Timbuktu's 'Badass Librarians': Checking Out Books Under Al-Qaida's Nose

'I Urge You to Struggle': An Evening With Ta-Nehisi Coates

James Baldwin mini biography

My books of 2012

Two-thousand-and-twelve was a bumper year for quality non-fiction. Here is a selection of my top books from the last twelve months:

A compulsive combination of travel, history, ethnography and memoir  from the acclaimed Indian writer. An absolute gem.

A counter intuitive and engaging study of Asia's intellectual response to Western imperialism that contains many lessons for Africa.

A compelling exploration of the years immediately following World War II and preceding the Cold War that expose the depths of European postwar depravity.

The subtitle to this epic examination of  postwar Eastern Europe says it all. Scholarly and  engaging, Pulitzer Prize winner, Anne Applebaum delivers a timely history lesson.

I must admit, I haven't actually read Artemis Cooper's comprehensive biography of the late travel writer, however, having listened to extracts on Radio 4's Book of the Week, it's top of my list for 2013.

The man who turned his home into a public library

From the BBC:

"You don't do justice to these books if you put them in a cabinet or a box"

If you put all the books you own on the street outside your house, you might expect them to disappear in a trice. But one man in Manila tried it - and found that his collection grew.

Hernando Guanlao is a sprightly man in his early 60s, with one abiding passion - books. They're his pride and joy, which is just as well because, whether he likes it or not, they seem to be taking over his house.

Guanlao, known by his nickname Nanie, has set up an informal library outside his home in central Manila, to encourage his local community to share his joy of reading.

The idea is simple. Readers can take as many books as they want, for as long as they want - even permanently. As Guanlao says: "The only rule is that there are no rules."

An elegy for eastern Europe

Fado by Andrzej Stasiuk

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Although this book became a bit laboured towards the end, I gave it four stars because of Stasiuk's writing, which is flawless. In fact, Stasiuk's prose is so beautiful that it hurts, every sentence a fragment of an elegy to the protracted death of old Europe. Simply wonderful.



View all my reviews

Knowledge and entertainment for the price of a burger and a beer

Here is a pic of this weekend’s booty:

• Robert Harris, The Fear Index
• Mirza Waheed, The Collaborator
• Richard Wright, Black Boy
• Athol Fugard, Tsotsi
• Amin Maalouf, The Rock of Tanios
• Chris Abani, The Virgin of Flames
• Diana Evans, 26a
• Dawn Powell, A Time To Be Born
• E. Lynn Harris, And This Too Shall Pass
• E.Lynn Harris, Not A Day Goes By
• Lisa Rogak, Michelle Obama In Her Own Words

A diverse and entertaining haul. And all for the grand total of €14.75 (or just over €2 a book); roughly £12 or $19.50.

I feel an Orwellian Books vs. Cigarettes essay coming on…

Following in the footsteps of Christopher Isherwood

22 rue Adolphe Max, Brussels: sometime home of Christopher Isherwood

The photo above is of 22 rue Adolphe Max in the centre of Brussels. Nothing distinctive about that, you might think, except if it was in England it would certainly be graced with a blue plaque in honour of its one-time inhabitant. The late, great British writer Christopher Isherwood briefly lived here in 1932. Isherwood is probably best known for the adaptations of his beautifully written novella, Sally Bowles, which became Cabaret on film, starring Liza Minelli and a successful Broadway production, starring Julie Harris. Recently, the Oscar-nominated film adaptation of A Single Man, starring Colin Firth in Tom Ford’s directorial debut, brought Isherwood’s work back into the spotlight.

Having recently read Isherwood’s Berlin Stories - the subtly sinister Mr Norris Changes Trains and the surreally evocative Goodbye to Berlin - I am officially in thrall to his genius. A master of prose, his delicate re-creation of character and events makes the reader feel as if they, too, have lived his life and been a party to his times. This feeling of intimacy is further enhanced on reading Christopher and his kind, Isherwood’s autobiography of his Berlin years, from 1929 to 1939. Against the encroaching political backdrop of Nazism, and in the final days of the Weimar Republic, Isherwood captures a period of decadence and impending, unstoppable loss. Rather than joining any of the political movements that were prevalent at the time (although he flirted with Communism, he was never really committed), Isherwood contributed to the cause and halted time the best way he could - by documenting it in his inimitable, timeless style.

An honest, unselfish writer, Isherwood gives us an insight into how he used the people and events of his life by explaining the fictionalisation of his novels in Christopher and his kind. The sections that explain his creative and literary process are invaluable to the novice who, like me, is struggling with the indistinct line between truth and fiction. The struggle continues but, thanks to Isherwood, the line is a little bit clearer.

Goodreads review of Siddhartha Deb's latest book

The Beautiful and the Damned: Life in the New India by Siddhartha Deb

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


An intriguing journey through the India you don't see in the Incredible India mass tourism marketing. Deb goes behind the veneer of life in the New India and lays bare the contradictions that exist between the image and the reality. Told through the lives of five main characters, these well-researched and well-told stories together make up a narrative says more about 21st century India than anything I've read to date and in such a subtle and darkly comic way. Deftly constructed and thoroughly engaging, Siddhartha Deb's first foray into long form non-fiction is highly recommended.



View all my reviews

Book club - The Fry Chronicles

The verdict on Stephen Fry's The Fry Chronicles was a respectable 7 out of 10.

The general consensus was that while the memoirs were an enjoyable read, even with the verbose language, they were somewhat lacking in substance. Fry's chronicles were in need of being placed in more of a social and historical context. As it is, from reading the book, it appears as though his life was lived in a vacuum in which the major events of the Eighties didn't really affect him, glossed over as they were. Perhaps they didn't and he does say that he has no real interest in politics and this is evident in the book.

That said, the non-Brits in the group said the memoirs gave them a good insight into the British class system and that Fry's self-awareness and various insecurities/neuroses made them look at the privileged in a less judgemental way, finding sympathy where previously there was none.

Everyone was in agreement that the ending left the reader wanting more, the cliffhanger a teasing appetiser for the next instalment of Fry's life story which, hopefully, we won't have to wait another thirteen years for.

Overall, an entertaining read from the all-round entertainer.
Next up, Norwegian novelist Per Petterson's Out Stealing Horses.

Thank you to the fantastic staff at Le Cercles des Voyageurs for welcoming and accommodating us in the wonderfully atmospheric bibliotheque.

Michael Cunningham at Passaporta

I spent a wonderful evening in the company of Pulitzer prize-winning novelist Michael Cunningham, me and about ninety others, at Passaporta in Rue Antoine Dansaert. Cunningham read from his latest work, By Nightfall and engaged in an enlightening and honest discussion with Belgian TV and radio presenter, Chantal Pattyn, who made an excellent interlocutor.

Cunningham spoke about the practice of writing, literature, music, art and politics, highlighting the intersection between the various forms, and was engagingly refreshing. His reading and talk inspired me to buy By Nightfall, which he kindly signed for me, and I have since begun reading my first book of fiction in many, many years. So far, so good.

By Nightful is proving to be unputdownable. Economical with language but rich in tension, character and dialogue, it reminds me of why I've avoided fiction for so long, purely selfish reasons, of course. Reading good fiction highlights my own limitations as a writer and leaves me in awe of just how gifted certain writers are, a skill that you're born with, a natural talent that can't be taught. Because of this, fiction has often stifled me rather than inspired me.

Great storytellers, fiction and non-fiction, are needed now more than ever, in these uncertain times, to provide us with a source of much-needed escapism and/or to chronicle our unprecedented struggles - social, political and economic - in narrative form. I left Michael Cunningham's talk in admiration of his talent but encouraged to develop my own.

Another fantastic event from the team at Passaporta. The date of next year's festival is already in the diary!

Michael Cunningham is the author of the novels A Home at the End of the World, Flesh and Blood, The Hours (winner of the Pen/Faulkner Award & Pulitzer Prize), and Specimen Days. He lives in New York.

Update - video from the event

The Fry Chronicles: A must read?

I'm currently reading Stephen Fry's The Fry Chronicles for a book club of which I'm a member. The choice of book was mine and was drawn at random by the club's founder from a hat, a.k.a. a shopping bag into which all the member's put the names of the book that they wanted us to read. Lucky for me, being the only non-fiction reader, it was my selection that became the first book of the inaugural Book Club. Our membership is diverse, although we're all women (no surprises there!) and we hail two from England, two from France, one from Finland, Germany, Sweden and America via Russia. I'm looking forward to reading authors from all over the continent and the world whom I would never normally read were it not for the club. Our next meeting will be in just over a week's time when we'll dissect and discuss The Fry Chronicles. The verdict? Coming soon...