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 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.
This is a collection of short stories narrated by an anonymous person. The writing is fantastic, very readable, the stories "ramble" on a bit and I believe could have dome 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.
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
A genius business man, exceptionally hard worker, an absolute monster of a human being.
Fantastic read. You are more likely to get me into a submarine that a your are a tank.
