Two books that made me forget everything else

Gstaad

I’ve been hitting the books rather hard lately, the ritzy-glitzy crowd having gone the way of natural snow. There’s great skiing, they tell me, but it’s on man-made white stuff, which is a bit like going to bed with a plastic doll instead of the real thing. I know, skiing is skiing, but it’s somehow different for me. I need the true white powder, and I don’t mean the Colombian marching stuff.

My friend Peter (Santa Claus) Livanos sent me two literary beauties for Christmas, Wounded Tiger by T. Martin Bennett and James Holland’s Normandy ’44. The result is that I’ve forgotten all about women, martial arts, booze and even my family while deeply engrossed in them. In fact, it’s worse than that. If Ava Gardner and Betty Grable were alive and asked me to join them for a threesome, I’d take both books with me. There’s nothing like a quick read in-between sessions with Ava and Betty.

Oy vey, what is going on here? Easy: in old age there’s nothing like reading beautifully written sagas of bravery and the human predicament. Mind you, dreaming about Ava and Betty dates me much too much, so I’ll modernise: in today’s world I’d pick Jennifer, as in Lawrence, and Keira as in Knightley. And speaking of dreams, James Toback rang me from the Bagel and told me that in all his years he has never seen a better edition of any magazine than our triple Christmas dream issue. Ever. I agree, and a little bird tells me that along with the sainted editor, Mme Dominic Cummings had a lot to do with it. (Did any of you catch the ludicrous Question Time in which certain losers went after M. Dominic Cummings? Why do losers such as Clive Lewis always blame the winners rather than looking in the mirror?)

Wounded Tiger is a non-fiction novel, a term invented by Truman Capote back in the 1960s in order to cover his back and all bases.