I can’t pretend that keeping a record of books read during any given year is a matter of much interest to others, but here we go with a commentary nonetheless. If there is a return it may perhaps be in terms of the odd recommendation.
I find I have steadily increased the number of books read since retirement, unsurprisingly. In 2019 I got through 110, so just over two per week. The breakdown is as follows: I read 53 novels; four books of poetry; 26 auto- and biographies; and 27 assorted works of philosophy, social theory or sociology.
As far as novels ago, I have to confess that 14 of the 53 were Simenon on Maigret. But no apology for acknowledging Simenon once more as a truly great writer: he is always slick and elegant and his unexpected touches of telling mundane detail are exceptional. Plus, I love Maigret’s propensity to stop off at Parisian bars and cafes (despite regular warnings from his his doctor-friend). As I write this at a café on Reading Station – en route to give a talk on the fractured society at Exeter University – it is with great sadness that I report the inclusion in my bag of the latest translation of the very last of the Maigret novels, Maigret and Monsieur Charles. I have worked my pleasurable way through all 78 over the last two or three years. Other stand-out fiction during 2019? I particularly enjoyed Hrabal’s Closely Watched Trains, Barker’s The Silence of Girls, Vuillard’s The Order of the Day, Harrison’s All Among the Barley, Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys, Mawer’s Prague Spring, and Barry’s Night Boat to Tangier. And there were a fair few old favourites, including thrillers by Leon, Paretsky, Nesbo and Burke, and extending, if at a slight stretch, to Billingham. I was also intrigued by Mullin’s The Friend of Harry Perkins (a follow-up to his classic, A Very British Coup), and I rediscovered Ambler’s pioneering spy/adventure stories. I found the volumes of poetry by McGough, Rosen and Sissay of mixed merit, but this is probably harsh, or at least subjective, since I hold all in considerable regard. Ovid’s Elegies of Love was interesting.
I still read sporting autobiographies for fun and relaxation, especially those of cricketers, athletes and rugby players. None were outstanding, though Bairstow’s, Sam Warburton’s and (Billy) Vunipola’s, were informative as well as engaging. I did however read several top-rate non-sporting auto- and biographies. I would include in this category Light’s biography of Nina Simone; Evans’ biography of Eric Hobsbaum (which concentrated more on Eric’s private life than on his history or ideas); Steadman Jones’ well-rounded and detailed biography of Marx (I hadn’t realised that for a brief moment Marx had hopes of a parliamentary ‘revolution’ in England); Muller-Doohm’s biography of Habermas (which really features his career and ideas and deliberately leaves his private life alone); Benjamin Zephaniah’s stunning autobiography The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah (I heard him perform at Leatherhead Theatre later in 2019); Kirkpatrick’s biography of Simone de Beauvoir, which corrects any prejudice that she merely echoed Sartre; Caroway’s bluntly honest and impressive autobiography; Sissay’s quite beautiful and poignant My Name Is Why; and finally Mark Twain’s wonderful Life on the Mississippi (as Sam Clemens, he was a steamboat pilot before taking up writing and he knows how to tell and elaborate on a story). I would add here Poirier’s excellent and engaging account of intellectual life on Paris’ left bank; Peppiatt’s The Existentialist Englishman; Bonafoux’s revealing Rodin and Eros; d’Angour’s Socrates in Love, which I appreciated in part because I was on holiday with Annette, Rebecca and Gertie in Lindos on Rhodes while reading it (did you know Socrates was a brave and renowned warrior as well as a thinker?); and Attenborough’s charming and eloquent Journies to the Other Side of the World.
What about the more arcane material? I would pick out the following to commend: Castells’ Rupture, not least for its informed, explanatory account of Brexit (how will he fare as part of the new Spanish government?); Fraser’s superb, concise The Old is Dying and the New Cannot be Born; Erik Olin Wright’s How to be an Anti-capitalist in the 21st Century; and maybe above all the others, Bukodi and Goldthorpe’s exemplary piece of quantitative sociological research reported in Social Mobility and Education in Britain. An honourable mention too for Badiou, whose many short narratives and dialogues contain important sociological insights and concepts. Like a number of French philosophers, he descends to Earth and becomes more readable when challenged in conversation to address topical, political issues. I enjoyed, a little to my surprise since I had a prejudice that ‘Giaia’ amounted to a form of pantheism, Lovelock’s Novacene, which not only emphasises the connectedness of planetary life (forms), but predicts the imminent and evolutionary emergence of post-human cyborgs. The social prognoses of both Hawking and Lovelock are feasible as they are dramatic, and both have ramifications for the future of sociology.
Like some other far more illustrious writers, I immediately lose interest in my own manuscripts as soon as they’ve been completed: I am extremely reluctant to work on them, which is not good. I move on to he next project (I am not under the illusion that this is sensible, and I admit that revisions would probably pay dividends). I do however have a twinge of curiosity when they are finally published. So I read through two of my books in print in 2019, Sociology, Health and the Fractured Society: A Critical Realist Account and A Sociology of Shame and Blame: Insiders Versus Outsiders. No comment, that’s up to others. I also read through Manifestos, Policies and Practices, edited by David Scott from the IOE and containing my chapter on the future of the NHS, an example of what I have called ‘foresight sociology’ (a mixed collection I thought).