Reading in order to live

Andrew Graham-Dixon is a well-known face for viewers of a certain kind of television programme, nearly always broadcast on the BBC, at least here in the UK. He is a very good presenter of programmes about pictorial art and the history of art and this book reflects his expertise and his ability to present a good story. I wanted to read about Caravaggio after seeing his The Calling of St Matthew…

He is a very tricksy writer, is Nabokov, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. Always playing with words, somersaulting and performing with linguistic skills. This occasionally gets a little wearing, when it begins to feel as if he is teasing the reader. I confess much of the linguistic virtuosity went over my head. He seems to have invented a language for the grim little dictatorship in…

There is a growing genre of what some might call ‘misery fiction set in Scotland’. This would be unfair, as most such nicknames are, but books like Shuggie Bain (brilliant), The Stornaway Way (also excellent) and, of course, Trainspotting and Irvine Welsh’s other stories, share an understanding of Scotland from the perspective of people who are largely poor, frustrated and living in awful places.…

I very fine short novel, about the experiences of being an astronaut in the space station, which I hear in the news is coming to the end of its useful life, and going round and round the earth, several times in what, on earth is a day. It is meditative and its great success is conveying some sense of the grandeur of the earth as seen from space. There is also a subtle and quite moving interplay…

I have read many of Roth’s novels and he is a brilliant talent. This one was a little too tricksy for me, with lots of overlapping voices and the invocation of figures who represent the author, or his alter ego of some kind. Clever but, sort of, too clever.

I love his style. Laconic and always hinting at other dimensions of existence. This is probably not his best, but is still a good read.

The third of the 4-book series. Dramatic and incredibly engrossing, with lots of themes.

A very personal memoir. But beautifully written and a superb account of how an artist thinks.

An intense, harrowing book but also one of haunting beauty. He is a fine writer and I would like to read more of his work.

A collection of Carver’s essays, poetry and short stories. He is one of my favourite writers. He has a sort of exquisite sensibility, that allows him to penetrate to the very heart of feelings and sensations. The final two short stories, ‘Where is everyone?’ and ‘So much water so close to home’, are among his very best. The former is about alcohol and alcoholics, who figure in many of his…

I have not read all of these but have noted how they are quite variable. Some, like ‘The Sensible Thing’, hit the spot in that they strike a particular chord in the soul – perhaps what V S Pritchett means when he says a short story should be like something glimpsed in the corner of the eye – and give the sensation of something true clicking into place. Others don’t. And some, dare I say, seem…

A collection of her short stories. She was a very subtle and clever writer, I think. The title story was adapted for cinema and became the famous film, directed by Nic Roeg and starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. I was slightly surprised to discover how faithful the film was to the story. Other stories are also unsettling and atmospheric. Very good.

A book by a professional academic philosopher which addresses the question of why the discipline of philosophy has become so esoteric and distant from human affairs. Highly intelligent people, as he sees it, look for ever-narrower ways of considering intensely theoretical and detailed arguments over questions that matter only to them. I largely agree with him.

This is a collection of the author’s book reviews. When I first opened it, I was disappointed to discover that was the case, and I left it to one side for a year or so. But I now find that it is a delightful book, and that the review format, at least in the hands of this elegant and incisive writer, is a very good format for surveying a topic like the current state of the classics (in the sense…

A stylish and entertaining book that combines memoir, biography and philosophy to tell the story of the existentialist philosophical movement. Full of humour and insights. Really excellent.

A beautiful novella. Just wonderful.

A sequel to another wonderful novel, Days without End. I marvel, again, at the skill and determination needed to maintain a narrative voice so well. Also a really interesting take on sexual mores in post-Civil War US. A moving book.