Books

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 06:31:36 GMT

Nearly forgot to mention my current reading list.

Just finished reading the following, each of which come very highly recommended:

Great Expectations - Charles Dickens: Dickens isn't everyones cup of tea, but for me he is the master. As with all of his novels his depiction of Victorian life is deeply moving and his characters powerfully endearing. Great Expectations is one of his best. Pip, Magwitch, Miss Haversham, Mrs Wopsle, Herbert, Estella, Joe & Biddy - each and every one, a wonderful character. You must read this book; if only for the opening graveyard scene, the bursting into flames of Miss Haversham and the grand finale: the magnificent boat chase down the Thames.

The Road to Wigan Pier - George Orwell: One of the most important texts of the twentieth century written by arguably, the most important author of the twentieth century. A searing account of Orwell's experience of working-class life in the bleak industrial heartlands of Yorkshire and Lancashire; the hunger, squalor, social injustice and slum housing. An absolute must read.

Part 2 offers the reader a fascinating insight into Orwell's musings on socialism.

Quotes:

"When I was fourteen or fifteen I was an odious little snob, but no worse than other boys of my own age and class. I suppose there is no place in the world where snobbery is quite so ever-present or where it is cultivated in such refined and subtle forms as in an English public school" (Ch. IX)

"In addition there is the horrible - the really disqueting - prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together. One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words 'Socialism' and 'Communism' draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist and feminist in England" (Ch. XI)

" Sandal wearers and bearded fruit-juice drinkers who come flocking towards the smell of 'progress' like bluebottles to a dead cat" (Ch. XI)

"The only thing for which we can combine is the underlying ideal of Socialism; justice and liberty. But it is hardly strong enough to call this ideal 'underlying'. It is almost completely forgotten. It has been buried beneath layer after layer of doctrinaire priggishness, party squabbles and half baked 'progressivism' until it is like a diamond hidden under a mountain of dung. The job of the Socialist is to get it out again. Justice and liberty! Those are the words that have got to ring like a bugle across the world. We have reached a stage when the very word 'Socialism' calls up:...a picture of vegetarians with wilting beards, of Bolshevik commissars, of earnest ladies in sandals, shock-headed Marxists chewing polysyllables, escaped Quakers, birth-control fanatics and Labour Party backstairs-crawlers" (Ch. XII)

Bloody Foreigners - Robert Winder: A highly-readable and engaging chronological account of migration to Britain. The perfect antedote to the Daily Mail and the answer to every BNP falsehood. This book should be compulsory reading for every school child.

The Damned Utd - Robert Peace: A masterful, semi-fictional account of Old Big 'Ead's 44 days at the helm of 'dirty dirty dirty Leeds United'. Brian Clough: the greatest England manager we never had. We miss you, RIP.

Black Country Boy: Books

Books