Eric Hobsbawm "How To Change The World : Tales Of Marx and Marxism" (Abacus)




This is a powerful argument for the serious re-engagement with Marx and his ideas. The book title is a bit of a misnomer though, as it certainly doesn't contain any blueprint for 'changing the world'. What it does contain is a collection of essays written between 1956 and 2009, most never previously published before in English, many considerably extended, that provide a history of both Marx and Marxism.

You can't fail to be impressed with Hobsbawm's reach, or the breadth of his learning, and that he argues the case for Marx cogently. The relevance for today is that the globalized capitalist world of the last decades had been anticipated in crucial ways by Marx: the concentration of Western economic and financial power in a few hands, high socio-economic inequalities and systemic (capitalist) crises. He foresaw all this from the end of the 19th century.


So, whilst not an instruction manual to bring in the golden age of socialism, this book concerns itself entirely - with the exception of the last chapter - with the history of ideas, the discipline Hobsbawm commands best. The various essays in this collection, ranging from notes on the prehistory and the contemporary reception of Marxism to musings on Gramsci and Marxist thought in the postwar world, are all concerned with Marxism as one major intellectual influence and current in the history of ideas. his is as it should be, because it allows Hobsbawm the necessary distance as well as giving him the freedom to exercise the kind of subtle and nuanced reflection on the nature and spread of ideas in history and their effect on politics that has made him justly famous.

Overall, a Highly recommended read in my estimation.

I find it quite mind boggling that the Co-op Group can have lost so much money, and to put it in perspective, here is a  link to my brother's blog that really does show up the ineptitude of the Co-op in losing such a sum.

http://abulldoginbrighton.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/co-op-group-loses-25-billion.html?spref=fb

John Keats Everyman Poet Library (Everyman Poetry)

I rarely read poetry as a genre and sometimes I wonder if I should read more. This is why I picked up this cheap collection of some of the poetry of Keats last year.

Keats is one of the principal figures in the Romantic movement. His verse can be fanciful and intensely musical and this collection gives an indication of the breadth of his passions and concerns. A very concise little paperback.

It contains two of his best known poems “Ode to a Nightingale” and “Ode To A Grecian Urn” as well as part of “Endymion”

As promised here is the list of the books I intend to read and / or finish during 2013 Fifty Book Challenge. Last year I read 78 books and hope to do the same amount this year.

Slavoj Zizek – In Defence Of Lost Causes
Jeet Thayil – Narcopolis
Noam Chomsky Rogue States
Frank Furedi – Where Have All The Intellectuals Gone ?
David Baggett & William Drumin – Hitchcock and Philosophy, Dial M For Metaphysics
Don Kowalski – The Big Bang & Philosophy
Humphrey Carpenter – J RR Tolkien A Biography
Alistair Cooke – Letters From America
Ivan Turgenev – Fathers And Sons
Jack Kerouac – Maggie Cassidy

Michael Faber – The Crimson Petal And The White
Dave Haslam – Young Hearts Run Free
Rob Young – Electric Eden
Daisy May – Young Romantics
Umberto Eco – The Mysterious Flame Of Queen Loana
Stephen King – Misery
Dodie Smith – I Capture The Castle
Bernard Cornwell – Harlequin
Bill Bryson – Notes From A Small Island
Cormac Mc. Carthy – The Road

Audrey Niffenegger – The Time Traveller's Wife
Markus Zusak – The Book Thief
Meg Rosff – How I Live Now
Peter Ackroyd – The History Of England Part 1 , Foundation
S.J. Parris – Sacrilege
Julian Barnes – Foucault's Parrot
John Paul Sartre – The Age Of Reason
Julia Bell – Dirty Work
Charles Dickens – A Tale Of Two Cities
John Le Carre – A Small Town In Germany

Eldridge Cleaver – Soul On Ice
Lisa Randall – Warped Passages
Hilary Mantel – Fludd
Steven Pinker – The Language Instinct
Simon Reynolds – Retromania
John Gray – Gray's Anatomy
Ian Mortimer – The Time Traveller's Guide To Medieval England
Olaf Stapledon – Star Maker
Philip K Dick – Flow My tears The Policeman Said
Daniel Keyes – Flowers For Algernon

Henning Mankell – Faceless Killers
Umberto Eco – Foucault's Pendulum
John Lloyd and John Mitchinson – QI The Book Of The Dead
Michael Chabron – Wonder Boys
Adam Phillips – Promises Promises
John Keats – Selected Poems
The Penguin Selected Poems of Tennyson
Margaret Atwood – The Year Of The Flood
Roy Porter – Enlightenment
Iceberg Slim – Trick Baby


So the challenge starts today.

Hayden Carruth "Reluctantly: Autobiographical Essays" (Copper Canyon Press)




Fascinating personal essay on author's attempted suicide, unsolicited resuscitation and surprising, post-recovery, radical change in psychology.

A solid introduction to his interior world, Reluctantly also serves well as a supplement to Carruth's 50 years of publishing poetry, criticism, and one fine, under read novel, Appendix A. Now in his late 70s, Carruth has witnessed from his seclusion in remote New England the rise and fall of myriad intellectual, political, and poetical movements. In his essays, he sets these passages alongside events in his own life as if to find explanations for the absurdity of one in the chaos of the other. As the title suggests, it is with great reluctance that he discusses his suicide attempts, hospitalizations, nervous breakdowns, divorces, and other disappointments. Yet in his memory these events are so intertwined with his successes and joys, indeed with his whole creative enterprise, that he is compelled to give both equal time. At times, the essays' careful manipulation of style and sound approaches the measured reverie of Carruth's poetry, especially when discussing his years in northern Vermont, the setting for many of his more famous poems. He describes in great detail the cowshed he converted into a writing cabin, and in fact the book's main characters besides himself are his neighbours there, Martin and Frances Parkhurst, through whose friendship Carruth relearned the social skills he felt he lost during a series of bad crackups in his 30s.

For whatever reason, Carruth remains elliptical about some of the more significant details of his life. For many years he was the editor of Poetry. Prior to that he was part of the Allied Army force that invaded Italy during World War II. He mentions these experiences only briefly, then, for example, writes three paragraphs about watching a frozen bobcat slowly decompose during a spring thaw.

Given a chance to explain his love of jazz, or his suicide attempt, or his psychoanalysis, Carruth indulges in tangents in ways his strict poetics would never entertain. There is something fitting about the author allowing himself a few autobiographical reflections at this point in his career, and his reluctance only heightens their value.

Russell Hoban "The Bat Tattoo" (Bloomsbury)




I haven't read enough of Hoban to know if there is such a thing as a typical Hoban, but I doubt there is. I find Hoban's work easy to read, his prose moves you along and he presents characters who seem consistent and convincing even though the situations they find themselves stretch into the realm of magic realism.


It is the modern day tale of a middle-aged man and woman, both widowed several years ago, who come together after coincidentally getting the same bat (a symbol of happiness taken from a Chinese vase at the V&A) tattooed on their left shoulders. It is a tale of art, loneliness, religious iconography, failure, erotica, mysterious millionaires, and an unfortunate obsession with crash-test dummies.

Weird and wonderful and thus highly recommended.

Stephen Fry "The Fry Chronicles" (Michael Joseph)



Stephen Fry herein chronicles his life, or another section of it at least (see "Moab is my Washpot " for a more comprehensive biography of Fry’s younger years) including the beginnings of his launch into television, but not quite his launch into stardom. There is, it seems, another volume to come. Excuse me while I wriggle impatiently in my seat. There.

This book would serve as a reinforcement to anyone circling the Fry fandom; it’s the man’s quirks, vulnerabilities, flaws, endearing traits, towering and extraordinary strengths, story, connections and influences laid bare; an essence of Fry as much as a written history.

He’s one of few subjects, to my mind, whose biography might maintain your interest, but whose autobiography will fascinate, delight and entertain you, while imparting a certain introspective wisdom (and some pitiful moping, which will either annoy you or make you want to pat him gently) and plenty of pertinent facts. There are the hoped for anecdotes - two students meeting and saying ‘hullo’ a few times never took on more significance – and unexpected byways. And, of course, it’s a potted history of an era of British Comedy. And all of it is written in Fry’s own paradoxical brand of humility (which, he claims, stems from a perceived whomping arrogance, which is wrought from hideous insecurity which… well, read the book) and, more importantly, with that lunatic and lovely wordiness for which we value him, and gladly consider him one of our ambassadors of British brain and wit

Jiri Weil "Mendelssohn is on the Roof" (Daunt Books)



I took this book on my Ramsgate visit as I had a few pages left to read.

While Primo Levi, Ann Frank, and Eli Weizel are well known contributors to Holocaust literature, Jiri Weil is not. It is a shame that Weil is not better known because his work is just as powerful. This novel, set in German occupied Prague, "The Protectorate" as it is known, faithfully and horrifically describes life outside of the concentration camp. The closest it gets is the Terezin ghetto. Life was equally bleak outside the extermination camps. The novel views the world through the eyes of various characters, some Jews but others Nazis or Czech workers. This pastiche dwells on the usual themes of evil, power, death, violence, and suffering. A less typical theme was the psychic pain experienced by those who chose to or were forced to be complicit with the Nazis. And, although almost everyone meets a poor ending, in the end life always affirms itself. This truly is a brilliant novel and classic literature at its best.

Iris Murdoch "The Italian Girl" (Vintage)




This is my first venture into the writing of Iris Murdoch, and it has inspired me to read more.

Edmund, our narrator, has returned to his family home following the death of his mother. The story concerns a small cast of characters who have become trapped in their very insular world. Each has their own source of escapism, which is at once as much a cause of destruction as it is of release.

Ever present in the background is the eponymous "Italian girl". Despite playing little part in the foreground of the novel, she is a powerful presence of whom the reader is constantly aware. We know she will have an important role to play, but are never quite sure what that role will be.

I would not hesitate to recommend this book - especially to anyone who was looking for a short and easy read, but with beautifully created characters and a dense enough plot to intrigue and satisfy.

Neil Gaiman "Stardust" (Headline)




By the cover it would seem that this is another one of Gaiman's famed graphic novels. But instead it's an illustrated novella, spinning a story of three peoples' fate as they try to find the blonde-haired maiden from the night sky. The vibrant illustrations make the story.

An absolutely charming fairy tale with Neil Gaiman's characteristic twists. Stardust draws on traditional fairy tale memes and contorts them into something new, surprising and highly entertaining. The film differed from the source material in many ways and frankly some aspects of the film, especially Robert de Niro's Captain Shakespeare, were brilliant. Nonetheless, the plot is excellent and the characters keep the attention throughout.