Lago Maggiore beckons. My holiday reading is all loaded onto my Kindle (see below), but here are some of the things I've read over the past few months that might interest you.
The Big Short by Michael Lewis. When this book first appeared, it was hailed as witty and wise, which it is, but also as a sort of layman's guide to what really triggered the financial crisis. As a former financial industry professional I can't entirely judge that, but it seems to me that most "lay" readers will find some of the technical explanations quite hard going, despite Lewis's fluent prose style.
Lewis chooses to tell the story by focusing on three or four eccentrically geeky investors, all of whom made big money by shorting asset-backed bonds. This adds to the amusement, but tends to create the misleading impression that it was only misfits and outsiders that foresaw saw the crisis. Most bankers knew it would end in tears, but as the chairman of Citi said, "as long as the music's playing, you gotta keep dancing". Still, Lewis's book is a lot more fun, and a lot less self serving, than anything by Alan Greenspan.
The Rational Optimist, by Matt Ridley. Ridley argues that mankind has always feared for the future, yet for the most part, things have got steadily better. Therefore, he believes, current gloom about the environment or climate change or peak oil or whatever else is bothering you is also likely to be overblown. According to Ridley, what separates man from the beasts, and successful societies from unsuccessful ones, is the free market. His enthusiasm for markets at times makes Ayn Rand look like Chairman Mao. Even so, once you've read this, you may never feel quite the same about renewable energy or organic food again.
Not interested in business? Well, how about Contested Will, by James Shapiro. Shapiro gently but firmly puts down the many people, past and present, who have questioned whether William Shakespeare actually wrote the plays attributed to him. Also recommended by the same author, 1599 , a fascinating account of a particularly pivotal year in the Bard's career.
I notice that London: the Biography by Peter Ackroyd has been re-issued. It isn't really a biography, because it's thematic rather than strictly chronological; and it's not systematic enough to be an encyclopedia, though it contains all the information about London you are ever likely to want. Aykroyd's prose can veer towards the purple, and he has a habit of looking a bit too deep for themes -- the phrase "it is as if" seems to crop up on almost every page. (Sample: "It is almost as if it were itself a spectral city, so filled with intimations of its past that it haunts its own inhabitants".) But there's no other book about London that compares to it. Word up though: at 800 pages it could trigger excess baggage charges, especially if you have the ill-fortune to be travelling with Ryanair.
As for that Kindle of mine, it's loaded up with the latest from Dominic Sandbrook, State of Emergency, about the UK in the early 1970s, as well as Union Atlantic, by Adam Haslett, a novel about, er, banking. I'm also taking full advantage of all the free fiction available online. Oddball freebie recommendation: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by Lawrence Sterne -- just about the only place aside from "Hamlet" where you'll encounter the obsolete word "fardel", meaning burden.
Back soon!
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