Demob Happy

Book of the dead The third in a trilogy of books I’ve read by Paul Auster recently – following ‘The Music of Chance‘ and ‘Mr Vertigo‘ – ‘The Invention of Solitude’ is a markedly different work, an autobiographical account divided into two parts: ‘Portrait of an Invisible Man’ and ‘Book of Memory’. The former is [...]

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Herculean 9/10 Paul Theroux’s ‘Grand Tour of the Mediterranean’ is typical Theroux in many ways, the vagaries of his mood often colouring his perception of the places he visits, but he plays on his reputation as a misanthrop and cumugeon throughout this travelogue. After a comment on the opening page about ‘runty shunted trees and [...]

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Journey to the ends of the Earth (and back) 9/10 The fifth Paul Theroux travel book I have read (i’ve posted reviews of ‘The Kingdom by the Sea’ and ‘The Old Patagonian Express’ here and here), ‘The Great Railway Bazaar‘ is in fact his first and arguably most rewarding. If you are familiar with Theroux’s [...]

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The stuff of nightmares 9/10 Jung Chang’s autobiographical story of three generations of women living through China’s tumultuous 20th century is fascinating and terrifying. Given that it is a subjective account of the key events in modern Chinese history, ‘Wild Swans‘ provides a compelling and informative narrative that brings to life complex socio-historic transformations in [...]

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The 1000-page song 7/10 ‘The Executioner’s Song‘ was one of two non-fiction works, along with ‘Armies of the Night‘, that won Norman Mailer the Pulitzer Prize. Is it an archetypally weighty tome for an author who seemed to pride himself on tacking the big subjects of his era with bawdy gusto. It concerns itself with [...]

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Kingdom of heaven? 7/10 I have to say I’m surprised by some of the negative reviews of this book. Could it be perhaps the reviewers hadn’t read a Paul Theroux book before and didn’t know what to expect? UK fans of Theroux’s misanthropic, razor-sharp observations should have no qualms about the author turning his sights [...]

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Snapshots of the subcontinent 9/10 William Dalrymple’s ‘The Age of Kali’ carries the subtitle ‘Indian Travels and Encounters’ but actually includes writings on Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Indian Ocean island of Reunion (in fact a département of France). It is less a historical analysis in the mold of the brilliant ‘City of Djinns’ but [...]

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Doing the locomotive with Paul Theroux 8/10 People tend to either love or hate Paul Theroux, and although I can sympathise with his detractors I belong to the former camp. He is an uncompromising author that calls things as he sees them, refusing to romanticise or sensationalise his experiences. Although he comes across as a [...]

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On the other hand …. 7/10 The Left Hand of God analyses the socio-political conditions that have led to the religious right’s rise to prominence in the US and the way the Republicans have manipulated a culture of fear to serve the interests of corporate America. Braver still, it tries to envisage an alternative left [...]

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Delhi days 9/10 William Dalrymple is probably the best travel writer of his generation, both in his ability to evoke a sense of time and place, and his skill for shedding light on history in an engaging and accessible way. In contrast to his first book, the brilliant ‘In Xanadu’, Dalrymple focuses less on his [...]

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