Finished reading: Patriot by Alexei Navalny 📚
There’s a really good doc with him on BBC iPlayer, which would be time better spent.
Finished reading: Daughter Of Mine by Megan Miranda 📚
Murky past and the web of family tensions in small town America wrapped round a murder mystery. Smart and nuanced, if a bit complicated to keep tabs on if you listen rather than read it.
Finished reading: Don’t Point That Thing at Me by Kyril Bonfiglioli 📚
PG Wodehouse on a bad day pastiching Raymond Chandler. Still wittier than most allegedly ‘humorous’ thrillers though, and an appealingly nasty darkness.
Finished reading: Lucifer’s Banker by Bradley C. Birkenfeld 📚
Messianic blowhard international banker turns dickwaving/self pitying whistleblower after his employers clip his self aggrandising ego. Worth reading for the epic lack of self awareness.
Finished reading: Fire Weather by John Vaillant 📚
Scary and inclusive, with a nice linking of the fire’s voraciousness with the oil industry’s greed.
Finished reading: Harlan Coben - Win by Harlan Coben 📚
His books are so much smarter and snarkier than his TV series.
Finished reading: We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets 📚
Douglas Coupland lite, hyped because of the social media moral panic.
Finished reading: Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra 📚
I read it fast, which is a good sign. One of those ‘does what it says on the can really well’ books.
Roses are read Violets are blue The ASCII for ‘space’ Is Code 32
Snowy, innit.
Finished reading: Human Traces by Sebastian Faulks 📚
Really interesting stuff about early psychiatric/neurology research, but not enough plot and too much about building cable cars.
How the fuck does anyone ever break through Substack if they don’t bring followers with them?
Finished reading: Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore 📚
The chapters on his death and the subsequent manoeuvring, with some of the players and their relatives hanging on into the Gorbachev era are actually the best bits. Makes me want to rewatch Ianucci’s Death of Stalin.
Currently reading: The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann 📚
Wish me luck. It’s a long climb.
Currently reading: Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore 📚
There’s a lot of juicy gossip in here, but you have to wade through a lot of tedium too.