Book Reviews

Here are some statistics about wartime fruit- and vegetable-growing in England which this book tells us. In 1942-3, there were 1,750,000 allotments, amounting to 100,000 acres, or an area the size of Rutland. But in a 1944 survey, it was discovered that only 34 per cent of urban gardens were growing fruit and vegetables, and only 10.9 per cent of households cultivated an allotment. The north-west of England turned out the worst figures, with only 28 per cent of households growing vegetables. As Ursula Buchan writes, ‘Picking sun-warmed greenhouse tomatoes to add to a salad is a pleasure; weeding round shot-holed brassicas on a windswept allotment is not.’ And this

– Hong Kong  Imagine if every British novel published since the 1940s was about the Second World War. That’s about as accurate a view of contemporary China held by readers in the Anglophone West, say experts here. On the eve of this year’s Man Asian Literary Prize announcement, it’s worth considering why that’s still the case. The prize celebrates Asian literature written in, or translated into, English. While eligible authors span the continent from Japan to Iran, all previous winners have come from East Asia, and three out of those five from China. Harvey Thomlinson, a Hong Kong-based publisher, also had a mission to highlight quality Chinese literature in English

Had he not died 12 years ago, Douglas Adams would have been 61 yesterday. Google produced a doodle in his memory, and the Guardian published an interesting piece which declared that Adams remains the king of comedy SF, before going on to argue that he was unique, pretty much the only writer in that genre. Take a bow Mr Adams; you’re top of a league of one. But, in a way, Adams was, or very nearly was, unique. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and its sequels are comedies of ideas flavoured with lashings of silliness: the restaurant at the end of the universe and Marvin the Paranoid Android, a robot beset

David Cameron is not for lurching. No lurch to the right, he says. The word ‘lurch’ underscores commentary on the government’s difficulties; but what does it actually mean? As so often in these matters, Dot Wordsworth, our language correspondent, has a few erudite suggestions, one of which is this: ‘Lurching is a nicely pejorative word. A lurch could only be welcome accidentally. The word suddenly popped up in the 19th century. No one is known to have used it earlier than Byron in 1819, in Don Juan, where he contrives a Byronic rhyme: ‘A mind diseased no remedy can physic/ (Here the ship gave a lurch, and he grew sea-sick.’)’

Doesn’t it all seem a long time ago? For years, the 1960s remained a key cultural reference, universally understood. But then, at some point, probably around the turn of the millennium, the Eighties took over and the Sixties began to fade into a psychedelic version of 1920s sepia. The two periods, separated by the shame and loon pants of the Seventies, were both about being young and “cool”. They were also about being bang up-to-date and liberated from “old” thinking. And, in the way of things, both have aged badly. The Mods of 1960s Britain were a social movement wrapped up in a fashion statement. Modernism, by contrast, is timeless.