Books, TV and Films, February 2021
1 February Age of Empire 1875–1914 is the final part of Eric Hobsbawm’s trilogy about what he called ‘the long nineteenth century’, beginning with the French Revolution in 1789 and ending with the outbreak of war in 1914. I bought this book at university…
Books, TV and Films, July 2020
1 July Some thoughts, to begin with, on Philomena and On Chesil Beach, two films I watched last week on the BBC and thoroughly enjoyed. I was already aware of Martin Sixsmith, who wrote the book on which Philomena is based, from his time…
Dennis Wheatley & The Devil Rides Out
Notwithstanding the ‘black magic’ label, Wheatley in fact offers the reader a largely standard adventure-novel diet of kidnappings, escapes and manhunts, served up with lashings of derring-do. Though the plots are undoubtedly exciting in parts, the writing itself is distinctly mediocre and unimaginative.
Books, TV and Films, April 2020
6 April John Barton’s A History of the Bible: The Book and Its faith is proving an absolute treat. My interest in religion and belief systems has developed over the last decade or so, triggered — does this count as irony? — by reading…
Books, TV and Films, March 2020
3 March Back to one of my favourite novelists — Sebastian Faulks. Birdsong is probably his best-known book, but my favourite is Human Traces, a brilliant mix of invention, imaginative reconstruction and exposition of developments in psychiatry and psychoanalysis. I have reached for On…
Books, TV and Films, February 2020
3 February I finished A Divided Spy by Charles Cumming the other day. That means I managed to read four books in January, putting me comfortably ahead of my target. A nice balance, too, of fiction and non-fiction, academic and non-academic, challenging and ‘lighter’…
Enlightenment Now: Book Review
We live in dark times. The forces of irrationalism and anti-progressivism are on the rise across the world – fascism, populism, nativism, authoritarianism, racism, religious fundamentalism. Enlightenment Now is thus a profoundly welcome book, a worldview diametrically opposed to that offered by populists, demagogues…
‘Fake History’ and Film
Elizabeth I meets Mary, Queen of Scots! Churchill rediscovers his mojo on the Underground! Homosexual genius Alan Turing is blackmailed by Soviet spy John Cairncross at Bletchley Park! Hmmm. Memo to self: ‘Films based on historical events are not documentaries. Stop judging them as…
Ralph Miliband Biography Review
A strength of the book is that, throughout, the reader senses that judgements made are balanced and fair, sympathetic to the man but not blinkered to his mistakes, failures and personal foibles — not least a tendency to irascibility and impatience towards others as…