"Lady into Fox" by David Garnett. Convincing after accepting the initial unlikely happening. Read because I saw the ballet version.
"Why Men Lie & Women Cry" by Allan & Barbara Pease. Good explanations of why men & womrn have communication problems. Left behind by a tenant, to whom I gave it back.
"Circles of Deceit" by Nina Bawden. Impressive.
"State of Denial" by Bob Woodward. How the Bush 'government' screwed up the Iraq War.
"Whatever love means" by David Baddiel. Starts like bloke-lit but is really serious & absorbing, not to say upsetting if you are a widower.
"Gustav Mahler" by Stuart Feder. Illuminating biography by a shrink but careless with dates.
"274 things you should know about Churchill" by Patrick Delaforce.
"What Stalin knew" by David Murphy. Thorough check on the information given to Stalin pre-22-6-1941 by a CIA man, using Russian archive material.
"The Pumpkin Eater" by Penelope Mortimer. Bit difficult to sympathise with a 'heroine' who just wants to shell out more babies.
"A Question of Upbringing" by Anthony Powell. All 12 books, one after another but unputdownable. Over two months of reading & 2978 pages. Fortunately, my good memory saw me through the constant
"The Summerhouse Trilogy" by Alice Thomas Ellis. Thankfully, not a Catholic story!
"Stalingrad" by Anthony Beevor. Re-read after the What did Stalin know? book. This is readable but I have dipped into the impenetrable "Road to Stalingrad" by John Erickson recently, which fatally, lacks maps.
"Chesil Beach" by Iain McEwen. Masterpiece.
"On Beauty" by Zadie Smith. Mostly read on holiday. Brilliant.
"The Heirs of the Prophet Muhammad and the roots of the Sunni-Shia Schism" by Barnaby Rogerson. Useful but reads like romantic novel! Took a Long Time to read.
"The Weeping Women Hotel" by Alexei Sayle. Very imaginative & funny.
"The Disappearing Act of Esme Lennox" by Maggie O'Farrell. Harrowing tale based on what actually happened to many women who did not quite conform to social standards before the War.
"Growing up in a War" by Bryan Magee. Fascinating & what a lucky chap he was.
"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. Succinct.
"The Reign of Arthur - from History to Legend" by Christopher Gidlow. Careful examination of the extant dark age literature.
"The Welsh Girl" by Peter Ho Davies. Very good indeed.
“Stalin - at the Court of the Red Tsar” by Simon Sebag-Montefiore. Amazing story.
“The Death of Marco Pantani” by Matt Rendall. Awful tale.
“Human Traces” by Sebastian Faulkes. His best yet.
“The Wages of Destruction” by Adam Tooze. Brilliant & alarming analysis of the Nazi economy.
“Military Errors of WWII” by Kenneth Macsey. Well argued. A bit out of date after Tooze’ book.
“Paul Gauguin, Images from the South Seas” by Eckhard Hollmann. Succinct. Gauguin was a shit. Read because Avisis putting together a lecture.
“Van Gogh” by Ingo Walther. With useful pictures.
“Gauguin an Erotic Life” by Nancy Mowll Mathews. Very good book. What a shit.
“Northern Lights” by Philip Pullman. 1st book of His Dark Materials.Filmed including Jason as The Golden Compass but the book is a splendid fantasy, written like a children’s adventure book but covering some deep issues. He seems to say, correctly, that the church is the root of all evil.
“The Subtle Knife” by Philip Pullman. 2nd book of His Dark Materials.