may 2020 books...

The Last Train to Hilversum (Charlie Connelly): This is a book exploring the place of radio in our world (note: Hilversum, in the Netherlands, was an important radio transmission centre in the early days of the wireless - and many older radio sets throughout Europe featured Hilversum as a pre-marked dial position on their tuning scales). I’d never come across Connelly before (despite the fact he’s apparently a “bestselling author and award-winning broadcaster”). I must say that, when I first started reading the book, I feared it was going to be a cheery, dumbed-down diatribe that an aging Radio2 DJ might have written (not that I listened to Radio2 or was familiar with any of its presenters!)… but I was wrong. It proved to be a fascinating reminder of the importance of radio in the 20^th century – it’s part nostalgic reflection, part social history. I enjoyed it a lot.

That Will Be England Gone (Michael Henderson): This book was a gift from my lovely brother… Henderson, 9 years younger than me shares lots of my own views about the cricket. The title is a line from Larkin’s poem ‘Going, Going’. Henderson wrote the book in the knowledge that the 2020 season (if it ever happens?) would see the introduction of a new tournament, ‘The Hundred’, designed to attract an audience of younger people to the game. Ten 10-ball overs per innings featuring ‘eight brand-new city-based teams’… I’ve blogged about it separately here, so won’t bother repeating myself. Really excellent book for grumpy old cricket-lovers like me!

Tom Purvis: Art For The Sake Of Money (Ruth Artmonsky+David Preston): Somewhat ridiculously perhaps, I’d not come across this ‘commercial artist’ before seeing a recent television documentary featuring Art Deco by the Seaside (or something like that). I’d seen examples of his work, but without knowing the name of the artist. I don’t like all his art, but I absolutely love particular pieces (especially his LNER railway posters from 1925-43 and the posters his produced for Austin Reed. I found this a rather wonderful book (Purvis had something of a chip on his shoulder against fine artists, printers, agencies, art schools and some clients!). He saw himself as a combination of an artist and a salesman (interestingly, he left the typography and layout to others – which I find strange). He had a gift for sophisticated handling of flat colour (and he also produced some impressive woodcuts) and, in addition, the work of his that I particularly admire frequently involves very symbolic, simple, featureless representations of its subjects. One of those books that I’ll be constantly ‘dipping into’ over future years. 

Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie): This is our lovely StorySmith bookgroup’s latest book choice (this month we were looking for something by an African author)… and I thought it was stunningly good. The novel tells a story through the eyes of a young Nigerian woman struggling to come to terms with a world of conflict and strife (Nigeria is a country beset by political instability and economic difficulties). Her family is wealthy and dominated by her devoutly Catholic father - who is both a religious zealot and violent. It’s about religious hypocrisy; about wealth and generosity; about suffering and poverty; about the abuse of power… but also, crucially, about the persistence of love and about finding one's own voice. Adichie is an incredibly gifted writer and I was so impressed by this powerful, compassionate book. I think our bookgroup will love it!

Yes Minister: The Diaries Of A Cabinet Minister, Volume 3 (edited by Jonathan Lynn+Antony Jay): I’ve had this book for over 30 years (it was first published in 1983) and I’ve read it perhaps half a dozen times (the last time was only 5 years ago – I even blogged about it!). It NEVER fails to make me laugh out loud! Essentially, the “diaries” are re-written versions of the old television programme scripts. Interesting to recall the “editors’ note” (by scriptwriters Lynn+Jay) at the start of the book – which is supposedly written from “Hacker College, Oxford” (Jim Hacker is the book’s Minister for the Department of Administrative Affairs) in September 2019 – no doubt in the light of Hacker’s sparkling contribution to British politics! If you’ve never read any of the diaries (or seen the television programmes – including “Yes, Prime Minister”), then you REALLY must – they make a wonderful backdrop to the exploits of our own current batch of ministers (and Prime Minister!) as they attempt to justify their actions’ (or ‘non-actions’?) in connection with the current pandemic. Somewhat ironically, I finished reading the book on the day that saw Mr Cummings, the PM’s ‘chief advisor’, attempt to justify his various trips to Durham and a nearby beauty spot at a time when we were all supposed to be ‘staying at home’. Sir Humphrey Appleby would have bluffed his way through it all SO much more convincingly! Simply brilliant (again!).

very best substitute for cricket in the circumstances…

In these testing times, I realise that there are FAR more important matters than bemoaning the lack of this year’s cricket season (well, probably) but, nevertheless, I am REALLY missing my cricket! 

Never fear, my lovely brother has stepped in to save the day (he really is pretty amazing). 

Michael Henderson’s book “That Will Be England Gone” (a line from Larkin’s poem ‘Going, Going’) arrived in last Friday’s post… no note, no clue as to who might have sent it (but it could only have been from my brother Alan!).

Henderson is a cricket writer and arts correspondent (mirroring the career/interests of one of my cricket-writing heroes, Neville Cardus). I’ve come across articles from him in the past, but don’t really know an awful lot about him. Although he’s nearly ten years younger than me, I think we could both call ourselves ‘grumpy old men’ as far as some of our ‘traditional’ views on cricket are concerned.

Henderson wrote the book in the knowledge that the 2020 season would see the introduction of a new tournament, ‘The Hundred’, designed to attract an audience of younger people to the game. Ten 10-ball overs per innings featuring ‘eight brand-new city-based teams’. The County Championship – which both Henderson and I see as the ‘proper’ form of cricket – would be reduced to something of a farce, with games shoe-horned in to take place at the very start and end of the season. ‘The Hundred’ and Twenty-20 ‘pyjama’ cricket’ (as some of us have described it) would effectively take over the prime June-August slots, alongside some of the Test matches. Cardus used to say that there could be no summer English summer without cricket. He’d be horrified by what’s happening… and so are Henderson and I.

We both share the view that this ‘bish-bash’ version isn’t cricket. Yes, it might be entertaining as a ‘spectacle’, but it DEFINITELY isn’t cricket. The trouble is that we also both accept that the county championship clubs couldn’t survive financially if they had to depend purely on income from Test Matches and championship games. We also both share the fear that the new competitions might ultimately lead to the demise of Test Match cricket (the ultimate version of the game) altogether… or, at the very least, turn it into a dumbed-down adaptation (probably reduced to 4 days’ duration, rather than 5, because batsman were no longer sufficiently capable of staying at the wicket for any significant period).

I’ve blogged at length on the demise of English cricket (well, the county championship anyway) over the years, so I’ll resist the temptation to add yet further ranting! Here’s just one example from last year!

For this book, Henderson revisited several much-loved places last season to reflect on how the game had changed since he attended his first ‘senior’ game of cricket in 1965. Inevitably, many of his cricketing heroes were mine too and so, not surprisingly (despite him being SO much younger than me!), we shared similar memories. His background (public school educated at Repton) is very different to mine, but we do share a common love for cricket and the arts. He sees public schools as almost the ‘only hope’ for cricket’s future stars – there’s hardly any cricket played at state schools these days (and local cricket clubs have to compete with other summer sports, including bloomin’ football, that don’t require giving up entire days to them). I hate to admit it, but I think he’s probably right – with all the consequences that would come with this.

Yes, the book is something of a romantic, nostalgic (almost lyrical) reflection on his life - and, yet, it’s much, much more than that. I love the stories+reflections and it’s frequently very amusing. He and I don’t agree on everything (surprise, surprise), but I SO enjoyed reading it; it brought back LOTS of memories; and it has massively helped me cope with being unable to sit next to the boundary rope. x

Postscipt: What came as a lovely bonus was this reference to conductor Daniel Harding (our families are very close friends from our Oxford days) in the book’s ‘Postlude’ on one of Henderson’s regular visits to Munich: “Some of those visitors occasionally play cricket in the Englischer Garten. In July 1996, I was one of them, turning out for a London XI against MCC (Munich Cricket Club) on a matting pitch inside a running track on the southern fringe of the park. The next day I drove across the Austrian border with Daniel Harding, the young English conductor, to hear Simon rattle direct the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra at the Salzburg Festival. Eleven years later Danny and I returned to the festival. He was now conducting that great orchestra himself, in ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ no less, and I was listening at quarters that could not have been closer. ‘Sit in the pit’, he said. ‘Wear something dark, and don’t stand up to peer at the audience’. Shades of Noël Coward’s instructions to his actors!”

april-may 2020 books…

The Wilt Alternative (Tom Sharpe): In an effort to take my mind off some of the depressing consequences and realities of the current pandemic, I decided to re-read one of the many Tom Sharpe books I possess (I bought this one in April 1981, 39 years ago!). It’s the continuing sage of Henry Wilt, hen-pecked husband, father of quads and Head of Liberal Studies at the local Tech. As with all of Sharpe’s books, it’s outrageously un-politically correct and completely farcical when it comes to a plot, BUT it’s absolutely hilarious… to say that Sharpe has the ‘gift-of-the-gab’ would something of an understatement. Anyway, it served its purpose… and I frequently found myself laughing out loud (again!).

The Body (Bill Bryson): Bryson is brilliant. I absolutely love his writing. In his book “A Short History of Nearly Everything”, he apparently set off to explore the universe and the science of everything in it. Here, according to the book jacket, “he turns his gaze inwards, to try to understand the extraordinary contraption that is us”. Although married to a nurse and having worked psychiatric hospital in the early 1970s (and despite his ten honorary doctorates!), I’m sure he’d be the first to admit that he is no medical expert… and yet, he has that amazing gift for explaining the most difficult subjects in the clearest possible way (and with humour too!)… As you finish reading the second paragraph of a chapter, for example, you’ll suddenly find him writing: “your body made a million red blood cells since you started reading this”! It’s a substantial work (of almost 400 pages), crammed full of fascinating facts and illuminating stories (frequently highlighting amazing researchers whose names have largely been forgotten). I found the best way of reading this tome was to read a chapter a day (23 chapters, each focussing on different parts of the body or on the immune system, on sleep… and the like). A glorious, compulsive book… and one I’ll continue to dip into over future years.

The Glad Season (Ray Robinson): This is a cricket book from 1956. I thought I’d given away all my cricket books but, clearly, this one slipped through the net. I obviously acquired it at some second-hand bookshop or jumble sale ages ago and never got around to reading it. So, I thought I would read it now as acknowledgement of what SHOULD have been the start of the new cricket season (but coronavirus intervened). It’s a book that focuses on young cricketers. The subject matter is interesting - especially in retrospect, when some of the players went on to become ‘famous’ (and others who didn’t) – BUT it’s really APPALLING in terms of writing style (Robinson was an Australian cricket writer 1905-82)! This is just one example: Talking about Australian batsman Neil Harvey, Robinson writes: “Hastily fixing his pads and gloves Neil hurried in, trailing his bat, little knowing that with him went a silent prayer from his anxious captain. With two balls of this cataclysmic over to survive, Neil said to Miller in his crisp, light voice: ‘What’s going on out here? Let’s get stuck into them, eh?’ He turned his back to the bowler while he scraped a block-mark with his toe…”. I won’t bother continuing… it was all like this! No doubt he had his admirers, but I’m certainly not one of them. Just awful. Simply awful.

The Virgin Suicides (Jeffrey Eigenides): I’ve been meaning to read this novel for some time. I knew the basic story – about five young sisters (13-17 years old) from a Catholic family living in Michigan in the 1970s who all, in the course of just over a year, commit suicide. I’m not giving anything away by telling you this because the book’s very first paragraph informs readers that’s what’s going to happen. Moira tells me that we’ve seen the 1999 film of the book, but I only have a very vague memory of this! It’s a haunting and compelling story which is both disturbing and surprisingly funny at times (in a dark humour sort of way). The girls were under the thumb of their tyrannical, disturbed mother, who never allowed them to have dates and dressed them in ridiculously baggy clothes. Their father, a mild high school maths teacher, was sympathetic but docile. It’s written in the first person plural from the perspective of an anonymous group of teenage boys (who were friends of the sisters, as far as that had been possible) – but recounted many years later when most of them had married and had families. They struggle for an explanation of the girls’ deaths… and continued to struggle over the years. Imaginative, detailed and wonderfully-written.

The Gift (Lewis Hyde): I felt I needed to read this book. Moira’s had it for quite a long time (but, interestingly didn’t finish it). Essentially, it focuses on how the creative spirit transforms the world. Margaret Atwood described it as “a masterpiece” and “classic study of gift-giving and its relationship to art”. It refers to the power of art to take us beyond ourselves… and also a call to use the gifts we have been given. But it also tries to address the issue of how a creative artist might be able to survive in a society dominated by market exchange. Hyde himself is a poet and translator and so perhaps it’s not surprising that he concentrates his thinking on the likes of fellow writers/poets like Walt Whitman and Ezra Pound rather than, say, painters or designers. It’s a highly intelligent book which deals with large philosophical issues and, to be brutally honest, I just don’t think I am clever enough to appreciate it – large swathes simply seemed to pass over my head! Sadly (or perhaps unsurprisingly), I finished the book with a huge sense of relief.