While in Rome, I had only rare net access, so I stuck to books. It was nice to read something other than blogs, anyway...
- First up was About a Boy by Nick Hornby of which the main thing to say is that it's perfect fodder when one gets up at 3 a.m. to catch a cheap flight. Utterly undemanding and I finished it before bedtime.
- Then Reading Lolita in Teheran by Azar Nafisi. These days I only ever read books that confirm my prejudices, a sign of incipient senility, and this was no exception. It reminded me that no matter how much Westerners (or most Westerners, anyway, there are some who don't seem to mind) dislike the Iranian theocracy, our hostility will always be a mild thing by comparison to that of the Iranians themselves. There are so many good quotes that one can hardly choose one but this (p.273) is as good as any:
"It is said that the personal is political. That is not true, of course. at the core of the fight for political rights is the desire to protect ourselves, to prevent the political from intruding on our individual lives... the Islamic Republic's first task had been to blur the lines and boundaries between the personal and the political, thereby destroying both."
- Discovery of the month was Garrison Keillor, who I hadn't read before. Lake Wobegon Days is LOL, as well as in some places justifying the description of Keillor by PJ O'Rourke (maybe the only living American whose writings are as funny) as 'terrifyingly unthreatening'.
- Then I came home to finish First Light by Geoffrey Wellum, probably the best Battle of Britain memoir I've read. It's greatest virtue is that it gets to the heart of the matter: those chaps just loved to fly. Wouldn't you?
- And as usual Clive is supremely worth reading, this time saying the right things about Larkin.