Timbuktu

For this loneliness you foster
I suggest Paul Auster
A book called Timbuktu

So sings the divine Fionn Regan (see below)and who am I to argue?

Coming from the author of the supremely flinty New York Trilogy, the sentimentality of this novel was a surprise to me. It is told entirely from the point of view of a dog, but Auster's stylish prose prevents complete sugar overload and there are some very good bits.

Deuteronomy

The amazing achievement of this book is that it attempts to set out a procedure for fair trials among a wandering desert people in early, pre-literate age. The problem is that the all-merciful God proceeds to sanction multiple genocides, sex slavery, death by stoning for various trivial offences, eternal damnation for eunuchs, and, somewhat superfluously, an outright ban on sleeping with one's mother-in-law.

Barking bloody mad, and all the more entertaining for it - just so long as nobody takes any of this nonsense seriously, right?.

The Old Devils - Kingsley Amis

This old-fashioned novel sits oddly among a list of 80s Booker winners, the muscular likes of Rushdie, Coetzee, Carey and Ishiguro.

It's not without virtues, in particular there are some amusing turns of phrase, and it's refreshing to read a book about Welsh characters who for some reason seem under-represented in literature. The problem is that among the younger bucks, Amis pere can't help but feel a little staid.

Diamonds are Forever - Ian Fleming

Why have publishers accorded Penguin Classic status on a novel with such flaccid prose, dull plotting and casual misogyny? It's a good seller, I suppose. At least it's short.

Time's Arrow - Martin Amis

This is famous for describing a man's life backwards from death to birth, and for the controversial treatment of some extremely touchy subject matter. There is a second stylistic device to complicate matters, in that the narrator shares a body with the protagonist but is a separate consciousness , unable to affect events.

The point is that the novel's central events make more sense in reverse than they otherwise do, at least to a person as morally culpable as "Tod Friendly". The split personality and reverse chronology is a guilt response to a catastrophic ethical failure.

There are the usual entertaining Amis jokes and whiz-bang flourishes, but this is a thought-provoking and deeply serious work.

We - Yevgeny Zamyatin

Crikey, this is a real discovery. I came across this novel almost by accident, but I quickly realised that the dystopian vision was very familiar, and that it is a hugely influential work. The enclosed, mechanised, emotionally repressed setting surely makes We an ur-text for Metropolis, Brave New World, 1984, Logan’s Run, THX-1138, even the classic role-playing game Paranoia.

As a novel, it is not so successful. It is in the first person, so Zamyatin is restricted by a narrator who tries to be coldly rational at all times and is ill-equipped to respond when he begins to feel love. It was a clunky translation that I had too, I think. However, it is clearly a lesser-known work of great importance and, as such, I’m glad to have read it.

Love Among the Chickens - P.G. Wodehouse

There is much fun to be had with the early adventures of the roguish Ukridge and his crackpot business venture rearing fowl in Devon. It's early Wodehouse and not quite up to the levels of sustained brilliance that he was later to achieve, but huge fun nevertheless. I particularly enjoyed some of the business on the golf course, and the love story is kind of sweet too.

Thanks to Liz for the recommendation.

The Secret Agent - Joseph Conrad

It was written a hundred years ago, but what could be more relevant than an account of a terrorist sleeper cell in London? This is regarded as the first espionage novel, and certain themes that are now considered clichés can be said to have originated here, such as the symbiotic relationship between the criminal and the investigator.

Intriguingly, the plot eventually boils down to that of a domestic tragedy, wherein individual motivations are far more important than the political context.

I would feel far safer if I knew that our current leaders had read this and learned from its insights. I was particularly struck by this speech by one of the anarchists:

To break up the superstition and worship of legality should be our aim. Nothing would please me more than to see Inspector Heat and his likes take to shooting us down in broad daylight with the approval of the public. Half our battle would be won then; the disintegration of the old morality would have set in in its very temple.

Quite.

Hotel Du Lac - Anita Brookner

One of my Mum's favourites and a Booker winner, so worth a go I decided. It's a low-key affair with some exquisite writing and a waspish wit (She was a handsome woman of forty-five, and had been for many years). Mum reckons that if you've read one Brookner you've read them all, so that's her done then.