Neville Peat (2012)

Two biographies for the price of one! – of an heroic adventurer and a classic whisky.

The book is in two parts. The first is the history of Shackleton’s British Antarctic Expedition of 1907. Peat manages to convey the emptiness of the Antarctic and the struggles and successes of the expedition. He does an excellent job of combining the adventure, the science, and the hardship that the away team underwent – and indeed those that happened on the long trip from England to Antarctica via New Zealand.

The second part is the story of the whisky’s temporary recovery back to the distillery to be tasted, tested, and re-created by blending modern whiskies. Anyone with any interest in whisky will find this fascinating, both the processes involved and the taste of the resulting dram. The very idea that it’s possible to re-create an old Scotch so faithfully is quite remarkable, and I’m very tempted by a bottle.

The link between the two parts is a little tenuous in places, not least because Shackleton, as a teetotaller, studiously avoided talking about the drinking habits of the expedition in his books, so Peat is reduced to pointing out what isn’t mentioned. That’s hardly his fault, and it’s a limitation that doesn’t really reduce the pace of the story or the centrality that century-old whisky has for Antarctic exploration’s human side.

4/5. Finished Monday 9 March, 2015.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Gillian Flynn (2012)

I have to admit I saw the film before reading the book: and the book’s better. It’s not a book to read if your relationship is in any way shaky.

It’s a close-run thing, but it’s definitely better for the story to have the direct feed into the characters’ innermost thoughts. Both the protagonists are well and deeply drawn. It’s a depressing story, of course, the tale of a marriage doomed by stress and indifference, before being “saved” – if by saved you mean the husband being trapped into acquiescence with his wife’s ideal. The sting in the tail, of course, is that he’s not entirely unhappy with this outcome, as it makes him in some senses a better man: he’s passed through anger and confusion and come to an understanding with his admittedly psychopathic wife.

5/5. Finished Sunday 8 March, 2015.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Duncan Marlor (2014)

The story of Parliament during the run-up to the First World War isn’t well-known: certainly significantly less has been written about it than about the run-up to the Second. So this book is an interesting addition to the literature.

Marlor presents a view “from the bottom”, in the sense that he’s concerned with the actions of backbench MPs trying to keep Britain neutral. The book is therefore good to compare against The Guns of August which looks at the same events more from the view of the protagonists. It’s driven largely by diaries and letters, and uses them unsparingly as comparisons against the “official” history promulgated by The Times and other newspapers of the fortnight’s events.

The overriding impression is one of the impotence of Parliament in the face of pre-existing commitments that had been made but never publicised, as well as an ability to exploit the ambiguities of treaties to justify an already-decided policy. It rapidly becomes clear that the “debates” on Britain’s war conduct were simply window-dressing with no potential to influence events – although it has to be admitted that the rebels were unwilling to go all the way to opposing the supply motions that provided funds for the war. Things haven’t changed all that much, and there’s lots to commend in this book as a filter through which to view more contemporary events.

5/5. Finished Saturday 28 February, 2015.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)