Library of Birmingham

Massive coverage of the new Birmingham library, in papers and on TV. It looks gorgeous – huge, ambitious and impressive, and generally Brummies seem proud and enthusiastic. Of course, not spending anything on that would have provided lots of little libraries with a bit more cash, but now more than ever we need affirmation – that some things (libraries, schools, hospitals) are worth spending money on, because of the good they do. Every time I visit the British Museum, I’m glad they spent a lot of money creating something special – and not all the special things should be in London.

Tax Robbery

Oh boy. I knew it was bad, but I had no idea it was this bad. Richard Brooks’ The Great Tax Robbery is a wonderful book, patient, clear and angry. He makes forbidding, complicated stuff understandable, while at the same time spelling out how much it costs us all. Government grovelling to business, deliberate weakening of the tax-collecting business, unfairness between fat cats and little minnows, stifling impact on developing countries – and, oh yes, the millions of pounds we might have spent on something else. To the barricades.

Janice Galloway at school

I’m reading All Made Up, Janice Galloway’s second volume of autobiography. It’s her as a teenager, discovering music and Latin and boys, while negotiating a dysfuntional family set-up comprising her, her mum and her unforgiving elder sister. So the generous altrusim of her music teacher comes as a special blessing:

“Mr. Hetherington made learning not only desirable but attainable. It was there for us, not the other way round. Teachers mattered more than subject divisions and, in these teachers, I was kissed with unearned, scarcely believable, fit-to-bust luck.”

Angie Dickinson

Earlier this month, on a lazy Saturday afternoon, I sat and watched Rio Bravo on TV. Not sure whether this was the fifth or sixth viewing, but I could happily watch it again tomorrow. Leisurely, affectionate and with just enough menace to make it interesting, before the shootout when the bad guys get what they deserve. The good guys are John Wayne, Dean Martin, Walter Brennan and Ricky Nelson – a varied, amiable bunch I’m happy to spend time with. But the one I can’t take my eyes off is Angie Dickinson, as Feathers, tthe good-time gal. That high collar, gorgeous hair and mischievous look. Who else in 1959 has that kind of challenging independence, that feels so alive today?

But today I’m reading a review of Burt Bacharach’s biography. He may have written the soundtrack to a million romances, but he was a bastard to his wives. Angie was number two, and  at one point he apparently gave her a list of 26 things in their marriage that needed to change. She bought pet mice for their daughter Nikkii, who’d kill them by throwing them against the wall. Bacharach left them, but later had Nikki committed to a Minnesota clinic for ten years. And that’s the real life story behind the glamour of Feathers on screen.

Jim Crace

OK, you can moan about the hype, and complain about borderline selections and eccentric winners, but I’ve been grateful over the years for so many books that I’ve only encountered because of the Booker Prize. This year’s longlist does look tasty, a real variety with some interesting unknowns, but one familiar face. I’ve always enjoyed Jim Crace’s work, but have had an extra admiration since attending an Arvon course where he was one of the tutors. Honest, decent, totally down to earth but never dull. I don’t know why he keeps saying that he won’t write more novels, but I’m sure he’ll have good reasons. If this helps more readers to discover him before he goes, I don’t care whether or not he wins.

Austerity Britain

One of the bonuses of recovering from surgery is that there’s plenty of time to read. When I collected David Kynaston’s Austerity Britain, the librarian asked if I planned to read every page. “Absolutely” I said. And now I have. It’s 700 pages, an “intimate, multilayered, multivoiced unsentimental portrait” of Britain from 1945-51. It covers a wide range of sources, meticulously recorded in 35 closely printed pages of notes. There are snippets from Joan Bakewell, George Orwell, Kenneth Tynan, Kingsley Amis – but also unknown diarists, and the careful testimony of recorders from Mass Observation. Kynaston doesn’t settle for easy generalisations, but he does have an eye for detail, and he knows how things have changed: “Britain in 1945. No supermarkets, no motorways, no teabags, no sliced bread, no frozen food, no flavoured crisps, no lager, no microwaves, no Formica, no vinyl;  no CDs, no computers, no mobiles, no duvets, no Pill, no trainers, no hoodies, no Starbucks.”

Le Carré

Mixed reviews of Le Carrré’s latest, with John Banville suggesting that it “marks a return to the days of Sapper and John Buchan, when black was black and white was white.” I know what he means, but on the other hand Le Carré’s a lot smarter and more sophisticated than those two, and he’s aware of political and economic pressures in a way that many more subtly nuanced authors aren’t. After the bleak nihilism of some of his middle period stuff, it’s moving to see him discover serious convictions and old-fashioned rage. There are some genuine villains out there.

How to change the world

I’ve just finished reading Eric Hobsbawm’s How to change the world.  It’s a careful, patient account of the history of Marxism, the original writings and how they’ve been interpreted ever since. It revives my admiration for him, which goes back a long way. He’s always been thoughtful, intelligent and constructive, despite being surrounded by yapping critics whose only interest is in having him admit that he must have been totally stupid to have supported communism for as long as he did. To me it’s great to have someone there (in his books if not, sadly, alive), whose very presence says “Hang on a minute. Don’t jump to conclusions. Might there be more to this than you had previously thought?”

Tracey Thorn

I’ve just finished reading Tracey Thorn’s memoir, Bedsit Disco Queen. It’s a delight. She’s so normal – witty, self-depreacting, refusing to get carried away by celebrity nonsese. but she’s very sharp, too, clever and revealing about making music and writing songs. I’ve got four A4 pages of favourite quotes, and this is one of my favourites.

“Like all mums, I sang to my kids at home, so they knew what my voice sounded like, and once when I walked into a branch of Gap, pushing Blake in a pushchair, ‘Missing’ was playing loudly. He twisted round to look at me, little finger pointing upwards towards the source of the music. ‘Mummy!’ he exclaimed in a tone of pure amazement. ‘You are singing in the shop.’ When he started at school, he came home one day and said to me, ‘Mum, did you used to be famous?’

‘Um, sort of, a bit,’I replied.

‘It’s just my teacher says she’s got all your records.’ ”

Cruel Britannia

I didn’t get to the talk, but I did get to read the book. First from the library, and then I bought my own copy, because it’s that good. Well researched, with detailed evidence from old files and  secret documents, interviewers with the torturers and the tortured.

We have this sense that basically our lot keep to the rules, but that during the War on Terror they got nudged into some shady stuff, because they wanted to keep in with the Yanks. Nonsense. We’ve always done it, and we’ve always lied about it, and we’ve very often threatened or smeared anyone who tried to tell the truth. Blair and Cameron are just the latest in a line of politicians who’ve tried to claim that they’re innocent or ignorant, while authorising criminal activity of dubious value but devastating effect. Don’t take my word for it. Get the book out of the library, and pass the word on.

The New Jim Crow

There have been three systematic attempts to subjugate poor blacks in the US: slavery, Jim Crow, and the war on drugs.” Does that sound a bit exaggerated, over the top? Not to me. I’ve just finished Michelle Alexander’s  The New Jim Crow, which is rationally argued, supported by a wealth of evidence and totally persuasive. She’s a lawyer, with an encyclopaedic grasp of decisions and precedents which have created this sutuation, but she’s also a human rights activist who knows the history. On top of that she has a wide range of contacts, which have given her a wealth of case studies which are individually heartbreaking but contribute to an  irresistible argument. I doubt if I’ll read a better book this year.

Sharon Olds on divorce

Great news that Sharon Olds has won the T.S.Eliot prize. Writers are notoriously tough on those around them, plundering their lives for material. We regularly trot out Greene’s “sliver of ice”, and Roth’s generalisation – “when a writer is born, the family dies.”  In David Lodge’s Small World two young lovers, just about to got to bed, have a moment of hesitation: “Are you going to write about this?” Rachel Cusk, having shared with the world her sceptical, self-questioning feelings about having a baby, is now inspired – if that’s the word – to share her divorce with the world.

So I guess it had to happen. Sharon Olds, always searingly honest, and deeply embedded in what seem like some of the most intense relationships ever to feature in verse, has also experienced divorce, and has also written about it. So much, so predictable. But what is astonishing, given the impulsive impatience of these driven writers, is that – recognising the impact of this stuff on her children – she has waited fifteen years to publish a set of thoughtful, gracious poems without a trace of bitterness. Now that is impressive.