This is the first in a new series of archive posts in which I look back at my reading lists to pick a few highlights from a particular time. Links lead to my original posts as appropriate.
February 2016 was notable for a trip down to London for one of literary agency PFD’s salons at the Groucho Club, celebrating the books and lives of John Creasey and Dennis Wheatley : authors who were read by everyone at their peaks, hugely influential with totally different lives and styles. It was a real pleasure to meet both author’s sons – Richard Creasey and Dominic Wheatley (right), also Charles Beck who runs the Dennis Wheatley website.
Given all the hoo-ha about the disappointingly cliched ending of the second series of The Night Manager on the BBC, this month, ten years ago, was when I first read the original novel of The Night Manager, ahead of its adaptation appearing a few weeks later on the telly.
I recently read that Le Carré had refused to let the BBC make a sequel, hence the ten year gap between series 1 and 2, his sons giving the go-ahead after his death, and being exec producers on the show. I don’t know about you, but while I was glued to it, I found the ending profoundly cliched and disappointing, but won’t spoil things for anyone who hasn’t watched it.
What I said then: The Night Manager felt painfully real and utterly serious, its pages make it very clear that going undercover requires skill, judgement and the guts to take the strain knowing the consequences should it go wrong. One of Le Carré’s finest novels.
I reviewed four books for Shiny that month, the highlight being Pierre Lemaitre’s The Great Swindle, translated by Frank Wynne. This is the first book in what is now a trilogy, although I seem to remember he originally planned for the series to be longer.
The Great Swindle is the story of Albert and Édouard, set towards the end of the Great War. Having been sent over the top, Albert had been left for dead by their officer Pradelle, but was rescued by Édouard, who had been terribly facially injured. The war over with Édouard in Albert’s care, they make for Paris, Édouard having assumed a dead man’s identity. But it’s a hard and penniless life until Édouard who needs increasing amounts of morphine to survive, comes up with a plan to make mountains of money.
What I said then: The scale of this novel is truly epic, yet throughout, Lemaitre drills down to the individual stories of all the main characters, making it epic on a human scale. With The Great Swindle Lemaitre has proved that he can write convincing historical drama just as well as his contemporary work. This novel is just as gripping as his others, more so in a way, in its meticulous historical detail.
And finally in this retrospective, a book that captivated our book group when we read it. Published in 2015, Russell was a journalist for a glossy mag, when her husband was offered a year’s contract at Lego HQ in Billund on Jutland. Opting to freelance, they went arriving in the depths of winter in what feels like a ghost town. everyone is getting hygge and not going out. Russell uses her journalistic skills to great advantage to get underneath the skin of the Danes.
Finland may have overtaken Denmark as the world’s ‘happiest’ country since 2018, but this book is still a fascinating portrait of a nation.
What I said then: As well as her serious look about how Denmark works as a country, between the covers of this book are many lovely and fun moments – from the joy of eating real Danish pastries to dancing cows, Lego (of course) to Danish design, and not forgetting adult night at the local swimming baths! As for what happens at the end of their year, I can’t tell. This book is a lovely blend of memoir and reportage told with wit and I can thoroughly recommend it.
Can you remember what you were reading 10 years ago?
God is it ten years since those books a me out time flies