Holiday reading fact no.1
In 1947, after war demobilisation but before the defence budget increases of the Korean war, the UK had:
A full naval fleet in the Atlantic, another in the Mediterranean and a third in the Indian ocean, together with a permanent 'China station'.
120 Royal Air Force squadrons worldwide.
Armies or part of armies in Hong Kong, Malaya, Persian Gulf, North Africa, Trieste, Austria, West Germany and the UK.
[in reply to which members of the H'S'JS might say 'and what has changed?']
Source: Post War by Tony Judt
Labels: Books, War
I'm back
from a short holiday. Have nothing much to say so I will give you a brief review of the books I read on that holiday. I got them out of the local library, so it's not necessarily representative of what I would have purchased.
The Battle for Spain: I couldn't get into this. I find the plethora of different grouplets confusing, and the events rather dull, and perhaps rather unimportant in the grand scheme of history.
The Cromwell Street Murders: The Detective's Story - This was about Fred and Rose West, written by the Police officer in charge of the investigation. It's not bad, though it perhaps assumed a little more information about the West's than I had. The ending is a bit disappointing - Fred kills himself, and so they have to get Rose. But she wouldn't confess, and the evidence was circumstantial only, if overwhelmingly so.
A Square of Sky: A Jewish Childhood in Wartime Poland - Now this was good. Janina David was a 10-yr old child in Poland whose well-to-do family fled to Warsaw to escape the Nazis, and who then were imprisoned in the Warsaw ghetto. She was smuggled out just before the Nazis would have sent her to an extermination camp, and lived in a convent as a Catholic. This was safe for a while, but for the last years of the war she was moved between various convents, at one point one that was back in Warsaw. Both her parents were assumed killed. It's a fascinating story, and such stories never fail to amaze me how much children (and adults) suffered during the war, and yet remarkably managed to survive to be a well-adjusted adult. I was also interested to learn about the extent to which 'normal' life continued in the ghetto, and the extent to which a cultural and academic education was made for children (albeit a relatively wealthy family) despite the terrible conditions. Inspiring.
Warrior Race: A History of the British at War - Did what it said on the cover really. I partly chose this because, at 879 pages, it would last a long time. But it was reasonably interesting, particularly in the descriptions of wars before 1750, and he is good at finding anecdotes.
Turning Angel - A crime thriller, which I had to read when all my books ran out. I couldn't say it was the worst book I've ever read, for I have read
Nick Cohen's What's Left. But it was close. Basically the plot was that in a Southern US town a 17yr old girl - blonde, pretty, off to Harvard, that sort of thing - gets brutally raped and murdered. The hero of the book, Pen Cage, who is a former District Attorney, and a school governor, learns that his best friend, a 41yr old physician, was having an affair with her (she had been his babysitter). But he didn't kill her. Anyway the rest of the book is Pen Case attempts to exonerate his friend (from the murder, not the affair). Whilst doing this his 17yr old babysitter - yes, you've guessed it - wants to have an affair with him. He manages to resist this, despite a lot of soul-searching and words like 'pert', and later, blah blah blah, finds out that actually it was a Croatian*, or Bosnian (as he seems at one point) - in fact one of the book's defining features is that any minority group is bad. So hooray, the physician gets off, and is released.
That's right, released. After a few initial concerns, the charge of sexual battery (she was under 18, he was her doctor) seems to get lost, and any moral outrage disappears under redirected moral outrage against Others. Much of the book was taken up with the fantasy that most 17yr old girls want to have a sexual relationship (explained in loving graphic detail) with middle-aged men, because boys their age are too immature.
* In fact rather ludicrously he just strangled her when she was already dying from the phsysican's wife knocking her onto some rocks. This is hushed up by Cage, the physician, their lawyers and the other 17yr old.
Fields of Glory, Paths of Gold: The History of European Football - Not much to say about this, pretty standard history of European football.
Labels: Books
He-Man and She-Man
I've been reading Anne de Courcy's Diana Mosley
biography, which has been interesting. One of her friends was (and then wasn't) Evelyn Waugh, and I was unaware (but
Wikipedia notes it) that he married a women called Evelyn, and they were known as He-Evelyn and She-Evely.
Labels: Books, Nazis
Library Books
I love local libraries as you can get books out you would never buy. This is a warning that I've got "A Prison Diary, by FF 8282" out, so you can expect nothing but amused quotes for the next few weeks (I also got a biography of Brunel, which might not offer so many laughs, and The East End Chronicles, about life in The East End, which from my experience of living there will be positively depressing).
Labels: Books
Plagiarism
I think the case against Ian McEwan is rather strong, as noted in this
Slate article.
Labels: Books
