Dan Jones (2012)

A sweeping and entertaining history of the Plantagenet kings and their often equally impressive queens. There is a lot of ground to cover, and Jones does it in the same style as his previous books about similar periods, notably Crusaders: The Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands – and with several overlapping characters.

A lot of the history of this period isn’t widely known. That the boundaries of countries change is obvious, but perhaps less obvious is the idea that particular regions have clearly-identified “national” identities isn’t a concept that translates well to the eleventh century, when Normandy and the Normans weren’t in any way considered French and the relationships between barons and kings were far ore conditional and fluid than one might expect. Jones has a clear eye for where these expectations will trip-up a modern, non-expert reader, and that’s part of the book’s quality, along with his equally clear eye for fascinating characters and foibles.

4/5. Finished Sunday 27 February, 2022.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Martin Moran (1986)

This book tells part of the amazing story of an amazing man, who came back from serious injury to first climb all the Scottish Munros in a single winter season. It’s a stunning accomplishment by any measure, and set Moran up for a future as a mountaineering guide before his tragic death.

I’m sorry that it’s not a better book. The prose is quite wooden, lacking all the flourish and power that one finds in, for example, Savage Arena. As just one example amongst many:

“Only with sadness did we leave the lovely Etive, thinking with regret of those roads and glens of Argyll that our journey would not traverse again.”

It’s a shame that the writing doesn’t live up either to the country being described or the challenge being successfully attempted.

2/5. Finished Wednesday 23 February, 2022.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Sara Maitland (2008)

An exploration of the power of silence, and a progressively ore extended periods in more remote locations. It’s an attractive journey for any introvert to hear about. It’s unfortunate that, in this telling, it gets wrapped-up on explorations of religion and linguistics.

Is the modern world uniquely hostile to silence? It certainly favours extroversion, but it also allows people to undertake solitary existences without having to give up much of its conveniences (as we’ve all discovered over two years of pandemic semi-isolation).

I’m unconvinced by some of the close-read arguments and religious ties. That fact that, in the Jewish-Christian tradition, God made the world with the Word doesn’t convince me that there’s an overwhelming and ancient bias against silence, as something that has morally to be broken. I’m also unconvinced by the other religious, philosophical, and psychological speculations that to my mind get in the way of reporting the more interesting first-person experiences. Perhaps that sort of reportage is a book remaining to be written.

3/5. Finished Saturday 12 February, 2022.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

John Preston (2021)

As biographies of monsters go, this is one of the best. It sets out the whole sweep of Robert Maxwell’s complex and in the end perplexing personality: someone who courageously fought the Nazis, but committed (and admitted to) war crimes, who made and lost fortunes but never escaped the need to aggrandise. He transformed academic publishing – something I, as an academic, was unaware of – but engaged in outlandish stunts and competitions in tabloid journalism. His death was as dramatic and inexplicable as many of the events of his life.

It would be an easy story to sensationalise, and while there’s some of that in this book, overall it reads as a balances account by someone without too much of a stake in the outcome. It’s perhaps inevitable that the story has been overshadowed by the later tribulations of Ghislaine, Robert Maxwell’s daughter, but these events are in many ways foreshadowed by her earlier history. They’re certainly all of a piece with the story told here.

4/5. Finished Thursday 10 February, 2022.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Tim Bouverie (2019)

The history of the not-out-finest-hour that preceded our finest hour.

This is a very balanced treatment of a period that it’s difficult to treat fairly. It manages this by keeping a clear focus on what the protagonists know and believe at the time, without losing sight of whether those beliefs were reasonable: often they weren’t, and in the final analysis the idea that appeasement could ever have succeeded is well and truly exploded.

The use of extensive quotes from private correspondence is extremely revealing of the inner motivations of many, not least Chamberlain. But it also reveals something that I’d not noticed before: the subtle change in the meaning of the word appeasement over the course of the period. In the early years it comes across as simply a way of re-introducing equity into international relations, and only later acquires the sub-text of surrender and cowardice that it now has.

My only minor criticism is that there are a few places where a little more clarity as to the deceptions going on could have been welcome. The “Polish provocations” used by the Nazis to ramp-up the tensions prior to the attack, for example, were almost entirely imagined propaganda, culminating in the staged “incidents” used as the final justification.

5/5. Finished Sunday 30 January, 2022.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)