Category Archives: Literature

Churchill by Daisy Suckley: Roosevelt’s confidant

Posted on August 17, 2020 by odeboyz

She described him [Churchill] as “a strange looking little man. Fat & round, his clothes bunched up on him. Practically no hair on his head, he wore a 10-gallon hat. He talks as though he had terrible adenoids—sometimes says very … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Ruth Harris ~ The Man on Devil’s Island: Alfred Dreyfus and the affair that divided France (2010)

Posted on August 17, 2020 by odeboyz

This biography is more than a Life. Ruth Harris’s meticulous study of French politics, the Roman Catholic church, the Army, Anti-Semitism and human drama is stunning. She reveals intellectuals who took up the cause of a Jewish army officer: the … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Walter Mosley ~ Fearless Jones (2001)

Posted on August 10, 2020 by odeboyz

The Black Lives Matter campaign changed my re-read of this book. Mosley writes about the period before mobile phones videos but in such a vivid way that his images last a long time. Videos however are easy to disseminate and … Continue reading →

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American children on a subsistence farm, 1919

Posted on August 3, 2020 by odeboyz

When not in school the Borlaug children did chores, rising before dawn and working until after sunset. Boys hoed weeds, dug potatoes, milked cows, stacked hay, hauled wood and water, fed chicken, cattle, and horses. Girls tended the vegetable garden, … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Philip Kerr ~ Hitler’s Peace (2005)(2020)*

Posted on August 3, 2020 by odeboyz

Sometimes an author strikes lucky and invents a character which is utterly compelling and becomes the motif of their entire career. Lee Child’s Reacher, Ian Rankin’s Rebus are excellent examples. The reader looks forward to the next Reacher novel almost … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Ted Lewis ~ GBH (1980)

Posted on July 27, 2020 by odeboyz

Until I’d read this book I hadn’t appreciated how tame police procedurals novels are. The maverick Detective Inspector heroically cuts corners. There’s always a common-sense explanation, which everyone except the bureaucratic Assistant Chief Constable accepts. He’s standing in the way … Continue reading →

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Book Review: James Hawes ~ My Little Armalite (2008)

Posted on July 20, 2020 by odeboyz

I wrongly believed that this would stand in the tradition of Tom Sharpe and so looked forward to slap-stick humour. It isn’t Sharpe it’s a biting satire with lots of black humour. John Goode is a 45 year old university … Continue reading →

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Alfred Hitchcock phones Georges Simenon*

Posted on July 13, 2020 by odeboyz

John Lanchester’s observation about Simenon’s amazing work rate reminds me of Deirdre Bair’s story of Hitchcock telephoning Simenon at his home in Switzerland, only to be told by his secretary that the writer couldn’t be disturbed because he had just … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Michael Dobbs ~ Goodfellowe MP (1998)

Posted on July 13, 2020 by odeboyz

If you like politics nasty, sinister, corrupt and Machiavellian then a Michael Dobbs novel is just for you. He learned his trade as an advisor to Margaret Thatcher before realising that that cesspit could be monetised. From that insight was … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Tim Harford ~ Messy: How to be creative and resilient in a tidy-minded world (2016)

Posted on July 6, 2020 by odeboyz

Britain had a TV show whose catch phrase was, ‘The computer says no’ and it reflected a stifled uncreative world. It satirises the mechanistic attempt at deleting risk from everyday life looking for monochrome ‘perfection’. A hideous uncreative world doomed … Continue reading →

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