A few days ago I was delighted to receive a communication from Lord Bonkers, formerly the Liberal MP for Rutland South-West between 1906 and 1910 and the only survivor of the 1906 General Election landslide that sent the Liberals storming back into power. His request was quite specific – he asked me to write about two of the books I’ll be (re)reading this summer. So far, with help from his alter-ego Jonathan Calder, three of his excellent summer reading round-ups have been published: here, here and my two choices are included here.
Anyway, this is what I wrote back in response to the noble Lord.
Nick Hornby’s protagonist in “High Fidelity” is asked by a reporter to name his five favourite records of all time and then spends days agonising about his choices. As I appear to have many of the same personality quirks, I’ve found it just as difficult to pick out just two books from my summer reading list. I’ve also been worrying that the ones I’ve chosen might somehow be the wrong ones!Anyway, neatly straddling my interest in politics and psychology is Steve Reicher and Cliff Stott’s e-book “Mad Mobs and Englishmen?” This examines the 2011 riots and questions many of instant explanations provided by politicians of all parties at the time. Reicher and Stott argue that the only way to prevent future riots is to go beyond the easy consensus of the cause being feral youth out of control. It’s a challenging read and has, unusually for an academic work of this type, been dramatised by the Worklight Theatre Company.My second choice is J.G. Farrell’s “A Girl in the Head“. The action unfolds around a rather dismal English seaside town over an August Bank Holiday weekend, which sees anti-hero Boris Slattery wondering whether his life has just been “a meaningless detail rapidly receding into a mass of other meaningless details”. It’s a funny, touching and ultimately tragic novel which shows glimpses of the genius Farrell was becoming prior to writing his Booker Prize winning novel “The Siege of Krishnapur”.
Notice how I managed to get an additional two books name-checked in my choices as well as an up and coming theatre company? I hope that Lord Bonkers wasn’t too upset about me bending the rules and will ask me to contribute again at some point in the future!