Books 2009

[chickenfeet2003]

Here's my best and worst of 2009.

Best fiction:

John LeCarrė A Most Wanted ManThis is a really tightly plotted and paced thriller about the "War on Terror". Nothing good happens. Broken people are further mangled by the system. The ending is inevitable and appalling. LeCarré takes the lid off what is being perpetrated in our name by our

Comments

[himmapaan]

Just my tuppenceworth about 19th century Punch cartoons: funny or no, I have a mild fondness for them if only because some of the artists I admire have created some of them, and they play a considerable part in historical editorial illustration. :)

[chickenfeet2003]

I can get a laugh out of some of the cartoons. DuMaurier wasn't bad at all but the basic aesthetic of Punch in that era gives me hives.

[himmapaan]

Haha!

I like this one, for instance ('New Crowns for Old'):
http://images.bridgeman.co.uk/cgi-bin/bridgemanImage.cgi/600.PNP.7947130.7055475/314318.JPG

Both because it's Tenniel and because I actually do like the humour here.

[chickenfeet2003]

OK I'll concede that one

[shezan]

If you're interested in Prussia, I cannot recommend enough Benoist-Méchin's Histoire de l'Armée Allemande, which is both a superbly-written history of Prussia and a fascinating glimpse on the mind of one of France's Nazi intellectuals.

(No, seriously. Amazing writer, pity about the politics.)