Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 by Christopher Clark, (Penguin, £12.99). It seems to me that we have mostly been guilty of a facile and convenient dismissal of Germany and its tragic history. This book, thorough, sensitive and well written, explains at least one part of the conundrum.
I have read a lot of novels this year, but the one that provided the most pain was Philip Roth’s Exit Ghost (Cape, £16.99). It seems to record the end of an immense talent, while J. M. Coetzee’s Diary of a Bad Year (Harvill Secker, £16.99) a complex but thoroughly satisfying work, declares that Coetzee has moved to unexplored fictional territory.
Geoffrey Wheatcroft
This was a vintage year for history books, none better than David Kynaston’s Austerity Britain: 1945–1951 (Bloomsbury, £25), a cracking read with powerful resonances for those of us born under the Attlee Junta. My favourite line is from James Lees-Milne describing dinner with Harold Nicolson, who has decided that since ‘socialism is inevitable’ he must become a socialist, although ‘the sad thing is that no one dislikes the lower orders more than he does’. God’s Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain by Rosemary Hill (Allen Lane, £30) is admirable as biography, architectural history and psychoanalysis of a tormented soul. It didn’t make me like Pugin’s work much more, but that would be asking a good deal.
One tries to avoid mentioning books by friends, but not only have I actually read The Ghost by Robert Harris (Hutchinson, £18.99) when I haven’t read any of the books on the Booker short-list (well, who has?), but it’s a remarkable work, not just roman à clef but roman à thèse: a thriller which turns into a real political novel. It might even succeed in driving Tony Blair from office, unless there’s something I’ve missed.
David Gilmour
The most enjoyable book I have read this year is Vic Gatrell’s City of Laughter (Atlantic Books, £35), a work which is as boisterous as its subject — sex and satire in 18th-century London. The author has a wonderful sense both of place and of atmosphere.
Comments
David Bowden
November 16th, 2007 5:40pmAs good as it was to see Jane Smiley's vastly underrated "Good Faith" on the list, it was first published back in 2003. Whereas the equally excellent "Ten Days in the Hills" was her latest. Perhaps Mr. Mount bought it in the same pound-shop as I did?
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Tim Grafton
November 15th, 2007 7:34pmRupert Christiansen refers to Lloyd Davies novel Mister Pip. The author is in fact Lloyd Jones. Mr Jones is a New Zealander and not a welshman should that have given rise to the confusion.
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