefield, and Native Son was a cracking read, a rare ‘essential novel’ that I could read for pleasure (again, I should be ashamed of myself). The story of a black man, Bigger Thomas, a cruel, vindictive, violent man and the society that made him that way. The biography of JRJ was very light stuff, mostly read on a flight back from Dusseldorf, and ‘Mortal Engines’ a kids book that I’m trying to encourage Fred to read. Fred has just started secondary school, and while he is enjoying it, it’s been a big transition. He’s given up football and wants to give up swimming too as he is finding it so hard after coming back from a broken wrist and the summer break. Hopefully he’ll stick with it as it’s so good for him to be getting regular exercise.

Mark Cocker, Crow Country, Elizabeth Bowen, The Death Of The Heart, EP Thompson, Whigs And Hunters, Samantha Harvey, The West Wind, Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, John Rees, The Leveller Revolution: Radical Political Organisation in England, 16405-1650

Crow Country was a reread, and a book that sparked my somewhat sporadic interest in corvids. I must have read half a dozen books on crows, but as Helen points out I still struggle to tell a jackdaw from a rook. William is rather in to collecting fings at the moment, 'fings' mostly consisting of rocks and 'fevvas'. There's a flock of canada geese that have taken up residence in the car park at work, so I can nip out every now and then and get feathers for William's collection. Currently his rather unhygienic collection is on display in a jam jar on the kitchen table alongside the 'unicorn twigs' Libby cajoled me into buying from Morrison's. 'The Death of the Heart' was form the 100 essential novels and fitted into the mid-century upper-class woman with no real problems trying to keep up appearances rather than the late 20th century east coast academic with no real problems dealing with is own neuroses category. Far better was Things Fall Apart, the last paragraph of which cause me to swear with shock. Following a tale of a powerful man brought low in tribal Nigeria, it finishes with a new colonial governor arriving and treating all the events of the book as a minor footnote in his own vanity publication on the subject of subduing natives in the Upper Niger valley.