‘Appeasing Hitler’ by young historian Tim Bouverie is, as all critics agree, a truly remarkable book. Not only is it a story of pre-War appeasement, of great characters (and a whole tapestry of them, not just Churchill, Chamberlain and Hitler), but it is a story of a period of time, a few short years, when in Britain politicians and public had to make their own minds up about whether the course mapped out was a good one. I use the word story advisedly as although of course it is minutely well-researched and factual nevertheless it gives a truly astonishing account of what it was like to live in those times. You have a visceral feeling of actually being there, absorbing the news as it comes in, and getting to understand what sorts of men we are dealing with and, more important, what their thinking is and how they came to hold the views they do. 

“On the evening of Friday 1st September 1939, the former First Lord of The Admiralty, Alfred Duff Cooper, changed as usual into his dinner jacket before going his wife, Diana, and three fellow Conservatives at the Savoy Grill. A day of brilliant sunshine had given way to a balmy evening and there was nothing within the splendid Art Deco dining room to denote a crisis…..”  How unexpected a start to a History book, who would not be drawn in to a narrative delight?

‘Appeasing Hitler’ not only made me revisit many of my own conclusions about this period and those involved, it made me realise how relevant History is and made me reflect yet again on how we should all study it. A superb book, much enjoyed by me………

John Le Carre’s ‘Agent Running In The Field’ is the latest offering by a now 89 year-old author. Can someone of that great age write with relevance and immediacy to these troubled times. You bet he can! This is a wonderful read. Not only does the author know what he is talking about….he did after all work in the Intelligence sector, but he knows every trick in the book about plot, characterisation, setting, and everything else in the difficult task of writing a spy novel. He draws you in, he gets you to an understanding of each of the characters in turn, he writes with brilliant descriptive prose in some detail but also elicits a wider picture. And all of this set around a series of badminton matches? You have got to be kidding. I like badminton, and have played many hundreds of times, and I enjoyed that it had a role to play, but don’t let that put anyone off. This is a spy novel of the highest order, thoroughly enjoyable and not one to put down til the last page has been turned.

I 

‘Hometown Tales : Lancashire’ has the basis of a good idea……getting local authors to write short stories set in their own locality. With no expectations I read the first of two tales in this book ‘After the Funeral, the Crawl’ and thoroughly enjoyed it. Basically a young, getting into middle-age couple attend a funeral in Preston, where they both grew up, miss the last train back to London and, having nothing else to do, embark on a pub crawl of sorts. The settings are described ‘as is’ which is great, and the back story that the young woman had had a one-night stand with the dead man, resonates and lends substance to the story. I don’t usually enjoy short stories as they never get going and there is no time to develop character or setting, but this was the exception. The second tale ‘Judas’ I did not enjoy. Apart from the unreality of someone being swept back in his unconscious self to before his time to the famous Bob Dylan concert in Manchester, and being there with his father (who was there), the narrative was shallow and didn’t seem to be going anywhere (it didn’t). Nice little hardback book, nice idea, 50% successful for me.

‘My Son, My Son’ by Howard Spring (publishers Apollo) is my latest big read by this at one time Manchester-based author. Whilst the 578 pages flew by, I have to say I was a little disappointed having just read his magnificent ‘Fame Is The Spur’.

In ‘My Son, My Son‘, Howard Spring takes the Biblical tale of King David’s painful relationship with his beloved, despicable son Absalom and sets it in early 20th century England.

As with ‘Fame Is The Spur’ the protagonist narrates his own life story. Having grown up poor in the back streets of Manchester, and then achieved success as a novelist, William Essex determines that his son, Oliver, will have everything that he himself missed out on as a child. The son is spoiled much against his mother’s wishes. The outcomes are not good.

In parallel, William Essex’s Irish friend Dermot O’Riorden wants to see his son, Rory, fulfil his own youthful dream of being an Irish freedom fighter.

Both fathers of course come to regret having got their wishes.

As his career progresses, much like Spring himself, Essex buys a house in London and then a country retreat in Cornwall on the river near Falmouth. Having grown up in Manchester and now living not too far away from Falmouth, I certainly empathised with the locations which are drawn in great detail. The characters as always with Howard Spring are very strongly drawn too, and we want to inhabit their lives and see what happens next. References contemporary to the story such as the march to Irish Independence, the Manchester Martyrs, the Arts and Craft movement, levels of poverty, the pub scene in Manchester, whatever, all integrate seamlessly to the story.

What I found not quite up to standard was the development of the plot. A bit creaky and certainly at the end all too unbelievable and mawkish. Pity! As otherwise very enjoyable….

There is an interesting interview with Howard Spring a few months before he died at…….. http://www.john-summers.net/spring.html

‘Fame Is The Spur’  by Howard Spring is a mammoth read, almost Trollopian. I was looking for books on Manchester, since luckily for us we are moving nearby, and this was recommended by Jonathan Schofield in his ‘Guide To Manchester’ a superb book in itself which I have mentioned before. Then I remembered that my Mother read a lot of Howard Spring and she had reasonably good taste, so……I note that one reviewer said that late nineteenth and early twentieth century novels are out of fashion and so they are. But they really shouldn’t be. This was my surprise read of the year. I would go so far as to say it is one of the very best books I have read for a long long time. It’s the lifetime’s journey of John Hamer Shawcross whose story takes him from the hunger, filth and fragility of the back streets of Manchester in Victorian times to the greasy pole of politics where he climbs to the top and joins the elite whom he was fighting against in his radical days. The Introduction is by Tristram Hunt a well-respected historian, and he equates it, as others have, to a rebuke of Ramsay MacDonald who betrayed the Labour Party (in many people’s eyes at the time) by joining the National Government in order to stay in power. Certainly there are parallels and who isn’t gripped by a study of someone selling their soul? Spring covers a lot of the key events from Peterloo to Women’s Suffrage, but they are not dragged into the story, they naturally evolve with our characters. And these characters are very strongly drawn indeed. They are all memorable and some of the most memorable are the fiesty females. The early stages are all about ‘Chapel’ which was very important at the time, and I was fearing we might get bogged down in the minutia of religious divisions, but not a bit of it. It was the sort of book I couldn’t wait to pick up in order to resume my reading, well-written, gripping and with lessons to show. Absolutely brilliant. I must read more Howard Spring.

‘Castles From The Air’  must be one of the most comprehensive guides to Britain’s castles. Not the usual aerial photography with a few notes, but an in-depth of analysis of castles at all stages periods of of construction from pre-Roman to ‘modern’ – with absolutely marvellous full-colour high-quality photos. Castles are one of the distinguishing features of our landscape and they tell a tale not just of History but also of Romance. Which child hasn’t been thrilled by stories which have a castle at their heart? Which adult too? I really enjoyed going through this from start to finish over a few nights, but it is a coffee table sort of book that you could dip into at any time. I loved it.

I sent for the Film Script edition of ‘Hobson’s Choice’. Author Harold Brighouse. With a name like that he couldn’t be anything other than one of the Manchester School of dramatists. This was first produced in this country in 1915, having opened in America. The subtitle says it all  – ‘A Lancashire Comedy In 4 Acts’. Having just watched ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ on TV (which surprisingly I had never seen before) and found it as slight and disappointing as could be, I was wondering whether I would enjoy this. I am glad to say it was a sheer delight from start to finish. I enjoyed ‘the plot’ if you can call it that….it is more of a situation comedy, I enjoyed the strongly drawn characters, I enjoyed the rather suffocating location – a family shoe shop in Chapel Street Salford in 1880. To me it is rather like Coronation Street – better kept as an everyday story than show authorial indulgence with extremes. I really must find out if there are other Brighouse Plays I can read…..I would certainly like to. Highly recommended (even if you don’t come from Lancashire).

‘Gentleman Jack’ a biography of Anne Lister is certainly an unusual book about a very unusual lady. Probably we all know her story from the excellent TV series starring the incomparable Suranne Jones……It’s 1832 in West Yorkshire, England — the cradle of the evolving Industrial Revolution — where landowner Anne Lister is determined to save her faded ancestral home, Shibden Hall, even if it means bucking society’s expectations. In addition to reopening the coal mines, a part of Lister’s plan to help her family is to marry well. But the charismatic, single-minded Lister — who dresses head-to-toe in black and charms her way into high society — has no intention of marrying a man. ‘Gentleman Jack’ examines Lister’s relationships with her family, servants, tenants and industrial rivals, and would-be wife. Anne kept an amazing secret diary which even the twentieth century apparently found to be too hot to publish, but we have large chunks of it here. At first the sex is overwhelming. It’s sex, sex, sex to an unbelievable degree. And it becomes, well, boring. But a bit further into the life Anne starts to do lots of interesting things and travels extensively, so we get to admire her resolve and strength of character. All in all a fascinating read, and I can’t wait to visit her home Shibden Hall when we move to the North.

Kate Atkinson is an excellent writer and in this novel ‘Transcription’ we see her character building and plot fulfilment to the full. The novel flicks from wartime to the late 50’s. Sometimes this is an annoying affectation, but in skilled hands, as here, it works. The main character Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the security services during the war, and all of this part of the story seems to be well researched according to the sources given and the acknowledgments, which is good. Ten years later, when working at the BBC as a producer, her past catches up with her, as I suppose it may do for anyone who was a spy. At the denouement there is a clever twist which makes you think you have been reading something that is well thought through and put together. Fairly light and enjoyable.