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