Books to read after Finals

Okay, so my Finals finished in May 2004, but I doubt I'll ever get to the end of this list as I keep adding to it.* Here's its current state of play. Many of these items already appear on my Amazon Wishlist, if I haven't bought them already in waiting. Instead of deleting items I've read, from now on I'll cross them out and add them to my list of books I've read.

* Update (2025): A mere 21 years later I did eventually get to the end of this list! Well, apart from Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler. Mixed feelings about that one. There's a stubborn part of me that still wants to read it (I've downloaded a free ebook version), but is it socially acceptable? I could also spend my time reading a book that I might actually enjoy. The last book I finished from the list was The Child in the City by Colin Ward on 9 April 2025.

I now maintain a list of books I want to read on Goodreads.

1. Ian Halperin, Fire and Rain: The James Taylor Story (biography)
2. Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
3. Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
4. Susan Orlean, The Orchid Thief
5. A. M. Homes, This Book Will Save Your Life (American writer compared to F. Scott Fitzgerald)
6. Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon; A Moveable Feast; For Whom the Bell Tolls
7. Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children; The Moor's Last Sigh
8. Joseph Heller, Catch-22
9. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
10. Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto
11. Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea
12. Tim Woods, Beginning Postmodernism
13. John Carey, The Intellectuals and the Masses: Pride and Prejudice among the Literary Intelligentsia, 1880-1939
14. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
15. Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials trilogy:
1. Northern Lights
2. The Subtle Knife
3. The Amber Spyglass
16. Michael Moore, Stupid White Men; Dude, Where's My Country?
17. Judith Guest, Ordinary People
18. Colin Ward, The Child in the City (recommended by Roman Krznaric)
19. R. D. Laing, Conversations with Children (recommended by Roman Krznaric)
20. David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day (recommended by April DeGideo)
21. William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
22. Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism
23. Deirdre Wilson, Slave of the Passions (Theodore Zeldin's wife)
24. W. G. Sebald, Austerlitz (recommended by Roman Krznaric)
25. Breece D'J Pancake, The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake
26. Mark Rothko, Mark Rothko, 1903-1970 (Tate Gallery)
27. W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage; The Moon and Sixpence; The Razor's Edge (recommended by Alice Taylor)
28. Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor (recommended by Roman Krznaric)
29. John McMurtry, The Cancer Stage of Capitalism (recommended by Roman Krznaric)
30. John Berger, Ways of Seeing (recommended by Roman Krznaric)
31. Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius; You Shall Know Our Velocity! (recommended by Kristyn Westphal)
32. Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness (Alice read him just before All Souls and Roman Krznaric recommends him highly; Barry Smith (R4) recommends title)
33. Art Spiegelman, The Complete Maus (graphic novel about holocaust)
34. Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States (recommended by Roman Krznaric)
35. Emma Richler, Feed My Dear Dogs (recommended by Jonathon Coe in the Guardian Review: "how to write about a childhood that is almost idyllically stable and loving")
36. Joseph Mitchell, Up in the Old Hotel (recommended by Robert Crumb in the Guardian Review: "a wonderful collection of profiles from the New Yorker from 1937-64 by the great columnist Joseph Mitchell, which chronicle New York from the 1920s; it really puts you there")
37. James Shapiro, 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare (recommended by Nicholas Hytner and Tom Paulin in the Guardian Review)
38. Bernard Hare, Urban Grimshaw and the Shed Crew

Tom Cruise and the history of psychiatry

Tom Cruise gave a strange, candid interview on NBC's Today show with Matt Lauer. He starts off, rather smugly jovial, as only Cruise can be, talking about how Katie Holmes is "the real thing". Who wouldn't be flattered at forty to be fucking her? Apparently she's "open" to Scientology, the religion/spirituality that Tom is into (there's a rather spooky Hallowe'en store in London next to the Goodge Street tube station, or at least I thought it was for Hallowe'en, until I saw that it was a Scientology mission post - and I bet that's not the only thing of Katie Holmes that's "open". Not going anywhere fast after Dawson's Crack? I'd better hang around with this weirdo and hope that someone like Kubrick makes a movie about us one day). So what? He's happy and he's talking about it, instead of trying to sell his new (and probably ghastly by the look of it) film, War of the Worlds, directed by Steven Spielberg, who is not, as Cruise claims, "the greatest storyteller cinema has ever known". ::Excuse me while I speak to Huey and Ruth in my little paper bag::

Then, and the MSNBC edit doesn't show you how they get on to this, they start talking about Brooke Shields and the history of psychiatry. Much of what Cruise has to say I'd agree with: that we're too reliant on the pseudo-science born by Freud, that too many people are prescribed anti-depressents, and kids are overdosed with Ritalin because they're hyper from their TV and sugar diets. What grates like Freddie's fingers on the blackboard is the patronizing way that Tom goes about it, without any attempt to explain what he has learned about The History of Psychiatry and all the Research Papers he's read on the subject (I wonder if he's a subscriber to The Fortean Times). Maybe he should write a piece for an academic journal or speak on a show with more breathing room to explain his position, instead of just patronizing poor Matt Lauer, who, thankfully, unlike many of his other US network colleagues, isn't quite as sychophantic as the norm (but then, with Cruise sitting next to you, why would you be?).

I'm even more determined now to boycott said movie, unless, of course, someone else pays for my ticket.

How did I get on to this subject, when normally I don't really give a fuck about what shellabrities are up to? Well, I saw a clip of TC spouting off on the news (Channel 4 I think it was) and then I read this post on Odessa Street.

Sepulchres Cemetery, Jericho

Hidden away behind the Londis convenience store, Sepulchres Cemetery is overlooked by many people in Jericho - even those who, like myself, pass it every day. I didn't discover it until my friend Roman showed me one evening a few months ago. It's a great secret. At the end of the path, the noise from the traffic and the people hanging around outside Pepper's burgers dims; the green envelopes you in a spongey press of colour. The grass is overgrown in many places, especially down towards the bottom where the gravestones back on to Lucy's factory. On sunny days, sunbeams dash through the windows from the Oxford canal on the other side of the building. I think Lucy's is an old iron works that used to make library shelves and those pavement boxes that house the phone wires. Despite the broken windows, it's still in use - mainly for storage, by the looks of it. It's far from an eyesore.

Craic on with the sick jokes

Q: What's black and blue and hates sex?
A: The little boy tied up in the basement.

Don't believe what you read in the newspapers

...especially if they're quoting a government minister.

Are you thinking what we're thinking?

What's the difference between an asylum seeker and E.T.?
1) E.T. wants to go home.
2) E.T. can speak some English.
3) E.T. has his own bike.

(From the ever-dependable source: Rad Cam, men's toilet, left cubicle.)

More toilet jokes

Q: What's the hardest thing about rollerblading?
A: Telling your parents you are gay.

(Once more from the trusty repository/depository that is the Rad Cam.)

Être et avoir (2002) - ickleReview (TV)

Documentary about a rural French primary school. The kids are picked up every morning in a mini-bus to be taken to a beautiful little single classroom school on a hillside, surrounded by farmers' fields. M. Lopez is their teacher, in his penultimate year before retirement. The son of a Spanish emigrant, he teaches with real enthusiasm and skill. The only time he raises his voice during the whole film is when one of the little girls, Alize, gets lost in a barley field on a school trip and M. Lopez calls out her name to search for her.

The way he deals with the children is exemplary and inspiring. He speaks to them with calm respect and great patience, and balances brilliantly the mixed ages of his class - sensitively encouraging a mute girl, Nathalie (as well as counselling her mother); humouring the class clown, JoJo, as he colours in slowly his Christmas tree, far behind the rest of the class, or tries to wash the pen off his hands and forehead; or dealing with a fight between two of the older pupils, Julien and Olivier, both of whom are due to move on to le college (middle school) the following year.

The kids are a joy to watch: somehow less poisonously annoying on film than they would be (to me) in real life. JoJo reminds me somewhat of the little kid in Truffaut's Les Quatre cent coups who keeps spattering his pen and tearing out pages in his dictation jotter.

I am told that after this film was made and became a worldwide success, M. Lopez and the families sued for a larger cut of the profits. That should not, however, affect your enjoyment of the film. Besides, M. Lopez deserves a comfortable retirement.

Nugget: be patient with it, and you will be rewarded; as a farmer would wait upon his hay to dry and harvest, or a teacher is as he watches the slow development of his pupils.

See also In the Land of the Deaf (1992) and Every Little Thing (1997) by the same director.

Dog

This is Dog. You can read about him in my self-portrait.

Patriot games

"Patriotism," said Samuel Johnson, "is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

Today's top toilet graffiti

FUCK THE SYSTEM (above which, someone else has written "CISTERN").

(Brought to you by the central cubicle of the men's toilets in the Radcliffe Camera, Oxford University.)

Mighty Aphrodite (1995) - ickleReview (video)

Woody Allen film featuring a comical Greek chorus. Allen plays Lenny, a New York sportswriter who adopts a son with his wife (Helena Bonham Carter). The son grows up to be so smart, Lenny becomes curious to find out who his parents were. When he discovers that she was a single mum, he tracks her down: she turns out to be a porn actress and prostitute, Linda Ash (stage name Judy Cum), played by Mira Sorvino, who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Even though Linda is dumb, with the most annoying voice (think "This one time, at band camp" girl from American Pie), Lenny becomes obsessed with her and tries to sort out her life, including trying to match her up with a husband. The heavy augury of the chorus at the beginning turns out not to be fulfilled; there's more of a happy families ending.

Nugget: the jazz chorus steals the show with its absurd choreography and cameo appearances throughout the film, turning up on the main set to coach Allen's character, like Death in the Bill and Ted movies. They call upon Zeus but get his answering machine!

The patriot act

"Patriots talk of dying for their country, and never talk of killing for their country." (Bertrand Russell)

If they do talk of killing for their country, does that make them Nazis? This puts me in mind to think that Nazism stands not for National Socialism, but National Anti-Socialism.

Hang on a minute...

A good noose never lets you down.

Same difference

Is there a difference between writer's block and wanker's cramp?