In his own words
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One of Ours
Review: Obviously I’m biased, being a Willa Cather devotee. But I believe that objectively this is a really good novel. Also it’s set in and around the Great War so again I’m almost bound to like it. This is the story of Claude Wheeler, from small town American whose life and the lives of all…
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The First World War
Review: What new things could a student of the Great War like Neilos possible learn? Oh… so much. It is true that for years I have read and listened to all sorts of material on this conflict. And it is still as clear as trench-mud. There was so much even leading up to August 1914…
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Thames Mudlarking
Review: What a neat little volume, about a neat little hobby. Mudlarking is essentially beachcombing, but on the Thames River. The things that people discover at low tide are always unique. Thousands of coins, tube tokens and clay pipes. But also an authentic Victoria Cross medal and fossils of Neanderthal humans. Plenty of pictures and…
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Casino Royale
Review: My first James Bond novel, and fittingly the first James Bond novel written by Ian Fleming. This was surprisingly good, and surprisingly thoughtful and introspective. Written in 1953, the effects of the war were still very real and the novel reflects this. This protagonist is not the superhuman gadget wielding hero of the schlocky…
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The Gulag Archipelago Volume 1
Review: Dark. Holy fuck. And this was only Volume 1. A chilling first-hand account of life in the soviet prison industry system. Man’s inhumanity to man, repeated ad nauseum. Like a very long version of the author’s own One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch. A lucid reminder to keep people like Trump out…
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The Pegnitz Junction
Review: Wow. That was awful. Not just a little bad, but so tiresome I could barely get through it. In fact I made it 73 pages, skimmed the next few, then flipped to the last page (89) and found that nothing had happened. There were more stories and about 100 more pages to go in…
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My Ántonia
Review: One of the last “best known” books by Cather. So now I can say I have read all of her most recognized books. Beautifully written, like all her novels. Now where is the however pivot? However. <– there it is! Nothing happens throughout the novel. I mean, people live and grow old and have…
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The Elected Member
Review: This one took home the Booker Prize in 1970. Not sure why. Not going to say a lot about it, lots has been written on it over the years. I just didn’t like it. One can’t love every book, even the prize winners. This book made me want to: finish it and move forward…
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The Ghost Road
Review: What an extraordinary book. A tour de force from first to last. Set in 1918 and with retrospectives to an earlier time prior to the war. A gritty, even shockingly brutal look at life in 1918. Imagine all the old codgers you see at the cenotaph on November 11 being young and fucking each…
