My review of 2015

There has been a slight but perceptible change during this, my 75th, year from what has gone on before.  I have become conscious of getting on and slowing down, not so much physically but rather in my activities, having become more discerning and discriminating in what I do and not be bothered about things that I can`t.  Still I feel I will be good for a few more years, though clearly with diminishing returns and without wanting to tempt fate!  Well, we shall see how things shape up, but for now let me start with the list of books that I read during 2015: 

Books

1) `The Expats` by Chris Pavone – ISBN 978-0-27917-3 – © CP 2012 - a Faber p/b – 485 pp – an enjoyable thriller on the eponymous theme of expatriate life in Europe`s high finance/IT circles with a large dose of mystery - a good holiday read on our South America cruise during January into February.

2) `The Last Dance and Other Stories` by Victoria Hislop – ISBN 978 0 7553 9710 5 (A format) - © VH 2012 – 160 pp – again an enjoyable, rather slim, collection of short stories, all based in Greece, some of which, according to the author, “touch on the current economic crisis” there, as of 2012, but of course spot on at the time of reading this, my third book on the cruise!  Actually we had a glimpse of Greece`s plight as it was unfolding during our Mediterranean cruise in late 2011 and then later this year (see no. 14 below) as it came full circle!  

3) `Long Walk To Freedom : The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela` - ISBN 0 316 90965 3 – © NM 1994 – 617 pp + Index –I had long ear-marked this massive book to take on such a cruise and so it proved to be a hugely satisfying read –I got thoroughly absorbed into its fold over the 12/13 days I took to read it at roughly  50 pages a day – even dreamt about it sometimes as the narrative gripped the imagination and reverberated in my mind – marvelled that it took some 20 years to get down to reading it, and even though most of the history of his life was by now familiar - reading the detail, delving into the background and soaking up the atmosphere made it all vivid and personal – I had packed the big volume into my suitcase with high hopes and these were realised.

4) `Free Radical: A Memoir` by Vince Cable – ISBN 978 1 84887 047 5 – © V C 2009 – Atlantic Books p/b – 358 pp incl index – an absolutely superb and highly readable autobiography – frank, informative, discursive – disarmingly honest about his personal background, political career and philosophical outlook – could relate to a great deal, especially his marriage to Olympia and his entry into her extended family, and the broader cultural and third world dynamics - perhaps I should mention that my wife and I had attended their wedding in Nairobi , circa 1967 (at a time when Olympia and my wife were fellow teachers at the Kenya High School), an event described with some candour - the book ends just before the 2010 general election and rise to office as a member of the coaltion cabinet.

5) `My History: A Memoir of Growing Up` by Antonia Fraser – ISBN 978 0 2978 7190 3 (h/b) - @ A F 2015 – Weidenfeld & Nicolson – 304 pp – a journey of remembrances of her privileged background and upbringing – style & sophistication in abundance, but no arrogance - astonishing factual detail: episodes, encounters and friendships involving a whole panoply of top people in the British establishment – familiar names in the country`s history straddling WWII, at the beginning of which she was only 7 years of age – though the period covered by the narrative ends at a time when she was still married to Sir Huge Fraser, there are forward glimpses into what was to follow.

6) `The House that Stood Still` by Shailla Matlock-Karimbux – ISBN 1482397935/13:9781482397932 – © S M-K 2013 – (self-published) – saga of the pioneer Karimbux family of Nakuru, Kenya – an endearing portrait of their origins, rise and decline, beginning with migration from British India to British East Africa in 1895 – separately reviewed in AwaaZ  (Vol 12, Issue 2, 2015) as `The Karimbux Saga`, accessible via www.awaazmagazine.com     

7) `Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India` by William Dalrymple  - ISBN 978 1 4088 0061 4 – © W D 2009 –  Bloomsbury h/b – 284 pp (incl index) – richly researched profiles of 9 individuals who have dedicated themselves to their different sacred vocations – the Jain nun; the Dalit dancer; the prostitute `in the direct line of one of the oldest professions in India`: the devadasis; the singer of epics; the Sufi red fairy; the monk; the maker of idols; the tantric lady and the blind minstrel – all vividly portrayed, in minute detail – a truly spiritual journey of discovery through the lives of such varied characters

8) `Vera Brittain and the First World War: The Story of Testament of Youth` by Mark Bostridge – ISBN 978-1-4081-8844-6 – © M B 2014 – Bloomsbury h/b – 252 pp – a loving portrait of VB complete with a huge amount of documented material about her life and relationships with her brother and his friends who went to the Great War only to perish, barely having reached their `20s, leaving their mark on history.  

9) `Open City` by Teju Cole – ISBN 978-0-571-27942-5 – faber&f p/b – © TC 2011 – 259 pp – a beautifully constructed literary novel – self-consciously subjective journey of discovery of and interaction with the eponymous city of New York in both a literal and a metaphorical sense of the narrator, a very 21^st century young man of mixed Nigerian and German parentage who migrates to the USA as a university student and then makes his life there in the sophisticated metropolitan milieu of the literati and lovers of art, music and theatre. 

10) ` I saw a Man` by Owen Sheers – ISBN 978-0-571-31772-1 – faber&f  h/b – © OS 2015 – 310 pp – a literary thriller exploring issues of moral guilt and complicity in the personal lives of the principal characters in the wider context of contemporary global politics.

11) `Hunters in the Dark` by Lawrence Osborne – ISBN9781781090336 – Hogarth h/b – © LO 2015 – 339 pp – set in Cambodia – a rather unconvincing tale of westerners, good and bad, caught up in the fallout from the dehumanising horrors of the Pol Pot regime. 

12) `The Quality of Silence` by Rosamund Lupton – ISBN 978-0-349-40812-5 (H/B) – Little Brown – © RL 2015 – 340 pp – set in Alaska – an absolutely gripping thriller with a moral message about the fracking oil phenomenon – the amount of technical detail both in terms of the complex geo-physical landscape and the environmental factors is staggering!  Lupton`s first novel `Sister` was on my list for 2011.

13) `Jomo`s Jailor: Grand Warrior of Kenya: The Life of Leslie Whitehouse` by Elizabeth Watkins (Foreword by Elspeth Huxley) – ISBN ? – a Mulberry Books p/b published in Calais – © EW 1993 – 266pp – a sketchy bio of a colonial bureaucrat who for a while was one of those in charge of the prison where Kenyatta was detained during the Emergency and who stayed on in Kenya after independence to serve as a middle level civil servant and magistrate until his retirement at the age of 88 (a year before he died in 1989), bitter about not having been granted a proper pension from the British government for his colonial era service. 

14) `The Girl On The Train` by Paula Hawkins – ISBN 9780857522313  - Doubleday h/b – © PH 2015 – 316 pp – much hyped contemporary thriller in the Gone Girl mould – it was a holiday read during our short break on the beautiful Greek island resort of Mykonos in September for a family wedding - but with a somewhat artificial plotline failed to live up to its promise. 

15) `Deep South: Four Seasons On Back Roads` by Paul Theroux (with photographs by Steve McCurry) – ISBN 978-0-241-14672-9 (H/B) Hamish Hamilton – © PT 2015 & (photos: SM 2015) – 441 pp – an absolutely riveting memoir of his travels in the Deep South of the USA – a fascinating insight into the southern black folk`s present day realities as inheritors of their downtrodden and deprived past – so different from his other (foreign) travel literature because here he was on his home ground, touching base with the raw dynamics white and black relations , with no frills or witticisms characteristic of his established writings - hoping to do a proper review later.

16) `King of Kings: The Triumph and Tragedy of Emperor Haile Selassie 1 of Ethiopia` by Asfa-Wossen Asserate (translated by Peter Lewis, and foreword by Thomas Pakenham) – ISBN 978-1-910376-14-0 – Haus Publishing Ltd – originally published in German in 2014 - Translation © 2015 Peter Lewis – 374 pp – a superlative biography of the Emperor – see my brief review on the Amazon UK site at http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1910376140?keywords=king%20of%20kings%20the%20triumph%20and%20tragedy%20of%20emperor%20haile%20selassie%20i%20of%20ethiopia&qid=1451323116&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1

Unlike previously, I have not ranked the books with a number out of 10, as the brief outlines speak for themselves.  Even so, I have no hesitation in putting the Mandela book at the top in order of excellence, followed by Paul Theroux`s `Deep South` and the Haile Selassie biography in the third place.  As usual however this happens to be an eclectic collection which reflects my reading interests and general intellectual orientation. Again, inevitably a number of books remain unfinished by the bedside, to be dipped into from time to time. These are: Yuval Noah Harari`s `Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind` (half-way through), and Simon Hoggart`s `A Long Lunch` (nearly finished!), while another two or three have been simply abandoned.    And then there is my nightly reading of the serial issues of the London Review of Books, and one or two other periodicals.  So all in all, there is plenty to read. 

Films, Plays, Concerts etc

1)  Sun 15 Feb – Odeon - `Selma` - Dir: Ava DuVernay  – 7/10        

2)  Thu 21 May – RFH – Zakir Hussain – Pulse of the World concert – 10/10

3)  Thu 30 July – ICA - `Best of Enemies` - docu-film of the Gore Vidal/W`m Buckley tv debates during the 1968 US party conventions  - 8/10

4)  Sun 09 Aug – Odeon - `The Gift` - a convoluted psychological thriller with an ambiguous ending - 5/10

5)  Sun 27 Sep – RFH Concert – Philharmonia Orchestra – cond: C Dohnanyi -  Schumann Piano Concerto & Beethoven 9^th  Choral Symphony -  8/10 

6)  Wed 07 Oct – NFT1 (London Film Festival) - `Mountains May Depart` (`Shan He Gu Ren` - China/Japan/France 2015) Dir: Jia Zhangke  – rambling but watchable - 5/10

7)  Tue 13 Oct – NFT1 (London FFestival) - `Listen To Me Marlon` (Dir: Stevan Riley – UK 2015 – bio-documentary of Brando`s life) - 8/10

8)  Sun 18 Oct – Odeon - `Suffragette` (Dir: Sarah Gavron – UK 2015) – excellent - 8/10

9)  Wed 04 Nov – ICA - `Taxi Tehran` (Dir: Jafar Panahi – Iran – 2015 – Persian with English subtitles) simply superb – 10/10

10) Wed 25 Nov – ICA `Love` (Dr: Gaspar Noé – France – 2015 – in English) pretentious porno with wooden performances and poor plotline – 5/10  

11) Sun 06 Dec - Odeon - `Carol` (Dir: Todd Haynes - Cate Blanchett; Rooney Mara - subtle lesbian affair in upstate NY of the 1950s - delicate, nuanced performances - 7/10

Lectures, Talks, Events etc

1) Wed 06 May - `Human rights can save lives, but whose?` - Marie-Benedicte Dembour (Prof of Law & Anthropology)`s inaugural  at Brighton University  - 7/10

2) Sat 16 May – South Bank – Jaipur Literary Festival – (V S Naipaul & Lord Desai etc) – 8/10

3) Thu 02 July - `Fighting Machetes with Pens` - BHA`s `The Voltaire Lecture 2015` by Bonya Ahmed (ch: Jim Al-Khalili) – 10/10 - absolutely brilliant -  https://humanism.org.uk/voltaire2015/

4) Thu 10 Sep – RSA Talk – `The Future of Good Finance` by Anat Admati  -  7/10

5) Thu 17 Sep – RSA Talk – `The Refugee Crisis: What is to be Done?`(Maurice Wren, Claire Spencer, Hashi Mohamed - ch: Matthew Taylor) - 9/10

6) Mon 16 Nov – RFH - `Europe is Kaput: Long Live Europe!` (Slavoj Zizek v Yanis Varoufakis – ch: Srecko Horvat - with video contribution by Julian Asange) – Stimulating – 9/10    

                                        

          

General

Looking back on what I wrote at the end of my review for 2014, I can truly reiterate all that in the same exact terms here.  Indeed, it will be seen that this year I have been less active generally, except in relation to books. That is as it should be.  I have become more selective about lectures and other similar events, and likewise with regard to my choice of films and concerts – partly because of the hassle of travelling and being away from one`s comfort zone.  I have however done a fair amount of writing – reviews, papers and articles here and there – which I hope to continue into the coming year. As for holidays, I should declare my penchant for cruises, especially long ones to faraway places, when one can indulge in good food and entertainment, and in exercise, reflection and contemplation without time constraints.  We have done two or three recently and have one or two planned for next year.  I enjoy these because it is so easy to establish an enjoyable and healthy routine, including daily vigorous walks all round the ship and long sessions of uninterrupted reading of voluminous books.  So all in all, not a bad year.  Whether 2016 will prove to be equally satisfying and productive, I don`t know - keep my fingers crossed!  

RAMNIK SHAH
(c) 2015

Surrey, England