Books that have Changed my Life Part I

Carrying on my books theme I have decided to conjure up a list of books that I believe have influenced my life.  This is an assortment of fiction and non-fiction works.  The serious to the fun.  And the straight laced to the crazy.  Take a gander.

'The Catcher in The Rye' by J D Salinger: I read this book after a bit of friendly coercion from my dearest girlfriend Ms. Fry.  This book was made infamous when it was discovered on the person of the man who shot John Lennon.  The American media then dully and unjustly made this book an infamous one.  On the contrary this is a brilliant book.  Told in third person prose the book tells a short tale of angst-full teenager Holden Caufield.  His frustrations, dreams and misadventures are laid out, written in 1950's pros (eg. people being dismissed as phoney).  This is a very fun and surprisingly addictive book.  The book is basically a short teenager's misadventure.  There is no massive ending to it, and the misadventure itself doesn't really have a point to it.  But it's the journey that is the attraction.  Not the destination.

'Dreadnought' by Robert K Massey: This is a massive book in many senses.  Accompanying its large physical size of over 900 pages, the scope of the book is massive.  This book describes the various sequence of events that lead to Britain and Germany ultimately going to War in 1914.  The book looks from the two main angles of the political side and the rivalry in the two navies.  Germany is described as an up and coming empire, with a domineering land army, but an at first tiny navy.  Then along came Admiral Von Tirpitz who inspired Germany to not only expand the navy but challenge the world's ultimate naval power, Britain.  Such a book written by anyone else I am sure would not nearly be as readable.  But Massey brings the stirring events and moving characters to life in a way I have not read in any other history book.  There are multiple biographies in this one book.  From Churchill, to the German diplomat in America who jumped out of a window for a bet.  Spinning a true tale of many years Massey shows how war between us and Germany became inevitable, and how decisions made long before dictated how the upcoming naval battles would play out.  This book had me gripped from its first few pages.
'For Whom the Bell Tolls' by Ernest Hemingway: Carrying on my history nerd obsession about the Spanish Civil War I decided to take the time to look into this book.  I'll say now that this book while is a slow burner, rewards the patient reader.  Very little action happens till towards the end.  But the suspense is built up to a convincing and gripping pitch. And seemingly uninteresting characters are slowly given more depth through snippets and flashbacks of their past which reveal more than a few dark pasts.  In a nutshell the story is about an American volunteer for the Republican side called Robert Jordan, who joins a guerrila band to blow up a nearby bridge.  The love story is a bit old fashioned but the backstories and the tension built up with the enemy closing in keeps you reading.  Your patience is rewarded at the end with one of the best cliff hangers I have ever read.

'The 60s Unplugged' by Gerard DeGroot: I got this book for Christmas after requesting it long ago.  I am not sure what made me ask for it or where I actually heard about it.  It was one of those impulse things.  But I am very pleased I did as for it.  This book is a Stealth Bomber.  It looks unassuming and you think you know what it is going to cover before you've read it. Then you start reading it.  Some of the usual events you associate with the sixties are there.  Woodstock, The Beatles, Hendrix etc.  These chapters which could easily have been a monotonous history are told with an unflinchingly frank narrative that exposes the ugly as well as the beautiful aspects of the times, and often with an ironic sense of humour.  Woodstock is revealed as an event that nearly didn;t happen, and ended with peace loving hippies being saved by medicals supplies flown in by US Army helicopters similar to those in Vietnam at the time.  The Beatles success is recalled, with a keen eye on the darker sides of the band members ambitions.  The mass production of transistor radios introduced a young generation to new music, that not played by the stuffy official stations.  In less well known events the Stonewall Inn Riots kick off in New York in one of the most important events in Gay rights history in the US.  The Sharpeville riot in South Africa intensifies the struggle against apartheid for the ANC, leading them to develop an armed wing in defiance of government oppression.  This is the real story of the sixties, in all of its wonderful, bloody and chaotic charm.

'The Revenge of Gaia' by James Lovelock: It was during my revision for my degree about environmentalist movements that I came across the name James Lovelock.  I studied his theory of Gaia: the concept of planet Earth as a single living and breathing organism.  Far fetched yes, but through this framework James Lovelock reveals some home truths about our world that everyone should hear.  Lovelock is remarkably and refreshingly frank: mankind has excacerbated global warming and poses a massive threat to biodiversity the world over.  And it is probably too late to patch things up.  What we are dealing with now is damage control.  What surprised me, and immediately made me take this book seriously was that he didn't just take aim at easy targets ie Climate change deniers.  Like an old man who has had enough he bluntly lists the ways in which the environmentalist movement is shooting itself in the foot, namely by mindlessly promoting organic food production (presuming wrongly that it does not cause environmental damage).  He clearly and loudly calls for the expansion of nuclear power as a way to produce low carbon producing, consistent and above all SAFE (statistically) power.  This is the ultimate anti-beard and sandals brigade book, consequently it is my environmentalist Bible.

'Jurassic Park' by Michael Crichton: Once you have read this, you will be reluctant to go back to the film.  This quite simply blows it out of the water.  This is how to write a thriller.  The plot is fast moving, but gripping.  This book has the action of the film mixed with intriguing philosophical debates, such as the issue of playing God and the intricacies of Chaos Theory.  This book is brainy and fun at the same time.  The characters as well are for the most part convincing, aside from the annoying screamy kids.

'Wiseguys' by Nicolas Pileggi: This is the book that eventually became the film 'Goodfellas'.  I admit I have a weakness for gangster flicks. But as a book in itself, it is a fascinating read.  The protagonist of the true story is the recently late Henry Hill.  As he describes it as a young man growing up with few prospects in Queens, he had few job prospects.  Eventually he gets attracted to the prospect of joining the neighbourhood mafia crew which is a part of New York's Lucchesse family.  This to Henry opens up a world of infinite possibility.  A word without consequences and lots of rewards.  Not a full Italian (he is half Irish on his father's side), he can only go so far in the ranks, and is barred from being 'made'.  Nevertheless his criminal exploits still escalate over the years to pull in some big returns.  Not in the least the famous Lufthansa heist at JFK airport.  Eventually Henry is forced to confront the rather large ugly side of the mafia, and eventually ends up on the wrong side of his former bosses and friends.  Left with no choice he turns witness and goes into hidding.  I am not quite sure what attracts me to this book.  Maybe it is the inner anarchist in me that likes it's sticking it to the man undercurrent.  We all need guilty pleasures when it comes to reading, this one's mine.


'Fear and Loathing Las Vegas' by Hunter S Thompson: I would not be suprised if this book would appear under the dictionary definition of 'chaos'.  The so called 'outlaw journalist' wrote this when he was sent on an assignment to report on an obscure motorcycle race.  He sent his bosses this, they were dumbfounded.  Straight away it throws you into the action.  Raol Duke (Hunter) and Dr Gonzo (his lawyer friend Acosta) are speeding towards Las Vegas out of their mind on drugs, with Hunter driving and seeing huge bats swooping in his face.  What follows that is a quick (the book is only a few hundred pages long with frequent breaks) dash of drug frenzied men behaving badly. It doesn't make sense.  There isn't really a plot as such, but I guarantee you won't read another book like it.

Stay tuned for part 2.

Why I am protesting the Jubilee

Where to begin?  To start I would challenge your idea Brendon, that the privileged and the wealthy should predominantly have the keys to power.  We all have a stake in this country, rich, poor, wealthy, educated and not.  And many of those who fit that description pay tax.  Therefore they have already have a stake in the country and should by rights have a voice within the government.  There have been some remarkably effective ministers who could be classed as uneducated or undereducated.  A great example is Ernest Bevin.  After little formal schooling he began his working life as a dockworker, in Bristol no less, often earning less than a fiver a day.  And yet he rose up to become the Minister of Labour in WWII and then one of the best Foreign Secretaries (my dream job) in our history.  With his lack of education he still managed to help form NATO and navigate political minefields like the formation of Israel.

 Democracy is there to solve the problem of contemporary society.  If the representatives only a few small sections of that society it will be inadequate to do its job.  I would be quite happy to see more former tradespersons etc in the House.  If people don’t want them there, they simply won’t get voted in.  Avoiding that uneducated mass takeover you mentioned.  Simply put both the educated and the uneducated have something to offer.

 You bring up an often used argument used by monarchist supporters.  That of if a Presidency comes in, then won’t the same hangovers from British politics transfer to the Presidency.  To a certain extent this argument I acknowledge has merit, except for one glaring issue.  Doesn’t that say more about what is wrong about this country’s attitude to politics than anything else?  As soon as we talk about opening up politics we talk about how it will go wrong if we do?  We are simply a nation terminally negative about politics, and I think that is a damn shame.  In my view the monarchy acts as a convenient safety valve to public discontent.  But once the valve does its work, the impulse to action, to actually do something about our system’s ills goes.  And so we have greedy and corrupt politicians on the other and seemingly lofty monarchs on the other.  This country needs a radical shift in its attitude to politics.  We may laugh at the Americans and their Tea Partiers.  But you know what?  I admire their pluck.  I disagree with just about everything they believe in, except their idea of their duty to speak out against the wrongs (or perceived wrongs of their system).  We whinge too much and have not enough follow through.  The local election turnout bares testimony to our unhealthy attitude to politics.

The monarchy quite simply represent an ideal.  An ideal which I would argue when you scratch the surface, is not all that pretty, and in many ways is very ugly.  And this is coming from someone who actually reads history.  I couldn’t give a damn if anyone was born with a silver spoon in their mouth.  I was born in a well off family myself, not rich, but not worrying about money.  But then my parents didn’t start there and had to work hard to get there.  The issue I have with the monarchs is that they are born into privilege and status, by a specific structure in our society which I feel is outdated, wrong and an affront to democracy.  Take it or leave it.  That is what I believe.  You many call Cameron incompetent or what have you, but the Queen is an officeholder too and she and the institution she represents deserves scrutiny as much as any other.  They are not scrutinised enough in my view, and have on more than one occasion been evasive on the issue of greater transparency in the monarchy.  It is culturally acceptable to criticise and even demonise politicians, yet even doing the former with the Queen is considered worse than wrong.  I think this is a great affront to a free society.

As for political short term thinking, yes this is a problem.  But the monarchy hardly solves it.  Issue such as national debt and humans destroying their own planet can only be tackled by a change in political culture.  This has to come from the bottom up, simply we need to demand change more.  The monarchy is inadequate to bring that change about, in my view.

Pip, to answer your question I will tell you a little story.  My lecturer at uni told me about a conversation he had with a friend.  The friend asked him if he thought that the lecturer had a chance of stopping the Iraq War if he joined the March 2003 protests.  The lecturer said no, he knew the war would happen, but he went anyway.  Asked why he went he said that he went to the protest, to let the government know that although the war would go ahead, he did not agree with it and would use his democratic rights to express it.

It is similar with myself and this cause.  I would consider myself very lucky if the monarchy was abolished in my lifetime.  The way I see it my job as the Co-Ordinator for Republic in Bristol is to raise of the campaign as much as I can, and thereby expand the movement.  I am not going to settle for a majority opinion simply because they are the majority.  I believe differently, and in our free society (other than one object) I will express those views as I see fit.  All movements start small, and the debate itself at the moment I feel is distorted by misconceptions about what we are and what the monarchy is.  If I can help make debate more favourable to us before I reach a ripe old age, then I will be satisfied.  For other issues, I am a member of a political party and as such will never be a one issue pony.

And yes I realise that abolishing the monarchy won’t cure British political culture.  But it is a start.  And a post about what would cure British political culture would dwarf even this post.  I don’t hate monarchist supporters except those that accuse me of being unpatriotic.  I do this out of patriotism, because I believe my cause will improve the country for all.  Those who disagree with me but respect my views, I of course wish them well and respect theirs.