While Malta continues to face the long hard slog to real economic recovery, today I intend to stick to tradition by singling out some of the best reads offered throughout the year that is fast approaching its end.
What is ironic is that although less expensive paperbacks have had the upper hand on the stiffer priced hard cover titles, book sales are reported to have gained internationally in these tough times, in spite of marginal slumps in the US and UK markets. Even though recent reports indicate that this is not the case locally. Some might argue that readers sought to explore what really led to the global crisis, others contended that they merely wanted to escape from the doldrums we are all experiencing, while cynics claimed that with spiraling unemployment readers had more time on their hands than in the past.
Whatever might have triggered on this process and trend, it remains interesting that in spite of living in a digital era of globalisation, the oldest mass medium seems to have had the upper hand of other more sophisticated media, which in their majority ended up in tatters due to the economic downturn.
At the same time we risk at our own peril to refrain from keeping track as to how the e-book and the e-reader will impact on the future of reading in coming years. Academies in the US are already known to have digitised their entire library collection to enable their students to use their Kindle and download the books they want to read. I guess it will only be a matter of time before this trend catches on in Malta too, giving people access to more literature without having to buy it!
The definitive title of the year must be Too Big To Fail, the battle from the inside to save Wall Street. Written by Andrew Ross Sorkin, the award winning chief mergers and acquisitions reporter for The New York Times, he is also the editor and founder of DealBook, an online daily financial report, who has won a Gerald Loeb Award, the highest honour in business journalism. While some might risk getting lost in the labyrinth of his over detailed expose`, apart from priding himself on what he termed as unprecedented access to the players involved, he has not only managed to recreate all the drama and turmoil of this financial meltdown but he also delivered the first true behind the scenes, moment by moment account of how the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression developed into a global tsunami. While Lehman Brothers are most of the time centre stage, the scenario shifts from one secret meeting to another right across the globe, from S. Korea, Russia and obviously and understandably the corridors of Washington. I loved the Galileo Galilei quote in the intro: “All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them...” As an added bonus we are also regaled with the cast of characters and the companies they kept. Most of them directly responsible for the financial disaster we end up reading about!
Edward M Kennedy’s Memoir True Compass might have not managed to woo all the critics but then some of those most critical of it, tended to have been triggered either by anti Democrat biases or even worse, by anti Kennedy family prejudices. Ted manages to strike a fair balance between his emphasis on Family, Brotherhood, Life on his own and Renewal – possibly the most uplifting segment of all. But what impressed me most is that while the concluding chapters said much about the Senator’s strong sense of perseverance, the opening of the memoir is hard to outclass and outshine, as the author tells us all about how he emerged from a medicated drowsiness in a Boston hospital bed and looked up into the face of a doctor who explained to him in a somber way that he was about to die, and that he had best begin getting his affairs in order and preparing his friends and family for the end. Ted might have glossed over some of the most salacious moments of his life, but nothing beats his high moral ground when he speaks of life eternal and work that continues, as he describes it as a calling, an opportunity to do things about injustice or unfairness while philosophising about the fact that “It helps to have a goal. I’ve always tried to have one.” A book that I treasure even more, since it came as a gift.
The life of Cicero might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but then best selling British author Robert Harris is no run of the mill author, having penned such successful hits as Pompeii, Imperium, Fatherland, Enigma and the arguably T. Blair inspired The Ghost, which Polanski was busy working on before ending up in the pits as he did recently. In his recent and perhaps most successful Lustrum, Harris manages to draw many a contemporary parallel while taking us back to Rome 63BC – with various senators struggling for power in a city on the brink of acquiring a vast empire. It is no mean feat to build a complex web of stories around various real historical figures while brilliantly accounting for their alliances and betrayals, cruelties and seductions and even crimes. The story might have happened centuries ago but it all reads as if it unfolds in contemporary real time.
The Hugo Young Papers have been described as A Journalist’s Notes from the Heart of Politics. When in hard back, it managed to win the Channel 4 Political Book of the Year award. Although Hugo Young died some six years ago, he is still revered as one of Britain’s most influential, respected and trusted political journalists. Rather than just a normal diary, his papers are based on off the record meetings he had with various leading politicians from every political orientation, only for him to write them down afterwards on the basis of what he had heard. He sought the approval of most of those quoted, which approval was invariably forthcoming – with the exception of Tony Blair who for some reason or other decided otherwise. In his single minded pursuit, Young managed to provide us with a unique glimpse of how the principal players saw things at the time, from their perspective. From his early years, we glide through the Thatcher governments, the Major era and the Coming of Tony Blair as well as some 300 pages dedicated to New Labour in Government. The Foreword by Harold Evans is a gem in itself. The same can also be said for another Foreword by Alan Rusbridger.
One of the pleasures I discovered this year was the compulsive and adrenaline charged writing of the late Stieg Larsson who became a best selling author after having passed away in November 2004. Stieg who was one of the world’s leading experts on anti-democratic, right wing extremist and neo-fascist organisations has had his works in Swedish translated beautifully by Reg Keeland in a manner and style that beats many a household named thriller writer hands down. His latest and arguably last novel The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest is perhaps the most angst driven and socio-economically laden of all his works, but although it still makes it as a stand alone thriller there is nothing better to introduce oneself to Larsson’s writing and his spiky and sassy ex-security analyst heroine Lisbeth Salander, than through the previous work The Girl Who Played With Fire which seems to have broken all sales records both in hard and paperback. It is not an every day occurrence that one comes across a lead character who started off as a punkish wild child, only to end up as a traumatised survivor of the ‘care’ system and a sexual adventurer and computer hacker ‘of genius.’ More urgent and multi-layered prose than that is somewhat hard to find!
Adam Boulton best known as Sky News’s anchorman might not be a profound author but his Memories Of The Blair Administration: Tony’s Ten Years manages to blend an authoritative style with the readability of a writer who specialises in scoops and instant journalism. Married as he happens to be to Anji Hunter, formerly Blair’s Director of Government Relations, one is kept guessing whether Boulton wants to glorify or debunk Blair although I am somewhat inclined to go for the first option. Having followed Blair from the front row seat, he takes us way beyond 10 Downing Street and into his political after life too – in the Middle East, the Catholic Church, Africa, the climate debate as well as the million dollar lecture and memoir circuit. The foreword betrays his admiration for the man when he states that New Labour was indeed something new. “It was the story of my time. We may have never joined up or even voted for it, but all those of my generation who were actively involved in politics in the period just gone by have been shaped by New Labour and have, in turn, played some part in shaping Tony’s Ten Years.” The book is also not without some light and humorous touches too!
The least said about the latest Dan Brown book, The Lost Symbol the better, except that as in keeping with his past works he must have laughed all the way to the bank in the process. Some critics have been quick to pounce on his cheesy style of writing as something that makes Jeffrey Archer sound like Dostoyevsky but one nevertheless has to admit that his style of writing makes one read on regardless of how preposterous and predictable his plots might have become and how one dimensional his characters always were. On the bright side the monumental buildings in Washington DC stand out with distinction, even if one were for a moment to forget or gloss over their Masonic connotations and inspiration. If one wants to read a truly compulsive thriller nothing beats Daniel Silva’s Moscow Rules – which although part of a never ending series focusing on Israeli spy Gabriel Allon, rises far above the rest by providing a perfectly constructed plot not without shootouts, international terrorist plots, twists and turns, and for once, a number of dialogue pieces that hook you rather than sounding trite and cliché ridden.
The last two titles I have chosen to comment on are not necessarily the least important of the lot. On the contrary they stand out with distinction on their intrinsic merits for different reasons.
The Storm which is subtitled The World’s Economic Crisis & What It Means is an excellent sharp, incisive and concise analysis by the Chief Economic Spokesperson of the Liberal Democrats. Many are of the opinion that not only is he the man who gives politics in Britain a good name but also that he managed to dissect the economic and financial crisis’ impact on Britain far more clinically than other peer politicians in the major two political parties did. No wonder he has been described as the sage of the credit crunch. As the publicity blurb for once rightly points out: He warned about the collapse in the housing market before prices started to fall; argued for the nationalisation of Northern Rock before it became government policy; predicted the banking crisis before banks stopped lending money and for many years, was alarmed by the growing amounts of personal debt in Britain. Most books penned by politicians tend to indulge in self justification. In Cable’s case he manages to transcend party politics in a knowledgeable and even humorous manner.
His concluding chapter The Future: A Road Map justifies what the Mail on Sunday had to say about him: Everything a politician should be and everything most politicians are not!
I will not blame anyone for not knowing who Chris Mullin is. I am under the impression that many British people neither do so. But although never at the forefront of British politics, Chris has been an MP for Sunderland South since well over 22 years, in spite of having never risen to full Ministerial status throughout all these years. Literary buffs might best remember him for his thriller A Very British Coup a couple of decades ago. For such a relatively unknown political figure to write 600 pages of diaries, brilliantly summarised and edited by Ruth Winston who edited the Tony Benn diaries is no mean feat. Even more impressive that his A View From The Foothills must be the best political literary contribution in the Diaries sector since the Alan Clark Diaries. I believe so strongly, and so do many British critics who commented recently in the British Sunday papers. If you are looking for the dry wit of Yes Minister then this is the book for you, as this brilliant author manages to blend a sharp eye for detail with a wicked humour that shows that having a keen sense of the ridiculous can often be an asset. Political life might have its ups and downs but it is surely at its best when one pokes fun at it and takes irreverent snapshots of it. Mullen does so almost literally on every page.
Next week we shall be back to the grinding mill trying to figure out whether government has remained on the skids or not and how the Opposition continues to shape up for the challenges and opportunities ahead.
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Leo Brincat is the Main Opposition Spokesperson for the Environment, Sustainable Development & Climate Change