Germany: Memories Of A Nation (Neil MacGregor): This is a truly brilliant, remarkable, inspiring book… written by the former Director of the National Gallery and the British Museum (you might have come across MacGregor’s “A History of the World in 100 Objects”?). It’s a superb account (complete with lots of illustrations and photographs) of the richness and diversity of German history and culture. The book covers an awful lot of ground (it’s nearly 600 pages long!)… people such as Dürer, Kant, Klee, Bach, Goethe, Luther and Gutenberg; art, manufacture and history such as the Bauhaus, the VW Beetle, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust (actually, as you might imagine, the list is huge!)… and yet MacGregor still manages to include the intricate and the obscure. Just when I’d been thinking that Germany’s story seemed to be almost entirely male-dominated, he highlighted the work and life of Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945, a printmaker and sculptor - someone previously completely unknown to me), who he described as a “suffering witness” of the two World Wars. What he wrote about her made a great impression on me. Likewise, when he went on to describe the amazing way in which Germany has recovered after 1945 (“the economic miracle”), he emphasised the vital role played by women (“trümmerfrauen”: rubble women who cleared the streets of bomb debris)… a truly astonishing story. This, in turn, reminded me that I used to play on bomb-sites as a child and also, when I visited Dresden on business some 25 years ago, how surprised I was to see that a number of Dresden’s bomb-sites still hadn’t been cleared. It’s brilliantly researched and presented book… one that shines a light on the country’s many wonderful achievements, but also one that isn’t afraid to address horrors of its past. In some ways, I also found it a sobering reflection on Britain’s depressing Brexit vote… we effectively turning on our back on Europe, while Germany is facing the future with openness and confidence as one of the key players in the heart of the EU. Inspiring stuff. I probably won’t read a better book all year.
Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8 (Naoki Higashida): This is a pretty amazing book about autism, written from the perspective of a young adult. Higashida, a very gifted young man, was diagnosed with severe (‘full-on’ in his words), non-verbal autism when he was five (he was born 1992) and subsequently learnt to communicate using a handmade alphabet grid and began to write poems and short stories (I won’t go into any details here). Renowned author David Mitchell (who himself has a young autistic son) provides a helpful, illuminating introduction to the book (outlining his family’s own frustrations with coping with autism). Higashida is the first to admit that every autistic person’s experience is different (I worked with some ‘mildly’ autistic children – who were in mainstream education - during my time assisting in a secondary school). The book contains lots of short chapters which shed light on a whole range of things (based on Higashida’s experiences, at least) – for instance: why he banged his head on the floor; why there were phases when his clothes felt uncomfortable; why he would be seized with fits of laughter or fury or tears without apparent reason etc etc. We have a 12 year-old grandson, Mikey, who’s autistic (he also has Down’s Syndrome… which complicates things still further for him and his parents) and, whilst I struggle to get my head around all (or even some) of the issues involved, the book has helped me to appreciate a different way of thinking about autism… and a little of what Mikey’s world might be like (getting through daily routines without meltdowns? nurturing motivation? making choices? positivity about learning and practical skills?). The book doesn’t try to give any answers or provide detailed explanations (in fact, at times I found it somewhat repetitive), but it has shed a light on how poorly I’d ‘understood’ autism. An important, uplifting book.
Peril At End House (Agatha Christie): First published in 1932 (my copy: 1950). Had been feeling pretty rough, so ended up having a ‘duvet day’ and read this as part of my get-well-quickly-therapy! Hercule Poirot provided suitable comfort reading… but, actually, I thought the book had quite a clever plot (that Christie woman may have a future as an author!). A woman has three near escapes from death (accident or design?)… then avoids a fourth attempt. But, hey, there IS a murder and Monsieur Poirot sorts it all out… in the end. Of course he does!
The Autobiography Of Margot Asquith, Vol 1 (Margot Asquith): First published in 1920 (my copy: 1936). This is a remarkable book (this first volume concludes with a diary extract from 1906) about a remarkable woman. Despite her privileged background, her passion for hunting and horses and the fact that the virtually all of her friends and acquaintances seem to have titles (ie. all the sort of characteristics I deplore!), I found this autobiography of Margot Asquith (1864-1945) absolutely fascinating. She was the wife of Prime Minister Asquith and lived at the centre of political events (although she didn’t involve herself in politics – taking no part in the women’s suffrage movement, for example), but from her girlhood onwards she numbered among her numerous friends and acquaintances most of the famous men and women of her time (the book contains graphic sketches of King Edward VII, Queen Alexandra, Gladstone, Chamberlain, Rosebery, Balfour, Jowett, Salisbury, Tennyson etc etc). She was an exceptional, hugely intelligent writer with swift, shrewd analytical power, observation and wit.
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