Book learning #74 Chronicles Vol 1 by Bob Dylan

Oh I just loved this book.

It felt like a novel written by a quirky poet, an adventure through a not quite specific time and a New York I can still recognize. I loved reading about the Village and reminiscing about the streets and the places he started out in. There was a 40 year gap between our experiences but, as any New Yorker will tell you "the city changes and it doesn't change".

I found philosophy on almost every page, poetry, wisdom, a love of music and of life.

This was a perfect start to 2012.

Book learning #73 Revolution 1989. The fall of the Soviet Empire by Victor Sebestyen.

If the man hassles you, threatens or intimidates you, tries to build a cheap and nasty supermarket on the meadow opposite your home, fear not. There is such a glorious thing as people power.

I loved 1989. The actual year at the actual time was a good year for Mondale. I saw the Stone Roses live at Norwich Arts Centre (I don't think I have even sweated so much, not even in a broken subway car in an New York heatwave). I left school (in those days you still 'left school' at 16 even if you went onto higher things) I kissed girls, I wore floppy shirts and ragged jeans, I drank beer, I listened to alot of loud jangly guitar, my skin was perfect, I had no belly, I got stoned, I sailed a helluva lot, I was pure blonde, no grey in sight, I started smoking, I danced, I sang.

I was rock n' roll. I was 16. I was on it!

And I was aware, because that was the year I got an A grade in Modern History GCSE that Europe had been divided in half at the end of WW2. And I was aware, because my mum listened to Radio 4 non stop, that all things were not as they should be in Eastern Europe. And I was aware, because I had had nightmares in the early 1980s about nuclear war that the Russians were baddies. I was also aware of these things because I was a bright lad obsessed with history and politics. Just as I am now an older bloke obsessed with history and politics which is possibly why I enjoyed this book an awful lot.

The Cold War now seems like an odd dream. It's hard to think that we were living on the front line of an armageddon that would have rendered things like 'front lines' irrelevant.

It also seems incredible that The Soviet Union, and Mr Gorbachev in particular allowed the dissent to turn into revolution. This book brings those days back to life, reminds us of the hope that was ushered in during that amazing year. It was the year I began A'Levels, the year I studied 1848 'The year of Revolutions'. Such history suddenly seemed belittled by events in our own time.

I still recall our history teacher, a man in his sixties who vividly remembered the war. His opinions about German and Russian behaviour were often controversial. I shall never forget his face on November 10th as we talked about the Berlin wall coming down.

He could not fathom it.

Neither could we.

Book learning #72 Crisis? What Crisis? Britain in the 1970s

I was there.

From that day in March 1973 I was a witness to all that Alwyn W. Turner wrote about.

I am here.

I am living through another bitter, battered and torn decade.

I found this book whilst helping to clear out a friend's house. They let me have it. I had heard about it on 6music a while ago. It had tickled my fancy but I had placed it on the back burner.

I housed this on my shelves for a few months, it was on the list, I was planning to read it. I picked it up, I looked at the pictures, I skimmed the first few pages. I hated it.

Then something changed, I got through the first few pages, Goddamit I was hooked.

If you are looking for a book detailing the every moment of the decade, look elsewhere.

This was not as witty as I had thought it might be. It was not a Maconie-esque memoir of a happily forgotten age. It was a supremely thoughtful account of one of the most difficult decades this country has been through, a decade that until 2007, we thought we had left behind forever.

I ended up loving this book. This was the British 'Nixonland'. In fact, if I were at a party and 'Crisis? What Crisis?' were to bump into 'Nixonland' I would be in one hell of an awkward situation (although not as awkward as it might have been if I had been reading the two at the same time).

I relished the time spent reading about the unions (and reflecting on our current predicament), the political turmoil and the cultural zeitgiest.

And on a bizarro note, I have always fantasised about running a pub called 'The Sunny Jim' or perhaps 'The Callaghan'. I would have a quiz night on a Tuesday called 'Quiz night? What Quiz night?' I do wonder how successful such an endeavour would be?

I'm sending this to a friend in New York. He enjoyed the 70's. He'll enjoy this book.

Book learning #71 Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor

Unputdownable.

Frozen, vast, incomprehensible.

I had seen the films and the maps, the furthest most reach of the Germans.

The pace of this picked up once it was clear the Germans were defeated. I found the final 100 pages absolutely fascinating, I loved reading the details of the collapse and surrender of the 6th Army.

Book learning #70 The wordy shipmates by Sarah Vowell

I love Sarah Vowell. I love her geeky obsessions and I love her intelligent perspective on so many things so very dear to me (USA, Presidents, history, Presidents, USA, more presidents)
I have really tried to get into the Seventeenth century.
I just can't.
A finely written book, I read it all.
Just didn't love it.

Book learning #69 The end of the party by Andrew Rawnsley.

There is nothing so sweet as hindsight. Hindsight that does prove a stomach full of hints and suspicions, Hindsight that renders one incredulous about the habits and doings of the great and the supposedly good.
This book was originally published in the early spring of 2010, it caused an outrage and many of those who feature within it's pages were quick to comment, to protect reputations and mostly, if I recall, to deny. The author was both praised and vilified within the same newspapers, the politicians were left to face their fate at the polls a few weeks after the original publication.

At the time, I had decided not to rush out and grab a copy of this book. I had read his previous account of the years 1997-2001 and was not terribly excited about the prospect of a sequel. I suspected that much of the juice had been squeezed out during a three week media frenzy following publication. I also hate hardback books, I need to bend and fold my read, to shove it in my pocket and take it to the chip shop.

Summer 2011 comes around, the silly season is non existent, the world is upon my shoulders and my smouldering curiosity about Gordon Brown is ignited by an extended spell as a housefrau.

This book , whether it be completely truth based or whether there be some room for interpretation, was un-put-downable! Yes, much of the big gossip was already known, but to read some of the contextual stuff was great, to follow the fight through to the very bitter end (the original version ended in winter 2010, this edition followed the story through the General Election in May and the negotiations which followed and spawned the Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition.

There can be no doubt that politics at the highest level can create immense strain upon those wielding the power, Rawnsley paints poor old Blair as beaten and bruised from the inside whilst maintaining a perma tanned and internationally glamourous exterior. Following the 2007 transition he paints poor old Brown as beaten and bruised by all and sundry, all the time.

I would very much enjoy a third account, the view of the current, fascinating government.

Book learning #68 Cider with Roadies by Stuart Maconie

I was surprised by how short Maconie's music journo career had been. The thing is this, he was writing the words I was reading about most of my favourite bands in the late 80s and 90s. Therefore I had always just assumed that he had been jotting things down about music, and indie in particular since Lennon met MacCartney at the vicarage fete. Of course, a career stretching back to the late 1980's isn't actually a short one.

An amusing stroll through teenage musical fads and then into the final quarter of the book when he emerges into the world of rock journalism and radio. All this made more enjoyable by the fact that he's on the radio about twice a day these days and good value he is too.

I'm not sure how I described Maconie when I made notes about the last book of his that I read. all I will say is that this was an engaging and approachable summer read. Just the tonic for another summer of mayhem and very small children.