The Books Edition

Here are some book recommendations from what I’ve been reading, including three from the Booker Longlist:

My Friends - Hisham Matar

In My Friends, a Libyan expat in London struggles with his loyalties to friends, family, homeland and his own ambitions. Khaled is raised in Libya under Gaddafi before going to Edinburgh University. While a student, he joins a friend, Mustafa, at a protest outside the Libyan Embassy in London - the protest changes his life forever.

The Safe Keep - Yael Van Der Wouden

The Safe Keep is a haunting meditation on trust and betrayal, where the lines between keeping secrets and setting them free blur dangerously. With an almost poetic intensity, an unlikely romance blooms in this tricky yet remarkably taut and selective prose. A great debut.

Spare - Prince Harry

Be honest - how many of us have actually read Spare? I listened to it earlier this month and hoovered it up in just over four days. Whether you can’t stand the royals or your kitchen is adorned in Union Jack bunting, Harry writes (or is ghost written) with unflinching honesty. The end product is a deeply human and sad story about family and the intrusion of the media that I was completely engrossed in - even if at times I wanted to grab him by his frostbitten todger behind his bespoke cock cushion and tell him he doesn’t actually have it that bad…

Ravenous - Henry Dimbleby with Jemima Lewis

Ravenous dissects the hungers that drive us and why we are increasingly becoming unhealthier than previous generations. A great book about food systems and how supermarket cultures leads to unhealthier diets.

Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary is as much a symphony of discontent as it is a portrait of its restless heroine. Emma Bovary’s longings—aching, extravagant and doomed—are the epitome of restless ambitions. Stunning read.

Balancing Acts: Behind the Scenes at London’s National Theatre - Nicholas Hytner

Balancing Acts offers an intoxicating glimpse into Nick Hytner’s time at the National Theatre where artistry and ambition clash and harmonize in equal measure. Balancing Acts is both history and illumination. Hytner describes with diffident charm the NT’s many triumphs under his directorship — One Man, Two Guvnors, His Dark Materials, The History Boys, The Habit of Art, Stuff Happens, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, War Horse, Coram Boy, Frankenstein. Hytner captures the sheer magic of creation—the moments of brilliance, the backstage chaos and the fragile triumph of pulling it all together.

James - Percival Everett

Everett’s gleeful reboot of Mark Twain puts the enslaved Jim centre stage in a horrifying, painful and funny novel. Should have won the Booker (sorry Orbital).

What in Me Is Dark: The Revolutionary Life of Paradise Lost - Orlando Reade

Orlando Reade’s fascinating study of John Milton’s famous work, through the eyes of myriad readers from Malcolm X to white supremacists, shows how it has provoked the widest range of responses and interpretations. What in Me Is Dark unravels the revolutionary fervour and boundless ambition behind one of literature’s greatest works. And shows just how relevant the poem remains today. Isn’t that right Stan?