15/12/16: Garth Risk Hallberg – City on Fire (2015)

City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg. Bought this 944-page monster on eBay. Love the cover design and wanted a chunky brick to sink my teeth into. I disagree with those who say the book is too long – see the criticisms in many reviews. It's deliberately as vast as the lives and the city it describes. It's wonderfully evocative of New York in the 1970s. And the characterisation is brilliant: after living with them for a while, you will not forget the innocent-led-astray Charlie, the dedicated cop Pulalski and the sinister, scheming "Demon Brother". The narrative switches sideways, backwards and forwards in time to detail how the lives of the main characters intersect. The scope is huge. The writing is often beautiful. Pages from fanzines, journalism, letters and reports are all woven in to widen the tapestry. There's humour, too. You need to set aside a decent chunk of time to complete this sprawling marvel – it took me weeks – but it's worth it. If you prefer books to be tightly plotted and to the point, this might not be for you. According to the internet, Garth Risk Hallberg was given a $2 million advance to write this – supposedly the most ever for a debut novel, and possibly another reason why the critics were so happy to find fault.

04/12/16: Rob Sheffield – On Bowie (2016)

Borrowed from Barnet Libraries. Toward the start of this book I was surprised to read this anti-Bowie quote from Keith Richards (see p.10): "It's all pose...It's nothing to do with music. He knows it, too." Keith's wrong about that. The author admits that this 198-page book was rush-written in one month after Bowie's death, but it's a respectful and loving account of his thoughts on the legendary icon. I agreed with most of it – such as Lodger being his "most underrated record" – but don't agree with him that The Man Who Fell to Earth is a bad film. There are no blinding new insights on Bowie's life and art (other than him being "the C-3PO of rock and roll", p.51, and I never knew that he first met Angie at a King Crimson press event), but there are plenty of likeable moments throughout this well-meaning appreciation. If there's one thing I would have changed it's that endlessly throwing in lyrical references becomes a little annoying. (See how I didn't need to write "ch-ch-changed" to make the point.) But overall it's worth reading.

12/09/16: Lawrence Block – The Affairs of Chip Harrison Omnibus (2001)

In the 1970s, Lawrence Block wrote four novels under the name Chip Harrison. They are compiled here in one 640-page volume: 1. No Score (1970); 2. Chip Harrison Scores Again (1971); 3. Make Out With Murder (a.k.a. The Five Little Rich Girls) (1974); 4. The Topless Tulip Caper (1975). You can also buy these separately. An unusual series indeed, Lawrence Block described them as: "a tricky marketing proposition in that the first two titles... are lighthearted romps with an erotic element, while the later books... are classic-style puzzle mysteries with an erotic element." If you like L.B.'s style and wit, you will enjoy these short novels. Just a shame there's no author introduction.

1. No Score (1970): A farce about the narrator, Chip Harrison, trying to lose his virginity in a series of increasingly unlikely situations. It's highly readable, with Lawrence Block’s usual wit and insight. Plot-wise it’s a shaggy-dog story that doesn’t really “go" anywhere, but if you enjoy the way he writes it doesn’t matter.

2. Chip Harrison Scores Again (1971): Part two of Harrison's life story, this continues the "shaggy dog story" element of the first book but is somewhat darker in tone. This time around, Chip's restless wanderings lead him through situations in which he feels lonely and out of place. The most interesting section of the book details his time living in Bordentown, South Carolina – which, with typical Chip randomness, he is inspired to travel to after finding a Greyhound bus ticket in a discarded wallet. There, he begins to fit in with locals – such as the Sheriff and the preacher's daughter – and integrate into their way of life. But, of course, it isn't as simple as him settling down and living under false pretences that he cannot sustain. Life quickly becomes more complicated. While the first book sees Chip leaping from one bawdy scene to the next, this one weaves a few intimate interludes (see the bus scene with Willamina Emily Weeks) into a more serious narrative detailing his emotions for the women he begins to care for. There's also more character development. A very satisfying novel.

3. Make Out With Murder (a.k.a. The Five Little Rich Girls) (1974): Chip ends his former restless roaming and finds himself resident in New York, working as an assistant to the detective Leo Haig. The latter is a fan of Nero Wolfe, to whom this book pays tribute. The plot? Five beautiful sisters in the Trelawney family are being murdered and Chip has to identify the killer before it's too late. Being Chip, he has various adventures with these highly alluring females as part of his 'investigations'. Unlike No Score and Chip Harrison Scores Again, which detailed the wanderings of our young narrator, this third book works as a regular crime novel. It has the wit and stylistic touches that make Lawrence Block such a delight to read.

4. The Topless Tulip Caper (1975): The fourth and final Chip Harrison novel sees young Chip investigating multiple murder – of some exotic fish. In fact, this crime relates to the killing of a dancer in a dodgy New York club. He's still working for the maddening Leo Haig and still getting into trouble. It's another witty, clever, fast-paced mystery with colourful characters and a series of unlikely intimate encounters.

23/08/16: Hadley Freeman – Life Moves Pretty Fast: The Lessons We Learned from Eighties Movies (and Why We Don't Learn Them from Movies Any More) (2015)

Hadley Freeman sees the 1980s as an unheralded golden era of film. Much of the appeal of this book is that it falls somewhere between a chatty, journalistic style of writing and a serious work of film studies. In the interesting introduction, she argues that since the big corporate buy-outs of the studios, film-making has become more formulaic and conservative, with few strong roles for women. I'm not entirely convinced by this. What about Sandra Bullock in Gravity? What about Jennifer Lawrence in The Silver Linings Playbook and The Hunger Games? She also uses the example of the Star Wars prequels being far worse than the 1977–83 originals, which they were, but 2015's Star Wars Episode VII is both a great film and one with a strong female lead. OK, this came out after the book was published, but it does suggest flaws in her theory. I think it's more the case that there have always been great and terrible films made in every decade. But it was good to read a positive reassessment of the 1980s, and I agree with most of her critiques of the films themselves. It’s hard to disagree with her observation that films are now designed to work internationally: nuanced dialogue doesn't translate in the way that helicopter explosions do.

One thing that didn't work so well was her top 10s. These seemed quickly and carelessly thrown together after the well-argued chapters. For example, some of the songs in her top 10 power ballads aren't even power ballads, while she overlooks a song such as Berlin's "Take My Breath Away", which was. Otherwise, an excellent book.

17/08/16: Sam Knee – Classic Rock T-shirts: Over 400 Vintage Tees from the '70s and '80s (2011)

Worth knowing that this is an abridged version of the 2006 book Vintage T-shirts: 500 Authentic Tees from the '70s and '80s. So this edition has fewer shirts. Perhaps it's that cutting-down process that explains the slightly arbitrary-seeming selection. Some silly errors could have been avoided. Metallica's Ride the Lightning is spelled as Ride the Lightening twice, despite the correct title being shown in the picture of the shirt itself. Also, a David Bowie T-shirt is captioned as being from the Station to Station era (1976), but clearly shows the Young Americans (1975) cover image. Despite that, the pictures of old T-shirts are fascinating, and the interviews with a handful of collectors are fairly entertaining. I would have liked more of the latter, and more detailed Q&As, as this extra context enriches the selection of photos. Those comments aside, this book is a pleasure to flick through and well worth a look.

21/07/16: Emma Donoghue – Room (2010)

Jack, aged five, is imprisoned in a single room with his mother, who was kidnapped seven years ago. This room is Jack's entire world, and it has become a sealed universe of play and learning. His mother protects him from the true horror of their situation. The things and places he sees on TV he believes are all unreal. Reality is the room alone. The book is narrated by Jack and through his impressions we learn how abusively they are being treated by “Old Nick”, their captor. It's overwhelmingly sad – especially since Jack demands so little beyond the love of his mother. You find yourself desperately hoping they will be rescued or escape, but wondering what sort of life Jack might have in a world he cannot believe or understand. Without wanting to spoil the ending, there’s a lot more to it than just getting out of Room… There are many negative reviews of this book on Amazon (partly because it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, which always attracts a backlash), so I thought it was worth addressing some of the criticisms raised:

“Nothing happens.”/“It’s dull.”: This is untrue. Plenty happens. During this novel, Jack and his mother live through the pivotal moments of their life, then have their world turned upside down again and again. The book is centred in Jack's interior consciousness, yes, but that world is going through daily transformation. This is hardly uneventful. I found it riveting – almost painfully so, as I was rooting for the characters so much and so touched by their love for each other.

“It’s depressing and/or upsetting.”: Books about imprisonment and child cruelty are likely to be disturbing. But the true theme of this novel is compassion. The author wisely keeps the love of mother and son at the centre of the story, rather than merely turning it into a thriller. The disturbing elements are integral and necessary, hardly gratuitous.

“Jack’s voice is unrealistic.”: Unrealistic compared to what? He’s not meant to be a typical five-year-old. He's a child whose very existence has been entirely shaped by his situation. He is highly advanced in some ways and extremely limited in others. I found this a heartbreakingly believable expression of his confinement, his insular life and his uniquely intense relationship with his mother – the only human he had ever known. This material makes for one of the most powerful novels I have read. Don't be put off by the horrible cover.

In 2015, Room was made into an excellent film.

16/07/16: Juliana Buhring – This Road I Ride: My Incredible Journey from Novice to Fastest Woman to Cycle the Globe (2016)

"If you really want to experience the world, get on a bicycle."

I'm wary of any book described as "inspirational", but this one genuinely is. Juliana Buhring survived a childhood in a religious cult and then the death of the man she loved. She decided to cycle around the globe, and set a world record in the process. This narrative details that trip. Her writing is wise, dry and funny. But there's also a perfect economy to the style: no filler, no trying to be clever-clever, no travel-writing cliché – just the bare bones of each diary entry describing the scenes she experienced.

Along the way there are moments of total despair – high winds, freezing cold and steep mountains that go up forever. There's awful discomfort – from severe food poisoning to being splattered in roadside human excrement during the Indian typhoon. And there's danger – being attacked by magpies in Australia, being mobbed by "hordes of silent, staring men" in India and being chased by a pack of wild dogs in Turkey ("terror-inspiring lions"). This is all in addition to the tiresome punctures and daily exhaustion that she has to deal with. There are also moments of freedom and joy, when she's totally at one with the world and herself. There's a lot of life wisdom and common-sense philosophy, but she never becomes preachy. The complete lack of ego is admirable and refreshing.

This is a highly readable, life-enriching memoir. I hope she writes another book about her ongoing adventures in cycling and beyond.

03/07/16: Brix Smith Start – The Rise, The Fall, and The Rise (2016)

I came to this as a Fall fan. The two sections (1983–88 and 1994–96) dealing with her two stints in the band make for fascinating reading, with a lot of insights into the creative process that made the group so dynamic on record and in concert. Of course it all ends in a horrible sordid m.e.ss. What surprised me is how very readable the rest of the book is: her young life split between Chicago and L.A.; her problematic relationships with her father; her issues with food; her relationship with violinist Nigel Kennedy; her friendship with Susanna Hoffs of The Bangles; her time on TV with Gok Wan (who doesn't come across as very nice); bouts of severe depression; opening Start, the Shoreditch fashion boutique, with her husband Philip Start; and ultimately recovering her love of music as Brix and The Extricated. I got hooked and by the last 200 pages couldn't put it down. Recommended.

On 14 June 2016, I met Brix at an event at Cafe Oto, Dalston, where she was interviewed by Thurston Moore and played an acoustic "Hotel Bloedel". She was very charming indeed and signed the book for me.

27/05/16: Alain de Botton – Essays in Love (1993)

Don't be put off by the title: this does not consist of essays. It's a first-person love story, presented as fiction, which takes a philosophical look at every stage of a relationship. The author details his chance meeting with Chloe on a plane, how they become a couple, fall in love and so on. He is excellent at the tiny details of relationships and what they tell us about ourselves. Anyone who is in – or has been in – a relationship will recognise parts of their own experience here. How do you say "I love you" without resorting to cliché? What do you do if you hate the new shoes your partner loves? How much of your inner self will your partner ever really know? He gives all this near-forensic analysis without ruining what is also a page-turning love story. One to savour.

20/05/16: Penelope Lively – According to Mark (1984)

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1984, According to Mark follows writer Mark Lamming as he tries to research a literary biography. His research into the unsung author Gilbert Strong gets him involved with Strong's granddaughter, who runs a garden centre in Dorset, sparking off a series of events that culminate in a road trip through France.

This is another hugely intelligent, entertaining Penelope Lively novel. It's funny in places and contains gems of social observation. Particularly well drawn characters – such as Mark's controlling and super-controlled wife Diana – make this a real pleasure to read. Lively flits between perspectives, sometimes approaching a scene from an unexpected point of view and sometimes revisiting the same events to give another person's take on them. This is unusual and refreshing: so much fiction takes a more static line on whose perspective a book is from. She makes it work very freely and accessibly.

The book asks some deep questions about identity. It can also be read as a straightforward novel about human relationships. I came to this soon after the more serious Booker-winning Moon Tiger and was not disappointed.

14/05/16: Davy Rothbart – Found: The Best Lost, Tossed, and Forgotten Items from Around the World (2004)

The idea is great: people send in curious things they found in the street, from love letters to random-seeming notes. All human life is here – disturbing, funny, angry, sometimes poignant. What lets it down is the design, which blurs the distinction between the found item and its presentation. The labels of who found what and where get mixed in with the items themselves. Plus, it's not always clear where one find ends and another begins, so it feels artificially "arranged" and "designed". With a slightly more logical, documentary-style layout, this could have been one of the greatest books ever. Instead, the self-consciously "fanzine-y" feel never quite lets the humanity of the found items live and breathe. That's a shame, as there is some incredible material here.

13/05/16: David Cavanagh – Good Night and Good Riddance: How Thirty-Five Years of John Peel Helped to Shape Modern Life (2015)

A wonderful book. It's such a brilliant idea that you wonder why no one else thought of it. Cavanagh listens to John Peel radio shows across the decades and writes about them. It works as a history of Peel, a history of music and a history of British life in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s.

Two minor criticisms:

1. I would have much preferred complete tracklistings rather than the incomplete lists of artists played, but perhaps the full data of every artist and song name wasn't available. Or perhaps it would have taken up too much space.

2. It's a shame that the 1989 Hillsborough show wasn't discussed. Peel's heartbroken broadcast just after the disaster was a distressing, hugely emotional show and one I will never forget. You don't expect to hear your lifelong hero so consumed by grief that he can barely speak. Maybe Cavanagh regarded it as voyeuristic or exploitative to discuss Peel at such an emotionally vulnerable moment, and he'd probably be right, but the book reads a little as though this key event never happened (even though it's later mentioned in the news snapshots that opens each mini-section).

Those points aside, this is pretty much the perfect book and one I will read again (and again). Cavanagh writes so well about the artists Peel played, the evolving musical scenes they were part of (particularly punk and its aftermath), and about Peel himself, totally capturing the spirit and wit of the man.

It's also worth pointing out that the opening chapter is the best single piece of writing anywhere about the importance and legacy of John Peel. If you have any doubts about the influence of this legendary DJ, just read these 28 pages.

14/04/16: Dorothy L. Hughes – In a Lonely Place (1947)

Absolutely wonderful. A hardboiled crime novel written from an unusual perspective. It's hard to say much about it without giving away the plot, but the author sustains the tension brilliantly across 186 pages. Hughes makes you empathise closely with the characters, so this ends up being as much a tragedy as a mystery. It has much of the atmosphere of Raymond Chandler, etc, but with an additional emotional quality.

08/04/16: Mario Benedetti – The Truce: The Diary of Martín Santomé (1960)

I’m not sure if it's because of the translation to English or if this was true of the original Spanish text, but there's something slightly awkward about the writing. In a way, this works to highlight the awkwardness of the social setting – a middle-aged accountant falls for a colleague half his age. The author explores that situation in a reasonably compelling manner. The novel takes the form of a diary, and that definitely adds readability.


The one element that doesn't quite ring true is that the narrator is aged 49 (then turns 50), but the book is preoccupied with his retirement and old age. Maybe things were very different when this was published (1960), but 49 doesn't seem old enough for him to feel and act the way he does about his age. That aside, it's a moving story that offers insights into what it means to work, live and love.

05/04/16: Lawrence Block – Hit Me (2012)

Five unrelated stories presented as a novel. Some reviewers disliked that approach, but I'm not sure it matters: each story quickly hooks you in and it's all written beautifully.

Much of the brilliance of this book comes from the juxtaposition of a ruthless killer also being a stamp collector – the two aspects of Keller's life somehow working together. There are funny and disturbing moments: just as you think it's about to get cosy, the book shocks you again. Block is excellent at moral ambiguity, making you somehow sympathise with Keller the hired killer.

If there's a flaw it's that Keller's wife (Julia) seems too good to be true: not only does she tolerate his "work", but she also finds it makes him more attractive, which doesn't quite ring true. Other than that, Hit Me is hard to fault.

28/03/16: Penelope Lively – Moon Tiger (1987)

What a great novel. Claudia Hampton, now a 76-year-old woman, lays dying in her hospital bed. She recalls episodes of her history (sometimes dovetailing with world history) and the people she shared it with – her daughter, her brother, her partner and the true love of her life, killed in action in World War II. As fragments of memory drift in and out of focus, the story of her life emerges in patchwork form. It's a very satisfying approach. Although the perceptions are fundamentally Claudia's, the author also allows us inside the minds of the other characters for a more multilayered texture. There's a huge intelligence to the writing and it's a joy to read something of this quality and richness. One of the most enjoyable of the Booker Prize novels (it won in 1987), this is a book that stays with you.

19/03/16: Matt Lewis – Last Man Off: A True Story of Disaster, Survival and One Man's Ultimate Test (2015)

A riveting true story of a fishing ship, the Sudur Havid, which sank in the icy waters of the South Atlantic in 1998. Only 21 of the 38 crew survived, although when you read about what happened it seems miraculous that even they lived. The author relays the facts in a non-judgemental manner and comes across as a good-natured, practical young man who was thrown into an absurd and terrifying situation.

It's painful to read the catalogue of mistakes that led up to the disaster. The ship was old and poorly equipped. There was a lack of safety measures and procedures. The lifejackets were stored in lockers for which only one man had a key. And, most fatally, there was a misguided decision to keep on fishing through the storm even when the craft – already overloaded – started taking on water. Even the attempts to escape via life-rafts were chaotically disorganised.

The book has photos from beforehand and afterwards, but none are from the voyage in question. All cameras were lost with the vessel.

A gripping account, it is horrifying in places and hard to stop reading. It is a book that reminds you how lucky you are to be alive.

02/03/16: Lawrence Block – The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons (2013)

This 11th Bernie Rhodenbarr novel is a joy. The unlikely plot deals with spoons and buttons, theft and murder, but the main reason to read it is for the extremely dry, very funny dialogue. Block really has an ear for the way people talk. The gentleman burglar's conversations are full of literary references, little linguistic puns and hilarious observations. It's such a rich mix that you can just sit back and enjoy the way the sentences unfold.

It's also recommended to anyone who loves old bookshops and who despairs of the day when there are no more. I now want to read the previous 10 volumes...

21/02/16: Lawrence Block – The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes (2015)

"Murder was easy. The tricky part was getting away with it."

The first Lawrence Block I have read, and I am hugely impressed. This is a disturbing tale that is absolutely riveting. It's dry, wry and funny in places, and heart-stopping in others. Private eye Doak Miller plots with Lisa (the blue-eyed girl of the title) to murder her wealthy, violent husband. It's morally all over the place, so that you don't know the good guys from the bad guys – or even if there are any good guys. It asks some fairly sinister questions about human behaviour as the plot takes the main character – and the reader – to some dark places. Be prepared to be shocked. A cliché, I know, but it's genuinely hard to put down. I had to keep on reading, hooked and horrified, to learn how this novel panned out.

18/02/16: Gore Vidal – Thieves Fall Out by Gore Vidal (1953)

Hugely enjoyable crime thriller set in Egypt at the time of the 1952 revolution and published under the pseudonym Cameron Kay. This is a quick read and certainly not intended to be a "great work of literature". It does not need to be: as a hardboiled pulp novel, it's brilliantly done. The plot races along. You get mysterious, glamorous women, dangerous gangsters, smuggling and political intrigue. As other reviewers have pointed out, there's rather too much attention to racial attributes when describing characters. That gripe aside, this is a fun, dynamic romp of a tale that you can devour in a couple of sittings.

12/01/16: Crystal Zevon (ed.) – I’ll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon (2007)

A fascinating oral history told in subtly interwoven recollections by Warren Zevon's friends, girlfriends, family and professional associates. He emerges as a deeply troubled character – at various points an alcoholic, wife-beater and womaniser. These issues are further complicated by his severe OCD and superstition. It's not a pretty picture that emerges, but before his death Zevon had apparently given his blessing that this full, unvarnished story of his life should be told.

If there's a criticism, it's that there's not enough detail about the music. You hear of his records being made, but because this story is told by others there is very little about the writing of the songs or how it felt to play them. The book does, however, include snippets from Zevon's own diaries – sometimes extremely personal, as when relaying intimate details of his affairs with various girlfriends (the addiction that replaced his addiction to alcohol). If you are prepared for the harrowing reality, this is a must-read book. It might not make you like this complex and brilliant man, but it will help you to understand him a little better.