Why we need to ration non-fiction books

Since 1950, the number of book titles has soared by at least 500% - in the UK case by almost 10 times. And, since 2013, the number of non-fiction titles has surpassed that in the fiction category – at least in the English language. And that is what my own experience tells me – when I visit a bookshop I am, nowadays, overwhelmed by the number of apparently relevant books…The overriding consideration as I flick through them is not the price but where to put them…..space is rapidly running out…

But, equally, I know that many of my purchases will disappoint…..I tend to blog about the ones that have repaid the effort of reading…

And readers will have noticed that I have been getting very impatient with a lot of writers – particularly those writing on the global crisis…I have increasingly been accusing them of self-indulgence – of not taking the issue or us readers seriously enough….I therefore thought it would be useful if I reproduced, with a few changes, the piece I wrote about this earlier this year

I now have a litmus test for any book which catches my eye and which I might be tempted to buy – actually not one but three -

1. Does it clearly list and comment on what the author regards as other essential texts? We need this partly to see how partial the author's sources are; partly to see the reasons for his/her selection

2. Can the author clearly demonstrate (eg in the introduction or opening chapter) that the book is the result of long thought and not just an inclination to jump on the latest bandwagon? Put bluntly, Why, despite previous efforts, does the author feels compelled to add to our reading burden???

3. Is it written in an “inviting” style? I recently suggested that what makes Yanis Varoufakis’ various books such excellent reading is the sheer originality of his prose – showing a mind at work which is constantly active……rejecting dead phrases, clichés and jargon… using narrative and stories to carry us along…..thinking constantly about how to keep the readers’ interest alive…

If a book survives this test and you’ve actually brought it home I then recommend that, before you settle down to read a book, you should do the following

- read the reviews (surf)

- identify the questions these suggest – you should never open a book without knowing what you want to get out of it!

- Mark (with a pencil) passages you both like and don’t like – with underlines, question-marks, ticks, comments and expletives. This will encourage you to return to the book

- If the author doesn’t write in clear language, move on to another book asap. Life’s too short to waste on verbosity……Bad writing is a good indicator of a confused mind

- Write brief notes on the main themes and arguments (it helps the memory; and, if transcribed, they help build up an archive)

This, of course, puts the onus on readers - but the real problem rests with authors and publishers...It is they who swamp our minds with thousands of titles and excessive verbosity...

I suggest that, when they come to consider the final draft and layout of a book, they consider the following –

1.      tell us what’s distinctive about your book; ie why you feel you need to add to what is already a huge literature on the subject

2.     “position” your book – ie tell us what you consider the key texts in the field (and why) and how your book relates to them. At best you can offer a typology of the different schools of thought on the issue

3.     convince us that you have not only read the “relevant literature” but that you have done so with a reasonably open mind; At best, offer an annotated list of key reading - with your preferences. This will give us a sense of your stance and fairness

4.     give a “potted version” of each chapter. Most think-tank reports have executive summaries. I don’t know why more authors don’t adopt the same approach. Amazon, some publishers and Google offer free access to excerpts – but the selections are fairly random.

5.     use more tables….and graphics. Readers can absorb only so much continuous text. And if the subject matter is difficult, it helps if – at least every couple of pages – there is a heading which gives a sense of the argument…

Their bibliographies may look impressive and their chapter headings riveting but the books increasingly suffer, in my view, from the following sorts of deficiencies –

- They are written by academics

- who write for students and other academics

- and lack “hands-on” experience of other worlds

- the author’s speciality indeed is only a sub-discipline – eg financial economics

- the focus is a fashionable subject

- written with deadlines to meet commercial demands

- making claims to originality- but failing to honour the google scholar adage of “standing on the shoulders of giants” (despite – perhaps even because of - the extensive bibliographies)

A Priceless Guide to the writing about the Global Crisis

The last post tried not only to identify what it was that had so impressed me about the “Defending Politics” book but also to generalise possible lessons for the hundreds of thousands of writers whose titles and marketing blurbs shout at us from the bookshops and internet.  

I have always loved Oscar Wilde’s aphorism – “I always pass on good advice; it’s the only thing to do with it”. But, on this rare occasion, I actually took on board the advice – in an effort to try to reduce the 200 plus pages of a draft I’ve had for some years - Dispatches to the (post-capitalist?) future generation - to more manageable proportions.

It’s a book which takes the form of a series of posts which were more like letters to my children (and their generation) who were very much in my mind as drafted them. Perhaps that’s why this “giving of account” (with all the religious overtones that term carries!) has been so difficult to complete in a satisfactory way…….

                                      

I’m quite proud of the shortened version which has emerged this week - Dispatches to the next generation – the small version. Just 70-odd pages (excluding the annexes) - about 20 pages of them an annotated reading list of “key” books about the global economic crisis which give a brief sense of more than 100 books published in the second half of the 20^th century worth further study

I’m experimenting with the following marketing blurb - 

The author does not pretend to be an economist – although he lectured in that capacity in the late 1960s and early 70s before he saw the error of his ways.

Nor is it easy to pin a political label on him – although he did spend 22 years of his life as a Labour councillor with responsibilities for devising and managing unique strategies for opening up the policy process and for social enterprise in Europe’s largest local authority (The political compass test, however, placed him in the libertarian left quadrant).

The subsequent 25 years he spent as an adviser on institutional development to governments in central Europe and Central Asia.

So he knows the enemy!

I‘ve always kept notes on the books which impressed me…and the arrival of electronic files and hyperlinks have made the task of collecting and retrieving these lists a positive pleasure. I still find it amazing that my blog can find and present within seconds ruminations about a book I read almost a decade ago. 

Academics are good at throwing bibliographical references at us. Indeed they overwhelm us with them – whether in footnotes, brackets or end-pages. It’s almost a virility test with them. I get very frustrated with this – since all these lists do is to flaunt their superiority – they don’t actually tell us anything interesting about each book.

The Annexes include a little section on some of the great books of the past century and also a favourite of mine – “Just Words – a Sceptic’s Glossary”

Books on Big Issues - Prefaces and marketing blurbs

I did a rare thing yesterday – I went back to the "Defending Politics" book I had just finished and reread it from beginning to end, this time more carefully marking the key sections with a pencil.

I had started my last post by saying that it was a “model of the sort of writing we need in these times” - and then went on to create a table which explored different aspects of the 8 basic arguments the book presented. 
I would now like to try to identify what it was that so impressed me – and to use that hopefully to make a wider point about the craft of publishing our thoughts

What I liked about “Defending Politics”…

- The book was short (180 pages) – almost an extended essay. You felt the guy had a thesis – and knew how to hone it down to its essentials

- The text was broken up – every third or fourth page or so had a heading or an indented section which signalled a movement in the argument. My eyes glaze over when I see a chapter of 30 pages of densely-written text - with no graphics, tables or pictures to relieve the pressue….

- each chapter gave an early hint of the basic argument it would present. This was clearly someone who had reread his text with a reader’s eye; asked himself what it was saying; and then ensured that the words actually expressed his intended meaning!

- there were lots of book references – but not of the normal sort in footnotes; or end bibliographies (which often leave me with the feeling of one up-manship!). These were, rather, short lists in the body of the text – generally exemplifying different sides of an argument.  

I readily admit to being a policy geek - and have therefore too readily exposed myself to turgid academic prose. But my patience started to wear thin some years ago with books on important topics which were simply unreadable. Life is simply too short to waste time on writers who feel they have to use clumsy sentence structure and/or pad their material with verbosity. 

A year or so ago I revealed some litmus tests I used whether to buy/read a book on any of the "Big Issues of the Day" – as well as my ten tricks for fast reading and comprehension – which are worth repeating –

How to get the most out of a non-fiction book

General

- Read a lot (from an early age!)

- Read widely (outside your discipline)

- Read quickly (skim)

- If the author doesn’t write in clear and simple language, move on to another book asap. Life’s too short……Bad writing is a good indicator of a confused mind

For each book

- before doing anything else - read the reviews (surf)

- identify the questions these suggest – you should never read a book without knowing what you want to get out of it!

- Mark (with a pencil) passages you both like and don’t like – with underlines, question-marks, ticks, comments and expletives

- Write brief notes to remind you of the main themes and arguments (this will help you remember better; and also helps build up an archive)

- see whether the author explicitly recognises and properly discusses other schools of thought than the one (s)he is pushing

- Check the bibliography at the end – to see if there are any obvious names missing (I grant you that this requires some familiarity with the subject)

This, of course, puts the onus on readers - but the real problem rests with authors and publishers...It is they who swamp our minds with thousands of titles and excessive verbosity. Greater self-discipline is needed..I suggest that, when they come to draft their Prefaces and marketing blurbs, they consider the following -  

- tell us what’s distinctive about your book; ie why you feel you need to add to what is already a huge literature on the subject

- “position” your book – at best this will require you to offer a typology of the different schools of thought on the issue
- convince us that you have not only read the “relevant literature” but that you have done so with a reasonably open mind; At best, offer an annotated list of key reading - with your preferences. This will give us a sense of your stance and fairness

- give a “potted version” of each chapter. Most think-tank reports have executive summaries. I don’t know why more authors don’t adopt the same approach. Amazon, some publishers and Google offer free access to excerpts – but the selections are fairly random.

- use more tables….and graphics

Bucharest's English bookshop closes its doors - hopefully temporarily

Tens of thousands of demonstrators on the Bucharest street are still hoping to shame the new Romanian government into wholesale resignation and it therefore hardly seems an appropriate time to devote a post to the closing of an independent bookshop - but the Anthony Frost English Bookshop in central Bucharest is no ordinary bookshop. It has been called “one of Central Europe’s best” – has been delighting bibliophiles for almost a decade and belongs to a very small number of places to which I have dedicated the phrase “oases of civilisation” or sanctuaries of originality

They are generally galleries or bookshops whose owners have a real art of creating an atmosphere in which people can quietly explore - whether by flicking, viewing or chatting.

All is hopefully not lost, however. The catalyst to the decision seems to have been the rent – the Orthodox church which own the premises clearly doesn’t understand the spiritual value of culture – or, more precisely perhaps, all too well understands the threat of foreign ideas…..

So Vlad will be exploring other locations and premises and I, rashly, promised to send him some ideas for broadening the shop’s appeal. I well understand that the focus on English-language books rather limits its clientele…..presumably it is only the passing foreign journalist who will drop in - not your typical (British/Commonwealth) tourist! 

Oscar Wilde, of course, got it right when he said - "I always pass on good advice.....it's the only thing to do with it…!!" In that vein, let me repeat what I have written to Vlad - 

There was apparently quite an emotional reaction to the news of the closing - confirming just how much we value the “experience” we are offered when we enter….the friendship, the range of books on offer, the music, the conversation, coffee…..Only in private art galleries in Sofia do I have this “elevated” experience ….

People only notice such things when they are gone…..Now that your customers have realized their loss, they have the chance to do something to bring it back….so let’s ask what THEY can do.
Your customers deserve a note thanking them for their custom – with an indication that you are hoping to open up elsewhere and an invitation to help shape a strategy….Perhaps Survey Monkey could be used to design a simple questionnaire?  

Perhaps key academics in the various cities in the country might be visited who are in a position to recommend key English texts – whether in language or management courses – for their students to buy from you?And reading circles are another good way in which those wishing to improve their English could help you boost the sales of selected books…..Britain these days needs all the friends it can muster – perhaps the British Embassy can be persuaded to get involved in a new strategy (clearly you would have to prepare very carefully for such an approach)  

This blogger mentions his feelings – touching on some public events in your bookshop which I hadn’t been aware of – so obviously data bases and social media are important. I had always wanted to come to an event – even contribute…….I realize that any display of paintings takes wall space you otherwise need for book shelves – and well appreciate that you’re in a zero-sum situation here….But linking up with some vineyards could be another way of attracting custom. There are not so many wine shops in central Bucharest….(I speak as an expert!).

Our Irish friends have a nice saying for such an occasion - "May the wind be at your back"!!

One of the books which I pulled from my shelves as I was scribbling this was a little book which bore the Frost English bookshop sticker - it was "Stop what you're doing a Read This!" - a manifesto from 2011 from a dozen writers about the importance of "gateways to reading" physical books - such as libraries and bookshops. However difficult in these populist times, this is the argument we need conducted........

Going to the Dogs

I stayed in Koln last year for almost 3 months and was a regular visitor to its various bookshops and bookstalls. One post looked at the fairly negative picture of contemporary German society which was to be found then in the pages of the books on the shelves of these shops.

On the same note, Der Spiegel has a nice little feature in its current issue on the atmosphere in the towns and villages on the route of this year’s Tour de France, making the point that

Stacks of books at a local bookstore are dedicated to a new genre in French literature: the downfall. It includes titles like "Reinventing France," "France, a Peculiar Bankruptcy," "If We Only Wanted To, "When France Wakes Up," "A Dangerous Game in the Elysée," "Fellow French, Are You Ready for the Next Revolution?" "France, A Challenge" and many, many more.Around two dozen such titles were published last month alone. They always seem to have the same central message as well -- that things can't continue as they are and that France is in decline. It seems like the term "déclinisme" has already emerged as its own school of thought.

Two dozen sounds an amazing number….I well remember the blitz of critical books with titles such as “The Stagnant Society” which hit us in Britain in the early sixties. They clearly helped pave the way for the election of a Labour Government in 1964 after 13 years of post-war Conservative rule.

Nowadays, such books are just water off a duck’s back.

As a genre, I think I prefer the social histories – which give a better sense of perspective or books which plot the development of literature over significant periods of a country eg post-war Germany

Smart and slow Books?

I’ve begun to realise that the little Guide or briefing which I’ve been working on for the past few days (called, for the moment, "Encountering Romania") is rather unique with its various distinctive features -

• It focuses on the aspects of a country you normally find pushed to a few back pages of the conventional travel guides – literature, art and history
• It includes blogsites – 16 of them – with the hyperlinks and some excerpts    
• It gives a lot of hyperlinks to material about Romanian society and culture – for example 20 travelogues from the last couple of decades (that’s one a year); to lists of several hundred novels; to sites which will give data and examples of a couple of hundred Romanian painters; and to several photographic sites

The "Blue Guides" and Pallas Guides do offer cultural feasts - but don’t have the hyperlinks..  

A year or so ago I picked up in one of the second-hand bookshops in Bucharest some volumes of a 1960s "Collection Literaire" - French schoolbook texts by Lagarde and Michard. They cover most cultural forms and include excerpts and photos. Quite exquisite....but is there a modern equivalent?   

They used to be called Reference books. But in even their traditional (ie non web-based) form they were generally available only in the local language ie not for foreigners - or at least only for that minority of visitors who spoke the language fairly fluently.......

And what does one call this new format – with its “embedded hyperlinks”? 
“EBook with embedded links” is a bit of a mouthful! Also sounds a bit warlike! 

My first idea was “smart” book - but that seems to be a technical device like a tablet….

and this EC initiative doesn’t actually tell me very much.

I blogged a few months back about “slow books” – perhaps I should patent a product called “slow, smart books”????

vegetables, books, grids and groups

The vegetable shop on the corner is the busiest shop I have ever known – although it does seem to be the older generation which uses it. Well-stocked and –frequented vegetable shops are a great feature of Sofia.
It would be interesting to know whether this healthy diet is reflected in Bulgarian health statistics…although any undoubted benefits will be swamped by the effects of smoking!
Certainly when I lived here for 18 months in 2007/2009, it made a significant (positive) difference to my cholesterol level.
So the verandah here is groaning with leeks, pears, beetroot, brocoli, gigantic parsnip, celery etc

I’m not sure if my love of reading and buying books technically qualifies me as a "bibliophile” since the dictionary defines that as "someone who loves or collects books especially as examples of fine or unusual printing or biding”. But I have always admired typface and regret that few publishers give information about the typeface used – or indeed seem to recognise that such an aesthetic consideration might actually help sell their products. I was therefore delighted to read this article which indicates that beautiful book covers are making a comeback. I also discovered that there is a website which celebrates the aesthetics of reading with the delightful name of bookporn.

Talking of books, when I looked recently at my ecological footprint, I forgot to factor in my use of Amazon books. A recent article paints a rather chilling picture of what it’s alike to work in one of their warehouses.

"Aha!" (or eureka) moments are an important but neglected part of life – when complexity and confusion momentarily clear and a strong ray of sunshine reveals a "truth”. I vividly remember that when I first read, in the 1970s, the section of Etzioni’s Social Problems which set out the stories which lay behind and sustained the individualistic, hierarchic and egalitarian perceptions and responses to social problems. The same happened in 1999 when I discovered Chris Hood's The Art of the State – rhetoric, culture and public management. This book uses Mary Douglas’grid-group theory to reduce the whole literature on admin reform to four basic schools. “Grid” denotes the degree to which our lives are circumscribed by rules – “group” indicates the extent to which we are governed by group choice. This gives a matrix of -
• Hierarchist (high on both)
• individualist (low on both)
• Egalitarian (high on group; low on grid)
• Fatalist (high on grid; low on group)

More interestingly, he then shows their typical policy responses, weaknesses and strengths. Sadly, neither the Etzioni nor Hood book is available on google – although this article by Hood demonstrates the use which can be made of the typology. The link I've given ábove for Mary Douglas is actually a very interesting piece in which she reflects on the origins of her theory - and how it developed. It's rare that one gets such an insight into a concept's origins and development from the author. Too often and too quickly concepts become reified.

I had another "aha!" moment when I found recently The case for clumsiness which, again, sets out the various stories which sustain the different positions people take us on various key policy issues – such as the environment. There is a good interview with the author here and a short summary here

Music and book links

A strong white-out greeted me this morning – a light snow covering and thick mist. One of the nice things about a nomadic life (at the moment the less exotic sort of having one’s books and music spread over 3 Romanian properties) is (re)discovery. The Bucharest flat is tiny and needs therefore the occasional transfer of books, paintings and other artefacts to the other 2 places. This week I took some CDs and came across a CD I had forgotten about - The Finnish composer Arvo Paerto’s Fratres played by the Orchestra of Flanders. It’s a stunning bit of minimalism for strings, wind and percussion. You can hear a rather inferior version of a cello section played by Columbia University Orchestra here. With the greater space I have in the mountain house, I’m able to use speakers to link up with the incredible number of internet musical channels – listed here. But my favourite is BBC World’s “Through the Night” programme which gives 6 hours’ daily listening available for a full week – with a written programme! When you hear a beautiful piece on the radio, it is very annoying to miss the brief identification you (sometimes) get at the end (particularly if it’s in a foreign language!). So top marks to the BBC!

I promised to mention a couple of googlebooks each entry. First David Korten’s latest book – Agenda for a new Economy - from Phantom Wealth to Real Wealthwhich continues his sterling effort in the last 2 decades to sketch out a better way. He is someone who practised mainstream economic consultancy – and then saw the error of his ways (see Prologue from page 11 of one of his first books). Such reformed gangsters make better analysts of the “mafia” system which is modern professionalism.
The second book is by the Swede, Erik Ringmar, whom I mentioned recently and is now a Professor at a Taiwan University - Surviving Capitalism; how we learned to live with the market and remained almost human. Apart from the clarity and iconoclastic tone, the book is distinctive in giving us a historical “take” on neo-liberalism.
The painting is Romanian - Theodor Pallady

paintings and books - what else?

An early and cold trip across Sofia to Central Forum Hotel - first by tram to the centre, then by foot to catch a 5 tram down Makedonia Bvd. A coffee warms me as I explain to Violetta what I want to say in my few introductory remarks to the 6 finance officials who will be spending the next three days learning how to present material and to engage their fellow officials in the 20 odd courses they will be leading this and next year. The aim is to help the Bulgarian municipalities make better use of the EU Structural Funds. Basically I just want to elaborate on the nice saying by Ernst Schumacher which is one of opening quotes on this blogsite („Four sorts of worthwhile learning”). That done, I listen with interest as each of the 6 (women!) explain what they want to get out of their three days. Job done, I wrap up against the bitter cold and catch the tram up to the centre – with the aim of visiting the nice little art shop in the National Gallery building. On the way I pop into the Booktrading shop and emerge with Umberto Eco’s Turning the clock back – hot wars and media populism and a lovely Taschen edition about the Belgian painter James Ensor. This is another nice feature for nomads – visiting new bookshops with different collections. Of course, the second-hand bookshops are the best for sheer serendipidy. Last week I found in the boxes of a pavement bouquiniste a couple of books about Russian painters – a 1966 Moscow edition with aquarelles and drawings of the Tretyakov Art Gallery; and a superb 1971 Leningrad edition with full page colour pictures of paintings by Levitan. And a Moscow edition of Aldous Huxley’s Crome Yellow thrown in for free!
Zhechka joins me for a coffe and takes me to her office – but another small gallery catches my attention. Lily (the name of both the owner and the gallery) is a friend of Vihra at Astry Gallery and has 2 Mitko Kostadinovs at very reasonable prices which I quickly snap up. And I’m not done yet – I had spotted another gallery at the top end of the Vladimir Zaimov Park not far from my flat. It turns out to focus on handicapped painters and I buy a Nadejda Beleva sea-cliff view and a nicely executed painting of a couple of boats bobbing in the sea (slightly cliched I know but the water is well done and I do miss my Ocean!). Then to the shops to pick up some food and wine for the meal my friends have opted to take at my place rather than in a restaurant – the ultimate compliment!
I’ve enjoyed these last few months of leisure – not particularly interested in getting new projects. But some project possibilities are now beginning to swirl around. A friend and I are waiting for word of a Serbian project – that would be 18 months and me not in a Team Leader role. I don’t like the paperwork it now entails. And I’ve also been asked to go forward in a bid for a framework project – which are short (eg 60 day) assignments which are contracted very quickly – in Macedonia. A group of us are also talking about going for major project here in Bulgaria. Now that would really interest me!
The painting is a nice exaple of a Russi Ganchev - one of whose landsacpes I bought this week.

Books

A delightful day yesterday at the Annual Book Fair held in the huge Pavilion Expo beside the grotesque Stalinist Press House – which was „hoaching” (as we say in Scotland) with people. Shows that the intellectual habit is still alive and well here - despite the generally appalling nature of TV (although there are still some BBC3 type TV programmes). Fours hours passed before we dragged ourselves, rather wearily, from the scrum (and noise) weighed down by plastic bags with the results of our raids. The first two stalls took some time to negotiate – they were a Greek publisher and the Italian Embassy respectively and were not busy. But in the first I was seduced by a superbly produced book on Balkan poetry (with heavy velvet paper and old grey photographs) - 520 pages (all in Romanian) for 10 euros! And, although the Italian Embassy wasn’t selling books, it was displaying interesting editions of (some of) their older writers and had someone on duty happy to talk to us. They had, however, no Albert Moravia!
I was also very pleased with a new book on Bucharest – from village to metropolis (Romanian and English) by Giuseppe Cina, an Italian Professor of Urban Planning at Turin Univeristy; and a collection of the water colours of Romanian buildings by Gheorghe Leahu (both published by Capicel). I snapped up a book with Dan Dinescu’s black and white photos of Maramures; the land of wood which I had long lusted after – reduced to 2.5 euros – and, on opening it at home, immediately regretted not having bought 4 copies (for gifts). A book with the Sapanta cemetery painted headstones (actually carved from wood) completed the Romanian part of the haul. Wallony Region had a nice display – with copies of their great Espace Nord series (Belgian authors of the mid 20th century) on special offer. The final purchase was bought with some guilt – since we have so little space in the Bucharest flat – but I simply could not resist the 500 glorious pages of Cooking with Herbs and Spices (Hermes House) despite already having one book on each already - but up in the mountain house!
My visit to China at the beginning of the year – and the preliminary reading I did for it – has developed my interest in the country at both political and literary levels. A combination of the antics of the political class of the West and Daniel Bell’s books (The Canadian who has taught at a Beijing University for the past 15 years) have made me more sympathetic to the idea that the political model which could emerge there. ChinaBeat offers one of the best perspectives on modern China and this post has an interesting (if jaundiced) summary of a recent book.

Graphic writing

Yesterday was very spectacular here – the light from the cloudless blue sky had a special edge to it - caused partly by the low arc the sun takes now which gives long shadows to the vegetation; and partly by the contrasting colours as the leaves in some of the trees turn yellow.
I spent the morning preparing a succulent lentil and vegetable soup and basking in the sun on the front verendah with another of Qiu Xiaoulong’s Shanghai detective Chen novels - Case of Two Cities – which seemed to me even better than the previous two I have read. Until now I read neither detective nor Chinese novels - Soul Mountain I had picked up by accident in the great knigomania chain of bookstores in Sofia simply because I noticed that the author, Gao Xingjian, had won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I had registered that the images and language were something special but had not followed up his other writing (or painting). But Chinese writing does seem to be rather special – hardly surprising that the savagery of both the 1970s cultural revolution and the headlong race for economic growth of the past 20 years has produced such incisive perspectives on humanity. In the scale of the upheaval, cruelty and absurdity it seems to have a lot in common with Europe's experience of the Black Death and 30 Years'War! By the evening I was well through a second book – Red Dust – a path through China – as picaresque and gripping in its tales of wanderings as Soul Mountain.
I have generally found English (as distinct fromIrish or Scottish!) novelists very two dimensional – but decided to give Anthony Powell a chance – not least because one reviwer in London Review of Books called his Dance to the Music of Time “one of English fiction’s few 20th century masterpieces”. After the vitality of the Chinese novels, the writing seemd to me so puerile if not pathetic.

Valentin Mandache’s post today reminds us of the depths into which Romania sank from the 1930s.

Most European countries are looking for huge savings in their national budgets. The UK Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee has just published a report on previous efforts to cut public spending. 15 billion of 35 billion pounds savings were actually realised – and less than 40% sustainable ie 17% success rate.

Dinan and Becherel

Monday was overcast and cold – as we headed with Adrian and Susanna following – to Dinan on the minor roads north. Dinan is quite amazing – with the strongest fortifications I have ever seen commanding the heights over the river and riddled with tiny medieval lanes.
After the farewells, the real find was on our return journey. We had intended to visit Rennes but were diverted by a sign on the road for Becherel – ville du livre and duly encountered what is for me a dream place – one of what is now a European network of 2nd hand book towns and villages. I had encountered one quite by accident in Fontenoy la Joute (Lorraine) on a long drive I had made on my own in 1997 from Bucharest to Brussels to take up a dreadful job I survived for 6 months with TAIEX – which was then the body helping the accession countries access knowledge about the acquis commaunitaire. I quickly discovered that it was little more than a travel boutique run by a bustling dragon of an Englishwoman masquerading under a Polish name.
Being Monday, most of the 16 bookshops were closed – but a couple were open. The first a real antique book shop whose cafe area was just like a sitting room and where we were left to our own devices. The second was a cavernous area – where I tracked down my Michel Mohrt and almost got the Jean Michel Revy and Romain Gary books I’m looking for. Hopefully we’ll return another day. They have apparently a blog – www.becherel-autour-du-livre.com
At one level it is annoying not to have regular access to the internet to be able to follow that link. At another, it is an encouragement to read what I have already downloaded

Ploermel et al

The weekend was the English bank holiday – so we had the pleasure of a visit from Susanna and Adrian – arriving midnight. Vide greniers had promised – but proved disappointing at Ploermel at Augan. Ploermel itself, however, is the first place we visited which I could imagine living in. Lively and full of charm – it has two large churches in the centre – both with delightful stained-glass windows. An organ was playing in one on our first visit – but I could find no way in to enjoy the performance. When we revisited on Sunday morning a christening was underway in the second – wood ceilings and Breton stone are the impressive features of these churches. Proximity to such a spiritual haven is probably on my checklist for houses! The newsagent’s had a very impressive range of magazines – including a fairly recent literary venture modelled on New York Review of books – www.booksmag.fr

Josselin gave us 4 serindipidous moments – an exhibition of marqueterie by Jacques Moisan in a tiny ancient church adjoining its fairy-tale castle which looms over the river. A sculpteuse seemingly specialising in capturing the relationships between men and women – I photographed a small one in the window of a couple reading back to back with the woman’s hand trailing. Hands are so expressive – I remember one of Dobre Dobrev’s paintings of a quiet Bulgarian square with a languid hand in the air. You can get a sense of the sculptress at http://creatures.celestes.free.fr
The final delight was a second-hand English bookshop – from which I emerged with 3 gems - a Jonathan Raban book whose title I had come across when I was considering the Syrian job some years back (Arabia through the looking glass); a highly appropriate Colin Thubron book - Behind the Wall about his travels in China in the early and mid 1980s; and a Morris West thriller I had not yet read - Cassidy.

Sunday night we ate well – and I had the rare pleasure of a conversation a quatres – with Adrian’s questions proving skilful in eliciting from me some rare opinions about the goodies and baddies in politics and why the British system is in such a mess. Although I did opine that the recent expense scandals are perhaps not quite what they seem! Most of the so-called misdemeanours were in fact the result of the advice given by the House officials – and the felons were few and minor. I am never disposed to conspiracy theories – but on this occasion I have to ask about the timing and nature of the revelations. The financial melt-down and collapse of neo-liberalism has required string government action and a rethink of the role of the state. One would have expected a resurgence of socialist thinking. So perhaps the expenses scandal was a preemptive strike – to ensure that the legitimacy of government activity remained under question.

books which made an impact

The painting is so appropriate at the moment - when I am trying to identify the books which have made an impact on me. The storm which was rumbling all night around the mountains has eventually knocked the electricity out - and I am (even at 08.30) having to write this with the aid of a candle. This is what my first list looks like -

Saul Alinsky’s Reveille for Radicals (1969)
Stanislaw Andreski’s Social Science as Sorcery (1972)
Peter Berger’s Pyramids of sacrifice – political ethics and social change (1975)
Albert Camus’ Letters to a Friend (1944)
EH Carr’s What is History? (1961)
Bernard Crick’s In Defence of Politics (1962)
Tony Crosland’s The Conservative Enemy (1962)
Ralf Dahrendorf’s Class and Class Conflict in industrial society (1959)
Marlynn Fergusson’s Age of Aquarius (1980)
Ivan Illich Deschooling Society (1971)
Leoplod Kohr; The Breakdown of Nations (1957)
Reinhold Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932)
Karl Popper’s The Open Society and its enemies (1945)
JR Saul’s Voltaire’s Bastards (1992)
Donald Schon; Beyond the Stable Society (1971)

Doubtless there will be some additions....To save my battery, I shall now have to switch off the PC battery - and work by pencil and notebook two further questions (a) why did they make an impact? and (b) what books would I now recommend to anyone with an open mind who wanted to understand the world better and play a role in improving it?