In the End was the Word

I was so taken with Civilisations that I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to indulge in an earlier novel by Laurent Binet. Doing it this way round made a lot of sense, because I do not think I would have persevered if I had not already had a taste of Binet’s brilliance.

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The temptation, of course, is to review the book as one might a restaurant or a meal, to talk about savouring each witty gem while regretting that the meal must end, profess to being full without having overindulged, knowingly wink at past kitchen practices that today would be frowned upon, or at le...

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There’s no way to take John Buchan seriously today, but for sheer escapist, eclectic tosh, he’s very entertaining, especially as a free download from a library. I’m not even sure how to go about reviewing the book, and while procrastinating I tried to find contemporary reviews to see how it might ha...

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A friend to whom I had raved about 📖 Cahokia Jazz raved back about Civilisations. Well no, he didn’t rave, because he didn’t want to offer any spoilers. All he said was that it was a great counterfactual. When I asked for at least a bit of an outline, he added only, “well, when the Inca fleet turn...

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See, this is what happens when you procrastinate.

I've been putting off reviewing Cahokia Jazz, which I finished a couple of months ago, because I wanted to tie it in to knowing a teeny bit about Cahokia from The Dawn of Everything and my subsequent discovery of Red Plenty, also by Francis S...

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I’m at a bit of a loss what to make of Jonathan Lethem’s latest. It’s definitely very clever. Maybe it does also capture growing up in Brooklyn during the earliest days of regeneration and eventual escape. Or not. I certainly enjoyed it one little chapter at a time. Overall, though, it just did not add up to anything notable, for me.

Perhaps you had to be there.

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Just finished this, a moment ago, on a blisteringly hot day, the kind of day that forces you into a darkened room, windows shut, blinds down, ceiling fan on. Any breeze from outside would only heat things up, and any attempt to sleep is fraught with a hot, icky pillow. It seemed appropriate, though doubtless I would have said the same had I finished it during an icy blizzard or drizzling greyness. Anything but temperate normalcy.

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It isn’t a good idea to complain that someone else hasn’t treated some topic in the way you would have treated it. Nevertheless, I want to put down a marker. I listened to two podcasts this week each of which, in my opinion, left a big question unasked.

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If I were a character in this terrific novel, I would remember exactly who had recommended it to me, under what circumstances, and everything else about them. Alas, I am not, nor do I really wish I were, but as a story it has that kind of appeal, of making me think, what would I have done. The plot covers a dozen or so years, from Bulgaria in the early 1930s to America in 1946, and it concerns a group of NKVD recruits whose allegiance to one another is stronger than their allegiance to the NKVD. Or is it?

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Robert MacFarlane’s previous book, The Old Ways, I read in partial preparation for a long walk on one of the old ways, which has yet to materialise. Underland, on the other hand, informs me of journeys I will never make. Extreme cold, cramped passageways, far-off places — all of which become, in...

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