GREENMANTLE - John Buchan

 

THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS -John Buchan

 

NORTH KOREA JOURNAL - Michael Palin

 

A short journal of a ten day trip to North Korea by Palin and film crew.

It is very light but they were under enormous restrictions and I believe it was kept this way so as not to stop future tours of this type going to the country.

You can literally read this in a decent bath.

THE CLIMATE OF TREASON - Andrew Boyle

The best book I've read on the Cambridge spies even though it was published in 1979 when there was not as much information available as there is today.

The author goes into the social background of Britain at the time the eventual 'five' were recruited.  There was a genuine belief among many young wealthy types and "academics"  ( please spare us from them and for evermore) that communism was the answer to the imbalance in society perhaps a  way to fight the rise of  fascism.

This is a great read, it shows Burgess as a much more productive spy than as the drunken Buffon that he often portrayed.

These five will continue to get written about as more papers are released.  To think there was only five spying is naïve in the extreme.  I suspect there were dozens but as the British intelligence services were so totally incompetent we will never know a number and how many deals were done like in Blunt's case.

This is hard to get in hard back but easy in paperback so get it and read it if this period interests you at all.

 

MEMOIRS OF HECATE COUNTY - Edmund Wilson

This is a collection of short stories, rather then a novel as it is touted, narrated by an anonymous person. The writing is fantastic, very readable, the stories "ramble"  a bit and could have done with some editing.  A good read but not the great read some blurbs have it as.

I'm thinking its fame owes a bit to one story that is quite explicit sexually for the late 1940's rather than great stories. 

THE LOCK UP- John Banville

 

Again, an ordinary mystery but the writing is beautiful.  Not often someone who should become a Nobel laureate "retires" and writes crime full time.  Gorgeous 

EUROPE EAST & WEST- Norman Davis

Possible the most lucid history writing I've come across.  Very accessible for the lay man
 

THE HOUSE OF GETTY -Russell Miller

A genius businessman, exceptionally hard worker, an absolute monster of a human being.

 

BROTHERS IN ARMS- James Holland

 

Fantastic read.  You are more likely to get me into a submarine that a you are a tank.

THE MARQUIS DE SADE - Donald Thomas

A rather dull book about a freak who wrote books.
 

HARD CANDY - Andrew Vachss

 

COMING UP FOR AIR -George Orwell

 

Very funny for Orwell, sad in places but a lovely read -"never go back, it will never replace your memories"

OPERATION PEDESTAL -Max Hastings

Thousands of men thrown into a mincer.  A great read , getting supplies to Malta
 

THE IDIOT - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

 

Astonishing writing , this was very readable, whereas I found Demons unreadable

ASHENDEN - W. Somerset Maugham

 

A good set of spy stories, always worth a re-read

A HANDFUL OF DUST - Evelyn Waugh

The genius that was Waugh
 

INSIDE STALIN'S KREMLIN - Peter S. Deriabin

Disappointing. Written in the 1st person 30 years after the events was always going to make it suspect.  Deriabin was a genuine defector but this reads like a superannuation supplement.  Mercifully short.

 

TROTSKY -Robert Service

 

A brilliant complex man but so narcissistic it's surprising Stalin let him  live as long as he did

A SPY NAMED ORPHAN - Roland Philipps

 

A superb biography.  For once the promotional blurbs on the cover are correct

THE DIARY OF A NOBODY - George & Weedon Grossman

 

Hilarious

UNACKNOWLEDGED LEGISLATION - Christopher Hitchens

 

A re-read of a collection from the premier essayist of modern times

THE POPES -John Julius Norwich

 

A few saints, a few good guys, many, many charlatans and some truly awful people in the 280 Popes covered in this book.

EXORCISING HITLER - Frederick Taylor

    Interesting but not riveting 

STALIN'S ENGLISHMAN - Andrew Lownie

 

The second read of this book, the blurb below was from when I first read it 8 years ago.  Nothings changed, a very good read, very interesting times.

The latest biography of Guy Burgess, one of the Cambridge spies and a very interesting read it is.

All the previous articles and books I've read on Burgess tend to show him as an alcoholic promiscuous homosexual who was not much of a spy.  This book however highlights how he was a very very intelligent individual who but  for a few quirks of fate may have gone on to be a high ranking navel officer or a Cambridge Don.

The book also contends that he was the glue that held the Cambridge spies together due to his dedication to his Marxist ideology.

It is established that Burgess supplied the Russians with amounts of information so vast much of it will not have been looked at even today.  Most of this information was irrelevant but he was so dedicated that he literally took suitcases of documents to his masters.

He was alcoholic, very promiscuous and either utterly charming or repulsive depending on who was being spoken to.  One thing all persons interviewed agreed on on that his personal hygiene left a lot to be desired.

This is a fascinating read and sheds light on one of the five who has not been given the attention by historians in the past.

Again as with all the books on the Cambridge spies no due diligence was done on Burgess prior to him working for the government.  Burgess was a leader of the Cambridge University Communist party, was publicly involved in all sorts of actions on their behalf but "no worries" later on he just told everyone he'd "given up". Again, this was accepted because he was an Eton old boy and he had given his word.  Again staggering, the same happened with Philby.

Reading this he does sound like he would have been great fun to have several drinks with at almost anytime.

Highly recommended