Book Reviews

Reprobates were, in the Calvinist lexicon, those unfortunates not included among God’s elect and therefore sentenced to eternal damnation. Reprobates were, in the Calvinist lexicon, those unfortunates not included among God’s elect and therefore sentenced to eternal damnation. For stern English puritans it was pleasing to think that Royalist ‘cavaliers’ were among them. Alas, there was no way of knowing. Gallingly, since life everlasting could be bought neither by good works (in the Roman tradition) nor by belief alone (in the Lutheran disposition), cavaliers had an equal chance of it with anyone else. But then, confusion reigns everywhere in the entangled mesh of roundhead versus cavalier. On the field, especially

Mark Mason has the Bookends column in this issue of the magazine. Here it is as an exclusive for the readers of this blog. Nora Ephron has a clever solution to a particular social quandary. Whenever she pinches her husband’s arm at a party, it’s their agreed signal for ‘I’ve forgotten the name of this person I have to introduce you to, so give them your name directly and they’ll respond in kind’. Only one problem — his memory is now as bad as hers, so he keeps forgetting what the signal means. I Remember Nothing and Other Reflections is a collection of short essays distilling the wisdom gained from

Jason Diamond, who writes for Jewcy, has compiled a list of the greatest Jewish literature of the last 100 years. Some wonderful choices are included, from Paul Auster’s postmodern New York Trilogy to Joseph Heller’s WWII satire, Catch 22, with Kafka, Proust and Salinger dominating the top spots. While the list does not claim to be definitive, it does offer a fascinating glimpse into a rich cultural history and a formidable literary heritage. But Diamond’s selection is perhaps most distinctive for its variety. The top ten are all distinctive testaments to modern Jewish identity – secular and religious, liberal and orthodox, assimilated or persecuted. But that is not all. Tablet’s

American website Flavorwire has compiled a jolly list for a Wednesday afternoon: the top ten dirtiest male writers. It’s not for the faint-hearted, not least because the Marquis de Sade and John Wilmot, earl of Rochester, have not made the cut. Here is the list, with my thoughts on the selection and links to relevant reviews and articles. 10). Philip Roth. I’m too delicate to contemplate Portnoy’s Complaint and The Humbling at once. 9). William Shakespeare. I recall this line in Brett Easton Ellis’ Rules of Attraction: ‘You’d be on your back if you knew’. If so it’s pinched from Shakespeare: ‘Thou wilt fall backwards when thou hast more wit.’

Here is a selection of literary comment and debate from around the world. Writing in the Observer, Paul Theroux describes his life as a perpetual alien. It is the happy, often pompous delusion of the alien that he or she is a witness to an era of significant change. I understand this as a necessary conceit, a survival skill that helps to make the stranger watchful. I lived in England for 18 years, as a pure spectator, from the end of 1971 until the beginning of 1990. I was just an onlooker, gaping at public events that did not involve me. I was a taxpayer, but couldn’t vote; a house

The Thick of It: The Missing DoSAC Files is a part-accompaniment part-spin-off book to the TV series created by Armando Iannucci. It’s written and compiled by the same team behind the BBC series, so it is perfectly in-keeping with the show, without the air of trying-too-hard emulation that many tie-in books have. The character voices hit the same uncomfortable recognition buttons as the television series; Nicola Murray’s overuse of exclamation marks being particularly familiar to anyone who has ever received a message from an overexcited mother who has finally worked out how to use the email. The book centres on Malcolm Tucker, the conceit being that the Head of Communications

‘I’m not writing songs anymore; they’re writing me.’ Plagued by music in her head that arrived unbidden, drowning out conversation, Kristin Hersh was diagnosed with bipolar disorder just as psychologists stopped calling it ‘manic depression’. Always on the lookout for a mentally ill musician to acclaim as a genius, the British music press adopted Hersh and her band Throwing Muses in the late 1980s even as their native America remained indifferent. Paradoxical Undressing (Atlantic Books, £18.99) is a memoir based on the diary Hersh kept as a teenager in the mid-Eighties, and tells a good story: precociously bright girl attempts suicide, lands a record deal and finds herself pregnant, all

Andrew Petrie has written the Bookend column for this week’s magazine. Here it is an exclusive for readers of this blog. ‘I’m not writing songs anymore; they’re writing me.’ Plagued by music in her head that arrived unbidden, drowning out conversation, Kristin Hersh was diagnosed with bipolar disorder just as psychologists stopped calling it ‘manic depression’. Always on the lookout for a mentally ill musician to acclaim as a genius, the British music press adopted Hersh and her band Throwing Muses in the late 1980s even as their native America remained indifferent. Paradoxical Undressing is a memoir based on the diary Hersh kept as a teenager in the mid-Eighties, and

It is strange that, in an age when so few people read books, literary prizes have taken on such significance. This week, with considerable pomp, the Man Booker Foundation announced a new award in honour of the late Beryl Bainbridge, the novelist and Spectator contributor. At last, Beryl the ‘Booker Bridesmaid’ – so-called because she was shortlisted for the award more than any other writer without ever winning it – could become Beryl ‘the Booker bride.’ This new ‘Best of Beryl’ prize, to be chosen by the public, means she can rest in peace. Isn’t it silly? Bainbridge deserves a posthumous prize, of course: she was a brilliant writer, arguably

Writers seldom cause revolutions, especially novelists. Even the greatest and most visionary political authors – Solzhenitsyn, Orwell and Hugo – were bound to the task of reflecting a society in turmoil. But, in doing so, fiction can have a more profound impact than the frenzied efforts of photographers and news editors to explain violent political movement. Disparate sweeps of disaffection can take clear form in the mind of a skilled novelist, and change can be presented beyond the myopia of newsreel. Ben Macintyre has found the novel that charts the character of the Egyptian dissenters. The Yacoubian Building was written by Alaa Al Aswany, a Cairo dentist, in 2002. It