The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (BFI Film Classics) - A.L.Kennedy

Another day, another BFI monograph, this time by a writer who I have read before and enjoyed. Kennedy's take on the movie (a favourite of mine) is interesting, and I was gratified to read her appreciation of the peerless Anton Walbrook.

Wrong About Japan - Peter Carey

I'm a fan of Carey but this slight memoir felt very much like an out-of-touch man trying to relate to his teenage son's interests, only to reveal more about himself than about his subject. I already know a little bit about manga, anime, Studio Ghibli etc, so some of the explanations felt a bit wince-worthy. There is one very powerful section of the book, though, where a man remembers the firebombing of Tokyo that he experienced as a child; heartbreaking.

Aberystwyth Mon Amour – Malcolm Pryce

The basic gag of this book is that it’s a Philip Marlowe style noir mystery transposed to modern Aberystwyth, with added witchcraft. The pastiche holds up rather well, with some brutality to offset the more whimsical moments. The plot lost me somewhat, but that’s fair enough given that (a) I don’t really do plot, and (b) nobody ever followed the thread of a Chandler story either.

Play it As It Lays - Joan Didion

Cold as ice and just as hard, this dissection of 70s LA has two of my favourite qualities in a book; it is both gripping and brief. I had never heard of Joan Didion but apparently she is regarded as a major figure in the US, and I'll probably read more of her stuff in future.

Losing It. The Inside Story of the Labor Party in Opposition - Annabel Crabb

I'm still really crap on Australian politics, so I was glad to read this zippy account of why the ALP has failed so dismally under the Liberal government. There seem to be three main factors: unlucky timing, John Howard's ruthless exploitation of Labor divisions and, especially, the insane balkanised nature of the organisation. That last point, factionalism, is certainly the main issue and a seemingly intractable one; this is no way to run a progressive party. It's enough to make one yearn for a pre-Iraq Blair to arrive and sort things out.

Well, it's either that, or the fact that they can't spell Labour.

The Castle of Otranto - Horace Walpole

I'm enjoying the loopy Gothic stuff at the moment, and this is the book generally credited as having started the whole Gothic movement. Horace Walpole - Brian Molko is your fault.

This is a rattling yarn, all uncanny happenings and violent mayhem, but I was glad it was short. It's so high-strung and eventful that any further incident would have been overwhelming. As a literature nerd, though, I enjoyed spotting all the scenes the author had filched from Shakespeare.

Cosmopolis - Don DeLillo

This was a strange one, in that I've really enjoyed the other DeLillo books that I've read but I thought this was just awful. It tries to anatomise contemporary America by focussing on a day in the life of a squillionaire as he drives across Manhattan, but I felt that the characters, situations and dialogue were so divorced from reality that it couldn't possibly comment on anything useful. Humourless, self-important and trite.

Tom's Top Tip; read White Noise instead, it's brilliant.

Port Out Starboard Home – Michael Quinion

This is an entertaining debunking of all those ropy word or phrase origin stories that you’ll have received by email over the years. Some came as a surprise – I really did think that the “posh” story was true – and some, like “pommie”, I already knew. A good rule of thumb (a phrase discussed herein) is that anything explained by an acronym is unlikely if it dated from before WW2.

Many of the entries have the format (a) describe meaning of word/phrase, (b) outline erroneous stories, (c) explain why they’re wrong, (d) admit that the true origin is lost in the mists. It gets a little repetitive, but this ideal as a toilet book should you spot it in Oxfam. It’s always nice to come out smarter than when you went in.

Right Ho, Jeeves – P.G.Wodehouse

Michelle kept rolling her eyes at me as I sat sniggering at this last night, deliciously entertaining stuff.

There is a stigma attached to Wodehouse these days because of his wartime activities, but if George Orwell forgave him then that's good enough for me. The most anti-semitic book I've read recently? Little Dorrit, by that great humanist, Dickens.

I read this in an omnibus edition, in which Penguin had bafflingly printed the stories out of chronological sequence. This meant that you see Gussie Fink-Nottle happily married off to the Bassett at the end of one tale, only to have them meeting for the first time at the start of the next. Why on earth would they do this? Gah!

The Code of the Woosters – P.G.Wodehouse

It’s just sheer pleasure reading Wodehouse of course, smiles or laugh-out-louds litter almost every page. I could just fill this review with marvellous quotations, but I’ll just give the one that Hugh Laurie mentions in his introduction, a Bertie line expressing high dudgeon.

“Tinkerty tonk” I said, and I meant it to sting.

Perfection! If you haven’t read Wodehouse, trust me on this. Do so in all haste.

Amsterdam – Ian McEwan

There is no writer around better than Ian McEwan at making the chest tighten at the realisation that something really, really bad is about to happen. For the first 90% of this brief novel I felt an ever-increasing constriction, all leading up to an ending that was….well, rather silly I’m afraid. I felt really disappointed, having enjoyed the rest of it so much.

I can’t believe that this won the Booker, when The Cement Garden, Enduring Love, Atonement, Saturday etc all missed out. It was good, but by some distance I think it’s his weakest work.

George Melies, Father of Film Fantasy - David Robinson

I have an increasing fascination and admiration for the earliest cinema pioneers, and this brief book gave me a good overview of Melies’ career. I have only seen Le Voyage dans la lune, but the stills from other movies made me want to track down more. I could have done without the text being printed over some pictures though, a technique that rendered both near-illegible.

Zofloya, The Moor – Charlotte Dacre

This is a prime slice of Gothic nonsense from the high point of the style (1806). I did an option on Gothlit back in my undergraduate days, so I know that this long-lost classic begins in the mode of Radcliffe’s “terror” novels and segues into Lewis’s far more entertaining “horror” style. The finale involves multiple gruesome murders, suicides and lust-fuelled hatred, and a final star turn from Satan himself. Utterly splendid.

The novel is also interesting because the anti-heroine clearly lusts after the black man of the title, but reconfigures her feelings as a desire for Zofloya’s boss, who happens to be her brother-in-law, who in turn is betrothed to a thirteen-year-old child. It’s all just too much fun.