Here’s a round up of my last year’s reading and a look forward to what’s planned for 2026.
Slow Horses is the first of Mick Herron’s series of spy thrillers. Based in Slough House, the “Slow Horses” (get the pun?), disgraced agents side-lined from operational duties, are the unlikely heroes who foil the double-dealing of their superiors and the efforts of white supremacist kidnappers. Written with dark humour and realistic dialogue, this is worth a read.
I started reading Mythos by Stephen Fry when Donald Trump was starting his second term. Fry’s description of the antics of the Greek gods was a frightening mirror of Trump’s behaviour. Fry also explains how so many words have come into the English language from the gods (Atlas, the giant with the globe on his shoulders and charity from Charis, one of the three Graces), drugs (morphine from Morpheus, the god of sleep and dreams) and herbs (like mistletoe used by Asclepius, the son of Apollo as a cure-all). I wholeheartedly recommend this romp through Greek mythology.
Fellow writer Bob Copeland said I should read The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist by Palestinian writer and politician Emile Habiby. The letters of Saeed describe how Palestinians tried to make some sense out of being robbed of their land. “By what law do the defeated claim their rights from the conqueror?” (p.91). And today, Palestinians have no recourse in law against Israeli settlers expropriating their land. The crimes committed at the founding of Israel are mirrored in those in Gaza and the West Bank today. The joy of this book is the humour and pathos despite the horror of oppression. For example, he compares Candide’s lot to his as a pessoptimist (p. 72-75).
For a more detailed review, see Bob’s from February 2025.
Colleague Dr Helmut Hubel, who knows a lot more about German history than I do, recommended Freiheitsschock by Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk. Everyone in the West assumed the East Germans would welcome the reunification of Germany with open arms. Not so. Many East Germans could not get over the shock of a society with freedom after they had lived without freedom at a personal level for so long. This led to them retreating into a nostalgic view of old East Germany. Apparently there are several respected authors who have fallen into this trap and become “communist apologists”. Kowalczuk writes with a direct and humorous style.
I shall be writing a full review of this excellent book “auf Deutsch”.
Another colleague, Richard Jones, who has spent many years in Japan, remedied my ignorance of all things Japanese by recommending A History of Modern Japan by Richard Storry. Covering the last few centuries, it shows how Japan transformed from a medieval empire to a military machine and then, out of the ruins of war, into an economic powerhouse. The power of the Shogun pervades this history, as does reverence for the emperor.
Being a William Boyd fan, I couldn’t resist reading his latest offering, Gabriel’s Moon. As always, Boyd has a good plot and his prose flows. However, I was put off by the fact that this is marketed as the first of a trilogy.
My sister Diana passed on a book her son in Canada had given her, An Immense World by Ed Yong. With countless examples, Yong explores how the animal kingdom uses not only our conventional five senses – sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch – but also other senses we humans may not have known existed like echolocation, sonar, surface vibrations, and electric or magnetic fields. We humans make the mistake of assessing animal senses based on our limited ones. Yong concludes that animals – including humans – navigate our environment using a combination of senses rather than any single one. I can highly recommend this eye-opener.
Separate reviews have already been published for:
- All that Matters by Sir Chris Hoy
- The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt
- Politics – A Survivors Guide by Rafael Behr
- Populismus für Anfänger (Populism for Beginners) by Walter Ötsch and Nina Horaczek.
Reviews are yet to appear for:
- The Siege of Krishnapur by J G Farrell
- The Ambassador by Tom Fletcher
- Churchill’s Last Stand by Felix Klos.
My reading for 2026 (along with who recommended the book) is:
- My older sister: Crossings by Ben Goldfarb
- My younger sister:The Islander by Halldór Gudmundsso
- Benedict Cumberbatch: Patriot by Alexy Navalny
- My wife: Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov
- My wife: Who Owns England? by Guy Shrubsole
- My brother-in-law: The Stalin Affair by Giles Milton
- Helmut Hubel: Die deutsche Revolution 1918-19 by Sebastian Haffner
- Sussex Uni friend: Chip War by Chris Miller
- Granddaughter:The Boy who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba
- Daughter:The Book of Hope by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams
- Golf friend: Coming into the Country by John McPhee
So look out for more reviews.
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