It would be easy, if unfair, to parody the post-Gladwell school of essays (and it’s not unfair to say that The Tipping Point and Blink both paved the way for Freakonomics). You take two dissimilar things, prove – to your own satisfaction, at least – that they are not only not dissimilar but in fact more or less indistinguishable, suddenly cut away to provide some historical context, and then explain what it all means to us in our daily lives. So it goes something like this:
On the face of it, World War II and Pamela Anderson’s breasts would seem to have very little in common. And yet on closer examination, the differences seem actually much less interesting than the similarities. Just as World War II has to be seen in the context of the Great War that preceded it, it’s not possible to think about Pammie’s left breast without also thinking about her right. Pamela Anderson’s breasts, like World War II, have both inspired reams of comment and analysis, and occupied an arguably disproportionate amount of the popular imagination (in a survey conducted by the American Bureau of Statistical Analysis, more than 67 per cent of men aged between thirty-five and fifty admitted to thinking about both World War II and what Anderson has under her T-shirt ‘more than once a year’); both World War II and the Anderson chest are becoming less au courant than they were. There are other, newer wars to fight; there are other, younger breasts to look at. What does all this tell us about our status as humans in the early years of the twenty-first century? To find out, we have to go back to the day in 1529 when Sir Thomas More reluctantly replaced Cardinal Wolsey as Lord Chancellor in Henry VIII’s court…
They’re always fun to read (the real essays, I mean, not my parody, which was merely fun to write, and a waste of your time). They pep you up, make you feel smart but a little giddy, occasionally make you laugh. Freakonomics occasionally hits you a little too hard over the head with a sense of its own ingenuity. ‘Now for another unlikely question: what did crack cocaine have in common with nylon stockings?’ (One of the things they shared, apparently, is that they were both addictive, although silk stockings were only ‘practically’ addictive, which might explain why there are comparatively few silk-stocking-related drive-by shootings.) The answer to the question of whether mankind is innately and universally corrupt ‘may lie in… bagels’. (The dots here do not represent an ellipsis, but a kind of trumpeting noise.) Schoolteachers are like sumo wrestlers, real-estate agents are like the Ku Klux Klan, and so on. I enjoyed the book, which is really a collection of statistical conjuring tricks, but I wasn’t entirely sure of what it was about.
I don’t think I have ever had so many books I wanted to read. I picked up a few things in US bookstores; I was given a load of cool-looking books by interesting writers when I was in Mississippi and ordered one or two more (Larry Brown’s On Fire, for example) when I came home. Meanwhile I still want to go back to L. P. Hartley’s Eustace and Hilda trilogy, but Hartley seems too English at the moment. And I have a proof copy of the new Anne Tyler, and this young English writer David Peace has written a novel about 1974 as seen through the prism of Brian Clough’s disastrous spell in charge at Leeds United. (Brian Clough was… Leeds United were… Oh, never mind.) So I’d better push on.
Except… a long time ago, I used to mention Arsenal, the football team I have supported for thirty-eight years, in these pages. Arsenal was occasionally called in to provide an excuse for why I hadn’t read as much as I wanted to, but up until a month or so ago, they were rubbish, and I couldn’t use them as an excuse for anything. They weren’t even an excuse for a football team. Anyway, now they’re – we’ re – good again. We have the semifinals of the Champions League coming up in a couple of weeks, for the first time in my life, and I can see books being moved on to the bench for the next few weeks. Ah, the old dilemma: books versus rubbish. (Or maybe, books versus stuff that can sometimes seem more fun than books.) It’s good to have it back.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to: Andrew Leland, Vendela Vida, Heidi Julavits and the Spree, Charlotte Moore, Tony Hoagland, Zelda Turner, Tony Lacey, Joanna Prior, Rosie Gailer and Caroline Dawnay.
Thanks also to Dave and Serge Bielanko, Nick Coleman, Sarah Vowell, DV DeVincentis, Wesley Stace, Harry Ritchie, Tony Quinn, Rachel Cooke, Eli Horowitz, Gill Hornby, Robert Harris and everyone else who has recommended a book to me.
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material. A selection from Charlotte Moore ’s George and Sam: Autism in the Family appears courtesy of Viking Penguin. Tony Hoagland ’s ‘Impossible Dream ’ from What Narcissism Means to Me, published by Graywolf Press, appears courtesy of the author. A selection from Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky appears courtesy of the estate of Patrick Hamilton. A selection from Anton Chekhov ’s A Life in Letters, translated by Rosamund Bartlett and Anthony Phillips, appears courtesy of Penguin. A selection from Sarah Vowell’s Assassination Vacation appears courtesy of Simon & Schuster. A selection from Jess Walter’s Citizen Vince appears courtesy of Hodder & Stoughton. A selection from Jennie Erdal’s Ghosting appears courtesy of Canongate. A selection from Joshua Ferris’s Then We Came to the End appears courtesy of Little, Brown & Co. and Penguin. A selection from Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis appears courtesy of Jonathan Cape.
INDEX OF STUFF HE’S BEEN READING
Adams, Tim
Being John McEnroe 20–1
Amis, Martin 115
Experience 95
anonymous
unnameable comedy thriller 216–17
Arnott, Jake
The Long Firm 69
Atkinson, Kate
Case Histories 163, 173
Bailey, Blake
A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Works of Richard Yates 25, 29, 120
Bainbridge, Beryl
Master Georgie 32
Bank, Melissa
The Wonder Spot 180–1
Banks, Iain M. 176
Excession 175–7
Barthelme, Donald 59, 244–5
Sixty Stories 47, 50
Barthes, Roland
S/Z 140
Bartram, Simon
The Man on the Moon 152–3
Baxter, Charles 37
Feast of Love 11–12
Bernanos, Georges
The Diary of a Country Priest 197
Buchan, John 55, 227
Greenmantle 61
Callender, Craig and Ralph Edney
Introducing Time 53–4
Capote, Truman
In Cold Blood 171–2
Carey, John 226
What Good Are the Arts? 217–18, 225–6
Cercas, Javier
Soldiers of Salamis 145
Chabon, Michael 97
Chang, Jung
Wild Swans 256
Chekhov, Anton 129–30
The Essential Tales of Chekhov 130–2
A Life in Letters 122, 135–8
Chesterton, G. K.
The Man Who Was Thursday 226
Clowes, Daniel
David Boring 98–9
Coake, Chris 113–17
We’re in Trouble 114
Coe, Jonathan
Like a Fiery Elephant 102–3, 106–8
Coetzee, J. M. 71–2
Collin, Matthew
This is Serbia Calling 97–8
Collins, Paul
Not Even Wrong 61–2,65
Collins, Wilkie 35–6
No Name 31, 32, 35–7,42
Connolly, Cyril
Enemies of Promise 47–50
Connolly, Michael
The Poet 243–4
Conroy, Frank 21, 23
Stop-Time 20, 23
Cooper, William 232, 243
Scenes from Life 231–2
Scenes from Metropolitan Life 232, 233
Scenes from Provincial Life 232–3
Corso, Gregory ‘Marriage’ 14
Denby, David 104
American Sucker 63
Dexter, Pete
The Paperboy 94–5
Train 93–5,96
Dickens, Charles 6–7,16, 25,36, 37, 72–3, 96, 115, 162
Bleak House 23, 77
David Copperfield 55, 69, 73–8,79–81,88, 94, 116, 147–227
Great Expectations 77, 96
Hard Times 108
The Old Curiosity Shop 56, 74, 75
Doctorow, E. L.
The March 268, 270–1
Dornstein, Ken
The Boy Who Fell from the Sky 268, 268–70
Dostoevsky, Fyodor
Crime and Punishment 28, 56
Doyle, Roddy 127, 133–2,162
Oh, Play That Thing 133
A Star Called Henry 133
Dylan, Bob
Chronicles: Volume One 140–2,173
Edmonds, David and John Eidinow
Bobby Fischer Goes to War 88–90
Ehrhart, W. D.
Vietnam-Perkasie 58
Eliot, George 14, 15
Daniel Deronda 140
Middlemarch 56
Erdal, Jennie
Ghosting 230–1, 234–7
Ferris, Joshua
Then We Came to the End 244–5, 246–50
Flaubert, Gustave
Collected Letters 58–9
Flynn, Nick
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City 164–5,181
Fox, Paula
Desperate Characters 24
Frayn, Michael
Spies 187
Towards the End of the Morning 165
The Trick of It 211–13
Gosse, Edmund
Father and Son 119–20
Gourevitch, Philip
A Cold Case 169–72
Guralnick, Peter 23, 85
Feel Like Going Home 23
Haddon, Mark
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time 64–7
Hamilton, Ian 13–14, 29
Against Oblivion: Some Lives of the 20th-Century Poets 14, 15
Robert Lowell A Biography 116
In Search of J. D. Salinger 13
Hamilton, Patrick 64, 114
Hangover Square 67–8, 114–15, 116, 120–1, 122
The Midnight Bell 115, 120–1
Rope 121
The Siege of Pleasure 121–2
Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky 114, 121, 124–6
Harris, John
So Now Who Do We Vote For? 163–4
Harris, Robert 16, 244
as brother-in-law 12, 20, 144–5
Fatherland 144–5
Pompeii 16, 269–70
Hartley, L. P.
Eustace and Hilda 239, 240, 243
The Shrimp and the Anemone 239–41, 243
Heller, Joseph
Something Happened 14, 17
Heller, Zoë
Notes on a Scandal 24–5
Hendra, Tony
Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul 145
Hines, Barry
A Kestrel for a Knave 168
Hoagland, Tony 89
What Narcissism Means to Me 84, 89, 91–2
Hornby, Gill 186–7
Jane Austen: The Girl With the Magic Pen 186–7
Jenkins, Roy
Gladstone 169
Jones, Nigel
Through a Glass Darkly: The Life of Patrick Hamilton 115, 120–1
Joyce, James 33, 106–7
Finnegans Wake 16
Kermode, Frank
Not Entitled 95–6
Krakauer, Jon
Into the Wild 267–8, 268–9
Kurkov, Andrey 228
Death and the Penguin 228–30
Larkin, Philip 219–21, 224, 231, 233
LeBlanc, Adrian Nicole
Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble and Coming of Age in the Bronx 84–8, 116
Lehane, Dennis
Mystic River 102–5, 108, 116
Prayers for Rain 102–4, 105
Lessing, Doris 115
Lethem, Jonathan 21–2, 74
The Fortress of Solitude 20–4, 116
Levin, Bernard
The Pendulum Years 257–8
Levitt, Steve D. and Dubner, Stephen J.
Freakonomics 267, 271–2
Lewis, Jeremy
Penguin Special 188
Lewis, Michael
Liar’s Poker 60–1
Moneyball 38–9, 42, 60, 116
Lincoln, Abraham 271
Linson, Art
What Just Happened? 53
Lippman, Laura
Every Secret Thing 148–9
Lowell, Robert 13–15, 17, 29, 116
Collected Poems 13, 15
Lukacs, John
Five Days in London 223–5
MacDonald, Ian
The People’s Music 23
McEwan, Ian 162, 163
Saturday 161–3
Malcolm, Janet
Reading Chekhov: A Critical Journey 130–3
Marcus, Greil
Like a Rolling Stone 173–4
Masters, Alexander
Stuart: A Life Backwards 181
Meloy, Maile
Liars and Saints 117–18
Mitford, Nancy
Noblesse Oblige 187
Mnookin, Seth 188–9
Hard News 189
Moore, Charlotte
George and Sam: Autism in the Family 39–45, 61, 65, 116
Mosley, Walter
Little Scarlett 188
Mötley Crüe
The Dirt 239–43, 245
Neate, Patrick
Where You’re At 23
Ondaatje, Michael
Running in the Family 252–3
Orringer, Julie
How to Breathe Underwater 31–2, 116
Oz, Amos
Help Us to Divorce 153
Paterson, Don
The Book of Shadows 145–6
Pernice, Joe 52
Meat is Murder 52–3
Perrotta, Tom
Little Children 145
Platt, Edward
Leadville 32
Price, Richard 53
Clockers 53, 116
Pynchon, Thomas
Gravity’s Rainbow 140
Rees, Jasper
Wenger: The Making of a Legend 30, 33
Ricks, Christopher
Dylan’s Visions of Sin 132–3
Ridley, Matt
Genome 32–3, 33
Riley, Gillian 26, 62
How to Stop Smoking and Stay Stopped for Good 26, 62
Quitting Smoking – The Lazy Person’s Guide! 26
Robinson, Marilynne
Gilead 184–6, 213
Housekeeping 213–16
Ronson, Jon
The Men Who Stare at Goats 177, 179–80
Rosoff, Meg 117–20
How I Live Now 117–20
Roth, Philip
The Plot Against America 140, 142–5
Rothman, Rodney
Early Bird 150–1
Sacco, Joe
Safe Area Gorazde 97–8
Salinger, J. D. 15–16, 20–1, 23
Catcher in the Rye 23
Franny and Zooey 12
Nine Stories 13, 16
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters/Seymour: An Introduction 13, 16, 20, 21
Salzman, Mark 38, 68–9
True Notebooks 68–9, 116
Satrapi, Marjane
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood 256–7, 259–66, 267
Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return 256–7, 267
Al-Shaykh, Hanan
Only in London 221–2
Shone, Tom 112–13
Blockbuster 111–13
Smith, Andrew
Moondust 244, 253–5
Smith, Ed 128–9
On and Off the Field 128–9
Smith, Zadie 97
On Beauty 221
Thomas, Dylan 141
Dylan Thomas: The Collected Letters 122–3
Toews, Miriam
A Complicated Kindness 195–6
Tolkien, J. R. R. 33, 121
The Lord of the Rings 121
Tomalin, Claire 97
The Invisible Woman 96–7, 99
Townsend, Sue
Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction 177–9
Truss, Lynne 52
Eats, Shoots and Leaves 51–2
Twain, Mark 162
Tyler, Anne
The Amateur Marriage 187–8
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant 187
Tyson, Timothy B.
Blood Done Sign My Name 207–8
Updike, John
Rabbit, Run 56
Vaughan, Guerra and Chadwick Marzan Jr. Y: The Last Man Vols 1–3 98, 99
Voltaire
Candide 204–6, 212
Vonnegut, Kurt 42, 255–6
A Man Without a Country 255–6, 267
The Sirens of Titan 37, 41–2, 116, 268
Vowell, Sarah 149–51, 171
Assassination Vacation 149–50, 154–7
Take the Cannoli 143
Walter, Jess
Citizen Vince 194–5, 198–202, 216
Over Tumbled Graves 216
Ward, Amanda Eyre
How to Be Lost 172–3
Warren, Robert Penn
All the King’s Men 222–3
Wheen, Francis 59–61
How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World 59–61
Wilsey, Sean
Oh the Glory of It All 206–7
Wolff, Tobias
In Pharaoh’s Army 51
Old School 51
This Boy’s Life 23, 51, 119
Woodward, Bob
Bush at War 33
Worrall, Simon
The Poet and the Murderer 32
Yates, Richard 25, 29–30, 32, 120
Revolutionary Road 25–6, 29
Zaid, Gabriel
So Many Books 122
Zanes, Warren
Dusty in Memphis 52–3
Zuckerman, Nathan
Diary 118
1 I bought so many books this month it’s obscene, and I’m not owning up to them all: this is a selection. And to be honest, I’ve been economical with the truth for months now. I keep finding books that I bought, didn’t read and didn’t list.
2 [We do indeed pay Nick Hornby to write his monthly column, but we didn’t pay him to mention McSweeney’s 13. – Ed.]