A Gentleman's Domain

Thursday Thirteen #76

It’s so nice to be back in the land of Thursday Thirteen again!  I was afraid we had seen the last of it.  After a hiatus, I’m back with a book list.  I can’t tell you all that much about these books, because I haven’t read any of them, so I can only go by what I have heard and what the cover blurbs say.  They are all on my To-Be-Read list.  In fact, I’d welcome any comments about them. Are there any good ones here?  Or ones to be avoided at all costs?

13 Books I Have Yet To Read

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Another 2 pics

The CIA was startled to discover that the North Korean Army had solved the gravity problem

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At last Bashinkoff worked out how to store his spare ballerinas!
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Lest We Forget

Before we are swept away by residual euphoria, and before we get impatient if change seems to take longer than would like, here is a reminder of what has gone before. It’s called 8 Years in 8 Minutes, but in fact it is almost nine and a half minutes long. If you have nine and a half minutes to spare, do watch. It’s hard to believe these things happened in the US − no, actually it’s very easy to believe, unfortunately. Let’s hope the last two presidential terms were just an aberration, never to be repeated. . .

Starting Anew

Well, what did you think of it?   I must say, that with all the hoop-la following Barak Obama’s election victory last November, and the feeling in some quarters that he can pretty much walk on water and solve the nation’s (no, make that the world’s) problems at a stroke, that during his Inauguration he would have to have, in the style of Ancient Rome, someone standing close behind him whispering “Remember, you are only mortal. All this shall pass.”   However, for all the hyperbole, yesterday’s ceremony was fitting, restrained, and undeniably mortal.

We went to an Inauguration party at a local restaurant.  There must have been about 200 of us, and the atmosphere was euphoric, optimistic and just plain fun.  It felt strange at first to be applauding a TV screen, but after a couple of times, it was just the natural thing to do.  Just as natural as when Bush appeared, to join in singing "Na Na Hey Hey Goodbye!" 

So, we got a fairly brief ceremony, complete with singer, chamber orchestra, poet and two priests.   The actual moment of the two handovers was relatively brief.  For a couple of minutes, Bush was still president and his Vice-President was Joe Biden. (Here’s a question for all you Americans from a puzzled Brit:  The presidential oath of office is very brief, so why is the vice-president’s oath such a long, rambling declaration about mental reservation etc?  Can anybody tell me?).  The Chief Justice flubbed the presidential oath, probably because he tried to do it without notes, but with a couple of smiles he and Obama got there in the end.  (I prophesied that before the day was out, conspiracy theorists would claim that Obama deliberately stumbled over the oath because he didn’t really mean it, or because he really wanted to take it on the Koran, or some such drivel. And I was right).

Obama’s speech was well crafted, to the point, and full of indicators of the future. Not Churchillian,  not even FDR, but uplifting and optimistic.  Science no longer to be marginalized, care for the poor at home and abroad,  recognition that the people who actually make things are to be admired and that the idle rich, who contribute nothing, are not.  Help to poor countries, a real partnership with the other prosperous countries in this world.  A search for alternative sources of energy rather than for more oil.  Here is a president who intends to bring America into the twenty-first century, and not a moment too soon.  And how nice to have a president who is at ease with oratory – not one who ends up sparring with, and invariably losing to, the English language!

It was unfortunate for the poet that she had to follow Obama’s speech.  I found her irrelevant and dull, and judging by the swell of conversation in the restaurant, so did most people.  While she was reciting, people took the opportunity to order more coffee or ask for the check or simply to chat to their neighbours.  We all shut up, though, for the final benediction when the second priest (In a nation where supposedly the church and state are separated, God certainly manages to stick his oar in on these occasions!) shuffled up to the microphone and, wheezing and slightly breathless, gave a solemn but witty and merry benediction – a fitting end to this happy occasion.

Now I know that this man is not the cure for all ills.  There are forces ranged both within and without this country, dedicated to thwarting his plans.  The moneyed and powerful do not easily surrender their influence and their ownership, imagined or otherwise, of the nation.  So if President Obama does not manage to achieve all his ends, we must not be too surprised.  But those of us filled with optimism yesterday must be ready to support him once the honeymoon is over, the novelty of a black president has worn off, and we have begun to forget what is what like under the old regime.  Obama has ahead of him not just a few strokes of a magic wand but years and years of very hard work.  But as one British poster wrote on a BBC vox pop site about the Inauguration: "Welcome back, America!  We've really missed you."

**  A slight quibble.  In his speech, Obama remarked that he was the forty-fourth person to take the presidential oath of office.  In fact, he is the forty-third.   The 22nd and 24th presidents were the same person, Grover Cleveland, who so far was the only one to serve two non-consecutive terms

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I watched this clip on the BBC a short while ago.  It seems that Obama is starting as he means to go on.  I expect this brought howls of anguish from lobbyists, whose job is to bribe influence politicians.   It’s good, too, that he is restricting government workers from jumping ship and becoming lobbyists themselves, using their contacts and knowledge to advance the cause of whatever business interest they work for.  Most interesting, I thought, was at about 6 minutes 21 seconds, when he says that the Freedom of Information Act will be even more strongly applied so that if he “or a former president” wishes to withhold something from the American people, they will have to show very definite cause to those charged with applying the Act.   A former president.   Whom does you imagine he had in mind?
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The Bookshelf Meme

The Bumbles  tagged me for a meme the other day.  It's called The Bookshelf Meme and in it one is asked five questions about one's books.  This was fun to do.

(1)  Tell me about the book that has been on your shelves the longest.

I think that would probably be my copy of Oliver Twist, which my late grandmother gave me for Christmas when I was about ten.

(2)  Tell me about a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (i.e. a person, a place, a time, etc.).

I was spoiled for choice here, but I have picked High Adventure by the very recently late Donald E. Westlake.  I bought it in Hawaii when I was making a leisurely round-the-world trip, and I read a lot of it while lying on a towel on Waikiki Beach.  A great book, and it entertained me during part of a very enjoyable and memorable ten-week journey.

(3)  Tell me about a book you acquired in some interesting way (gift, serendipity in a used book store, prize, etc.).

Admiral Hornblower  by C.S. Forester.  Actually this is an omnibus, containing five Hornblower novels.  I won it as a prize at school when I was 12 for coming first in examinations in my class that term.

(4)  Tell me about the most recent addition to your shelves.

John Major’s autobiography, received from an Amazon marketplace bookstore just a couple of days ago.

(5)  Tell me about a book that has been with you to the most places.

I had to think about this and in the end I picked…. my second passport, valid from when I was 24 to 34.  I travelled so much in those years that I ran out of spaces for immigration entry and exit stamps.  Well, a passport is a sort of book, isn’t it?

I’m not tagging anyone, but if you want to have a go please feel free, and please link back to this post!

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Then There Were Two

Another sad posting.  A couple of weeks ago I listed a dozen of the books I read last year that I really enjoyed.  One was Kitchener’s Last Volunteer, about Henry Allingham, the oldest surviving British First World War veterans.  I remarked that he was one of just three.  Well, now he is one of only two.  Bill Stone (born 1900) died a couple of days ago.

That leaves Henry Allingham (born 1896) and Harry Patch (born 1898).  Henry Allingham joined the Royal Naval Air Service and Harry Patch was a private in the infantry. As far as I know, he is the last man left alive, in any country, who fought in the trenches of the Western Front.  When the last of these gentlemen dies, and sadly that day will probably not be long in coming, there will be a memorial service, attended by the Royal family, the government, service chiefs, foreign ambassadors etc, to commemorate ALL the men who fought in that war, and the million British servicemen who died in it.  Then the first of, we hope, only two world wars will pass into history, to be remembered only through books, photographs, newsreels and preserved reminiscences – but never, one trusts, to be forgotten.
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Two Gone Forever

Rather sad.   At about this time last year, one of my very favourite authors died.  George MacDonald Fraser.  He it was who wrote the twelve wonderful novels about the Victorian cad Flashman, each of which I have read and re-read many times over, and will do so again many times.  He was in his mid-eighties, so it wasn’t by any means a surprise, but it was a loss none the less. And of course it meant that there would be no more Flashman books.  There are attempts sometimes to assign plots and characters created by a dead author to another writer, who is supposed to carry the baton, but it doesn’t always work.  These efforts are published under the name of the late author  followed by an apostrophe S,  and the name of the person who actually wrote them is in small letters at the bottom of the cover.  Next time you’re in a book shop just go look for “Robert Ludlum’s” this and “Alistair MacLean’s” that.  I never buy those.  They are not the same as the real thing.

So I am glad that no one has so far attempted to continue writing the Flashman papers, and even though that means there will be no more, that is how it is supposed to be.  And there are still some novels by Fraser that I haven’t read yet, on other subjects.  Since every book you haven’t read is a new book, that means I have many treats in store.

And then, a couple of weeks ago, we lost another of my favourite writers – Donald E. Westlake.   I have mentioned him many times in my Thursday Thirteen book lists as one of the writers I enjoy above all others.  He died on New Year’s Eve, and again I felt the sadness – selfishly, perhaps – that there would be no more books from him.  However,  I can still look forward to reading many of his works for the first time.  He wrote over one hundred novels under his own name and about half a dozen pseudonyms, and I have hardly scratched the surface.  No need for other writers to try to write on his behalf.  No need to go without.  I thank Donald Westlake for his phenomenal industry and energy over his long career and I look forward to many, many hours of enjoyment reading what his mind dreamed up.
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One To Enjoy!

The Misadventures of Oliver Booth 

by DAVID DESMOND

Greenleaf Book Group Press,  205 pages,  $14.95

David Desmond writes about the rich, and the wannabe rich, in Palm Springs.  Since he is Donald Trump’s nephew, and lives in Palm Springs, we can assume he is not unfamiliar with that milieu, and in this novel he  manages to navigate this world of the rich and self-indulgent with ease.

We explore Palm Beach with the Oliver Booth of the title.  As his main protagonist, David Desmond gives us the unpleasant, arrogant, incompetent – throw in obese too – proprietor of a store situated near, but not in, a top class shopping street, where he tries to unload his fake antiques at outrageous prices upon the rich and super-rich. You will look in vain for redeeming qualities.

As we follow him from Palm Springs to Paris on an antiques buying trip on behalf of a client, and back again, bad things happen to Oliver Booth, but he is so unremittingly unpleasant to everyone he encounters in this story – he is either fawning over them or trying to take advantage of them, and very often both – that we feel no sympathy for him when fate slaps him upside the head.  Add a French waiter who is both intelligent and possessed of an easy manner, a very rich old lady and her grandson, and you have the main characters in this comic novel.

At the start of the novel, David Desmond describes for us the nature of Palm Beach society, with its own code of behaviour, hierarchy and  rules, and we are left wondering if all this can be true, but of course since Desmond is describing the place where he lives, we believe every word.  Then he takes up the story of Oliver Booth’s attempt to join that society and make his fortune as antique dealer to the wealthy.  This is a very entertaining and undemanding read. Don’t look for deeper meanings than those you find on the page – just enjoy what happens to the sweaty little toad of the title and those with whom he comes into contact.  It takes a lot for a book to make the reader laugh out loud, but this one succeeded in several places.  The Misadventures of Oliver Booth comes under the category of fun!  Read and enjoy. And if you’re like me you’ll be though it all too quickly, and wanting more; so you’ll be delighted to see that Desmond is writing a sequel.
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Booking through 2008

Every year I keep a list of the books I have read.    I don’t number them, so as I enter the titles in a small notebook I manage to lose count sometime around the end of February. That means that come New Year’s day each year, I can tot up the number of books I have read the previous year and surprise, or disappoint, myself with the total.  Obviously, I spent a lot of 2008 sitting comfortably in quiet surroundings reading, because my total of books read was 101.  Those are only books I actually finished.  Any book I abandon before I get to the end doesn't make it onto the list.

Out of those 101 books there were some very enjoyable ones, a number of indifferent ones which I shall probably not read again, and a few I had to struggle through to finish just for the sake of it.  I have picked a dozen that I particularly did enjoy – seven fiction and  five non-fiction – and for what it’s worth they all carry my recommendation.

1  –  Smoke  by Donald E. Westlake.  I was actually giggling out loud at this book in Starbucks, much to my wife’s embarrassment.  Westlake is a very amusing writer, and this is one of the best I have read of his so far.

2  –  Shakespeare  by Bill Bryson.  An extremely readable, and concise, book on the Bard himself , his writings and his legacy.

3  –  Soho  by Keith Waterhouse.  I didn’t really know what to expect when I ordered this but this gently amusing tale of a young man from the north of England who comes down to London, specifically the red light area of Soho, to look for his  girlfriend, was riveting.

4  –  The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder  by Vincent Bugliosi.  Probably best known as the Assistant D.A. who successfully prosecuted Charles Manson and several members of his “family”, Bugliosi sets out a credible set of reasons why President Bush, in initiating the Iraq war, can and should be prosecuted for murder.

5  –  The Deal  by Peter Lefcourt.  The deal in question is the one required to greenlight a movie.  This is the story of a washed-up producer who stumbles upon a story, and after a number of “conceptual changes” manages to get it made in an overseas location, by a mad director. This is a send up of the whole Hollywood circus.

6  –  Boomsday  by Christopher Buckley.  Another of my favourite writers.  This is about an attempt to legalize voluntary euthanasia for senior citizens in the USA.  It’s a lot funnier than that one-sentence summary would suggest.

7  –  Born Standing Up  by Steve Martin.  An entertaining though brief (204 pages of not particularly small print) autobiography by Martin, who is described on the dust jacket as a writer, artist, actor and performer;  I should imagine that most people think of him with those categories  in reverse order.

8  –  Pompeii  by Robert Harris.  A brilliant novel about the seaside town of Pompeii on Italy’s west coast, and several characters  in particular,, in late August, 79AD, just as Mount Vesuvius was about to erupt and wipe out the town and almost everyone in it..

9  –  Kitchener’s Last Volunteer  by Henry Allingham with Dennis Goodwin.   Obviously Goodwin did most of the writing because Henry Allingham is 112 years old, born in June, 1896.   He is the only man still alive who volunteered to join the British Army at the outbreak of World War One in 1914 and one of only three WW1 British soldiers still living at this writing (the other two were drafted in 1917).  He served throughout the war and this is his story, taken down from his recollections. A vital historical document, secured for posterity before WW1 passes from living memory.

10  –  The Appeal  by John Grisham.   All Grisham’s books are good, and this is no exception.  It’s about an appeal against the decision in a lawsuit between a corporation and the people it apparently has wronged, and the lawyers and judges who are involved in the case.

11  –  Humble Pie  by Gordon Ramsay.  The chef’s own story, told in his own words, expletives included, about his life in a dysfunctional family, his abusive father, how he started a career in football (soccer, if you really insist), was injured, and went to catering school instead.  And 21 years later he is the most successful, and richest, chef in the world.  Some of his frank descriptions of his childhood experiences got him into trouble with some of his family members, but that is bound to happen when you don’t sugar coat things.

12  –  That’s Me in The Middle  by Donald Jack.  Until fairly recently the nine novels about Bartholomew Bandy were out of print but I’m glad to say that several have been reissued by a Canadian publisher and I have managed to get hold of them all.  This is the second volume, about a WW1 pilot from Ottawa who manages against all expectation to become a war hero.  War isn’t normally an amusing subject but this book manages to make it so without indulging in poor taste.
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