Books are my life (well, a goodly part of it) so I like to keep a little record of the on-going journey.
2012
1. Bailey, J., Into the unknown: the tormented life and expeditions of Ludwig Leichhardt
2. Bissinger, H.G., Friday Night Lights
3. Danticat, E., (ed) The Best American Essays 2011
4. Jones, G., Five Bells
5. Leys, S., The Death of Napoleon
6. McGahern, J, All will be well: a memoir (audio, unabridged)
7. McKenna, M., An Eye For Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark
8. McKeon,B., Solace
9. Power, A., Conversations with James Joyce
10. de Waal, E., The hare with amber eyes
11. Wheen, F., Marx's Das Kapital
Recent years
This is a list of my recent reading (starting June 2009):
Joe Bageant, Deer Hunting with Jesus
Homage to John Forbes, ed. Ken Bolton
Alain de Botton, The Pleasures and sorrows of work - an interesting, often perceptive, look at work in the contemporary world. I'm still not convinced of the non-monetary benefits of employment.
Bill Bryson, Shakespeare - an excellent short book on the great bard. A model of good judgement, concision and readability.
John Button, Beyond Belief
Garth Cartwright, More miles than money: Journeys into American Music
Rod Cavalier, Power Politics
Manning Clark's History of Australia Abridged, abridged by Michael Cathcart
Jonathan Coe, The terrible privacy of Maxwell Sim
Annabel Crabb, Stop at nothing - entertaining, not really any particular insights to offer about Malcolm Turnbull, and a touch overwritten. The fault may well be the subject's not the author's. At first glance, Turnbull should be an interesting subject but in fact here, and on Australian story more recently, comes across as an ambitious, arrogant bully with little in the way of redeeming features. This may not be true and may not be fair but Turnbull has real problems in revealing a character that would be interesting to the general public.
Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth
Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea
Warren Denning, Caucus Crisis: The rise and fall of the Scullin Government
Warren Denning, The Road to Canberra
The Best Australian Essays 2010, ed. Robert Drewe
All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age, Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly
JG Farrell, Troubles
Richard Freeborn, Dostoyevsky.
David Gilmour, The Last Leopard: A Life of Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa -
John Heilemann, Mark Halperin, Game Change
James Joyce, The Dubliners
Tony Judt, Ill fares the land.
Claire Keegan, Antarctica - Having been so impressed by the recent (second) collection, see below, I just had to get a copy of the first collection and I was not disappointed, it's fabulous.
Claire Keegan, Walk the Blue Fields - Keegan is a wonderful Irish short story writer, and this is her second collection. They are brilliantly balanced and executed, with many memorable moments.
Claire Keegan, Foster
Steven G. Kellman, Redemption: the life of Henry Roth - Well Henry was a disturbed and disturbing man, he wrote brilliantly but never escaped childhood and adolescence in his writings and in many other ways too. The biography is a good read, a little repetitive and like so many of these accounts you are still left thinking you haven't quite got a fix on the subject. Perhaps that is impossible.
Liam Kelly, A flame now quenched
Declan Kiberd, Ulysses and Us: The Art of Everything -
Beverley Kingston, A History of NSW -
John Lanchester, The Debt to Pleasure - inspired by @colvinus I re-read this wonderful novel. It's a clever and delicious story. I won't spoil it for you but the combination of crime thriller and food porn is irresistable for many of us. Lanchester writes regularly for the London Review of Books and his stuff is well worth checking out.
John Lanchester, I.O.U. Why everyone owes everyone and no one can pay.
Mungo MacCallum, Australian Story
Alistair MacLeod, The Lost Salt Gift of Blood - Extraordinary stuff and very powerful.
Alistair MacLeod, No Great Mischief - a novel by one of Canada's best writers
John McGahern, Love of the World
John McGahern, Getting Through
John McGahern, The Leavetaking
John McGahern, The Barracks
Eamon Maher, John McGahern: From the Local to the Universal.
David Malouf, Ransom - a great take on the Trojan story
David Malouf, The Great World - not a great book, lots of flaws in structure I think, but very readable and particularly interesting in its depictions of post-war Sydney
David Marr, Power Trip
Andrew O'Hagan, The Atlantic Ocean - a collection of excellent pieces of journalism, originally published in the London and New York Review of Books, by this outstanding Scottish journalist and novelist. They stand up well, including a piece on Michael Jackson written a few years ago.
Ruth Park, Fishing in the Styx
Bruce Pascoe, Bloke - A crime genre novel rescued by its location (east gippsland) and indigenous themes. A rattling good read on a wet arvo, but not hugely satisfying or anything.
Ian Rankin, The Complaints
Henry Roth, An American Type
Simon Schama, The American Future: A History - Schama is a wonderful writer and historian, this is an attempt to explain the complexity and contemporary relevance of American history written during the 2008 election year. There's some really fascinating stuff in here. I think the best bits are when Schama is giving it to a racist New England establishment that betrayed the promise of America and promoted immigration restrictions a century ago.
Leonardo Sciascia, Equal Danger - As a sicilian writer and MP, Leonardo has a great understanding of power and corruption. If you like crime fiction laced with intellectual references and discussions, you'll love this
Leonardo Sciascia, The Moro Affair - This is a fascinating analysis of Moro's letters during the many weeks he was held by the Red Brigades before ultimately being assassinated. Sciascia concludes that Moro was essentially cut loose by his own side. This is Sciascia's minority contribution to a parliamentary inquiry into the Moro affair. It's a great read for any political scientist interested in narrative analysis.
The Craftsman, Richard Sennett
William Shakespeare, King Lear, I re-read this play in preparation to seeing John Bell as Lear at the Opera House. An enjoyable performance, but this is not one of my favourite plays. I still prefer Hamlet or MacBeth (no surprises, that's hardly controversial) but there are some great moments in this play. Sometimes I think Cordelia gets too good a rap and the other sisters get too bad a rap. Cordelia's unwillingness to play along and be effusive just seems to be petty to me and I can well understand why the elder sisters don't want Lear moving in with a hundred underemployed knights and squires in tow. Moreover, clearly Lear is the problem not his daughters. You can't hand over power and keep it at the same time. Still, Lear is about the only interesting character in the play and we focus on him and I guess sympathise with him to some extent (though my sympathy is not great).
Douglas Stewart, A man of Sydney, an appreciation of Kenneth Slessor
Colm Toibin, Babylon - brilliant novel, as close to pitch perfect as possible, not a wasted word. It deals beautifully with the immigrant experience and its impact on how we see ourselves and how others see us.There's been a fair bit of criticism of the alleged 'passivity' of the lead character, but I think that is a mis-reading and a reflection of our contemporary need for characters who take 'personal responsibility'.
Colm Toibin, The South - an interesting novel, raises some fascinating issues but I didn't feel that it was entirely satisfying. But well worth reading.
Colm Toibin, Blackwater Lighthouse - an interesting old Ireland meets new Ireland tale
Colm Toibin, Bad Blood
The Doubleman, CJ Wallace
Consider the Lobster and Other Essays, David Foster Wallace
Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust - Brilliant satire, of course. I first read this a couple of decades ago. This time I was more conscious of the way Waugh portrays just how quickly (he thinks) civilisation (ie the old order of settled class relations and the habitual observance of the proper decencies) can descend into a kind of ludicrous chaos. A lot of nonsense is written about this book and what Waugh was 'saying', largely I think because a lot of people are perplexed by this bitter defence of the aristocratic ideal. Waugh despised democracy, and some of the harshest barbs are reserved for parliament, parliamentary practices, and the MP friend of the main characters, Lord Tony and Lady Brenda Last. And yet Waugh is also savage on the upper classes because it is ultimately their failure to live up to the aristocratic ideal that is undermining the old order. Waugh's perspective, in short, is so far removed from our own democratic cast of mind that it can be confusing for us.
Evelyn Waugh, Scoop - An uproarious classic, pretty much an indispensable primer on journalism. In the end, the magnate Lord Copper, Waugh tells us, will spend the rest of his life engaged in activities (like business dinners) that no sane man would willingly participate in. While the unwitting hero, William Boot, returns to a happy obscurity in the country. Once again Waugh's meaning is plain, the modern world of busy commerce is absurd and debased.
Sean Wilentz, Bob Dylan in America
John Williams, Stoner
Evie Wyld, After the fire, a small still voice - an excellent book that looks at the impact of war on several generations of Australian men.
Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World - a good, often insightful look at how the world will look with the rise of the rest (particularly China and India), it is a well-balanced thesis pointing that America will be the most important power by a long way for a long time but will have to learn new ways of conducting foreign policy if it is to remain effective in using its military and economic predominance in the decades ahead.
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